All About - History - Nero - Rome's Deadliest tyrant

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claim the throne and reinstate her power –
Britannicus. He was still a minor, but suddenly, in
55 CE, the day before he was due to be declared an
adult, Claudius’s true son died while at a banquet.
Agrippina had taught her son two things: how
to succeed, and how to kill – and now he was a
master of both.
In 58 CE, Nero finally decided he was finished
with his loveless marriage and declared his wish
to marry another – Poppaea Sabina. However, his
mother refused to stay quiet and let her opposition
to the divorce be heard clearly among the Roman
population, who also did not wish Nero to divorce
Octavia. Feeling his support waning and finally
pushed to breaking point, Nero made a decision –
it was time to rid himself of his interfering mother
once and for all.
Nero’s decision to kill his mother was not a
sudden, rash one. It was thought out and planned
down to the last detail. At first he had experts
craft a device that could be affixed to her ceiling
and would then crush her in her sleep. When that
proved too complicated, he opted for a boat made
to sink. However, Agrippina escaped by swimming
to the shore. Finally, out of options, he returned to
tradition and had her stabbed to death.
Shortly after Agrippina’s murder, Nero began
to change. Perhaps it was something to do with
murdering his own mother that haunted his mind.
Whether it was guilt or something animal within
him being unleashed, the kind, fair ruler that the
people loved seemed to vanish almost overnight.
Nero had always been self-indulgent, but his
hedonistic lifestyle became so over the top that
it began to sicken the very people who had once
loved him.
He spent an outrageous amount of money on
himself and his artistic pursuits and began to
give public performances, an action criticised as
shameful by many ancient historians. He forbade
anyone from leaving while he performed, and
some likely inflated accounts write of women
giving birth in the arena and men flinging
themselves off the high walls to escape the
boredom. If Nero had simply been a hedonistic
ruler, that would not have been so terrible. He
had always been lavish and craved the people’s
attention, but now he was cruel too. This cruelty
was directed at the woman he likely viewed as the
last thorn in his side – his wife.
With nobody to oppose him, Nero divorced
the nation’s darling, Octavia, and banished her
on grounds of infertility. This left him free to
marry Poppaea, by that point heavily pregnant.
Eventually Nero bowed to public protests and