History's Worst F*ckboys: Emperor Nero

Summary

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

Episode: History's Worst F*ckboys: Emperor Nero
Host: Dr. Kate Lister
Guest: Alexander Meddings, historian and Rome-based tour guide
Release Date: September 16, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this wickedly candid episode, host and sex historian Kate Lister teams up with historian Alexander Meddings to explore the notorious reign and scandalous private life of Emperor Nero. Their provocative conversation seeks to answer a tongue-in-cheek question: Can Nero be considered a "historical fuckboy," or, as unfolds, is he simply one of history's most grotesque villains—redefining the very concept of sexual and social transgression? Expect laughs, uncomfortable gasps, and plenty of NSFW historical detail as Nero's cruelty, excesses, and infamous relationships are put under the microscope.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: The Worst of the Worst (04:42–07:47)

• Introduction to Nero: Kate and Alexander set the mood with banter about devilish house parties and “unwanted musical performances” (by Nero himself, of course).
• Tough Question: Is Nero even “good enough” to qualify as a fuckboy, or is he simply “so bad” that the label doesn’t fit?
  • Quote: "I think he's changing the definition of what a fuckboy is. It's less kind of like ghosting after the third date and more castrating a guy that looks like your ex wife who you kicked to death when she was pregnant." — Alexander (06:21)

2. Nero’s Family Web and Rise to Power (07:47–12:28)

• Nero’s Background: Born to blue blood in 37 AD, tangled in the Julio-Claudian dynasty.
• Family Drama: Adopted by Emperor Claudius at his mother Agrippina's ambitious direction. Old family name literally means “bronze beard.”
• Murderous Succession: Claudius’ natural heir Britannicus poisoned (by Nero) to eliminate rivals.
  • Quote: "He just gets poisoned." — Alexander (10:00)

3. Toxic Childhood and Early Reign (12:28–14:30)

• Agrippina’s Dominance: His mother rules as regent during his teens; Nero becomes emperor at just 16.
• Maternal Intrigue: Agrippina a “Machiavellian matriarch” eventually done in by her own son.
• Dysfunctional Family: Arranged marriage to Octavia, parental machinations and forced suicides.
  • Quote: "It's a right snake pit... He's the cat that gets the cream." — Alexander (12:07)

4. Marital Misery and First Killings (14:30–17:48)

• Marriage to Octavia: Loveless and brutal; Nero repeatedly tries to strangle her, obsessed instead with Acte, a freedwoman.
• Acte and the Bad Crowd: Nero begins slumming it as a “Clockwork Orange”-style thug in Rome with Otho and others.
• Octavia’s Fate: Banished for alleged adultery, later executed; an early example of Nero’s cruelty and ruthless disposal of inconvenient women.

5. Matricide & Mythmaking (20:09–26:41)

• Mother’s Murder: Alexander lays out Nero’s convoluted, theatrical plots—collapsible roofs/boats—to kill Agrippina.
• Public Reaction: Initially feared, then staged and spun for legitimacy; Nero embraces the role of matricide by playing Oedipus on stage.
  • Quote: "He definitely killed his mum. And then... I suspect he also then seeded the rumor that she had tried to seduce him." — Alexander (20:21)
  • Kiss of Death: "He says farewell on the shore, kisses her on the eyes weirdly, and on the bosom, and sends her off to see." — Alexander (22:12)
• Public Spin: Senate rewards him with triumphs despite rumors, acquiescing to tyranny.

6. Second Wife, More Carnage (27:05–28:53)

• Poppaea Sabina: Ambitious, manipulative, and ultimately beaten to death by Nero while pregnant.
  • Quote: "He gets home late from the games... She complains... and he tramples her, is the ancient description." — Alexander (28:04)
• Aftermath: Poppaea’s corpse embalmed and displayed publicly; Nero then finds a boy, Sporus, who resembled Poppaea and has him castrated and married.

7. The Sporus Saga & Nero’s Sexual Excess (29:37–32:56)

• Sporus: Castrated and paraded as Nero's wife, passed down as “Poppaea” to other powerful Romans after Nero’s death, ultimately ending in suicide.
  • Quote: "He finds a boy who looks a bit like Poppaea, and he has this boy castrated, married. He marries him..." — Alexander (28:53)
• Sick Jokes: Possible commentary on Nero's attitude towards power, sexuality, and cruelty.

8. Nero’s Kinks, Kills, and 'Sexpertise' (34:48–37:22)

• Sexual Outrage:
  • Sex life directed by a "Magistra Libidinum" (sex teacher).
  • Nero devises elaborate “games,” including dressing in animal pelts, attacking genitals of tied-up people, and role-reversal sex rituals.
    • Quote: "He would attack the genitals of people who had been tied to sticks. And then he would retire to the bedroom to be run through by Pythagoras." — Alexander (35:34)
• Orientation: Gender and power fluidity, but all within a prurient, exploitative framework.

9. Nero the Performer & Burning Rome (37:22–41:29)

• Wannabe Rockstar: Preferred stage performance to statecraft; forced Roman elite to attend his concerts.
• Rome’s Great Fire: Nero rumored to have fiddled while Rome burned (which is false—the fiddle didn’t exist), but he rebuilt grandly—especially for himself.
  • Quote: "So a fire breaks out, it wastes Rome, and rather than rebuild the homes for his citizens, he builds a giant golden palace for himself." — Kate (39:29)
• Christian Persecution: Nero blames and executes Christians spectacularly—burning and crucifixions in his gardens.

10. The Bizarre End of Nero (41:53–46:01)

• Decline and Revolt: Spent final years on tour, ignoring crises at home; military revolts topple his rule.
  • Quote: "Nero is initially more annoyed that Vindex has slighted his ability as an artist than his focus." — Alexander (42:45)
• Absurd Last Stand: Proposes confronting enemies with a parade of shaved prostitutes; abandoned and forced to suicide.
  • Final Words: “What an artist the world is losing.” (45:41)

11. Legacy and Conclusion: Not Even a ‘Fuckboy’ (47:05–48:56)

• Kate & Alexander Reflect: Nero’s crimes and perversions “sully the name of fuckboy”—he is simply a “pioneer of awfulness.”
  • Quote: "He doesn't deserve to be on the list. He sullies the name of fuckboy. Quite frankly, if all he was was a fuckboy, I think we'd have all been let off quite lightly." — Kate (48:36)
• Public Reaction: His death celebrated by some, others mourned or impersonated him long after.

