# Serial Killers in Ancient Rome

An episode of [Human History ASMR](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6793196842), 16 Oct 2026, 1 h 07 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/75663374/serial_killers_in_ancient_rome_human_voiced_no_ads.mp3



## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: It's 331 BC in the ancient city of Rome and
[0:06] Speaker 1: the people are gripped by a fear of what is
[0:09] Speaker 1: thought to be a plague as many prominent men fall
[0:12] Speaker 1: ill and die. Panic sweeps the city until the truth
[0:19] Speaker 1: comes out. A slave girl exposes the conspiracy of Roman
[0:24] Speaker 1: matrons that had been secretly poisoning these men. Acting on
[0:30] Speaker 1: her tip Officials raided a gathering of noble women and
[0:34] Speaker 1: found them brewing the toxic poisons. Twenty accused matrons, led
[0:41] Speaker 1: by two patricians named Cornelia and Sergia, insisted their poisons
[0:46] Speaker 1: were medicinal, challenged to prove their innocence by drinking their
[0:51] Speaker 1: own brew. They all did so, and lo and behold,
[0:57] Speaker 1: they all dropped dead. victims to their own poison. Subsequent
[1:04] Speaker 1: interrogations implicated 170 women in total, an unprecedented wave of murders. Livy,
[1:14] Speaker 1: our source for this historical episode, notes that until that
[1:18] Speaker 1: day there had never been a trial for poisoning in Rome,
[1:22] Speaker 1: and that the sheer scale of the crime was regarded
[1:27] Speaker 1: as a prodigy, suggesting madness, rather than criminal intent. Let's
[1:34] Speaker 1: put it into other words. Romans were so astonished by
[1:38] Speaker 1: what we might call a serial murder spree that they
[1:43] Speaker 1: ascribed it to collective insanity or a curse, rather than
[1:48] Speaker 1: pure bloodlust and malice. It's an early case that sets
[1:54] Speaker 1: the stage for our investigation today. the Romans knew serial
[2:00] Speaker 1: murder in various guises, even if they explained it in
[2:04] Speaker 1: their own cultural terms. And so today, here we are,
[2:10] Speaker 1: to talk about a often overlooked aspect of Roman history,
[2:16] Speaker 1: something that, underneath all the battles, the triumphs and the glories,
[2:22] Speaker 1: flies a little bit under the radar. And perhaps in
[2:26] Speaker 1: that context, glorious spectacle of Rome. It's something that they
[2:31] Speaker 1: wish to sweep under the rug a little. But we're
[2:36] Speaker 1: going to sift through the historical and literary evidence today,
[2:39] Speaker 1: and we're going to shine a light on some notorious figures,
[2:43] Speaker 1: from the poisoners lurking in the shadows, all the way
[2:47] Speaker 1: up to those emperors whose bloody reigns terrorized the empire.
[2:54] Speaker 1: Our journey is going to take us from these lesser-known cases,
[2:57] Speaker 1: like those repeat murderers in the late Republic, to the
[3:01] Speaker 1: Imperial Palace, where we have characters such as Caligula, Nero
[3:06] Speaker 1: and Commodus, turning the apparatus of state into instruments of
[3:10] Speaker 1: personal bloodlust. We don't often think of people in such
[3:15] Speaker 1: high positions of power as serial killers, but the numbers
[3:20] Speaker 1: do not lie. and that pile of bodies over there
[3:24] Speaker 1: is a little bit difficult to ignore. We'll examine how
[3:28] Speaker 1: Roman lore eventually evolved to address these repeated killings, and
[3:33] Speaker 1: how Roman society reacted with a mix of fear or fascination,
[3:38] Speaker 1: how the cultural memory enshrined these killers or even tried
[3:43] Speaker 1: to erase them. And finally... We'll go into that shadowy
[3:48] Speaker 1: world of professional poisoners, like Locusta, a woman who could
[3:55] Speaker 1: be well called an ancient serial killer for hire, given
[4:00] Speaker 1: her deadly resume at the court of Nero. But before
[4:08] Speaker 1: we do, I want to welcome you to the channel.
[4:11] Speaker 1: A heartfelt welcome to this... rather disturbing topic of a
[4:18] Speaker 1: video today, but it seems those are the popular ones.
[4:23] Speaker 1: We're going to be going through different accounts like Livy, Tacitus, Suetonius, Cassius, Dio.
[4:28] Speaker 1: I hope you're familiar with them. If not, you can
[4:32] Speaker 1: look them all up. They're readily available. And if you
[4:35] Speaker 1: are new to the channel, I do invite you to
[4:37] Speaker 1: click the subscribe button if you've not done so yet,
[4:40] Speaker 1: the like button, and leave a comment where you are.
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[5:02] Speaker 1: Just click those links in the description or pinned comment.
[5:05] Speaker 1: You'll find where you need to go. Now, with that
[5:08] Speaker 1: all out of the way... Let us get down to
[5:11] Speaker 1: the topic at hand. It's going to be a very
[5:16] Speaker 1: deep dive into this. Let's enjoy ourselves, shall we? Before
[5:24] Speaker 1: examining specific cases, let's just clarify some terms. This word,
[5:29] Speaker 1: or rather combination of words, serial killer, it's a more
[5:34] Speaker 1: modern concept. It's defined as someone who murders at least
[5:38] Speaker 1: two or three people in separate events, often with psychological motives. Now,
[5:46] Speaker 1: if we go back to Roman sources, Latin phrases, there's
[5:50] Speaker 1: no direct equivalent term. There's no Latin phrase that neatly
[5:54] Speaker 1: translates to serial killer. Instead, repeated murderers fell under broad
[6:01] Speaker 1: categories like parricidium, is murder of a close relative's beneficium, poisoning,
[6:09] Speaker 1: and sicariorum, that is, assassination or banditry. Romans were certainly
[6:16] Speaker 1: familiar with serial acts of murder, that's for sure, but
[6:20] Speaker 1: they interpreted them through the lens of family intrigue, tyranny,
[6:24] Speaker 1: or supernatural evil, rather than our modern psychology. So keep
[6:30] Speaker 1: a broad mind as we move forward with our terminology. Now,
[6:35] Speaker 1: for example, multiple murders by the same person might be
[6:40] Speaker 1: seen as something politically motivated, as in the case of
[6:43] Speaker 1: a dictator executing enemies, or perhaps driven by greed and
[6:49] Speaker 1: deceit as with the women who poisoned husbands. Often serial
[6:55] Speaker 1: murderers were pigeonholed into categories of crime that the ancient
[6:59] Speaker 1: Romans understood as such as the aforementioned beneficium, which means poisoning,
[7:05] Speaker 1: but also connoted magical malice. Notably, Roman authors, really, recurring
[7:13] Speaker 1: gendered perspective. Poisonings were frequently blamed on women. In fact,
[7:20] Speaker 1: a Roman rhetorician quipped, meaning, there is no adulteress who
[7:26] Speaker 1: isn't a poisoner. This hyperbole from Quintilian's Institute's work shows
[7:34] Speaker 1: a stereotype that an unfaithful wife might secretly kill her husband,
[7:40] Speaker 1: a trope born of several high-profile cases in Rome. So
[7:46] Speaker 1: while Romans didn't, conceptualize, quote, serial killers as a distinct
[7:52] Speaker 1: species of criminal, they absolutely recorded instances of people who
[7:59] Speaker 1: killed again and again. And so by reading between the
[8:04] Speaker 1: lines of their narratives, filtering out legend and moralizing, we
[8:10] Speaker 1: can identify individuals who fit the profile of our character
[8:14] Speaker 1: of a serial murderer. Some did it clandestinely, others did
[8:19] Speaker 1: it openly, whether it was poisoners in the dark or
[8:23] Speaker 1: emperors right out there in the open. And so, let's
[8:28] Speaker 1: look at both lesser-known cases that crept into historical record and,
[8:33] Speaker 1: of course, infamous imperial killers, whose names still to these
[8:37] Speaker 1: days ring with infamy. We'll start moving forward with the
[8:42] Speaker 1: lesser-known case studies. We already recounted the poisoning conspiracy of
[8:50] Speaker 1: 331 BCE, a remarkable early case of mass serial homicide
[8:56] Speaker 1: by Roman women. But after 331, episodic poison panics continued
[9:04] Speaker 1: to haunt Rome. In 180 BC, during another bout of
[9:09] Speaker 1: mysterious deaths, the authorities again suspected poisoners. One case stands out.
