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Chapter 1: Who were the guests discussing Emperor Nero?
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Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are flouncing back to the first century and fiddling while Rome burns as we learn all about Emperor Nero.
And to help us tell apart our Julio Claudians from our Flavians, we have two very special guests in History Corner. She is a renowned classicist, author and broadcaster. Maybe you've read one of her best-selling books, including SBQR, Pompeii, The Life of a Roman Town, Twelve Caesars, Women in Power, or her most recent, Emperor of Rome.
You'll know her from all kinds of BBC TV programmes, including Pompeii, New Secrets Revealed, and she's the co-host of the acclaimed Instant Classics podcast. It's only Professor Mary Beard. Welcome, Mary!
Well, it's great to be here and be with both of you and even in the company of the Improneero. We'll see about that.
We'll see how we feel about him later. And in Comedy Corner, he's an Emmy and Grammy award-winning comedian and actor.
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Chapter 2: What are the origins of Emperor Nero's notorious reputation?
He's appeared in many of my absolute favourite sitcoms, including A.P. Bio, Bojack Horseman, Veep. He starred in films including Ratatouille, Ghostbusters Frozen Empire, and Secret Life of Pets 2. Or you've caught him on the celebrity edition of the American Great British Baking Show. I think it's called. I'm not quite sure of the title, but he's a culinary master.
And you'll definitely remember him from our episode on the American War of Independence, making a triumphant return. It's Patton Oswalt. Welcome back, Patton.
Thank you so much for having me back. I can't wait to talk about Nero. I've seen all the Matrix films. He's one of my favorite movie characters.
Ah, okay.
Chapter 3: How did Seneca influence Nero's early life?
Right. Nero. Hang on.
I don't have a spell check on my phone. That might explain a lot.
Okay. Sorry. That's all right. Last time out, we did the American War of Independence, and you knew quite a lot.
I actually did.
I mean, you know.
I was surprised. I didn't know I knew so much.
I wasn't surprised because you're a learned man, but we're now into ancient history, ancient Roman history. How comfortable are you in the ancient Roman world?
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Chapter 4: What were some of Nero's most infamous actions as emperor?
Not at all. Literally and figuratively, I'm not comfortable in that world.
Okay. Do you know the name Emperor Nero?
I know the name Emperor Nero, and for some reason, I just picture him looking like Dom DeLuise, but that's just because of the Mel Brooks film.
Yeah. That's fine. I don't mind that. So, what do you know? Well, that brings us to the first segment of the podcast. This is the So What Do You Know? It's where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, will know about today's subject. And you might know Emperor Nero as a bit of a naughty emperor.
In pop culture, he's in books, he's been in plays, he's been played by a lot of famous actors on screen, from Peter Ustinov in Quo Vadis, Christopher Biggins in I, Claudius, to Craig Roberts as the big baddie in the Horrible Histories kids' movie that I worked on. Eric Banner has even played a version of him, the evil Romulan, Romulan,
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Chapter 5: How did Nero's personal relationships impact his rule?
Nero in the Star Trek film 2009.
Wait a minute, was that character supposed to be based on Nero?
He's a Romulan.
Oh, a Romulan.
I'm going to go. Is my car waiting downstairs? We've lost Patton already. But do Hollywood depictions get it right? What does Nero's roguish reputation tell us about Rome? And why were Romans faking their deaths at the theatre? Were the plays really that bad? Let's find out. Right. Professor Mary, Nero was born nearly 2,000 years ago. So this is a properly old story.
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Chapter 6: What was the significance of the Great Fire of Rome during Nero's reign?
And the first thing I have to ask is, what are our sources here? Do we have trustworthy sources?
Well, there's quite a lot of sources around Nero. So there's loads of poetry we have, which is dedicated to him. There's even a kind of little essay on how to be a good emperor. It was written by his tutor and it was called On Mercy. So perhaps he didn't take the lesson quite hard enough.
Where the thinner pickings are found is if you're looking for a standard ancient account of Nero A to Z, right? The life, the reign. We've got some. They agree on one thing, that he wasn't a good thing, right? They are quite, we call euphemistically, they're a bit hostile. The reviews are in. The reviews are in and they are not good ones.
Okay, Patton, how do you imagine the city of Rome, ancient Rome, in the time that Nero was born?
Chapter 7: How did Boudica's rebellion relate to Nero's rule?
In your head, what are you imagining in terms of the architecture and the scale?
Well, OK, I do know enough to know that the Roman city of all white columns and white buildings is actually false because it was actually very brightly painted. And it was that paint that, of course, chipped off over the centuries. And that's where we have the white ruins.
But it was actually a very colorful metropolis with kind of their version of Times Square signage everywhere and graffiti and all of that. Am I right in thinking that?
Not far wrong.
OK.
It's not the Rome of the holiday trip to Italy, is it? It's kind of like there's no Colosseum yet? No.
I mean, it's the centre of this vast empire. It's a million inhabitants, probably. It's the biggest city in the West until Victorian London. So early 19th century London.
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Chapter 8: What were Nero's last moments and legacy?
But there are some bits that we might expect to see that we don't see. The Colosseum is one obvious case. You go to Rome now and, you know, OK, it's in the middle of a roundabout, but it's really, really impressive. Now, the Colosseum was built after Nero's reign by the next dynasty. But interestingly...
Its name preserves a little memory of Nero because it was erected very close to the site of a colossus, a colossal statue of Nero, 30-something metres tall, it is said. And that's what gave this amphitheatre its name. It was near Nero's Colossus.
What we tend to forget, I mean, you were partly right, Patton, you know, that this is actually bright and there's graffiti everywhere and it probably stinks, absolutely stinks, right? But it is not always great monuments, no matter what colour they were. So it's a mixture of vast display buildings put up, often bankrolled by emperors, and terrible slums.
In the middle, like abutting each other almost?
Yeah. What's interesting is I think in modern cities, certainly in British modern cities, we're used to a kind of zoning in city architecture. We think there's the rich part, you know, and there's the poor part. And, you know, there's almost unseen boundaries between these two different things. Levels of the city.
What's really striking in Rome is there's a bit of that, but the slums are right there next to the grand staff. You can walk past the great Capitoline Hill and at the bottom there's a slum tenement. that you can still look at.
OK, so Nero's childhood. Let's get to the actual guy we're talking about. He's not called Nero at birth. That's not his name. What was he called? When was he born? What's his childhood like?
Well, he's in a dysfunctional family, I think would be our way of putting it. He's born in 37 CE, and his name is actually then Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, which means bronze beard, right?
He had a bronze beard when he was a baby?
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