Pod Insights Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society History's Worst F*ckboys: Emperor Nero About this episode Where does Emperor Nero fit in the pantheon of history's worst f*ckboys?
Does he measure up against the likes of previous episodes on Charles II or Raphael? Is he the worst of the lot? And what strange sex games did he like to play?
Helping Kate getting to know the awful Emperor Nero is returning guest, Rome-based historian and tour guide, Alex Meddings https://alexandermeddings.com/.
This episode was edited by Tom Delargy and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.
Please vote for us for Listeners' Choice at the British Podcast Awards! Follow this link https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/voting?fbclid=PAZnRzaAMvbBhleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABp97h4hoRACXuPJVbAHHh6v3ZnJFaw_SLmpYQej7CcD46Aq5QJ9KPvCEQuj6f_aem_6HrsNrkTMqWf6duhFWF04g, and don’t forget to confirm the email. Thank you!
Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.
You can take part in our listener surveyhere https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK.
All music from Epidemic Sounds.
Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast.
Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards! UK & Ireland listeners please place your vote on the Spotify mobile app here: https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJa
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Kate Lister? Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history? Like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods? Or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? Well, sign up to History Hit, where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history, as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles. Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.
0:35 Kate Lister? Hello, my lovely betwixters! It's me, Kate Lister. You are listening to Betwixt the Sheet, the naughtiest, spiciest, adultiest podcast that's out there. That's not true. That's not true by a long stretch, but we do cover some pretty saucy ground. So I have to tell any newcomers, this is an adult podcast, spoken by adults, other adults about adulty things and adulty way, covering a range of other subjects and you should be an adult too. We do that for your own safety, quite frankly, because we care. Right, on with the show!
1:11 Kate Lister? Join me at a house party in first-century Rome. I think it's fair to say, this is a house party unlike anything that either you or I have been to before. We are at a lavish house party at the Golden House of Emperor Nero, no less. Yeah, that's right, we're with the big wigs now. The wine is flowing and nobody has died a gruesome death. Well, I mean, not yet, the night is still young. But everyone seems to be having a g- oh, God. What tha- some- oh, no! Somebody has started playing on a musical instrument to give us an unprompted and frankly unwanted musical performance. Oh, chit, chit, it's actually the Emperor. Oh, no. Oh, what's he doing?
1:55 Kate Lister? Yeah, okay, this is the Roman equivalent of serenading us with Wonderwall, I guess. What do we do? Does everyone just- oh, everyone's just standing and applauding? I mean, if they put up with this, what else are they gonna be putting up with? But to be completely honest with you, playing the guitar when nobody asked you to is the very least of Nero's problems. In today's episode, we are gonna be asking the question, was Nero a historical fuckboy? Shall we get on with the show? I think I've certainly got to get out of here before we start singing a cappella. Let's go!
2:32 Speaker 01 What do you call a man?
2:33 Speaker 02 Oh, money, of course.
2:35 Speaker 03 You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you.
2:37 Speaker 02 I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning him up and pushing the button.
2:49 Speaker 03 Yes, social courtesy does make a difference.
2:52 Speaker 04 Goodness, what beautiful time. Goodness has nothing to do with it, Derek.
3:00 Kate Lister? Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister. We've already examined Charles and Raphael to ask the question, are they historical fuckboys? And we let them both off the hook, didn't we? Well, now it's the turn of the Emperor Nero. What a shocking example of a human being he was, even by the standards of the time. So brace yourself, Betwixters, this is some next level badness. And enlightening us slash horrifying us about Nero is the fantastic Rome-based historian and tour guide Alexander Meddings. And he is going to hold our hand and take us back to the first century to meet Nero.
3:43 Kate Lister? Oh, togas are the ready, everyone. I don't know if you're prepared for it, but let's do it anyway.
3:52 Kate Lister? Well, hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Alexander Meddings. How are you doing?
3:59 Speaker 05 I am great, thanks, Kate. How are you?
4:01 Kate Lister? Oh, I had the most fun talking to you last time about the Roman legionnaires. That was a riot. So of course we were going to have you back on to further our endless fascination with history's worst fuckboys. And today, I don't even know, we've done some of these and I've thought, are they a fuckboy? Maybe they just really like sex. Nero, as far as I can see, is so bad. I don't even know if he would, I don't know if he's good enough to be qualified as a fuckboy.
4:29 Speaker 05 I think he's changing the definition of what a fuckboy is.
4:31 Kate Lister? He isn't.
4:32 Speaker 05 It's less kind of like ghosting after the third date and more castrating a guy that looks like your ex-wife that you kicked today when she was pregnant.
4:41 Kate Lister? Why am I laughing at that? That's not funny.
4:43 Speaker 05 It's so bad.
4:45 Kate Lister? Let's define our terms, right? I've returned to urban dictionary.com to get yet another definition of fuckboy, because they have several. The definition here is a boy who plays with girls' feelings and doesn't really like them, and would do or say anything a girl wants to hear to have sex with them or to get something that they want.
5:02 Speaker 05 Including, "I will have you executed."
5:05 Kate Lister? That's not here. I've been through.
5:10 Kate Lister? It's nowhere on Urban Dictionary does it continue with, "And will have you executed." It does say things like, "They will tell a girl anything she wants." "They will go to any length." I don't know if they were thinking about mass murder, but, but maybe it covers it.
5:26 Speaker 05 Yeah, it's tricky to fit Nero into this description. We'll give it a go.
5:30 Kate Lister? I've come to this thinking, maybe his reputation is ill deserved. Maybe you are going to be one of the people to go, "No, hold on a minute. I'm, I'm team Nero all the way. He's been horribly maligned, but I just don't think that's gonna happen."
5:44 Speaker 05 No, he was pretty awful by modern standards and ancient standards. We can whitewash some things, but no, he was generally abysmal.
