Suetonius wrote: "He tried to poison Britannicus being not merely jealous of his voice … but afraid that the common people might be less attached to Claudius's adopted son than to his real one." Nero's fears soon abated (temporarily) when he was chosen as the new emperor in 54 CE. Some evidence exists suggesting that Nero knew of the poisoning when he later called mushrooms the “food of the gods.” There was also fear that Britannicus (Claudius's legitimate son) might be chosen as emperor ahead of Nero. In 54 CE Claudius mysteriously died after eating a bowl of mushrooms, probably poisoned ones. However, by this time, Agrippina had already taken the next step - the death of Claudius, placing Nero upon the emperor's throne.
To the general public, Nero was a welcomed change & the early part of Nero's reign was considered by many to be a mini-golden age. When his friends congratulated him upon hearing of the birth of his son, Nero's father said that anything born to Agrippina and him would be unlikeable and a disaster. He once deliberately ran over a young boy with his chariot as he drove through a local village. His father, Gnaeus Domitius, who died when Nero was three, was extremely violent in his own right and was described by his contemporaries as "a despicable character". Nero was born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus in 37 CE, but he was renamed Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus when his mother, Agrippina, married Emperor Claudius in 49 CE.
According to the 1st-2nd century historian Suetonius in his The Twelve Caesars, upon hearing of the emperor's death by suicide, "…citizens ran through the streets wearing caps of liberty as though they were freed slaves." Early Life His lavish parties combined with the burning of Rome continued the economic chaos that had plagued the Roman citizenry since the days of Tiberius (r. He was self-indulgent, cruel, and violent as well as a cross-dressing exhibitionist. The last of the Julio-Claudian emperors to rule the Roman Empire, his 14-year reign represents everything decadent about that period in Roman history.
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