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CLASSIC: The Ridiculous Story of the World’s First (Documented) Serial Killer · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Fellow Ridiculous historians, we are back with a classic and
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: this is this is a really weird one for us.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: We started looking into Noel. I think it began because
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: we're looking into the history of serial killers, and we
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: found a story of someone who is often alleged to
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: be the world's first documented murderer of this type. This
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: doesn't sound ridiculous.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: This sounds disturbing and upsetting, right, I'm sure we handle
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: it with wit and charm though. Discussion of La Costa
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: of Gaul we're talking about, if I'm not mistaken, wasn't
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: that like the region that became France?
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. CCL cool. Ridiculous History is
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio, previously on Ridiculous History. I'm kidding.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I just always love when those voices come in at
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: the beginning of something like a lost.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: I was going to just chime in and be like,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: what happened? I want to know I was there and
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: I don't even remember.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Right by the way, you're nol, I'm Ben. We are
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: joined with our guest super producer Paul Decant, who has
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: an awesome sound cue. I love that. I love that thing,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: whatever that is is.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Paul get to pick out his own sound effect because
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: he's actually filling in for a super producer, Casey Pegram
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: here in the spirit nice, it's where the sound effect
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: goes Paul. And so, yeah, Paul could potentially pick out
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: his own sound effect.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: That's true, and I thought he did on a previous episode. Paul,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: but we can't wait to hear it.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Wait a minute, We've we've been informed that Paul's had
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: a sound effect all along. Now we knew what it
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: sounded like. It's sort of a mission control Yeah, you know,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: bleeps and bloops kind of sound effect.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's very spacey.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: I'm just bummed that Paul doesn't going to pick out
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: his own sound effects. Clearly Casey picked that out for him.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Paul, if you want to pick your own sound effects,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: you completely have agency. Thanks for hanging out. I think
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: he should.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: You know, I think we should chuck Casey's not around,
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: screw him, you know, just chuck it out.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: How dare you?
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: WHOA? I have feelings Casey abandoned us for France.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Casey is living his other life and we'll
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: return across the pond. It's his best life. Also, he
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: is going to be back, so we need to be
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: careful what we say about it. I don't want to
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: angry Casey. He's not going to hear these. He doesn't
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: even edit him.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: He's not going to go back ridiculous to the show maker.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: He might go back and just to see if we've
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: talked any trash. Hey, Casey, thanks for tuning in, love
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: you buddy, And if he hasn't listened, fellow ridiculous his
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Storyans do not snitch on us. We're being very serious.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: But in our continuing streak of telling spookier tales as
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: we get closer and closer to Halloween, Noel, you and
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: I have touched on some gruesome practices such as cannibalism,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: and we've touched on legends of monsters. But today we're
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: looking at real life monsters. Yeah, I mean, says you, Okay,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: all right, Yes, we're talking about serial killers. And it
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: is true that in the US often serial killers are
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: given this kind of infamy. They're almost like there's something
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: that's occasionally celebrated about them, which just terrible.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, especially in like you know, in our industry, the
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: podcast world, where it's like we're just up to our
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: ears in true crime stories and I'm actually working on
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: a true crime story right now. That is a little different.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: It's not so much celebrating the idea of the serial killer.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: It's a little bit more of looking at what it
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: means to be human, what it means to have these impulses,
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: or to what the obsession with serial killers actually means
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: to us as a culture, like why is it so fascinating?