5:53 Kate Lister? A wanker. All right, let's, let's take him right back. Who is Nero? Where does he come from? How does he fit into the Roman lineage?
6:04 Speaker 05 So he is born in the year 37 AD. So he's born in the reign of Rome's third emperor, Caligula, who's also quite terrible, and we'll probably move on to him later as well. He is related Nero to Augustus by blood, and Augustus is like the goat. He was the first emperor, the greatest emperor, the one that all subsequent emperors try and emulate. And Nero has kind of proper blue blood coursing through his veins. His mother, Agrippina, was the sister of Caligula. She was the niece and the wife of Claudius. And Nero is adopted by Claudius when Claudius is emperor.
6:42 Kate Lister? He's got the credentials, then.
6:44 Speaker 05 He definitely does. And when he's adopted, he changes his name too, because his original name is Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, which means Lucius Domitius Bronze Beard, because kind of all men of that family had bronze beards, apparently.
6:56 Kate Lister? Was he a redhead then? Is that what we're saying?
6:57 Speaker 05 I think so. I mean, you can actually see some pretty interesting reconstructions of Nero, based on portraiture and descriptions. He looks kind of like Ed Sheeran Let Himself Go with an incel neck beard. It's kind of the vibe.
7:10 Kate Lister? Wow, okay. That's a vivid image you've just painted right there. All right. So his name was a real, I didn't know. His name was basically, I'm a redhead and he changed it. Why did he change it? Why Nero? Why did he go Nero?
7:22 Speaker 05 It's one of those classic Julio Claudian names that all of them share. They're very unimaginative, although not as unimaginative as his father. And that Ahenobarbus family, all of the men are called either Nias or Lucius, and they refuse to change throughout history.
7:38 Kate Lister? Does he change his name just to be the emperor?
7:41 Speaker 05 Yeah, to kind of fit in with the mould of the Julio Claudians and to style himself, well, or to be styled rather more as a legitimate heir to the throne. But it's all a bit weird because Claudius already has an heir. Claudius has a natural born son called Britannicus.
7:57 Kate Lister? Hang on then. Hang on. What happens to Britann? I, oh, I've just got a feeling he's not going to go and live on a farm somewhere and have a happy and long life. No.
8:07 Speaker 05 Not even an island for Britannicus now. He's just gets poisoned.
8:11 Kate Lister? Oh, Britannicus. By Nero? Was it by Nero?
8:14 Speaker 05 It's by Nero. Yeah. Yeah. Poor Britannicus. He has a pretty unhappy little life. He's a couple of years younger than Nero. Although we are told that the two of them growing up squabble quite a lot like siblings do, and there are some moments of high humour. Apparently, Britannicus used to call Nero Ahenobarbus, just to annoy him. And Nero used to say that Britannicus wasn't actually Britannicus, but was a substitute.
8:38 Kate Lister? And then they grew up and he poisoned him.
8:42 Speaker 05 So Agrippina kind of propels Nero to power. She probably also has Claudius poisoned.
8:49 Kate Lister? She was a power hungry one, wasn't she?
8:51 Speaker 05 Yeah. Well, yeah, she was phenomenal. She's a proper Machiavellian matriarch who was able to negotiate several emperors and make it pretty far before being done in by her son.
9:03 Kate Lister? We'll get to that. Stick a pin in that.
9:05 Speaker 05 Spoiler alert.
9:06 Kate Lister? Did he have a happy childhood?
9:08 Speaker 05 We don't really know, but I assume not. It wasn't as bad as Caligula's for sure, because like Caligula sees his entire family, really bar his sisters, just get wiped out in various Tiberian purges. I think he's just got a very overbearing, controlling mother, but there's nothing to suggest he has a particularly unhappy childhood. Dad dies really young. And if you wanted to kind of psychoanalyze, which is always a bit tricky with people who've been dead for 2000 years, you could say maybe he's always throughout his life looking for that kind of father. You've done really well, son, kind of recognition, maybe.
9:42 Kate Lister? And a pushy stage mother, it seems.
9:44 Speaker 05 A very pushy mother.
9:46 Kate Lister? Like murdering people type of pushy.
9:48 Speaker 05 Oh, yeah. I mean, essentially Nero's first wife, he has three, his first wife Octavia, the marriage is arranged by Agrippina and Claudius. And she's already married to a guy called Selenus, who they have accused of adultery and made to commit suicide when Nero's like 15. She's probably about 14, 15 as well.
10:09 Kate Lister? I mean, it would fuck you up, wouldn't it? That it would do. That's not a healthy environment to be growing up in.
10:15 Speaker 05 No, it's toxic. It's a right snake pit. And his mother's so adept at maneuvering the snake pit that, yeah, you can't imagine it as a particularly easy childhood. But he's the cat that gets the cream. He's groomed for power. He gets power. He comes to power when he's 16 years old.
10:30 Kate Lister? 16. Oh, no.
10:33 Speaker 05 Yeah.
10:35 Kate Lister? Like, what were you doing at 16? Imagine something to go, now, right now you're in charge. Now you're the king of the biggest empire in the world. What do you want to do? Jesus Christ.
10:45 Speaker 05 I was hanging around Wolverhampton dressed as a Goth, so not ready, not ready to rule an empire.
10:52 Kate Lister? No. What sixteen year old is is fit to rule an empire, for God's sake?
10:57 Speaker 05 The good news is that he doesn't really do any ruling for quite a long time. So for the first four years, everything has been done by his mother, who appears on coins alongside him. Like, it's the first time this ever happens in Roman history. And her portrait appears on a verse of coins looking directly at Nero, who still has like the head of a little boy, basically. So she's doing a lot of ruling behind the scenes. In fact, we're told that she'll kind of stand in on senatorial meetings in the palace behind a curtain she's had erected to hide her. Also, he's following the advice of his councillors. So he's got a tutor, Seneca, the Stoic philosopher, and the head of the Praetorian Guard, a guy called Aphranius Burus, who's a pretty headstrong figure. So he's got good counsel.
