... Mention should also be made here of the expectation of a return of the Roman Emperor Nero. He died in 68 CE, and soon after his death rumours arose that he had not died but had fled to Parthia, from where he would return to Rome. One Jewish text in which this expectation is reflected is the fifth book of the Sibylline Oracles. The Sibylline Oracles are a collection of Jewish and Christian oracles attributed to the pagan Sybil. In the (Jewish) fifth book, dating from the period 80–132 CE, we find a passage about Nero in which his lawlessness and his divine pretensions (evident from, among other things, his attempt to dig a channel through the Isthmus of Corinth) are prominent: ...who one day will lay hands on his own family and slay them, and throw everything into confusion, athlete, charioteer, murderer, one who dares one thousand things. He will also cut the mountain between two seas and defile it with gore. But even when he disappears he will be destructive. Then he will return declaring himself equal to God. But he will prove that he is not. (5.29–34; translated by J. J. Collins, in Charlesworth 1983:393) ...