Nero

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Review: 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.

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Summary: Nero :
Review: 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.