11:42 Kate Lister? Now, I imagine that what is going to happen here is what happens in almost any situation where a parent, an adult, some parental figure steps in and goes, well, they're too young to rule. I'll do it for now. There has to come a point where the person who's too young is no longer too young, and they're gonna say, all right, you can fuck off now. And they never want to fuck off, ever.
12:06 Speaker 05 Yeah, that's precisely it. Essentially, one day Agrippina says no to him, and then it all goes downhill, as it would with a sixteen, seventeen year old.
12:15 Kate Lister? Who's in charge of the world.
12:16 Speaker 05 Yeah, and is answerable to absolutely nobody and has Praetorian Guard at his command. Although it's a tricky dynamic, because she's also the daughter of Germanicus, so she's also kind of beloved by the Guard. So I think they're always in two minds when it comes to having to pick between Nero and Agrippina.
12:33 Kate Lister? Was Nero married at this point? When, how old was he when he got married? Was he just a little kid then too?
12:37 Speaker 05 He was fifteen. He was fifteen when he married Octavia. And then she's a very unhappy figure, poor Octavia. So she has to-
12:47 Kate Lister? She went upon an island?
12:48 Speaker 05 Briefly.
12:49 Kate Lister? Okay, yeah, there we go.
12:51 Speaker 05 Very briefly, and it's a lovely island. I'll, I'll give it that. Pandataria, it's off the coast of Lister. It's not a bad island. Yeah, she's a very unhappy figure. She's kind of like a bit of a people's princess. Everybody loves her apart from Nero.
13:05 Kate Lister? Oh.
13:05 Speaker 05 They share no interests. They have a really toxic relationship, it seems. All of it's on his part. Apparently, he repeatedly tries to strangle her.
13:14 Kate Lister? Do we know why? Do we, is there anything in the sources? I mean, whether that's true or not, but like, what's the reason? Just for fun? A kink gone wrong?
13:21 Speaker 05 Doesn't like her, doesn't love her, doesn't like her. He's really into this woman called Actae, who is a freedwoman, a former slave. And this is really the beginning of the rift with Agrippina, because Nero falls in love with Actae. He tries to convince the Senate to invent her this genealogy, saying that she's related to the Parthian kings. They're having none of it. And then he just kind of falls in with a bit of a bad group. There's Actae, there's Otho, the future emperor, and they kind of all go out together doing lots of Clockwork Orange stuff and just kind of dressing up as slaves and beating people up around the Milvian Bridge. While Octavia's at home presumably weaving, knitting togas. That's kind of the image we get of her, although it's definitely kind of very archetypal.
14:04 Speaker 05 We don't really get anything of her real character. It's like black and white. And she's very much the, the white.
14:09 Kate Lister? I do like to think that maybe she objected to her husband getting dressed up and beating up homeless people, even being a Roman.
14:15 Speaker 05 Possibly. I mean, he came home once with a black eye. I think so. It wouldn't have been great. I mean, he did also loot stuff and then kind of sold it among his friends at the palace. God knows why. I mean, if you're the emperor, what's the point in looting and selling stuff when you have command of the treasury? But.
14:29 Kate Lister? So what happens to Octavia then? Tell us.
14:31 Speaker 05 So after Britannicus is murdered, and that's very much on Nero's order, a faction forms between Agrippina and Octavia. And essentially, Agrippina goes first. Nero first has Agrippina killed on the advice of his new paramour, a woman called Papaya Sabina, who's his second wife. She's a really interesting character. She's the black to the white of Octavia, but she's a very interesting figure. So the two of them form a faction. Penis killed and then Octavia loses all supporters Nero has her accused of firstly adultery and then being infertile.
15:09 Kate Lister? That's the standard, isn't it? That's what they do adultery off to an island.
15:12 Speaker 05 Proper fuckboy behaviour this because he also says that she's barren infertile and then
15:17 Kate Lister? That's fuckboy, yeah.
15:18 Speaker 05 When he finds somebody, a flute player from Egypt to say that he actually did have an affair with her, he accuses her of having had an abortion. So no logical sense. He just is kind of throwing any charge he possibly can to get her away.
15:33 Kate Lister? And he succeeds.
15:34 Speaker 05 Divorce and sent to an island. Yeah, she goes to this island Pandatria where she stays for a matter of weeks and then Nero changes his mind and has her killed. And it's really sad and tragic. Like she kind of begs for her life at the end and the poor girl's terrified, dies at the age of 20.
15:55 Kate Lister? I'll be back with Alex and Nero after the break.
16:09 Kate Lister? Hello Betwixters. I'm jumping in here because I have some very exciting news. Betwixter Sheets has set up camp on YouTube. That's right. It took us a while, but we are there now. So if you are the kind of person who likes to see your podcasts as well as hear your podcasts, you can now go and find us right there. And the link is in the show notes. And please remember to like and subscribe because the people in charge of the money really do like that. Right, let's get on with it.
16:51 Kate Lister? We've got to talk about him killing his mum because that's some Edible shit right there. Like what even is that? That's, is there any, could, that's not even fuckboy. I don't even know what that is. But tell me what, tell me what happened.
17:03 Speaker 05 I mean, that's one of the charges of Nero's. Like, a lot of these charges, you think, maybe he did, maybe he didn't. There's a lot of difficult, we have problems with the sources, but he definitely killed his mum. And then I suspect he also then seeded allegations and seeded a rumor that she had tried to seduce him in order to try and retrospectively justify.
17:22 Kate Lister? I have heard that. I have heard that they were shagging, and I was wondering how true that was.
17:26 Speaker 05 We have no way of knowing, but I just can't personally see it. But I see that it would have been in his interest to convince the courts and others that she was so desperate for power that she would have tried to seduce her own son.
