Historical
![Anthony Everitt - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_anthony_everitt.jpg)
Nero: Matricide, Music, and Murder in Imperial Rome
A striking, nuanced biography of Nero-the controversial populist ruler and last of the Caesars-and a vivid portrait of ancient Rome
"This exciting and provocative book grabs the reader while supporting its arguments with careful classical scholarship."-Barry Strauss, author of The War That Made the Roman Empire
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.
In Nero, ancient Rome comes to life: the crowded streets that made it prone to fires, deadly political intrigues, and building projects that continuously remade the city. In this teeming and politically unstable world, Nero was vulnerable to fierce reproach from the nobility and relatives who would gladly usurp him, and he was often too ready to murder rivals. He had a vision for Rome, but, racked by insecurity, perhaps he never really had the stomach to govern it.
This is the bloodstained story of one of Rome's most notorious emperors. Nero has become a byword for cruelty, decadence, and despotism, but in Anthony Everitt's hands, Nero's life is a cautionary tale about the mettle it takes to rule.
"This exciting and provocative book grabs the reader while supporting its arguments with careful classical scholarship."-Barry Strauss, author of The War That Made the Roman Empire
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.
In Nero, ancient Rome comes to life: the crowded streets that made it prone to fires, deadly political intrigues, and building projects that continuously remade the city. In this teeming and politically unstable world, Nero was vulnerable to fierce reproach from the nobility and relatives who would gladly usurp him, and he was often too ready to murder rivals. He had a vision for Rome, but, racked by insecurity, perhaps he never really had the stomach to govern it.
This is the bloodstained story of one of Rome's most notorious emperors. Nero has become a byword for cruelty, decadence, and despotism, but in Anthony Everitt's hands, Nero's life is a cautionary tale about the mettle it takes to rule.
Editorial Reviews
"This exciting and provocative book grabs the reader while supporting its arguments with careful classical scholarship. The authors write with authority and elegance. Nero is a pleasure to read."-Barry Strauss, author of The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium
"A nuanced biography of Roman emperor Nero, who ruled from 54 to 68 BCE . . . [Anthony Everitt and Roddy Ashworth] evoke the period with wit and precision. Ancient history buffs will be pleased."-Publishers Weekly
Praise for Anthony Everitt
Alexander the Great
"Reads as easily as a novel . . . [Anthony] Everitt has a wealth of anecdotes and two millennia of histories to work with, and he delivers and interprets them flawlessly. Nearly unparalleled insight into the period and the man make this a story for everyone."-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
The Rise of Rome
"Fascinating history and a great read."-Chicago Sun-Times
"Everitt writes for the informed and the uninformed general reader alike, in a brisk, conversational style, with a modern attitude of skepticism and realism."-The Dallas Morning News
"Elegant, swift and faultless."-The Spectator
"A nuanced biography of Roman emperor Nero, who ruled from 54 to 68 BCE . . . [Anthony Everitt and Roddy Ashworth] evoke the period with wit and precision. Ancient history buffs will be pleased."-Publishers Weekly
Praise for Anthony Everitt
Alexander the Great
"Reads as easily as a novel . . . [Anthony] Everitt has a wealth of anecdotes and two millennia of histories to work with, and he delivers and interprets them flawlessly. Nearly unparalleled insight into the period and the man make this a story for everyone."-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
The Rise of Rome
"Fascinating history and a great read."-Chicago Sun-Times
"Everitt writes for the informed and the uninformed general reader alike, in a brisk, conversational style, with a modern attitude of skepticism and realism."-The Dallas Morning News
"Elegant, swift and faultless."-The Spectator
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter 1
The New Order
The youth was seventeen years old. His face had the temporary good looks of the teenager, but an observant eye could detect the unappealing lineaments of the man-to-be. He was of average height, with light blond hair and blue eyes. He was somewhat shortsighted. His neck was too thick, his body spotty and, apparently, malodorous. His legs were spindly and his stomach protruded.
This was Nero-or, to give him his full name and titles, Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. It was the autumn of a.d. 54 and he had just become emperor of Rome. Surrounded by senior politicians, all wearing the dark togas of mourning, he was leading the funeral rites of his predecessor and adoptive father, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, whom we know more succinctly as Claudius.
The ceremony unfolded on the Campus Martius, the Field of Mars, a five-hundred-acre grassland that stretched away north of Rome's city walls. It was a lung for the world's first megalopolis, which was home to an estimated one million inhabitants. The Campus was a park, dotted with temples and other public buildings, and people of every class escaped there from the city's noise, crowds, and smells and engaged in leisure pursuits. The wealthy raced around in chariots or exercised their horses, while those of lesser means amused themselves with playing ball games, trundling hoops, or wrestling. When necessary, there was plenty of space for military maneuvers, as the field's name in honor of Mars, the god of war, indicates.
Some of the ground was marshy and there were frequent inundations. A central swamp was organized into a small lake. In the west, the river Tiber rolled along on its way to the sea, and to the east and southeast, hills closed off the scene. A commentator of the day observed that these distant features "present to the eye the appearance of a painted backdrop." Indeed, the overall impression was of a very large stage set, with a fine panorama from the vantage point of Rome's citadel, the Capitol.
Today the mood was melancholy and given over to state solemnities. A long procession wound its way through the city to the music of a funeral march. The late emperor had lain in state for five days and now was conveyed on a flower-festooned bier, made from ivory and decorated with golden fittings and purple cloth. The body lay in a concealed coffin and a life-sized wax image of Claudius was visible above. Senators carried another gold statue of him, and a third represented him on a chariot.
