July 12, 2025 • 35 mins
Locusta of Gaul, also known as Locusta The Poisoner, was one of the most infamous criminals of ancient times. Alternately sponsored and betrayed by the noble class, she committed crimes with impunity for years — even, at one point, opening an academy to teach her poisoning skills to others. Tune in to learn more about the rise and fall of what may well be the world’s first documented serial killer.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow Ridiculous historians, we are back with a classic and
this is this is a really weird one for us.
We started looking into Noel. I think it began because
we're looking into the history of serial killers, and we
found a story of someone who is often alleged to
(00:21):
be the world's first documented murderer of this type. This
doesn't sound ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
This sounds disturbing and upsetting, right, I'm sure we handle
it with wit and charm though. Discussion of La Costa
of Gaul we're talking about, if I'm not mistaken, wasn't
that like the region that became France?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. CCL cool. Ridiculous History is
a production of iHeartRadio, previously on Ridiculous History. I'm kidding.
(01:16):
I just always love when those voices come in at
the beginning of something like a lost.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
I was going to just chime in and be like,
what happened? I want to know I was there and
I don't even remember.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Right by the way, you're nol, I'm Ben. We are
joined with our guest super producer Paul Decant, who has
an awesome sound cue. I love that. I love that thing,
whatever that is is.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Paul get to pick out his own sound effect because
he's actually filling in for a super producer, Casey Pegram
here in the spirit nice, it's where the sound effect
goes Paul. And so, yeah, Paul could potentially pick out
his own sound effect.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
That's true, and I thought he did on a previous episode. Paul,
but we can't wait to hear it.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Wait a minute, We've we've been informed that Paul's had
a sound effect all along. Now we knew what it
sounded like. It's sort of a mission control Yeah, you know,
bleeps and bloops kind of sound effect.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, yeah, it's very spacey.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I'm just bummed that Paul doesn't going to pick out
his own sound effects. Clearly Casey picked that out for him.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, Paul, if you want to pick your own sound effects,
you completely have agency. Thanks for hanging out. I think
he should.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
You know, I think we should chuck Casey's not around,
screw him, you know, just chuck it out.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
How dare you?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
WHOA? I have feelings Casey abandoned us for France.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Yeah, well, Casey is living his other life and we'll
return across the pond. It's his best life. Also, he
is going to be back, so we need to be
careful what we say about it. I don't want to
angry Casey. He's not going to hear these. He doesn't
even edit him.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
He's not going to go back ridiculous to the show maker.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
He might go back and just to see if we've
talked any trash. Hey, Casey, thanks for tuning in, love
you buddy, And if he hasn't listened, fellow ridiculous his
Storyans do not snitch on us. We're being very serious.
But in our continuing streak of telling spookier tales as
we get closer and closer to Halloween, Noel, you and
(03:14):
I have touched on some gruesome practices such as cannibalism,
and we've touched on legends of monsters. But today we're
looking at real life monsters. Yeah, I mean, says you, Okay,
all right, Yes, we're talking about serial killers. And it
is true that in the US often serial killers are
(03:35):
given this kind of infamy. They're almost like there's something
that's occasionally celebrated about them, which just terrible.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yeah, especially in like you know, in our industry, the
podcast world, where it's like we're just up to our
ears in true crime stories and I'm actually working on
a true crime story right now. That is a little different.
It's not so much celebrating the idea of the serial killer.
It's a little bit more of looking at what it
means to be human, what it means to have these impulses,
or to what the obsession with serial killers actually means
(04:06):
to us as a culture, like why is it so fascinating?
My theory is that it makes us feel better about ourselves.
It makes us be like, well, I'm not at least
I'm not that crazy. At least I've never actually murdered
multiple people and one of these just yell at my mom.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yeah right, I'm not that bad. One of the factors
in this almost deification at times is certainly the question
that people end up asking themselves, would I be someone
capable of this? Have? Could I understand that mentality? And
it's it's a deep and dark question. But luckily we're
(04:43):
not going too far into the psychology of that kind
of process on today's show, although we do want to
hear what you think about it. Feel free to write
in We're ridiculous at how stuff works dot com. Today, Instead,
we're delving into a question that has personally and just
speak for myself here. Person only haunted me for a while,
and that is this who was the world's first serial killer. Yeah,
(05:09):
I actually.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Googled this ben like you do when you're when you're
trying to find things out. That's what we've been reduced
to is professional googlers. You know, I don't even know
how to use a card catalog.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
I go to the library, or you know, I live
next door to a library. You go there, Yeah, I
go there, go in there.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I love the libraries. I love libraries too. I'm kidding.