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Memorable Quotes

• Redefining Fuckboy:
  “I think he's changing the definition... It's less kind of like ghosting after the third date and more castrating a guy that looks like your ex wife who you kicked to death when she was pregnant.”
  — Alexander Meddings, 06:21

• On Ancient Spin Doctors:
  “It's just spin and bollocks. It's just like outright lies.”
  — Kate Lister, 25:43

• On Nero's Sexual Games:
  "He would attack the genitals of people who had been tied to sticks. And then he would retire to the bedroom to be run through by Pythagoras."
  — Alexander Meddings, 35:34

• On the Nadir of Rulership:
  “What an artist the world is losing.”
  — Alexander Meddings (quoting Nero), 45:41

• Final Judgment:
  “He sullies the name of fuckboy... I don't even know what the word is for him, but he's not that.”
  — Kate Lister, 48:36

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 04:42 — Defining “fuckboy,” and why Nero’s in his own league
• 07:47 — Nero’s family background and unsavory path to power
• 10:00 — Poisoning Britannicus
• 12:28 — Agrippina’s regency & Nero’s early (lack of) leadership
• 14:30 — Married to Octavia, obsessed with Acte
• 17:48 — Octavia’s banishment and death
• 20:09 — The murder of Agrippina: boat plots and public reaction
• 27:05 — Poppaea Sabina: from lover to battered wife
• 28:53 — The Sporus episode: gender-bending abuse
• 35:07 — Deviant games: animal pelts and roleplay
• 37:22 — Nero the failed rockstar
• 39:02 — The Great Fire of Rome and palace building
• 41:25 — Persecution of Christians
• 41:53 — Nero’s downfall: madcap plots, abandonment, suicide
• 47:05 — Was he a “fuckboy” or something far, far worse?
• 48:36 — “Pioneer of awfulness”—final verdict

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Summary

This episode offers a lurid, darkly humorous, and sharply critical portrait of Emperor Nero—one that spares no detail of his crimes, kinks, and megalomania. Drawing on ancient sources and modern skepticism, Kate and Alexander forcefully argue that Nero is so monstrous that he “redefines the paradigm” of what it means to be a sex-crazed scoundrel in history. Rather than a mere “fuckboy,” Nero emerges as an abuser, showboater, and pioneer of awfulness—his sexual exploits inseparable from his violence and self-obsession. By the end, listeners are left with a mix of fascination, revulsion, and insight into how ancient scandals can both mirror and utterly eclipse modern conceptions of sex, power, and notoriety.

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For private Rome tours with Alexander Meddings, visit alexandermeddings.com or appiawithalex.com.

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Next week: History’s Naughtiest Pope—subscribe for more scandal!

Transcript

[Kate Lister]

Hello, my lovely betwixters, it's me, Kate Lister. I am jumping in here to say that thanks to you, we have made the final six in the Listeners Choice Award category at the British Podcast Awards. And that can't just be my mum voting. It can't. I mean, it might be, but I don't think that it is. And that means that a whole load of you have actually gone out there and taken the time to vote for us. And honestly, thank you so, so much. That means more than you can possibly imagine. And if you haven't voted yet, you are letting the side. Do you want to just get on with it? Frankly? No, seriously, if you haven't voted, please do it now. It'll take 30 seconds at most and you can do it by following the link in the show notes. And don't forget to click the confirmation email when it comes through. And to those of you that have already voted, don't go voting again through a different email address. That would just be a terrible thing. I'm just putting that out there so nobody, no one actually thinks of doing that. I certainly haven't been doing that. We've never been this close before. Honestly, we are within striking distance.

[Alexander Meddings]

So.

[Kate Lister]

So every vote really counts. Three years we've done this now. Three years we've been shortlisted. Maybe this is the year that we're going to do it. And I promise you, I promise, it's only a couple more days of me constantly begging you for votes. And just thank you for being so patient and for voting. All right, on with the show.

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[Kate Lister]

Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. You are listening to Betwixt the Sheets, the naughtiest, spiciest, adultiest podcast that's out there. That's not true. That's not true by a long stretch. But we do cover some pretty saucy ground. So I have to tell any newcomers, this is an adult podcast, spoken by adults to other adults about adulty things and adulty way covering a range of subjects and used to be an adult too. We do that for your own safety, quite frankly, because we care. Right, on with the show. Join me at a house party in first century Rome. I think it's fair to say this is a house party unlike anything that either you or I have been to before. We are a lavish house party at the golden house of Emperor Nero, no less. Yeah, that's right. We're with the big wigs now. The wine is flowing and nobody has died a gruesome death. Well, I mean, not yet. The night is still young, but everyone seems to be having a good. Oh, God, what's that? Some. Oh, no. Somebody has started playing on a musical instrument to give us an unprompted and frankly, unwanted musical performance. Oh, it's actually the emperor. Oh, no. Oh, what's he doing? Yeah, okay. This is the Roman equivalent of serenading us with Wonderwall, I guess. What do we do? Does everyone just. Oh, everyone's just standing and applauding. I mean, if they put up with this, what else are they gonna be putting up with? But to be completely honest with you, playing the guitar when nobody asked you to is the very least of Nero's problems. In today's episode, we are gonna be asking the question, was Nero a historical boy? Should we get on with the show? I think I've certainly got to get out of here before he starts singing Acapella. Let's go. What do you look for? A man. Oh, money. Of course.

[Alexander Meddings]

You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning a knob and pushing the button.

[Kate Lister]

Yes, social courtesy does make a difference. Good. My beautiful dime. Goodness had nothing to do with it. Dearian. Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the the History of Sex Scandal in Society with me, Kate Lister. We've already examined Charles I and Raphael to ask the question, are they historical fuckboys? And we let them both off the hook. Didn't we. Well now it's the turn of the emperor Nero. What a shocking example of a human being he was, even by the standards of the time. So brace yourself. Betwixt us this is some next level badness. And enlightening us, horrifying us about Nero is the fantastic Rome based historian and tour guide Alexander Meddings. And he is going to hold our hand and take us back to the first century to meet Nero. Toga's at the ready everyone. I don't know if you're prepared for it, but let's do it anyway. Well, hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Alexander Meddings. How are you doing?

[Alexander Meddings]

I am great, thanks Kate, how are you?