Behind the bier walked his relatives, led by Nero, their heads veiled. Women of the family expressed, or pretended, their uncontrollable grief by wailing at full throttle, ripping their clothes and tearing at their cheeks. In shocking contrast, a group of specially hired comedians clowned around; in a long-standing tradition of extracting farce from tragedy, one of them mercilessly caricatured the late emperor.
Next in the cortege came, one might say, the resurrected dead. Down the generations leading aristocratic clans commissioned realistic death masks, or imagines, made from wax, of their most distinguished members. These were worn at funerals by men who resembled the originals in body shape and size. They rode in chariots and were preceded by functionaries carrying the insignia of the public offices they had held in life.
The long line of mourners paused in the Forum, the city's main square, and Nero, as his heir and next of kin, delivered a eulogy. Claudius's "ancestors" sat in a row on ivory chairs and listened to the youthful emperor deliver a polished speech in praise of his adoptive father's achievements. An impressed Greek historian asked who would not be inspired by the sight of these personalities from the past "all together and as if alive and breathing?"
Eulogy over, the cavalcade left the city and entered the green plain. It came to a halt beside an open-air crematorium, or ustrinum, reserved for the imperial family. Between a circular iron fence and a white marble inner wall, black poplars shaded an enclosure where Claudius's pyre, an assemblage of wooden logs arranged in the shape of an altar and papered with dark leaves, was waiting. The corpse and the couch were placed on the top of the pyre, and Nero put a torch to the whole elaborate ensemble. Perfumes were thrown on the flames, also cups of oil, trinkets, well-used clothes, dishes of food that the deceased had especially liked, and other items of sentimental value.
When the pyre had burned down, the embers were soaked in wine. The bones were gathered up, placed in an urn, and carried to the place of burial. This was the vast Mausoleum of Augustus, founder of the ruling dynasty.
The New Order
The youth was seventeen years old. His face had the temporary good looks of the teenager, but an observant eye could detect the unappealing lineaments of the man-to-be. He was of average height, with light blond hair and blue eyes. He was somewhat shortsighted. His neck was too thick, his body spotty and, apparently, malodorous. His legs were spindly and his stomach protruded.
This was Nero-or, to give him his full name and titles, Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. It was the autumn of a.d. 54 and he had just become emperor of Rome. Surrounded by senior politicians, all wearing the dark togas of mourning, he was leading the funeral rites of his predecessor and adoptive father, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, whom we know more succinctly as Claudius.
The ceremony unfolded on the Campus Martius, the Field of Mars, a five-hundred-acre grassland that stretched away north of Rome's city walls. It was a lung for the world's first megalopolis, which was home to an estimated one million inhabitants. The Campus was a park, dotted with temples and other public buildings, and people of every class escaped there from the city's noise, crowds, and smells and engaged in leisure pursuits. The wealthy raced around in chariots or exercised their horses, while those of lesser means amused themselves with playing ball games, trundling hoops, or wrestling. When necessary, there was plenty of space for military maneuvers, as the field's name in honor of Mars, the god of war, indicates.
Some of the ground was marshy and there were frequent inundations. A central swamp was organized into a small lake. In the west, the river Tiber rolled along on its way to the sea, and to the east and southeast, hills closed off the scene. A commentator of the day observed that these distant features "present to the eye the appearance of a painted backdrop." Indeed, the overall impression was of a very large stage set, with a fine panorama from the vantage point of Rome's citadel, the Capitol.
Today the mood was melancholy and given over to state solemnities. A long procession wound its way through the city to the music of a funeral march. The late emperor had lain in state for five days and now was conveyed on a flower-festooned bier, made from ivory and decorated with golden fittings and purple cloth. The body lay in a concealed coffin and a life-sized wax image of Claudius was visible above. Senators carried another gold statue of him, and a third represented him on a chariot.
Behind the bier walked his relatives, led by Nero, their heads veiled. Women of the family expressed, or pretended, their uncontrollable grief by wailing at full throttle, ripping their clothes and tearing at their cheeks. In shocking contrast, a group of specially hired comedians clowned around; in a long-standing tradition of extracting farce from tragedy, one of them mercilessly caricatured the late emperor.
Next in the cortege came, one might say, the resurrected dead. Down the generations leading aristocratic clans commissioned realistic death masks, or imagines, made from wax, of their most distinguished members. These were worn at funerals by men who resembled the originals in body shape and size. They rode in chariots and were preceded by functionaries carrying the insignia of the public offices they had held in life.
The long line of mourners paused in the Forum, the city's main square, and Nero, as his heir and next of kin, delivered a eulogy. Claudius's "ancestors" sat in a row on ivory chairs and listened to the youthful emperor deliver a polished speech in praise of his adoptive father's achievements. An impressed Greek historian asked who would not be inspired by the sight of these personalities from the past "all together and as if alive and breathing?"
Eulogy over, the cavalcade left the city and entered the green plain. It came to a halt beside an open-air crematorium, or ustrinum, reserved for the imperial family. Between a circular iron fence and a white marble inner wall, black poplars shaded an enclosure where Claudius's pyre, an assemblage of wooden logs arranged in the shape of an altar and papered with dark leaves, was waiting. The corpse and the couch were placed on the top of the pyre, and Nero put a torch to the whole elaborate ensemble. Perfumes were thrown on the flames, also cups of oil, trinkets, well-used clothes, dishes of food that the deceased had especially liked, and other items of sentimental value.
When the pyre had burned down, the embers were soaked in wine. The bones were gathered up, placed in an urn, and carried to the place of burial. This was the vast Mausoleum of Augustus, founder of the ruling dynasty.
