Emperor Nero: ancient Rome’s most infamous ruler

This is not the future we were promised. Like, how about that for a tagline for this show? From the BBC, this is the interface. The show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews.

It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your everyday life. And all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to Your Dead To Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner, I'm a public historian author and broadcaster.

And today we are flouncing back to the first century and fiddling while Rome burns.

We learn all about Emperon Neuro. And to help us telepart our Julio Claudians from our Flavians, we have two very special guests in history corner. She has a renowned classic author and broadcaster. Maybe you've read one of her best selling books, including SBQR, Pompeii, their life in Rome and town, 12 seasers, women in power or her most recent, Emperor of Rome.

You'll learn how to have all kinds of BBC TV programs, including Pompeii, new secrets revealed, and she's the co-host of the acclaimed Instant Classics podcast. It's only a Professor Mary Bird, welcome Mary. Well, it's great to be here and be with both of you. And even in the company of Jim Pranero, we'll see.

We'll see how we feel about him later. And in comedy corner, he's an Emmy and Grammy Award-winning comedian, an actor. He's appeared in many of my absolute favourite sitcoms, including AP Bio, Bojack Horseman, Veep. He's starting films, including Ratatouille, Ghostbusters Frozen Empire, and Secret Life Appets, too.

Oh, you've caught him on this celebrity edition of the American Great British Baking Show.

“I think it's cool, I have not quite sure the title, but he's a culinary master.”

And you'll definitely remember him from our episode on the American War of Independence, making a triumphant return. It's Pattern Oswald, welcome back, Pattern. Thank you so much for having me back. I can't wait to talk about Neuro.

I've seen all the Matrix films, he's one of my favourite movie characters. Ah, okay, right. Neuro. Hang on. Yeah, I don't have spell check on my phone.

That might explain a lot. Okay, sorry. That's all right, last time out, we did the American War of Independence, and you knew quite a lot. I actually did. I mean, you know, I was surprised, I didn't know that I knew so much.

I wasn't surprised because you were a learned man, but we're now into ancient history, ancient

“Roman history, how comfortable are you in the ancient Roman world?”

Not at all, but literally and figuratively, I'm not comfortable in that world. Okay, do you know the name, Emperor Neuro? I know the name Emperor Neuro, and for some reason, I just picture him looking like Dom Della Wies, but that's just because of the Mel Brooks film. That's fine, I can't find that, yeah.

Okay, so what do you know?

Well, that brings us to the first segment of the podcast.

This is the so-worldie, and no, so I have a go at guessing what you are. I'll love you, listen, I will know about today's subjects, and you might know Emperor Neuro's of a naughty emperor. In pop culture, he's in books, he's been plays, he's been played by a lot of famous actors on screen from Peter Ooster-Nath, in Co-Vardis, Christopher Biggins, in Eichlorious,

to Craig Roberts, as the Big Baddie in the Horowitz history's kit movie that I worked on. Eric Banner has even played a version of him, the evil Romulan Romulan, Neuro in the Star Trek film 2009.

“Was that your purpose supposed to be based on Neuro?”

He's a Romulal, oh, a Romulal. I'm gonna go, it's my current wedding down there. We've lost pattern already, but do Hollywood depictions get it right? What does Neuro's rogueish reputation tell us about Rome? And why were Roman's faking their deaths at the theater?

Were the players really that bad? Let's find out, right, Professor Mary, Neuro was born nearly 2,000 years ago, so this is a properly old story.

And the first thing I have to ask is, what are our sources here?

Do we have trustworthy sources? Well, there's quite a lot of sources around Neuro, so there's loads of poetry we have, which is dedicated to him, there's even a kind of little essay on how to be a good emperor, it was written by his tutor and it was called "On Mercy", so perhaps he didn't take the lesson quite hard enough, right? What were the thinner pickings I found?

Is if you're looking for a standard ancient account or Neuro A to Z, right? The life, the rain. We've got some, they agree on one thing that he wasn't a good thing, right?

The reviews are in, yeah, the reviews are in and they are not good ones.

Okay, Patty, how do you imagine the city of Rome, ancient Rome in the time that Neuro was born? Well, in your head, what do you imagine in terms of the architecture and the scale? Well, okay, I do know enough to know that the Roman city of all white columns and white buildings is actually false because it was actually very brightly painted and it was that paint,

“then of course, chipped off over the centuries and that's what we have the white ruined,”

but it was actually a very colorful metropolis with kind of their version of time square signage everywhere and the 3D and all of that, right? Am I right in thinking that? Not for a run, okay. It's not the home of the holiday trip to Italy, it's kind of like there's no classy.

Yeah, no, I mean, it's the centre of this vast empire. It's a million inhabitants probably,

it's the biggest city in the West until Victorian London, right? No, so early 19th century London, but there are some bits that we might expect to see, but we don't see, the Colosseum is one of this case, you go to Rome now and, okay, it's in the middle of a roundabout, but it's really, really impressive. The Colosseum was built after Neuro's reign by the next dynasty, but interestingly it's named preserved little memory of Neuro, because it was erected

very close to the site of a Colossus, a colossal statue of Neuro, 30 something meters tall,

“it is said, and that's what gave this amphitheater, its name, it was Neuro's Colossus.”

