This is CBSI on the world.

I'm John Batchel with Anthony Everett and Roddy Ashworth.

Their new book is Nero, Matrocyde, Music, and Murder in Imperial Rome.

Everything you've heard about Nero needs to be updated because the facts are far more bizarre and unpredictable.

And a deal of that has to do with his mother, whom he murders when he's 22 years old.

Let's go back to his breach birth in 37 AD.

His father is named Anahinabarbus, meaning bronze beard.

Agrippina will explore. Do we need to know anything about his father, his father's personality,

Anthony?

Yes, not really about his father. What we do need to know is about his grandfather,

Germanicus, who was enormously popular with the population, and in particular with the

soldiery.

So, and that was where the protection, if you like, that would be always carried with that.

The Praetorians and the leading soldiers were keen on the family.

I see, so it was Germanicus, who was the popular figure, and that passed to Agrippina, his daughter.

She's born in 15A.

She's, Nero's born in 37 AD.

It's a breach birth.

There's a prophecy.

Who knows, Anthony?

Who knows whether these prophecies were written afterwards or before?

But it's quite convincing.

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