Meet Nero’s Favorite Gladiator (Full Episode) | Gladiators: Warriors of the Ancient World | Nat Geo

NARRATOR: While Roman legions wage brutal wars to expand the Empire, at home violence is a spectacle. Gladiators battle for glory in lavish games staged by Rome's leaders to enthrall and distract the masses. JERRY: Putting on gladiatorial fights is a way of impressing the ordinary people of Rome. LEWIS: It was a staging of Roman power. COREY: And this was another way to exert control over the populace of Rome. NARRATOR: Now, a young and vain ruler, Emperor Nero, takes the throne,quickly becoming obsessed not only with the arena, but with one gladiator above all, Spiculus. COREY: Spiculus was lavishly awarded by Nero. FIONA: If you manage to become the favorite of an emperor, he can give you anything in his power basically. NARRATOR: The Emperor's fixation catapults Spiculus into fame, bringing wealth, privilege and celebrity. But this newfound fortune depends entirely on the whims of a man who could be volatile and dangerous. NARRATOR: Gladiators have been entwined with politics long before Nero's rule. Almost a century earlier, Rome was a Republic. Governed by Senators and an aristocratic elite. Among them, an ambitious politician: Julius Caesar. SHUSHMA: In 65 BCE, Julius Caesar had a political position in Rome that meant part of his responsibility was entertainment. ALEXANDER: He'd really caught on to the fact that people had begun to really be interested in the games, and he realizes being an ambitious person he was, and being such a good marketer that if he can put on the greatest show ever, that's going to reflect on him politically. JERRY: Julius Caesar puts on the biggest gladiatorial fight that anyone's ever seen, and brings together 320 pairs of gladiators. FIONA: He adds little touches, like, for example, he makes the Amor silver, or have silver elements to it so it really shines. ALEXANDER: He's gonna put on probably the greatest games that Rome has ever seen. NARRATOR: Over the next two decades, Caesar hosts increasingly lavish games, using their spectacle to build popularity and political power. His strategy works, by 44 BCE, he is named dictator for life, placing Rome firmly under his control. But Caesar's dominance sparks fear among rivals, who believe his power threatens the Republic itself. Determined to end his rule, a group of senators plot against him, leading to a violent betrayal, as Caesar is stabbed to death by people he once trusted. PETA: The day that Julius Caesar gets assassinated was also in some of our source material meant to be a day of spectacle. A little bit further down the road, gladiators are getting ready to put on a spectacle, and when they hear about the assassination of Julius Caesar, they rush out. Caesar was a man of the people, and the gladiators held him in high regard. So Caesar's assassination is tied up, in some respects, in this really nice, small, little way with what is going on with the gladiators, because they wanted him to live. NARRATOR: After Caesar's death, power passes to his adopted heir, Augustus, who, in 27 BCE, becomes Rome's first emperor, transforming the Republic into an imperial monarchy ruled by a single man. SAHAL: This is the point at which historians usually start referring to the period as the Roman Empire. He undertakes a spectacular rebuilding of Rome. He famously says, I found a city of clay. I made it a city of marble. JERRY: And as part of that reinvention, he wants to show that he is giving the ordinary people of Rome their fair share of the spoils of conquest, and putting on dramatic games is a way that he can do that. And he wants to make sure that he's putting on bigger and better games than anyone has done beforehand to show that an emperor is a new kind of political power. KATHLEEN: In 14 CE Augustus dies, the age of 77 and he is succeeded by his stepson Tiberius as the second Roman Emperor, who in turn was succeeded by Caligula, who was succeeded by Claudius, who was succeeded by Nero, who becomes the very last of the Julio Claudian emperors, as they are known. NARRATOR: In 54 CE Nero ascends the throne. He is young, inexperienced and ill-prepared for the immense power he now wields. Soon, his immaturity and vanity will reshape Rome's relationship with gladiatorial combat in ways never before seen. SHUSHMA: Nero is very young when he becomes emperor, he's 16 years old. He's the youngest Emperor up until this point. He's grown up in the imperial family. He's someone who might not necessarily have expected to become emperor. His mother was not married to the previous emperor