[9:16] Speaker 1: the newly elected consul, Tiberius Minucius, died all of a sudden.
[9:23] Speaker 1: The blame fell solely on his wife, Quarta Hostilia. Livy
[9:30] Speaker 1: recounts that Hostilia had an ulterior motive, you see. Her
[9:34] Speaker 1: son from a previous marriage, Quintus Flaccus, stood to gain
[9:38] Speaker 1: political advancement if the consul, his stepfather, died. Indeed, When
[9:44] Speaker 1: Flaccus soon won the vacant office, the rumours only grew louder.
[9:50] Speaker 1: Witnesses came forward recounting that Hostilia had boasted that she
[9:54] Speaker 1: would make her son Consul within a number of months.
[9:58] Speaker 1: It's not looking very good for her. her, isn't it?
[10:02] Speaker 1: Under investigation by the Praetor, Hostilia was convicted of murdering
[10:07] Speaker 1: her husband on mere suspicion, according to the surviving summaries.
[10:14] Speaker 1: And her fate was grim, likely handed over to her
[10:18] Speaker 1: relatives for execution by strangulation, customary for noble women convicted
[10:26] Speaker 1: of capital crimes. The Hostelier affair suggests that even in
[10:30] Speaker 1: the Republican era, Romans feared serial poisoners lurking in elite households.
[10:38] Speaker 1: Though it probably also had the effect of making husbands
[10:42] Speaker 1: a little bit more nicer to their wives. Well, a
[10:47] Speaker 1: few decades later, in 154 BC, an even more ominous
[10:51] Speaker 1: report emerges. Two consulars were said to have been poisoned
[10:57] Speaker 1: by their wives. The details are sparse, since Livy's books
[11:03] Speaker 1: survive only in summary here, but Valerius Maximus, a first-century writer,
[11:09] Speaker 1: confirms the allegations too. Two former consuls died seemingly, out
[11:15] Speaker 1: of nowhere with no explanations. Once again, their own wives
[11:20] Speaker 1: were implicated in administering poison, suggesting a coordinated scheme or
[11:26] Speaker 1: copycat crimes. While specifics are lost to time, Roman historians
[11:33] Speaker 1: treated these incidents as part of a pattern of private
[11:37] Speaker 1: poisoning that plagued society. Copycat killers inspired the worst possible deeds.
[11:47] Speaker 1: And indeed, by the late Republic, poisoning had become so common,
[11:53] Speaker 1: that in 82 BC the dictator Sulla passed the Lex
[11:57] Speaker 1: Cornelia de Cicaris et Venificus, a law specifically targeting assassins
[12:03] Speaker 1: and poisoners. This law treated multiple murders as an especially
[12:09] Speaker 1: heinous category, It criminalized not just the act of killing,
[12:13] Speaker 1: but the manufacturing and distribution of poisons for murder. Initially, violators,
[12:21] Speaker 1: especially the nobles, might be punished by exile or property confiscation.
[12:27] Speaker 1: But over time, the punishments stiffened. A later senatorial decree,
[12:33] Speaker 1: that is, Senatus Consultum in Latin, even decreed that if
[12:38] Speaker 1: a woman gave a potion to induce miscarriage or conception
[12:43] Speaker 1: and it caused death, well, she would be banished. By
[12:48] Speaker 1: the third century CE, in the jurist Marcian's day, convicted
[12:54] Speaker 1: serial poisoners of low status were executed, often thrown to
[12:59] Speaker 1: wild beasts in the arena, while those of higher status
[13:03] Speaker 1: were exiled, reflecting once again Rome's class-based justice. The very
[13:10] Speaker 1: need for such laws indicates that repeat murder by poison
[13:14] Speaker 1: was certainly a very real societal concern. But beyond these
[13:20] Speaker 1: legal and anecdotal records, rumours of serial killers swirled around
[13:25] Speaker 1: certain individuals. Roman aristocrats, sometimes died conveniently and in clusters,
[13:33] Speaker 1: sparking gossip by the hidden hand. One famous target of
[13:39] Speaker 1: rumor was Livia Grusilla, the wife of Augustus. Tacitus and
[13:46] Speaker 1: others hint that Livia possibly hastened the deaths of several
[13:49] Speaker 1: rivals to clear the path for her son Tiberius' succession.
[13:55] Speaker 1: The early deaths of Marcellus, Augustus' nephew, Agrippina Postimus, grandson,
[14:02] Speaker 1: and even Augustus himself, were, in later gossip, attributed to
[14:07] Speaker 1: Livia's scheming, using poisoned and other means, essentially painting her
[14:13] Speaker 1: as a serial poisoner at the heart of the imperial family.
[14:18] Speaker 1: But these claims remain unproven and controversial, likely amplified by
[14:24] Speaker 1: those old tropes of the wicked stepmother. Still, the persistence
[14:31] Speaker 1: of the accusations in our source shows the Roman imagination
[14:35] Speaker 1: could conceive of a woman systematically committing multiple murders to
[14:39] Speaker 1: achieve her ends. And then we have another example. It
[14:45] Speaker 1: comes from the early empire, the case of Lucosta and Martina,
[14:51] Speaker 1: professional poisoners. We will discuss Lucosta in depth shortly, but
[14:56] Speaker 1: we'll just go over it briefly now. Martina was a
[15:00] Speaker 1: woman from Syria, implicated in the suspected poisoning of Germanicus,
[15:05] Speaker 1: and is the popular heir of Tiberius around 1819. According
[15:11] Speaker 1: to Tacitus, after Germanicus' sudden death, Martina, infamous for evil
[15:18] Speaker 1: arts apparently, was arrested. En route to Rome for trial,
[15:24] Speaker 1: she mysteriously died. And guess what? Poison was found hidden
[15:30] Speaker 1: in her belongings, and that suggests that she took her
[15:33] Speaker 1: own poison to avoid torture, which was probably a wise decision.
