Nero

By Edward Champlin

Book Overview

The Roman emperor Nero is remembered by history as the vain and immoral monster who fiddled while Rome burned. Edward Champlin reinterprets Nero's enormities on their own terms, as the self-conscious performances of an imperial actor with a formidable grasp of Roman history and mythology and a canny sense of his audience.

Nero murdered his younger brother and rival to the throne, probably at his mother's prompting. He then murdered his mother, with whom he may have slept. He killed his pregnant wife in a fit of rage, then castrated and married a young freedman because he resembled her. He mounted the public stage to act a hero driven mad or a woman giving birth, and raced a ten-horse chariot in the Olympic games. He probably instigated the burning of Rome, for which he then ordered the spectacular punishment of Christians, many of whom were burned as human torches to light up his gardens at night. Without seeking to rehabilitate the historical monster, Champlin renders Nero more vividly intelligible by illuminating the motives behind his theatrical gestures, and revealing the artist who thought of himself as a heroic figure.

Nero is a brilliant reconception of a historical account that extends back to Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio. The effortless style and artful construction of the book will engage any reader drawn to its intrinsically fascinating subject.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674018222
• ISBN13: 9780674018228
• Release Date: September 2005
• Publisher: Belknap Press
• Length: 360 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Outstanding, But Not What I Needed

As an undergraduate, I took Roman History I (up to Augustus), a very good course. Because I was getting a double major in economics and classical languages, I did not have time to take Roman History II, a deficiency I have felt during the several decades since then, although it has nothing to do with my career. So I decided to read a biography of each emperor where available, from Augustus to Justinian. I am now at Nero, for whom I bought this book because of the credentials of the author and the publisher. This was a mistake. I was 100 pages into the book before I realized I would never come to a chapter that began "Nero was born in ...." This is not a biography but rather a large number of short essays on historiographical problems loosely organized into thematic chapters. I have had to resort to the Oxford Classical Dictionary and numerous surveys of the early Empire to find out basic information about Nero and his reign. This is probably an excellent second book to read about Nero for the analysis of the contemporary evidence, but I still don't know what would be the best book to start with.

Most controversial figure in Western Civ...what?

Nero is a very intriguing story it tells of really young man with agendas probably no one else can explain, but I read someone's review that he was the most controversial figure in Western Civ.., and my mouth dropped,...let me remind you all of a man who was an epoch defining person, as you can see the world before him, and the world after him,.....um oh yeah.....Alexander the Great.

Nero: Hero Or Monster?

Nero is the most controversial figure in Western history. He was denounced as the Antichrist by the early Christians and as a disgrace to the imperial throne by the Roman aristocracy. At the same time he was adored by the common people in Italy and the Greek speaking East. Years after his death Nero sightings generated the same excitement Elvis sightings do today. He was the only Roman emperor, and one of the very few historical figures, to pass into the realm of myth. Even today he still fiddles while Rome burns. In his fascinating, revisionist study of the singing emperor, Champlin reveals a Nero who was a brilliant, learned and enormously energetic young man with a genius for self promotion. He was also a gifted poet and musician whose compositions were popular for centuries after his death at age 30. His passage into the eternal realm was his own doing - he portrayed his role in the death of his mother and wife on stage in the grandiose terms of myth and legend. Rather than a reclusive megalomaniac who shut himself up in a vast palace which threatened to gobble up Rome, Champlin points out that his notorious Golden House was much closer to a public park and entertainment complex. Nero may not have lived there at all. The psychotic monster of today is the product of two thousand years of hostile spin but the truth still shines through the obscuring mist because the Nero legend was created by an artist. I have two reservations about this beguiling, illuminating book. After Champlin convinces us that Nero did not set Rome on fire he does a sudden about face. On the basis of a statement by a single defiant conspirator, he concludes that Nero in fact probably did set the city ablaze. Apocalyptic expectation of the imminent cleansing of the world by fire makes it much more likely that Christian zealots were to blame. My second reservation is that Champlin does not explore the power astrology held over first century Roman minds. Nero's elevation to mythological status was in large part due to his sudden and unexpected suicide which nothing but his blind faith in astrology adequately explains.

An Excellent Reevaluation of Nero The Emperor/Entertainer

Edward Champlin's book provides a revolutionary approach to understanding the commonly misperceived Nero, who now is often portrayed as a demented fool who watched Rome burn while reciting the Iliad; who brutally executed Christians for entertainment; and, whose death was celebrated far and wide. Champlin dispels these misconceptions as products of bias and shows that Nero remained a positive mythological hero for over 400 years after his death even to some Christians and, that he was well loved by a great majority of the people: particularly in Greece and Asia Minor. The book retraces the common sources on Nero as being Suetonius, Tacitus, Plutarch and Dio. Champlin demonstrates how the Latin and Christian sources tend to be severely negative while the Greek ones are either neutral or positive. Champlin then shows how Nero was really a Hellenic phillantropist who freed Greece from taxes and gave it its autonomy. He notes that, after his death, three impostors pretending to be Nero came out of Greece and Asia Minor with significant followings and explains that this could not have happened unless a significant group of people saw Nero as an enlightened folk hero. Champlin reveals also many other biases in Suetonius and Tacitus depicting Nero as tone-deaf and without talent. Champlin shows that other writers commented significantly well on his skills and that the impostors were tested as to their claimed identities by being asked to sing and/or play the lyre. He also demonstrates how members of all classes in Rome willingly participated in both his public and private spectacles and that this wasn't just flattery on their part. More importantly, Champlin shows that Nero was very conscious of his public image and that his public appearances and performances met the collective needs of his audience in being assured of his benevolent rule despite his misdeeds such as incest and matricide. Champlin argues that this well calculated propaganda and interplay with the crowd was the key to Nero's sense of self and power: Nero the artist, entertainer, and idol whose mythological persona wooed the crowds who in turn approved of him as their champion. Champlin thus shows that Nero was hardly a depraved imbecil but a very creative and intelligent self-propagandist. The book is comprehensive but would be even better if it emphasized certain points more clearly. First, for emperors such as Nero and Caligula it is important to supplement the historical analysis with a psychological one as both were psychotic in one way or another: Caligula being primarily a completely deranged sociopath while Nero demonstrated more an Oedipus complex and abandonment issues. Modern readers fail to appreciate that Nero, who died at 30, was very much a boy trapped in a man's body whose mother was none other than Caligula's sister: an overbearing, overambitious, and incestuous mother who sought to rule for herself through her son. With this in context, the image of Nero t

Now Playing: Nero

Champlin has written a delightful book about a troubled Caesar. As the current tends, the author glides much of the discussion of Nero into a course that resembles the sentence: that actor is the emperor whose performances are his politics. Nero's recognition of the real necessity for memorable spectacles as politcally provident does not separate him from other Caesars, however his rare compulsion to be the spectacle in its entirety does. Champlin works hard to identify the tainted strands of Nero's story and succeeds at separating some of the thoroughly tendentious traditions from the popular but less evident cheers for the better buildings and bigger spectacles he sponsored. It was exciting to learn of Nero's afterlife and of all those who expected his return in the fashion of some sort of ur-Elvis. The book is tastefully written and compelling, particularly in its informative appraisal of the historians whose works mold most of the early modern and modern perceptions of this prince. Until his death, Nero sought to create a world that would correspond to his desires; Rome became his Golden Home and primary stage. Champlin reveals much about Nero and his world. This book overflows the boundary of biography to spread into the fields of performance, politics, popular reception, Roman religion, art and historiography. I heartily recommend it.