Nero/Pseudo: Gods and Emperors

As part of my blogging about Nero/Pseudo, I have also asked Alan Katz -- the dramaturg of the show -- to share some of his wisdom and wit about the ancient world. This is his third look inside the world of the play. Check out his his first two posts on the world of the Greek taberna and on Nero and graffiti as well.)

Every people have gods to suit their circumstances
-- Henry David Thoreau


When I am dramaturging plays that are from or are set in the ancient world, one of the most difficult concepts to communicate is the ancient view of religion and gods. The problem is that the modern mind has been poisoned against “paganism” by a fire hose of monotheistic religions that have burned, tortured, bought, and conquered their way into domination of the modern mind (Did I say poisoned? I meant “gently influenced.”). Ancient Greek and Roman deities had functions that were significantly different from the way we envision divine beings today.

This isn't to say that ancient Greeks and Romans had no concept of monotheism. For Greeks going all the way back to Plato, various philosophical writings implied or proposed the existence of a single god as we would think of it. This god often came in the form of The One (Τὸ Ἕν for the Grecophiles keeping score at home) who is seen as the creator of the universe: the first cause from which all other causes and effects derive. A god in the “set it and forget it” mold of creators, what today would be called “Deism.” But this view was not wholly satisfactory for many ancient peoples. Behind this dissatisfaction is the reason that humans worship gods at all: we need to think that someone is in control of the things that we cannot control. There’s a reason that some of the first gods that humans created were gods of big natural elements like the Sun and storms, having a god that is in charge of incomprehensible elements gives humans a sense of control over those elements. As society expanded, so did the pantheon, so Romans had many gods for even the human-created woes of the world. In Nero/Pseudo, Richard expresses this attitude beautifully when news from Rome foils the plans of Chrysis and Stratocles, and Stratocles blames Chrysis. She says “Blame Mercury, not me!” Mercury (dealing with man-made phenomena like travel, medicine, news and merchants) was not the lowest god of the pantheon, but he was also not the highest. Gods of phenomena that were bigger and more mysterious were considered more important, with some subservient to others through “family trees,” creating a sort of mini-society of gods. Romans also had a sense of the hierarchy of deities (usually placing Jupiter at the top) in a way which reflected the hierarchy of their society.

That the gods reflect society and that religion was an essential part of the state are the keys to understanding the ancient view of religion. The cult of each god had followers because the worship of that deity helped a wide swath of people feel like they had a place in society: Merchants worshiping Mercury, soldiers worshiping Mars, mothers and wives worshiping Juno. Gods (and the stories of them in lore) told their followers how they should behave, what virtues they should value and what vices to avoid. If you wonder why ancient Greek and Roman gods always act so damn human in myths and don’t have the same insistence on infallibility that certain monotheistic gods have, this modelling for human behavior is one great explanation. The vast pantheon of gods and myths associated with them had lessons for everyone in almost any situation, much like the saints and their stories in the Catholic Church.

Not only were there many gods that addressed the behavior of people and their place in society, but each major gods had aspects, expressed through different names (called epithets), that brought diverse occupations and locations into the “mainstream pantheon.” Individual cities have their own versions of the main gods, so a city or tribe might have their own Zeus with different aesthetic representations or purposes than other Zeuses. More importantly, because the main gods covered so many aspects of life and nature, each god had incarnations that reflected that gods function. For example, Apollo was not only god of the Sun, but also a god of music, and his incarnation Apollo Citharoedus (“plays the cithara”) is seen on many statues carrying his stringed instrument. Nero was often depicted as Apollo Citharoedus, since he also played the instrument and was a god. Wait, what?

Woe is me! I think I am becoming a god!
-- Roman Emperor Vespasian while dying

Wait, what? Nero was a god? Today, it is more likely that a political leader will be portrayed as Nero than as a god. But Nero was portrayed as a god all the time by both his propaganda and by common people who ascribed to the “imperial cult.” The imperial cult began with Julius Caesar, whose dictatorship made the Roman emperor the embodiment of the state. Either just before or just after Julius’ death (probably after, but it is hard to tell since sources are, well, 2000 goddamn years old), he was called Divus Julius, with giant statues erected to him, his birthday made into a public festival, and Augustus, his successor, even building a temple to him. The Roman Senate declared him an official god after his death at the strong (read: violent) urging of the populace.This official deification was very important. He was the first historical figure to be deified and put into the same pantheon as the other gods of the Romans. He became the patron of the imperial order that stabilized Rome after the civil wars that followed his death.  Augustus took advantage of the populace’s fervor and found the imperial cult useful in establishing control. He would portray himself as godlike without ever coming out and saying that he was a god. (People would be all “Hey, Augustus, are you, like, a god or something?” and he would be all, “No, no, I’m just another senator who sends people to be crucified, but I only do that to people who ask too many questions.”)