[15:39] Speaker 1: While Martina's guilt was never legally confirmed, she epitomised the
[15:43] Speaker 1: figure of a serial poisoner for hire. Such women operating
[15:47] Speaker 1: in the shadows could accumulate multiple victims over years, leaving
[15:51] Speaker 1: scant evidence beyond the whispered accusations. So, let's discuss Locusta
[16:02] Speaker 1: in a lot more detail. Locusta of Gaul, that is,
[16:06] Speaker 1: perhaps the closest thing to a professional serial killer documented
[16:11] Speaker 1: in Roman history. In fact, her career reads kind of
[16:15] Speaker 1: like a lurid novel of sorts. She was a woman
[16:20] Speaker 1: adept in concocting poisons. responsible for multiple high-profile murders in
[16:25] Speaker 1: the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Her activities span the reigns of Claudius
[16:31] Speaker 1: and Nero, and the primary sources portray her as an
[16:35] Speaker 1: instrument of murder, repeatedly employed by those in power. It's
[16:41] Speaker 1: a hell of a career choice, that's for sure. Tacitus
[16:46] Speaker 1: introduces Lucaster in his Annals at the poisoning of Emperor
[16:50] Speaker 1: Claudius in A.D. 54. Empress Agrippina the Younger, Claudius's wife
[16:57] Speaker 1: and Nero's mother, by the way, was resolved to eliminate
[17:00] Speaker 1: Claudius to secure Nero's succession. She, according to the source,
[17:07] Speaker 1: did not lack instruments for the crime, and chose a
[17:12] Speaker 1: person skilled in such matters, Locusta by name. who had
[17:17] Speaker 1: lately been condemned for poisoning and long retained as one
[17:21] Speaker 1: of the tools of despotism. Lucusta prepared a toxic potion,
[17:28] Speaker 1: famously smeared on a dish of mushrooms, Claudius's favourite treat,
[17:33] Speaker 1: by the way. The Emperor unwittingly consumed the gift of
[17:38] Speaker 1: the goddess, as Nero later darkly joked, since mushrooms became
[17:43] Speaker 1: Claudius's death warrant. When the poison initially only made Claudius ill,
[17:51] Speaker 1: they went to plan B. According to Tacitus and Pseudonius,
[17:58] Speaker 1: Claudius' physician slipped a poisoned feather down the groaning emperor's
[18:02] Speaker 1: throat to finish the job. And so Claudius died, and
[18:09] Speaker 1: Nero ascended the throne. He was only seventeen, by the way,
[18:13] Speaker 1: when he did this. Locuster's reward for this service is
[18:17] Speaker 1: not explicitly detailed at that moment, but a grip in
[18:21] Speaker 1: her patronage likely saved her from punishment. She had been
[18:26] Speaker 1: lately condemned, but was evidently pardoned to perform this task.
[18:34] Speaker 1: The successful poisoning of an emperor immediately cemented Locuster's vast
[18:40] Speaker 1: reputation for crime, as Tacitus calls it, and barely months later,
[18:45] Speaker 1: In 1855, Locustor was called upon again, this time by
[18:52] Speaker 1: Nero himself. The target was Britannicus, Claudius' teenage son and
[19:00] Speaker 1: Nero's stepbrother, who was, by the way, a potential rival
[19:05] Speaker 1: for the throne. Pseudonius and Tacitus both give gripping accounts
[19:10] Speaker 1: of Britannicus' murder, illustrating how Nero used Locustor as his
[19:15] Speaker 1: lethal weapon. Nero felt threatened by fourteen-year-old Britannicus's claim, and
[19:22] Speaker 1: even jealous of the boy's singing voice, apparently. And so
[19:27] Speaker 1: he decided to eliminate him. He employed for this purpose locusta,
[19:34] Speaker 1: as Suetonius writes. The first dose locusta prepared was slipped
[19:38] Speaker 1: into Britannicus's drink during a banquet. In the candlelit dining-room,
[19:44] Speaker 1: Botanicus took a sip and immediately was seized by agony.
[19:50] Speaker 1: But this was not an instantaneous death. The poison was
[19:55] Speaker 1: too weak for that. It caused Britannicus to vomit, but
[20:00] Speaker 1: not die. Nero was not impressed by this. Furious, in fact.
[20:07] Speaker 1: suspecting Locusta had given a mere purgative to avoid detection.
[20:11] Speaker 1: The young emperor dragged the poisoner into a private room
[20:15] Speaker 1: and beat her with his own hands, accusing her of
[20:19] Speaker 1: betraying him with an antidote. Locusta pleaded that she only
[20:24] Speaker 1: used a gentle mixture to avoid suspicion, but Nero had scoffed.'
[20:29] Speaker 1: Do you think I fear the Julian lore against poisoning?'
[20:36] Speaker 1: He personally ordered her to brew a new, far deadlier
[20:40] Speaker 1: dose on the spot, right there and then. And what
[20:45] Speaker 1: follows is, well, it sounds like something from some kind
[20:49] Speaker 1: of thriller film. Locustor, under Imperial threat, prepared a potion
[20:55] Speaker 1: that was very, very potent, right there in Nero's chamber
[21:00] Speaker 1: as the Emperor watched. They tested it on a young goat,
[21:06] Speaker 1: and when the goat lingered alive for a few hours,
[21:09] Speaker 1: Nero demanded an even stronger concoction. The next batch was
[21:14] Speaker 1: tested on a slave, and the slave died immediately. Nero
[21:21] Speaker 1: was quite satisfied at this, and he had the poison
[21:24] Speaker 1: poured into Britannicus's cup at the next opportunity, doing a
[21:28] Speaker 1: grand dinner. Poor old Britannicus gulped it all down, and
[21:35] Speaker 1: collapsed at once. Apparently, according to Suetonius, as if he
[21:41] Speaker 1: was struck by lightning. Amid the panic of guests, Nero
[21:47] Speaker 1: coolly claimed that the boy was simply having an epileptic seizure.
[21:51] Speaker 1: That was an illness that Britannicus was known to have.
[21:56] Speaker 1: But by the next day, Britannicus was well and truly dead,
[22:01] Speaker 1: and hastily buried. This cold-blooded sequence, documented by Suetonius and
[22:08] Speaker 1: corroborated by Tacitus, shows Locusta's central role. She essentially acted
[22:15] Speaker 1: as Nero's personal murder weapon, adapting her poisons to ensure
[22:21] Speaker 1: a swift kill at her master's whim. Of course, Nero
[22:27] Speaker 1: richly rewarded her for her effective, if ghoulish, service. Suetonius
[22:33] Speaker 1: states that Nero granted Locuster a full pardon for her
[22:36] Speaker 1: past crimes and lavished her with gifts, among them a
[22:41] Speaker 1: large country estate. In a detail that truly shows her
[22:47] Speaker 1: status as a serial killer mentor, we learn that Nero
[22:52] Speaker 1: placed some disciples with her to be instructed in the trade. Yes,
[22:59] Speaker 1: he founded what we might call a school of poisoning.
[23:04] Speaker 1: And Locusta was the head professor. He trained others in
[23:09] Speaker 1: the art of assassination by toxins. It seems Nero envisioned
[23:13] Speaker 1: an assembly line of expert poisoners at his disposal. Locusta,
[23:20] Speaker 1: once a condemned criminal, now enjoyed imperial favour and even
[23:24] Speaker 1: a perverse kind of academic tenure in Nero's court. For
[23:30] Speaker 1: over a decade, Locusta likely continued to ply her deadly
[23:35] Speaker 1: craft for Nero's regime. There are hints, too, that Nero
[23:39] Speaker 1: kept her poisons handy. According to later sources, as Nero's
[23:43] Speaker 1: own downfall approached in CE 68, he prepared a poison
[23:49] Speaker 1: kit from Locusta to take his own life if necessary.