What we tend to forget, I mean, you were partly right, you know, that this is actually bright and there's

graffiti everywhere and it probably stinks, absolutely stinks, right? But it is not always great

monuments, no matter what color they were, so it's a mixture of vast display buildings, put up, often bankrupt by emperors, and terrible slums, and in the middle, like a body, each other, almost. What's interesting is, I think, in modern cities, certainly in British modern cities, we're used to a kind of zoning in city architecture, we think there's the rich part, you know, and there's the poor part, and there's almost unseen boundaries between these two

different levels of the city, what's really striking in Rome? Is there's a bit of that, but the slums are right there next to the grand, you know, you can walk past the great capitaline hill, another bottom, there's a slum tenement, that you can still look at. Okay, so Neuro's childhood, let's get to the actual guy we're talking about, he's not called Neuro, but that's not his name, what was he called, when was he born, what's his childhood like? Well he's in a dysfunctional family,

I think would be the old way you're putting it. He's born in 37 CE, and his name is actually then Lusius, a Dimitius, a Hino Barbers, which means Bronzebeard, right? And he was, he had a bronzebeard, he was a baby, that was what we would call his surname. Oh, I got a bit, look, I'm called beard, and I don't have one, right? Well Neuro's surname was Bronzebeard, and his dad was a pretty despicable character called Gennius, a Dimitius Hino Barbers, and there's loads of stories, horrible

stories told about him, like how he wants some ran over a child deliberately in the street, in his career, or even worse, I don't know, not worse, but about as bad. He killed one of his staff when they refused to drink as much as he told them they should. I mean, and these are recounted as, you know, in his defense, Friday night is party night, man, we even knew that when you took this job, we had a kid. Yeah, anyway, happily, perhaps from Neuro, he died when Neuro was,

was sput 3. Was his dad in politics, or did his dad do all women men were in politics?

“Oh, I'll never mind, sorry. The key to Neuro's success, all of the key to Neuro's success, was that his mum,”

a good star in life, even though, as I said, dad died when he was 3. That was the same year as his uncle happened to be assassinated. That was to be clear, and New Emperor Claudius comes to the throne and before too long, we find that mum, Agrippina, Agrippina, oh yes, sorry, and you've done a

married the Emperor Claudius. He was her uncle, oh yes, yes, and then Claudius adopted Neuro, and he got a new name, which is why we call him Neuro, because he's called Neuro Claudius, Kaiser Juicis, Germanicus, right? So short, for sure. In the show before we've done husbands who were brothers, that's in H&E, because we call those husbands. But now we have uncle husbands.

“We're thinking maybe Hong Kong, how do you do the books? Yeah, or Usbans? Usbans? Usbans?”

Unbans? Unbans? Unbans? I'm sorry. Claudius was the one with the stutter. Yeah, but you've been reading Robert Grafe's. No, I watched the Derek Jackabee's,

but I know it's obvious the king is a great read. I will read it someday, but I've never read it.

I have to say that my early education in Roman history came from that, that television practising. It's a classic, isn't it? So Claudius, you know him as a sort of the TV character, you think maybe he's a little more sinister? There are very nasty statistics about how many senators he had put to death. Let me just say that. Wow. But again, I historian. So we can't, I'm not going to judge a historian. Okay, so he's the sort of father-in-law, stepdad to Neuro,

he's named Neuro, he's given Neuro his name, he already has a son, but that's going to be a problem, let me a problem. In, in due course, Neuro is getting a royal education because he's now suddenly sort of in line for the throne, maybe. So he's getting a fancy royal education. He's got the fanciest of chimneys. If you ever heard of Senaka. I have heard of Senaka. He's a big stoic. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Stoicism has quite a good rep in the Morton world.

And especially right now, it's all this religious couple of stoicism. Exactly. And we kind of think of it as a sort of stiff up a little bit, rather kind of, you know, rather positively admirable way of conducting yourself to be a stoic. I mean, Senaka and Marcus are really us, are still best selling authors, 2,000 years on. Yeah. I sometimes look at the best selling charts on the online bookstore that we all use. And you can guarantee that Marcus are really us is still selling quite a

lot more than I am. So, which I think is terrific in time. But Senaka was quite a famous stoic

“and tutor to Neuro. One of the things that stoicism suggests you should do is entirely keep”

your passions in, right? And passions widely defined. So greed lasts human wants should be kept in. And, you know, it's fine so far as it goes. The other thing we know about Senaka is he was absolutely loaded. Yeah. He's the richest man in Rome. Really? He's got some Ponzi deals, I think. And some things on Rome, you know, the foam and stock exchange. Now, somehow, Senaka manages to make that align with his stoic philosophy. But quite a lot of people have thought he might have

been a bit of a hypocrite. Yeah. So Senaka is teaching Neuro. So we have a little, we've got a teenage boy who's learning from one of the great philosophers, but also one of the great political men of the Roman Empire. So it's a good, it's a good upbringing, it's a good education.

Important question for you here, Patton. How did you celebrate your first shave?

I don't know. Oh my gosh. I don't know. I probably went and played some Gallagher or something. I don't know. Are we leading up to a really creepy story right there? No creepy, but kind of interesting. Here we go. But you didn't necessarily celebrate by, I don't know, inviting everyone in you and then having like a games? No. No. Swirriedly? No. And what did you do with what you shaved off? I'm sure it went right down the sink. Okay. I think you've been missing out here,

because actually Patton, what you should have done, Mary, is throw an enormous... Yeah. Well,

“first of all, you should have been a bit older than 13, because Neuro and I think most Roman”

elite men usually didn't do their first shave until they were into their 20s. But just a big beard, sir. I think if you don't shave, I mean, I'm not an expert, I'm not an expert in male facial hair. So I guess I'm sporting my own, but you know,

yeah. But I think if you never shave, it's a lot kind of softer and down here than you imagine.