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: My theory is that it makes us feel better about ourselves.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: It makes us be like, well, I'm not at least
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: I'm not that crazy. At least I've never actually murdered
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: multiple people and one of these just yell at my mom.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah right, I'm not that bad. One of the factors
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: in this almost deification at times is certainly the question
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: that people end up asking themselves, would I be someone
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: capable of this? Have? Could I understand that mentality? And
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: it's it's a deep and dark question. But luckily we're
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: not going too far into the psychology of that kind
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: of process on today's show, although we do want to
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: hear what you think about it. Feel free to write
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: in We're ridiculous at how stuff works dot com. Today, Instead,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: we're delving into a question that has personally and just
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: speak for myself here. Person only haunted me for a while,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: and that is this who was the world's first serial killer. Yeah,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: I actually.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Googled this ben like you do when you're when you're
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: trying to find things out. That's what we've been reduced
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: to is professional googlers. You know, I don't even know
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: how to use a card catalog.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: I go to the library, or you know, I live
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: next door to a library. You go there, Yeah, I
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: go there, go in there.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: I love the libraries. I love libraries too. I'm kidding.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: I know how to use the card cattalog.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Point being, I googled first serial killer like I'm doing
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: right now, and a name that commonly pops up is
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: a guy named Herman Webster Mudget known as H. H. Holmes,
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: and he is considered on paper at least to be
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: the first American serial killer, right right, Yeah, But the
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: story we have today is not about mister Mudget.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: It's about a lady serial killer.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Yes, And the notion of the serial killer name is divisive,
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: and I think there's an issue with maybe calling this
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: person this person was more of an assassin, really.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Yes, more of a poisoner. I do want to stuff though,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: because you mentioned HH Holmes. There's an amazing book if
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: you haven't read it yet, The Devil in the White
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: City by Eric Larsen. White City being Chicago. Yeah, hh
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Holmes built a murder house. Gruesome, grim and gory stuff.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: But you're right, No, there's a question about what makes
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: someone a serial killer. And we've looked into this and
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: previous episodes on other shows. This person, Locusta of gall
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: was a poisoner. She wasn't out there, you know, sneaking
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: up behind people and cutting their throats.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: But one could argue, because of the benefits that she
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: enjoyed with the protections that we're going to get into
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: of that she experienced, that she may well have fallen
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: into a pattern where she just kind of did it
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: for lulls.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, definitely not a mentally healthy person. So this
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: occurs in the first century a d. We don't know
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: a ton of stuff. We don't know very much at
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: all about Lacusta's early life other than that she was
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: from Gaul, because that's what people called her, Lacusta from Gaul.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Maybe there were a ton of other Lacustas and there
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: was like Lacusta from Rome, Lacusta from Gaul. Maybe that's
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: how they differentiate. But Gaul itself was where northern Italy
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: and the Alps are, and it's got three geographical regions
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: around the time this happened. What I'm saying is it's
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: a big place. It's France now, right, It's France and
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: then northern Italy. So we bring this point up to
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: say that knowing just that she is from Gaul doesn't
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: really help us, right, Like.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: What we do sort of know about her, though, is
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: that she grew up living off the land as it were,
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: or at least in terms of like some of the
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: the species of plants that were available in that region.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: She was an active.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Forager and kind of got herself real familiar with some
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: of the uses of some of these herbs and flowers
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: and various things that could be used for good or
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: for ill.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: There we go, I like that dramatic noe yes so
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: or for ill for yeah, yeah, yeah we're good, Yeah,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: we got it. So this person living off the land
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: has a encyclopedic knowledge of the different plants that grow
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: in her area and the different medicinal or nefarious uses
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: of these plants, people recognized talent, and there was an
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: impress named Agrippina the younger who noticed that Lucusta had,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: as leam nice would say, a certain set of skills,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: and Acousta at this point was already pretty notorious.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, how did her reputation precede her that it made
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: it up to such high levels of government and like
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: influencers or whatever.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Ben Well, they stopped calling her Lucusta from Gaul and