While officially turning into a god was reserved for an emperor post-mortem, the emperor was practically a god in life and was crucial to the state religion because now the state had its own representative in the pantheon. And now everyone was forced to treat the emperor basically like a god, making sacrifices to him, criminalizing open dissent, and reliance only on the emperor’s self-control to prevent a megalomaniacal dictatorship. Some of the emperors had that restraint. Tiberius and Claudius were efficient administrators, but not beloved of the populace or too big in the head.

Speaking of big in the head, perhaps now is the best time to talk about Caligula and Nero. Caligula was Nero’s uncle and,  famously, fucking nuts. He took the imperial cult more seriously than any of his predecessors, and often portrayed himself as the incarnation of several different gods. Most devastating to his reign, however, was his deep and abiding love of pissing off anyone who had a significant amount of power.

Nero was an emperor in Caligula school.  He not only portrayed himself as a god, but all evidence shows that he firmly believed that he was one. He didn't want to wait until after death to enjoy being a god, so Nero did all of the god-like things he wanted to do, like make senators commit suicide, set up elaborate spectacles that showed him bringing the sun to earth, and take the stage to play the greatest heroes of legend. There was no equivocation about Nero’s god-status; he mandated that people address him as Apollo because of his music playing ability, that coins displayed him as Jupiter, and that he was a charioteer equal to Sol (who drove the Sun around in his chariot). This is the equivalent of having a president who portrays himself as the world’s greatest rockstar, NASCAR driver, and king of all religions and governments.

It’s no surprise then, that the Roman world went as nuts as he was when he died, leaving the greatest power vacuum in the past hundred years or more. None of the elites (who had been seriously repressed by Nero) had the charisma or the claim to fill that vacuum, and the common people who had loved and worshipped Nero couldn't believe he was dead.

He couldn't be dead; not a god like Nero. After all, Nero had survived so many conspiracies and assassination attempts that this must just be another false alarm. Nero must have escaped this time. Maybe he would do what he did as emperor and disguise himself, playing his music in taverns to get by. And, as Nero/Pseudo opens, there is a mysterious stranger from far off who enters the Taverna Imperial, offering to play the songs of Nero, who else could it be?

(Image: The Apotheosis of Claudius, via Creative Commons.)

Nero/Pseudo is now open at The Shop at Fort Fringe. Find out more about the play at WSC Avant Bard. Tickets are now on sale. 

Nero/Pseudo: The Writing on The Wall

(As part of my blogging about Nero/Pseudo here at Balkans via Bohemia, I have also asked Alan Katz -- the dramaturg of the show -- to share some of his wisdom and wit about the ancient world as guest posts on the blog. This is his second look inside the world of the play ]. If you missed his first post on the world of the Greek taberna, it's here.)

There are quite a few historical and literary sources (Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio) that survive from the first century, the period in which Nero/Pseudo is set. They describe the reign of Nero with derision, and gleefully recount his fall as the just and popular end of a tyrant’s rule. However, as most historians can tell you, most of what historians write is bullshit.

Historians often project their own opinions (and dare I say, insecurities) back onto history as they write, and are rarely able to capture the true feeling of the time. For gods’ sakes, Tacitus was 12 years old when Nero fell, and he is the historian who wrote closest to Nero’s time as Emperor. Historically, Nero also has the difficulty of being one of the most notorious oppressors of Christianity, who eventually won out as the official religious demagogues of the Roman Empire. And history is written by the winners.

But historians aren’t the only source from which we can draw information about the reign of Nero. Archaeology, especially in Pompeii (destroyed by volcano only a decade after Nero’s fall), has uncovered a great source on Nero: graffiti.

