Professor Mary Beard
speaker
662 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Jan 2026
last heard 1 May
Professor Mary Beard’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.
Appearances
He divorced her, sent her into exile, and then had her killed.
And it is then said that her head was sent to Nero's new lover, right?
You know, this is about as horrible... I mean, the story is horrible, whatever the truth.
I'm afraid what happens next to the new woman, a woman called Papaya, right, is not much better, honestly, because she's supposed to be a beauty.
Nero nicked from her previous husband.
She does get pregnant.
He's wanting an heir.
And it's when she gets pregnant that he finally divorces Octavia.
Nero and Papaya have a daughter, but she soon dies.
She's made a god very quickly, but she dies.
Papaya gets pregnant again.
And then in what is kind of one of Rome's also horriblest bits of domestic violence, if it's true, he comes back after an evening out and he hits her in the stomach while she's pregnant and she dies.
It's truly, you know, Roman history is full of stuff like this.
The classic kind of remorse come hypocrisy line.
And he says he's so upset he wants to keep her, so he has her embalmed, not cremated.
And then he conveniently gets remarried.
Yeah.
To a third wife, Messalina?
Yes, Tertullia Messalina.
Did Messalina survive, or...?
Showing 501–520 of 662 · page 26 of 34
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