[Kate Lister]

Oh, I had the most fun talking to you last time about the Roman legionnaires. That was a riot. So of course we were going to have you back on to further our endless fascination with history's worst fuckboys. And today I don't, I don't even know. We've done some of these and I've thought are they a fuckboy? Maybe they just really like sex. I Nero, as far as I can see, is so bad, I don't even know if he would. I don't know if he's good enough to be qualified as a fuckboy.

[Alexander Meddings]

I think he's changing the definition of what a fuckboy is. It's less kind of like ghosting after the third date and more castrating a guy that looks like your ex wife who you kicked to death when she was pregnant.

[Kate Lister]

Why am I laughing at that? It's not funny.

[Alexander Meddings]

It's so bad.

[Kate Lister]

Let's define our terms, right? I've returned to urbandictionary.com to get yet another definition of fuckboy because they have several. The definition here is a boy who plays with girls feelings and doesn't really like them and would do or say anything a girl wants to hear, to have sex with them or to get.

[Alexander Meddings]

Something that they want, including I will have you executed.

[Kate Lister]

That's not here I've been through. It's nowhere on Urban Dictionary does it continue with and will have you executed. It does say things like they will tell a girl anything she wants. They will go to any length. I don't know if they were thinking about mass murder, but maybe it covers it.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah, it's tricky to fit Nero into this description. We'll give it a go.

[Kate Lister]

I've come to this thinking maybe his reputation is ill deserved. Maybe you are gonna be one of the people to go. No, hold on a Minute I'm Team Nero Way he's been horribly maligned, but I just don't think that that's going to happen.

[Alexander Meddings]

No, he was pretty awful by modern standards and ancient standards. We can whitewash some things, but no, he was generally abysmal, a wanker.

[Kate Lister]

All right, let's, let's take him right back. Who is Nero? Where does he come from? How does he fit into the Roman lineage?

[Alexander Meddings]

So he is born in the year 37 AD. So he's born in the reign of Rome's third emperor, Caligula, who's also quite terrible. And we'll probably move on to him later as well. He is related Nero to Augustus by blood. And Augustus is like the goat. He was the first emperor, the greatest emperor, the one that all subsequent emperors try and emulate. And Nero has kind of proper blue blood coursing through his veins. His mother, Gripina was the sister of Caligula. She was the niece and the wife of Claudius. And Nero is a doctor adopted by Claudius. When Claudius is emperor, he's got the credentials then. He definitely does. And when he's adopted, he changes his name too, because his original name is Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, which means Lucius Domitius bronze beard. Because kind of all men of that family had bronze beards apparently.

[Kate Lister]

Was he a redhead then? Is that what we're saying?

[Alexander Meddings]

I think so. I mean, you can actually see some pretty interesting reconstructions of Nero based on portraiture and descriptions. He looks kind of like sort of Ed Sheeran, let himself go with an incel neck beard. It's kind of the vibe.

[Kate Lister]

Wow. Okay, that's a vivid image you've just painted right there. All right, so his name was a real. I didn't know his name was. Basically I'm a redhead and he changed it. Why did he change it? Why Nero? Why did he go Nero?

[Alexander Meddings]

It's one of those classic Julio Claudian names that all of them share. They're very unimaginative, although not as unimaginative as his father. And that Ahenobar's family, all of the men are called either Gnaeus or Lucius and they refuse to change throughout history.

[Kate Lister]

Does he change his name just to be the emperor?

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah, to kind of fit in with the mold of the Julio Claudius and to style himself well. Or to be styled rather more as a legitimate heir to the throne. But it's all a bit weird because Claudius already has an heir. Claudius has a natural born son called Britannicus.

[Kate Lister]

Hang on then.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah, hang on.

[Kate Lister]

What happens to Britannicus. Oh, I've just got a feeling. He's not gonna go and live on a farm somewhere and have a happy and long life. No.

[Alexander Meddings]

Not even an island for Britannicus. No. He just gets poisoned.

[Kate Lister]

O Britannicus. By Nero. Was it by Nero?

[Alexander Meddings]

It's by Nero, yeah. Yeah. Poor Britannicus. He has a pretty unhappy little life. He's a couple of years younger than Nero, although we are told that the two of them growing up squabble quite a lot like siblings do. And there are some moments of high humour. Apparently Britannicus used to call Nero Ahenobarbus just to annoy him. And Nero used to say that Britannicus wasn't actually Britannicus but was a substitute.

[Kate Lister]

And then they grew up and he poisoned him.

[Alexander Meddings]

So Agraphina kind of propels Nero to power. She probably also has Claudius poisoned.

[Kate Lister]

She was a power hungry one, wasn't she? If memory serves.

[Alexander Meddings]

Well, yeah, she was phenomenal. She's a proper Machiavellian matriarch who was able to negotiate several emperors and make it pretty far before being done in by her son.

[Kate Lister]

We'll get to that. Stick a pin in that.

[Alexander Meddings]

Spoiler alert.

[Kate Lister]

Did he have a happy childhood?

[Alexander Meddings]

We don't really know, but I assume not. It wasn't as bad as Caligula's for sure, because like, Caligula sees his entire family, really Baris sisters, just get wiped out in various Tiberian purges. I think he's just got a very overbearing, controlling mother. But there's nothing to suggest he has a particularly unhappy childhood. Dad dies really young and if he wanted to kind of psychoanalyze, which is always a bit tricky with people who've been dead for 2,000 years, you could say maybe he's always, throughout his life looking for that kind of father. You've done really well, son kind of recognition, maybe.

[Kate Lister]

And a pushy stage mother.

[Alexander Meddings]

It's a very pushy mother, like murdering.

[Kate Lister]

People type of pushy.

[Alexander Meddings]

Oh, yeah. I mean, essentially Nero's first wife, he has three. His first wife, Octavia. The marriage is arranged by Agrippina and Claudius and she's already married to a guy called Silanus who they have accused of adultery and made to commit suicide. When Nero's like 15, she's probably about 14, 15 as well.

[Kate Lister]

It would fuck you up, wouldn't it? It would do. That's not a healthy environment to be growing up in.

[Alexander Meddings]

No, it's toxic. It's the right snake pit. And his mother's so adept at Maneuvering the snake pit that, yeah, you can't imagine it is a particularly easy childhood, but he's the cat that gets the cream. He's groomed for power, he gets power. He comes to power when he's 16 years old.

