Dion Cassius, in a more detailed account, writes that Sporus bore an uncanny resemblance to Sabina and that Nero called Sporus by her name. Some think that Nero used his marriage to Sporus to assuage the feelings of guilt he felt for kicking his pregnant wife Sabina to death. Suetonius places his account of the Nero–Sporus relationship in his reports of Nero's sexual aberrations, between his raping a vestal virgin and committing incest with his mother.
Suetonius quotes one Roman who lived around this time who remarked that the world would have been better off if Nero's father Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus had married someone more like the castrated boy. In addition to other forms of address, Sporus was termed "Lady", "Empress", and "Mistress". Nero had earlier married another freedman, Pythagoras, who played the role of Nero's husband, as Sporus played the role of Nero's wife. He then took Sporus to Greece and back to Rome, making Calvia Crispinilla serve as "mistress of wardrobe" to Sporus, epitropeia ten peri estheta. Nero had Sporus's testicles removed and during their marriage, Nero had Sporus appear in public as his wife wearing the regalia that was customary for Roman empresses. Later that year or in 67 he married Sporus. In the beginning of 66, he married Statilia Messalina. Nero's wife, Poppaea Sabina, was killed by Nero in 65. The puer delicatus generally was a child-slave chosen by his master for his beauty as a "boy toy." Despite this, Cassius Dio called him a freedman. He was a Puer delicatus, who were sometimes castrated in an effort to preserve their youthful qualities.
Little is known about Sporus's background except that he was a young man to whom Nero took a liking. In that case, assuming that it was Nero who freed him (which is not clear), his full name would be Nero Claudius Sporus (after Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus). Sporus derives from the ancient Greek word σπορά spora, meaning "seed, sowing," related to σπόρος sporos, "sowing," and σπείρειν speirein, "to sow." In all references about this story, he is always called Sporus, a male name, when the female would be Spora.Īccording to the Roman naming conventions, he would gain the nomen and praenomen of his former master retaining his former name as a cognomen. Sporus was a young boy whom the Roman Emperor Nero favored, had castrated, and married.
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