Nero needs a biopic

Late last year, I became a regular magazine reader, for the first time since I was a tween, when my wife bought me a subscription to National Geographic. It’s been an enjoyable experience; the publication still has moments of transcendent brilliance, and even when failing that, there’s something delightfully old-school about actually getting a physical magazine in the mail. Last week, I received the September 2014 issue, with a cover story on a fascinating historical figure: Nero, the famous Roman Emperor from the first century A.D.

Nero became emperor at age 17 and ruled from the years A.D. 54 to 68, ending in assisted suicide as his reign crumbled around him. He was the fifth emperor of Rome, and the last of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty that was begun by Augustus shortly after the murder of Julius Caesar. But the fact that he marked the end of an era in the Roman Empire is somehow one the least interesting things about him. History has largely remembered him for his insanity, as the first imperial persecutor of Christians, and above all, for the burning of Rome. Nero presided during the great Roman fire of 64 that consumed much of the city; later historians would proffer the image of Nero playing the fiddle as Rome burned around, a lie that forever entrenched his image as a madman.

In “Rethinking Nero,” writer Robert Draper explores an alternative movement among historians, offering more favorable, or at least nuanced, views of the legendary lunatic. The magazine’s presentation lost points with me, from the silly clickbait-y cover for the issue to the decision to use photos of modern Roman partying as the weak visual tie-in to Nero’s lifestyle. Yet Draper’s content is still a thought-provoking tour of an effort to find the grays in an old story that always seemed so black and white. Nero hardly comes out looking like a hero, or even a plausibly decent person or ruler. But as the article reinforced the lesser-known aspects of his reign, I realized what an incredible historical biopic could be made from a dramatization of Nero’s life.

Probably 10 years ago or so, I watched the closest thing to a Nero movie made in the English language, the 1951 film Quo Vadis. Quo Vadis centered on early-church Christians in conflict with Rome under Nero, with Nero himself in a significant supporting role as the overarching (if rather hapless) villain. While Nero was the first Roman emperor to begin major persecution of Christians, Quo Vadis glamorizes the conflict significantly, with Nero ultimately driven to his assisted suicide when that persecution of Christians backfires on him. (In truth, he was driven to kill himself after he lost the support of the Senate and the military, largely over financial policies.) I remember enjoying the film well enough; it was nominated for eight Oscars (without winning one), including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor for Peter Ustinov’s role as Nero. Ustinov did win the Golden Globe for his performance, and was rather mesmerizing in the way he was asked to depict Nero.

Ustinov’s Nero is insane, of course, but also utterly inept, a failure at his myriad attempts for greatness and immortality. Hollywood’s historical epics of the era were often obsessed with Christian glorification, and Quo Vadis is no exception, with the script making Nero all the more buffoonish as the opponent of that glorification. And we of course get Nero playing the lyre as Rome burns (which at least would have been more historically accurate than a fiddle) and shouting for the city to burn on.

Yet that depiction was a lie, and the reality was surely different. Nero was almost certainly insane by any standards, but he was far from hapless. He ascended to emperor at such a young age largely because his mother, the wife (and possibly assassin) of his predecessor, Emperor Claudius, believed she could rule through him as a figurehead — a notion he soon disabused her of. Nero’s early years as emperor were largely spent moving from being the supposed power to being the true power, consolidating his reach and striking down those who opposed him. Including his step-brother, with whom his mother sought to replace him, in a scheme that would make Michael Corleone proud: seeking to poison the man’s wine, Nero waited until the food-taster had sampled and approved the wine itself, then dropped poisoned ice cubes in the drink, ostensibly to cool it; his step-brother was dead within minutes.

It’s a cinematic history. The rise would be pure Machiavellian, while the fall would be a man increasingly overtaken by his own madness. Along the way would come the fire and the early Christianity struggles. After Rome burned, Nero used Christians as scapegoats, with some accounts including both Saint Peter and Saint Paul among those executed. Using a more historically based Peter and Paul would make for a more dramatic turn. Contrary to Quo Vadis, Nero never had to regret executing Christians; they were useful scapegoats largely because of how powerless they were.

