Gaius Claudius Nero
Gaius Claudius Nero was a Roman consul who fought in the Battle of the Metaurus (207 BC). He was member of the gens Claudia. He is not to be confused with the Roman Emperor Nero. In 207 BC, the thirteenth year of the war, he was elected consul with Marcus Livius Salinator, and with his colleague he led the army that defeated the Carthaginians at the river Metaurus, killing their commander, Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal.
Prior to this he had held subordinate commands which he had conducted with success. Because Hasdrubal was descending on Italy from the north, two additional legions were put into the field at this time. In addition to this, reinforcements were sent from Spain and Sicily, 15,000 in all.
The Romans had been aware of Hasdrubal's coming for some time. Although generally considered a good commander by historians, Hasdrubal is often found too slow to act. He had previously defeated the Scipios in Spain in 212 BC and in spite of this, had not left Spain. In addition to this, he left for Italy so late that he was compelled to camp on the Western side of the Alps, a critical mistake, as it would give the Romans plenty of time to prepare for his coming, which they did.
Nero
Nero (/ˈnɪəroʊ/; Latin: Nerō Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus; 15 December 37 AD – 9 June 68 AD) was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his grand-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death.
Nero focused much of his attention on diplomacy, trade and enhancing the cultural life of the Empire, but according to the historian Tacitus he was viewed by the Roman people as compulsive and corrupt. He ordered theatres built and promoted athletic games. During his reign, the redoubtable general Corbulo conducted a successful war and negotiated peace with the Parthian Empire. His general Suetonius Paulinus crushed a revolt in Britain. Nero annexed the Bosporan Kingdom to the Empire and began the First Roman–Jewish War.
In 64 AD, most of Rome was destroyed in the Great Fire of Rome, which many Romans believed Nero himself had started in order to clear land for his planned palatial complex, the Domus Aurea. In 68, the rebellion of Vindex in Gaul and later the acclamation of Galba in Hispania drove Nero from the throne. Facing a false report of being denounced as a public enemy who was to be executed, he committed suicide on 9 June 68 (the first Roman emperor to do so). His death ended the Julio-Claudian Dynasty, sparking a brief period of civil wars known as the Year of the Four Emperors. Nero's rule is often associated with tyranny and extravagance. He is known for many executions, including that of his mother, and the probable murder by poison of his stepbrother Britannicus.
Claudia (gens)
The gens Claudia (Classical Latin: [ˈklawdɪa]), sometimes written Clodia, was one of the most prominent patrician houses at Rome. The gens traced its origin to the earliest days of the Roman Republic. The first of the Claudii to obtain the consulship was Appius Claudius Sabinus Regillensis, in 495 BC, and from that time its members frequently held the highest offices of the state, both under the Republic and in imperial times.
Plebeian Claudii are found fairly early in Rome's history. Some may have been descended from members of the family who had passed over to the plebeians, while others were probably the descendants of freedmen of the gens.
In his life of the emperor Tiberius, who was a scion of the Claudii, the historian Suetonius gives a summary of the gens, and says, "as time went on it was honoured with twenty-eight consulships, five dictatorships, seven censorships, six triumphs, and two ovations." Writing several decades after the fall of the so-called "Julio-Claudian dynasty", Suetonius took care to mention both the good and wicked deeds attributed to members of the family.
I, Claudius
I, Claudius (1934) is a novel by English writer Robert Graves, written in the form of an autobiography of the Roman Emperor Claudius. Accordingly, it includes history of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty and Roman Empire, from Julius Caesar's assassination in 44 BC to Caligula's assassination in 41 AD.
The 'autobiography' of Claudius continues (from Claudius' accession after Caligula's death, to his own death in 54) in Claudius the God (1935). The sequel also includes a section written as a biography of Herod Agrippa, contemporary of Claudius and future King of the Jews. The two books were adapted by the BBC into an award-winning television serial, I, Claudius.
In 1998 the Modern Library ranked I, Claudius fourteenth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 2005, the novel was chosen by Time as one of the one hundred best English-language novels from 1923 to present.
The novels
Content
Claudius was the fourth Emperor of Rome (r. 41–54 AD). Historically, Claudius' family kept him out of public life until his sudden coronation at the age of forty nine. This was due to his being perceived as being a dolt due to his stammering, limp and other nervous tics. This made others see him as mentally deficient and also therefore not a threat to his ambitious relatives. Even as his symptoms begin to wane in his teenage years, he runs into trouble for his work as a budding historian. His work on a history of the civil wars was too truthful and too critical of the reigning emperor Augustus, and his mother and grandmother quickly put a stop to it. This episode reinforced their initial suspicions that Claudius was not fit for public office. This is how he was defined by scholars for most of history, and Graves uses these peculiarities to develop a sympathetic character whose survival in a murderous dynasty depends upon his family's incorrect assumption that he is a harmless idiot.
Milo Yiannopoulos
Milo Yiannopoulos (Greek: Μίλων Γιαννόπουλος, born 18 October 1983) is a British journalist and entrepreneur. He founded The Kernel, an online tabloid magazine about technology, which he sold to Daily Dot Media in 2014. He is involved in the Gamergate controversy. He is the Technology Editor for Breitbart.com, a United States-based conservative news and opinion website.
Education
Yiannopoulos was born in Greece, but was raised by a middle-class family in Kent. His mother is Jewish, and his stepfather is an architect. Yiannopoulos attended the University of Manchester, dropping out without graduating. He then attended Wolfson College, Cambridge where he studied English literature for two years before dropping out. Regarding dropping out of university, in 2012 he told Forbes, "I try to tell myself I'm in good company, but ultimately it doesn't say great things about you unless you go on to terrific success in your own right." In 2015, in an article titled "I dropped out of Manchester and Cambridge but it’s honestly fine", he wrote that he didn't believe a college degree was necessary for success, and that he believed he had achieved success without one.
Nero (comic book character)
Nero is a Flemish comic book character and the main protagonist in Marc Sleen's long running comic book strip series The Adventures of Nero (1947–2002). He is one of the most recognizable comic book characters in Belgium and comparable to Lambik from the Suske en Wiske series by Willy Vandersteen.
Nero is a middle aged, fairly obese man who is bald except for two long hairs on his head. Furthermore, he wears a huge red bow tie and has laurel leaves behind his ears, in reference to the Roman emperor Nero after whom he was named.
Nero is an anti hero. He is a complex character with many good character traits, but also many human fallities. He is sometimes stupid, lazy, naïve, egotistical and vain, but in other situations he proves himself to be clever, friendly, determined and melancholic.
Origin
When Marc Sleen started a comic strip series in 1947 for De Nieuwe Gids Detective Van Zwam was originally the central character, therefore naming the series after him. In the very first story, "Het Geheim van Matsuoka" ("Matsuoka's Secret") (1947) Nero made his debut. Van Zwam meets him while trying to solve a case, yet Nero is still named "Schoonpaard" (in reprints "Heiremans", after a colleague of Sleen at his office) here. Because he drank the insanity poison, Matsuoka beer, Schoonpaard thinks he is the Roman emperor Nero. At the end of the story he gets his senses back. Still, in all other albums everyone, including himself, refers to him as "Nero".
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