The Antichrist?

In the late 19th century, the French philosopher Ernest Renan wrote a seven-volume history of Christianity. It was a vast, wide-ranging publication, spanning centuries and continents. Yet one of these volumes was dedicated entirely to the reign of one man: the Roman emperor Nero.

Nero ascended to power in AD 54 following the death of his step-father, Claudius. Fourteen chaotic, blood-spattered years later it was all over, Nero dying – perhaps by his own hand – at the climax of a rebellion against his rule. But this, Renan said, wasn’t the last the world would see of him. Nero would return to Earth again, and his second coming would signal the time of the apocalypse. “The name for Nero has been found,” the philosopher declared. “Nero shall be the Antichrist.”

Renan’s assertion was a bold one, but it was hardly original. Historians had been casting Nero as the epitome of evil – stitching a straight line between Rome’s fifth emperor and the end of the world – since the third century. And their lambasting of his reputation has stuck: today, everyone with an interest in ancient history ‘knows’ that Nero was one of the worst of all Rome’s emperors.

But is what everyone ‘knows’ true? Surely, before accepting history’s verdict, we should re-examine the sources, and ask ourselves what motivated the emperor’s many detractors,