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: started calling her Lucusta the Poisoner, so that became her
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: new name.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Wasn't she also a Lacusta the sorcerer at some point? Yeah, yeah,
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: she's a woman of many names.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Crazy.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: So she was already kind of like doing little hits
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: early on and even getting arrested.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: I believe she was. She was imprisoned when Agrippina approached
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: her in a D fifty four, and Agrippina had a
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: particular job for her. She said, Lucusta, I want you
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: to poison my husband Claudius. Oh real quick.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: There's an amazing name given to her profession that combines
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: her like you know, knowledge and know how with herbs
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: and their uses, with this idea of being an assassin
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: necro entrepreneur. Oh yeah, yeah, and this was coined, maybe
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: not coined, but used in this particular situation by doctor
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Catherine Ramsland, who is a PhD in psychology.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's first off, that's my favorite phrase we've learned recently.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: And people did in a way respect this person's abilities.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: There were multiple poisoners in the area in ancient Rome
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: at the time, but Lucusto was by far one of
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: the most well known and notorious.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: We're also going to get into why, because it wasn't
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: just that she you know, anyone can slip somebody some
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: poison or just like make poison or find it used
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: to buy it, right, But she was very wily.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: And clever and crafty.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: And then we'll get into the next story involving her
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: employ under Agrippina that becomes infinitely clear.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: There's an excellent paper I found called Poisons, pois and
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: the Drug Trade in Ancient Rome by L. Cilliers and
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: FP Retief at the University of the Free State, and
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: in this they give us some more details about exactly
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: how Lucusta came to be in the employee of Agrippina.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: So she had been convicted of multiple crimes during the
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: reign of Claudius. She was a known repeat offender. She
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: was bad medicine, which I guess works on a couple
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: of levels. But let's keep going. Agrippina, you see, was
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: the second wife of Cloudius, and she had a son
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: named Nero, who I am sure is familiar to a
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: lot of ridiculous historians. Yeah.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was the name of that app he used
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: to use to burn CDs back in the early two thousands.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, deep cut. Yeah, it's because. But the reason
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: it was named that is because Nero was a bit
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: of a pyromaniac, and he was known for burning rome
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: to the ground to some degree playing a fiddle. There's
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: another story that we're going to get to that allegedly happened,
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: but it's fun to talk about, you know, legend and
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: myth can sometimes be more interesting than the true.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, agreed. So, as we were saying, Agrippino wants
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: her son, Nero, to be the new ruler, and she
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: like a lot yeah, like yes, a life or death
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: sort of desire, and she asked Lucusta to poison Uh.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Let's see, I was saying Cloudiu, let's say Claudius. Yeah,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: that sounds good. And she did it with It was
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: almost like a heist because, as you can imagine, this
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: guy has a lot of security and tasters. Even he's
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: got a food taster named Halotus. So how what does
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: she do? How does she get past this? Do you
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: think that's where holatosis comes from? We can only hope.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: I want I was wondering the same thing.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so she, like, I don't know, did how did
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: she exactly circumvent hallitus? It was a little weird, like
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: she did she bribe him to kind of get out
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: of the way. Is that what happened?
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: So the way she gets passed this is through the
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: use of poison mushrooms, which originally are given to the
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: emperor by his food taster. But that doesn't quite work right,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: I don't think so.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I read that she Agrippina bribed this food
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: taster to kind of get him out of the picture,
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: and then gave the mushrooms to her husband herself, because
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: apparently he was like a huge mushroom fan.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: He really really liked the shrooms. I can relate to that,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: And some people will say that are some sources, at
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: least for report that the closest day the food taster
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: was sick, and then others will say no, Agrippina bribed
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: him to a linger.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Either way, he wasn't around, right, And the mushrooms went
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: directly into the hands of Claudius, who was apparently a
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: lethal drunk, and he did not kill him, but it
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: made him convulse violently and have really bad tummy troubles.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Right mm hm. And so they wanted to induce vomiting.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: That's right, that's right.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: So one source that I read has Agrippina herself feigning
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: concern for her, you know, convulsing husband and daintily sticking