when he was born, but he was still kind of very intimately connected. So his mother was the great granddaughter of Augustus. In terms of his character, he's interested in lots of pursuits and wider activities that other emperors before him haven't necessarily been too focused on. As an emperor, your interest should be the entertainment of other people, rather than the entertainment of yourself. Whereas I think Nero was quite interested in the entertainment of himself. NARRATOR: Nero, driven by personal obsession, assembles an elite troop of gladiators from the Empire's finest warriors. LEWIS: Emperors had close engagement with controlling how gladiators were schooled and trained, and controlling the gladiatorial troupes. So in this case, this was a group of gladiators attached to Nero and the imperial family. KATHLEEN: Nero's troupe have the abbreviation N E R on the graffiti in Pompeii, which would have stood for neronianus a neronian Gladiator. LEWIS: To be a neronian meant that your fights were connected to the fame and glory of Nero himself. So the emperor was invested in your training and the outcome of your fights. KATHLEEN: In a sense, the gladiators would have been beneath his notice as individuals. They were enslaved persons. I don't know whether an emperor would have stooped to know his enslaved troupe by name. NARRATOR: Yet within Nero's troupe, one gladiator in particular captures his attention, Spiculus. KATHLEEN: One of the graffiti from Pompeii records a fight between a complete rookie, Spiculus, who managed to defeat a guy called Aptonetus, who had fought and won 16 times. It's pretty remarkable that he was defeated by a rookie. FIONA: I think that Nero was drawn to someone who he sees as having talent. That would be what probably initially caught his attention. So we can only imagine that Spiculus has drawn Nero's gaze because he is dazzling to watch. NARRATOR: At gladiator school, the Empire's finest trainers forge him into one of the most formidable fighters the arena has ever seen. KATHLEEN: It doesn't surprise me that there would be a rookie performing in Nero's troupe. If he had the right physique and the right mental attitude, I can imagine that he would have been trained up and would have had to start somewhere. FIONA: We only have a few mentions of Spiculus, but certainly he's someone that Nero seems to have looked after personally and had a bit of a relationship with. LEWIS: We know there were men who really desired gladiators and other athletes. We might imagine that Nero is one of these men who admires the physique of gladiators like Spiculus, their combat, their prowess, and perhaps even desires to be like them. NARRATOR: Now, Nero is ready to put his gladiators on display. He announces lavish games, grand spectacles designed to showcase his warriors, and reinforce his own glory. SAHAL: Despite the games being performed under the name of Nero, he himself is not going to oversee the ins and outs of putting on a spectacle of this size. He will have an imperial administrative service that would do the work of making sure that the games are put on and that ultimately it is a spectacle that is entertaining for both the audience and for the Emperor himself. FIONA: They would have advertised them by hiring sign writers and so they would paint signs, particularly onto the major thoroughfares, where lots of people would have been passing to tell you what day the gladiatorial games were going to be thrown, who was throwing in the course. And they would also probably have programs which would perhaps list who was going to be paired against whom. MICHAEL: A famous gladiator were going to appear in the shows that would have been known, that would have been advertised. Everyone in Rome would know that Nero was putting on games. JERRY: Emperors would put on games for a variety of reasons. It might be as part of a triumph to celebrate a big military victory. SAHAL: Generally, the different emperors will approach the games differently. Nero himself, he had a greater appetite than most. LEWIS: Nero held games extravagantly and on many, many days throughout the year. NARRATOR: Nero knows that spectacle has power. By feeding the public's appetite for blood and drama, he can keep attention and loyalty focused on the arena, and not the growing tensions elsewhere in Rome. KATHLEEN: The games that are put on by the Emperor Nero in Rome had to be bigger and better than any other games. The impetus would have been to put on things that are as novel as possible and as large as possible and as impressive as possible. COREY: For Nero's games, Spiculus