[23:55] Speaker 1: But in the end, if you know the story, Nero
[23:58] Speaker 1: chose a dagger and the help of a servant to
[24:01] Speaker 1: do the deed. So Lucusta's parting gift went. Unused, I suppose.
[24:09] Speaker 1: But the table suddenly turned after Nero's death. In June,
[24:13] Speaker 1: 68 CE, the new Emperor Galba came to power, seeking
[24:20] Speaker 1: to punish Nero's corrupt entourage. Lucusta panicked. as the notorious
[24:26] Speaker 1: Poisoner-in-Chief of the previous reign, was obviously quite a high target.
[24:34] Speaker 1: Gulper's agents dragged Locustor in chains through the streets of Rome,
[24:38] Speaker 1: along with the other palace criminals. A spectacle to signal
[24:43] Speaker 1: moral restoration. She was executed, likely via public humiliation and death,
[24:50] Speaker 1: though methods vary in accounts. and thus ended Locuster's remarkable and, admittedly,
[24:58] Speaker 1: unique career. In perhaps fifteen years she had likely killed
[25:03] Speaker 1: or helped kill an untold number of victims at the
[25:06] Speaker 1: behest of Agrippina and Nero, certainly Claudius and Britannicus, but
[25:13] Speaker 1: possibly others whose names never really reached the history books.
[25:18] Speaker 1: This makes her one of antiquity's clearest examples of a
[25:22] Speaker 1: serial killer, Multiple murders, separated in time, carried out with
[25:28] Speaker 1: cunning and consistent method. Unlike a modern serial killer who
[25:33] Speaker 1: acts independently, Lancaster was more like a contract killer, but
[25:39] Speaker 1: her repeated acts and the obvious sadistic expertise put her
[25:43] Speaker 1: in the same grim category. Her name became proverbial in Rome,
[25:51] Speaker 1: Juvenal Contessa. writing a generation later, could assume his audience
[25:56] Speaker 1: knew her infamy. In one satire, he describes a dreadful
[26:00] Speaker 1: poisoner as even more skilled than, quote, the infamous Locusta.
[26:06] Speaker 1: In the Roman imagination, Locusta was the archetype of the
[26:10] Speaker 1: evil crone with a poison vial, so much that her
[26:15] Speaker 1: name lived on for centuries as a byword for murderous treachery.
[26:20] Speaker 1: Even Alexandra Dumas of her 1800 years later, named a
[26:26] Speaker 1: chapter Locusta in the Count of Monte Cristo to evoke
[26:29] Speaker 1: that legacy. Well, truly, hers is a case where history
[26:35] Speaker 1: and legend blend. A real woman whose serial murders at
[26:40] Speaker 1: the heart of Roman power secured her a kind of
[26:44] Speaker 1: dark immortality. And so before we leave the topic of poisoners,
[26:51] Speaker 1: It's worth noting that Lucusta was not alone. She may
[26:55] Speaker 1: have been the most famous, but Roman history hints at
[26:58] Speaker 1: other serial poisoners. We mentioned Martina in the Germanicus case.
[27:06] Speaker 1: There was also Canidia, a fictionalized witch in Horace's poems,
[27:12] Speaker 1: but likely inspired by real rumors of a lethal sorceress.
[27:17] Speaker 1: The prevalence of such figures in the Latin term, vinifica,
[27:21] Speaker 1: female poisoner or witch, shows the Romans lived with a
[27:25] Speaker 1: fear of repeat poison murderers, akin to how later societies
[27:32] Speaker 1: feared serial killers. It was a crime that particularly terrified
[27:37] Speaker 1: them because it was stealthy, intimate, and often struck in
[27:42] Speaker 1: one's own household. But having examined these covert killers, let's
[27:48] Speaker 1: now turn to the higher echelons of power, where the
[27:52] Speaker 1: serial killing often happened right there in plain sight. The
[27:58] Speaker 1: emperors of Rome wielding absolute authority over life and death,
[28:04] Speaker 1: and a few wielded it with a homicidal glee that
[28:08] Speaker 1: earns them a place in any catalogue of serial murder.
[28:15] Speaker 1: You see, when power is concentrated, In the hands of
[28:19] Speaker 1: just one person, the result can be pretty deadly. Especially
[28:25] Speaker 1: if that person just so happens to delight in cruelty.
[28:30] Speaker 1: Several Roman emperors, through their abusive reigns, committed serial killings
[28:34] Speaker 1: on a grand scale. They didn't stalk strangers in the
[28:38] Speaker 1: night with a dagger hidden in their pocket. Instead, they
[28:44] Speaker 1: murdered family members courteous, senators and citizens, one after the other,
[28:49] Speaker 1: often with sadistic creativity. And so we will focus on
[28:54] Speaker 1: three notorious examples, Caligula, Nero, and Commodus, starting, of course,
[29:00] Speaker 1: with Caligula moving through them. But each of these emperors
[29:04] Speaker 1: performed what we might call serial killings, though in the
[29:09] Speaker 1: context of autocratic rule. Their specific acts, and the cultural
[29:14] Speaker 1: memory of their deeds have made them enduring symbols of
[29:17] Speaker 1: tyranny and madness. So let's start. Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus,
[29:25] Speaker 1: better known by his nickname Caligula, which by the way
[29:29] Speaker 1: means little boots, which is just adorable, but I'm not
[29:35] Speaker 1: going to harp on about that. Well, he ruled from
[29:38] Speaker 1: 36 41 CE. He started off as a beloved 24-year-old emperor,
[29:46] Speaker 1: son of the hero Germanicus, but after only a few months,
[29:51] Speaker 1: something in Caligula seemed to have snapped. Ancient writers suggest
[29:58] Speaker 1: an illness or brain fever unhinged his mind, and the
[30:04] Speaker 1: result was a brief reign of horrific cruelty. Caligula's murders
[30:10] Speaker 1: were numerous and often perversely whimsical, earning him a reputation
[30:16] Speaker 1: as a psychotic killer. Suetonius, writing about seventy years later,
[30:22] Speaker 1: paints Caligula as practically reveling in killing. At public games,
[30:29] Speaker 1: If the crowd displeased him, Caligula would growl, quote, I
[30:33] Speaker 1: wish the Roman people had but one neck, so he
[30:38] Speaker 1: could decapitate them all with a single blow. This ghastly
[30:43] Speaker 1: wish shows Caligula's approach to power and murder. He viewed
[30:48] Speaker 1: people as playthings on whom he could inflict death at
[30:52] Speaker 1: a whim. His specific acts of serial murder are documented
[30:57] Speaker 1: in chilling detail. He had his own cousin, an adopted son,
[31:02] Speaker 1: Tiberius Gemulus, quietly killed after initially sparing him, and he
[31:07] Speaker 1: forced Macro to take his own life, the Padorean prefect
[31:12] Speaker 1: who had helped him to the throne. He exiled and
[31:17] Speaker 1: later executed his two surviving sisters, Agrippina and Julia, after
[31:22] Speaker 1: accusing them of adultery and treason. He took particular delight
[31:27] Speaker 1: in in tormenting Roman senators and equestrians, too. At dinner parties,
[31:33] Speaker 1: he'd suddenly burst into laughter, and when asked why, casually
[31:38] Speaker 1: announced that, I was just thinking that I have only
[31:43] Speaker 1: to give one nod, and both of your throats would
[31:46] Speaker 1: be cut on the spot. And that was not an
[31:50] Speaker 1: empty boast. Caligula did have high-ranking Romans executed for trivial reasons.
