I've heard that a lot of the crazy stories about Nero were just propaganda. I'm not certain that this is an example, but it definitely feels like propaganda.
You could say the same thing about the modern stories of Epstein, Qanon, the supposed secret basement in that pizza place etc. Maybe it was just propaganda, or maybe Nero, Caligula and other Roman emperors were a bit sociopathic to say the least and were drawn to more than just abstract political power.
Are you saying Epstein wasn't in the business of pedophilic exploitation involving a number of the global'elite', and that his island wasn't a resort for said activities?
It doesn't seem right to conflate that with Qanon or Pizzagate. It's like comparing critics of a particular Covid-19 policy to flat-earthers.
> It doesn't seem right to conflate that with Qanon or Pizzagate. It's like comparing critics of a particular Covid-19 policy to flat-earthers.
Yes, but the point is that the two cases can be indistinguishable at a distance. We'll probably never know what stories about Roman emperors were at least somewhat factual, and what were just propaganda.
Nero had a very "peculiar" sexual life, but was also, of course, very powerful, which made him an enemy of the Senate that was very conservative about the image of Roman as soldiers.
So it is possible that the stories were true and they used them to dethrone him and later on the propaganda depicted him as a monster.
There were rumors in history, today believed untrue, that he killed his wife Poppea kicking her in the belly, also killing the baby she was caring.
There are rumors of him killing his mother Agrippina (we don't know if it's true or not).
The story says that Nero after losing the wife married his lover Statilia Messalina, but she was too different from Poppea so he started a search throughout the Empire for a woman looking exactly like his dead wife.
He also decided that the sex of the person wasn't important, so when they found Sporo, Nero castrated him and married him in Greece. Story says Sporo was dressed as an empress, but probably he never wanted that life and the castration was forced upon him.
The marriage with Sporo came after the one with Pitagora, when Nero played the role of the wife.
If all of this is propaganda, Svetonio had a great imagination, or, maybe, as the historians think today, most of it is the truth, romanticized, but mostly true.
Or maybe he just wrote down some of the craziest rumors? Individually I think I could buy most of them individually, but together they just seem too much. He married a guy after castrating him and also got married to a guy with himself dressed as the bride? I guess I would consider it more believable if they seemed more 'congruent'.
> I would consider it more believable if they seemed more 'congruent'.
Why?
Social norms were very different for regular people, imagine being the emperor, especially Nero, whose family history make GOT look like a family camping...
Another example is Elagabalus, who is considered the first example of a transgender emperor in history.
