The Ancients - Nero: Taking to the Stage

Episode Date: June 10, 2021

In popular culture, Nero is thought of as the Emperor who played the fiddle as Rome burned to the ground. Whilst this might not be strictly factual, it does hint towards another side of this infamous character. For this episode, Dr Shushma Malik returns to The Ancients to discuss Nero's interest and talents in the arts: in poetry, on stage and playing the kithara. Shushma shares the evidence provided by Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio to explore how commonplace these hobbies were, how Nero's performances were received and whether they can give us a deeper understanding of Nero's matricidal behaviour. Shushma is a lecturer at the University of Roehampton and the author of, 'The Nero-Antichrist: Founding and Fashioning a Paradigm'.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like The Ancients ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. And in today's podcast, well, early June is always an interesting time for deaths in ancient Mediterranean history.

For instance, on the 8th of June is the traditional date for the death of the Roman Emperor Macrinus in the early 3rd century AD. Now the 10th or more likely the 11th of June is the traditional date for the death of Alexander the Great. But on the 9th of June this is the day when apparently you had the death of the Emperor Nero's first wife Octavia and also the suicide of the Emperor Nero himself in 68 AD. And Nero he's quite a popular figure at the moment, shall we say, with the opening of the new exhibition at the British Museum. And so in today's podcast, we're going to be focusing in on a particular infamous or famous aspect of Nero, and that is Nero as a performer, Nero taking to the stage, Nero as an artist, Nero's theatricality. Now joining me to talk through this topic, I was delighted to get back on the show, Dr. Shushma Malik. Shushma's been on the podcast once before to talk about the links

between Nero and the figure of the Antichrist, how this link was established by early Christian writers. She is a Nero expert. So without further ado here's Shushma. Shushma it's wonderful to have you back on the podcast. It's great to be here. Thank you for having me. No problem at all. Nero the artist, Nero's theatricality. I mean, Shushma, this is one of the most common aspects, tropes that we associate with Nero. It's been passed down through generations of Nero being this theatrical, this artistic figure. Yeah, it's a really interesting part of his biography, I think,

because there's a lot that we know about Nero that is very shocking. The accusations of murder, the persecution, all of these things that come through our sources are there and we still, you know, balk at those ideas. The idea of particularly murdering members of his family. But another big criticism of him, of course, by the same people who talk about those things, is that he wanted to perform on stage and in fact did perform on stage, that he from a very early age was interested in singing, in writing poetry, in playing the kithara, that he was actually fairly

good, possibly, at these things, that he pursued typically Greek interests in lots of different parts of his life. And that, for us, might seem like not such a big problem, because we come from a world of Ronald Reagan as a president, for example. And of course, you could see perhaps some performativity parallels with Donald Trump as well. But certainly, we wouldn't criticise someone for being an actor and then wanting to go into politics, or vice versa, in fact, you know, of course, Arnold Schwarzenegger perhaps being a good example there. But in our ancient sources, in the Roman mindset, that is much more of a problem. Absolutely. I love those modern comparisons that you brought up there. Interesting,

they're all those American figures. But these main sources that you mentioned that criticise Nero being this artist, this theatrical stance that he has. I mean, what are these three main sources? So we have three main narrative history sources for Nero's reign. They come from a little bit after he died. Two of them come from about a generation after and the other one another generation on from that. So the two from a generation after are Tacitus's Annals and Suetonius's Lives. So Tacitus was a senator and he wrote several works of history and several works actually. And he also wrote about the Julio-Claudian period after Augustus, and Nero is included in that. Unfortunately, we don't have the end of Tacitus' account from the years sort of 66

to 68, which is unfortunate for our discussion, particularly because that's when Nero is off performing in Greece. But we do have Civitonius and his biography. So his work is is structured differently rather than being a history that goes year by year, like Tacitus wrote, hence the name The Annals. Suetonius wrote a biography of Nero that talks about his qualities, that packages things up in sort of rubrics, things that Nero did, different parts of his character. And then the third source is Cassius Dio, and he's writing in Greek rather than Latin. He was from Bithynia in Roman Asia Minor. He was also a senator under Commodus, in fact, so a later theatrical emperor. And he was writing, again, history in that year

by year structure. And we have the account of Nero's reign from him as well. But it's a bit of a corrupted account. So we generally have to rely on later summaries to try and piece things together. So it can be a little bit difficult. Cassius Dio is a source. But those are the three main sources we use to, in literary terms, to reconstruct Nero's Principet. I mean, Sushma, it's really interesting. And you did mention it earlier, but I think it's something we really need to hammer down on right at the start, that these big three sources, they hated Nero. Yeah, so they were very hostile. I think Cassius Dio hated Nero. And certainly Tacitus and Suetonius are very hostile towards Nero. They do include, you know, bits in their accounts that

sort of balance the sheet sometimes. So Tacitus talks about some of Nero's legislation, for example, very positively that, you know, particularly at the beginning of his reign, he did put through some really good fundamental laws to do with freedmen and other things that were well informed and were timely and that sort of thing. So, Aetoneus has a section at the beginning of his biography, a shortish section, to be fair, where he does list some of the better things that Nero did in his reign. Really, Cassius Dio is the most uniformly hostile, I would say. He is really not a fan of Nero and at all in any circumstance is very unwilling to give him anything. And actually, on this topic of theatricality is so interesting

because a lot of Nero's theatre performances and the fact of his interest in the theatre is tied to Greece. And one of the things that Cassius Dio tries not to do is to make his theatricality Greek. He wants to get away from that idea that Nero loved Greece. We all know Nero was supposed to be this famous Philhellene, you know, Hadrian after him, but Nero first. And in Cassius Dio, actually, I don't think he comes across like that at all. He is stripped of his Greekness at various points in the account. So our sources are very interesting in that way. They are, you know, they are hostile, certainly. One more than the other two, I would say.

