Why choose Nero as a hero?

Lucky for some 13th blog on Nero today, but why? What attracted me to Nero was his Marxist policies, some 1,800 years before Marx. I only knew the Peter Ustinov Nero of Hollywood blockbusters, an insane tyrant, old, fat, bearded. The historical Nero, a young, blonde, clean-shaven socialist, swept me off my feet as I read Tacitus and Suetonius. Why did we not know this real Nero?! I had to tell the world! Of course, when I sat down to research his biography, I found four academic biographies already published, all telling the same thing. The real Nero was there, but not of interest to anyone other than academics. The sensationalism of the myths were what people wanted, not the facts. So I wrote the biography anyway, then used it as a frame for an “I, Claudius”-style novel, bringing Nero and his friends to life through the structure of fiction. Just like Nero, I fell for Marcus Otho, another unexpected nice guy in an otherwise greedy and corrupt imperial household. Only now, as I write these daily pieces, do I see so many connections – love of books, writing, music, horses, horseracing, outsider fashion… and Otho!

Nero - The Last Caesar