Nero Caesar: A chronology of historical, astronomical and astrological dates

~15 B.C. May 24: Germanicus, Nero's grandfather and Agrippina's father, born
~10 B.C. August 1: Claudius born at Lyons
~4 B.C. -1.A.D.: Seneca born
~3 B.C. December 24: Galba born
~2-3 A.D.: Balbillus born
~11 Casting imperial horoscopes outlawed by Augustus
~14 August 19: Augustus dies
~14 Sept 17: Tiberius proclaimed emperor
~15 Nov 6: Julia Agrippina, Nero's mother, born Cologne, Germany
~19 Oct 10: Germanicus, Nero's grandfather and Agrippina's father dies
~25 or 26: Messalina born
~29 Tiberius goes to Capri
~29 Agrippina the Elder denounced by Tiberius for "arrogance"
~31 (circa): Poppaea Sabina 2nd born
~32 Caligula joins Tiberius on Capri
~32 (or 34): Phoenix appears in Egypt
~32 April 25: Otho born
~33 April 3: Best date for Jesus' crucifixion
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/crucifixion.html
~33 Oct 18: Agrippina the Elder dies on the prison island of Pandateria
~36 Thrasyllus dies after predicting the day and hour
~37 March 16: Tiberius dies
~37 March: Caligula succeeds Tiberius
37 March (after the 16th when his father was released by Caligula): Nero conceived
~37 December 15 (at dawn): Nero born as Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus
~38 January 1: At Rome and all over the empire a new oath sworn to Caligula's sisters as well as himself. Since he had no children his sisters are part of the succession.
~38 June 10: Drusilla dies. She was Caligula's 2nd sister whom he named as his successor
~38 Caligula marries Lollia Paulina
~39 Claudius marries Messalina - she was then about 14
~39 (between April and June): Messalina falls pregnant with Octavia - the father may have been Caligula
~39 September or October: Caligula banishes Agrippina and Tigellinus "for adultery" - a charge often used as a euphemism for political collusion between men and women
~40 (between January and March): Messalina gives birth to Octavia
~40 May: Messalina falls pregnant with Britannicus
~40 (near end of year): Nero's father dies - Nero was then 3
~40 (summer): the most outrageous of Caligula's sayings and acts probably date from this period
~41 January 24: on the last day of Palatine Games, Caligula assassinated.
~41 Jan 25: Claudius hailed emperor
~41 February 12: Britannicus born
~41 Claudius recalls Agrippina to Rome
~41 Claudius forces knights and women of similar rank who appeared on stage during Caligula's reign to do so again - probably as punishment
~41 Claudius originates practice of putting senators in the front row at the Circus Maximus
~41 (between October and early November): Balbillus returns to Rome and the imperial court
~43 Claudius leaves for his British campaign - absent 6 months. Balbillus goes with him
~44 January 1: Claudius celebrates his British triumph
~45 St. Mark (John Mark who wrote the second gospel) traditionally makes his first convert in Alexandria
~46 or 47: Agrippina's second husband C. Passieneis Crispus dies
~47 April 21: Claudius celebrates secular games (held once every 110 years to inaugurate the new saeculum or age). Nero and Germanicus are the lead horsemen
~47 (probably April 23, prostitute's day) Messalina reputedly prostitutes herself in the palace
~47 Poppaea Sabina 1 (mother of Nero's second wife) accused of "adultery" with Valerius Asiaticus - kills herself
~47 Claudius increases the size of the haruspex college (diviners of the future by traditional means) to 60 members to stave off astrology
~47 Gaius Silius forced to divorce Junia Silana, Agrippina's friend, by Messalina
~48 September 5: Claudius goes to dedicate public works in Ostia
~48 October 11: Festival of the New Wine. Messalina, playing the part of Ariadne, "marries" Gaius Silius who plays Bacchus
~48 October (perhaps 16th): Messalina's death at 23
~49 Jan 1: Claudius marries Agrippina
~49 March (circa): Agrippina has Lollia Paulina (ex-wife of Caligula and devotee of astrology) killed for forbidden astrological computations.