17:38 Kate Lister? So what does he do then? How does he do? I'm gonna assume that Nero isn't the one that actually does the killing.
17:43 Speaker 05 No, he's far too cowardly for that. He never kills anybody directly. He's always with poison. And then he will always kind of later say, ah, if only they had waited for my pardon, I may have pardoned them. Oh, well. He's very avant-garde in the way he kills Agrippina. He finds out that poison won't work, so he briefly flirts with the idea of constructing a collapsible bedroom roof that will just like fall in on her.
18:04 Kate Lister? That's like a James Bond villain. Like, just like the way, like, the most implausible, most, like, open-to-risk strategy. A collapsible bedroom. Okay.
18:14 Speaker 05 It is, but it's also very theatrical and kind of everything about Nero is really theatrical.
18:19 Kate Lister? Yeah.
18:19 Speaker 05 He's kind of big into, big into the theatre.
18:21 Kate Lister? I've heard that.
18:22 Speaker 05 Deus ex machina kind of death. So when he finds out that's not a goer, he contrives to have her killed on a similarly collapsible boat.
18:33 Kate Lister? Can you imagine being one of his builders that, like, they've been summoned to, like, a consultation at the palace? You go, I'm sorry. What do you want it to do? We're just gonna do some lovely back walls. Could you have them collapsed? Pardon?
18:44 Speaker 05 It's like halfway through the room, and it's like, we're actually gonna do boat, but considering that you've already got the collapsible element, can we just shift?
18:52 Kate Lister? So a collapsible boat. Right, okay.
18:55 Speaker 05 Yeah, he invites her to dinner, to dine with him down near Baya, which is kind of in modern-day Campania, just northwest of Naples. In antiquity, it was like the Ibiza of the ancient world. Nero loved it, because he was like a 20-year-old. He invites her there, they dine together. He says farewell on the shore, kisses her on the eyes weirdly, and on the bosom, and then sends her off to sea.
19:20 Kate Lister? That's, that's, I'm sorry, what's happening here?
19:23 Speaker 05 Yeah, it's one of those moments where the sources kind of just glitch.
19:26 Kate Lister? Yeah, yeah.
19:31 Speaker 05 So on the eyes, on the bosom?
19:32 Kate Lister? Imagine like you're somebody like you haven't seen for a while, just like they're saying goodbye to you and they kiss you on the eyes and then they kiss you on the bosom and they go, please get onto this boat I've had made. Like, fuck off. I will walk, thank you very much.
19:45 Speaker 05 It's both eyes as well. I mean, I checked the Latin because I'm always curious about this stuff. I'm like, yeah, both eyes. So that's kind of a maybe both bosoms. It's a singular bosom. I don't know if it's a triple tap or a...
19:55 Kate Lister? It's weird is what it is. That would, that's a massive red flag. But she gets on the boat.
19:59 Speaker 05 She gets on the boat, the boat sails out to the middle of the bay, it collapses and then kind of this slightly comic scene ensues where she immediately clocks what's going on, dives elegantly into the water because she's a really good swimmer. Thanks to her time in exile on an island and she swims to shore. Meanwhile, one of her slaves cries out, I'm Agrippina, thinking that will get her saved and it ends up getting her beaten to death by sailors.
20:25 Kate Lister? That's unfortunate. Right.
20:28 Speaker 05 So Agrippina swims to land, she washes up in some villa, takes refuge there, doesn't really know what to do. Nero meanwhile is panicking and it's kind of his advisors, Seneca and Burrus, who act appallingly and go, well, at this point, you've probably just got to finish the job. So he sends the navy, the Praetorians won't do it because she's Germanicus's daughter. So he sends the navy to go and do away with her.
20:53 Kate Lister? The navy, the entire navy?
20:55 Speaker 05 Just a few, just enough to overpower a few sailors under the command of some guy called Anikatus, who is also involved in Octavia's downfall and rewarded with a retirement in Sardinia. So he has a pretty good life.
21:11 Kate Lister? Do we know what the public's reaction to Agrippina's death was? Because she sounds like, for all her pushiness and, and you know, being a power mad lunatic, reasonably popular because she is related to Germanicus, who was a big deal.
21:24 Speaker 05 It's mixed, but Nero himself was petrified and he actually hangs around in Campania for three months after killing her before going back to Rome because he, he expects he's going to find a really hostile public. In reality, he, he rocks up and he finds the senate there in their holiday attire, whatever the fuck that means, with all of their families kind of lined up. Flip flops, beached towels, interrupted on their way down to the coast of Ostia. And they've got all their families kind of lined up on bleachers and they're all applauding the emperor. And then basically they throw Nero a triumph, which is kind of a military celebration you normally celebrate when you've just defeated an enemy.
22:06 Kate Lister? Well, that'll show him. Well done, senators. That'll, that'll learn him not to, to do that again.
22:11 Speaker 05 Yeah, it's awful. I mean, there's one senator with principle, a guy called Phrasaipaitos, who walks out of the senate house when Nero gives the speech about how he's uncovered a conspiracy and saved himself from his mother's machinations, but everyone else just goes along with it.
22:25 Kate Lister? So it's just spinning bollocks. It's just like outright lies. He's gonna give it, he didn't even try and say she died accidentally. Now it's that she was scheming against me.
22:33 Speaker 05 Yeah, I think so, but he, it's really odd because he definitely then, for the rest of his life, he tries to frame it in his own terms. So for example, he'll go on to the stage subsequently in the years. She dies in fifty nine. In sixty one, he performs in private. In sixty four, he performs in public. And when he performs, he performs roles like Oedipus and he performs roles like Orestes, who is the most famous matricide in Greek mythology. And so Nero embraces the role of matricide. And when he kicks his second wife to death when she's pregnant, he plays the role of a woman giving birth with her mask on. So he, he does very weird things on the stage.
