Emperors of Rome: The Monsters by Paul Chrystal

Author:Paul Chrystal [Chrystal, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, Ancient, Biography & Autobiography, Royalty, Rome
ISBN: 9781526728869
Google: 0wPMDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2018-11-30T00:44:37+00:00

The Fire of Rome as depicted by Hubert Robert in 1785. (Musée d’art moderne André Malraux/ HAHxg_lHmo6TqQ)

However, Tacitus’s full account could not be more different: he believes Nero to have been in Antium at the time but he hastened back to the city to take control of a relief effort he paid for from his personal funds. He participated in the search for and rescue of victims over many days spent searching the debris, opening his palaces to provide shelter for the homeless, and arranging emergency food supplies.

As we might expect, Lucius Caecilius Firminianus Lactantius, the Christian zealot, writing in around AD 313-6—demonizes Nero: “And while Nero reigned, the Apostle Peter came to Rome, and, through the power of God committed unto him, wrought certain miracles, and, by turning many to the true religion, built up a faithful and steadfast temple unto the Lord. When Nero heard of those things, and observed that not only in Rome, but in every other place, a great multitude revolted daily from the worship of idols, and, condemning their old ways, went over to the new religion, he, an execrable and pernicious tyrant, sprung forward to raze the heavenly temple and destroy the true faith. He it was who first persecuted the servants of God; he crucified Peter, and slew Paul: nor did he escape with impunity; for God looked on the affliction of His people; and therefore the tyrant, bereaved of authority, and precipitated from the height of empire, suddenly disappeared, and even the burial-place of that noxious wild beast was nowhere to be seen. This has led some persons of extravagant imagination to suppose that, having been conveyed to a distant region, he is still reserved alive; and to him they apply the Sibylline verses concerning ‘The fugitive, who slew his own mother, being to come from the uttermost boundaries of the earth’ as if he who was the first should also be the last persecutor, and thus prove the forerunner of Antichrist! But we ought not to believe those who, affirming that the two prophets Enoch and Elias have been translated into some remote place that they might attend our Lord when He shall come to judgment, also fancy that Nero is to appear hereafter as the forerunner of the devil, when he shall come to lay waste the earth and overthrow mankind.”

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