So Neuro did what a lot of young posh Romans did. Early 20s he shaved it off. He then put it all together in a nice little gold box, and he dedicated the clippings to Jupiter. So that was a

Neuro didn't. He had a fantastic, you know, it was came to be, fantastically love it,

set of so-called youth games, juvenilia, full-on public games in which lots of things happened that some people felt or reported to feel a bit uncomfortable about. He apparently pretty much forced people to act and sing and do performances. And there's a story of one eight-year-old lady, as I approach my eight-year-old ninth decade. You're more sympathetic to this, who was kind of made to do a dance. And of course Neuro also performed.

And you can see the bias is creeping in here. It was said that he didn't really have a very strong voice. It was all a bit witty. All of the stories about how he forced people to do this.

“That's what the old lady was made to dance. It's one of the places where I often think,”

well, maybe you could reverse this story. You know, you could tell it in a way that was a lot more favorable. And you could say, look, there was one eight-year-old lady, she was so excited. And so enjoy yourself. They should go up and she did a dance too. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Different impressions. Yeah, just so depressed. I never had a pub party.

So sorry, I did not realize that. That was a void in my life. You could have dedicated to the gods. I could have dedicated so many people. You could have had a granny come and dance for you. Okay, so meanwhile, we should talk about Britannicus. This is the son of Claudius, who is the right foot of the throne in theory. But Agropina and Nero are starting to just make some moves. You know, it all looks great for Nero in a way because he's the descendant of the gods. Just

through his mum, he's the adopted son of the raining emperor. Look, super. The problem is that the raining emperor has already got his own son. Yeah, Britannicus. And he's called Britannicus. Call that to celebrate Claudius's conquest of Britain. Yeah. It's names his son, especially.

“It's all making sense now. And how big was his pub party? Well, I think that's one of the”

sort of problems because what Agropina's story is that Agropina started to engineer Britannicus being marginalized. Right? So I bet he didn't have a great pub party. And he was made to wear sort of childish clothes rather than posh grown-up clothes. And there's one story about how she sacks his tutor hunt replaces the tutor. So he's got this nice tutor that he's attached to. And she gets rid of him. Okay. He's also said to have met a nasty end shortly after this. The tutor

not Britannicus. Well, Britannicus comes to meet a nasty hand. She boar his tutor. She boar his tutor. She boar his tutor. Yes, that's right. Shoot a boar, isn't it? Yes. Yes. He's going all out. It's tutor than shoot him. But it all works. Shoot a boar to tutor. It all works fine. Because

“Claudia's does die. Dying the past the past very passive phrasing. Yeah, it does die.”

I was using it slightly, you've admittedly. Claudia's dies and the allegations are that he was poisoned by mushroom poison mushrooms. These are dinner and he's eating his favorite mushroom omelet or whatever it is. The idea is that the mushrooms actually poison mushrooms or but agrippin report poison on the mushroom. And the doctors in on that supposedly. In the story, everybody's in on it. And when they try because you think that if somebody is looking a bit ill

after eating something, you might make them sick. What the doctor does is put a feather down his throat. So he can pick it up. But it's a poison feather. That is the story now. The trouble is

as an old teacher of mine always used to say, it's very hard in the Roman world to tell a nasty

case of poisoning from a nasty case to paradise. People die of suffer. People can die of ordinary things. They can die of ordinary things, but everybody always wants them to be die of poison. But so, but when Claudia's died was this at a moment that was opportune to move. Oh, Euro in position look up. And also Britannica's very soon after, also dies of poison. What? Of course. Might have been epilepsy. And epilepsy, but people on that occasion had

clear grants for suspicion because it was said. Again, it was said. The after he'd killed over it didn't. They had a quick burial, but the funeral pyre had already been prepared. There are

the Emperor, the Emperor of Rome, which is an incredible amount of power. How old is he when

he comes down for? Sixty. Very, oh, perfect. Good grade age too. Yeah, an empire. I mean, your daughter's what? Sixty. I would not want my daughter having the remote control. I have a lot of an empire. Fair enough. God. Teenage Emperor is they don't tend to do too well, which is why mum tends to run the show from the backstage. Well, one story is, and it's not without some evidence that the power behind the throne was Agropina, stage mom, stage mom. And she indeed does appear on the coins.

With Nero, now I have to underline that this was not something entirely new.

The Roman women connected with the Imperial family had appeared on the coins before, but there were

“also rumours of incest with Nero, that she was trying to control him. Again, how do we know?”

We don't know what happened between Agropina and Nero really, and incest is not impossible, but it absolutely fits the kind of the stereotype stories of Roman women who, when their sons are in position of power, or their husbands, they are trying to control things using rather kind of classic quotes, female wild. That is what it said. That's not a story which is restricted to the Romans. We should say, Nero soon gets tired of mum running the show from behind,

you know, backstage, stage mom, as he said, and starts to plot her death. He starts to plot

them. So, Claudia's has been murdered perhaps. Metallica's has been murdered perhaps.

“Mum's now going to be murdered. How do you know? How do you think he goes about them?”

I bear a mind as to someone who threw a pub party involving thousands of people singing cool or something. Talk us through how you think he's going to keep throws a poison party where he invites everyone to sing and dance, and then there's donkeys, and does he do it? Does he throw like a party or a big gala, and then try to kill her then? Well, you're not so far, does he do a murder but loser? No, I can't show you how easy it is to invent these stories.

All our three main historical sources are pretty clear that Nero tries to and eventually does kill her. So, a tonious has the most possible attempts. It's a tonious records that there were three attempts to poison her, but like many Romans, she took a daily dose of antidote in order to kind of protect her body against poison. There's like a fish called one thing. Yeah, it's surviving. It's like a fast isn't it? Yeah, it is. Like a proper silly thing.