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: this poison feather down his throat, because that was a thing.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: They would use a feather to induce vomiting and stick
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: it down your throat and tickle your your gullet or
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: whatever and then make you puke up the bad stuff.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: But instead this feather was laced with an even deadlier poison.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Oh and you know what, let me step back just
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: a second to clarify here. I think I've got the
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: turn of events correct. So the day before the poison,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Lucousta poisons the bodyguard, and the bodyguard has to call
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: out sick, and then Agrippina bribes the food taster, so
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: they removed two people from me. See, she's thinking several
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: steps ahead of even us. Four D says track podcasters.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: So dies because the feather has been poisoned. It's soaked
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: in strychnine. Right, And all of a sudden, immediately after
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: the death of this emperor, Nero ascends to the throne,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: and they recognize that Lucusta, she has a lot of potential,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: especially if you are a power hungry emperor. Right. And
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: there's an interesting pattern that transpires here because we mentioned
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: she had been arrested more than once, multiple times. Twice
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: she was arrested for murder, but each time she was arrested,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: a Roman senator bailed her out. People speculate it was
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: kind of a way of buying a future kill.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, she had friends in high places, no question about it.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: But the thing that's messed up here is that Agrippina,
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: who obviously was trying to set these events in motion
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: and get her boy Nero in the throne, she immediately
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: threw Lacusta under the bus.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Immediately immediately she said she poisoned my husband. I wonder
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: if that was like a strategic moved totally, That's what
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: they call getting in front of getting ahead of it.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I wonder if it was really like Lacusta
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: was in on it, maybe where it's like, all right,
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: I'm going to take the fall for this because I'm
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: already a known poisoner, or if she just was caught
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: completely unaware, whatever the case might be. Nero, who is
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: now a power hungry looney tune on his own, Yeah,
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: because Agrippina has really been jockeying for this stuff and
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: trying to manipulate events, and now she's got what she
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: wanted more or less. But Nero doesn't seem like he's
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: acquiescing to his mother anymore. He's kind of got his
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: own acts to grind, in the form of another potential
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: heir to the throne, a fourteen year old who Claudius
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: had given it sired under a previous marriage, named Britannicus
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: right right.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: And Lucusta is in a terrible spot because the death
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: sentence she receives is death by bludgeoning, and by the
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: time Nero reaches out to her, she's been in jail
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: for several months. Here's the deal. He cracks in about
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: fifty five eighty or so. He frees Lacousta, the poisoner
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: at this point from prison, he gives her a bunch
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: of money, he gives her some land, and he says
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: he's going to make her an aristocrat, publicly absolved of
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: all crimes she has committed or will ever commit. And
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: all she has to do is poison this fourteen year old.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Britannicus is fourteen years old. Other all she has to
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: do is poison this child. And reputedly allegedly, Acousta had
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: one question. She said, do you want it to be
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: fast or do you want it to be extended and painful?
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's nothing monstrous about that, like at all.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: That's her concern about poisoning your fourteen year old.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Fast or protracted and painful.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: It's like, look, I work for you now, Nero. So
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: the story, No, some of the details made differ here, Nola.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: But here's here's what I heard. I heard that Nero
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: invited this fourteen year old Britannicus again I like the name,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: to a huge party one of the palaces, and they
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: were passing around wine. Fourteen year olds drank wine at
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: that time, and Britannicus takes his sip from his wine
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: goblet and then starts convulsive.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Is this the one though, where like he had complained,
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: the wine was.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: This is good? Oh yeah, this is the one. Yeah.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: So apparently back in those days they would dilute wine
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: with hot water, so you'd be drinking hot wine that
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: does not sound very refreshing with dinner. That was common
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: and I was not aware of this at all. And
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: apparently Britannicus found his hot wine to be too hot,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: so he wanted somebody to cool it on down for him.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: And the tasters tasted his hot wine, they did not
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: taste the cold water that was added to it to
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: make it less hot. And that's of course where the
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: poison came into play again. Very very's, very very sharp,
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: very smart.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Hot wine is just such a weird phrase. Would you
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: guys like that on a T shirt?
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: Muld wine?
