Pliny says six men owned half of Roman Africa when Nero had them killed, and Suetonius says Nero seized the estates of anyone whose will left him too little

Pliny the Elder wrote that great estates had ruined Italy. He added that six proprietors held half of the province of Africa when Nero had them put to death. Suetonius lists Nero's methods for raising money. He took five-sixths, not one-half, of the estates of dead freedmen who bore the name of a family connected with him without good reason. Estates of people "ungrateful to their emperor," meaning those whose wills did not leave him enough, went to his privy purse, and the lawyers who wrote or dictated such wills were punished. Any word or act an informer could use came under the treason law. He named officials with the words "You know what my needs are" and "Let us see to it that no one possess anything." He stripped temples and melted down gold and silver images. Tacitus says Nero was believed to have poisoned his freedman Pallas for keeping his boundless wealth through a long old age. When Annaeus Mela, father of the poet Lucan, was forced to die in AD 66, he left large sums to Tigellinus and Cossutianus Capito in a codicil so that the rest of the will would stand.