23:13 Kate Lister? What the fuck is that?
23:15 Speaker 05 Trying to take control of the narrative, I guess. It's the only possible interpretation or it's just fucked. Yeah.
23:23 Kate Lister? So Actae, she's out then, this.
23:26 Speaker 05 Actae actually lasts for the entire reign.
23:29 Kate Lister? Well done, Actae.
23:30 Speaker 05 She's behind the scenes, but she's there from pretty much day one up until the very end. She's the one who actually scatters Nero's ashes and gives the funeral eulogy. So she, she survives all of his wives.
23:42 Kate Lister? Wow.
23:42 Speaker 05 Yeah.
23:43 Kate Lister? So who's, who's the second wife then? Octavia dead somewhere?
23:46 Speaker 05 Popae Sabina. So she is responsible pretty much for driving Nero against his mother and then later Octavia. She has a pretty incredible write-up in Tacitus. He calls her Supere Papalex, which translates as like a proud whore.
24:03 Kate Lister? Oh, I like that.
24:04 Speaker 05 It's pretty good actually, as far as ancient accolades go.
24:07 Kate Lister? Yeah, I'm sure it wasn't supposed to be.
24:10 Speaker 05 But it sounds cool. It sounds really cool.
24:12 Kate Lister? Very cool, yeah. But we don't like her. She's like a villain type supposed to be.
24:16 Speaker 05 Yeah. I mean, she was meant to have everything. So really ravishing, dark, good looks, fierce intellect. She was really good at playing hard to get. She was actually married to Otho, one of Nero's friends. Possibly Nero had her married to Otho so he could spend time around her. She had everything apart from apparently a decent character and she was like just as divorced as he was.
24:37 Kate Lister? Well, see, this is the thing, the rule of dating is if they'll do it with you, they'll do it to you. That's the thing. So don't be scheming. He kicks her to death, though. I mean, that's.
24:46 Speaker 05 That's the predominant version we have. Yeah. So it's like an act of domestic violence. He gets home late from the games in 64, I think it is, it might be 65. She complains about him coming home late and he tramples her is the ancient description.
25:03 Kate Lister? At least he did it himself. That's, he doesn't normally do that, does he? Normally has some guards do it.
25:09 Speaker 05 Yeah.
25:09 Kate Lister? Actually, no, that's not a plus point. What on earth am I talking about? How low is that bar? Look at me trying to scramble anything back. At least he organised it himself. Shut up, Kate. Right, okay. So a horrendous act of violence is committed. She's dead. And then presumably everyone's just standing around going, okay, how does he spin that one? She tripped and fell on my foot repeatedly.
25:34 Speaker 05 Something like that. It gets very weird after this. So he has her embalmed. Instead of burnt, he has her embalmed and he has her seated in a public space for all to kind of see and pay respects to. Then he finds a boy while he's away in Greece on a, on a kind of musical artistic tour. He finds a boy who looks a bit like Papaya and he has this boy castrated, married. He marries him and then he kind of parades this boy around marketplaces during his campaign in Greece. It's not a camp, it's not a military campaign. It's basically a musical campaign. And he calls this boy Sporus, which in Greek means semen or seed.
26:18 Kate Lister? The sound hasn't glitched everybody. I just don't know what to fucking say to that.
26:22 Speaker 05 It gets weirder. It gets way weirder. So
26:25 Kate Lister? It can't get weirder.
26:27 Speaker 05 Genuinely, I think Sporus has the most bizarre story in, possibly in history. So Sporus survives Nero. He's there at Nero's death and after Nero dies, Sporus is then passed down to the Praetorian prefect of the time, a guy called Namfidius Sabinus, who also calls him Papaya and treats him as his wife.
26:46 Kate Lister? What the fuck is going on? What is happening in ancient Rome?
26:50 Speaker 05 And then when Namfidius Sabinus dies, he goes to Otho. Now, bear in mind, Otho used to be married to Papaya. He also takes Sporus in, calls him Papaya, claims him as his wife.
27:02 Kate Lister? What's on earth?
27:04 Speaker 05 And then when Otho dies, Sporus passes down to Vitellius, who doesn't treat him as a wife. Instead, he tries to get Sporus to perform on stage in a play about the rape of Persephone. And Sporus won't do it. He doesn't want the humiliation. He can't bear it anymore.
27:19 Kate Lister? Oh my God. Do we know what happened to him?
27:21 Speaker 05 No, he committed suicide rather than performing that play. That was, that was the straw that broke the eunuch's back.
27:28 Kate Lister? Oh my God, what? Do you think that's true? I know, I know. The sources are all like-
27:33 Speaker 05 You know, I kind of weirdly do. I kind of weirdly do. I think Nero probably did have this guy castrated and paraded around, but I don't really know why. It's either gonna be, I can do what I want to everybody because I'm the emperor, or it's some really sick joke, like calling him seed, even though he's cut his balls off. Or it's something kind of a bit Greek that we don't understand. It's like a satanalia inversion of roles.
28:00 Kate Lister? Always had some kind of psychotic breakdown.
28:03 Speaker 05 Could be. Yeah. Also this. I mean, that's kind of madness is probably the best explanation here. It's just he's grieving her so much. He just wants this guy to replace her.
28:13 Kate Lister? Sure. There's some things that get said on this show that just even catch me out unaware. And that's got to be- One of them. I don't even know what you do with that. Can't marry him? Or did he actually marry him? Was that like a legal marriage?
28:26 Speaker 05 Not legal because it's not between a man and a woman. It's between a mock man and a man. But it's with all the fanfare of marriage, but this was done over in Greece. In Rome, he marries, we're told, another guy called, well, this is, this is where it gets difficult because the sources can't even agree this guy's name. He might be called Pythagoras. He might be called Doriophorus.