is clearly the star of the show. JERRY: Having a great fighter like Spiculus is one of the great draws of these games. Spiculus would be pitched against another good fighter. PETA: I would imagine having an emperor intercede in your Favor would mean that you would only get the match ups that you were open to having. MICHAEL: Now, the Romans also liked to match equally skilled but opposite types of equipment. KATHLEEN: Gladiators usually fought somebody in a different style. ALEXANDER: As the games went on, there was variations of the different types of gladiators to make the games more exciting. Each one is a variation, normally of weapons and Armor from the defeated enemies of Rome. You're taking weapons that the Romans would have encountered on the battlefield, you're bringing them to the arena. And because they're different weapons, they have different styles to them. It's a bit really like MMA. You've got all these different versions of combat, of helmets and weapons. Disciplines like the thracian, the retiarius, who has the net and trident. The secutor has a closed helmet with two small holes. JERRY: A murmillo is very heavily armed, so he's going to have been a more heavily built gladiator. ALEXANDER: And the hoplomachus is just a different variation of the thracian. KATHLEEN: Spiculus was a murmillo. He would have had a big, heavy, rectangular shield and a straight sword, so he was well protected. Whereas he would fight a hoplomachus, who was also heavily armed and well defended. The Romans seem to have liked to balance advantages and disadvantages on both sides. MICHAEL: They like that kind of contrast of heavy, slow pondering versus light, nimble, quick. JERRY: Spiculus is one of the most successful gladiators of his day, and he's hugely popular with the crowd, and this in itself makes him sort of attractive to the Emperor, and the Emperor befriends him. ALEXANDER: He's mentioned as receiving from Nero a wealth and estates worthy of a king. To be a friend of the Emperor, I mean, it's like being a friend of the American President. It affords you great privileges. It probably means you're going to live a good life. JERRY: Spiculus is a wealthy man with his own grand villa, and he's probably actually enjoying something of the life of the wealthy elite. For the Romans, it's very odd that a gladiator who is one of the lowest of the low is able to live this life of luxury. ALEXANDER: There's a certain fascinating quality about the Romans. They admire, they adore the gladiator, but the gladiator himself is seen as a figure of scorn, as part of a group of very low social status known as infame. JERRY: Infamia is a legal punishment that lowers your status, and it's applied to all people who work in what elite Romans see as being unacceptable activities such as prostitution, fighting as a gladiator, being a charioteer, all of these, in, in elite eyes, mean that you're no longer a sort of full human being who is worthy of having full rights of citizenship. SHUSHMA: You are seen as one of the lowest members of society. But this is the person that Nero is rewarding. JERRY: Nero increasingly goes off message, and he gets used to the power that he has as emperor, and he wants to take advantage of it. NARRATOR: As the scale of Nero's games grows ever more extravagant, concern among the Senate is mounting that the emperor is getting carried away. JERRY: We have sea battles where they built lakes, especially within the city, so that they could re-enact battles with ships manned by prisoners of war. LEWIS: They were great group combats that were very bloody affairs. SAHAL: They'd be beast hunts. These were all individualized, highly specialized events, and each would have had specialized combat fighters who would have been trained for the specifics of spectacle they would have been part of. JERRY: They would also put on stage shows. And of course, the regular favorite of the chariot racing. FIONA: Chariot racing is certainly something that seems to pre-date gladiatorial combat, and it is an extremely popular spectacle to go and see. NARRATOR: Away from the arena, Nero's behavior turns even darker. Behind palace walls, he starts ignoring his job as emperor, choosing instead to indulge his own whims He becomes more LEWIinterested in performanceng. and more interested in extravagance. JERRY: Nero sees himself as kind of creative genius I think. He plays the lyre, famously, he appears on stage, which is unheard of for an emperor to do. LEWIS: Which really put him in the realm of the actor, the musician, the gladiator. And this was quite an odd position for an