Graffiti was common in Rome and Roman territories, and it expressed exactly that, the common opinion and will of the people. We can learn amazing things about the use of graffiti in Roman culture from what has been preserved through the ages either by being buried and built over or through the preserving lava of Pompeii. Romans used graffiti like Craigslist (“A person interested in renting this property should contact Primus, the slave of Gnaeus”), Tinder (“Hectice, baby, Mercator says hello to you”), Yelp (“What a lot of tricks you use to deceive, innkeeper. You sell water but drink unmixed wine”), or Facebook (“The man I am having dinner with is a barbarian.”). Graffiti was also had its more traditional use. Namely, drawing penises.

This diversity applies to graffiti about Nero as well. In Pompeii, there were over 100 expressions of praise of various politicians throughout the city, and more than half of them were praise for Nero. But the mob is a fickle beast, and Nero took a hit in popularity when he drunkenly kicked his pregnant wife Poppaea, killing mother and child. After this incident, there is graffiti like Nero Alcaemon Orestes, a play on his name Nero Claudius Caesar, referencing mother-killers of myth, also referencing Nero’s murder of his own mother, Agrippina, after several failed attempts.

In Greece, however, where Nero/Pseudo is set, Nero had a special reason for being popular. A year before he fell from power, Nero took a grand tour of Greece. While he made some unpopular moves, like forcing many of the four-year cycle games (like the Olympics) to happen during his visit while he declared himself the winner, he also was incredibly generous to the Greek people. Nero not only gave allowances of grain away to Greek citizens, but also “gave freedom to Greece.” In this context, “freedom” means that Greece was no longer gave tribute to Rome and its denizens had extra rights. The Greeks, once the greatest power of the Mediterranean, were stoked to be freed from Roman oppression. So stoked in fact, that Greek coins with Nero’s face on them had “Jupiter the Liberator” stamped on the back of them.

But the Romans were pissed. Not only had Nero Greek-ifed Rome by changing the architecture and elevating the status of performers, he was giving rights that once belonged exclusively to Italians to the Greeks! For many Romans, this was the last straw. So while Nero was away in Greece, plots began to solidify against him in Rome, leading to his downfall about year after he came back. When the dust cleared from the civil wars after Nero’s downfall, the new Emperor Vespasian revoked Greece’s free status, a move that the Greeks knew would happen after they lost their beloved Nero.

The Greeks never forgot or stopped supporting Nero, and when they heard rumors of his fall, worry turned to hope turned to desperation. These rumors are flew around at the opening of Nero/Pseudo, when a woman sings the play's opening song, including the lines: “Oh, Greece, once free/Doomed to be/Subject again to slavery!”

So it is no surprise that it was in Greece where more rumors, this time of Nero’s triumphant return to Greece, started to be passed around. Then a lyre-player who looked an awful lot like Nero took the stage…

If you want to see what happens next, you have to see Nero/Pseudo!

Nero/Pseudo previews open at The Shop at Fort Fringe on Friday May 2. Find out more about the play at WSC Avant Bard. Tickets are now on sale.

(Image of Nero graffiti from Pompeii from Wikipedia Commons.)

Nero/Pseudo: The World of the Greek Taberna

(As part of my blogging about Nero/Pseudo here at Balkans via Bohemia, I have also asked Alan Katz -- the dramaturg of the show -- to share some of his wisdom and wit about the ancient world as guest posts on the blog. This is his first look inside the world of the play.) 

In taberna quando sumus, 
non curamus quid sit humus, 
sed ad ludum properamus, 
cui semper insudamus. 
quid agatur in taberna 
ubi nummus est pincerna, 
hoc est opus ut quaeratur; 
si quid loquar, audiatur. 

-- Carmina Burana

“When we’re in the tavern,
We don’t give a fuck for grit
But we rush to gamble
We always sweat over it.
What goes on in the tavern
Where money brings the cup,
If you want to find out
You better listen up”

(Loose translation by Alan Katz)


One of my my main jobs as Nero/Pseudo dramaturg is to help flesh out the context of the production. In this particular case, that context includes the world of first century Greece, the seedy and sexy world of glam rock, the violent and occasionally hilarious antics of  Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, and how this new production fits into (or disrupts) the current DC theater scene. But before I can start digging into the kaleidoscope of influences harmonized in this play, I need to start with the most essential and practical element of the context of Nero/Pseudo: where the hell is the play set?