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: That mold wine sounds weird because you had some herbs,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: it's the whole thing.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, hot wine sounds like the wine has gone bad.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Here's another interesting aspect of the story. Apparently Britannicus might
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: have had epilepsy, so Nero was able to say, no, no,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: don't mess with him. He's having an epileptic fit.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And apparently, like dinner went on as usual, with
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: the guests just kind of like awkwardly looking at this
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: convulsing fourteen year old in the corner of the room
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: and not wanting to offend the psychotic emperor, just went
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: about their business, drinking their hot wine.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Drinking their hot wine. And it is a success. So
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: instead of accusing Acousta of murdering Britannicus the way Agrippina did,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Nero says, you know, all right, done deal, here's your land,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: here's your house, and treasures, treasures, pardons.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, for all of the previous poisonings that she'd been
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: accused of or convicted of.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Or what have you, clearing her name, impunity, indemnity, and
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: little cherry on top here an official title Imperial Poisoner.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Nero even sets up a poisoning school. Yeah that's right. Yeah,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: and she was the head. Yeah exactly.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: That's so brazen, though I wouldn't think that's something you would.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Maybe it is. Maybe it's sort of.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Like, hey, look at me, I got my own poison
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: or don't mess with me kind of.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Thing, I guess. So, yeah, like how much of it
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: is a propaganda thing? But check this out. For the
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: next fourteen years she is performing assassinations and poison poison
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: what would you call it, poison operations, poison projects. Sure, yeah,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: she's doing that. And she has immunity from the law.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: She's above the law. And she did she she did
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: train women in the art of poisoning at her school.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: We talked about this in the episode we did on
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: like a brief History of poisoning or arsenic I believe
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: very gendered. Yeah, very gendered, and almost unfairly so it
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: became like a stereotype that was a little bit like
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: like the idea of that being like a woman's weapon
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: or something.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: I think a little bit misogynistic. It's incredibly misogynistic. Yeah.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: So she used over time a ton of different things, hemlock, belladonna, nightshade, arsenic.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: What's what's this stuff you used to treat malaria? Queenine? Yeahine, cyanide, opium.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Cyanide is a speculative thing. But the other stuff we
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: know pretty much for sure. And she practiced the scientific method.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: She would keep track of what worked and how, which
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: is why she asked questions like do you want a
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: painful slow down? Do you want something fast? Yeah?
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: I mean I've almost even seen her described as something
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: of a researcher, like you know, practicing that scientific method,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: trial and error, seeing what would have the effects that
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: she wanted and what would be the best substance to
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: use for a particular situation. I'm sure she had tons
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: of notes and data on this stuff. It'd be fascinating
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: to get a hold of absolutely.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So we have to wonder is that stuff lost
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: to history? Is it still around somewhere? Would you want
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: to read it? If it is, we can say that
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: although life went pretty well for this arch villain for
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: a while, it did not end well for her. See,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Nero always carried this is so hard cornal. Nero always
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: carried a suicide poison kit that Lacusta had made for him.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: And when he was sentenced to death in sixty nine
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: eight and trying to escape his assassins, he forgot his
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: suicide poison kit, so he killed himself with a knife,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: and the protection that Lacousta enjoyed for so long was gone.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and with that, her prospects weren't looking so good
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: because she was very much tied to this notion of Nero,
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: very similar to Caligula we talked about in the episode
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: we did with christopherostiotis about non human candidates, where Caligula
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: the other insane I mean, I'm sure there was more
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: than one, but another insane Roman emperor of Note nominated
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: his horse to be a consul when he died a
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: lot of his crazy stuff and the people his hangers
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: on you know, did not look too good and did
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: not have the protection they needed to continue living the
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: lives that they were living. Such is the case with Lacusta,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: because the people saw Nero as a dangerous force, as
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: a monster. Are a completely narcissistic, self involved megalomaniac who
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: didn't care anything about the common people and only wanted
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: to like, you know, feed his lavish lifestyle and again
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: actually burned part of Rome.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Do you know the story about that? I'm not. Well,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Here's here's how the story started. There the Great Fire
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: of Rome, which is what that refers to. That myth
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: of him playing a violin while the city burned. It
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: comes from two people, Setonius and Cassius Dio, who alleged
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: that Nero didn't play a fiddle, but that he sang
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: a song called the Sacavillium, dressed in stage like theater costumes,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: while the city burned, and the idea of him playing
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: a fiddle itself is propaganda. It's meant to help criticize
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Nero's earlier attempts to rewrite the Augustine models of governance
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: and rulership. So it's okay, kind of like Napoleon not
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: really being short, that's right. And then the Great Fire
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: they were blaming.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: It's not even one hundred percent confirmed, but many historians