~49 Claudius expels Christians from Rome for creating a "disturbance" - splitting the Roman synagogue into two factions: orthodox and converts
~50 Jan 1: Seneca made praetor (magistrate) and Nero's tutor
~50 February 25: Agrippina gets Claudius to adopt Domitius Ahenobarbus as Tiberius Claudius Nero (soon after changed to Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus). She takes title of Augusta
~51 March 4: Nero elected consul though he does not serve Nero, then 13, given title princeps inventutis "Head Boy".
~51 Junius Gallo (Seneca's brother, governor of Achaea) dismisses charges against St. Paul (Acts 18:12)
~52 Senate puts Britannicus on coins
~52 Lucius Arruntius Scribonianus, whose father led a revolt against Claudius, and his mother, exiled for asking an astrologer to compute the date of Claudius's death. Scribonianus died soon afterwards.
~52 Claudius expels astrologers from Italy
~53 April: Nero marries Octavia, Messalina's daughter by Claudius
~54 June 9: comet appears at dawn
~54 July 9: comet disappears
~54 October 13: At "midday" according to the Roman historian Tacitus, Nero appears outside the palace gates and is hailed emperor by the Praetorian Guard
~55 Balbillus now Prefect of Egypt
~55 February 12: Britannicus turns 14 and is eligible for the toga virilis
~55 March 17: Moon of the Year - important for astrology readings
~55 March 17: Liber's day when youths got the toga virilis, perhaps Britannicus too. He died at about this time
~55 Agrippina begins to lose control of Nero. Alarmed Agrippina begins to support Britannicus and looks for support from army officers and aristocrats. Nero terminates her great receptions, takes away her Praetorian escort and moves her to Antonia 2nd's palace
~55 Tigellinus reappears in Rome
~58 (summer): Nero is extravagantly elated by his general Corbula's Armenian victory
~58 Nero takes Poppaea
~59 March 19-23: Nero celebrates the Festival of Minerva at Baiae and decides on matricide. Agrippina is assassinated after banquet given by Otho
~59 Otho made governor of Lusitania (Portugal).
~59 September: Nero begins to engage in chariot racing and musical contests
~59 Balbillus quits as prefect of Egypt, lives on in Rome till after 75
~60 St. Paul preaches in front of Felix
~60 Boudicca's revolt
~60 August 9: brilliant comet appears
~60 Rubellius Plautus exiled to Asia - by blood the nearest claimant to the throne
~60 (possibly October 13, anniversary of his accession): Nero holds First Neronia (to be held every five years)
~60 December 9: comet disappears
~61 or 62: Paul brought to Rome
~61 September 27: A comet (possibly a supernova) appears
~61 December 5: The comet (or supernova) disappears
~62 April 21: Poppaea falls pregnant (inferred from January 21, 63 birth of girl
~62 Tigellinus prominent again under Nero and already appointed praefectus vigilum (Chief of Police)
~62 March: Death of Praetorian Prefect Burrus. Tigellinus and Faenius Rufus succeed him
~62 Seneca retires
~62 Nearest claimants to the throne, Rubellius Plautus and Faustus Cornelius Sulla, ordered to kill themselves
~62 First Neronian treason trials
~62 Octavia divorced for sterility and exiled to Calabria
~62 Twelve days after his divorce Nero marries Poppaea
~62 When there are popular demonstrations supporting Octavia, she is exiled to the remote prison island of Pandateria
~62 June 11, anniversary of Nero's death, Octavia executed
~63 January 21: Poppaea's child born - called Claudia Augusta
~63 May: Claudia Augusta dies
~64 Nero performs before the public for the first time in Greek speaking Naples and conceives of the idea of going straight to Greece. Shortly after his performance the theater suffers damage in an earthquake
~64 May 3 (after sunset): a comet appears when Nero is in Beneventum on his way to Greece. Balbillus, his astrologer, advises Nero to expiate its evil by having several aristocrats executed
~64 Nero gives up the idea of his Greek musical tour and unexpectedly returns to Rome where Tigellinus organizes the infamous "banquet" on Marcus Agrippa's lake where Nero performs
~64 July 16: The comet disappears
~64 July 17: Full moon