The first half of Nero/Pseudo takes place in a taverna. As you may know (or hope), the holy tradition of getting shit-housed on beverages made of  fermented grains and fruits has been around for thousands of years. Accompanying peoples’ desire to drink has been the desire to do said drinking  far away from the domestic abode, which is associated with the distasteful responsibilities of things like spouses, children, and laundry. On the face of it, a taverna is exactly that place of escape: just a shop, usually selling wine, food, and a place to fall asleep, perhaps in one’s own vomit.

But, much like Shakespeare’s Boar’s Head Tavern in Eastcheap, the taverna of first century Greece was much more than a place to spend your whole paycheck on some old wreck. Imagine walking down an ancient Roman street. There’s a square cut out of a building on street-level, and from that aperture music, raucous swearing, and the smell of roasted meat float down the street. When you walk in, the floor is covered with chairs and tables, except for a stand in the center that the drunks are trying to knock down by flicking the dregs of their wine (Roman and Greek wine was unfiltered at the time, so the bottom was full of half-crushed grapes and sticks).  The walls are covered with graffiti of a classic tenor with verses like “Here Stratocles puked in my wine jug. He owes me 5 sestertii.” or “Chrysis makes the boys moan like girls.” The ceiling is hung with produce and meat of a far higher quality than ever would be served by the proprietor.

The people are the most interesting thing, though. The taverna is one of the few places where slaves and freemen could intermingle freely, and you might see a slave making a deal to tutor a rich man’s son to earn enough to buy his freedom. Musicians would probably be playing, either amateurs taking a crack at the public or pros brought in by the owner. There will probably be people tossing dice (actual knucklebones around this time), and you could find some of the shadiest and lowest class characters of first century Greece there: actors, hucksters, trickster slaves, low-ranking soldiers, and musicians. It would actually be surprising not to see women, especially ones selling services that only they can sell.

The fact that one of the characters in Nero/Pseudo, Chrysis, is a woman who runs a taverna is a neat touch for this play. We don’t have much information regarding who actually ran taverns, but it is a solid bet that a woman who ran a taverna would have to be a serious badass. Richard takes advantage of this interesting persona by making her essential to the main con of the play, but never letting go of the threat that she is under as a marginalized member of society. Chrysis just wants to preserve the meager place for which she worked her ass off, but the circumstances of the play take her a place she never expected.

Where does she go? Come see Nero/Pseudo and find out!

Nero/Pseudo previews open at The Shop at Fort Fringe on Friday May 2. Find out more about the play at WSC Avant Bard. Tickets are now on sale. 

(Image of dice players from Pompeii from Wikipedia Commons.)

Nero/Pseudo: Meet Alan Katz

(As part of my blogging about Nero/Pseudo here at Balkans via Bohemia, I will be introducing readers to members of the cast and creative team of the show.) 

Nero/Pseudo is very fortunate Alan Katz as the production's dramaturg. He is a librarian at the Folger Shakespeare Library. His knowledge of the classical era is pretty amazing (he reads ancient Greek), and he's revved up to speed on the magical world of glam rock as well.  He has previously worked as a dramaturg for WSC Avant Bard on the company's terrific production of Ally Currin's Caesar and Dada and Harold Pinter's No Man's Land.
to have

Alan is also a translator, poet, dog whisperer, house manager and Tweeter (@dcdramaturg). He will contribute guest posts to Balkans via Bohemia in the next few weeks about various aspects of the play, but first he had to answer the playwright's three questions about the Nero/Pseudo experience.

Who is your favorite person/god from antiquity?

The awesomest person from antiquity is totally Diogenes, the Cynical philosopher. He lived in a jar and didn't take shit from anyone. Alexander the Great once asked him what he was doing in a pile of bones, and he said, "I'm looking for the bones of your father, but I can't tell them from the bones of a slave." Also, he took a shit in the theater. What a guy.

What's the strangest fact about the ancient world or glam rock that you've learned from this experience?

My favorite fact I've learned is about glam rock artist Alice Cooper. He performed with a freaking boa constrictor wrapped around his body. That's so hot.


If you were Emperor for a day, what would be your first decree? 

If I was emperor for the day, my first decree would be easy: declare war on Canada. Those maple-syrup-chugging hockey-lovers would never see it coming. Plus we could possess all of the poutine. I'd probably make weed legal, too, so we could dominate all of Canada's biggest industries.

Nero/Pseudo previews open at The Shop at Fort Fringe on Friday May 2. Find out more about the play at WSC Avant Bard. Tickets are now on sale.