[Kate Lister]

16? Oh, no.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

Like, what were you doing at 16? Imagine just going, right, now you're in charge now you're the king of the biggest empire in the world. What do you want to do? Jesus Christ.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah. I was hanging around Wolverhampton dressed as a Goth, so not ready to rule an empire.

[Kate Lister]

No. What 16 year old is fit to rule an empire, for God's sake?

[Alexander Meddings]

The good news is that he doesn't really do any ruling for quite a long time. So for the first four years, everything has been done by his mother, who appears and coins alongside him. Like, it's the first time this ever happens in Roman history. And her portrait appears on a verse of coins, looking directly at Nero, who still has, like, the head of a little boy, basically. So she's doing a lot of ruling behind the scenes. In fact, we're told that she'll kind of stand in on senatorial meetings in the palace behind a curtain she's had erected to hide her. Also, he's following the advice of his counselors, so he's got a tutor, Seneca, the Stoic philosopher, and the head of the Praetorian Guard, a guy called Afrit Burrus, who's a pretty headstrong figure. So he's got good counsel.

[Kate Lister]

Now, I imagine that what is going to happen here is what happens in almost any situation where a parent, an adult, some parental figure steps in and goes, well, they're too young to rule. I'll do it. For now. There has to come a point where the person who's too young is no longer too young. And they're gonna say, all right, you can fuck off now. And they never want to fuck off, ever.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah, that's precisely it. Essentially, one day Agrippina says no to him and then it all goes downhill, as it would with a 16, 17.

[Kate Lister]

Year old who's in charge of the world.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah. And is answerable to absolutely nobody. And has Praetorian Guard at his command. Although it's a tricky dynamic because she's also the daughter of Germanicus, so she's also kind of beloved by the guard. So I think they're always in two minds when it comes to having to pick between Nero and Agrippina.

[Kate Lister]

Was Nero married at this point? How old was he when he got married? Was he just a little kid?

[Alexander Meddings]

Then 15. He was 15 when he married Octavia. And then she's a very unhappy figure. Poor Octavia. So she briefly.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, okay. Yep, there we go.

[Alexander Meddings]

Very briefly. And it's a lovely island, I'll give it that. Pandateria, it's off the coast of that too. It's not a bad island. Yeah, she's a very unhappy figure. She's kind of like a bit of a people's princess. Everybody loves her, apart from Nero. They share no interests, they have a really toxic relationship. It seems all of it's on his part. Apparently. He repeatedly tries to strangle her.

[Kate Lister]

Do we know why? Do we anything in the sources? I mean, whether that's true or not, but like, what's the reason? Just for fun. A kink gone wrong.

[Alexander Meddings]

Doesn't like her, doesn't love her, doesn't like her. He's really into this woman called Acte, who is a freed woman, a former slave, and this is really the beginning of the rift with Agrippina. Because Nero falls in love with Acte, he tries to convince the Senate to invent her, this genealogy, saying that she's related to the Parthian kings, they're having none of it. And then he just kind of falls in with a bit of a bad group. There's Acte, there's Otho, the future emperor, and they kind of all go out together doing lots of Clockwork Orange stuff and just kind of dressing up as slaves and beating people up around the Milvian Bridge, while Octave is at home, presumably weaving, knitting, togas. That's kind of the image we get of her, although it's definitely kind of very archetypal. We don't really get anything of her real character. It's like black and white. She's very much the white.

[Kate Lister]

I do like to think that she objected to her husband getting dressed up and beating up homeless people. Even being a Roman, possibly.

[Alexander Meddings]

I mean, he came home once with a black eye, I think, so it wouldn't have been great. I mean, he did also loot stuff and then kind of sold it among his friends at the palace. God knows why. I mean, if you're the emperor, what's the point in looting and selling stuff when you have command of the treasury?

[Kate Lister]

But so what happens to Octavia then? Tell us.

[Alexander Meddings]

So after Britannicus is murdered, and that's very much on Nero's order, a faction forms between Agrippina and Octavia, and essentially Agrippina goes first. Nero first has Agrippina killed on the advice of his new paramour, a woman Called Poppaea Sabina, who is his second wife. She's a really interesting character. She's the black to the white of Octavia, but she's a very interesting figure. So the two of them form a faction. Agrippina's killed and then Octavia loses all supporters. Nero has her accused of firstly adultery and then being.

[Kate Lister]

That's the standard, isn't it? That's what they do, adultery. Off to an island.

[Alexander Meddings]

Proper fuckboy behavior. This because he also says that she's barren, infertile. And then when he finds somebody, a flute player from Egypt, to say that he actually did have an affair with her, he accuses her of having had an abortion. So no logical sense. He just is kind of throwing any charge he possibly can to get her away. Divorced to an island. Yeah, she goes to this island, Pandatria, where she stays for a matter of weeks and then Nero changes his mind and has her killed. And it's really sad and tragic. Like she kind of begs for her life at the end and the poor girl's terrified. Dies at the age of 20.

[Kate Lister]

I'll be back with Alex and Nero after the break.

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[Kate Lister]

We've got to talk about him killing his mum, because that's some Oedipal shit right there. Like, what even is that? That's. Is there any could. That's not even fuck about it. I don't know what that is, but tell me what. Tell me what happened.

[Alexander Meddings]

I mean, that's one of the charges of Nero's. Like a lot of these charges. You think maybe he did, maybe he didn't. There's a lot of difficult. We have problems with the sources, but he definitely killed his mum. And then, I suspect he also then ceded allegations and seeded a rumor that she had tried to seduce him in order to try and retrospectively justify.

[Kate Lister]

I have heard. I have heard that they were shagging and I was wondering how true that was.

[Alexander Meddings]

We have no way of knowing, but I just can't personally see it. But I see that it would have been in his interest to convince the court and others that she was so desperate for power that she would have tried to seduce her own son.

[Kate Lister]

So what does he do then? How does he. I'm gonna assume that Nero isn't the one that actually does the killing.

[Alexander Meddings]

No, he's far too cowardly for that. He never kills anybody directly. It's always with poison. And then he will always kind of later say, ah, if only they had waited for my pardon, I may have pardoned them. Oh, very avant garde in the way he kills Agrabina. He finds out that poison won't work. So he briefly flirts with the idea of constructing a collapsible bedroom roof that.

[Kate Lister]

Will just fall in love with a James Bond villain. Like, just like the weird, like the most implausible, most like, open to risk strategy. A collapsible bedroom. Okay, it is.

