Nero by John Bishop - 1964: The Man And The Legend

This book is in very good condition. There is little or no wear on the front, back, edges, and spine of the cover boards. There is no bumping or fraying on the cover boards. The previous owner has signed the front inside cover board. The pages are yellowing and tanning, however the pages are clear of markings.

"It was on October 13th in the year 54 that the young Nero was hailed as Emperor by the Praetorian Guard. The senate followed suit together with the soldiers of the armies in the provinces. Nero's reign had thus begun in an atmosphere of unanimity and enthusiasm that could hardly have been hoped for. The young man, not yet seventeen, seemed to be the signal for a new beginning and perhaps this marked the return to the longed-for stability of the Augustan age. This atmosphere of goodwill had another origin beside this, however. A young man of seventeen may perhaps have symbolized the innocence and guilelessness of one not yet corrupted by the rigors of political life. More certainly his very youth was likely to produce a deeper and more insidious corruption as the various elements in the state that were traditionally jealous of power maneuvered themselves into positions from which they and not the Emperor could wield it. A young and not unintelligent boy of seventeen seemed to suit exactly the requirements of the situation. The opening acts of his reign were conventional and proper, although Tacitus, to set the scene according to his own requirements, tells the story of a couple of political murders, probably engineered by Agrippina without Nero's knowledge or at least against his wishes, as a curtain-raiser to his thirteenth book of Annals, before going on to the story of Nero's opening acts as Emperor...." - Chapter One from Nero