Nero 's name was erased from some monuments , in what Edward Champlin regards as an " outburst of private zeal " . Many portraits of Nero were reworked to represent other figures ; according to Eric R. Varner , over fifty such images survive . This reworking of images is often explained as part of the way in which the memory of disgraced emperors was condemned posthumously ( see damnatio memoriae ) . Champlin , however , doubts that the practice is necessarily negative and notes that some continued to create images of Nero long after his death .