TWO THOUSAND YEARS OF ACTORS AND EMPIRES: 7/8:: 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
⏱️ 15 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.
1759 ROME
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Baster with Anthony Everett and Roddy Ashworth, the authors of the new book |
| 0:08.9 | Nero Matricide Music and Murder in Imperial Rome. |
| 0:12.4 | If you think it's over much so far, here we go. |
| 0:16.3 | The conspirators. Pizo is a man who has everything in life in 1st century a D Rome. |
| 0:24.9 | He's a poet, he's a stoic, he's wealth to do, |
| 0:28.3 | he's married to a woman he loves, |
| 0:29.8 | so she's not elite as he is. He knows Nero, Nero spends time at his villa and yet Anthony, this |
| 0:37.7 | conspiracy, it arises out of what? Alien nation from Nero, money, what drives it? |
| 0:47.0 | Well, you could say almost that Agrippina's disappearance drives it, because Agrippina |
| 0:51.0 | understood the compromises of politics, Nero didn't. |
| 0:55.1 | And Nero's unwillingness to compromise built up a well resentment among the senatorial class and it was that class where the |
| 1:06.6 | numbers of the conspiracy were recruited. The recruitment is lackadaisical as Anthony and Roddy Wright half-hearted and it takes a long time and everybody knows about it. |
| 1:19.5 | That seems to happen. |
| 1:21.0 | Yes. |
| 1:22.0 | And so we Yes, it seems to happen. |
| 1:23.0 | And so we come to the moment itself. |
| 1:26.0 | There's no drawn out, there's no great plot, there's not a lot of thinking going on here. |
| 1:31.0 | One man is sharpening his dagger. His freedman notices this and says, |
| 1:35.6 | why are you sharpening a dagger all of a sudden? For reasons we can't |
| 1:40.0 | entirely understand, this freedman then takes it to Nero via one of |
| 1:44.8 | Nero's retainers. He actually speaks to Nero that day. It's the day before the |
| 1:49.6 | plan was to be executed. |
... |
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