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Historical person
37–68
Nero became Roman emperor in AD 54 at the age of sixteen. His early government relied on Seneca, Burrus and his mother Agrippina, but he later asserted personal control, ordered killings within the dynasty and cultivated performance and spectacle.
The Great Fire of Rome in 64 led to rebuilding and the persecution of Christians. Revolts by provincial governors and loss of military support forced Nero to flee and take his own life in AD 68. Nero was born in Antium and died in Rome.
Mary Beard’s Confronting the Classics ranges from Greek drama, Roman humour and the palace at Knossos to Alexander the Great, Cleopatra, Nero, Boudica and the lives of enslaved people. In Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic, written from within the Roman imperial elite, the letters are shaped by Seneca’s own complicated relationship with wealth and political authority. He had served as adviser to Nero and accumulated considerable status before withdrawing from public life under increasingly dangerous circumstances. Nero is treated fictionally in Conn Iggulden’s Nero, Simon Turney’s Agricola: Warrior, Douglas Jackson’s Avenger of Rome, and G. A. Henty’s Beric the Briton.
Series
The Emissaries follows fictional women moving through Philippi, Corinth and Rome during the first century, when the Christian movement spread along the roads and sea routes of the Roman Empire. Each story places conversion and service inside a society structured by slavery, patronage, civic religion and imperial authority.…
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The Eagles of the Empire series follows Roman soldiers Macro and Cato from the reign of Claudius into that of Nero. Their service takes them through the invasion and occupation of Britain, Mediterranean piracy, revolt, imperial court intrigue and Rome’s eastern wars, combining military campaigning with the politics…
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The Legion of the Damned Roman Thrillers follows Marcus Corvo, a young centurion given command of a disposable unit recruited from slaves, prisoners, deserters and former gladiators. During Nero’s reign, the improvised legion is sent wherever conventional troops or imperial officials cannot afford to fail, from the Armenian…
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The Vespasian series follows Titus Flavius Vespasianus from obscure young nobleman and soldier to the imperial contender who will found the Flavian dynasty. The novels use Vespasian’s career to move through the Julio-Claudian court, frontier warfare, Britain, Armenia, North Africa, Judaea and the civil-war crisis of AD 69.…
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The Agricola series follows Gnaeus Julius Agricola from an ambitious young military tribune to the governor who carried Roman campaigning into northern Britain. His career unfolds through the Boudican Revolt, Nero’s final years, the civil wars of AD 69 and the consolidation of Flavian rule. Alongside battlefield command,…
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The Gaius Valerius Verrens series follows a Roman officer whose career begins during the Boudican Revolt and carries him through the violent final years of Nero’s reign, the Year of the Four Emperors and the consolidation of Flavian rule. Valerius moves between Britain, Rome, the eastern frontier, Judaea…
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Manda Scott’s four-volume Boudica sequence follows Breaca, the Eceni warrior who becomes Boudica, from childhood in pre-conquest Britain to the uprising against Roman occupation. The novels combine tribal politics, military conflict and the spiritual world of warriors and dreamers, presenting Roman expansion through the lives of people whose…
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The Nero Trilogy recounts the rise and fall of Nero through the ambitions of his mother Agrippina and the lethal politics of the Julio-Claudian court. It begins with Nero’s childhood, follows his elevation over Britannicus and ends with revolt, imperial collapse and his death.
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Penguin Classics: Ancient World brings together foundational works of literature, history, philosophy, drama and poetry from the earliest civilisations through classical Greece and Rome. The wider Penguin Classics series began in 1946 with E. V. Rieu’s translation of Homer’s Odyssey, reflecting its original aim of making important texts…
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Margaret George’s Nero duology reconstructs the life of Rome’s last Julio-Claudian emperor, beginning with a childhood in which imperial blood makes Nero a target and ending with the collapse of his reign. Told largely through Nero’s own perspective, the series follows his passage through the courts of Caligula…
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M. C. Scott’s Rome series follows Sebastos Pantera, an imperial intelligence agent whose missions take him from Nero’s Rome to the eastern provinces and back into the capital during civil war. Set in the same fictional world as the Boudica novels, the sequence combines espionage with the political…
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The Claudius Series is Robert Graves’s two-volume fictional memoir of the Roman emperor Claudius and the Julio-Claudian dynasty. I, Claudius follows the imperial family from Augustus to Caligula through Claudius’s wary, observant voice, while Claudius the God covers his own reign and the forces that undermine it. Together…
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The Centurions trilogy is set during the Year of the Four Emperors and the Batavian Revolt. It follows Roman and Batavian officers whose old comradeship collapses when Galba dismisses Nero’s German bodyguard and Julius Civilis turns a frontier grievance into a major rebellion.
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The Four Emperors quartet follows the collapse of Nero’s government and the successive regimes of Galba, Otho and Vitellius before Vespasian secures power. Rather than treating AD 68–69 only as a contest among generals, the novels remain close to the Palatine household: secretaries, slaves, freedmen, lovers and entertainers…
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The Calidus mysteries are set in first-century Rome during the reign of Nero and follow a recently freed slave whose position gives him access to very different levels of Roman society. Calidus begins by investigating the suspicious death of his former master, moving between slaves’ quarters, senatorial households…
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The Roma Trilogy follows generations of the fictional Pinarius family across the long history of Rome. Roma begins with the city’s legendary foundation and continues through the Republic and the rise of Augustus; Empire carries the family through the Julio-Claudian, Flavian and adoptive-emperor periods; Dominus follows the later…
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Political Intrigue in Ancient Rome moves between the Julio-Claudian court and the transformed empire of Constantine I. Domina follows Agrippina the Younger’s struggle for influence as wife of Claudius and mother of Nero. The four Claudia mysteries then shift to the early fourth century, where an imperial agent…
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The Storycuts group brings together three short digital releases published under the M. C. Scott name in 2011. They move beyond a single continuous setting: one collection links modern archaeology, prehistoric ritual and Pantera’s Roman past; Raven Feeder enters the Norse conversion of Orkney; and The Last Roman…
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Rome Unbound follows the Roman centurion Quintus Liberius Verus on the edge of imperial Britain after the Claudian conquest. The sequence moves from the tense aftermath of native revolt to the Flavian advance into northern Britain, then follows Verus after disgrace into slavery, gladiatorial violence and the attempt…
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The Gladiatrix series is a first-century Roman historical adventure centred on women from the empire’s frontiers who are enslaved and forced into public combat. It examines the arena not only as entertainment but as an institution built on conquest, trafficking, training and the power of spectators over captive…
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David Boyle’s Caractacus trilogy follows the British war leader from the Roman invasion of AD 43 through resistance, capture and exile. Nor Shall My Sword Sleep introduces the crisis created by Claudius’s invasion; Crown of Thorns follows Caratacus as Roman power spreads across southern Britain; and Roman Briton…
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The Celtic Tetralogy follows Britain through four major transformations: Bronze Age migration, Roman invasion, the Boudican Revolt and the struggle for power after Roman withdrawal. The books were not published in narrative order, but together they form Treece’s sustained reconstruction of an island repeatedly remade by conquest, resistance…
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The Roman Britain series presents the island at three moments of political rupture. Legions of the Eagle begins with Claudius’s invasion and the resistance associated with Caratacus. The Eagles Have Flown moves to the fifth century, when the legions and central government have disappeared. The Queen’s Brooch returns…
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Standalone books
Non Fiction
Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.
