Nero: The Pyre and the Poet on Mosher Mag

The tyrant who danced while Rome burned, a flaming statue of a king who fed on art, insanity, and pyres.

The fire of Rome wasn’t just a historical event; it was Nero’s blood-borne masterpiece. A literal and figurative inferno that roared and crackled with the sound of thousands of deaths. And while the city screamed for mercy, Nero—emperor, artist, god—stood above it all, playing his lyre, like a child surrounded by wreckage, who only understood beauty through destruction.

That image? The boy emperor, serenading the collapse of a civilisation, as though his very crown was designed to set the world on fire—it’s not a myth. It’s his legacy.

But to understand Nero, you have to understand the world he was born into.

Nero was born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus in 37 AD, the son of Agrippina the Younger and the notorious Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus.

His pedigree, like most emperors, was tainted by intrigue and blood.

Agrippina was a woman who understood power better than any man.

She was a daughter of Germanicus, a popular general, and Caligula’s sister,

She had been exiled, possibly for sleeping with her brother.

She came back with one goal: power.

But her ambition wasn’t just for herself.

She wanted her son to wear the purple cloak.

Her mind was razor-sharp, and she knew that in a game as lethal as the Roman Empire, you either played dirty or you didn’t play at all.

So she made her husband, Emperor Claudius, fall in love with her—despite their age difference—and when Emperor Claudius (her uncle—yes, uncle) was so infatuated that he married her, she saw her son’s path to the throne was set.

To cement her plan, Agrippina had to rid herself of Claudius’ biological son, Britannicus, a direct rival for the throne.

What better way than to have her new husband poisoned? Poisoned slowly, secretly, so it looked natural.

One day, Claudius' final breath was a whisper, his lips stained with the signature poison of Rome. A poison that tasted like murder.

And the heir to the throne? Nero. The 16-year-old boy who would never see a normal childhood, but instead, a life lived in the shadow of cruelty, deceit, and blood.

Nero’s rise to power was not the soft cushion of mercy that Rome thought it would be. Sure, Agrippina had set him up as a promising young ruler, pushing the Senate to embrace him, allowing him to play the part of the virtuous—but no one warned them about the darkness slowly taking root inside him.

Nero was raised among vultures.

Seneca, his tutor, was the most prominent Stoic philosopher in Rome, known for his wisdom and moderation. But to a boy like Nero, who had the lust for power and the appetite for chaos, Seneca’s wisdom was a mask to wear.

A false façade, a perfect tool to manipulate the Senate and Rome into believing he was a ruler of restraint.

He appeared gracious. He smiled for the people. He freed political prisoners. He reduced taxes. Rome cheered.

But behind the gilded curtains of his reign, the cracks were forming.

He didn’t want to rule the way other men did.

He didn’t want to be a statesman.

He didn’t want to wear the crown of Rome as a symbol of responsibility.

Nero wanted something else.

He wanted to be worshipped.

Not as an emperor.

But as a divine artist.

But what does an artist do when the world refuses to applaud?

He forces it.

Nero demanded applause.

He needed the validation, the adoration, the unquestioning devotion.

But Rome wasn’t ready for an emperor who wanted to perform before a packed theatre—let alone one who used his empire as his audience.

Nero didn’t want to rule—he wanted to be the show.

It wasn’t long before his performance turned into a tragic farce, like a joke that becomes too absurd to be funny. He would perform for hours on end, reciting poetry, singing in public arenas, forcing his audience to sit through his grandiose, self-important displays of talent.

Some say he would have gladiators kill each other just to get a good rave review from the plebs. He turned the arena into a stage for his ego.

But that’s not the half of it.

Nero didn’t just eliminate political rivals.

He eliminated those who might distract from his performance.

Like his mother, Agrippina.

She had been his guide to the throne. She had held him close.

But once she had served her purpose, she became expendable.

She didn’t disappear into exile or face a quiet execution. No.

Nero wanted to put on a show.

He first tried to drown her in a collapsible boat. She survived.

He sent assassins—she seduced them.