Well, the next attempt is even more fast. The idea is that he arranged for tiles to crash from the roof where she was sleeping, but she had been tipped off. Now, you look at both those stories and you say they're both absolutely untestable. Right? And they're ludicrous. I'm over the top. It's a sadocultop. And she wasn't killed by them and they say, "Oh, yeah, you tried to do it, but she's been tipped off. She was taking antidotes." So what in the end happens?

Which one of the works? Well, the one that fails is obviously most notable is the boat, right? Well, yes, sorry that's weird. That's weird, but that half works. The boat half works. You got to go on a cruise with Leonardo DiCaprio. Well, very good. And the Vogelniteberg. You're very close. That he has a nice dinner with her down the coast off. It's really your bio. And he has rigged up a collapsible boat. And when she's out, he sends her home by boat

and the boat collapses. But I'm going to tell you often a minute, Pat, because I've got a sad end to this. Oh, that's alright. Oh, that's alright. So she's thrown into the water, but he's forgotten

“she could swim. She's a champion swimmer, right? She's actually swims. He's nearo didn't remember that”

monk would swim. Now, what I think is very, but puts us all in the spot here is that these are little croissants. And they are hand-up. They're hand-up in the sources, you know, so that they're

that this is all very funny. But this is nearo. This is a woman being killed by her son. This is

this is mattresside. And it's entered the nearo tradition as a kind of, oh, do you know how nearo tried to kill his mum, story? And there is a terrible little bit of tragedy in the collapsible boat because one of Agropina's servants is with her and she goes into the water too. And she

“thinks the best way to save herself because she doesn't realise it's a trick is to say, "I'm Agropina,”

save me." Yes, I'm the Emperor's mum, save me, save me. And of course, that gets her murder. The crew come over and they kill her. I hear everything you're saying, but I'm sorry, a collapsible boat and mistaken identity is just inherently funny and I'm sorry that we're laughing at this. No, not sorry, it's funny. The same. The story is again that he invents the idea that she was trying to kill him and gets rid of her. So he can go or self-defense, I'm just trying to tell you.

Yes, it's self-defense. Yes, it's self-defense. And so she is staff-fighting in. And it is said that he then goes and looks at her body while drinking a glass of wine. Which is a psychobathic thing to do. That's not funny, that's dark, isn't it? Yeah, just occasionally I think we ought to, I like to

“remember mum. No, I think that she was 100%. No, she was murdered. Yeah, she had murdered perhaps”

the Claudius, right? Yes, maybe she wasn't in a sense. No, in a sense here. No, this is a dysfunctional family and very nobody in it is in a sense. All right, let's move on then. So the interesting thing about Nero is he's not the great warrior. Julius Caesar was the great warrior and he was the man on horseback running the Claudius, the conqueror, Claudius had invaded Britain and defeated Britain you know. So we have conqueror models. But Nero is the theater kid. He's he's he's the

showtunes guy. Got a dance. This is another place, I think, where we're kind of modern readers and critics are a bit inconsistent because on the one hand we say, oh the Romans, they went and they massive everybody, look at Julius Caesar, he's genocide on maniac. And then we find a Roman emperor who actually likes culture. And we start to laugh at them a bit. Yeah, and to say, well he was a bit weedy really and he was just a theater kid. And I so we can't have it

both ways. Oh, I think we can. That is the era million and shots. He had steam not a jackpot.

Four and twenty million and a row. Four and twenty million and a row. Later, Bayern, Nimdeying, look in the hand. Spirkeye Nam ab 18 shows off the highest given 1.5 million. Licks, we can't really make a hit for under B.U.K.D.E. This is not the future we were promised. Like hell that up for a tagline for this show.

From the BBC, this is the interface. The show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your everyday life, and all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's talk about what he does, right? Okay. He performs in plays. They're really awesome for

any things. It's a great age of culture. It is a huge literary Renaissance. Not quite clear. What Neuro's role in that is, but it certainly is. And that he himself, as he tried at his

“beard games, he and you should have beard games. Where's the marketing you're married?”

Your name is right on it. You own it. So he himself performs and it is said that

he perhaps wasn't as brilliant as he liked to be told in the world. And they're amazing stories.

It's like Florence Foster Jenkins. It's sort of like hiring out the theatre and getting really friends to come. But Neuro does go, you know, a stage further. So he locks the theatre doors so that once you've got in, so it is said, in order to get out, people used to fake their death. So they could be carried out. I do that at my shows before currently pretending to think I walked the doors for us to do that. Captain audience. Yeah. Yeah. And women get with the expression,

wow, you killed them. Is that where that comes from? Man, how you do it? Hold on. I killed them. Women give birth because they couldn't get out once they got in and the baby came.

"Blime your brilliant Neuro." No. Yeah. There is something pretty ludicrous and pretty unpleasant

“about flattery. But I think it's a place where we need perhaps to stop and say, "Well,”

would we say to Prince William or President Trump?" Or someone like that, I'll have to see them before. I think that was a really lousy show. We probably say, "I can't imagine

Donald Trump doing hamlet, personally, but I don't know, maybe." He was an amazing dancer,

though, they're the ones who beat us. Just brilliant. No, I think it's poetry. It's poetry. I'll say it, it's poetry. So we tend not to notice our own flattery and to notice the flattery when it's done by others. That's fair enough. In fairness to Neuro, supposedly he stars, he plays starring roles in the play Orestys, in which the character murders his mother. He plays in E-Depus, in which the character has incestuous relationships. And he plays Hercules.

