Nero Claudius Caesar (A.D. 37-68), Roman emperor. He is said to have caused a conflagration in Rome in A.D. 64 and to have recited verse as the fire spread. Blaming the outbreak on the Christians, he persecuted them. He had a genuine interest in the arts; his clique of admirers spoke of him as Apollo. At court he had an 'arbiter of taste', Petronius, who, before he committed suicide as a suspect in the conspiracy of C. Calpurnius Piso against the emperor, smashed a choice vase so that his master might not possess it.