TWO THOUSAND YEARS OF ACTORS AND EMPIRES: 1/8:: Nero: Matricide, Music, and Murder in Imperial Rome by Anthony Everitt (Author), Roddy Ashworth (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 23 June 2024
⏱️ 9 minutes
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Summary
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There are many infamous stories about the Roman emperor Nero: He set fire to Rome and thrummed his lyre as it burned. Cruel, vain, and incompetent, he then cleared the charred ruins and built a vast palace. He committed incest with his mother, who had schemed and killed to place him on the throne, and later murdered her. Nero has long been the very image of a bad ruler, a legacy left behind by the historians of his day, who despised him.
But there is a mystery. For a long time after his death, anonymous hands laid flowers on his grave. The monster was loved. In this nuanced biography, Anthony Everitt, the celebrated biographer of classical Greece and Rome, and investigative journalist Roddy Ashworth reveal the contradictions inherent in Nero and offer a reappraisal of his life. Contrary to popular memory, the empire was well managed during his reign. He presided over diplomatic triumphs and Rome’s epic conquest of Britain and British queen Boudica’s doomed revolt against Nero’s legions. He was also a champion of arts and culture who loved music, and he won the loyalty of the lower classes with fantastic spectacles. He did not set fire to Rome.
1900 ROME
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is |
| 0:05.0 | is CBS Eye on the World. |
| 0:08.0 | Here's John Bachelor. |
| 0:10.0 | It is 59 a. |
| 0:12.0 | We are in the Roman Empire. The Emperor is Nero. A new book, Nero, |
| 0:18.9 | matricide, music and murder in Imperial Rome. I welcome Anthony Everett and Roddy Ashworth, the |
| 0:24.6 | authors, to help me tell a story that is not believable except there it is in the books. |
| 0:31.4 | We begin with Nero and his mother Agrippina. There's a dinner party. The |
| 0:37.1 | dinner party consists of the important personages of these first five years of Nero's reign. |
| 0:44.0 | Seneca, his teacher, Papia, his lover, future wife, |
| 0:49.0 | Burras, the head of the Praetorian Guard, and Anachetus, who is a man who's responsible for a particular |
| 0:57.2 | trirem. |
| 0:58.2 | Gentlemen, a very good evening to you, thank you for this. |
| 1:02.0 | Anthony, I begin with you because this moment this |
| 1:05.4 | dinner party arranged by Nero he is planning to murder his mother do we know |
| 1:11.8 | when he came up with that idea and at this moment why he came |
| 1:17.0 | up with it? Good evening to you. |
| 1:18.0 | Good evening and thank you very much for asking us. It's a great pleasure to be here. We can only speculate because |
| 1:27.5 | four or five years passed without much incident except that Agribina was constantly annoying her son. The problem with |
| 1:36.2 | Agrippina was that she couldn't, she didn't really understand her son and she kept on pushing him to enter public life and to enjoy |
| 1:45.4 | entering public life to learn all the things you need to learn and he resisted he |
| 1:51.0 | really wanted to do great racing chariots and listen to popular music and stuff like that, make |
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