I know how to use the card cattalog.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Point being, I googled first serial killer like I'm doing
right now, and a name that commonly pops up is
a guy named Herman Webster Mudget known as H. H. Holmes,
and he is considered on paper at least to be
the first American serial killer, right right, Yeah, But the
story we have today is not about mister Mudget.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
It's about a lady serial killer.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yes, And the notion of the serial killer name is divisive,
and I think there's an issue with maybe calling this
person this person was more of an assassin, really.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Yes, more of a poisoner. I do want to stuff though,
because you mentioned HH Holmes. There's an amazing book if
you haven't read it yet, The Devil in the White
City by Eric Larsen. White City being Chicago. Yeah, hh
Holmes built a murder house. Gruesome, grim and gory stuff.
But you're right, No, there's a question about what makes
(06:24):
someone a serial killer. And we've looked into this and
previous episodes on other shows. This person, Locusta of gall
was a poisoner. She wasn't out there, you know, sneaking
up behind people and cutting their throats.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
But one could argue, because of the benefits that she
enjoyed with the protections that we're going to get into
of that she experienced, that she may well have fallen
into a pattern where she just kind of did it
for lulls.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Yeah. Yeah, definitely not a mentally healthy person. So this
occurs in the first century a d. We don't know
a ton of stuff. We don't know very much at
all about Lacusta's early life other than that she was
(07:14):
from Gaul, because that's what people called her, Lacusta from Gaul.
Maybe there were a ton of other Lacustas and there
was like Lacusta from Rome, Lacusta from Gaul. Maybe that's
how they differentiate. But Gaul itself was where northern Italy
and the Alps are, and it's got three geographical regions
(07:37):
around the time this happened. What I'm saying is it's
a big place. It's France now, right, It's France and
then northern Italy. So we bring this point up to
say that knowing just that she is from Gaul doesn't
really help us, right, Like.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
What we do sort of know about her, though, is
that she grew up living off the land as it were,
or at least in terms of like some of the
the species of plants that were available in that region.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
She was an active.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Forager and kind of got herself real familiar with some
of the uses of some of these herbs and flowers
and various things that could be used for good or
for ill.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
There we go, I like that dramatic noe yes so
or for ill for yeah, yeah, yeah we're good, Yeah,
we got it. So this person living off the land
has a encyclopedic knowledge of the different plants that grow
in her area and the different medicinal or nefarious uses
(08:43):
of these plants, people recognized talent, and there was an
impress named Agrippina the younger who noticed that Lucusta had,
as leam nice would say, a certain set of skills,
and Acousta at this point was already pretty notorious.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, how did her reputation precede her that it made
it up to such high levels of government and like
influencers or whatever.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Ben Well, they stopped calling her Lucusta from Gaul and
started calling her Lucusta the Poisoner, so that became her
new name.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Wasn't she also a Lacusta the sorcerer at some point? Yeah, yeah,
she's a woman of many names.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Crazy.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
So she was already kind of like doing little hits
early on and even getting arrested.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
I believe she was. She was imprisoned when Agrippina approached
her in a D fifty four, and Agrippina had a
particular job for her. She said, Lucusta, I want you
to poison my husband Claudius. Oh real quick.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
There's an amazing name given to her profession that combines
her like you know, knowledge and know how with herbs
and their uses, with this idea of being an assassin
necro entrepreneur. Oh yeah, yeah, and this was coined, maybe
not coined, but used in this particular situation by doctor
Catherine Ramsland, who is a PhD in psychology.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Yeah, there's first off, that's my favorite phrase we've learned recently.
And people did in a way respect this person's abilities.
There were multiple poisoners in the area in ancient Rome
at the time, but Lucusto was by far one of
the most well known and notorious.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
We're also going to get into why, because it wasn't
just that she you know, anyone can slip somebody some
poison or just like make poison or find it used
to buy it, right, But she was very wily.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
And clever and crafty.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
And then we'll get into the next story involving her
employ under Agrippina that becomes infinitely clear.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
There's an excellent paper I found called Poisons, pois and
the Drug Trade in Ancient Rome by L. Cilliers and
FP Retief at the University of the Free State, and
in this they give us some more details about exactly
how Lucusta came to be in the employee of Agrippina.