All of them are hostile, one more uniformly so. And but Tacitus and Suetonius do talk about some of the better things that Nero does on occasion as well. Well, I mean, Shushma, let's then focus in on this Greek influence. First of all, we're looking really in the background of this because the whole theatre, the idea of the theatre, this building the theatre in ancient Rome, let's say just before the imperial period, before Nero, in the late republican period, because this seems like a time where the theatre, it gains traction, it gains increased importance in Rome. Yes, one of the interesting things about the late republican period going into the imperial

period, so when we have emperors, is that there's a lot of interaction, or our sources talk a lot about the interaction between individual politicians and the people. So ways in which in the Republican context, you can garner votes. So if you want to make sure that you get elected one year, of course, elections happen by the people in popular assemblies. So throwing spectacular games and performances, theatre is very much a part of that. So in big festivals, you'd have chariot races and you'd have gladiatorial matches and you'd have the theatre. So it's part of that same genre, if you like, of public entertainment. part of that same genre, if you like, of public entertainment. And that was very important in the late Republic for gaining popularity and gaining those votes. And interestingly, then in the

imperial period, when we go over to the emperors, Tiberius, our second emperor, gets rid of those popular assembly votes. So magistrates aren't elected in that way anymore. And then we sort of switch. The political aspect of these games stays, but the nature of it changes. And instead, they become a forum for the emperor to be able to interact with the people, but also something that is very, very highly structured. So one of the things that Augustus does is he segregates the seating in amphitheaters and theatres. So who sits where? Senators and then equestrians, and then right at the top, you've got slaves and women, for example. He puts in place legislation that very carefully segregates that. How strongly that was enforced

is another question. But certainly there is that idea of the theatre to some extent taking over from the late republican sort of political a lot of those ideas get transformed into the space of the theatre because that's where the emperor can really get to grips with the people. So that's really interesting so even before Nero in the decades before Nero with this new imperial regime it seems as if the theatre as a place it has gained more political significance in Rome. Yes, absolutely. So yeah, it has become a very political space, the theatre and other venues as well. You know, you could say the same thing about the amphitheatre or similar things about the amphitheatre. And one of the sort of interesting things then becomes how that politics plays out

in this arena where you have the emperor throwing games now instead of the senators. So how is it then that the senators can get involved in these things? And one of the, I think, really convincing arguments that a scholar named Catherine Edwards makes is that actually before Nero, and sorry if I'm jumping the gun a bit, but before Nero, we do have accounts of other aristocrats acting or wanting to perform on stage. And her argument is part of the reason for that is because it gives them a way to interact with the people again, and to some extent subvert that relationship between the emperor, that direct relationship between the emperor and the people, and gives them a role

in that political sphere where they've been largely cut out. I mean, you mentioned aristocrats on the stage right there. It kind of leads right into the next question because it seems, Shishma, from our sources, that that area, that part of society, actually had a disdain for the theatre. Yeah, I think like all societies, when we talk about senators or equestrians,

we use them as shorthand for a particular type of people. Senators are the political elite, equestrians are the business elite, if you like, all very wealthy. The idea that all senators thought the same. I mean, just think, you know, about any political kind of time period, really politics at any time period. It's very difficult to find people who always agree with each other. Part of the point is that they don't, right, that they shouldn't. And the idea that all senators were reacting in the same way is, of course, problematic for all equestrians.

Some younger senators, for example, in Suetonius' account of the life of Tiberius, so again, the emperor after Augustus, he talks about Tiberius coming across this problem that some younger elite men, so senators and equestrians, were shedding their status. They didn't want to have that status anymore. They still had their money, but they didn't want the status attached with it, so that they could go and act on the stage because there was a law saying that they shouldn't do it. So in order to get around that law, to circumvent that law, they got rid of their status. They got rid of their equestrian or senatorial status. And Tiberius cracks down on this. He says, no, that's not good enough.

And he punishes those people anyway. But it's the idea we have a bit of a generational discourse coming in here in some of the sources, particularly that extract where younger, more sort of, you know, carefree, perhaps, people are wanting to get on the stage for whatever reasons. But also, you know, to go back to Catherine Edwards' point, I think it is a really good one that even older senators might have wanted to be on the stage because it was a way of interacting again with people and having a sort of political persona where that had been taken away from them by the principate, by the system of the emperors. Well, it's so interesting, Sushma, if it sounds like there is this difference in opinion among

the aristocrats of how they viewed the theatre and actually performing themselves, being actors on the stage. Do we have any idea, would there be similarly a difference in opinion on how they viewed the other people on the stage, which were the actors? Yes. So this again is a really interesting subject for discussion because, you know, you have the standard narrative line, right? So this is that all of the actors, or a lot of actors anyway, were slaves or non-citizens. So peregrini, free people but non-citizens in Rome and therefore they had a much lower status and they had very few rights. Even those actors who were Roman citizens had fewer rights than normal Roman citizens. The very fact of being an actor meant that, for example, you could be flogged in public.

And that's something Augustus reigns in on a little bit. But there is a sense that being an actor in and of itself, that profession, not only that profession, gladiators as well, being an actor in and of itself, that profession, not only that profession, gladiators as well, that those sorts of professions, even if you did have citizenship, still pushed you down into a lower class, you were more like a slave or a free non-citizen than you were a Roman citizen. So we get this coming through, of course, legislation, that's part of the anxiety of Augustus wanting to have very strict hierarchies, for example, in the arenas and also in the seating, and also the ideas that who elite people should marry and not marry, whether they're allowed on stage, those are things that are all legislated about. So we get that very sort of

prevalent idea through laws and through histories as well. However, on the other side of that, we get emperors, not just emperors, but wealthy people. We can go back into the Republic and look at someone like the dictator Sulla, having relationships with actors, having their favourite actors, giving actors lots of money. Because again, one of the interesting things about that relationship between either these individual charismatic generals back in the Republic or the emperors in the imperial period is that if politics is being performed there, then of course, actors are going to be involved in that in some way. So we certainly get two sides of this. You could have actors who gained a lot of political power or a lot of money,