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: do blame, or at least one in particular, a guy
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: named Tacitus blamed Nero for starting a fire in order
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: to circumvent the Roman senates and to create like a
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: hubbub so that he could, you know, usurp power and
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: do whatever.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: He wants and being a total class act. Tacitus said
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: that Nero accused Christians of starting the fire to take
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: the heat off them, sort of like a like mother
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: like son kind of thing, sort of a.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: We didn't start the fire, it was always burning since
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: the world was turning.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely situation now the death of Laucusta also, want
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: to I want to correct. I think we said sixty
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: nine eighty for the death of you were That's that's
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: not quite correct. It was in the late sixties a
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: d A Lacousta. When we get to her death, we
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: run full on, face first into the realm of legend.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Big time we have. We've got two stories for you.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: A bit of a tall tale, a bit of a
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: it's a long tail, for sure. It's a short story
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: with a long tail, a long neck, really, a long
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: neck really. So the first one, one of the more
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: commonly accepted, the more mundane stories, is that Lucusta had
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: tried to escape or lay low and continue getting away
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: with her murderous career, but the emperor who came after Nero,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Emperor Galba was was not having it, and Lucusta was
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: chained up and dragged through the street and then just executed.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: But there's another legend.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a totally bonkers legend. It can't be true.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: I don't know how you would even train inge you
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: raft to do this right, But I did hear.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: And this is a little gross, guys, this is very gross. Yeah.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: Supposedly, you know, according to this particular version of her
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: demid eyes, Lacusta was uh smeared with vaginal secretions from
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: a giraffe, a female giraffe, and then.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: And then died the result of the activity.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: The ensuing activity from a male giraffe who was trained
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: to do this thing.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: So the good news is that is we can say
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: with a high degree of certainty that that that probably
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: didn't have just logistically, man, I mean, it doesn't seem
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: but it's definitely it's in the record. It's it's a
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: it's it's a it's a.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: Legend for sure, and it does bring and then torn
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: apart by wild animals and then can't forget that that
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: that's that's huge.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: But that's a part of the whole thing. So we
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: looked into this where this claim would originate, and this
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff like its surfaces in the Encyclopedia of
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Serial Killers by guy named Michael Newton, at least in
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: the first version. But there's no precise date of death,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: there's no precise location. There's not really in confirmation that
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: has happened. And when we talk about stories of people
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: living in this time, especially people who had a lot
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: of enemies, there's a ton of propaganda. There are a
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: ton of made up things that were meant to ridicule,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: mock or vilify a particular person right or event or
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: government or institution. And the moral of the story is
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: I guess that eventually justice did catch up with Lacusta.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Is she history's first documented serial killer? Well, it depends
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: on how you define it, because the term serial killer
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: didn't exist at the time. And then you know, if
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: she's doing this as a job, she's essentially doing hits
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: on people. Does that make all mafia or yakuza assassins.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Does that make them serial killers or they just people
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: doing a job for monetary games. Well, that's the thing.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: And we also don't know because of how free to
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: go about her Mary poisoning way she was, if she
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: didn't kind of get off on it a little bit,
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: get some jolly's from it, right, because the definition of
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: a serial killer that we used today largely implies some
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: kind of abnormal release. I guess that you get from
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: doing it or some kind of like you're compelled to
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: do it, certainly not just a functional.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Day job kind of situation. Right, Yeah, absolutely, And I
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: don't know's it's comforting to me that eventually justice was served,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: but it is terrifying to think that someone could be
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: acting with impunity, literally above the law, and have it
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: be known. Thing I'm sure, there are different operators for
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: different countries intelligence agencies who do stuff like this, who
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: are you know, legally required at times to take lives?
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: But for this to be so latent is surprising. And
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: if even some of this stuff is true, this person
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: was a monster, a real monster.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, the fourteen year old boy poisoning where nobody
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: would help him as he kicked and screamed and convulsed
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: on the floor during a dinner party.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Horrific. That's pretty horrific. So that that is the story
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: of Lucusta. And one thing that we are running into
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: with our HALLOWEENI or Halloween Ish episodes is this strange
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: thing at the end where we get to we get
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: to the conclusion of a tale and it's a real downer.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: We went through something dark and grim. We've got to
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: bring the mood up, Noel, There's only one way to
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: do it. And I think you know what it is,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: boy do I? Ever?
