60 – 70s

Events in the 60s 2

• 54 – 68 Nero — art, fire and the end of the Julio-Claudians Nero, last of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, begins well under the guidance of Seneca and Burrus but deteriorates into a tyrant who murders his mother Agrippina (59 AD), his wife Octavia, and the philosopher Seneca. He fancies himself a great artist and performer — shameful for a Roman aristocrat. The Great Fire of Rome burns for six days in 64 AD; Nero blames the Christians, inaugurating the first persecution. He is deposed by the Senate in 68 AD and kills himself: "What an artist dies in me!"
• 69 Year of the Four Emperors Following Nero's death in 68 AD, four emperors seize power in quick succession in 69 AD — the Year of the Four Emperors. Galba is murdered by the Praetorians after seven months; Otho kills himself after 95 days when Vitellius's Rhine legions defeat him; Vitellius is dragged through Rome and killed when the Danube legions march on Rome for their general Vespasian. The lesson is brutal and definitive: emperors are made by armies, not by the Senate or birth.