Nero

Nero was the last emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, born at Antium in AD 37 and raised to the throne at sixteen through the manoeuvring of his mother, Agrippina the Younger. His reign, from AD 54 until his suicide in AD 68, is remembered for cruelty that no chart can soften. He orchestrated the murder of his own mother, and Roman sources implicate him in the deaths of his wife Claudia Octavia and his stepbrother Britannicus. After the Great Fire of Rome he seized Christians as scapegoats and had them burned alive, an act ancient historians attribute to personal cruelty rather than justice.

Analytically, his chart carries a Sagittarius Sun and Ascendant, the mask of the larger-than-life performer set at the very front of the chart, and he did crave the stage, appearing publicly as actor, poet and charioteer. His Moon in Leo in the eighth house speaks to an ego fused with feeling and a psyche steeped in death and rebirth.

A natal signature describes temperament, the raw disposition a person is given. It never excuses the choices they make. Nero's atrocities were his own, and no placement redeems them.