{"id":5548,"date":"2022-05-09T14:00:19","date_gmt":"2022-05-09T19:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ccic-iowa.org\/?p=5548"},"modified":"2025-08-20T13:03:21","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T18:03:21","slug":"%e7%bd%97%e9%a9%ac%e5%b8%9d%e5%9b%bd%e7%9a%87%e5%b8%9d%e5%b0%bc%e7%a6%84","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ccic-iowa.org\/en\/bible-faith\/devotional-notes\/2022\/05\/%e7%bd%97%e9%a9%ac%e5%b8%9d%e5%9b%bd%e7%9a%87%e5%b8%9d%e5%b0%bc%e7%a6%84\/","title":{"rendered":"Roman Emperor “Nero”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nero served as the fifth Roman Emperor from 54 to 68 AD. Born into a Roman aristocratic family, he loved art and sports from a young age, considered himself a great artist, and often participated in the ancient Greek Olympic Games and sang in theaters. He was known for being cruel, extravagant, conceited, and vengeful. He harmed ordinary citizens and built a huge personal statue for others to worship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nero was also the first tyrant to publicly and systematically persecute the church and Christians. In 64 AD, the Great Fire of Rome occurred, and Nero blamed and brutally killed many Christians, including the apostles Paul and Peter. The fire raged for six days and seven nights, leaving the city of Rome in ashes. When Nero heard that some suspected he had secretly set the fire, to prevent the rumor from spreading, he claimed the disaster was the result of a Christian conspiracy. He then ordered the arrest of Christians and subjected them to cruel public torture: crucifixion, being covered in animal skins and mauled by wild beasts, or being nailed to posts and used as human candles. Several apostles, including Paul and Peter, were executed during his reign. In 68 AD, a rebellion broke out in the province of Gaul. Having alienated everyone by killing so many people, Nero was overthrown. Facing assassination threats everywhere he fled, he ultimately committed suicide on June 9, 68 AD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\u4e0a\u56fe\uff1a\u88ab\u65bd\u4ee5\u9664\u5fc6\u8bc5\u5492\uff08Damnatio
Above\uff1aA statue of Nero that has been subjected to Damnatio memoriae<\/strong>, with Nero’s nose removed. Damnatio memoriae<\/strong> refers to the practice of erasing a person’s existence from public memory. It was a form of punishment issued by the Roman Senate for certain deceased individuals, where all inscriptions, statues, coins, and written records of the person would be destroyed, erased, or rewritten as if they had never existed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Above: A Jewish bronze coin minted by Porcius Festus. The obverse bears the Greek letters for Nero (NEP\u014cNOC). The reverse shows the Greek letters for Caesar (KAICAPOC) and ‘Year Five’ (LE), corresponding to October 13, AD 58 \u2013 October 12, AD 59.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Above: Nero, the fifth emperor of the Roman Empire (reigned AD 54\u201368), was the adopted son of Claudius. He ascended the throne at the age of seventeen. As an adult, he became cruel and extravagant, and was the first tyrant to persecute the Church. In July AD 64, a great fire broke out in Rome, and Nero falsely blamed the Christians, leading to the brutal execution of many believers, including the apostles Paul and Peter. In AD 68, at the age of thirty, he committed suicide.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Above: A coin of Nero subjected to damnatio memoriae<\/em> (the curse of erasing memory). The letters SPQR (The Senate and the People of Rome) are stamped across Nero\u2019s neck.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Above: A Roman gold coin minted in Jerusalem in AD 56\u201357, bearing the portrait of Nero. The original term ‘\u03c7\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03ba\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\/charakter’ literally means the impression made by the die on the coin.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nero served as the fifth Roman Emperor from 54 to 68 AD. Born into a Roman aristocratic family, he loved art and sports from a young age, considered himself a great artist, and often participated in the ancient Greek Olympic Games and sang in theaters. He was known for being cruel, extravagant, conceited, and vengeful. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5551,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-devotional-notes"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ccic-iowa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ccic-iowa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ccic-iowa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ccic-iowa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ccic-iowa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5548"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ccic-iowa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11537,"href":"https:\/\/ccic-iowa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5548\/revisions\/11537"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ccic-iowa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ccic-iowa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ccic-iowa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ccic-iowa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}