[31:58] Speaker 1: or sometimes just no reason at all. There was an
[32:02] Speaker 1: infamous example of his sadism. During a lavish public banquet,
[32:06] Speaker 1: Caligula noticed that one of his slaves had stolen a
[32:09] Speaker 1: bit of silver decoration. Probably not a very wise choice
[32:13] Speaker 1: on the slave's behalf, but Caligula immediately ordered the slave's
[32:18] Speaker 1: hands to be cut off, and then had the severed
[32:21] Speaker 1: hands hung around the slave's neck with a placard listing
[32:26] Speaker 1: his crime. parading him around the guests. In another episode,
[32:33] Speaker 1: Caligula arranged for several retiaros gladiators, that is, net fighters,
[32:39] Speaker 1: to face heavily armed opponents. When the net fighters yielded
[32:44] Speaker 1: in fear, Caligula was so enraged by their cowardice that
[32:48] Speaker 1: he ordered all of them killed. One quick-thinking fighter grabbed
[32:52] Speaker 1: a sword and managed to slay the victors. prompting Caligula
[32:57] Speaker 1: to declare that a massacre had occurred, and lament that
[33:01] Speaker 1: the audience had witnessed such a cruel sight. The Emperor's
[33:06] Speaker 1: hypocrisy here is quite stunning. He planned to kill them himself,
[33:11] Speaker 1: yet when someone else did it out of desperation, he
[33:14] Speaker 1: acted appalled. Maybe he was just a little upset that
[33:18] Speaker 1: he had been robbed of the pleasure. But his cruelty
[33:23] Speaker 1: extended even to his closest circles. The ancient sources alleged
[33:27] Speaker 1: he killed for personal gratification as much for paranoia. He
[33:32] Speaker 1: forced parents to watch the executions of their sons. He
[33:36] Speaker 1: reportedly would say to Empress Caesonia while caressing her neck,
[33:41] Speaker 1: so beautiful a throat, cut it whenever I please. There
[33:47] Speaker 1: are also stories of Caligula engaging in sexual violence and
[33:52] Speaker 1: then killing the victims of their relatives afterwards, blurring the
[33:57] Speaker 1: line between lust and murder. But within just four years,
[34:03] Speaker 1: Caligula likely ordered or personally caused dozens if not hundreds
[34:08] Speaker 1: of deaths, rivaling the body count of any modern serial killer,
[34:13] Speaker 1: albeit over the cover of law. The cultural memory of
[34:17] Speaker 1: Caligula is one of unfettered madness. After he was assassinated
[34:23] Speaker 1: by his own guards in CE 41, a fate he
[34:26] Speaker 1: perhaps sealed openly by mocking and threatening them once too often,
[34:32] Speaker 1: the Senate attempted to erase his memory. Yet the stories
[34:37] Speaker 1: of his sadism were simply too lurid to forget. Caligula
[34:42] Speaker 1: became a byword for insane tyranny. Later Roman historians fixated
[34:49] Speaker 1: on his reign as a cautionary tale of absolute power's corruption.
[34:53] Speaker 1: For example, Suetonius recounts how people still shuddered remembering Caligula's
[35:00] Speaker 1: atrocious deeds later on. In modern times, Caligula's name evokes
[35:06] Speaker 1: a kind of decadent cruelty, thanks in part to these
[35:11] Speaker 1: serial acts of murder. that emblazoned him in history as
[35:14] Speaker 1: one of the monsters of Rome. Well, of course, we
[35:20] Speaker 1: can't go past Nero, though, can't we? When you talk
[35:23] Speaker 1: about monsters of Rome. We've already encountered Nero Claudius Caesar
[35:31] Speaker 1: when we discussed Locusta, as he was the mastermind behind
[35:35] Speaker 1: some of her murders. But Nero's reputation as a killer
[35:41] Speaker 1: comes not only from those poisonings, but a broader pattern
[35:45] Speaker 1: of bloodshed through his fourteen-year reign than his fifty-four to
[35:50] Speaker 1: sixty-eight C.E. Early in his role Nero was guided by tutors,
[35:56] Speaker 1: and seemed reluctant to get his hands dirty. But as
[35:59] Speaker 1: he grew older and more independent, he developed into a
[36:04] Speaker 1: murderer with somewhat of a theatrical flair, befitting an emperor
[36:09] Speaker 1: who fancied himself an artist above all. His killings often
[36:14] Speaker 1: targeted his own family and inner circle, eliminating anyone who
[36:18] Speaker 1: threatened his security or his ego. His first notable murder
[36:24] Speaker 1: was indeed Britannicus in 55, which we have covered and
[36:28] Speaker 1: we won't go into anymore. But next he turned to
[36:31] Speaker 1: his own mother, Agrippina. Agrippina had been the power behind
[36:39] Speaker 1: the thrones. But as Nero chafed under her influence, he
[36:44] Speaker 1: decided to have her removed in 59. The Matricide of
[36:50] Speaker 1: Agrippina is one of the most famous murders in Roman history.
[36:54] Speaker 1: Tacitus details Nero's elaborate, almost farcical plot. He arranged for
[37:02] Speaker 1: Agrippina's boat to collapse at sea in a staged accident.
[37:08] Speaker 1: But Agrivna survived the collapse and swam ashore, only slightly injured. Frustrated,
[37:15] Speaker 1: Nero then sent an assassin, or perhaps a team of soldiers,
[37:19] Speaker 1: to her villa to finish the job. Agrivna was then
[37:23] Speaker 1: stabbed to death, and Nero made it look like she
[37:27] Speaker 1: was caught in a treasonous act. When a messenger came
[37:32] Speaker 1: and told Nero that his mother had died, Nero's reply was,'
[37:36] Speaker 1: Let' s go see her corpse.' Not in and out of
[37:41] Speaker 1: any mourning, but rather to ensure that the deed was done.
[37:45] Speaker 1: Suetonius claims that Nero examined Agrippina's body and remarked how
[37:50] Speaker 1: beautiful she had once been, showing no remorse for having
[37:55] Speaker 1: killed his own mother. This was a serial killing in
[38:00] Speaker 1: the psychological sense, you see. Nero struck down a close
[38:04] Speaker 1: relative after Britannicus. exhibiting a developing pattern of eliminating those
[38:10] Speaker 1: close to him. But he didn't stop there. He disposed
[38:15] Speaker 1: of his first wife, Octavia, in 62, banishing her, and
[38:21] Speaker 1: later ordering her execution on false charges of adultery. All
[38:26] Speaker 1: of this because he wanted to marry Poppaea Sabina. The
[38:31] Speaker 1: Roman public loved the innocent Octavia, so much that her
[38:34] Speaker 1: death caused an outcry too. In 1865, Nero kicked Poppea,
[38:41] Speaker 1: who was pregnant, to death in a fit of sudden rage,
[38:47] Speaker 1: an impulsive act that claimed the lives of both his
[38:50] Speaker 1: second wife and the unborn child. Though this may not
[38:55] Speaker 1: have been premeditated, it certainly added to Nero's bloody tally
[39:00] Speaker 1: of family members killed. Moreover, after the Pisonian conspiracy against
[39:08] Speaker 1: Nero in 65 was uncovered, Nero embarked on a purge.