And also, of course, in women roles. So he plays sort of drag roles. And also, there's a play called "Can I see, I think, in childbirth?" Again, again, incess. So if he's a guy who's trying to sort of say, I didn't have incestuous relations with my mother. Yeah, it's quite on the nose that then

perform in numerous plays about it. Wow. He's hiding in plain sight. Maybe. I dare you to call me out.

Maybe. Or, after dinner gossip, saying, you know what? Roll Neuro's going to play next. Orestys. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. And it's where the boundary is between the gossip and the hiding in plain sight. Yeah, it's very hot. The important thing here, Patton, is that Neuro took it on tour. He didn't just play around there. He didn't just play Kani Gihol. He took it on tour. Do you know where he toured? I mean, Giddy tour, through every land that they conquered, or where were he toured?

He went to the most cultured place that I Roman Emperor could go to. The land of culture, the land of philosophy. Grace. He did. Oh. Yeah. He took it on tour to Greece. And he went around. What did they think? Well, he went around all the major games, the games, the it's me and games, all the others. He was like a side stage at a music festival. No, it was main stage. He was main stage. He changed all the events in the Olympics, the things that he liked.

And he won everything. Wow. So he was really good athlete. Well, he supported even to one when he kind of fell out of his chariot and didn't finish the course. Yeah. The story of his chariot races that he has a 10 horse team chariot. So he's got a chariot pulled by 10 horses.

“Which is way too many chariot. That's why it's way too many horses. You're going to crash with”

that many horses. But no one said to him, that's a bad idea. So you know, there's no, there's no health and safety officer saying, ah, four horses is fine. So he crashes in that, but they declare him the winner. Yeah. He comes home with all his gun and prizes. He has a big triumph back in Rome. Most Emperor's try to have a triumph for killing people. Yeah. The Julius Caesar thing, right? Julius Caesar thing. Claudia's has a big triumph for

conquering Britain. Triumph, it's great procession through Rome parading your captives and everything. That goes with massacres. Yeah. That's Rome the massacres. Now, what Nero does is come home and he has a slightly different sort of tribe. They're doing up at the temple of the God of Music, Apollo, celebrating his sporting and cultural victories. He's the Simone Biles of the Ancient World. And I, you know, I lead in a comedic performance. I tend to think that I'm on Nero side here.

Okay. All right. Maybe if the Romans had spent more time having triumphal processions and celebrating people who were good at arts and culture, the world might possibly have been a nice place. So you're saying shows like the voice and British idol are keeping us

“worldwide, war and conquest. Yes. You could take it. Yes. Yes. You could take it. And that's why”

I did the great American baking show. Maybe he's trying to find another way of being an emperor and we just not got on that his way. That's interesting. He's trying to create a new model of our power looks like. Yes. I think the jury's out. But then we have to keep that as a possibility. But I'm going to do this quickly because it's pretty horrible. And I'm actually going to give a trigger warning to listeners because they're content-warning because this is horrible. The violence

that we're going to talk about in force, suicide, we're going to talk about domestic violence. He wasn't don't make any jokes pattern. I mean, don't make any jokes right now and turn it off. You know what? Absolutely. Just like this bit's just grim, right? So they'll very do it. They're free to just, you know, just go, uh, with a horrible man. But like he was brutal to his

lovers. Yeah. Three wives and horrible man, right? Uh, yeah. I mean, Nero's first wife

is Claudia says, "Natural." There weren't a verty-commer's daughter.

for sewing up Nero's, you know, perfect right to rule. Yeah. And the picture we're given of her

“is that she was very virtuous. And that what then happens according to the standard, the story,”

is that Nero falls madly in love with somebody else, then in order to get rid of Octavia, accuses her of sterility because there was no children. Roman men didn't usually think that no children was there. Problem, it was the wife's problem. No. He divorced her, sent her into exile and then had her killed. And it is then said that her head was sent to Nero's new lover, right? You know, this is about as horrible. I mean, the story is horrible,

whatever the truth. And afraid what happens next to the new woman, the one called papaya, right, is not much better, honestly, because she's supposed to be a beauty, Nero nicked from her previous husband. She does get pregnant. He's wanting an air. And it's when she gets pregnant that he

finally divorces Octavia. Nero and papaya have a daughter, but she soon dies. She's made a god

very quickly, but she dies. Papaya gets pregnant again. And then in what is kind of one of Rome's and also horrible, it's a bit of domestic violence. If it's true, he comes back after evening out and he hits her in the stomach while she's pregnant and she dies. Sorry, it's truly,

“you know, Roman history is full of stuff like this and you have to, um, history is full of stuff like this.”

Yeah, and they put us for a bit. I mean, it's a cruel, cruel story. And of course, he does the big sort of tears and you know, the classic kind of remorse come hipocracy line. And he says he's up, certainly wants to keep her, so he has her in bond, not cremated. And then he conveniently

gets remarried. Yeah, but to a third wife, Miss Alina, yes, Statilia, Miss Alina. Yeah, I mean,

it's not not very nice and Miss Alina's survivor. She survived him and she actually had more husbands than he does. Yeah, play, good, good. All right, my thank you very much. Here I go. And he also had a lover who was, um, called Sporos. In some ways, this is even, it's even worse partly because it is probably not as untypical as we might imagine, because Nero has an enslaved boy who he thinks

