[Billthedrill]

I've read other sources indicating that the guy really was more than simply a dilettante when it came to art, but unfortunately "emperoring" was a full-time-plus job that killed if it wasn't seen to properly. Gibbon remarked that if Nero had been judged by his first two years of ruling as Trajan was he would have been held in similarly high regard. Other emperors "born to the cloth" - Gratian comes to mind with his hunting obsession - who ignored the needs of office ended up the same way.

Some of what Seutonius repeats is scandalous and of dubious veracity, notably his clear imputation that Nero was culpable in the great fire of Rome. At the time the rumor was that he had done so in order to clear space for his palace, but his subsequent behavior in providing housing and food for the survivors leads us to take this with a grain of salt. His persecution of Christians as scapegoats in that fire was opportunistic and cowardly, but not, evidently, done out of any particular animus for that new religion. Nor did it get him off the hook, as a glance at Seutonius shows.

For those interested in commentary on Seutonius I'd recommend Michael Grant's The Twelve Caesars.

[Kevin Curry]

His persecution of Christians as scapegoats in that fire was opportunistic and cowardly, but not, evidently, done out of any particular animus for that new religion.

It was Nero who called Christians "enemies of mankind." That sounds like a pretty particularized animus to me.

Nero's anti-Christian animus is repeated often here, usually by gay activist athiests. That isn't surprising given that they and Nero speak from a common spirit.