emperor to be in. SHUSHMA: As an emperor, as someone who is supposed to have an administrative responsibility over the empire, as someone who is supposed to conduct business in a particular way. It's certainly not ideal. He gave far too much money that the state can really afford to these kinds of things and individuals as well. So he rewards theatre actors, he gives citizenship on the basis of their performance at his games. And he gives far too much money or land to people who don't deserve it. And Spiculus is one of the examples of that; a gladiator that Nero is particularly fond of and is given these huge rewards for doing his job well or for being noticed by Nero. NARRATOR: Nero's behavior disturbs the Roman Senate, who can challenge his authority if he goes too far. Yet despite growing unease, Nero presses on. And in 57 CE, he constructs a grand wooden amphitheater to throw even more extravagant spectacles. SHUSHMA: Nero wanted something that was a slightly bigger scale. COREY: He tried to make it the amphitheater par excellence in Italy. In fact, he suppressed local amphitheaters and made sure that the highest quality fighting took place in Rome. NARRATOR: A year later, the amphitheater is complete Nero hosts lavish games with his prized fighter, Spiculus, at the center. The crowds roar with excitement, but will the loyalty of the people be enough to hold the Senate at bay? Nero throws games at his new amphitheater. Crowds gather, anticipating a day of thrilling combat. ALEXANDER: Walking up to the gladiator games. You had vendors selling all sorts of wares, from food and different souvenirs that have either gladiator statues, gladiator statuettes, gladiator lamps. MICHAEL: Almost certainly there were bets taking place, the kind of thing you would expect to see in a great entertainment spectacle today. NARRATOR: These games captivate all of Rome. Rich and poor flock to the amphitheater, swept up in the spectacle. ALEXANDER: Walking into the arena. We know that sound, the way hits you like a wave. MICHAEL: You were seated in the amphitheater according to your social status. The Senators had the best seats up front. The equestrian class had the next several rows around the arena, and then the rest of the amphitheater. The people were divided up into various groups. KATHLEEN: The emperor would have sat right in the front. He probably had a nice little canopy over his head so that he wouldn't get sunstroke. JERRY: The games start with a procession, a Pompa, as it's known, where all of the performers, all of the gladiators, and indeed, the giver of the games, would process through the arena, giving everyone a chance to sort of see the great fighters that they're going to enjoy later on. PETA: This is your chance to sort of interact, if you like, with your favorites. Everybody comes out in the dress that they're going to wear later on does this parade around and then you can start to feel the vibe building. COREY: There's every indication that it helps create a bond between the fans and the stars. JERRY: Gladiators are the sports stars of their day. They would be recognized whenever they appeared in public. They had their own fans. They would put up graffiti where they would record their victories. They would buy models of them. LEWIS: We have a range of different types of fine glassware from France, which depicts Spiculus alongside a series of famous gladiators. ALEXANDER: Gladiators are the sexiest men in the whole empire. They're probably the most desired men sexually. There's no one else who elicits the kind of sexual frenzy that the gladiators do. JERRY: They're symbols of best that manhood could attain. LEWIS: Even though they were of low repute, they were thought to embody things like virtue, courage, masculinity, fearlessness, all things that Rome was meant to celebrate. NARRATOR: The procession ends and the gladiators retreat backstage. The crowd roars with excitement. Music swells, ushering in the next act of Nero's grand event. FIONA: With Spiculus being such a famous gladiator, you probably would have had other displays of combat coming on before You would probably start off in the morning with something like a beast hunt or a combat with wild beasts. And then once you get to around noon, that's when you see the executions happening. So that might be people who are criminals, who've been sentenced to die, for example by wild beast. And then in the afternoon, in that prime-time slot, that is when you would see the gladiators. ALEXANDER: Progression is you start with the lesser known guys, and you're basically slowly building up to the title