(11:18):
So she had been convicted of multiple crimes during the
reign of Claudius. She was a known repeat offender. She
was bad medicine, which I guess works on a couple
of levels. But let's keep going. Agrippina, you see, was
the second wife of Cloudius, and she had a son
(11:39):
named Nero, who I am sure is familiar to a
lot of ridiculous historians. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah, it was the name of that app he used
to use to burn CDs back in the early two thousands.
Oh wow, deep cut. Yeah, it's because. But the reason
it was named that is because Nero was a bit
of a pyromaniac, and he was known for burning rome
to the ground to some degree playing a fiddle. There's
another story that we're going to get to that allegedly happened,
(12:05):
but it's fun to talk about, you know, legend and
myth can sometimes be more interesting than the true.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Yeah, yes, agreed. So, as we were saying, Agrippino wants
her son, Nero, to be the new ruler, and she
like a lot yeah, like yes, a life or death
sort of desire, and she asked Lucusta to poison Uh.
Let's see, I was saying Cloudiu, let's say Claudius. Yeah,
(12:31):
that sounds good. And she did it with It was
almost like a heist because, as you can imagine, this
guy has a lot of security and tasters. Even he's
got a food taster named Halotus. So how what does
she do? How does she get past this? Do you
think that's where holatosis comes from? We can only hope.
I want I was wondering the same thing.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, so she, like, I don't know, did how did
she exactly circumvent hallitus? It was a little weird, like
she did she bribe him to kind of get out
of the way. Is that what happened?
Speaker 1 (13:06):
So the way she gets passed this is through the
use of poison mushrooms, which originally are given to the
emperor by his food taster. But that doesn't quite work right,
I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yeah, so I read that she Agrippina bribed this food
taster to kind of get him out of the picture,
and then gave the mushrooms to her husband herself, because
apparently he was like a huge mushroom fan.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
He really really liked the shrooms. I can relate to that,
And some people will say that are some sources, at
least for report that the closest day the food taster
was sick, and then others will say no, Agrippina bribed
him to a linger.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Either way, he wasn't around, right, And the mushrooms went
directly into the hands of Claudius, who was apparently a
lethal drunk, and he did not kill him, but it
made him convulse violently and have really bad tummy troubles.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Right mm hm. And so they wanted to induce vomiting.
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
So one source that I read has Agrippina herself feigning
concern for her, you know, convulsing husband and daintily sticking
this poison feather down his throat, because that was a thing.
They would use a feather to induce vomiting and stick
it down your throat and tickle your your gullet or
whatever and then make you puke up the bad stuff.
(14:33):
But instead this feather was laced with an even deadlier poison.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Oh and you know what, let me step back just
a second to clarify here. I think I've got the
turn of events correct. So the day before the poison,
Lucousta poisons the bodyguard, and the bodyguard has to call
out sick, and then Agrippina bribes the food taster, so
they removed two people from me. See, she's thinking several
steps ahead of even us. Four D says track podcasters.
(15:03):
So dies because the feather has been poisoned. It's soaked
in strychnine. Right, And all of a sudden, immediately after
the death of this emperor, Nero ascends to the throne,
and they recognize that Lucusta, she has a lot of potential,
especially if you are a power hungry emperor. Right. And
(15:26):
there's an interesting pattern that transpires here because we mentioned
she had been arrested more than once, multiple times. Twice
she was arrested for murder, but each time she was arrested,
a Roman senator bailed her out. People speculate it was
kind of a way of buying a future kill.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Absolutely, she had friends in high places, no question about it.
But the thing that's messed up here is that Agrippina,
who obviously was trying to set these events in motion
and get her boy Nero in the throne, she immediately
threw Lacusta under the bus.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Immediately immediately she said she poisoned my husband. I wonder
if that was like a strategic moved totally, That's what
they call getting in front of getting ahead of it.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, but I wonder if it was really like Lacusta
was in on it, maybe where it's like, all right,
I'm going to take the fall for this because I'm
already a known poisoner, or if she just was caught
completely unaware, whatever the case might be. Nero, who is
now a power hungry looney tune on his own, Yeah,
because Agrippina has really been jockeying for this stuff and
(16:28):
trying to manipulate events, and now she's got what she
wanted more or less. But Nero doesn't seem like he's
acquiescing to his mother anymore. He's kind of got his
own acts to grind, in the form of another potential
heir to the throne, a fourteen year old who Claudius
had given it sired under a previous marriage, named Britannicus
(16:54):
right right.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
And Lucusta is in a terrible spot because the death
sentence she receives is death by bludgeoning, and by the
time Nero reaches out to her, she's been in jail
for several months. Here's the deal. He cracks in about
fifty five eighty or so. He frees Lacousta, the poisoner
at this point from prison, he gives her a bunch
of money, he gives her some land, and he says
(17:17):
he's going to make her an aristocrat, publicly absolved of
all crimes she has committed or will ever commit. And
all she has to do is poison this fourteen year old.
