ABSTRACT
This chapter provides few details of Nero's childhood, except for some observations by Suetonius. Suetonius tries to suggest that Domitia Lepida's period of guardianship was harsh for Nero, although the only evidence that is adduced in support of this contention is the fact that the tutors who were hired for him were a dancer and a barber. Nero's artistic interests extended also to painting and sculpture. When Nero was ten years old, Agrippina introduced Seneca as his tutor, presumably to train him in rhetoric and, perhaps, to show him a more practical path for his interest in philosophy. Seneca is also said to have tried to prevent Nero from studying the work of the great rhetoricians, anxious, it seems, lest his own offerings should pale before them. According to Suetonius, it was this stifling of Nero's creative outlets that led him to turn towards poetry.
