Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Pseudo-Neros

Starting point is 00:00:00 In the first century, Rome underwent a major political transition when the emperor Nero died after being declared an enemy of Rome by the Senate. With his death, the Giulio-Claudean dynasty came to an end, ushering in a period known as the year of the four emperors. But for the common people, many of them simply didn't believe that Nero was dead. In fact, many of them thought that he would one day return. Learn more about the Nero-Redavivas phenomenon, pseudo-Nero's, and how the death of Nero was felt for centuries, On this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Did you ever hear about the selfie that solved a murder or the jury that used a Ouija board to speak to a victim? If that made you pause, you need to listen to Morning Cup of Murder.

Starting point is 00:00:54 I'm Karina B. Minas Durfer, and every single day on Morning Cup of Murder, I tell one chilling true crime story tied to that exact day in history. With over 2,500 episodes to binge, you'll never run out of dark stories to start your morning with. Go listen to Morning Cup of Murder wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, stay safe. The Emperor Nero has earned a bad reputation over the last 2,000 years. And in my opinion, it's well deserved. He killed his mother. He kicked his wife to death with his unborn child.

Starting point is 00:01:29 He killed many senators, persecuted Christians, and generally behaved in a very unemperor-like way. For the elite in Rome, they eventually had enough and turned on him, which resulted in him committing suicide while he was on the run. However, for the average Roman, they probably didn't even know about most of this, or they really didn't care. Generally speaking, Nero was well liked by the lower class Romans. His decision to construct his massive Domus-Orius Palace after Rome's great fire didn't go over well, but beyond that, most Romans didn't have a problem with Nero. This was especially true as you got outside of Rome and

Starting point is 00:02:07 didn't have to deal with the fire in its aftermath. Nero had invested heavily in a kind of mass politics that created emotional loyalty. He staged spectacles, sang and race before crowds, and made himself visible not only as a ruler, but as a performer. His performing as an artist was the very thing that the Roman elite abhorred, but the ordinary people loved it. Many ordinary plebs experienced him as the emperor who fed and entertained them, who kept grain moving, capped prices and emergencies, and even opened the Imperial Garden for fire victims. In Greece, he toured the festivals and proclaimed the freedom of the Helene's remitted taxes and scattered favors that created a perception of generosity. Sure, he entered the Olympics and won every event, but no other

Starting point is 00:02:55 emperor had taken the time to visit Greece. Even if the elites mocked all of his axes just vanity, they were still well received by the general populace. When Nero died, no one alive could recall the Roman Republic anymore. They had become accustomed to the pomp and pageantry that was the empire. With respect to Nero, his death was unlike that of all of his predecessors. He didn't die in Rome. He didn't have a state funeral. His ashes weren't interred in the mausoleum of Augustus. Even Caligula, who was assassinated by his own guards and was no paragon of Roman virtue,

Starting point is 00:03:32 was accorded this honor. After Nero's death, what began spreading almost immediately amongst the common people was what became known as Nero Reddy Vivas. Nero RediVivas was the idea that Emperor Nero didn't truly perish, but would return from the East to reclaim his power. Now, lest you think that this idea is crazy, consider how many times similar stories have been shared in the modern world. Almost every time a celebrity dies unexpectedly and at a young age, there will eventually be rumors spread about how they're really still alive and that they fake their own death. Elvis, Princess Diana, Tupac Shakur, Biggie Smalls, Jim Morrison, John F. Kennedy, Jr., and others have all had conspiracy theories surrounding their deaths. These rumors typically begin almost immediately after their death, and they all appear to be the same variance of the same story.

Starting point is 00:04:29 The Nero conspiracy was arguably the first of its kind, and it might be the first known modern conspiracy theory in history. The rumor soon fused with prophetic and apocalyptic traditions that already interpreted imperial history through the lens of divine fate. In the years following Nero's death, Jewish Sibboline writers, primarily based in Egypt, portrayed Nero as a persecuting tyrant who had escaped beyond the Euphrates and would return with Eastern allies. Most commonly explained to be the Parthians. The story's attraction was enhanced by the language of astrology and faith that circulated in the ancient world. which allowed soothsayers to place near his expected return under a scheme of a heavenly ordained cycle of loss and recovery.

Starting point is 00:05:14 The early Christian movement inherited the rumor and reshaped it within its own apocalyptic worldview. The Book of Revelation, usually dated to the last decade of the first century, depicts a beast that has received a mortal wound and yet lives. Was, is not, and is to come, and that returns from the abyss to persecute the saints. Many early readers connected this to Nero's reported death and rumored survival. If you remember back to my episode on The Mark of the Beast, Nero played a major part in early interpretations. The number of the beast 666 reinforced this link through numerology.

Starting point is 00:05:52 If one transliterates Neron Caesar into Hebrew letters, the values add up to 666. A well-attested variant of revelations reads the number as 660s. which fits Nero Caesar. In other words, the textbook's notorious number worked like a code that pointed to Nero for audiences who knew both rumor and Hebrew numerals, and it did so with a flexibility that matched manuscript variation. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that with all the rumors of Nero returning, somebody would actually take advantage of it. Impostors came forward claiming to be the return Nero. and they were known as pseudo-Nero's.

