This is CBSI in the world.

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

This is Nero, Matricide, Music, and Murder in Imperial Rome.

If it appears that the bodies are falling quickly, you're correct.

But the major threat is to anyone close to the family

that rules Rome and also people who are hangers-on to that families. The succession drama is

always the threat. We've seen that with Tiberius, who's suffocated by Caligula, by Caligula, who's murdered by the guards and perhaps

as a plot of his uncle, Claudius, and then Claudius himself is poisoned by Agrippina.

We now come to the first five years of Nero as a teenager as emperor of Rome.

Anthony, I get the impression that his escapades at night with his gang, very immature and not

especially damaging to the empire. At this point, Seneca, Boros, and one other, Friedman, are ruling the empire.

And are things going well, Anthony?

Yes.

Things are proceeding quite smoothly, quite satisfiedally.

As long as Nero doesn't interest himself too much in the details of government.

And so... for the time

being he

likes having a

good time

he's a bit

like Boris Johnson

if you

...