[Alexander Meddings]

But it's also very theatrical and kind of everything about Nero is really theatrical. He's kind of big into the theater. I've heard that Deus ex machina kind of death. So. So when he finds out that's not a Goa, he contrives to have her killed on a similarly collapsible boat.

[Kate Lister]

Can you imagine being one of his builders that, like, they've been summoned to, like, a consultation at the palace. I'm sorry, what do you want it to do? We're just gonna do some lovely back walls. Could you have them collapse? Pardon?

[Alexander Meddings]

It's like halfway through the room and it's like, we're actually gonna do boat. But considering that you've already got the collapsible element.

[Kate Lister]

Can we just shift a collapsible boat?

[Alexander Meddings]

Right, Collapsible boat, yeah. He invites her to dinner to dine with him down near Baia, which is kind of in modern day Campania, just northwest of Naples. In antiquity, it was like the Ibiza of the ancient world. Nero loved it because he was like a 20 year old. He invites her there, they dine together, he says farewell on the shore, kisses her on the eyes weirdly, and on the bosom, and sends her off to see.

[Kate Lister]

That's a. I'm sorry, what's happening here?

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah, it's one of those moments where the sources kind of just glitch.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alexander Meddings]

So on the eyes, on the bosom.

[Kate Lister]

Imagine like you just somebody like you haven't seen for a while, just like they're saying goodbye to you and they kiss you on the eyes and then they kiss you on the bosom and they go, please get onto this boat. I've had, mate. Like, fuck off. I will walk. Thank you very much.

[Alexander Meddings]

It's both eyes as well. I mean, I checked the Latin because I'm always curious about this stuff. I'm like, yeah, both eyes. So that's kind of a. Maybe both bosoms. It's a singular bosom. I don't know if it's a triple tap or a.

[Kate Lister]

It's weird is what it is. That's a massive red flag. But she gets on the boat.

[Alexander Meddings]

She gets on the boat. The boat sails out to the middle of the bay, it collapses. And then kind of this slightly comic scene ensues where she immediately clocks what's going on, dives elegantly into the water because she's a really good swimmer, thanks to her time in exile on an island, and she swims to shore. Meanwhile, one of her slaves cries out, I'm Agrippina, thinking that will get her saved, and it ends up getting beaten to death by.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, that's.

[Alexander Meddings]

Unless sailors.

[Kate Lister]

That's unfortunate.

[Alexander Meddings]

Right, so Agrippina swims to land, she washes up in some villa, takes refuge there, doesn't really know what to do. Nero meanwhile, is panicking and it's kind of his advisors Seneca and Burrus, who act appallingly and go, well, at this point you've probably just gotta finish the job. So he sends the Navy, the Praetorians won't do it because she's Germanicus's daughter. So. So he sends the Navy to go and do away with her.

[Kate Lister]

The Navy? The entire Navy?

[Alexander Meddings]

Just a few. Just enough to empower a few sailors under the command of some guy called Anicetus, who is also involved in Octavia's downfall and rewarded with a retirement in Sardinia. So he has a pretty good life.

[Kate Lister]

Do we know what the public's reaction to Agrippina's death was? Because she sounds like for all her pushiness and, you know, being a power mad lunatic, reasonably popular because she is related to Germanicus, who was a big deal.

[Alexander Meddings]

It's mix. But Nero himself was petrified and he actually hangs around in Campania for three months after killing her before going back to Rome because he expects he's going to find a really hostile public. In reality, he rocks up and he finds the Senate there in their holiday attire, whatever the fuck that means, with all of their families kind of like flip flops, beached out, interrupted, on their way down to the coast to Ostia, and they've got all their families kind of lined up on bleachers and they're all applauding the emperor. And then basically they throw Nero a triumph, which is kind of a military celebration you normally celebrate when you've just defeated an enemy.

[Kate Lister]

Well, that'll show him well done, senators. That'll learn him not to do that again.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah, it's awful. I mean, there's one senator with principle, a guy called Thrasea Paetus, who walks out of the Senate House when Nero gives the speech about how he's uncovered a conspiracy and saved himself from his mother's machinations. But everyone else just goes along with it.

[Kate Lister]

So it's just spin and bollocks. It's just like outright lies. He's gonna give it. He didn't even try and say she died accidentally. Now it's that she was scheming against me.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah, I think so. But it's really odd because he definitely then for the rest of his life he tries to frame it in his own terms. So for example, he'll go onto the stage subsequently in the year she dies in 59 in 61 he performs in private that in 64 he performs in public. And when he performs, he performs roles like Oedipus and he performs roles like Orestes, who is the most famous matricide in Greek mythology. And so Nero embraces the role of matricide and when he kicks his second wife to death when she's pregnant, he plays the role of a woman giving birth with her mask on. So he does very weird things on the stage. And the only way I can interpret it, trying to take control of the narrative, I guess it's the only possible interpretation. Or it's just fucked. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

So acte, she's out then.

[Alexander Meddings]

This acte actually lasts for the entire reign.

[Kate Lister]

Well done, Akte.

[Alexander Meddings]

She's behind the scenes, but she's there from pretty much day one up until the very end. She's the one who actually scatters Nero's ashes and gives the funeral eulogy. So she survives all of his wives? Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

So who's the second wife then? Octavia. Dead somewhere.

[Alexander Meddings]

Poppaea Sabina. So she is responsible pretty much for driving Nero against his mother. And then later Octavia, she has a pretty incredible write up in Tacitus. He calls her Super Papilex, which translates as like proud whore.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, I like that.

[Alexander Meddings]

It's pretty good actually, as far as ancient accolades goes.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, I'm sure it wasn't supposed to.

[Alexander Meddings]

Be, but it sounds cool. It sounds really cool.

[Kate Lister]

Very cool. Yeah. But we don't like her. She's like a villain type. Supposed to be.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah. I mean, she was meant to have everything, so really ravishing. Dark, good looks, fierce intellect. She was really good at playing hard to get. She was actually married to Otho, one of Nero's friends, possibly Nero, had her married to Otho so he could spend time around her. She had everything apart from apparently a decent character and she was like just as debauched as he was.

[Kate Lister]

Well, see, this is the thing. The rule of dating is if they'll do it with you, they'll do it to you. That's the thing. So don't be scheming. He kicks her to death, though. I mean, that's.