Britannicus is fourteen years old. Other all she has to
do is poison this child. And reputedly allegedly, Acousta had
(17:39):
one question. She said, do you want it to be
fast or do you want it to be extended and painful?
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yeah, there's nothing monstrous about that, like at all.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
That's her concern about poisoning your fourteen year old.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Fast or protracted and painful.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
It's like, look, I work for you now, Nero. So
the story, No, some of the details made differ here, Nola.
But here's here's what I heard. I heard that Nero
invited this fourteen year old Britannicus again I like the name,
to a huge party one of the palaces, and they
(18:15):
were passing around wine. Fourteen year olds drank wine at
that time, and Britannicus takes his sip from his wine
goblet and then starts convulsive.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Is this the one though, where like he had complained,
the wine was.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
This is good? Oh yeah, this is the one. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
So apparently back in those days they would dilute wine
with hot water, so you'd be drinking hot wine that
does not sound very refreshing with dinner. That was common
and I was not aware of this at all. And
apparently Britannicus found his hot wine to be too hot,
so he wanted somebody to cool it on down for him.
(18:53):
And the tasters tasted his hot wine, they did not
taste the cold water that was added to it to
make it less hot. And that's of course where the
poison came into play again. Very very's, very very sharp,
very smart.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Hot wine is just such a weird phrase. Would you
guys like that on a T shirt?
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Muld wine?
Speaker 1 (19:14):
That mold wine sounds weird because you had some herbs,
it's the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Yeah, hot wine sounds like the wine has gone bad.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Here's another interesting aspect of the story. Apparently Britannicus might
have had epilepsy, so Nero was able to say, no, no,
don't mess with him. He's having an epileptic fit.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Yeah, And apparently, like dinner went on as usual, with
the guests just kind of like awkwardly looking at this
convulsing fourteen year old in the corner of the room
and not wanting to offend the psychotic emperor, just went
about their business, drinking their hot wine.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Drinking their hot wine. And it is a success. So
instead of accusing Acousta of murdering Britannicus the way Agrippina did,
Nero says, you know, all right, done deal, here's your land,
here's your house, and treasures, treasures, pardons.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yes, for all of the previous poisonings that she'd been
accused of or convicted of.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Or what have you, clearing her name, impunity, indemnity, and
little cherry on top here an official title Imperial Poisoner.
Nero even sets up a poisoning school. Yeah that's right. Yeah,
and she was the head. Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
That's so brazen, though I wouldn't think that's something you would.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Maybe it is. Maybe it's sort of.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Like, hey, look at me, I got my own poison
or don't mess with me kind of.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Thing, I guess. So, yeah, like how much of it
is a propaganda thing? But check this out. For the
next fourteen years she is performing assassinations and poison poison
what would you call it, poison operations, poison projects. Sure, yeah,
she's doing that. And she has immunity from the law.
(21:03):
She's above the law. And she did she she did
train women in the art of poisoning at her school.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
We talked about this in the episode we did on
like a brief History of poisoning or arsenic I believe
very gendered. Yeah, very gendered, and almost unfairly so it
became like a stereotype that was a little bit like
like the idea of that being like a woman's weapon
or something.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
I think a little bit misogynistic. It's incredibly misogynistic. Yeah.
So she used over time a ton of different things, hemlock, belladonna, nightshade, arsenic.
What's what's this stuff you used to treat malaria? Queenine? Yeahine, cyanide, opium.
(21:45):
Cyanide is a speculative thing. But the other stuff we
know pretty much for sure. And she practiced the scientific method.