~64 July 18-19: The Great Fire of Rome breaks out. The 19th was the anniversary of Rome's sack and burning by the Gauls 4 1/2 centuries earlier and considered ill omened
~64 July 19 Sirius re-appears at dawn just before the sun (heliacal rising) - a date of Christian apocalyptic expectation see: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/587379/posts
~64 August 1: Martyrdom of the Christians in Caligula's circus in the Vatican Gardens
~64 August or September: Nero's Golden House started
~65 April 18: Epaphroditus foils great conspiracy of Piso
~65 Nymphidius Sabinus, son of a court freedwoman and Caligula's reputed son, made Praetorian Prefect with Tigellinus
~65 The possible date of yet another Neronia. There is a chronological problem in the sources here. Suetonius says Nero was so eager to perform he brought back the Neronia in 64 before it was due (which was 65). In the novel I follow Suetonius
~65 August 16 at about 5 a.m.: a comet is appears in Rome conjunct the star Regulus
~65 Poppaea is known to have died in the summer. I have her dying the day the comet appears
~65 August: Tiridates, the Persian prince, sets off for Rome
~65 September 22: The comet disappears
~65 (autumn): A plague breaks out in Rome killing 30,000. This must have been immediately after the disappearance of the comet and therefore confirming its malignancy
~65 Probably because of this comet L. Junius Silanus Torquatus, son of the "golden sheep", is accused of conspiracy
~66 Tiberius Alexander made Prefect of Egypt
~66-67 Astrologer Ptolemy Seleucis is a fixture at Otho's court in Lusitania (Portugal).
~66 February 20: Halley's comet appears in Rome before dawn - previous appearance 12 B.C. during the funeral celebration for Marcus Agrippa, Nero's great-grandfather
~66 April 10-11: Halley's comet disappears at eleven degrees of Virgo. The execution of several knights and senators follow
~66 (before May 20): Nero marries Statilia
~66 (before mid May): Tiridates, the Persian prince, arrives in Rome to prostrate himself in front of Nero who then closes the temple of Janus indicating that the empire is at peace
~66 (summer): Jewish revolt breaks out
~66 (August or September): Nero lets his hair grow long and departs on his concert tour of Greece
~67 Nero races in the Olympic Games. He falls from his chariot and is nearly run over
~67 October 4: Saturn advances to the same longitude (conjunction) as Nero's natal Saturn
~67 October: Nero's freedman Helius goes to Corinth and begs Nero to return home
~67 November 28: Back in Corinth on his way to Rome, Nero gives Greece its freedom from imperial taxation
~67 December: Nero's triumphant entry into Rome
~68 January 6-11: Having advanced through the zodiac past its position at Nero's birth, Saturn now moves backward and fatefully begins returning to the same position
~68 March 18: Nero, on holiday in the seaside resort of Baiae, hears about the Vindex (the name means vengeance) revolt. This is the anniversary of his mother Agrippina's
~68 about April 1: Nero back in Rome
~68 April 2: Galba, then 73 years old, declares himself representative of the Senate and Roman people
~68 (end of April): Nero dismisses the Consuls before their term and assumes consulship alone
~68 April 29: The Julian lucky star Venus goes retrograde (moves backward in the zodiac)
~68 May: Tigellinus, claiming illness, deserts Nero
~68 (early May): Verginius Rufus's Rhine legions defeat and kill Vindex
~68 May 29: Retrograde Saturn reaches its station (stops moving) at 27 degrees 6 minutes of Virgo (conjunct Nero's natal Saturn) where it remains until June 6 before advancing again
~68 June 8-10: Nero hears reports that some legions have revolted while others remain loyal
~68 June 9: The moon enters Pisces, last sign of the zodiac and therefore of the end of things
~68 June 10: Venus reaches its station (is stationary in the zodiac)
~68 June 10-11: Prefect Nymphidius Sabinus bribes the Praetorian Guards to desert Nero for Galba
~68 June 11 (soon after midnight): Nero flees hoping to reach Egypt or Persia
~68 June 11 (at about dawn): Epaphroditus helps Nero commit suicide to escape a humiliating execution. Nero was 30. Venus begins moving forward again in the zodiac at 12:55 p.m.
~68 June 12: The moon leaves Pisces at 1 a.m.