in fact, could have the ear of the emperor through being, you know, in a relationship with the emperor, even if that's also used as a slur. Although interestingly, with Trajan is one of the best emperors, he is the optimist Princeps, and he has a relationship with an actor. And there it's sort of used as a not as a slur. So Trajan was still wonderful. And even though he had a relationship with an emperor, he can still maintain his proper political power. So it's a mixed picture. It is so interesting how certain types, how certain aspects, how certain themes can be changed from one emperor to another, depending on how they've come down to us in antiquity,

down to the present day. I mean, Sushma, keeping on that, you mentioned that generational divide earlier, which was really, really interesting. And of course, mentioning theatre, let's go on to Nero himself now, because Nero, when he's a young man, when he's growing up, he has a very keen interest, a passion, a love for the theatre, for acting, for singing,

from a very young age. Yes, he does. So we must also remember he is very young when he becomes emperor. He's only 16, about to turn 17. But still, you know, I think in anyone's terms, a young man. But when he is a child, absolutely, his education is, as any sort of elite member of the imperial family's education would be, very focused on these ideas, very focused on these Greek practices, on singing,

on oratory and poetry and sculpture as well. Suetonius says he's not bad at painting and sculpture either, but he decided to go down the singing and musical instrument playing route. And these would have been the sorts of things that young elite men, like I said, would have been trained in. That's not extraordinary. What is extraordinary is that Nero, or more extraordinary, is that Nero doesn't then go on to use the skills for proper politics. So your voice training should be for oratory. Poetry can help you write more effective rhetorical speeches for the Senate, those kinds of things. He uses them and goes ahead and, you know, sings and writes poems and writes all sorts of things, which we don't have, which is such a shame. But we do get, you know, an idea that his creative

output is quite substantial. Suetonius says, actually, he's seen some of them, because some historians accuse Nero of plagiarizing of basically kind of, you know, when he's writing poetry or plagiarizing other people. And Suetonius says, actually, no, I've seen one of them. And the notes he's making are really extensive. He's clearly thinking through these ideas very critically or substantially. So there is a sense that, yes, it is part of how a young elite boy should be trained. He should be able to do these things, but he's not quite using them for the right things. He takes it very seriously, but talk me through how he trains his vocal cords, because these stories are incredible, bizarre, they need to be mentioned. Yeah, so Suetonius is a great source for this because he has a sort of whole section on,

I was talking about rubrics earlier, a whole section on theatre and theatricality and also a section, sort of mini section within that on how Nero trains his voice. And he tells us things like Nero lies, you know, with a leaden plate on his chest in order to regulate his breathing and to help with his voice training, that he vomits at various points because that's what he's supposed to do. And also that he will try and rest his voice a lot. But also Suetonius talks about how when he goes to Greece later on in his reign and he gets very excited about performing in front of Greeks, that even when he goes out for dinner at night, he can't help but regale people with songs, even though he's supposed to be resting his voice.

So he does take it very seriously. But another great anecdote we have actually comes from closer to Nero's time. So Pliny the Elder did write a history which would have included Nero and was, you know, likely a source for Tacitus in particular. But he also wrote a natural history. We don't have the history, we do have the natural history of surviving today. And in the natural history, he does include in various places anecdotes about Nero and other characters as well, not just Nero, but Nero does come up a fair amount, relatively speaking. form mixed with vinegar or some other things, or as ashes mixed with another liquid, so probably water, as a sort of cure for sore throat, essentially. If you've been shouting a lot

in the chariot races and such, then it's a good cure, a good restorative. And Nero does this. He says Nero is one of the people who does this practice. So we do have some nice little kind of snippets here and there of the sorts of things Nero did. And as you say, how seriously he took that aspect of his career. I mean, quick tangent then, Shushma, you mentioned Pliny as this closer source to Nero. And of course, you mentioned earlier the big three from later on. I mean, do we have any other snippets, any really interesting fragments, which actually date close to Nero's reign that offer offer alternative sources for Nero, and in particular, his theatricality. Yeah, so it's a sort of a bit of a mixed bag. So what we do have from literary sources, actually, is records of graffiti,

if that makes sense. So someone like Suetonius saying, I can see still in Rome graffiti, which are jokes about Nero. So things like comparing him to Aeneas, so from the great Roman epic, the Aeneid, but not in a particularly good way. So while Aeneas literally carried his father on his shoulder as Troy was burning, went out of Troy with his father on his shoulder, Nero carried off his mother, which is a euphemism for killed his mother. There's also references to the roles that Nero played, or particular roles that Nero played, who were Greek tragic figures, but also famous matricides, so Orestes and Alcmaeon, for example, or indeed Oedipus, whose relationship with his mother, of course, was notoriously complicated. And Nero and Agrippina

are accused, or there are rumours of incest is what our sources say. So the idea that Nero went up on stage and performed these characters, then we sort of get a bit of a remnants of that through our literary sources telling us about graffiti that was still there, as Suetonius says, was still there when he was in Romeome graffiti's fine through the literature that's really interesting to know i mean shushma keeping on that you mentioned nero's mother there so let's go on to agrippina now because you mentioned it earlier how nero for the time he's got this incredible education when he's growing up it's oratory he's expected to use these various aspects of his education for these particular

purposes as emperor, but he goes on to use them for different purposes, not intended purposes. I just imagine for someone like his mother Agrippina or his tutors Seneca, Burrus, how do they react to this? How do they see what they intend Nero's education to be turned almost on its head completely? I find this question quite interesting because on the one hand, Agrippina wasn't there for part of Nero's youth, of course. She was in exile at the time. And she obviously came back, was recalled and married Claudius. And that's how Nero became emperor. But Seneca, who is another of the sort of famous advisors of Nero, was a playwright. He wrote Roman adaptations of Greek plays, at least that we know of, and possibly more as well. So he wrote a version of Thaestes, he wrote a version of Medea,