fight. Everybody wants to see Spiculus. That's going to be the closing fight of the games. MICHAEL: The lesser gladiators have fought, their combats are over, and eventually Spiculus will appear as the highlight KATHLEEN: A gladiator like Spiculus would have had attendants who would have ensured that he was in tip-top shape before every encounter. ALEXANDER: He would have had his own masseuse, his own servants, his own doctor. He would have had people who carried his Armor. COREY: The Emperor Nero, the most theatrical of all Roman emperors, the Armor and the equipment would have been similarly glittery. PETA: At his level, he's going to have a choice about what he wears. Not every gladiator gets those opportunities. LEWIS: Spiculus, as murmillo, had a very high-quality version of murmillo Armor. Perhaps a particularly iconic shield or helmet that marked him out from others of that type of gladiator class. COREY: Ready for his contest, Spiculus strides into the amphitheater like a prize fighting boxer into the ring. ALEXANDER: The announcer would have said, and here he comes, people's champion Spiculus! Out, as he walked, there would have been music to his actual entrance. The crowd roars. His name is upon the lips of everybody. COREY: When the Emperor sees the crowd's adulation for this gladiator, well, he just drinks in the atmosphere. PETA: Somebody like Spiculus is really going to lean into the things that people know about him. They know he lives in an amazing house. They know he has the Favor of Nero, as if he's not going to like parlay that into how he performs in the arena, he definitely is. MICHAEL: Spiculus, of course, has a lot riding on the fight, but Nero does as well because his job is to provide entertainment for the people. NARRATOR: After a long day of fighting at Nero's games, it is time for the main attraction. Spiculus and his opponent emerge. His rival is matched in strength and trained to kill, but for Spiculus, this is more than a fight for survival, it's a battle to remain Nero's favorite. COREY: With the gladiators in the arena, the fight can start. Nero looks down upon them and the battle begins. FIONA: Spiculus would have been trying to parry with his opponent. He would have been trying to dazzle the crowd with his moves. We have references in our sources to gladiators being trained to deliver moves with grace. PETA: It's like two prized fighters taking an opportunity to demonstrate the height of their skill level in front of a live audience. KATHLEEN: We can imagine that it would have been a display of extreme skill. There could have been bloodshed involved. FIONA: Nero would've been watching keenly, trying to see every little parry, every little jab, trying to see who's being injured. NARRATOR: Spiculus shows once again why he's Nero's prized gladiator. He's a skilled and brilliant fighter. In the arena, few can touch him. MICHAEL: If a gladiator were wounded in the fighting, he could signal submission by just holding up a finger and then the referee steps in, stops the fight and separates the two gladiators. JERRY: Spiculus has won, he's overcome his opponent. His opponent has asked for mercy. At that point, it's up to Nero, the giver of the games, to consult with the people and then decide what happens to that gladiator. ALEXANDER: He holds your life in his hands. All he has to do is turn the thumb. FIONA: Nero may look around to the crowd and try and figure out what it is they want him to do. A crowd can directly communicate with powerful people in their society, including people like the Emperor Nero, and make their feelings known. JERRY: Crowds are shouting out, you know, either you know, let him go or kill him. MICHAEL: We can imagine that the people want Spiculus' defeated opponent to be killed, and Nero gives it to them. JERRY: You can imagine there'll be a deathly quiet descend on the arena, as everyone is focused on this sort of fate, this moment of death, this poor fallen gladiator. If he had a helmet, he was expected to take it off so that everyone could see all of the emotion on his face. The gladiator has been taught how to face death. They were expected to expose their throat, to stare ahead blankly, to show no emotion. To be tough right until the final moment, and then victor would plunge his sword down and through the throat and into the heart. When a gladiator appears to have died in a fight, a man dressed as Charon, the god of the underworld, comes on and actually checks that he's dead. MICHAEL: Charon hit the person with a hammer, and then his body was dragged out with a hook and dragged out of the