Episode 78. Nero, Part Three: Fire, Conspiracy, Fall
Shownotes
Works Cited Primary Sources
- Cassius Dio. Roman History, Books 62 and 63. Greek-language narrative covering the full reign with substantial material on the late reign that complements Suetonius.
- Suetonius. Life of Nero. The principal source for the late reign material that Tacitus's Annals do not preserve. Includes the Greek tour material, the Sporus and Pythagoras episodes, the death scene at Phaon's villa, the famous last words.
- Tacitus. Annals, Books 15 and 16. Book 15 covers from the Pisonian Conspiracy through the deaths of 65 and into 66 CE. Book 16, in its surviving form, covers the deaths of Petronius and Thrasea Paetus and breaks off in mid-66 CE with the Thrasea Paetus scene. The text of Annals 16 ends abruptly with the libation passage. The remaining two years of Nero's reign—including the Greek tour, the deaths of Corbulo and the Scribonii, and the final collapse—are not preserved in Tacitus.
- Barrett, Anthony A. Rome Is Burning. Princeton University Press, 2020. Continues to be the major recent treatment of the Great Fire and its political consequences, including the Christian persecution.
- Champlin, Edward. Nero. Harvard University Press, 2003. Already cited in Episode 75. The major revisionist treatment, which argues against the strict acceptance of the hostile literary sources on several specific points covered in this episode—the kicking of Poppaea, the Sporus marriage, the Greek tour as cultural buffoonery rather than as a substantive political project.
- Griffin, Miriam T. Nero: The End of a Dynasty. Yale University Press, 1984. The standard scholarly biography. The framework for the Pisonian Conspiracy and the post-conspiracy purges in this episode is principally Griffin's.