28:46 Kate Lister? Okay, all right. So Nero likes the boys. Well, likes is a strong word. He seems to be attracted to the boys.
28:53 Speaker 05 Yeah. With Pythagoras, he plays the passive role. We're told that they get married.
28:58 Kate Lister? They didn't like that.
28:59 Speaker 05 No, not at all.
29:00 Kate Lister? No. Again, is that because a lot of these sources, they were written after the fact and they're all about like demonising the emperor as much as possible because he's dead now and no one cares. I don't know. That sounds like a very like pointed attack on his masculinity. I don't, I mean, like we've got a lot to work with, haven't we? I'm not sure they needed to go that far, but.
29:21 Speaker 05 I agree with you. Yeah, I think the, the whole Pythagoras, Doriophorus thing is a, it's a complete mystery. I mean, Sporus too, and it's weird to kind of believe one and not the other, but.
29:29 Kate Lister? Yeah, that's true. Like you're gonna believe.
29:31 Speaker 05 Confused here.
29:32 Kate Lister? If you believe one awful story, why not not believe them all? Maybe. Does he marry any more women? Do you have any more wives?
29:38 Speaker 05 He does. His third and final wife is the much-married Statilia Messalina. He's had plenty of husbands before. She's kind of like a Jane Seymour-esque figure. She survives him and then just disappears from history with loads of money.
29:49 Kate Lister? Could you even imagine like getting the offer of marriage from Nero? Like after everything that's happened, you'd just be like, no, I'm all right. Actually, I'm fine. Thank you for, for asking.
30:06 Kate Lister? I'll be back with Alex and Nero after the break.
30:23 Speaker 06 Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt, and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows, or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. There are new episodes every week.
31:17 Kate Lister? What do we know about his sex life? Because we do need to talk about, well, we've touched on it already quite extensively, but apart from castrating people and kicking women to death, do we have any more information that might help us ascertain whether or not he was a fuckboy? I think we've done it, to be honest.
31:36 Speaker 05 Yeah, he kind of redefines the paradigm, doesn't he? I think with Nero, he kind of does sex to shock, as much as he does it to enjoy himself. I see him as a bit of a Bonnie Blue-esque figure.
31:47 Kate Lister? Oh, that's interesting. Okay.
31:49 Speaker 05 So, we know a few things. We're told that he had an instructor of lust, Magistrat Libinidum, called Calvia Crispinala, who was his kind of sex teacher when he was quite young.
32:01 Kate Lister? How weird.
32:02 Speaker 05 Yeah, it's really odd that. We're told he was into one particular game. Well, we're told that he basically tried a bit of everything. And when he basically couldn't get excited, when he considered everything to be vanilla, and he couldn't get excited anymore, he devised one particular game with Pythagoras, which involved him dressing up in the pelt of a wild animal and being released from a cage.
32:26 Kate Lister? Okay.
32:27 Speaker 05 And he would, dressed in this wild animal pelt, he would attack the genitals of people who had been tied to stakes, and then he would retire to the bedroom to be run through by Pythagoras.
32:40 Kate Lister? Wow. I mean, you know, I'm all for role playing kink, but I think that's, that's a stretch too far, that one, isn't it?
32:47 Speaker 05 It's a bit much, isn't it?
32:48 Kate Lister? It's a bit much. It's a bit strong, that one, Nero. If we could just take it down a notch, that would be marvelous. All right. Okay. So he's, he's doing that. Is he interested in women, do you think? Or is he sort of one, does he sort of marry women because he has to? Does he have other women lovers?
33:03 Speaker 05 I think he's probably interested in both in that typical male way, but it's all very much based on power and being able to do what he wants with people. He's not like Caligula. There's no evidence of him stealing senators' wives from dinner parties and going and having his way with them and bringing them back to the table to comment on their performance.
33:24 Kate Lister? The bar is low, but good. Okay.
33:26 Speaker 05 Yeah, he doesn't do that. It seems that he's a lot more calculated in everything he does. And again, a lot of this has probably been completely taken out of context and refracted through the prism of our sources. Like the whole people tied to stakes thing, to me, that sounds a lot like public execution. So it could also be that he's on stage, he's involved in this somehow as an actor.
33:47 Kate Lister? That's an awful lot of planning for bedroom antics, isn't it? Like-
33:50 Speaker 05 But he's got the builders.
33:52 Kate Lister? He does have the builders. He does. And if anyone could do it, it would, it would be him. What a way to go out, involved in someone, someone else's awful kink play.
34:01 Speaker 05 Oh, yeah.
34:02 Kate Lister? And one thing that I do know about him is that he thought he was a brilliant musician. And that might, you know, as if, as if everything else wasn't awful enough. And, and quite frankly, it should be. But he would be that guy who went to a house party and then got out a guitar and started singing.
34:17 Speaker 05 Yeah, wonderful. Some terrible cover of it.
34:19 Kate Lister? Yeah.
34:20 Speaker 05 Yeah, he's really into performing. I mean, kind of the tragedy of Nero really is that he was an emperor and he was supposed to be doing military and administrative stuff, whereas- He wasn't, and he didn't want to do it. All he wanted to do was to sing, to play the lyre, to race chariots, later in his life to wrestle. If reality TV had been around in the ancient world, Nero would have been on all of it. He loved popularity. He'd be on Love is Blind, Strictly.
34:49 Kate Lister? And I bet everyone would hate him then as well. Like, he'd be one of those, like, just, just fame hungry cretins who you just can't get off the telly. He wasn't good at playing music though, was he?
34:59 Speaker 05 We don't know. Conflicting sources. I mean, Suetonius says that his voice was thin and husky, but I think Cassius Dio says that he had quite a honey sweet melodious voice. He hired the best lyre player of the age, a guy called Terpens, to teach him. I think he was probably quite talented at most of the things he did, just not ruling the empire.