[39:13] Speaker 1: He executed his old tutor, Seneca, forcing him to take
[39:18] Speaker 1: his own life. A pretty common method, back to the
[39:21] Speaker 1: old Greek days of the hemlock drinking. And also the
[39:26] Speaker 1: poet Lucan, among others, were on the list. Not necessarily
[39:31] Speaker 1: because they were all guilty in the plot, but more
[39:33] Speaker 1: to rid himself of critics and potential enemies. Didn't want
[39:37] Speaker 1: anyone writing anything that wouldn't make him look bad. Tacitus
[39:41] Speaker 1: recounts of how Nero seemed to revel in signing death
[39:45] Speaker 1: warrants during this time. In fact, Nero's killings often had
[39:52] Speaker 1: a performative element. After Agrippina's murder, he staged extravagant games
[39:58] Speaker 1: supposedly to honour his departed mother, during which he sang
[40:03] Speaker 1: and played music, as if celebrating matricide with an artistic flourish.
[40:09] Speaker 1: Following the great fire of Rome in AD 64, Nero
[40:13] Speaker 1: famously blamed the Christians for and suspected subjected rather them
[40:18] Speaker 1: to grotesque executions, apparently burning them as human torches in
[40:25] Speaker 1: his gardens and feeding them to beasts. This was mass
[40:30] Speaker 1: murder rather than serial murder, but it certainly cemented his
[40:35] Speaker 1: image as monstrously cruel. In the context of serial killing,
[40:41] Speaker 1: What stands out is Nero's emotional detachment and creative cruelty
[40:45] Speaker 1: in each successive case. He killed his stepbrother, then his mother,
[40:50] Speaker 1: then his wife, and technically his child, and then countless others,
[40:56] Speaker 1: each by different methods. Poison, engineering, accidents, forcing them under
[41:02] Speaker 1: compulsion to do it themselves, kicking them to death, almost
[41:08] Speaker 1: as if experimenting. with different kinds of ways to kill people.
[41:14] Speaker 1: Of course, the cultural memory of Nero is quite complex.
[41:17] Speaker 1: Unlike Caligula and Commodus, Nero actually retained some popular sympathy
[41:23] Speaker 1: after his death, especially among the lower classes who enjoyed
[41:27] Speaker 1: his public entertainments. In fact, for years after Nero's death
[41:33] Speaker 1: in AD 68, rumours persisted that he was still alive
[41:37] Speaker 1: in the East, plotting to return. the so-called Nero Redivivus.
[41:44] Speaker 1: Some commoners laid flowers on his tomb for a long time,
[41:47] Speaker 1: indicating a lingering affection. This is perhaps because Nero, despite
[41:53] Speaker 1: his crime, styled himself as a more of a populist showman. However,
[41:58] Speaker 1: among the elites and later historians, he was remembered as
[42:01] Speaker 1: an archetypal villain. Christian authors, in particular, dubbed him the
[42:07] Speaker 1: first persecutor of the Church. Lactantius called him that, quote,
[42:13] Speaker 1: noxious wild beast who slayed Peter and Paul. St. Augustine
[42:19] Speaker 1: and others even connected Nero with the apocalyptic figure of
[42:23] Speaker 1: the Antichrist, Suetonius. Well, he tells us that decades after
[42:29] Speaker 1: Nero's death, when a false Nero imposter arose in Parthia,
[42:35] Speaker 1: the mere name of Nero was still enough to incite
[42:38] Speaker 1: hope or dread. The Parthians supported this fake Nero, quote, vigorously,
[42:45] Speaker 1: and only surrendered him with a great reluctance, so fond
[42:49] Speaker 1: were they of Nero's memory. Meanwhile in Rome, the Senate
[42:54] Speaker 1: had damnatio memoriae decrees against him, erasing his statues and inscriptions. Thus,
[43:03] Speaker 1: I suppose we can say that Nero is culturally remembered
[43:07] Speaker 1: both as a depraved artist-tyrant, and oddly a figure of
[43:12] Speaker 1: fascination that some were just unwilling to let go. His killings,
[43:20] Speaker 1: particularly of his own kin, became central episodes in every
[43:24] Speaker 1: account of his reign, ensuring he would feature in both
[43:28] Speaker 1: histories and lurid legends long after the Julio-Claudian line had
[43:33] Speaker 1: come to an end. Well, our final imperial case study
[43:39] Speaker 1: is Cometus. who reigned from 180 to 192 CE, a
[43:44] Speaker 1: life story that plays out like another twisted horror film.
[43:48] Speaker 1: He was the son of the philosopher Emperor Marcus Aurelius,
[43:53] Speaker 1: but the apple had certainly fallen far from the tree.
[43:56] Speaker 1: He showed none of his father's famous virtue and restraint.
[44:01] Speaker 1: Taking power at nineteen years old, he squandered the goodwill
[44:05] Speaker 1: of Marcus's reign and descended into mortuary and violence. Ancient
[44:09] Speaker 1: historians Herodian, Cassius Dio, and the author of the Historia
[44:15] Speaker 1: Augusta unanimously condemn him as cruel, lewd, and a megalomaniacal ruler.
[44:25] Speaker 1: Within that betrayal, we of course find numerous acts of
[44:28] Speaker 1: killing that qualify as serial murders, fueled by Commodus' vanity
[44:35] Speaker 1: and cruelty. Commodus is infamously known for his obsession with
[44:40] Speaker 1: the gladiatorial arena. Unlike any emperor before, he personally fought
[44:47] Speaker 1: as a gladiator hundreds of times in public. While these
[44:53] Speaker 1: contests were usually rigged, no one dared harm the emperor.
[44:58] Speaker 1: Commodus took them very seriously, and they provided an outlet
[45:02] Speaker 1: for his bloodlust. According to the Historia Augusta, Commodus fought
[45:09] Speaker 1: in the arena 365 times, and slayed both men and
[45:15] Speaker 1: wild beasts in great numbers with his own hand. Though
[45:19] Speaker 1: the exact numbers are likely exaggerated, certainly no doubt that
[45:23] Speaker 1: Commodus killed many opponents in the arena, including helpless victims.
[45:31] Speaker 1: One particularly heinous spectacle, Commodus gathered men who were disabled
[45:36] Speaker 1: or amputees, dressed them as mythic giants with snake-like appendages,
[45:42] Speaker 1: gave them flimsy weapons, and then bludgeoned them to death
[45:47] Speaker 1: with a club, pretending he was Hercules' vanishing giants. Cassius Dio,
[45:55] Speaker 1: an eyewitness to this, recounts it with palpable horror. The
[45:59] Speaker 1: Roman senators, watching Commodus commit mass murder of the defenseless
[46:03] Speaker 1: men purely for entertainment, was the last straw. Dio notes
[46:09] Speaker 1: that fear was shared by all, as he realized that
[46:14] Speaker 1: no one was safe from the Emperor's caprice. Commodus' serial
[46:20] Speaker 1: killings extend beyond the arena. He indulged in executing members
[46:24] Speaker 1: of the elite with as little mercy as he showed the, quote, giants.