She would keep track of what worked and how, which
is why she asked questions like do you want a
painful slow down? Do you want something fast? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
I mean I've almost even seen her described as something
of a researcher, like you know, practicing that scientific method,
trial and error, seeing what would have the effects that
she wanted and what would be the best substance to
use for a particular situation. I'm sure she had tons
of notes and data on this stuff. It'd be fascinating
to get a hold of absolutely.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Yeah, So we have to wonder is that stuff lost
to history? Is it still around somewhere? Would you want
to read it? If it is, we can say that
although life went pretty well for this arch villain for
a while, it did not end well for her. See,
(22:46):
Nero always carried this is so hard cornal. Nero always
carried a suicide poison kit that Lacusta had made for him.
And when he was sentenced to death in sixty nine
eight and trying to escape his assassins, he forgot his
suicide poison kit, so he killed himself with a knife,
(23:08):
and the protection that Lacousta enjoyed for so long was gone.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Yeah, and with that, her prospects weren't looking so good
because she was very much tied to this notion of Nero,
very similar to Caligula we talked about in the episode
we did with christopherostiotis about non human candidates, where Caligula
the other insane I mean, I'm sure there was more
than one, but another insane Roman emperor of Note nominated
(23:38):
his horse to be a consul when he died a
lot of his crazy stuff and the people his hangers
on you know, did not look too good and did
not have the protection they needed to continue living the
lives that they were living. Such is the case with Lacusta,
because the people saw Nero as a dangerous force, as
(23:59):
a monster. Are a completely narcissistic, self involved megalomaniac who
didn't care anything about the common people and only wanted
to like, you know, feed his lavish lifestyle and again
actually burned part of Rome.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Do you know the story about that? I'm not. Well,
Here's here's how the story started. There the Great Fire
of Rome, which is what that refers to. That myth
of him playing a violin while the city burned. It
comes from two people, Setonius and Cassius Dio, who alleged
(24:35):
that Nero didn't play a fiddle, but that he sang
a song called the Sacavillium, dressed in stage like theater costumes,
while the city burned, and the idea of him playing
a fiddle itself is propaganda. It's meant to help criticize
Nero's earlier attempts to rewrite the Augustine models of governance
(24:58):
and rulership. So it's okay, kind of like Napoleon not
really being short, that's right. And then the Great Fire
they were blaming.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
It's not even one hundred percent confirmed, but many historians
do blame, or at least one in particular, a guy
named Tacitus blamed Nero for starting a fire in order
to circumvent the Roman senates and to create like a
hubbub so that he could, you know, usurp power and
do whatever.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
He wants and being a total class act. Tacitus said
that Nero accused Christians of starting the fire to take
the heat off them, sort of like a like mother
like son kind of thing, sort of a.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
We didn't start the fire, it was always burning since
the world was turning.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Yeah, absolutely situation now the death of Laucusta also, want
to I want to correct. I think we said sixty
nine eighty for the death of you were That's that's
not quite correct. It was in the late sixties a
d A Lacousta. When we get to her death, we
run full on, face first into the realm of legend.
(26:00):
Big time we have. We've got two stories for you.
A bit of a tall tale, a bit of a
it's a long tail, for sure. It's a short story
with a long tail, a long neck, really, a long
neck really. So the first one, one of the more
commonly accepted, the more mundane stories, is that Lucusta had
(26:21):
tried to escape or lay low and continue getting away
with her murderous career, but the emperor who came after Nero,
Emperor Galba was was not having it, and Lucusta was
chained up and dragged through the street and then just executed.
But there's another legend.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Yeah, it's a totally bonkers legend. It can't be true.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
I don't know how you would even train inge you
raft to do this right, But I did hear.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
And this is a little gross, guys, this is very gross. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Supposedly, you know, according to this particular version of her
demid eyes, Lacusta was uh smeared with vaginal secretions from
a giraffe, a female giraffe, and then.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
And then died the result of the activity.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
The ensuing activity from a male giraffe who was trained
to do this thing.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
So the good news is that is we can say
with a high degree of certainty that that that probably
didn't have just logistically, man, I mean, it doesn't seem
but it's definitely it's in the record. It's it's a
it's it's a it's a.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Legend for sure, and it does bring and then torn
apart by wild animals and then can't forget that that
that's that's huge.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
But that's a part of the whole thing. So we
looked into this where this claim would originate, and this
kind of stuff like its surfaces in the Encyclopedia of
Serial Killers by guy named Michael Newton, at least in
the first version. But there's no precise date of death,
there's no precise location. There's not really in confirmation that
(28:08):
has happened. And when we talk about stories of people
living in this time, especially people who had a lot
of enemies, there's a ton of propaganda. There are a
ton of made up things that were meant to ridicule,
mock or vilify a particular person right or event or
government or institution. And the moral of the story is
(28:31):
I guess that eventually justice did catch up with Lacusta.
