Nero is dead and dead men don't suffer from a bad reputation. Nero was also emperor, whereas this person is not a public figure. It needs to be proportionate, a

Nero is dead and dead men don't suffer from a bad reputation. Nero was also emperor, whereas this person is not a public figure. It needs to be proportionate, and "rest of your life" sounds disproportionate for something like this. It also depends on how unique your name is how badly you will get "punished". My name is unique; as far as I know I'm the only person on the planet with my name. People named "John Smith" have an easier time being anonymous. (aside: it's not clear that Nero actually started the fire by the way, the sources on it are rather thin and recently some historians have begun to suspect that a lot of what we "know" about Nero was essentially propaganda from his opponents. This is actually another point of consideration here: not everything that's reported is necessarily accurate, fair, or balanced.)