“looks like a papaya. No, it's very like papaya. He has him castrated and then he makes him”

his lover. I mean, there's another person in his life who he's sort of, you know, is another enemy of his, have you ever heard of Queen Boudica? I've heard, um, Boudica is, is that, um, with her breast fair, like fighting the, she, she had, she's toppled at one point, isn't she? All right, my decision to move and you've been watching, I'm not sure. It depends on the start, people of the middle. Oh, yeah, exactly. She's Queen of the, she's Queen of the Icini tribe, the Icini tribe,

who are in Britain. She leads a rebellion against Rome. Uh, and it's a pretty interesting story. Have you ever heard of this story? Is this one new to you? vaguely. vaguely, okay. She's kind of kind of iconic. I know she had her boobs out. Sometimes called Boudica. You might know her, by Boudica, a different name, and anyway, yeah, vaguely. We have an episode on Boudica. Oh, there's one

I check it out. It's off first. Can you tell you said that she was his lover? No, no, no, no, no, no, no,

an enemy. No, okay. So, so she was the Queen of the Icini in, like, what Essex? In, yes, in East England, East England, and she, um, I mean, she's an example of an appalling consequence of Roman cruelty, really. Her husband, the King, Prussia Tugas, is like many of the tribal kings in Britain, and is a collaborated with Roman. He would have called himself an ally. We might say, collaborated with you. When he dies, he rather canonly makes his heir jointly, nearo, and his two daughters.

Thinking that that would somehow kind of sew up the safety of his kingdom. What actually happens is that the Romans in the province come in, they ransack the place, they trash it, and they rape the daughters. At that point, Boudica says, according to the story, no, thanks. And she leads her rebellion, and she's successful for a bit. She destroys London, she destroys an old bunch, culturally, you know, but the governor of the province,

I mean, in the end, most rebellions are put down because the rebels just can't withstand the Roman

“legions, and he completely trashes them. He takes the most violent reprisals against the rebels.”

And it's the upshot, and it kind of is strange and slightly more optimistic, because it shows you that not all Romans are as nasty as others. There's a whistleblower on the governor's staff. Yeah. And the whistleblower writes to Nero, and says, these reprisals have got to stop. And Nero, very soon, replaces the governor, replaces Soutonius Paulinas, with a guy who has

wonderful name called Patronius Turpillianus, which means lazy sod basically.

It means, what lazy? Well, no, lazy sod and so on, lazy sod. Turpillianus, it means kind of slow. Oh, okay, torping. Turpillianus, like I should do nothing. Mr. Swuggish, but it was a right move. There'd been this absolutely monster of a governor, really wreaking havoc against the rebellious Britain's, but horribly. And to the credit of Nero's administration, where the Nero really had nothing to do with it,

or not, we don't know. They took notice of the whistleblower, and they replaced the governor. So, what are you making of Nero so far? Obviously, pretty monstrous in terms of his personal life.

“I'm torrent, because God, I love the theater. No. Have you ever heard of the great fire?”

Have you heard of, if you heard of Nero, fiddling while Romeburg? I mean, I've heard that phrase. What, in what context have you heard of? In the context of Rome is burning to the ground,

then he is, I've always pictured it as him, just alone, just amusing himself playing the

fiddle, which did they have fiddle? No, that didn't. So was he playing a liar? Leir, liar, or a loot, or what was he doing? People say it must, it's a liar. Yeah, it's a lot. I like to admit truth is, it's a liar. He's a liar. He's a liar, it's a liar. Okay, and the great fire of Rome happened. Oh, it did. It happened. What do they think started it? Oh, this is a good question. What do you, okay? Who do you think?

I, again, because of the phrase, he fiddled while Romeburg, doesn't it? To me, it feels like he set the fire. Oh, like a gangster burning down a nightclub that he wants to get the insurance on. You, you've also been an ancient Roman, isn't it? Yeah, you just got the right mindset for that. So close. Yeah, you're on the moment all the time. Because, you know, what, one thing we know about Rome is, it was, uh, it was a, it was a, it was a Tinder box that fires happened in the city.

It was always on fire. Rome was always, any point, Rome was always on fire, yeah.

And they didn't have very good firefighting equipment. And the most that they could do in is, they did in this case, was actually just knock down buildings, so that, to have a fire break. Oh. And, nevertheless, the story arose that Neuro had started it. So Italians, thinks he started it, in order to clear the ground, so we could build himself a fantastic new palace, because that's exactly what he did. That's okay. That's your mob boss argument.

That's the mob boss thing, yeah. You know, because the golden, it's called the golden house, he built it, fast, palace, fantastic. Yeah, what a shame. It's, uh, silly discipline down. I guess

“we're going to buy a little new palace here. Hey, boss, did you just take out fire insurance?”

Yes. What are they, what are they at? We're in, all right, anyway. Another story in Cassius, Dio, he, he doesn't have that argument, so much as saying, look, he just wanted to kind of go down in a place, right? He really wanted it, it were to be like the king of Troy and see his city blaze around him and go down with his city, you know, because it was such a great way to go. So he wants the sort of cosplay as king

primem in the area. Yeah, the story, the prime fantasy camp. Yeah. The story really is that he nearer was outside Rome in the fire starting, but people said that they'd seen some of Nero's staff going round, you know, setting fire to things, you know, the kind of, we'd say with a kind of oil and some matches, but he was wearing the nearo merch, right, you know, the football jackets, this is, I'm with the king, yeah, I'm a member of this. And he does come back and it is repeatedly

reported that he goes and what he does go and watch it from just a little bit, you know, from inter safety. And while he does that, he plays his line, he sings a song about the destruction of Troy,

such a great moment for the Graham, when you got the city burning behind you, you sing that song,