for example. So he was interested in writing. That's not the same as being interested in acting, of course. Those are two very different things. But one of the ideas that gets picked up later on in Nero's reception history by playwrights is that the idea of Nero's court in general being quite a theatrical place of writing poems and, you court, if that's the way that you wanted to take those sources. The more traditional line in terms of historiography is that Nero's natural instinct to perform and be musical and theatrical was suppressed until the death of his mother. So like his whim to marry someone else, his affairs with a freed woman or a slave and wanting to marry Poppea, those were all suppressed by his mother, is the traditional narrative. So too were his acting instincts. And it's only after the death of several key people, particularly Boris, the leader of the Batorian Guard and Agrippina, that Nero could then go

fully fledged onto the stage and perform in public, which doesn't happen until the mid 60s. So that's one of the reasons why that line is pushed. But yeah, so there is a sense that he performs later on. Of course, we're still talking about a fairly young man, even in this time, sort of mid 20s or so. And you kind of think, well, maybe Nero, if you wanted to take a more sympathetic point of view you might think Nero was trying to hone his skills and perfect them before he went out in public that's a very generous interpretation perhaps but one that might you know play a little bit of a factor be a little bit of factor if not entirely. Shushua I find that so interesting especially

when you mentioned Agrippina's death there and how it almost seems like with agrippina's death it's almost this transition moment from nero becoming nero the okay into nero the terrible and it also in regards to his theatricality this seems like it's portrayed as this key moment when his theatricality it just goes on steroids it just goes absolutely manic from then on absolutely so i like that nero the okay to nero the terrible that's a nice way of putting it but you're absolutely right in terms of that's how sort of you know the sources tend to kind of portion up his life to some extent and then he just gets worse and worse but the idea of agrippina's death being a particular theatrical moment in and of itself

is again, something that's been discussed in scholarship a fair amount. And again, I think the best account of this comes from Shardy Barch's book, Actors in the Audience. It's again, a really compelling interpretation, I think, of how the historians are talking about these big death scenes. It's prefigured to some extent by the death of Britannicus, which is also seen as having elements of theatricality in it. Now, by this I mean, when writers Tacitus Suetonius and Cassius Dio, but particularly Tacitus, are writing, after Nero, of course, his wanting to act, his wanting to act on stage, isn't just about him acting on stage. It's also about him pretending through the whole of his life. So when he becomes emperor, from the moment he becomes emperor to sort of his death, he is always performing and he's always looking at how

the audience, in this case his family, but in other cases the whole of Rome or the Senate, are responding to him. And his reactions can be determined by whether he is getting a positive response or a negative response to some extent. And what happens with the death of his stepbrother Britannicus is Britannicus recites a poem, I think it is, a poem, at dinner. Nero goads him into reciting a poem because he thinks it's going to be awful. And Britannicus actually recites one about having, there's a thinly veiled story about having his father killed, which is Claudius and, you know, the situation that he's currently in. And because of that, Nero then pretends that Britannicus has an epileptic fit, but actually poisons him. But the real sort

of actor and audience part comes in here in the idea that Octavia and Agrippina, so Octavia is Nero's wife at the time, but she is also Britannicus's sister, and Agrippina have to sit there and pretend it's an epileptic fit. So Nero is the actor watching the audience, turning the audience into actors. So in order to survive Nero's Principit, everybody has to become an actor. And that's one of the really interesting nuances that I think and, you know, points that Shardy Barch talks about in a lot of detail in her book, it is a wonderful way of looking at the sources and interpreting those particular accounts. And it comes back again with Agrippina because her whole death is a theatre theatrical scene. The story is that Nero takes his mother for dinner on the Bay of Naples.

They have nice meals together. Everything is OK. He's pretending. She's also sort of pretending because she's not stupid and is perhaps a little bit worried about what's going on then Nero gets an engineer to rig a boat so that it will collapse when it's taking her back to Rome so a collapsible boat is the story and this doesn't kill Agrippina the boat does collapse but she's a good swimmer and she survives and those on the boat who are loyal to who are working for Nero as it were mistake one of Agrippina's attendants as Agrippina and kill her. Agrippina gets away. But then there's another layer of theatricality, because when she comes back, she has to pretend she doesn't know what Nero's done. And she goes to him and says, there's this, you know, this terrible thing has happened. And he then pretends and says, thank God you're OK.

terrible thing has happened. And he then pretends and says, thank God you're okay. And then has a sort of meeting perhaps with Seneca and Boris, and eventually someone is sent to kill Agrippina. The sources, Tacitus in particular, layers this with all of the different elements of theatricality of acting at every point in this scene. So the really interesting thing about the way the historians use Nero's acting is not just him on stage, but the fact that his entire principate is a performance and also that he's expecting a performance from others all the time. And that's why he conditions various political scenes in the way that he does. All the Roman Empire's a stage. And also on that whole topic of Agrippina's death in that story, isn't there also a case where Nero,

he throws a sword down at the messenger's feet and fabricates a whole story around that. What is that story? Yeah, so this is also the idea. So part of the fabrication is that Nero has to pretend that he's under threat from Agrippina as well. So the official story that goes out about the death of Agrippina is that

she was conspiring against him, and that's why he had to kill her. And there is all sorts of, yeah, layers of the pretense of how the historians talk about it as a pretense, because that's the way that we sort of understand it. A more recent book on Nero, so the ones I mentioned by Catherine Edwards and Shardy Bartscher, both from the mid-90s, but a more recent book from just a couple of years ago by John Drinkwater, who wrote an account of Nero, well, analysis of Nero's reign, it talks about the idea that actually Seneca and Burrus might have been more involved in this than perhaps some of the historians would like to let on that these were bad bits of advice from his imperial court that led him then to sort of um and ah and eventually send someone to kill her, that he was

badly advised and that it was a difficult thing to do. And then also the speech that Seneca writes as well, which is a bit, again, doesn't quite pull the pretense over people's eyes, perhaps as much as it should, and whether that's deliberate or not deliberate so we do have again like you say these multiple layers multiple layers going on catastrophic warfare bloody revolutions and violent ideological battles. I'm James Rogers and over on the Warfare podcast, we're exploring the vast history of ferocious global conflict. We've got the classics. Understandably, when we see it from hindsight,