arena. NARRATOR: The victory strengthens Nero's bond with Spiculus, and the emperor is eager to show his gratitude ALEXANDER: The winning gladiator would have been given gifts and prizes. JERRY: He will have been given a share of the prize money and then he'll leave. NARRATOR: The games have dazzled the crowds but Nero has one final thrill, designed to capture the hearts of the people. SHUSHMA: So emperors in Rome are supposed to be making sure that the people of the Empire have the things that they need, but also to be seen as the person who gives it to them. So the emperor is a gift giver. JERRY: One of the things the emperor would do for the crowd is known as a sparsio. You'd actually throw out kind of lottery tickets, and on it you would sort of be given anything from perhaps some slaves or to some furniture or even a villa. So it was a way that you could kind of get rich quick. MICHAEL: If people have enjoyed the games, they appreciate Nero for having given them a day of entertainment that they love and they return home to their families that they return to the pubs. Even though Nero's games have inspired the people, have caused the people to fall in love with Nero, his style of ruling will soon be his downfall. NARRATOR: While the crowds revel in Nero's games, the Senate sees a different picture. Nero is distracted by spectacle, neglecting the serious business of ruling. And their patience is running out. SHUSHMA: In 64 CE, a big event happens in Rome that really has helped us shape the way we understand Nero's reign, and that's the fire. So in the summer months, Rome does catch on fire a fair amount, but this is huge. Our sources say a number of the districts in Rome are affected and some are destroyed completely. COREY: And burned down a big portion of Rome's most prestigious neighborhood, the Palatine, and also a big chunk of Nero's own Imperial Palace. SHUSHMA: Out of Rome's 14 districts, 10 are quite badly affected and three are completely destroyed. FIONA: This is a huge conflagration. It destroys a massive chunk of the city. Lots of people died in this fire. KATHLEEN: The number of dwellings, small businesses, temples that must have been destroyed, you can imagine the devastation this would have caused. COREY: It displaced tens of thousands. SHUSHMA: It's something that really kind of stands as a point in Nero's reign that is extremely significant both politically but also in terms of sort of his relationship with the city. KATHLEEN: So many people must have suffered so extremely and this generated huge resentment of the safety and luxury within which the Emperor was operating. SHUSHMA: When the fire breaks out, Nero is not in Rome, he's in Antium. Perhaps the best known phrase associated with Nero is that he fiddled while Rome burned. This is anachronistic in some ways because the fiddle wasn't invented, but even playing the lyre while Rome burned is something that our sources are a little bit split on. JERRY: Nero realizes that with almost all of Rome burnt to nothing, he can start again and he can build a huge palace that's far bigger than anyone else has done before. SHUSHMA: This is the Domus Aurea, which is named the Golden House for the amount of beautiful gold and other precious materials that are used in it. COREY: The Domus Aurea is impressive as it must have been. Uh. It surely caused a revulsion of feeling. JERRY: At a time when so many of the citizens have been made homeless, because of the fire, he is there building himself this enormous great palace. SAHAL: Honestly, I don't imagine people are all too terribly impressed with the building of a giant villa in the aftermath of a destructive fire. MICHAEL: It was clear to pretty much everyone, especially Rome's senate, that he was really losing his grip. JERRY: The rumor starts, well, he's taking such advantage of it, it must be because he started the fire so that he could do this. FIONA: A lot of our sources do say that it's his agents who set the fire. Not him personally, obviously, that would be crazy. However, Nero's actions afterwards, he does seem to be really concerned. He does instantly set about trying to help as many people as possible. SHUSHMA: It seems like Nero was trying to rebuild the city after the fire in a way that would make that kind of event happening again less likely. NARRATOR: As Rome begins to rebuild, Nero chases pleasure and indulges in his personal amusements. FIONA: Nero's popularity is certainly taking a hit. He's not the kind of man that most Romans would respect as their emperor. And it's partly because of his over-the-top interest in things like