Nero (Rome)

Nero rules an empire in which Judea is a minor and badly governed province, administered by a series of procurators whose corruption and contempt for Jewish religious sensitivity steadily erode any workable arrangement. The last of them, Gessius Florus, appointed by Nero, seizes silver from the Temple treasury in 66 and then permits his soldiers to plunder Jerusalem and kill its residents when the city protests — the immediate spark of the Great Revolt. Nero responds by sending Vespasian with three legions to restore order, and his suicide in 68 halts the campaign for two years while Rome fights over the succession. He is also the emperor under whom the first Roman persecution of Christians occurs after the fire of 64, at a point when Romans still barely distinguished them from Jews.