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Yeah, so again, that's sort of the story that's told. But there is quite a big gap between him, between the death of Agrippina in AD 59, and his emergence onto the stage in the mid 60s, probably 64 in Naples. So it's not an immediate sort of aftermath thing. The historians, of course, talk about, you know, going back to your Nero, okay, Nero, terrible, Nero getting worse and worse and worse during this period to culminating in his part of the culmination of Nero becoming the fully fledged tyrant that he will become for Cassius Dio and Tastus in particular, is that he then goes up on stage and then goes to Greece in Cassius Dio. So there is that sort of progression there. But also perhaps it's the influence, you know, because Roman historians don't particularly like women when it comes to their descriptions of them, or they tend to stereotype them into very particular types of women. So Octavia, the sort of martyred, almost pseudo-martyr to Nero's whims and to Nero's caprice, versus Poppaea, who is a bit older than

Nero, and she is much more in tune with him to some extent, and she might have goaded him on and, you know, encouraged his performativity. The master manipulator really is how she is described. But we might see kind of, you know, progressions in his life, progressions in his principate, where going forward, as Nero gets older and and older culminating in some of these stage performances sort of two-thirds or so into his reign about 10 years into his reign. I mean Shushma then keeping then on that family idea then you mentioned Poppea and Octavia there because it sounds like also from the sources we also get an idea that Nero performed in front of his family too. that Nero performed in front of his family too?

Yeah, so private performances. So in front of perhaps a small group or at dinner parties and that sort of thing, we often get accounts of him doing performances and performing things that he has written or getting up and reading out poems, that kind of thing. We also actually interestingly get other accounts of others in Nero's circle reading out poems as well, including one example of Antistius Sozianus, I think his name was, who at one of Nero's dinner parties gets up and reads a poem that isn't particularly flattering to Nero. And he is exiled as a result. So you also have to be a little bit careful.

Careful. All those graffiti jokes in Rome seem to be okay because, you know, they're hard to label. They're part of the sort of broader idea of the emperor letting the people say what they want. But in Nero's dinner party, that's a little bit risky. But do you get from that story even a sense of, you know, people performing at his dinner parties, not just him, but others as well? I mean, highly risky. Yeah, it sounds pretty stupid as well when you consider Nero and his character and his position. I mean, keeping an end on that regard, these performers, and we'll get on to other performers on stage with Nero in a bit. But you mentioned how Nero's first appearance on the stage is in 64 BC in Naples, ancient Neapolis. I mean, Sushma, of all places, why does he choose Neapolis as the first place where he does a public performance? Yeah, so it's probably because, our sources say, because it was a Greek city. Suetonius says Nero thinks that the Greeks are the ones who can really appreciate his

performance, right? They understand him, they get what he's trying to do. The Romans are a little bit not quite cultured enough to understand the sorts of performative and creative heights he's trying to achieve. The Greeks get it. And that's, so Suetonius says that's part of why he wanted to perform for the first time in a Greek city. It's probably a good idea he performed for the first time out of Rome. It's a different audience, of course, and it's a good place to perhaps test things. It's not an uneventful performance, though, because an earthquake happens during it, which is really bad luck when you think about it. But we, well, there are, of course, earthquakes in that area at this time. We hear about others. And then, of course, Vesuvius will erupt in 79 in Pompeii.

But certainly, we'd get a sense that he could have perhaps handled that earthquake a little bit better, because instead of stopping, he carried on while the earth was shaking. For Tacitus, this is portentous. It means that, you know, this is an omen. This is the gods showing their displeasure. Suetonius just says, you know, well, maybe he should have let them out. That might have been a good way for, well, maybe he should have let them out. That might have been a good way for Nero to handle it, to let them out. Cassius Dio, interestingly, doesn't, and we do get differences in the sources as well, but Cassius Dio doesn't talk about him performing at Naples, but he does talk about him performing in public chariot race at this time. So again, I find that very interesting because it's about

disconnecting perhaps the Greekness of what Nero is doing on the stage from the usual way that we would interpret it. It is a slightly different take that Cassius Dio has on this. So Neapolis seems to be another key moment then in Nero's theatricality. But Shushma, if we're looking at it from going chronologically on from then, when's the next key moment in Nero's rise as an artist shall we say? So what Nero does in about AD 60 is institute five yearly games the quinquennial games the neuronia they're called the quinquennial neuronia and the first one is in 60 the other one is in either 64 65 there's a bit of confusion about it because Suetonius talks about it happening before it should. But yes, so roughly five years-ish later. And at that second one, that comes after Naples. So Nero is actually quite, or some of the sources say, quite reticent

about going up on stage, this is Suetonius, but then is convinced to by the people say, come on, Nero, we want to see you. So he does go up on stage. But Tacitus, again, talks about this performance as being a bit of a disaster and doomed from its onset, because while the people of Rome want to see him on stage, and are used to Nero, they're used to having to clap at the right places, they're used to understanding the politics of performance, they're used to knowing what to do. And they're used to, you know, being watched as well. They're used to having people watch them and Nero watch them watch their reactions. There are other people in the audience who are from Italy, wider Italy, that Tacitus says, you know, are not used to this, and they won't take it. They are more principled, Tacitus says, of course, than the Romans and they don't like what's going on and they start a riot and there's a stampede and people are killed.

So that again is a very disastrous end to Nero's public performance for the second time in Rome. He then goes off to Greece in 66 and is much happier. I mean, that's interesting, Trish, because I read in some sources how it mentions, obviously not ancient sources, modern sources, how it almost portrays Nero as the darling of the common people, shall we say, in Rome from his performances.

But it sounds like from what you're saying, actually, it was more of a mixed bag reception for the emperor when he was on stage in public in the capital itself. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not, just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push, find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca.

