NF Nero not such a bad guy after all?

[TerryB]

A friend recommended I watch a PBS special the other night that came on after Nova. The upshot was that all our source material for Nero is late and tainted by being obvious hit pieces. Well, you could say that about a lot of ancient works purporting to be history. History in those days was an exercise in rhetoric--it was more important to tell a good story. Fortunately, I woke up this morning to catch the last half of a Smithsonian Channel special on Nero. The title has something to do with "Eight Days That Changed Rome," or something like that. It mentioned a lot of things that the PBS show conveniently left out. One major event that shaped Nero was a plot to kill him in AD65 in which his old teacher Seneca was involved. Nero allowed Seneca to commit suicide, but he went on a reign of terror after that. I doubt if he started the fire in Rome, but I also doubt that the Christians started it. Nor do I think he tried to set up a trap for his mother to drown. He did have her killed, but we may never know why. I've been led to believe that it was Seneca who kept Nero on an even keel, and that once he was dead, Nero lost it.

 

[AndyHall]

Mary Beard's work is worth looking up. She tries to give the "villains" of Roman history like Nero and Gaius Caligula their fair due.

 

[TerryB]

I'm going to check to see if Josephus had anything to say about Nero. Early authors believed that Tacitus took his account of the war with the Jews and the siege of Jerusalem from Josephus. He had a bit to say about other emperors of the time, including Caligula and Tiberius.

 

[TerryB]

Josephus does mention Nero: Antiquities 20.8.3 He had bad things to say about him, though not as much as he did about Caligula.

http://www.ccel.org/j/josephus/works/ant-20.htm

 

[TerryB]

Mary Beard's work is worth looking up. She tries to give the "villains" of Roman history like Nero and Gaius Caligula their fair due.

I found this interview. I recognize her from a special on Pompeii I recently watched.

http://time.com/4105915/mary-beard-spqr-ancient-rome/