chariot races, gladiator fights, the theatre. They're not the kind of pursuits that you really want your emperor to have. You want him to be more focusing on military conquest, for example, and what is happening politically. JERRY: He is too close to the people. He's not sort of paying enough attention to the senators. SHUSHMA: And that's the point where the Senate declare Nero as a public enemy. NARRATOR: With the senate's condemnation, Nero's grip on power crumbles, and showing loyalty to the fallen emperor is dangerous, even for Spiculus. NARRATOR: Nero, the most powerful man in Rome , has been denounced by the senate. He is unable to contain the storm around him. JERRY: Nero realizes that the game is up. SHUSHMA: Once Nero has been declared a public enemy, the options for him are very limited. All he has left is a few loyal attendants. As he hears that the Praetorians are on their way to kill him, and he realizes, once you've been declared a public enemy, that the death is particularly brutal. He would be beaten and flogged and dragged through the city. He realizes that really the only option is for him to take his own life. MICHAEL: There are so many instances of Romans, in defense of their honor, committing suicide. And committing suicide with a sword, falling on their sword or stabbing themselves with a sword, is a horrifying way to die. JERRY: But he's too scared to kill himself. So he calls on Spiculus to do it for him. LEWIS: The fact that Nero wanted to be killed by Spiculus, his favorite gladiator, could suggest that he wanted to die quickly and well. ALEXANDER: And perhaps there's also that sort of case of notoriety where the Emperor of Rome was killed by the most famous gladiator of the arena. MICHAEL: He needs to know someone he can trust, I think. So, here's someone that he can trust to do the job as efficiently as possible. JERRY: Spiculus though can't be found. Whether he was sort of deliberately keeping out of harm's way or whether he really just abandoned Nero like everyone else, we don't know. NARRATOR: Spiculus, his prized gladiator, is missing. Nero turns to another member of his inner circle. MICHAEL: He leans on and relies on a freedman named Epaphroditus. Then, with Epaphroditus' help, Nero commits suicide. NARRATOR: Nero is only 30 years old. His death ends a 14-year reign, marked by self-indulgence and spectacle. SAHAL: When Nero dies there is very much a mixed reaction to his death. Some of the individuals who partook in the entertainments mourn Nero's death. SHUSHMA: When Nero dies, he is given a public funeral. The ordinary people of Rome, they were there at his graveside. They didn't see this as the good thing that the senators thought. JERRY: After Nero's death, there's a clear out if you like, of Nero supporters. And Spiculus has been too close to Nero. And it's reported that he's actually crushed beneath various statues of Nero that are pulled down in the forum. KATHLEEN: Nero's reign and its chaotic end is something of a cautionary tale about the excesses of power. SHUSHMA: He's also always sort of doomed to go down in history as an absolutely terrible emperor because he is the last of the Julio-Claudians. And this makes him the last of the first dynasty of emperors in Rome. When he dies, there is no heir. He has had children, but they haven't survived. SAHAL: So after Nero's death, we have the year of the four emperors in which individuals rise to claim the mantle of emperor. Until ultimately we're left with Vespasian, the last man standing, who will initiate the Flavian dynasty. SHUSHMA: That dynasty, and Vespasian in particular, decides what he's going to do is separate himself in every way that he can from Nero. NARRATOR: Vespasian, the new Emperor, is determined to erase all traces of Nero's legacy, starting with the opulent palace built as a monument to Nero's ego in the ashes of the great fire of Rome. JERRY: Nero's Golden Palace becomes a symbol of everything that's wrong with his reign. It's excessive, it's overly focused on Nero himself. Vespasian wants to wipe the slate clean and build something that is a people's palace, not just a palace for a single emperor. PETA: Vespasian takes the opportunity to demolish large parts of the Domus Aurea and on the site, part of it, he starts to construct the Flavian Amphitheatre. COREY: It was the most strident way, the most powerful way, he could say that we're under a new regime, a new dynasty. SHUSHMA: Vespasian decides to build Rome's first large-scale permanent amphitheater on the site of Nero's gardens. And that is the amphitheater that we now know as the Colosseum.