35:21 Kate Lister? No shit at that. Absolutely awful. And relationships, dreadful.
35:25 Speaker 05 And relationships.
35:26 Kate Lister? As well. Did he fiddle while Rome burned? That's the question.
35:31 Speaker 05 No, definitely not. Because the fiddle had not been invented. That's the
35:36 Kate Lister? Well, that'll do it then.
35:37 Speaker 05 That's the big one. But also, I mean, so the great fire of Rome in 64 burns like two thirds of the city to the ground, rages for seven days. There are rumours that Nero was complicit, and Nero doesn't help himself by building the Domus Aurea, a giant golden palace to himself, in a big area that was laid waste by the fire.
35:57 Kate Lister? So a fire breaks out, it wastes Rome, and rather than rebuild the homes for his citizens, he builds a giant golden palace for himself?
36:05 Speaker 05 Yeah, a little bit, yeah. I mean,
36:08 Kate Lister? Oh dear.
36:08 Speaker 05 Yeah, it's got a lake, it's got a nice little kind of woodland area. If I, I'm trying to come to his defence a little bit here, there's nothing to suggest it's entirely private. It could be like Mar-a-Lago with a day pass. It could be like,
36:21 Kate Lister? Oh nice, right, okay. I'm sure that helped everybody.
36:25 Speaker 05 Go and watch the emperor.
36:27 Kate Lister? You're gonna go and watch the emperor live in a house you could never afford. Wait, go and wa- watch him live in a house where yours used to be.
36:35 Speaker 05 He also does rebuild the city and he rebuilds it in a really smart way. He's got the builders. He makes sure it's pretty much fireproof. And actually, kind of, we don't see anything of Rome today, nowadays, that doesn't predate Nero. Because everything was burnt down and he, he sort of restructured the city.
36:52 Kate Lister? Okay, okay. So he's, he's, he's a visionary, if nothing else. This is another point to his detriment though. So like, all right, so good at architecture and possibly playing the guitar. He was the one that burnt Christians to death though, wasn't he?
37:06 Speaker 05 He did. So he blames them for starting the fire.
37:10 Kate Lister? Easy peasy, jobs are good and why not?
37:12 Speaker 05 There are lots of rumours swirling that he was behind it, that Nero was behind it. And there are rumours swirling that he was playing the lyre while Rome burned or singing a song about the fall of Troy. In reality, he probably, he was going around for several days, leading the relief efforts. But he probably did make some Homeric quip. And then this was taken out of context to be like, ah, he was singing. But he blames the Christians, who were a very fringe group at the time. I mean, Christianity's like 60 years old or so. So it'd be like blaming Harid Krishna or something. Quite a weird choice when there are so many other scapegoats, but he scapegoats them. And then he goes a bit too far. So he has them crucified and burnt alive in his gardens in the Vatican. And he parades around, dressed as a charioteer among his people.
37:54 Kate Lister? I would say that's too far. Yes, I think a line's been crossed there.
37:58 Speaker 05 Although that is the traditional execution for arsonists. So he didn't technically go beyond what was legally expected.
38:04 Kate Lister? They're awful. They're just awful people.
38:08 Speaker 05 Yeah, they were horrific.
38:09 Kate Lister? Right. So he's doing that. You've got to tell me how this all ends for him. So he, he gets married again to Messalina, but not the really naughty one, a different one. How does he meet his end? Painfully, I hope.
38:23 Speaker 05 It is pretty painfully and it's at his own hand. So he spends the last couple of his years just away on tour. He spends quite a lot of time in Greece at the Olympics, picking up various crowns for charioteering, singing heraldry, doing everything apart from what an emperor should do. And kind of people around the empire, the legates, and those in charge of the legions realise this is unsustainable.
38:46 Kate Lister? So this, this is like having a prime minister or a president, but instead of actually doing the job, they send themselves on a tour of their own music around the country.
38:55 Speaker 05 Yeah, it's that kind of scenario. So there's a revolt. A guy called Julius Vindex, who we are told had a love of freedom, whatever that means, leads a revolt against him in Gaul, modern day France. Nero is initially more annoyed that Vindex has slighted his ability as an artist than his-
39:13 Kate Lister? Focus Nero, focus!
39:16 Speaker 05 He kind of prevaricates for a couple of days. Eventually he summons the Senate for a meeting, but he goes off topic and he starts talking about a innovative way of playing the water organ that he's just-
39:26 Kate Lister? Jesus Christ. He's got to go, he's gotta go. This is ridiculous.
39:30 Speaker 05 By this stage, yeah, no support is draining away. And then Nero finds out that other legions have rebelled, including a guy called Galba, a future emperor over in Spain. Upon hearing this, Nero faints. It's all very dramatic. So he kind of momentarily passes out and can't speak. Comes to his senses, retires to the palace, and then summons the Senate again, and he comes up with a plan. So his plan, genius plan, is that he's going to assemble a procession of prostitutes with their heads shaved to look like Amazon warriors. He's going to march to the revolting legions and he's going to present himself in front of them and weep. And the legionaries, seeing their emperor in such a plight, will also weep.
40:13 Kate Lister? Imagine being there, listening to him explain his plan, like you've all gathered for what could be the most important speech of this lunatic's life, like literally his last chance of what he's going to do to fix it all. And it starts with, I'm gonna get a load of hookers and shave their heads.
40:30 Speaker 05 He's redefining the narrative of what it means to go on campaign, I guess.
40:33 Kate Lister? Wow. So was any, was anybody there in the forum like, yes, this is exactly what we need? Well done.
40:40 Speaker 05 I like to imagine there was at least one guy.
40:42 Kate Lister? One, one lunatic, one other sycophant.
40:46 Speaker 05 Yes, my liege.
40:47 Kate Lister? All right. So they didn't go for this plan then, I assume.
40:49 Speaker 05 They didn't go for this plan.