[Alexander Meddings]

That's the predominant version we have. Yeah. So it's like an act of domestic violence. He gets home late from the games in 64, I think it is. It might be 65. She complains about him coming home late and he tramples her, is the ancient description.

[Kate Lister]

At least he did it himself. That's. He doesn't normally do that. Does he normally have some Guards do it.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

Actually, no, that's not a plus point. What on earth am I talking about? How low is that bar? Look at me trying to scramble anything back. At least he organized it himself. Shut up, Kate. Right, okay, so a horrendous act of violence is committed. She's dead. And then presumably everyone's just standing around going, okay, how does he spin that one? She tripped and fell on my foot repeatedly.

[Alexander Meddings]

Something like that. It gets very weird after this. So he has her embalmed instead of burnt. He has her embalmed, and he has her seated in a public space for all to kind of see and pay respects to. Then he finds a boy while he's away in Greece on a. On a kind of musical artistic tour. He finds a boy who looks a bit like Poppaea, and he has this boy castrated, married. He marries him, and then he kind of parades this boy around marketplaces during his campaign in Greece. It's not a camp. It's not a military campaign. It's basically a musical campaign. And he calls this boy Sporos, which in Greek means semen or seed.

[Kate Lister]

The sound hasn't glitched everybody. I just don't know what to fucking say to that.

[Alexander Meddings]

It gets weirder. It gets way weirder.

[Kate Lister]

It can't get weirder.

[Alexander Meddings]

Genuinely. I think Sporos has the most bizarre story possibly in history. So Sporos survives Nero. He's there at Nero's death. And after Nero dies, Sporus is then passed down to the praetorian prefect of the time, a guy called Nymphidius Sabinus, who also calls him Poppaea and treats him as his wife.

[Kate Lister]

What the fuck is going on? What is happening in ancient Rome?

[Alexander Meddings]

And then when Namphidius Sabinus dies, he goes to Otho. Now, bear in mind, Otho used to be married to Poppaea. He also takes Sporus in, calls him Poppaea, claims him as his wife.

[Kate Lister]

What's on earth?

[Alexander Meddings]

And then when Otho dies, Sporus passes down to Vitellius, who doesn't treat him as a wife. Instead, he tries to get Sporus to perform on stage in a play about the rape of Persephone. And Sporus won't do it. He doesn't want the humiliation. He can't bear it anymore.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, my God. Do we know what happened to him?

[Alexander Meddings]

No, he committed suicide rather than performing that play. That was the straw that broke the eunuch's back.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, my. My God. What, do you think that's true? I know. I know. The Sources are all, you know, I.

[Alexander Meddings]

Kind of weirdly do. I kind of weirdly do. I think Nero probably did have this guy castrated and paraded around, but I don't really know why. It's either gonna be, I can do what I want to everybody because I am the emperor, or it's some really sick joke, like calling him Seed even though he's cut his balls off. Or it's something kind of a bit Greek that we don't understand. It's like a Saturnalia inversion of Roblox.

[Kate Lister]

Some kind of psychotic breakdown.

[Alexander Meddings]

Could be. Yeah. Also this. I mean, that's kind of madness, is probably the best explanation here. It's just he's grieving her so much, he just wants this guy to replace her.

[Kate Lister]

Sure. There's some things that get said on this show that just even catch me out unawares, and that's got to be one of them. I don't even know what you do with that. Can't marry him, or did he actually marry him? Was that like a legal marriage?

[Alexander Meddings]

Not legal, because it's not between a man and a woman. It's between a mock man and a man. But it's with all the fanfare of marriage. But this was done over in Greece, in Rome. He marries, we're told, another guy called. Well, this is. This is where it gets difficult because the sources can't even agree this guy's name. He might be called Pythagoras. He might be called Doriophorus.

[Kate Lister]

Okay. All right. So Tanuma likes the boys. Well, likes is a strong word. He seems to be attracted to the boys.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah. With Pythagoras, he plays the passive role. We're told that they get married. No, not at all.

[Kate Lister]

No. Again, is that because a lot of these sources, they were written after the fact, and they're all about, like, demonizing the emperor as much as possible because he's dead now and no one cares. I don't know. That sounds like a very, like, pointed attack on his masculinity. I don't. I mean, like, we've got a lot to work with, haven't we? I'm not sure they needed to go.

[Alexander Meddings]

That far, but I agree with you. Yeah. I think the. The whole Pythagoras, Doriophorus thing is a. It's a complete mystery. I mean, Sporus, too, and it's weird to kind of believe one and not the other, but.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, that's true. If you believe one awful story, why not? Not believe them all? Maybe. But does he marry any More women. Do you have any more wives?

[Alexander Meddings]

He does. His third and final wife is the much married Statillia Messalina, who's had plenty of husbands before. She's kind of like a Jane Seymour esque figure. She survives him and then just disappears from history with loads of money.

[Kate Lister]

Could you even imagine, like getting the offer of marriage from Nero? Like after everything that's happened, you just be like, no, I'm all right. Actually, I'm fine. Thank you for, for asking. I'll be back with Alex and Nero after the break.

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[Kate Lister]

What do we know about his sex life? Because we do need to talk about. Well, we've touched on it already quite extensively, but is apart from castrating people and kicking women to death, do we have any more information that might help us ascertain whether or not he was a. He was a fuck boy? I think we've done it, to be honest.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah, he kind of redefines the paradigm, doesn't he? I think with Nero, he kind of does sex to shock as much as he does it to enjoy himself. I see him as a bit of a Bonnie Blue esque figure.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, that's interesting.

[Alexander Meddings]

Okay, so we know a few things. We're told that he had an instructor of lust, Magisra Libinidum called Calvia Crispinale, who was his kind of sex teacher when he was quite young, we're told.

[Kate Lister]

How weird.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah, it's really odd that we're told he was into one particular game. Well, we're told that he basically tried a bit of everything and when he basically couldn't get excited, when he considered everything to be vanilla and he couldn't get excited anymore. He devised one particular game with Pythagoras, which involved him dressing up in the pelt of a wild animal and being released from a cage. And he would. Dressed in this wild animal pelt. He would attack the genitals of people who had been tied to sticks. And then he would retire to the bedroom to be run through by Pythagoras.

[Kate Lister]

Wow. I mean, you know, I'm all for roleplay and kink, but I think that's a stretch too far, that one, isn't it?

[Alexander Meddings]

It's a bit much, isn't it?

[Kate Lister]

It's a bit much. It's a bit strong, that one, Nero. If we could just take it down a notch, that would be marvelous. All right. O so he's doing that. Is he interested in women, do you think? Or is he sort of want. Does he sort of marry women? Because he has to. Does he have other women lovers?

[Alexander Meddings]

I think he's probably interested in both in that typical male way. But it's all very much based on power and being able to do what he wants with people. He's not like Caligula. There's no evidence of him stealing senators wives from dinner parties and going and having his way with them and bringing them back to the table to comment on their performance.

[Kate Lister]

The bar is low, but good. Okay.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah, he doesn't do that. It seems that he's a lot more calculated in everything he does. And again, a lot of this has probably been completely taken out of context and refracted through the prism of our sources, like the whole people tied to stakes thing. To me, that sounds a lot like public execution. So it could also be that he's on stage. He's involved in this somehow as an actor.

[Kate Lister]

That's an awful lot of planning for bedroom antics, isn't it?

[Alexander Meddings]

But he's got the builders.

[Kate Lister]

He does have the builders. He does. And if anyone could do, would be him. Fuck. What a way to go out. Involved in someone else's awful kink play. And one thing that I do know about him is that he thought he was a brilliant musician that might, you know, as if everything else wasn't awful enough. And quite frankly, it should be. But he would be that guy who went to a house party and then got out a guitar and started singing.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah, Wonderwall. Some terrible cover of it.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah. He's really into performing. I mean, kind of the tragedy of Nero, really is that he. He was an emperor and he was supposed to be doing military and administrative stuff, whereas he Wasn't. And he didn't want to do it. All he wanted to do was to sing, to play the lyre, to raise chariots, later in his life to wrestle. If reality TV had been around in the ancient world, Nero would have been on all of it. He loved popularity. He'd be on Love is Blind Strictly.

[Kate Lister]

And I bet everyone would hate him then as well. Like, he'd be one of those, like just fame hungry cretins who you just can't get off the telly. He wasn't good at playing music though, was he?

[Alexander Meddings]

We don't know. Conflicting sources. I mean, Suetonius says that his voice was thin and husky, but I think Cassius Dio says that he had quite a honey sweet, melodious voice. He hired the best lyre player of the age, a guy called Tertnas, to teach him. I think he was probably quite talented at most of the things he did. Just not ruling the empire.

[Kate Lister]

No shit at that. Absolutely awful relationships. Dreadful. And relationships as well. Did he fiddle while Rome burned? That's the question.

[Alexander Meddings]

No, definitely not, because the fiddle had not been invented.

[Kate Lister]

Well, that'll do it then.

[Alexander Meddings]

That's the big one. But also, I mean, so the Great Fire of Rome in 64, burns like 2/3 of the city to the ground, rages for seven days. There are rumors that Nero is complicit. And Nero doesn't help himself by building the Domus Aurea, a giant golden palace to himself in a big area that was laid waste by the fire.

[Kate Lister]

So a fire breaks out, it wastes Rome, and rather than rebuild the homes for his citizens, he builds a giant golden palace for himself.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah, a little bit, yeah. I mean.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, dear.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah, it's got a lake, it's got a nice little kind of woodland area. If I. I'm trying to come to his defense a little bit here. There's nothing to suggest it's entirely private of it. It could be like mar a lago with a day pass. It could be like, oh, nice.

[Kate Lister]

Right, okay. I'm sure that helped everybody. You want to go and watch the Emperor live in a house you could never afford, Watch him live in a house where yours used to be.

[Alexander Meddings]

He also does rebuild the city, and he rebuilds it in a really smart way. He's got the builders, he makes sure it's pretty much fireproof and actually kind of we don't see anything of Rome today nowadays that doesn't predate Nero because everything was burned down and he sort of restructured the city.

[Kate Lister]

Okay, okay. So he's a visionary, if nothing else. This is another point to his detriment, though. So, like, all right, so good at architecture and possibly at playing the guitar. He was the one that burnt Christians to death, though, wasn't he?

[Alexander Meddings]

He did. So he blames them for starting the fire.

[Kate Lister]

Easy peasy. Jobs are good. And why not?

[Alexander Meddings]

There are lots of rumors swirling that he was behind it, that Nero is behind it, and there are rumors swirling that he was the lyre while Roan burnt or singing a song about the fall of Troy. In reality, he was going around for several days, leading the relief efforts. But he probably did make some Homeric quip and then this was taken out of context to be like, oh, he was singing. But he blames the Christians, who were a very fringe group at the time. I mean, Christianity is like 60 years old or so, so it'd be like blaming Hare Krishna or something. Quite a weird choice when there are so many other scapegoats. But he scapegoats them and then he goes a bit too far. So he has them crucified and burnt alive in his gardens in the Vatican, and he parades around dressed as a charioteer among his.

[Kate Lister]

I would say that's too far. Yes, I think a line's been crossed there.

[Alexander Meddings]

Although that is the traditional execution for arsonists. So he didn't technically go beyond what was legally awful.

[Kate Lister]

Just awful people.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah, they were horrific.

[Kate Lister]

Right. So he's doing that. You've got to tell me how this all ends for him. So he gets married again to Messalina, but not the really naughty one, a different one. How does he meet his end? Painfully.

[Alexander Meddings]

I hope it is pretty painfully. And it's at his own hand. So he spends the last couple of his years just away on tour. He spends quite a lot of time in Greece at the Olympics, picking up various crowns for charioteering, singing heraldry, doing everything apart from what an emperor should do. And kind of people around the empire, the legates and those in charge of the legions realise this is unsustainable.

[Kate Lister]

So this is like having a prime minister or a president, but instead of actually doing the job, they send themselves on a tour of their own music around the country.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah, it's that kind of scenario. So there's a revolt. A guy called Julius Vindex, who we are told had a love of freedom, whatever that means, leads a revolt against him in Gaul, modern day France. Nero is initially more annoyed that Vindex has slighted his ability as an artist than his focus.

[Kate Lister]

Nero focus.

[Alexander Meddings]

He kind of prevaricates For a couple of days. Eventually, he summons the Senate for a meeting, but he goes off topic and he starts talking about a innovative way of playing the water organ, that he's just.

[Kate Lister]

Jesus Christ, he's got to go. He's got to go. This is ridiculous.

