Before you begin Access the Inquiry rubric in the digital documents section of the Resources panel to guide you in completing this task at your level. At the end of the inquiry task you can use this rubric to self-assess. Conþicting interpretations in secondary sources Nero Claudius Caesar Germanicus was the adopted son of Emperor Claudius and became emperor at just 17 in 54 CE. He was known for doing terrible things, like hurting his family and senators. People liked his parties, but in 68 CE, he lost power and took his own life. Many people think Nero was a very cruel emperor. This idea grew from a movie called QuoVadis . It showed him as the main enemy of Christians and linked him to the ýre in Rome. Read the following secondary sources.
SOURCE3 From Robert Draper, ‘Rethinking Nero’, National Geographic , 2014
The case against Nero ... would appear to be open and shut. And yet ... his death was followed by outpourings of public grief ... mourners long continued to bring þowers to his tomb ... The dead do not write their own history. Nero’s ýrst two biographers, Suetonius and Tacitus, had ties to the Senate and would memorialise his reign with lavish contempt ...
SOURCE4 From Alexander Canduci, Triumph and Tragedy , 2010
His creative and artistic side sat uneasily next to his bloodthirsty [side] and ... disregard for others ... in the aftermath of the ýre rumours spread that Nero was the culprit who had started it. In order to throw suspicion off himself ... Nero began a campaign against the Christians ... feeding them to the beasts at the Great Games, crucifying them and setting them alight.
SOURCE5 From Shushma Malik and Caillan Davenport, ‘Mythbusting Ancient Rome: Throwing Christians to the lions’, The Conversation , 2019
The myth of constant persecution [of Christians] largely stems from two works written in the early fourth century A.D., On the Deaths of the Persecutors by Lactantius, a Christian professor of Latin, and the Church History of Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea ... Those authors were living in the reign of Constantine, the ýrst Christian emperor ... In both their works, the torture and execution of Christians in preceding centuries is associated with the emperors under whom they occurred. But the reality is that the punishment of Christians in the ýrst three centuries A.D. was not directed by imperial policy. The emperor Nero is referred to as the ýrst persecutor of the Christians by Lactantius ... However, the initiative to punish Christians did not come from the emperors at all, but from below.
Consider the following questions. 1. Read SOURCE2 . What did Suetonius think of Nero? 2. Read SOURCE3 and describe Robert Draper’s view. 3. In SOURCE4 , what judgement of Nero does Alexander Canduci make?
4. Read SOURCES5 and 6 . Explain how these sources account for the popular belief that Nero was responsible for Roman persecution of Christians and who the authors regard as really responsible. What point are the authors making about the role of rumours in creating Nero’s terrible reputation? 5. For each of these sources, does the writer accept or challenge the view that Nero was a monster?
174 Jacaranda Humanities Alive 7 Victorian Curriculum Third Edition
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