Latest / Nero: Mad Tyrant or Misunderstood Emperor? — Fexingo History / Nero's Greek Obsession: The Emperor Who Became an Artist
Transcript
- Lucas: For our hundredth episode, I wanted to look at something that often gets lost in the fire and the poison and the conspiracies. Nero had a genuine, lifelong obsession with Greek culture. He wasn't just a patron of the arts — he wanted to be a performer himself. Luna: Wait, he actually performed on stage? I thought that was just his enemies making him look bad. Lucas: No, that part is very well attested. Suetonius and Tacitus both describe him singing, acting, and even competing in chariot races. For a Roman emperor, that was shockingly undignified. The Roman elite saw public performance as something slaves and foreigners did, not the master of the world. Lucas: But Nero didn't care. He was a philhellene through and through — he loved everything Greek: music, theatre, athletics, the whole package. He even grew his hair long and styled it like a Greek artist, which must have looked quite strange in the senate. Luna: So he was basically a Greek hipster in a toga? Lucas: That's not far off. He founded the Neronia, a festival modelled on the Greek Olympic games — with contests in music, poetry, and athletics. And he didn't just sponsor it; he competed in it. Imagine the emperor getting up on a stage and reciting his own poetry while the whole court had to applaud. Lucas: And then there was his tour of Greece in AD 66 and 67. He went to compete in the Olympic and Isthmian games. He took part in the chariot racing — and fell off his chariot, though they still awarded him the victory. He also sang at the Pythian games. It was a huge scandal back in Rome that he was away for so long, playing at being a Greek athlete. Luna: Did the Greeks actually respect him for it? Or were they just playing along because he was the emperor? Lucas: A bit of both. The Greek cities loved the attention and the honours. At the Isthmian games, Nero gave a speech proclaiming the freedom of Greece — which meant tax exemptions and self-government for the provinces of Achaia and the Peloponnese. That was genuinely popular. But privately, some Greeks probably found it all a bit ridiculous. Luna: I remember that from episode 99 — the Isthmian games. So he actually followed through on that. Lucas: He did. And he took the whole thing very seriously. He supposedly trained his voice with steam baths and special diets, and he had a rule that no one could leave the theatre while he was performing. Some people faked deaths to get out. It's the kind of story that makes you laugh, but it also shows how deep his need for artistic validation ran. Lucas: And that leads to his famous last words — or at least the last words attributed to him by Suetonius. When he was fleeing the Praetorian Guard and knew he was about to be killed, he said, 'Qualis artifex pereo' — 'What an artist dies in me.' He saw himself as a performer first, emperor second. Luna: That line is so famous, but hearing it in context — it's actually really sad. He genuinely believed he was a great artist. Lucas: And that's the tragedy. He wasn't untalented — he composed poetry, played the cithara, and had a real passion for theatre. But he was also the most powerful man in the world, and his artistic ambitions came at the expense of governing. The Roman elite saw him as a tyrant, but part of that hatred was snobbery: they couldn't stand an emperor who acted like a Greek entertainer. Lucas: You know, it's funny — talking about Nero's artistic obsession reminds me that this show is listener-supported. We don't run ads, and that's only possible because a handful of people chip in through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It keeps us able to do deep dives like this without any commercial pressure. Luna: And we really appreciate it. It means we can follow these threads wherever they lead — like Nero's Greek tour — without worrying about sponsors. Lucas: Exactly. So back to the tour — after his artistic triumphs in Greece, Nero returned to Rome in AD 68, and he entered the city like a victorious athlete, riding a chariot and wearing a Greek crown. But within months, the rebellion of Galba had started, and the Senate declared him an enemy of the state. Luna: Do you think his philhellenism actually contributed to his downfall? Or was it just a symptom of a larger problem? Lucas: I think it was both. The elite's resentment of his artistic pretensions gave his enemies a rallying cry. They could say, 'This man is not a proper Roman emperor; he's a Greek actor.' It made it easier to justify overthrowing him. And after his death, the damnatio memoriae — the condemnation of his memory — tried to erase his cultural legacy as much as his political one. Lucas: But interestingly, the damnatio wasn't completely successful. Archaeologists have found traces of his building projects, his coinage survived, and his artistic reputation lived on. In the eastern provinces, especially Greece, he was remembered more fondly for centuries. Luna: So the verdict on Nero as an artist is still mixed, just like the verdict on him as an emperor. Lucas: Exactly. He wasn't a great emperor, but he wasn't the cartoon villain either. He was a complicated man who wanted to be loved for his art, not feared for his power. And in some ways, he got what he wanted — we're still talking about him two thousand years later, just not for the reasons he'd have hoped.