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: It's listener mail, Ben, and our first mail comes from
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: a you me who writes, Hello, historians, I'm listening to
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: your episode. A dead pope goes to court and you
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: were wondering about mock ac sense in other English speaking
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: places now I'm American, so I don't know firsthand, but
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: much like with other foreign languages, a lot of English
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: textbooks explore and show examples of English in different accents,
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: up to and including foreign accents. I have one textbook
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: that I use with high level English as foreign language speakers.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: That's from the UK, and the listening features conversations and monologues.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: They want to showcase many accents. However, for me, it's
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: incredibly obvious that all the voices are being done by
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: English people that who are putting on accents, and they
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: do include that Italian accent with a character actually named Amario,
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: and an over the top Spanish accents for a character
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: asking a friend if he would like more paea. I
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: know it's something Americans do professionally too, so we're no better,
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: but I thought you might like to know about that.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Cheers a Umill. That's great, thank you for thank you
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: for writing in. You've written in a couple of times.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: We'll always love to hear from you. Absolutely, and we
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: want to be very clear here that whenever we're doing
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: of course it triulger without saying, let's say it. Whenever
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: we are doing funny voices or accents We're absolutely not
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: trying to be derogatory at all. We just we sometimes
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: think we're funny. We're not even we're not even really
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: so much making fun of Richard Nixon as we are
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: enjoying doing that voice, Yeah, making fun of ourselves. If
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: you can't do that, then you know what good are you?
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Exactly if you can't laugh at yourself. Here's a speaking
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: of however, there's a good segue speaking speaking of being
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: derogatory or using pejorative language. We'd like to read a
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: short and sweet letter from Aaron m. Aaron, you write
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: in and gave us, and you give us some nicknames
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: here you say Vito Ben and Nul Sapien. I think
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: you all should do a segment on ridiculous historical insults.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: I thought you would find the link below comical and entertaining.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: This is from Aaron in Chicago, and there are some
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: great insults in this in this source she sent us
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: from OX. I don't know if you have pulled this
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: up or got a chance to look at it, but
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: there's a flibberty gibbet flibbity gibbet Is it gibbit GiB
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: I haven't, yeah.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Because it's in Uh, it's in a song from the
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: Sound of Music called nobody has a problem like Maria.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: How do you solve a problem like Marie? It's like
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: a flibbity gibbet, a whin of the wisp, a clown, yeah,
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: a shattering or gossiping person.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: And then there's a fuzzle. Now that's what I don't know,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: but I love it.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: Who's it sounds like something from like a Doctor Seuss book.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Someone who's behind the times, A fuzzle, a fuzzle. There's
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: slobberty gullion, a slobbery or dirty fellow. Okay, kind of
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: soiled or stained. There's this one sounds dirty. It's not
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: a curse word, but just sounds dirty. Shot clog, Like
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: a shot clog is someone who's unwelcome in a social
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: situation but tolerated because he's paying the bill for everyone.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: He's a shot clog. And I don't want to spoil
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: the surprise with more. Suffice to say, Erin, thank you
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: so much for sending us some of these cool, archaic,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: ridiculous historical insults. Do you hear anything that particularly called
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: to you?
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: No, not on that email. I actually haven't seen it.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: I need to dig it up. Now because I am intrigued.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you to Aaron and Ayumi, and thank you
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: to everyone for joining us on this strange journey. Huge
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: shout out to our guest super producer Paul Deckett.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: And even though he's abandoned us, we can still give
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: a shout out to Casey in absentia, and also to
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Alex Williams who composed our theme.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: And thanks to our research associates, Eve's Jeffcote and Christopher
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Hassiurtis and you know, thanks to you, Ben, and thanks
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: to you Nols looking at you. Thanks to both of
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: us for not poisoning people for a living. I think podcasting,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: while not the most noble of professions, is better than
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: being a poisoner.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: Right now, Dari, this is no it's as noble as
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: it gets.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: It's better than poisoning people.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: We're getting people through their shifts, man, Yeah, that's the ticket.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: They're night shifts, or they're day shifts, or you know whatever.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: Shift, they're shifting shifts.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: Indeed, for more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.