Yes. So again, that's a very interesting point because on the one hand, you certainly do get the idea that Nero is the darling of the people because he's on stage. On the other hand, there are problems with grain at some points in his reign and the people are not happy. They also protest when he divorces and then kills Octavius. So he's not always in favour with the people. It is, again, a more complicated upwards and downwards narrative. One of the interesting things, and of course, this is part of the way that Tacitus wants to write about Nero as well, is differentiating that idea of the mob in Rome, right? Later on, when Nero dies, Tacitus says, look, all the good people, the senators, and some of the common people in Rome were really happy. It was the plebs sordida, the sordid kind of commoners in Rome who flocked to his grave and were really sad. So this is again Tacitus sort of differentiating this, the plebs sordida in Rome versus the rustic, to use an archaic translation, but rustic Italians who don't understand what's going on, who aren't part of that spectacle. And of course, you could say that the plebsordida are trying to survive.

That's the other. The common people in Rome are trying to survive. That's what they're doing. They buy into Nero's theatricality and do what they need to do to survive it, to get through all of it. That would be the very sinister interpretation. The other interpretation is, of course, that they liked him genuinely and liked you know, liked him being on stage, which, you know, there probably is an element of truth in, I'm sure. Performances, free bread, that kind of thing is always good. But yes, the historians manipulate these ideas and play around with them in some really interesting ways. Well, therefore, keeping on that idea, if we focus on that other part of society,

the elite part of the Roman society. So N nero he's been performing on stage in rome his greek tragedies or his greek myths or whatever he's been doing but how do the roman elites how do they respond to seeing nero on stage in rome yeah so this again it's mixed it's mixed it seems to always be mixed isn't it yeah it does isn't it it's sort of my own catchphrase today it's mixed no so's mixed. It seems to always be mixed, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It does, isn't it? It's sort of my catchphrase today. It's mixed. No, so like we were talking about with some senators acting on stage as well, some applauded him.

And Tacitus uses this to say, look, even some senators have become so ingrained in the flattery of the principate and flattering the emperors that they've given up their real values. But what we do have from the sources, from the literary sources, is sort of figures who represent the traditional senatorial elite. So particularly a character named Thrasyapitus, who is a Stoic.

And he will not want to watch Nero in the theatre. He's a conscientious objector. He won't clap, that sort of thing. He's there. He's not conscientious objector. He won't clap, that sort of thing. He's there. He's, you know, he's not stupid. But he doesn't clap. And he is sort of, you know, playing along the boundaries a bit. And he does end up being forced to commit suicide in AD 66. It's actually how our version of the annals ends. We've lost everything after that. But it makes quite a poignant ending, even as it is. But we also have

someone like Vespasian. So Vespasian is very close to Nero at some points during his reign. He is part of Nero's, not in a court necessarily, but was around at various points. And there's a story, Cassius Dio, I think, sets it in Greece, whereas Tacitus is, I think, sets it in the Neronia. He's a little bit less clear about when it happened. But Vespasian almost falls asleep. His eyelids are heavy, and a freedman has to sort of, you know, nudge him and say, you better not do that. What are you doing? And wakes up and Tacitus tells us that Vespasian is scared after that. So he kind of leaves Rome. He lives in Italy for a, and is eventually sent off on military campaign to Judea by Nero. And that's a whole other story. But there is that sort of sense of Vespasian, you know, was playing with his life, Tacitus says, what saved him was that he was predestined for greatness, which means he was predestined to be another emperor, which of

course, he becomes in AD 69, after the year of the four emperors. So there's, again, sort of playing around with that sense that there are still some... Vespasian isn't a traditional senator by any means, but to say a piter certainly is. And Vespasian can show perhaps a little bit more of his morality by falling asleep on Nero through those accounts. I mean, that is so interesting. And keeping on that elite theme just for a bit longer before we go on to Greece, this big high point of Nero's theatricality because we are talking about Nero being on stage but you've also mentioned it just there Shushma how we do have occasions and it's always negatively portrayed in our surviving sources

where Nero gets members of the elite onto the stage too and from what you were saying earlier actually it might not be completely negative this this portrayal. Perhaps there were certain parts of the elite who did want to perform on stage. Yes. And again, it depends on which source you read, actually, because some say that, yeah, sometimes the elite do want to go on stage. And also, this is true of other principates as well. Cassius Dio talks about this much earlier on in Augustus's Principate, I think, of the idea of elites sort of coming up onto stage voluntarily and how terrible that is for the elite of Rome, the state of that class. But Nero does get members of the senatorial or equestrian classes on stage. Cassius Dio talks about,

in the Nero context, talks about them being coerced. So they're being coerced onto stage. He gives an example of some senators, and he also gives a very sort of poignant example of an octogenarian woman who is forced up onto the stage. And Cassius Dio describes, so an elite woman, describes sort of the turmoil that these people are having to go through that you can't not go on. He says that suicide would be better, or death would be better, that if they had just been allowed to die, that would have been a less serious, you know, the shame of being on stage was so much that death was preferable. So that's sort of one account. Again, Tacitus talks about some being coerced. And then he also uses the fact that some went up on stage as a criticism of the Senate, because another thing that runs through actually Tacitus's account of Nero is that he does use some of the senate's complicity to criticize them and to think about how the senate has changed by the fifth emperor as well so some interesting differences between the sources but also lots of ways to interpret

those acts. I'd like to talk about now on a quick tangent, but keeping on the theatre, just before we say we go to Greece, and that, Sushma, is all about masks. Because I saw a bit about masks in Nero, because Nero, he has some interesting masks, some quite realistic masks, and there's some great stories during his reign on stage. Yes, so we're perhaps used to seeing tragic masks

in museums and so forth. In fact, at the Nero exhibition at the British Museum at the moment, you can see some great busts with tragic figures, tragic masks on as well, as well as a lovely sort of theatre figurine too. So there are some great images there in that respect. So we're used to kind of tragic masks being used as a way to transform yourself into the character, right? So a mask that resembles the character that you're playing, Hercules or whomever it might be. But Suetonius tells us that Nero had masks fashioned that looked like himself. So, or partly like himself, had features of himself mixed in with those other characters. So when he was playing Oedipus, it would be sort of part tragic mask and part Nero, not just him as well. Women, of course, were perhaps used to this in the Shakespearean period, but male actors played female roles too. But again, the idea that Nero mixes the fiction and reality by having some of