[Alexander Meddings]

By this stage, yeah. No support is draining away. And then Nero finds out that other legions have rebelled, including a guy called Galba, a future emperor over in Spain. Upon hearing this, Nero faints. It's all very dramatic. So he kind of momentarily passes out and can't speak, comes to his senses, retires to the palace, and then summons the Senate again. And he comes up with a plan. So his plan, genius plan, is that he's going to assemble a procession of prostitutes with their heads shaved to look like Amazon warriors. He's going to march to the revolting legions and he's going to present himself in front of them and weep. And the legionaries, seeing their emperor in such a plight, will also weep.

[Kate Lister]

Imagine being there, listening to him explain his plan. Like, you've all gathered for what could be the most important speech of this lunatic's life. Like, literally his last chance. What he's gonna do to fix it all. And it starts with, I'm gonna get a load of hookers and shave their heads.

[Alexander Meddings]

He's redefining the narrative of what it means to go on campaign like this.

[Kate Lister]

Wow. So was any. Was anybody there in the forum? Like, yes, this is exactly what we need.

[Alexander Meddings]

I like to imagine there was at least one guy, one lunatic, one other sycophant. Yes, my liege.

[Kate Lister]

All right, so they didn't go for this plan, then. I assume this would have been people looking at one another, going, what on earth?

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah. This is the final straw. So the Senate convene, they declare him an enemy of the people, and support drains away overnight. Night Nero wakes up in the middle of the night to find everybody abandoning him, apart from Sporus Acte and a few other freedmen. I think even Statillia Messalina's buggered off by this point.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, you would do. Yeah. Once you'd heard that plan. Yeah, you'd be long gone.

[Alexander Meddings]

You're gonna take who?

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, I think. I think just. Just get my bags ready, please. Just start the car. We're about to go.

[Alexander Meddings]

So he found. He finds himself abandoned in the middle of the night. He resolves to leave the city. He makes his way out of the city to a freedman's villa, where he takes refuge because there are all of these, like, passing praetorians who are looking for him as he's been declared an enemy and therefore anybody can basically kill him and bring his head back to the Forum. And yeah, essentially he takes shelter in this freedman's villa. He asks one of his slaves to show him how to kill himself. The slave says, no, not going to do that. And then Nero kind of of goes on a bit of a long winded speech about what a great artist or builder the world is losing. The Latin, he says, quis artifex perio. And artifex has often been translated as what an artist the world is losing. But it also kind of means builder. Maybe he's referring to his.

[Kate Lister]

His landscaping skills.

[Alexander Meddings]

His landscaping. And eventually he kind of plucks up the courage to stab himself in the throat. Sporus is there kind of wailing, but presumably stops wailing the moment the knife goes in. And then a couple of praetorians turn up and Nero turns to them, goes, you're late. What loyalty. And then dies.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, well, good. Actually, no, it should have happened earlier, quite frankly. What an awful person. Was everyone happy that he'd gone then?

[Alexander Meddings]

Not really.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, interesting.

[Alexander Meddings]

We're told that the people put on. The Romans love doing this. When a tyrant dies, they put on little liberty hats, caps and they run around like throwing their hats up in the air and going, freedom, little Smurfs. We're also told that quite a few people mourn him. Weirdly, we have this phenomenon of false Neros that keep cropping up all throughout the Roman Empire for the next few decades. And then Nero appears in kind of Christian thought and medieval thought as kind of this Antichrist type figure or this fight. The Antichrist. Yeah, given his cv.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, fair.

[Alexander Meddings]

Hardly surprising. And so it does seem like there was a lot to be gained from pretending you were Nero. And I guess all you had to be was a redhead. You could play kind of Wonderwall on the lyre. Or will be.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, there's loads of them. Ten a penny. Them are redheads who play mournful songs on the guitar. Loads.

[Alexander Meddings]

Turns up at the house party with the acoustic and just serenades everyone tries to lead a rebellion.

[Kate Lister]

Right, we've got to round this up, Alex. Here we go. Right, so on his rap sheet, he has murdered his first wife, Octavia. Not nice. Also kicked to death Pompeia Sabina. Very not nice. Murdered his mother after a weird boat plan went awry. Definitely not very nice. Then we've got the castration of that poor lad who looks a bit like his second wife and parading him around. Right Then we've got Pythagoras nonsense. Then we've got this weird kink that he's got where he wants to dress up as an animal and maul people's genitals. I mean, who hasn't? But that's what he wants to do. Then we've got the persecution of the Christians and on top of all of that awfulness, just being a really shit emperor.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah. And that's just what we can fit into an hour.

[Kate Lister]

Do we think that Nero can be classified as a fuckboy?

[Alexander Meddings]

I think I'll go back to what I said at the beginning. I think he redefines the term of what it means to be a fuckboy, because he's doing it with men, women, eunuchs, mothers.

[Kate Lister]

I think we might have to say no for this one. Not because we're gonna let him off the hook or because he was quite nice, but because he's so awful. He's a rung below whatever a fuckboy actually is. That's how bad he actually is.

[Alexander Meddings]

Yeah, he doesn't deserve to be on the list.

[Kate Lister]

He doesn't deserve. He sully's the name of fuckboy. Quite frankly, if all he was was a fuckboy, I think we'd have all been let off quite lightly. So I don't think that he is. I don't even know what the word is for him, but he's not that.

[Alexander Meddings]

No, just like a pioneer of awfulness.

[Kate Lister]

A pioneer of awfulness. There we go. So Nero not a fuckboy, but not for positive reasons. Alexander, you have been horrendous to listen to, quite frankly, but it's been a lot of fun. And if people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you?

[Alexander Meddings]

The best place to start would be my website, alexandermeddings.com where I organise private tours around Rome. Or appiawithalex.com where I specialise on the Appian Way.

[Kate Lister]

Thank you so much for coming to tell us all about this genuinely horrific historical person. It has been marvelous.

[Alexander Meddings]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Kate Lister]

Thank you for listening. And thank you so much to Alex for joining me. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to, like, review and follow along wherever it is you get your podcasts. Coming up, we have got an episode on history's naughtiest Pope and the final installment of of this series of the historical Fuck Boys, Rah Rah Rasputin. But if you would like us to explore a subject, or maybe if you just wanted to say hi, then you can email [e-mail] this podcast was edited by Tom Delaghi and produced by Stuart Beckwith, the senior producer with Charlotte Long. Join me again Betwixt the Sheets the History of Sex Scandal in Society A podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.

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[Alexander Meddings]

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