Nero has gone down in history as one of Rome's cruelest and most sadistic emperors. And indeed, he certainly enjoyed a very unsavory reputation as a ruler who brought about the deaths of several prominent Romans, persecuted Christians, emptied the public treasury, and was implicated in the burning of Rome. But was he really the debauched tyrant that many historians have made him out to be? And did he really fiddle while Rome burned?
Click through for a look back at the life and times of one of antiquity's most controversial figures.