Starting point is 00:06:37 The historian Tacitus provides the earliest and most detailed account of the first imposter. In the winter of 68-69, just months after the death of Nero, the Roman provinces of Akaya and Asia, now modern Turkey and Greece, were, quote, terrified by a false rumor of Nero's arrival. A man who was either a slave from Pontus or a freedman from Italy, and who could sing and play the Cathara like Nero, and looked apart, gathered deserters and took to sea appealing to soldiers and merchants. A storm drove him to the island of Kithnos, where he tried to recruit troops going home on leave

Starting point is 00:07:12 and armed slaves captured from merchantmen. This all took place during the reign of Galba, the first emperor after Nero during the year of the four emperors. Galba's appointee, Calpurnius Asperanus reached the island with two tri-marines, tricked the pretenders emissaries, stormed their ship, and had the imposter killed. The body of the imposter, Tacitus says, was striking for its eyes, hair, and grim expression, and it was later displayed in Asia and then in Rome to quash the rumor that Nero had returned. While this was the first such Nero imposter, and it was handled rather easily, it would not be the last. The second major imposter surfaced during the short reign of Titus about ten years later.

Starting point is 00:07:55 The Roman historian Cassius Dio named him Tarentius Maximus, an Asiatic who resembled Nero, played the liar and gathered followers as he moved towards the Euphrates. He crossed into Parthia seeking help, claiming Rome owed him for the settlement of Armenia under Nero. Dio reports that the Parthian leader, Artabanus, received him and even prepared to restore him to power in Rome, before the deception was exposed and the pretender was executed. Later scholarship has linked this episode to a brief Parthian civil conflict and to coins bearing the name of Artabanus who ruled around 80 to 81, which, helps explain how a Parthian ruler could support the imposter,

Starting point is 00:08:35 while Pecoris II also held power in Parthia. The story illustrates how geopolitical rivalry on Rome's eastern frontier, combined with Nero's earlier diplomacy in Armenia, created the opportunity where a Nero could be beneficial to another country. A third imposter appeared roughly two decades after Nero's death during Domitian's reign. The historian Soutonius reports that a man of obscure origin announced himself as Nero, and won such favor among the Parthians that they supported him vigorously. However, they eventually surrendered him to Rome, albeit with great reluctance.

Starting point is 00:09:11 Soutonius notes that the memory of Nero's name still held such sway with the Parthians that they were willing to strain relations with Rome over a pretender. The episode almost provoked a war before the claimant was eventually handed over. Details are sparse, but Soutonius is dating and his emphasis on Parthian reluctance underscores how long Nero's shadow fell across the eastern frontier. Around the same time, some Roman and Christian authors began to speak of Domitian himself as a kind of Nero come again, not literally resurrected, but morally reanimated in a new tyrant. This moral use of the legend let the idea survive even when literal pretenders were absent.

Starting point is 00:09:55 The rumor that Nero lives somewhere in concealment became a common saying in Christian circles. and writers even mentioned people who still expected his reappearance as part of the last trials of history. From the second through the fourth centuries, the legend hardened into Christian eschatology. Commentators on revelations may have debated the meaning of what 666 meant, but they always kept Nero in view. Latin poets such as Commodian and Christians such as Victorinus pictured a final tyrant that was in the mold of Nero, while chroniclers like Salkyia Severus and theologians like Augustine reported that many people still believe Nero had not actually died and would emerge at the proper time as the great enemy. The old geological themes also persisted since the East, and especially the lands

Starting point is 00:10:44 beyond the Euphrates, remained the imagined place of hiding and the source of the last invasion. Even when the authors rejected a literal return, they used Nero's name as a cipher for the persecuting state in its final demonic phase, which kept the association alive across multiple generations. Medieval Christians continued to mention Nero in preaching and commentary. The figure of a tyrant who once ruled, seemed to fall, and would return to deceive the world, proved durable because it served several needs at once. Nero gave a concrete name to the abstract imagery of revelation, explaining why evil rulers kept appearing by casting them as Nero's second coming in spirit, and it kept alive the hope that the final crisis had a recognizable face.

Starting point is 00:11:31 The legend also speaks to a familiar human reflex in times of upheaval, the belief that a charismatic ruler cannot truly be gone and will return to redress grievances or wreak vengeance. And that's why it found an audience among both those who admired Nero and those who feared him. While the name and legend of Nero endured for centuries, the pseudo-Nero phenomenon eventually faded away as the Flavian dynasty consolidated its power, and the memory of Nero's actual reign grew dimmer. By the time of Trajan's reign in the early second century, no more significant pseudo-Neros

Starting point is 00:12:05 appeared. The phenomenon had run its course, but it left an important legacy in demonstrating how imperial legends could transcend the death of an individual emperor. The Nero-Redavis legend and the case of Pseudo-Neros was a very odd one in history. Some took the legend quite literally, believing that Nero would return in the flesh while others interpreted it as just a metaphor. Some thought that Nero's return would be a good thing bringing peace and prosperity to the empire, while others were terrified at the prospect. Part of the early rumors were steeped in pagan mysticism, yet the legend was also co-opted by Christians when it benefited them. When the Senate and Roman elites rose up against Nero, they could never have guessed that removing

Starting point is 00:12:49 him from power would establish a legend that would last. for centuries. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible. And I also want to remind everyone about the community groups on Facebook and Discord. That's where everything happens that's outside the podcast.

Starting point is 00:13:17 And links to those are available in the show notes. As always, if you leave a review on any major podcast app or in the above community groups, you two can have it read in the show.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Pseudo-Neros

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