After Emperor Nero allegedly kicked his second wife Sabina to death in 65 A.D., he met a slave boy named Sporus who looked like her. So Nero had him castrated and took him as his bride.
.jpg)
Like a figure in classical myth — Narcissus, Ariadne, Hyacinth, Andromeda, or Persephone — Sporus’s life took a tragic turn in the hands of the powerful.
He was a beautiful Roman youth who caught the eye of the reigning emperor, Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. Unlike those figures of myth who endured a tragic fate, Sporus and his story are very real.
Sporus was said to bear a powerful resemblance to the late empress, Poppaea Sabina. And so Emperor Nero, a self-proclaimed demigod, had the boy castrated and married him as a replacement for his lost love.
But Sporus' life as empress of Rome was far less glamorous than it sounds, and he ultimately took his own life at the tragically young age of 20. This is the tragic story of a boy who became the empress of Rome.
Long before he set eyes on Sporus, the name Nero was synonymous with unrestrained power and unbridled perversion. His reputed taste for aberrant sexual behavior still echoes through the centuries. Ancient Roman historian Suetonius recorded:
“Besides abusing freeborn boys and seducing married women, he debauched the vestal virgin Rubria.”
This was a serious accusation: deflowering a Vestal Virgin was a severe taboo in Ancient Rome. Such an act would have ensured the priestess's death by live burial if discovered. Equally, freeborn young men were not to be touched, and certainly not defiled.
Nero was said to have had incestuous relationships with his mother, the dominant Agrippina the Younger, with Suetonius recording: