Was Nero Really That Bad?

Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. There are very few people for whom the name Nero brings up. positive associations. It's a name that at this point has almost entirely negative connotations, right? There's even that famous expression, right, fiddling while Rome burns, which is a burn laid at the feet of Nero, that during the fire of Rome, Nero supposedly fiddled and watched it all happen, that this is what bad leaders do, this is what indifferent, cruel, uncaring people do.

Even in the ancient world, there were rumors that that Nero set the fire on purpose to clear out undesirables so he could build a bigger palace. Now, why does Nero have such a terrible reputation and is it deserved? I think we can all concede that a lot of what we know about Nero, and this is true for a lot of historical figures, including Seneca, who worked for Nero, a lot of what we know about him comes from people who didn't like him. Enemies, critics, historians writing after he was dead who who maybe had political agendas. So so does Nero get a fair shake?

Right? Was he the villain that history has turned him into? Actually, this was a question that Smithsonian Magazine wrote about at length in 2020. The article I I remember reading it when it came out. It said, the new, nicer Nero.

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