“again, there are things to be said in favor of him and against, well, okay, so in against column,”

in against the Malayne's Christian. He'd sang the Christians. And he punished, that there was already a relatively small sect of Christians in Rome, Roman pagan writers thought it was perfectly fine to trash the Christians. So they're fine with this? So we're telling those catheters, they're like, yeah, good. Way in the Christians. The punishments that he meeded out, was so awful that it was said that there was even pity for the Christians because of the horrible ways

in which he put them to death. So basically Christians were, were partly fair game in this kind of

patriarch campaign. But Nero is said to have gone too far. Is this like throwing Christian to the lion's or what he wants? It comes back comes a bit later, but in the Christian tradition, it's Nero is said to be the first persecutor of the Christians. Nero is a kind of the devil incarnate in Christian teaching, and it goes back to this, it goes back to him, blaming them for the fire of

“Rome and punishing them horribly. There is a genuine conspiracy against him. So I think although”

a pizonian conspiracy, I'm just conspiracy of people hating me because I saw a terrible argumently justified, right? This conspiracy comes after the fires the year after the fire in 65 CE,

this one, yeah? And it's in 65 CE and tens, 50 odd people are charged with being in a conspiracy

to overthrow Rome, overthrow Nero, not Rome. Well, he is Rome. What they want to do is they want to have a new emperor, they got a guy called Piso, it's a potential candidate and replace Nero. Now, why it's important in the Neroonian story is that Seneca the tutor was said to be implicated in it. So Nero's tutor by this stage has turned against him, and he is forced to suicide because that's a standard form of Roman execution. Seneca is implicated 19 people are executed, 13,

a banished, 51 people are charged, Nero crushes the conspiracy, but three years later, another one comes along. Because he has alienated enough people now, the people are like, "Well, look,

the first, I mean, he tried five times a murderous mom, you know, if a first he does succeed,

learn from him, you've got a clip showing up and trying." Exactly. And they don't collapse the ceiling over his head and they don't send it an unthinkable boat. No, this was a military, you know, a military conspiracy of a military assault. This is a coup, right? It's basically a coup, and it's not trying to kind of not a few of the kind of not terribly effective elite, like Seneca and his friends doing it in Rome, because it starts in the provinces, and Nero

sees the game his up. There's fighting, but in the end it's clear that people are turning away from Nero to the rebels. And what he does is he goes out to a suburban villa, and he realizes he has to kill himself. He's controlling God of deserted, right? He's bodyguard of switch sides to this guy galva who's going in. Everybody is doing, everybody is diserting him. And he goes out and there's a pathetic, they're very, really pathetic stories. Again, believe it or not, I don't know about how

he was hopeless even when he came to try to die. And he has some very odd last word. Yeah, what do you think his last words are, Patton? Tell me his last words, or what his supposed last words were. He's got more than one lot of them. But the famous one is qualist artefacts, perio, what an artist, an artefacts, what an artist is dying when I die. Some periphery go there, Patton. Yeah, so that's some confidence, my friend. Isn't it? Yeah.

With your last gesture to say, the world is about to lose a great artist. Yeah, that is ridiculous.

“I got to remember that for when I died. Hang on, let me write that down. I'm going to say that”

when I die. All right, great. So his famous last words are, what an artist in me dies. He is assisted in his death. And dies aged. How old do you think he is Patton? In his 40s. He's 30. Whoa, what a life, hey? Well, all the Beatles were 30 when they broke up. So he did the same thing and got it all in quick. Feel like poor McCartney was slightly less monstrous than you. Yeah, if only Nero had said, the love you take is equal to the love you were make. I don't know. I mean, good Lord. Yeah.

30. He was 30 as well. He did all that and 30. It did. God, I'm so lazy. I can't do more with my life. I wouldn't. I don't know. I personally, I wouldn't like, you know,

But it's a hell of a life, right? So, that's the end of Nero's life. He died in 68 CA.

“But you want to win, though. Time now for the new one's window. This is where Patton and I sit”

quietly for two minutes while Professor Mary takes her to the stage and sings for us, perhaps. I don't know. Unlike Nero, she is not locking us into the theatre. You wait. You wait, I say. We're here willingly. So my stopwatch is ready, Mary. Taking away Professor Beard. Okay, I've got two mini nuances. And the first one picks up a theme that we've been, we've been playing with actually quite often in our discussion and tried to

pull that together. And it's what I suppose I call the T word. And it's T for truth, right?

Or the kind of amazing intriguing, memorable, brilliantly evocative stories that we read about Nero

or they actually throw the capital T. Now, we can't actually, literally, know that. A long time ago, I used to really worry about that. But I've sort of become a post-truth person,

“because what I think is really important about these stories and we should, they are important,”

is the fact that the Romans told them about their Empress. And they sometimes told the same stories about different Empress. And in a way, it was their way, I think, telling these stories, thinking them up, construction, was their way of getting their head around what the power of watercrafts was, what you might fear about them, what they might do to you. And so in a way, I think there are way of getting inside the heads of the Romans to think about how the Romans

thought about Empress. My second nuance is that it's easier to complain about the gaps in our knowledge about Empress like this than to celebrate what we know about Nero. And, you know, I'm guilty, I'm complaining about what we don't know all the time, but really we should be

turning this on its head, I think. And we should say, what is amazing is that 2000 years on,

we know so much about Nero, not just in the amazing writing that we've been looking at, but we can still hold the coins of Nero. We can still visit Nero's golden house, for at least part of it. We can walk through Nero's corridors and we can see where he sat down or lay down to dinner. So my message to people is, if you're in Rome, go and see Nero's golden house. Because you still can. You still can. Pass it out. Are you going to go and see Nero's

golden house right now? I'm going. I'm going to go get a taxi. It's interesting, isn't it? The idea of if these are scourless rumours, if these are kind of monstrous lies, they still tell us about the Romans. No, that I love that aspect of it. You can tell what their daily lives and also what their, it's almost like you can tell the psychological scars that are left on a population by almost did nursery rhymes and myths that they tell later on. If those things are, you know, like how Dracula

is really just about how terrified they were of foreigners coming in. They just couldn't handle it returning them with so wound up. So, yeah, this is them. You know, the numbers were bad enough as they were, but it had such an emotional impact on them that all the stories got blown up even crazier. Yeah. On historians ought to be interested in things that aren't true as well as things that are. Yes. Yes. Because the things that are true were still made up by somebody for a reason. Exactly.

So, what do you know now? Time now for this award you know now. This is our quick-fire quiz for me. Thank you. Let me look at my notes. The see how much is love. Pat, tell me about your notes. They are extensive. Oh, my gosh. I mean, it's just the, I've written them so, I took so many notes

“that they actually just looks like Lawrence on a blank page. Yeah. That's a small idea, right?”

Yeah, your font is so, so beautifully accurate, but it's actually imperceptible. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, no notes at all. Let's see if it's gone in. Okay. Thank questions for your question one. What was the name of Emperor Nero's mother? Oh, Agrapina? Yeah, very good one. I'm Agrapina, the younger. Question two. Through what method did Nero's uncle and Proclawdius and Stepra of the Britannicus both allegedly die? They were poisoned by different modes of poison.

Very good, mushroom or whatever. They'd been mushrooms every time that would have been all. Question three, who was Nero's famously stoic tutor and advisor who relates it turned against? That would be Senaka. It would be Senaka. Very good. Question four. Name one of Nero's three wives. Oh, God, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. I can't remember the name begins with O. I Olivia, I don't know. I'm telling you right now, I'm, I'm drawing a blank. It's all right.

Question five. What did Nero do after his first shave? Well, what did he do? He got an hour

he put all his shavings and a little gold box and then he threw basically a raging cagor where there was singing and basically a pub party. And I'm, and I'm, can I just say I'm so glad that I got Dame Mary Beard, historian, emeritus to say pub party. That is going to be on the top of, so my, next month on this show, I want to be Grammy and Emmy award winning and maker of Mary Beard saying the term you party at now. Done. Question six. Nero, still won the Olympic charity race despite falling out. How many

horses were pulling him? He had 10. It was a 10 horse power charity at baby. Why do many horses? Yeah. Yeah, he crashed out, but he still won. Question seven, which Queen led the British revolt of the

“Icini against Nero in Britain? That would be Badaca. Yeah, Budaca or Badaca? Or Badaca? Or some Badaca?”

Yeah, very good. Question eight. Name one course given by classical authors for how the

great fire of Rome allegedly started conspiracy theory please. One of the alleged thing, and it's the third

one, because it's the one I thought of, is it was started by Nero himself in order to a build his big new gold powers. Yeah, also have someone people that persecute Christians. Yep, on that too. Very good. Well, okay. Question nine. What were Nero's last words? Oh, his last words were, um, it's better to burn out than to know. His last words were, what a great artist dies in me. Very good. Oh, very good. Question 10. Oh, how old was Nero when he died?

Dude was 30. He was very much the 30. 30. Yeah, a young at 30. Wow. Yeah, very good. And I'm going to give you a bonus question. Oh, if you can get 11 out, see if you can get 10 out of

11. Yeah, okay. Okay, bonus question. Which country did he tour in the 60s? He did a tour

much like Elton John of 80s. He did tour of Greece. I'm giving you 10 out of 11. There you go. Thank you. You earned it. You deserved it. Well, fantastic. Thank you, Paton. I'm thank you, of course. Professor Mary Bid. If you want more from Paton, of course, we have our episode on the American

“War of Independence, which was an absolute hoat. And for more Nero context, if you want to put”

him in context, we have obviously the episode on Agropina, his mum. We have the episode on Budika, his mortal enemy, and we have an episode on the rise of Julius Caesar. In some ways, a model, and otherwise not, they're all very interesting episodes. And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please share the show with friends. Subscribe to your dead to me on BBC Sounds to hear new episodes, 28 days earlier than anywhere else. And if you're outside the UK, you can listen at BBC.com,

or wherever you get your podcasts. But I'd just like to say huge thank you to our guests in history corner. We had the magnificent Professor Mary Bid. Thank you Mary. Total pleasure. Yeah. Any comedy corner. We had the outstanding, uh, what pub games invent up Paton as well. Snow, pub party surf. Sorry, pub games. We're not animals here, please. We had Paton as well. Thank you, Paton. Thanks for having me on again. I really appreciate it.

And to you lovely listeners, join me next time as we reassess another historical figure, and possibly decide they're just as bad as we thought. But for now, I'm off to go and launch my own podcast awards in Greece, the only I can win. Bye! Your dead to me is a BBC studio's production for BBC Radio 4. Political language can seem archaic. It's like the light for one of those stars that actually

died. Sometimes bamboosly. It's a theme park with a five foot log flume from one thought to another.

“And very often beyond words. I think we had to describe the language that you just”

I'm a Maddie Nutri. I'm all reset and turbocharged to stress, test, and destruction used in abuse to buzz words and phrases from the world of politics. I come with a dazzling array of guest presenters and I'll be exploring the verbal tricks of the political trade, the intention behind them and the effect they have in all of us. The new series of strong message here with Miriam Andi Nutri from BBC Radio 4. Listen now on BBC Sun. This is not the future we were promised.

Like hell that out for a tagline for this show. From the BBC, this is the interface. The show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your everyday life and all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.