Finally, he just ordered it done. Brutal. No theatre.

He had her stabbed—cold, ruthless, final.

But he didn’t stop there.

He ordered her funeral procession to be decorated as though she were a goddess. Nero stood in front of the crowd, proud of his “art,” proud of his triumph.

Next came his wife, Octavia.

Too plain. Too noble. Too pure for his taste.

He had her exiled. Accused her of adultery. Had her beheaded and her head delivered to his mistress.

The crown that she once shared with him was given to Poppaea Sabina, a woman with beauty and ambition that matched his own.

But even Poppaea wasn’t safe from the emperor's tempestuous love.

One evening, in a drunken rage, Nero kicked her—yes, kicked—while she was pregnant with his child. She died. And Nero did not mourn.

He had Poppaea’s corpse paraded through the streets of Rome.

So he married a slave boy who looked like her.

Had him castrated, dressed him in her gowns.

He called him Sabina.

He kissed him in public. Called him his queen reborn.

His creativity knew no bounds.

Nero didn’t just kill for power. He murdered for art.

And then came the fire.

Rome, under Nero’s reign, was a city of contradictions.

The streets were alive with commerce, but the empire was rotting beneath the surface. The buildings, many of them poorly constructed, were a tinderbox waiting to ignite.

In 64 AD, the fire broke out and burned for nine days.

But what is most telling about the fire is not that it happened—but what Nero did during it.

While Rome burned, he was at the palace, dressed as a god, playing his lyre, singing of the fall of Troy. He wasn’t helping his people. He wasn’t leading.

No, Nero believed Rome’s destruction was art—an inspiration, a performance, a piece to immortalise.

He blamed the Christians—strange, secretive people nobody liked.

He had them wrapped in tar and lit on fire to illuminate his gardens.

Human candles. Glowing saints. “Let there be light.”

Some reports even claim that Nero set the fire himself—either for the joy of watching the world burn or as a way to clear space for his new palace, a luxurious complex that spanned the ruins of Rome.

It was a palace built on ashes.

The fire cleared the land. The people, the buildings, the history—all were sacrificed for his grandiose vision.

He built the Domus Aurea—The Golden House.

A palace the size of a city.

Lakes. Gardens. Domes of gold.

Ceilings that rained perfume. Rotating dining rooms.

And in the center: a colossal statue of himself as the sun god.

It was his utopia.

He toured the empire—not to lead, but to perform.

He sang on stage in Greece. He forced senators to sit in the audience.

They were not allowed to leave. Some faked death to escape.

He demanded applause. He rigged contests so he’d win.

He believed beauty—his beauty—was salvation.

He believed his voice could make Rome forget the bodies, the blood, the fire.

He was wrong.

But even art comes to an end.

Nero’s reign ended not with a performance, but with a frenzied, desperate exit. He was declared a public enemy by the Senate, and a series of uprisings and revolts quickly gathered steam.

Rome—the city he had used as his personal canvas—began to pull back.

Nero fled.

He took refuge in a villa outside Rome, but even in his final moments, Nero saw his own death as art.

When the executioners came, he planned to end his life, but Nero—perhaps the most theatrical of all emperors—couldn’t bring himself to do it.

He begged a servant to help, and as the blade drove in, he screamed:

“Qualis artifex pereo!” “What an artist dies in me.”

In his final moments, he died by his own hand, the last emperor of the Julio-Claudian line.

And with him, the empire that had once burned so bright—was extinguished.

Nero's legacy is one of chaos and beauty intertwined.

He wasn’t just a monster. He wasn’t simply a tyrant.

He was an artist, who used the Empire as his canvas.

A crown-wearing performer, who loved his audience more than his people.

A boy who saw murder as artistry, suffering as performance, and destruction as creation.

The question remains:

Did he die in tragedy?

Or was it just another act, in a life lived as a show?

And indeed, when Nero died, he was the last remnant of a dying world—his world, his reign, his performance—reduced to ash.

For the freaks, by the freaks.

Thanks for reading. Stay strange.

✦ moshermag.com