Nero, : Matricide, Music and Murder
Anthony Everitt, Roddy Ashworth

In this magisterial biography Anthony Everitt, the celebrated chronicler of classical Greece and Rome, and investigative journalist Roddy Ashworth reveal the contradictions in Nero’s personality and a reappraisal of his life.

            In Nero ancient Rome comes to life; the crowded streets that made it prone to fires, deadly political intrigues that prompted the crimes of which the emperor was guilty, building projects that constantly remade the city and the popular arts scene in which Nero tried to make a name for himself as a musician and performance poet. He had a cultural vision for Rome, but it did not outlast his lifetime.

            In this teeming and politically unstable world, Nero scored some major successes; in particular, his regime put down the British queen Boudica’s savage but doomed revolt against Rome’s legions.

He was vulnerable to fierce reproach from the nobility and relatives whom he feared would gladly usurp him. He was only too willing to put his mother to death and murder rivals. He built a reputation as a despot.

This is the bloodstained story of one of Rome’s most notorious emperors – but in Everitt and Ashworth’s hands, Nero’s life is also a complex cautionary tale about the mettle required to rule.