A CRIMINAL HISTORY OF MANKIND

appearing regularly on the stage in various tragedies. Since, like most cultured Romans, he
regarded Greece as the home of music and drama, he began making regular excursions there to take
part in lyre contests - which, of course, he invariably won. Because they always asked him to sing
after dinner, Nero announced: ‘The Greeks alone are worthy of my genius...’
His first murder took place about a year after he became emperor: it was his half-brother
Britannicus, the son of Claudius and Messalina, who might have been regarded as having a better
claim to the throne than Nero himself. Nero hired a poisoner called Locusta - who is reputed to
have supplied the poison that killed Claudius - to rid him of Britannicus. The boy was
understandably cautious and had his food sampled by a taster. One day, at a banquet, Britannicus
tried a drink after his taster had tried it, found it too hot, and asked for water to be added. The water
had been poisoned, and Britannicus promptly went into convulsions and died. Nero looked on
unconcernedly and commented that such attacks often happened to epileptics.
Another problem was Nero’s mother Agrippina. She was only twenty-two years his senior and he
seems to have had a Freudian fixation on her. When Nero became emperor, Agrippina - who had
been the real emperor in Claudius’s last years - naturally expected to continue to play a leading
part. At first, Nero let her do as she liked; but he was finding his feet and soon began to resent the
way she seemed to want to run the empire. Early coins of his reign show Nero and his mother
facing each other; within a year, they were facing in the same direction, with his head almost
eclipsing hers. Agrippina was inclined to lose her temper at snubs like this, then would obviously
reflect that it was now Nero who held the reins and go to the opposite extreme, trying to win him
over with flattery and affection. When Nero began a love affair with a freed woman named Acte,
Agrippina at first opposed it violently; then, as Nero’s smart young friends urged him on, decided
to support the intrigue and since Nero felt it had to be kept secret from the people as he was already
married, offered her son the use of her bedroom and bed. Finally, she seems to have decided on an
even more drastic measure - to allow Nero to commit incest with her. Details are lacking, but
Suetonius records that it occurred whenever he rode with her in an enclosed litter and that the
disarranged state of his clothes when he emerged proved it. (The Roman toga was a rather
complicated device compared to modern garments.) But the forbidden seems to have lost its charm
the moment it ceased to be forbidden, and Nero turned to other sexual outlets, both male and
female. Relations between mother and son once again soured. Since he undoubtedly knew that she
was behind the poisoning of the emperor Claudius, Nero may have begun to worry that he might be
next on the list (as Suetonius suggests). At all events, he decided that she had to be removed.
At this point, Nero’s former tutor produced an ingenious suggestion. He had been appointed
commander of the fleet and told Nero that it should not be too difficult to construct a boat that
would fall to pieces when at sea. Accordingly, Nero invited his mother to join him at the festival of
Minerva at Baiae, on the Bay of Naples. The evening before, they dined at Bauli, not far from
Baiae; the party was arranged by Nero’s millionaire friend Otho, who was also his go-between with
Acte. Nero seems to have paid special attention to his mother and treated her with a kindness that
suggested remorse; the aim was to lull any suspicion she might feel when he told her she was to
travel by sea, he by land. Then the ship with Agrippina sailed for Baiae. It seems to have been
fairly large - perhaps twenty or thirty feet long - and covered with a wooden roof. It was a still,
starlit night, and Agrippina was in a good mood as she sat on a settee, with her feet in the lap of her
friend Acerronia, and discussed the change in Nero’s attitude towards her. At a signal, the roof
suddenly caved in, under pressure of heavy lead weights. One of Agrippina’s friends, Crepereius
Gallus, was standing, and caught the full force, which killed her immediately. But the back of the