With only one foreign conflict[0] at Rome's behest, Neros reign was remarkably peaceful too.<p>The other day I was casually reading the wikipedia article for Commodus[1] the baddy Emperor from the movie Gladiator and noted how peaceful his rule was. His only wars were when he was co-emperor with his father Marcus Aurelius, and ended when Commodus became solo ruler. By contrast, Marcus Aurelius[2] entire reign was at war and and he is marked by history as the last of the Five Good Emperors.<p>Wonder how much we think of Roman Emperors comes from the writing and propaganda of their contemporary elites. Rome had an economy based on the back of slaves [3] captured in war after all, so it would not surprise me that elites would praise hawkish Emperors and deride the doves.<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero#Military_conflicts" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero#Military_conflicts</a><p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodus#Solo_reign_(180%E2%80%93192)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodus#Solo_reign_(180%E2%80...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Aurelius#War_with_Parthia_(161%E2%80%93166)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Aurelius#War_with_Parth...</a><p>[3] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Rome#Trade_and_economy" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Rome#Trade_...</a>
> “When you look at the evidence here, you can play it any which way,” says Drinkwater. “The great joy of doing ancient history is taking the bits you’ve got and putting them together—let’s be honest—more or less the way you feel. I got to know Nero, and I always felt that he couldn’t have done this to his mother in cold blood.<p>This gives away the game. Yes, his mom died, but he couldn't have done it. Yes, he killed Christians, but it wasn't as bad as people thought. Yes, he sang while Rome burned, but hey, Oppenheimer said "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds", which is basically the same thing.<p>It's a fun read, and it's interesting to see how historical narratives get formed. It did make a good case that he might not as bad as the worst narratives say. But I wouldn't go much further than that.
It's always amusing to know what's going on with "the latest" in classics, however, modern classicists are, to put it kindly, almost all completely full of shit, preferring to publish contrarian, obvious bullshit to the difficult task of examining the evidence and drawing new and interesting conclusions (I dunno; someone like Gregario Maranon's examination of the character of Tiberius seemed to add to the conversation).<p>For example; it's presently wildly popular to believe that the Germanic invasions were peaceful multiculturalism, rather than, you know, a civilization ending event. I assume because the twee nincompoops who populate modern Classics departments are made uncomfortable by the parallels with present day barbarian invasions of Europe. There is zero actual evidence for this; in fact, looking at the archaeological, numismatic and philological evidence; it's abundantly obvious [0] that Rome wasn't peacefully transformed by Teutonic multiculturalism, but was in fact, sacked by barbarians and ruined forever.<p>Similarly, while I'm no Nero expert, and I think it would be interesting if Nero was a misunderstood bunny rabbit and his witch of a mother a "hidden figure" who would have made a great Elizabeth, I <i>strongly suspect</i> the ancient and later writers and views on Nero and Aggripina will turn out to be more accurate than something out of modern nincompoop Classics departments, populated with the likes of Zuck's dumb younger sister[1]. I could be wrong! And Smithsonian could also be misrepresenting the thesis of the book, but Nero being a jerk seems more likely than not.<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Ward-Perkins" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Ward-Perkins</a><p>[1] <a href="https://eidolon.pub/@donnazuckerberg" rel="nofollow">https://eidolon.pub/@donnazuckerberg</a> -hilarious trash writer, taken seriously because there are less disapproving tweedy types around, and because her brother is a billionaire