With that much (and plenty more) on his rapsheet, Nero could easily just be a pure evil movie villain.  Indeed, when we examine historical bad guys, it’s tempting to group them lazily into some kind of good or evil dichotomy to fit a simple narrative, but real life isn’t simple. Today, we arguably live in the age of the anti-hero, thanks to the Tony Sopranos and Walter Whites of the world, where fiction is embracing the idea of an ostensible protagonist who sometimes does illegal and morally outrageous things. And if we can do that, perhaps we can also embrace the idea of the anti-villain: the character you might root against while still finding appreciation for the complex truth that villains are rarely entirely evil, any more than our anti-heroes are entirely good.

Hence the re-evaluation of Nero that Draper writes about, with details on how the historical narrative often lied about him. Many of the myths about Nero are now unraveled as smear pieces written to discredit him after his death; there were no such things as objective histories then. The idea of him burning Rome, or playing the fiddle while it burned, are obvious ones; fiddles didn’t even exist in Rome at the time, and the myth began 200 years later. Another involves him allegedly kicking his pregnant wife to death; far more likely, she died naturally in childbirth, given the opulence of Nero’s mourning for her. A good biopic could unravel some of these smears while not shying away from his real crimes. An excellent example is provided in the show The Tudors. When the real Anne Boleyn was executed, she was smeared with any number of trumped-up charges that were almost certainly lies, including the accusation of incest with her brother. The Tudors followed Anne’s fall by showing both her real flaws (thanks largely to a brilliant portrayal by Natalie Dormer) and the origins of the lies used against her.

Draper also writes about the good in Nero, such as it was. His true response to Rome burning was to later lead some of the rescue efforts after the fire himself, and he paid for some of the rebuilding out of his personal funds. Most interestingly, he was quite popular with the poor masses. Draper’s article portrays him as an early public relations genius, working the mobs with sport and theater, obsessed with being loved. His love of opulence was no exaggeration; while the myth that he himself started the Roman fire is untrue, he certainly used it to his advantage, seizing the opportunity to build the insanely large Domus Aurea (a palace to himself that’s now in ruins; an artist rendering of what it once looked like is below) in the areas newly vacated by fire. Yet even then, he paid for his life of luxury in large part by increasing taxes on the wealthiest citizens of Rome, as opposed to his predecessors’ methods of funding the empire by pillaging new conquests. His proto-socialism probably helped his popularity with the masses even more, though it of course led to more dissatisfaction among the wealthy, paving the way for the rebellions that would lead to his demise.

One of Draper’s interviews is the current mayor of Anzio, Nero’s birthplace. The mayor seizes upon such shades of gray, like that proto-socialism, as evidence that Nero was actually quite redeemable. Given that the town of Anzio is actively trying to cash in on its Nero connection, its mayor probably isn’t the best source. Yet it is true that Nero had at least some redeeming qualities; his appreciation for the arts extended especially to the Greeks, and his championing of the Greek arts played a vital role in the spread of Greek culture through the Roman Empire, revitalizing it in such a way as to help it survive to be such a vital part of the modern Western foundation.

None of which wipes away the fact the Nero really was insane, and murderously so. Anzio’s mayor tries to handwave away Nero’s persecution of the early Christian church by noting that future emperors were far worse; indeed they were, but that doesn’t wipe away the image of Nero having Christians doused in oil and lit on fire to be human lamps at his nighttime garden parties.

And that’s where my image of a Nero biopic starts to take hold, be in in movie or miniseries. The man was still a villain by any objective modern standard, but he wasn’t the caricature of villainy depicted in Quo Vadis. He was brilliant and insane and brutal and popular and savvy and influential and insane again. He was the prototype for the anti-villain, an historical subject who becomes all the more compelling by embracing his complexities.