“This exciting and provocative book grabs the reader while supporting its arguments with careful classical scholarship. The authors write with authority and elegance. Nero is a pleasure to read.”—Barry Strauss, author of The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium

“A nuanced biography of Roman emperor Nero, who ruled from 54 to 68 BCE . . . [Anthony Everitt and Roddy Ashworth] evoke the period with wit and precision. Ancient history buffs will be pleased.”—Publishers Weekly

Praise for Anthony Everitt

Alexander the Great

“Reads as easily as a novel . . . [Anthony] Everitt has a wealth of anecdotes and two millennia of histories to work with, and he delivers and interprets them flawlessly. Nearly unparalleled insight into the period and the man make this a story for everyone.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

The Rise of Rome

“Fascinating history and a great read.”—Chicago Sun-Times

“Everitt writes for the informed and the uninformed general reader alike, in a brisk, conversational style, with a modern attitude of skepticism and realism.”—The Dallas Morning News

“Elegant, swift and faultless.”—The Spectator

Anthony Everitt, a former visiting professor in the visual and performing arts at Nottingham Trent University, has written extensively on European and classical culture. He is the author of Cicero, Augustus, Alexander the Great, Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome, The Rise of Rome, and The Rise of Athens. He has served as secretary general of the Arts Council of Great Britain and lives near Colchester, England’s first recorded town, founded by the Romans.

Roddy Ashworth is an award-winning investigative journalist, former national news editor, and visiting lecturer in media ethics at City University, London.