Death of Nero (June 9, AD 68)

Nero fled the palace by night to the villa of the freedman Phaon and there took his own life with the help of his secretary Epaphroditus (Suetonius, Nero 47–49; Dio 63. 27–29).

Nero fled the palace by night to the villa of the freedman Phaon and there took his own life with the help of his secretary Epaphroditus (Suetonius, Nero 47–49; Dio 63.27–29). According to Suetonius he repeated in tears “What an artist dies in me!” and his last words were “Too late” and “Such is loyalty”; Dio moves the former sentence to the very end. It was the end of the house of Augustus. It happened on June 9, AD 68, when Nero was thirty. According to Suetonius, flowers were laid on his grave for years (Nero 57).