Ne·ro /ˈni(ˌ)ro, ˈnɪr(ˌ)o/
 尼羅


 Ne·ro prop. n. A Roman emperor notorious for debauchery and barbarous cruelty; hence, any profligate and cruel ruler or merciless tyrant. -- Ne*ro*ni*an a.

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 Nero
      n : Roman Emperor notorious for his monstrous vice and fantastic
          luxury (was said to have started a fire that destroyed
          much of Rome in 64) but the Empire remained prosperous
          during his rule (37-68) [syn: {Nero Claudius Caesar
          Drusus Germanicus, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus]


 Nero
    occurs only in the superscription (which is probably spurious,
    and is altogether omitted in the R.V.) to the Second Epistle to
    Timothy. He became emperor of Rome when he was about seventeen
    years of age (A.D. 54), and soon began to exhibit the character
    of a cruel tyrant and heathen debauchee. In May A.D. 64, a
    terrible conflagration broke out in Rome, which raged for six
    days and seven nights, and totally destroyed a great part of the
    city. The guilt of this fire was attached to him at the time,
    and the general verdict of history accuses him of the crime.
    "Hence, to suppress the rumour," says Tacitus (Annals, xv. 44),
    "he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished with the most
    exquisite tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who
    are hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of that
    name, was put to death as a criminal by Pontius Pilate,
    procurator of Judea, in the reign of Tiberius; but the
    pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, broke out again,
    not only throughout Judea, where the mischief originated, but
    through the city of Rome also, whither all things horrible and
    disgraceful flow, from all quarters, as to a common receptacle,
    and where they are encouraged. Accordingly, first three were
    seized, who confessed they were Christians. Next, on their
    information, a vast multitude were convicted, not so much on the
    charge of burning the city as of hating the human race. And in
    their deaths they were also made the subjects of sport; for they
    were covered with the hides of wild beasts and worried to death
    by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and, when day
    declined, burned to serve for nocturnal lights. Nero offered his
    own gardens for that spectacle, and exhibited a Circensian game,
    indiscriminately mingling with the common people in the habit of
    a charioteer, or else standing in his chariot; whence a feeling
    of compassion arose toward the sufferers, though guilty and
    deserving to be made examples of by capital punishment, because
    they seemed not to be cut off for the public good, but victims
    to the ferocity of one man." Another Roman historian, Suetonius
    (Nero, xvi.), says of him: "He likewise inflicted punishments on
    the Christians, a sort of people who hold a new and impious
    superstition" (Forbes's Footsteps of St. Paul, p. 60).

      Nero was the emperor before whom Paul was brought on his first
    imprisonment at Rome, and the apostle is supposed to have
    suffered martyrdom during this persecution. He is repeatedly
    alluded to in Scripture (Acts 25:11; Phil. 1:12, 13; 4:22). He
    died A.D. 68.