[46:29] Speaker 1: He had a long list of senators put to death,
[46:32] Speaker 1: often on trumped-up charges, simply because they displeased him. or
[46:38] Speaker 1: because he had a feeling that they were plotting. In
[46:43] Speaker 1: all fairness, sometimes they were, as plots did spring up
[46:48] Speaker 1: in reaction to his misrule, but one can hardly blame
[46:51] Speaker 1: them for that, can't we? Deer recalls that Commodus, quote,
[46:56] Speaker 1: killed a great many people, some openly and some by
[47:00] Speaker 1: secret poison, making away with practically all those who had
[47:04] Speaker 1: stained eminence during his father's reign and his own The
[47:09] Speaker 1: only prominent men he spared were those who flattered him relentlessly,
[47:15] Speaker 1: or whom he found useful. A few, like the General Pompeianus,
[47:20] Speaker 1: survived by staying utterly neutral and low-profile. And this indicates
[47:26] Speaker 1: a systematic purge over years, Commodus eliminating any distinguished person
[47:32] Speaker 1: who could challenge him. It's akin to a paranoid serial killer,
[47:38] Speaker 1: removing all perceived rivals, I suppose, one by one. And
[47:43] Speaker 1: here's something for you. His sister, Lucilla, was one such victim.
[47:50] Speaker 1: After she conspired, unsuccessfully, to assassinate him in 182, Commodus
[47:58] Speaker 1: exiled and then executed her. He later ordered the execution
[48:03] Speaker 1: of his wife, Crispina, as well on adultery charges. and
[48:07] Speaker 1: is said to have personally killed his chamberlain and childhood
[48:10] Speaker 1: friend Cleander in a fit of rage. Another gruesome anecdote.
[48:16] Speaker 1: At a banquet, Commodus casually decapitated an ostrich and brandished
[48:22] Speaker 1: its bleeding head and his sword at the watching senators,
[48:27] Speaker 1: wordlessly indicating they could be next. The senators had to
[48:32] Speaker 1: stifle nervous laughter at the absurd sight, Dear recounts that
[48:38] Speaker 1: he chewed laurel leaves to keep from laughing outright, knowing
[48:42] Speaker 1: Commodus would kill anyone he saw laughing at him. The
[48:46] Speaker 1: terror that he instilled was very real and very personal.
[48:54] Speaker 1: In the end, Commodus' serial killings backfired. By late 192,
[48:59] Speaker 1: his mistress Marcia and the Praetorian prefect Laetus feared they
[49:04] Speaker 1: were next on the list. and indeed Commodus had begun
[49:08] Speaker 1: writing a prescription list that even included those closest to him.
[49:14] Speaker 1: They decided, on December 31st, 192, to strike first. poisoning
[49:20] Speaker 1: Commodus's wine, which was quite fitting, given his own penchant
[49:25] Speaker 1: for poison against others. When the poison only made him
[49:29] Speaker 1: vomit like Britannicus before, they panicked and sent in the
[49:34] Speaker 1: palace wrestler, a man named, quite ironically, Narcissus, to strangle
[49:40] Speaker 1: Commodus in his bath, and thus fell the gladiator emperor
[49:46] Speaker 1: at the age of 31. But the reaction in Rome
[49:52] Speaker 1: this time was quite euphoric. Cassius Dio describes how the
[49:57] Speaker 1: new emperor Pertinax and the Roman people declared Commodus a
[50:01] Speaker 1: public enemy. The Senate heaped insults on his memory, calling him, quote,
[50:08] Speaker 1: that murderer, that gladiator, that ruptured one. By the way,
[50:14] Speaker 1: this ruptured one, that's in reference to his apparent hernia.
[50:21] Speaker 1: Apparently Commodus had one of them. Probably too much exercise
[50:27] Speaker 1: in the gladiatorial arena, perhaps. Hence the term ruptured. but
[50:33] Speaker 1: they wanted to drag his corpse too through the streets
[50:36] Speaker 1: and mutilated, as was done to the hated tyrants of old.
[50:41] Speaker 1: But Pertinax dissuaded them, since the body was already buried. Instead,
[50:46] Speaker 1: they obliterated his statues and renamed the city. Oh, by
[50:51] Speaker 1: the way, Commodus had a grandiosely rebranded Rome, by the way,
[50:55] Speaker 1: as Colonia Commodiana. That's right, he changed the name of
[51:02] Speaker 1: Rome Certainly a big deal, that's for sure. The Senate's decree,
[51:09] Speaker 1: damnatio memoriae, on Commodus was essentially society's way of posthumously
[51:15] Speaker 1: executing the serial killer. His cultural memory became that of
[51:20] Speaker 1: a degenerate tyrant who fancied himself a reincarnation of Hercules.
[51:27] Speaker 1: Later historians like Dio, who had suffered through his reign,
[51:31] Speaker 1: never forgave him. the historian Augusta outright calls Commodus a pestilence,
[51:38] Speaker 1: and lists his vices and killings exhaustively. And so he
[51:43] Speaker 1: was remembered as the man who nearly wrecked the Empire
[51:46] Speaker 1: through his vanity and violence. Only in modern popular culture,
[51:52] Speaker 1: like the film Gladiator, by the way, has Commodus been
[51:56] Speaker 1: somewhat romanticised, but even there he's a villain still for
[52:01] Speaker 1: his contemporaries. He was a real-life nightmare. An emperor who
[52:08] Speaker 1: personally and repeatedly murdered for both malice and sport. So,
[52:16] Speaker 1: having surveyed individual cases, let's take a step back and
[52:21] Speaker 1: consider how Roman law and culture dealt with serial killers, even,
[52:27] Speaker 1: of course, if they lacked the term. We've touched on
[52:30] Speaker 1: the legal developments But late Republic laws like Sulla's Lex
[52:36] Speaker 1: Cornelia targeted at habitual murders, especially poisoners. The fact that
[52:42] Speaker 1: Sulla's law loved serial killers, sicarii, literally knife men or
[52:48] Speaker 1: assassins and poisoners together is quite telling. Both were seen
[52:52] Speaker 1: as stealthy threats to public order who could strike multiple times.
[52:58] Speaker 1: Under the Lex Cornelia, someone who committed repeated or premeditated
[53:03] Speaker 1: murder faced exile or execution, and this statute remained the
[53:07] Speaker 1: backbone of homicidal lore into the Empire. Over time, Roman
[53:13] Speaker 1: jurists and Senate decrees fine-tuned punishments to cover scenarios of
[53:17] Speaker 1: serial murder. For example, repeat poisoners could be punished, even
[53:23] Speaker 1: if intent, not just resort, was proven. Possessing poison became
[53:28] Speaker 1: a crime, you see. A decree under Augustus or Tiberius
[53:33] Speaker 1: empowered special trials for poisoning that might span multiple incidents,
[53:40] Speaker 1: essentially an ancient version of investigating a serial killing spree.
[53:46] Speaker 1: The Romans, as pragmatic as ever, responded to waves of murders,
[53:52] Speaker 1: like those poison panics, by creating investigative commissions. In 331 BCE,
[54:00] Speaker 1: there was no precedent. But by the second century, the
[54:06] Speaker 1: Senate regularly tasked praetors to investigate beneficia systematically. We read
[54:13] Speaker 1: that in 184 BCE, one such investigation in Italy led
[54:19] Speaker 1: to 2,000 people being condemned for poisoning. That's if we
[54:23] Speaker 1: trust Valerius of Antium's possibly exaggerated number Whether or not
[54:30] Speaker 1: the number is accurate, the key point is this. Serial
[54:35] Speaker 1: murder via poison was seen as a collective crisis. And
[54:42] Speaker 1: the Roman authorities responded with broad sweeps and mass trials.