the masks when he's playing women look like the woman that he's in love with at the time. So Poppea, for example, or someone else. So there is this, again, that the masks are a really powerful way of talking about how Nero mixes, going back to Sharni Barch's point, mixes politics, the political arena, the stage, and makes all of Rome sort of complicit in this idea of being an audience, and also having to act themselves. Because a part of that idea, then, if you've got Nero in the tragic mask, is that you are watching sort of Nero act these roles, act the role of a matricide, act the role of someone who sleeps with his mother, if we're talking about Oedipus. As Cassius Dio goes into more detail on this point, he says Nero pretended to give birth on stage and, you know, did all of these other things as well that were so, I mean, can you imagine watching an emperor do that is Cassius Dio's point. But because he's not just wearing

a tragic mask to transform himself completely into the character, because there's aspects of him in those masks as well. It becomes a really kind of powerful way to fuse sort of reality and fiction. And, you know, there's perhaps a politics to it as well, if you want to think about that from the idea of political theatre, of theatre being the arena for politics, reminding people, you know, of the emperor and the emperor's role in that political arena and that political stage, and also the coercion. So there's a sort of version of himself acting and watching the audience. He also has people planted in the audience to watch the audience, members of the military, Praetorian guards, this is what Tacitus says, and clappers, professional clappers, the Augustiani, who were there to curate the response as well,

to curate the clapping when you're supposed to clap and not. So the whole thing just then transforms into this arena where fiction and reality are completely intermeshed. I mean, keeping on that slightly more, because it also seems like at times he transforms, as you've mentioned earlier, the whole of Rome into an arena when he goes walking through the streets in disguise. Yes, absolutely. So this is early on in his reign. We're going back to okay Nero here, pre-death of mother. But when he's young, one of the things he's described as doing by our three main sources is getting dressed up as someone else, like probably someone of a lower status, and going around Rome at night to go drinking in bars and, you know, be 18, generally, and to go and have a bit of fun. But what he also does is get into fights. And the theatricality comes in here, in Tacitus in particular, and again,

Shardy Bartsch talks about this wonderfully, is that there's an occasion where he comes across a senator named Julius Montanus, and Nero abuses Julius Montanus's wife. And Julius Montanus hits Nero, right? And the problem with that scenario is actually not that he hits Nero, it's how Julius Montanus responds to it afterwards. the fact that he sends an apology letter, which tells Nero, either that he recognized him in some sources and hit him anyway. And that was the problem. Or actually, in Tacitus, the problem isn't that he hit him even in that scenario. It's the problem that he acknowledged the recognition that it was Nero. So hit him, fine, but don't acknowledge that you knew it was Nero. And you have to keep up the act, you have to keep up the pretense. As a Roman, the pretense had continued, then that would have been okay. And that's Tacitus' line on it. And

it's, again, really fascinating how these historians construct this image of the city. And, you know, when we get to Greece, Cassius Dio will do a similar thing there, construct this idea of these people in constant fear that their facade is going to drop and that Nero, the actor who is watching them, will see that. Well, let's go to Greece now because, Sushma, we've been building this up and it does really sound like this is the pinnacle of Nero's theatricality. Yeah so Nero having been to Naples decides that he wants to go to Greece and he wants to do a tour of Greece and he wants to take part in all of the big Greek festivals. He wants to do the four main Greek festivals or games one of which is the Olympics all in one year so he has particular things rescheduled and he wants to be the victor,

the ultimate victor of these things. Now, as I said, we don't have Tacitus on this, which is a shame. It really is. It would be great to read what Tacitus makes of this event in Nero's biography. But we do have a little bit in Suetonius and we also have Cassius Dio or a version of Cassius Dio. And it really is Cassius Dio who gives us the most detail here. And as I said before, he is interested, he's very interested in Nero's relationship with Greece and how that works as someone who is culturally Greek himself. He is a Roman senator, of course, but does have, you know, rights in Greek, for example. So we do get a very interesting account. So Nero goes off to Greece, and he treats it, or Cassius Dio says he treats it, as a sort of pseudo-military campaign.

Instead of crossing over into another land to go and conquer, he crosses over to go and perform. And he has soldiers with him. That's the other thing. He takes a large group of soldiers who again then become those clappers in the audience. They become his supporters. But the subversion of the expectation of traditional Roman reasons for going abroad and that sort of thing are really subverted in these accounts. So Nero goes across, he takes a part in these competitions. He takes all very seriously so you know where we started with Nero taking this as a young man very seriously he's still doing that Suetonius says like he genuinely wants to be awarded the trophies because he's done well and there's one stage I think it's actually in the Neronia where he drops a prop and he's so worried that they're going to throw him out of the competition and of course course they don't. But he does seem, in Suetonius at least, genuinely concerned. Cassius Dio, no, not so much. He is

there to exploit Greece in every way he possibly can. So interestingly, Cassius Dio's narrative starts with this idea of the military metaphor of Nero going over, having the soldiers there with him, the soldiers being the ones who are clapping in the audience, the Greeks who are there also clapping, perhaps in a semi-coerced way, but, you know, they're there too. He performs, he gets awarded all the trophies, whether he deserves them or not, and he becomes the victor. He then frees Greece. So he gives Greece the province, the province of Achaia, freedom from taxation. And there's a big announcement of this in Corinth at the end of his cycle. Cassius Dio gives that one line or what remains of Cassius Dio gives it one line, whereas other Greek writers

like Plutarch and Pausanias and some others talk about it much more. And it's one of Nero's very few redeeming features. Pausanias actually says Nero is perhaps an example of Plato's idea of a man who had a noble soul who's been perverted by a Roman education because he freed Greece. So that's the sort of thing that we can get. But Cassius Dio doesn't agree with that line at all, it seems. And he instead then goes from Nero performing on stage to Nero almost waging war. And he does say this, one of the extracts we have says this, waging war on the province. He goes and he kills families for the inheritance money. Remember, he's rebuilding Rome at this time, the fire had happened in AD 64. So the idea is that he wants more and more money to rebuild Rome

