so what I'm getting from this is that Nero tried to help the working classes and was demonized and deposed by the Roman ownership class for it, who then lied about him profusely
Nero was a proper piece of shit.
But the caesars at that point still ruled via popular mandate, or at least the optics thereof. More like military support supplemented by acts that placated the greater citizenry, because the aristocrats carried the torch of getting their oligarchy back for a while. The shadow of augustus was pretty long.
But you never got soldiers hollering "imperator" at you without being a huge fucking genocidal scumbag so it came with the job - he's not some misunderstood saint.
It's possible he promised such things the way
promises the world to his followers, too, with a similar self-aggrandizing grotesque spectacle all the while.
Same thing with Napoleon. And lo and behold he did come back
He did come back again he's running for POTUS on the republican ticket
