this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2025
112 points (91.2% liked)
Rough Roman Memes
574 readers
46 users here now
A place to meme about the glorious ROMAN EMPIRE (and Roman Republic, and Roman Kingdom)! Byzantines tolerated! The HRE is not.
RULES:
-
No racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, bigotry, etc. The past may be bigoted, but we are not.
-
Memes must be Rome-related, not just the title. It can be about Rome, or using Roman aesthetics, or both, but the meme itself needs to have Roman themes.
-
Follow Lemmy.world rules.
Not sure where to start on Roman history?
A quick memetic primer on Republican Rome
A quick memetic primer on Imperial Rome
founded 8 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I don't think that the persecution of Christians factors into this - many other emperors did it that we remember fondly.
I just think that he wasn't very good at the propaganda game. Many historians belonged to the senatorial class, which was at odds with the emperor (all of them), and Nero was not able to counter that.
Impartiality - or a lack thereof - is a problem that we face with a lot of historical figures. I very much doubt that Xerxes flogged the Hellespont, for example, but the Greek historians loved that tidbit because it showed his hybris. Same with Nero playing music while Rome burns.
From what I remember of my studies, he was a "good enough" emperor, especially in his earlier years, but didn't know how to play the political game at all. The senate hated him (but honestly, they were a corrupt bunch who hated pretty much everyone), and a lot of people around him attempted to use him for their own political games, which eventually made him grow suspicious of everyone else.