Was Nero A Saint Or Sinner?

Was Nero a Saint or Sinner? Use at least one primary source. Use at least one primary source
We must first define what a saint is and what a sinner is. According to Webster’s dictionary a saint is a person of great holiness, virtue or benevolence, while a sinner is a person who sins; a transgressor. The bible states that all believers are saints, but in truth to some small degree we are all sinners and saints.
Nero was a seventeen when he ascended to the role of Emperor of Rome. For the first few years of his rein he was considered a generous and reasonable leader, he eliminated capital punishment, and lowered taxes. He had ended the previous Emperors practice of closed-door political trials, decreased the power of corrupt bureaucracy and
promoted power sharing within the senate. He was counseled by the Praetorian Prefect Sextus Afrianus Burrus, his former tutor the stoic philosopher Seneca and of course his mother Agrippina. His advisors encouraged Nero step away from his mother’s overbearing role and encouraged him to purse his own interests.
A few years after he was made emperor, Nero and his mother had a falling out, and he attempted to have her killed. First with a weighted boat which was designed to sink in the Bay of Naples but Agrippina managed to survive, only then to have her son send an assassin to have stabbed to death in 59 AD. He reported to the Senate that his mother was plotting to have him killed. The senators were said to have believed him and then congratulated him on removing his mother before any further harm could be done.
In 62 AD he divorced his wife Octavia on the grounds of Barrenness, then he finally had her put to death on the charge of adultery. This would lead the way for him to marry Poppaea Sabina later the same year. In a fit of rage Nero is said to have kicked a pregnant Poppaea in the stomach while she was pregnant with their child in the summer of 65AD, and she did not survive and later she perished due to her injuries form internal bleeding.
After the death of his mother Nero gave into his passion for artistic past times, he had begun by singing and preforming, In 64 AD Nero was said to have given his first public performance in Neapolis, Romans saw it as a bad omen that the very theatre where Nero had performed was shortly destroyed by an earthquake Then again within a year he conducted a second performance which outraged the Senate was seen as significant breach of etiquette for a member of the ruling class to perform in public.
The infamous burning of Rome in the summer of 64 AD which ravaged Rome for six days and seven nights, aided by summer winds and severely dry wooden structures.
Rumors arose that accused Emperor Nero of ordering the city to be torched. When in fact he was at his summer palace in Antium over 35 miles away and raced back to the city assist in relief efforts to include the opening of public buildings and his own gardens to house and feed the displaced people of Rome. For all these measures it didn’t help change the common people’s opinion of their emperor. Rumors spread that Nero had gone to his private stage and from there sang of the destructions of troy. There is a saying states that Nero played the fiddle wile Rome burned but this couldn’t have happened since the fiddle was invented after the fall of the Roman Empire. It may have a double meaning, since not only did their emperor sing and play music while his people suffered but he was an ineffectual leader in a time of
crisis.
After the fire was defeated, ancient writers document how Nero attempted to cast the blame of the fire on the Christians. He sentenced many to death by means of brutal persecutions including crucifixion, burning alive, or having them dressed in animal skins and be torn apart by dogs. Christian texts of the time liken Nero to the Antichrist.
Nero decided to build his Domus Aurea or “Golden Palace” on the ruined remains of what had been the public area of central Rome much to the disapproval of the senate and popular vote, while doing so he exhausted the Roman treasury attempting to build this new complex.
During the last few years of Nero’s rule the Roman Empire was under tremendous strain, with the cost of reconstruction, revolts in Britain and Judea as well as the conflicts in Parthia and the decline in the denarius. The Governor of Galba declared himself legate of the Senate and Roman people, following the governors lead the Praetorian Guard declared allegiance to Galba and soon after the Senate. With his supporters gone Nero found himself declared an enemy of the state. The historian Suetonius reported that Nero’s final lament “what an artist dies in me!”
While initially seen as a fair ruler this can be most contributed to the level heads and knowledge given from those who primarily advised the young ruler, and as his advisers left him to his own resources we can see the slow decline and shift in Emperor Nero’s priorities and desires. His perceived lack of caring for the support of the Roman people that eventually promulgated his down fall and resulted in his death. In other words best intentions are often laid barren and to waste when focus is
lost.