for his golden palace, those sorts of things. So he goes and he kills elite men in Greece, takes Romans over with him to kill in Greece as well, and then makes them leave money to him in the wills or to Tigellinus, who is the prefect of the Praetorian Guard at this stage. So he turns, essentially, Greece into a bloodbath, Cassius Dio. And it's a really harrowing account, a really, really harrowing account. And that's why I say this is where Cassius Dio really sort of comes into his own and frames Nero's trip to Greece in the same way that Tacitus framed something like the Piso conspiracy, where senators are plotting against Nero, and then he punishes them. But Nero is punishing Greece for no reason or for his own financial gain. He's stealing statues. He's stealing sacred statues, taking them back to Rome. There is, of course, precedent for that, but Cassius Dio doesn't want to look at the precedent necessarily. But again, it's a very interesting line by Cassius Dio because he is

making Nero the enemy of Greece rather than a lover of Greece, which is what other historians paint him as. His love of Greece is what makes him so exuberant and a lover of luxury and someone who loves to perform on stage. But Cassius Dio, no, it's not. It's Nero's own twisted sense of what a Roman should be that makes him that. And when he goes to Greece, he wages war on Greece through these deaths and through his singing. It is interesting. You said, if only we had Tacitus' account too,

that would be very, very interesting for Nero in Greece. I mean, you mentioned the Piso conspiracy, so I'll actually focus on acts against Nero, rebellions, let's focus on the end of Nero's reign now, because Shushma, is it fair to say that Nero's theatricality, Nero's reign now because Shushma is it fair to say that Nero's theatricality Nero's perception as this artistic figure does it contribute to the ultimate overthrowing of him to the rebellions against him in the late 60s AD? Again this is a really

interesting point I don't know whether it really did right so what we've actually been talking about today really is how historians understand his theatricality and use it in different parts of his life and his principle as a whole to portray him in these particular ways and portray his relationship with the people or the senatorial elite or with equestrians. Whether actually it was a factor in Nero's downfall is not particularly clear. It doesn't seem so. Yes, he comes back from Greece and he's acting more at that point, but there's also sort of other things going on with generals in other parts of the empire. So I'm not entirely sure that's a line we can make in reality, as it were, but in the sources, which is what we can sort of say about a little bit more, is yes, absolutely. And it's

been going on for a while. So we, Tristan, have spoken before about Boudicca, for example. And one of the things that again, Cassius Dio has Boudicca do is talk about Nero as a woman and talk about, you know, the fact that he loves to perform. Again, he doesn't say that's Nero being Greek, he says that's Nero being effeminate. You know, it's sort of introduced in some of the sources at that point. When we get to the Piso conspiracy in AD 65, yes, so Tacitus, who gives us the longest account of that episode, absolutely says that some of the conspirators were embarrassed by having an emperor who performed on stage, who sang. There are other conspirators who actually like doing that as well, like Nero and like luxury and like, you know, the sorts of things Nero likes and have turned on him for other reasons.

But certainly there is an idea in the reasons why some people are Cassius Dio, again, when we get to the revolt of Vindex, which is at the end of Nero's reign. It's not the revolt that actually ends up overthrowing him. The Vindex revolt is put down and he dies, but he dies not that long afterwards. And when Cassius Dio has Vindex give a speech, he really plays up the theatricality. Vindex says, you know, seeing Nero on stage, seeing Nero play a lyre and sing, that's the last straw. That's the final straw. You know, it's a lot he can get away with, apparently, but that is the final act. You can't have an emperor doing these things.

This is the ultimate act of un-roman-ness the ultimate act of completely losing your dignity so it is brought up absolutely as a reason for that revolt shushman this is all really really interesting i could ask so many more questions but we're going to wrap it up in a second but of course and you did mention it earlier as we are chatting the british museum's nero exhibition is currently open you have been already a couple of times i have it seems like one of the key parts that is to show that you know nero is currently open you have been already a couple of times I have it seems like one of the key parts that is to show that you know Nero is not who you thought he was yes not completely you say with the sources but it's interesting in regards to theatricality

this does seem to be one of the key themes that people have to tackle when you're looking at Nero absolutely yes and there's a wonderful room I would recommend the exhibition to everyone, but there's a wonderful room in the exhibition that is all about spectacle and theatricality and looking at sort of stage in the Roman context more broadly as well, and how stage, what the sorts of roles that stage played as an entertainment venue and also as a political arena. So that's done really nicely, I think, in the exhibition. And it is, it's a fundamental part of talking about Nero, of engaging with him, because it's a way to some extent engage with him on his own terms. It's a thing that he wanted to talk about as well, it seems. So you can perhaps get a bit of a more of a glimpse into Nero, of course, it's very difficult, because actually,

the theatricality we're talking about is mediated largely through the literary sources. But to explore that part of his reign is really interesting, because not only is it so important in something like the British Museum exhibition, it's been a really integral part of Nero's afterlife. So the Nero that we know from Quo Vadis, for example, and Peter Ustinov's wonderful performance in 1951, if that is anything, that is Nero, the actor emperor, Charles Loughton before him in The Sign of the Cross, there's lots of reception history of Nero as an actor. And it's one of the things that makes him at various stages in history, as an actor. And it's one of the things that makes him at various stages in history,

someone to idealize as well as someone to vilify. So if you turn that traditional narrative of emperors acting bad on its head, and actually creativity, like someone like Oscar Wilde did, was what you were looking for in the narrative of someone's life or examples of artists from antiquity, he was a wonderful example of an artist from antiquity that you could really kind of, you know, look at the creative side and try and understand that as well. Well, it feels like he could have fitted much better into the Hellenistic period that preceded him in many ways. Now, Shushma, this has been a brilliant chat.

Last of all, of course, you've written a book all about another aspect of Nero, which is called? It's the Nero Antichrist, Founding and Fashioning a Paradigm. There we go. Sushma, always wonderful to have you on the show. So thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the podcast. Thank you very much for having me. It's always wonderful to talk to you.