40:50 Kate Lister? People looking at one another going, what on earth?
40:53 Speaker 05 Yeah, this is the final straw. So the Senate convene, they declare him an enemy of the people and support drains away. Overnight Nero wakes up in the middle of the night to find everybody abandoning him, apart from Sporus, Actae and a few other freedmen. I think even Statilia Messalina's buggered off by this.
41:10 Kate Lister? Yeah, you would do. Yeah. Once you'd heard that plan, yeah, you'd be long gone.
41:13 Speaker 05 You're gonna take who?
41:16 Kate Lister? I think, I think just, just get my bags ready, please. Just start the car. We're about to go.
41:20 Speaker 05 So he finds, he finds himself abandoned in the middle, in the middle of the night. He resolves to leave the city. He makes his way out of the city to a freedman's villa where he takes refuge because there are all of these like passing Praetorians who are looking for him as he's been declared an enemy. And therefore anybody can basically kill him and bring his head back to the Forum. And yeah, essentially he takes shelter in this freedman's villa. He asks one of his slaves to show him how to kill himself. The slave says, no, not going to do that. And then Nero kind of goes on a bit of a long winded speech about what a great artist or builder the world is losing.
42:00 Speaker 05 The Latin, he says, quis artefex perio. And artefex has often been translated as what an artist the world is losing. But it also kind of means builder. Maybe he's referring to his.
42:10 Kate Lister? His landscaping skills.
42:11 Speaker 05 His landscaping. And eventually he kind of plucks up the courage to stab himself in the throat. Sporus is there kind of wailing, but presumably stops wailing the moment the knife goes in. And then a couple of Praetorians turn up and Nero turns to them and goes, you're late. What loyalty? And then dies.
42:29 Kate Lister? Oh, well, good. Actually, no, it should have happened earlier, quite frankly. What an awful person. Was, was everyone happy that he'd gone then?
42:37 Speaker 05 Not really.
42:38 Kate Lister? Oh, interesting.
42:39 Speaker 05 We're told that the people put on, the Romans love doing this when a tyrant dies. They put on little liberty hats, caps, and they run around like throwing their hats up in the air and going freedom like little Smurfs. We're also told that quite a few people mourn him. Weirdly, we have this phenomenon of false Neros that keep cropping up all throughout the Roman Empire for the next few decades. And then Nero appears in kind of Christian thought and medieval thought as kind of this Antichrist type figure. Or this figure who will fight the Antichrist.
43:11 Speaker 05 Yeah, given his, given his CV.
43:13 Kate Lister? Yeah, fair.
43:13 Speaker 05 Hardly surprising. And so it does seem like there was a lot to be gained from pretending you were Nero. And I guess all you had to be was a redhead who could play kind of Wonderwall on The Liar. Who would be.
43:23 Kate Lister? Oh, there's loads of them. Ten a penny, them are redheads who play mournful songs on the guitar. Loads.
43:30 Speaker 05 Turns up at the house party with the acoustic and just serenades everyone and tries to lead to rebellion.
43:34 Kate Lister? Right, we've got to round this up, Alex. Here we go. Right, so on his rap sheet, he has murdered his first wife, Octavia. Not nice. Also kick to death Pompeia Sabina. Very not nice. Murdered his mother after a weird boat plan went awry. Definitely not very nice. Then we've got the castration of that poor lad who looks a bit like his second wife and parading him around. Right? Then we've got Pythagoras nonsense. Then we've got this weird kink that he's got where he wants to dress up as, as an animal and mole people's genitals.
44:16 Kate Lister? I mean, who, who hasn't? But that's what he wants to do. Then we've got the persecution of the Christians. And on top of all of that awfulness, just being a really shit emperor.
44:28 Speaker 05 Yeah. And that's just what we can fit into an hour.
44:30 Kate Lister? Yeah. Do, do we think that Nero can be classified as a fuckboy?
44:40 Speaker 05 I think I'll go back to what I said at the beginning. I think he, he redefines the term of what it means to be a fuckboy. Cause he's, he's doing it with men, women, eunuchs, mothers.
44:49 Kate Lister? I think we might have to say no for this one. Not because we're gonna let him off the hook or because he was quite nice, but because he's so awful, he's a rung below whatever a fuckboy actually is. That's how bad he actually is.
45:03 Speaker 05 Yeah, he doesn't deserve to be on the list.
45:05 Kate Lister? He doesn't deserve. He sullies the name of fuckboy, quite frankly.
45:12 Kate Lister? If all he was was a fuckboy, I think we'd have all been let off quite lightly. So I, I don't think that he is. I don't even know what the word is for him, but he's not that.
45:21 Speaker 05 Um, no, just like a pioneer of awfulness.
45:24 Kate Lister? A pioneer of awfulness. There we go. So Nero, not a fuckboy, but not for positive reasons. Alexander, you have been horrendous to listen to, quite frankly, but it's been a lot of fun. And if people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you?
45:41 Speaker 05 I hope the best place to start would be my website, alexandermeddings.com, where I organise private tours around Rome, or appiahwithalex.com, where I specialise on the Appian way.
45:52 Kate Lister? Thank you so much for coming to tell us all about this genuinely horrific historical person. It has been marvellous.
45:59 Speaker 05 Thank you so much for having me.
46:06 Kate Lister? Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Alex for joining me. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like, review and follow along wherever it is you get your podcasts. Coming up, we have got an episode on history's naughtiest pope and the final instalment of this series of the historical fuckboys, rah rah Rasputin. Ha ha. But if you would like us to explore a subject, or maybe if you just wanted to say hi, then you can email us at [email protected] . This podcast was edited by Tom Delargy and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again, Betwixt the Sheets, The History of Sex, Scandal and Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Apodamic Sound.
Previous Queer Georgians Next Who Was The Naughtiest Pope In History? Page updated November 1, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated