Emperor Nero
Dan Snow's History Hit
History Hit
4.7 • 12.9K Ratings
🗓️ 21 August 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Emperor Nero has gone down in history as the archetypal bad ruler - cruel, decadent, and perhaps even responsible for setting Rome ablaze. But how much of this is fact, and how much is propaganda?
Dr Shushma Malik from the University of Cambridge joins us to dive into Nero’s reign, from his early promise to his scandals, the Great Fire, and his bloody downfall.
Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore.
Join Dan and the team for a special LIVE recording of Dan Snow's History Hit on Friday, 12th September 2025!
To celebrate 10 years of the podcast, Dan is putting on a special show of signature storytelling, never-before-heard anecdotes from his often stranger-than-fiction career, as well as answering the burning questions you've always wanted to ask!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, |
| 0:00.5 | folks, Dan Snow here. |
| 0:01.6 | I am throwing a party to celebrate 10 years of Dan Snow's history hit. |
| 0:06.1 | I'd love for you to be there. |
| 0:07.5 | Join me for a very special live recording of the podcast in London, |
| 0:10.4 | in England on the 12th of September to celebrate the 10 years. |
| 0:14.1 | You can find out more about it and get tickets with the link in the show notes. |
| 0:17.6 | Look forward to seeing you there. |
| 0:26.1 | Thank you. show notes. Look forward to seeing you there. Welcome, everyone. Welcome to Dan Snow's history. He was a man who ruled over the world's |
| 0:32.1 | most powerful empire. It was handed to him on a plate by his mum, and yet he led it on the road to ruin. |
| 0:41.0 | He was a performer. He entered sporting tournaments and curiously always won. |
| 0:46.7 | He got very, very long-standing evasions for his turns on the stage. |
| 0:51.9 | He was needy. He was insecure. He was desperate for public acclaim. |
| 0:56.8 | He was a tyrant. The political class cowered his feet. He built a staggering golden palace where he and |
| 1:03.1 | his guests enjoyed astonishing luxuries surrounded by gaudy erotic art. He was depraved. His romantic, well really his family life, was a horror show. |
| 1:15.6 | He ordered the deaths of his rivals, his own mother and his wives. |
| 1:20.6 | If you hadn't guessed, I'm talking about the Roman Emperor Nero. |
| 1:28.6 | The sign of the Julia Claudians, the emperor who died a fugitive, his mighty dynasty destroyed, |
| 1:36.8 | the empire broken civil war on the horizon. His name has become almost a byword for useless, |
| 1:48.6 | absurd tyrants. Yet does he deserve his reputation as, well, perhaps the worst of all the Roman emperors? I mean, that's up against some very, |
| 1:55.8 | very stiff competition. There was Commodus and Caracalla, who need no further introduction, thanks to Ridley Scott. |
| 2:03.0 | There was the Emperor Valerian who allowed himself to get captured by the Persians and get used as a human footstool |
... |
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