Do as I order. Send someone to bring me the severed heads of Plautus and Sulla. These are the words Nero utters as he comes onstage in Octavia, an entrance that rivals Richard III’s in Shakespeare for boldness of characterization. Nero was hardly as resolute a leader as he is shown in these lines, if we credit the account of Tacitus. Nonetheless, assailed by the urgings of Tigellinus, he decided in the spring of 62 to do away with his two most prominent cousins. It was to them that Romans would turn, as Nero knew, should he lose support, as he might well do by divorcing the
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