[54:47] Speaker 1: Something akin to a witch hunt, I suppose. But unfortunately,
[54:52] Speaker 1: like later witch hunts, sometimes innocent people were likely caught
[54:55] Speaker 1: up into the dragnet of public hysteria. Culturally, the Roman
[55:02] Speaker 1: reaction to serial killers combined fear, suspicion, and ultimately swift retribution.
[55:10] Speaker 1: The 331 BCE episode was so shocking that, as Livy said,
[55:16] Speaker 1: people thought that women must have just gone insane en
[55:20] Speaker 1: masse or been cursed. The Romans even resorted to a
[55:25] Speaker 1: religious expiation. They appointed a dictator ceremonially, nail in the evil,
[55:32] Speaker 1: a ritual normally done to calm social order. All this
[55:38] Speaker 1: shows that serial murders were sometimes outside Romans' normal frame
[55:42] Speaker 1: of reference. They interpreted them as prodigies, these supernatural omens.
[55:50] Speaker 1: In later times, when serial killers took forms of emperors
[55:54] Speaker 1: like Caligula or Nero, Some Romans similarly rationalize that the
[55:59] Speaker 1: gods must have abandoned these men to madness. Pseudonius recounts
[56:04] Speaker 1: various omens and dreams that supposedly forewarned of Nero's and
[56:08] Speaker 1: Caligula's bloody tendencies. In St. Augustine's work, The City of God,
[56:13] Speaker 1: he even cites the 331 BCE poisonings as evidence of
[56:19] Speaker 1: the moral bankruptcies of Rome's old gods, noting how such
[56:23] Speaker 1: horrors happened under pagan watch. On a societal level, Romans
[56:29] Speaker 1: dealt with known serial killers harshly when they could. Once
[56:33] Speaker 1: an emperor serial killer died, the Senate almost always moved
[56:38] Speaker 1: to condemn the memory. Statues were toppled, coins defaced. Rome
[56:45] Speaker 1: tried to excise the cancer retroactively. In the case of Lacusta,
[56:52] Speaker 1: as we saw, Galba made a public example of her.
[56:57] Speaker 1: Executing her to a delighted Roman public would long have
[57:00] Speaker 1: feared her lethal talent. Execution for some serial killers in
[57:05] Speaker 1: Rome could be spectacular. Poena cule, for parasites, a gruesome
[57:12] Speaker 1: drowning in a sack with animals, or being thrown to
[57:16] Speaker 1: wild beasts. Perhaps crucifixion for slaves, although crucifixion was not
[57:23] Speaker 1: allowed for Roman citizens, by the way. The worse the crime,
[57:28] Speaker 1: the more extreme the punishment, especially if multiple victims were involved.
[57:35] Speaker 1: But there's also evidence that Romans taught cautionary tales about
[57:38] Speaker 1: serial killers as a way to scare or educate. Much
[57:43] Speaker 1: as we have true crime stories, the Romans circulated stories of,
[57:48] Speaker 1: let's say, wives who had poisoned successive husbands as a
[57:54] Speaker 1: kind of moral lesson. Valerius Maximus includes tales of husband
[58:00] Speaker 1: murdering wives in his memorable deeds and sayings, under exemplar
[58:05] Speaker 1: of evil women. One such tale is a wife named Hostia,
[58:10] Speaker 1: who poisoned two husbands in a row and was finally caught.
[58:14] Speaker 1: A likely fictionised composite, but quite instructive. Similarly in popular lore,
[58:21] Speaker 1: the idea of witchers who kill women, or evil innkeepers
[58:26] Speaker 1: who had poisoned travellers show up in plays and novels.
[58:31] Speaker 1: I Petronius hints at such things if you're familiar with
[58:34] Speaker 1: that work. These reflect a societal awareness that random serial
[58:39] Speaker 1: murders could happen, even if they were couched in myth.
[58:45] Speaker 1: But the Romans also seem to have felt a mix
[58:47] Speaker 1: of fascination and revulsion toward these figures, kind of like
[58:51] Speaker 1: in our modern day, to be honest. People would flock
[58:55] Speaker 1: to see an emperor-like Commodus perform his killings in the arena,
[58:59] Speaker 1: even as they secretly detested him. The spectacle of violence
[59:04] Speaker 1: in amphitheaters possibly inured Romans somewhat to repeated killings, as
[59:10] Speaker 1: long as it was framed as entertainment or punishment. But
[59:13] Speaker 1: a sudden rash of unexplained murders like poisonings, that would
[59:17] Speaker 1: induce panic. In 331, people were so frightened that even
[59:22] Speaker 1: after the perpetrators died, the city needed ritual cleansing. In 186,
[59:29] Speaker 1: during the Bacchanalian conspiracy, there were rumours that the Bacchus
[59:33] Speaker 1: cult members were murdering people as part of their rites.
[59:38] Speaker 1: The Senate reacted with draconian force, executing many and banning
[59:42] Speaker 1: the cult. Just another example of how serial murder fears
[59:48] Speaker 1: could drive social repression. And so, as we conclude, in
[59:55] Speaker 1: a very real sense... Discussing these psychotic murderers in ancient
[1:00:01] Speaker 1: Rome is not just academic or antiquarian. It's a reminder
[1:00:07] Speaker 1: that extreme criminal behavior is a recurring aspect of human civilization.
[1:00:14] Speaker 1: The Romans, with their mix of pragmatism and superstition, show
[1:00:18] Speaker 1: us early attempts to grapple with such evil. And by
[1:00:23] Speaker 1: studying them, we not only gain vivid historical insight but
[1:00:28] Speaker 1: we can also reflect on the universality of crime and
[1:00:33] Speaker 1: the perennial challenge of understanding what drives a person to
[1:00:37] Speaker 1: become a serial killer. So thank you very much for
[1:00:43] Speaker 1: your attention today. I hope that our exploration of Rome's
[1:00:48] Speaker 1: darkest characters has been as enlightening as it was frightening.
[1:00:53] Speaker 1: And just remember, History is always full of lessons, even
[1:00:59] Speaker 1: from its most sinister figures. Exposed as the Romans would
[1:01:04] Speaker 1: say after a grim tale, valete, farewell, and stay vigilant. Well, everyone,
[1:01:16] Speaker 1: we've reached the end of another video. I hope you
[1:01:19] Speaker 1: enjoyed today's one. Interesting, don't you think? I'm going to
[1:01:25] Speaker 1: thank my top dear patrons and supporters, the reason why
[1:01:29] Speaker 1: you did not get any ads in the video. If
[1:01:33] Speaker 1: you want to support, you can find on Patreon or
[1:01:35] Speaker 1: YouTube memberships. Doug, Kimberly, Christine, Sally, Ember, Susan, Cameron, Legitmus, Carrie, Charlene,
[1:01:44] Speaker 1: Linda Reese, Katiana, Nicholas, Ulf, Edneer, Alexander, Charles, Christine, Dr. Neuronerd,
[1:01:50] Speaker 1: Thank you so much, everybody. And that is it from
[1:01:53] Speaker 1: me today. I do hope you've enjoyed our time together,
[1:02:00] Speaker 1: and I do hope that, uh, Perhaps you'll cover your
[1:02:20] Speaker 1: drink in the future, that no Roman poison has succumbing
[1:02:25] Speaker 1: after you. Good night, everyone. Lots of love to you
[1:02:30] Speaker 1: all out there in the world. See you next time.

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