Is she history's first documented serial killer? Well, it depends
on how you define it, because the term serial killer
didn't exist at the time. And then you know, if
she's doing this as a job, she's essentially doing hits
(28:52):
on people. Does that make all mafia or yakuza assassins.
Does that make them serial killers or they just people
doing a job for monetary games. Well, that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
And we also don't know because of how free to
go about her Mary poisoning way she was, if she
didn't kind of get off on it a little bit,
get some jolly's from it, right, because the definition of
a serial killer that we used today largely implies some
kind of abnormal release. I guess that you get from
doing it or some kind of like you're compelled to
(29:24):
do it, certainly not just a functional.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Day job kind of situation. Right, Yeah, absolutely, And I
don't know's it's comforting to me that eventually justice was served,
but it is terrifying to think that someone could be
acting with impunity, literally above the law, and have it
be known. Thing I'm sure, there are different operators for
(29:50):
different countries intelligence agencies who do stuff like this, who
are you know, legally required at times to take lives?
But for this to be so latent is surprising. And
if even some of this stuff is true, this person
was a monster, a real monster.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
I mean, the fourteen year old boy poisoning where nobody
would help him as he kicked and screamed and convulsed
on the floor during a dinner party.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Horrific. That's pretty horrific. So that that is the story
of Lucusta. And one thing that we are running into
with our HALLOWEENI or Halloween Ish episodes is this strange
thing at the end where we get to we get
to the conclusion of a tale and it's a real downer.
(30:39):
We went through something dark and grim. We've got to
bring the mood up, Noel, There's only one way to
do it. And I think you know what it is,
boy do I? Ever?
Speaker 2 (30:50):
It's listener mail, Ben, and our first mail comes from
a you me who writes, Hello, historians, I'm listening to
your episode. A dead pope goes to court and you
were wondering about mock ac sense in other English speaking
places now I'm American, so I don't know firsthand, but
much like with other foreign languages, a lot of English
textbooks explore and show examples of English in different accents,
up to and including foreign accents. I have one textbook
(31:13):
that I use with high level English as foreign language speakers.
That's from the UK, and the listening features conversations and monologues.
They want to showcase many accents. However, for me, it's
incredibly obvious that all the voices are being done by
English people that who are putting on accents, and they
do include that Italian accent with a character actually named Amario,
(31:34):
and an over the top Spanish accents for a character
asking a friend if he would like more paea. I
know it's something Americans do professionally too, so we're no better,
but I thought you might like to know about that.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Cheers a Umill. That's great, thank you for thank you
for writing in. You've written in a couple of times.
We'll always love to hear from you. Absolutely, and we
want to be very clear here that whenever we're doing
of course it triulger without saying, let's say it. Whenever
we are doing funny voices or accents We're absolutely not
trying to be derogatory at all. We just we sometimes
(32:10):
think we're funny. We're not even we're not even really
so much making fun of Richard Nixon as we are
enjoying doing that voice, Yeah, making fun of ourselves. If
you can't do that, then you know what good are you?
Exactly if you can't laugh at yourself. Here's a speaking
of however, there's a good segue speaking speaking of being
(32:30):
derogatory or using pejorative language. We'd like to read a
short and sweet letter from Aaron m. Aaron, you write
in and gave us, and you give us some nicknames
here you say Vito Ben and Nul Sapien. I think
you all should do a segment on ridiculous historical insults.
I thought you would find the link below comical and entertaining.
(32:51):
This is from Aaron in Chicago, and there are some
great insults in this in this source she sent us
from OX. I don't know if you have pulled this
up or got a chance to look at it, but
there's a flibberty gibbet flibbity gibbet Is it gibbit GiB
I haven't, yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Because it's in Uh, it's in a song from the
Sound of Music called nobody has a problem like Maria.
How do you solve a problem like Marie? It's like
a flibbity gibbet, a whin of the wisp, a clown, yeah,
a shattering or gossiping person.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
And then there's a fuzzle. Now that's what I don't know,
but I love it.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Who's it sounds like something from like a Doctor Seuss book.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Someone who's behind the times, A fuzzle, a fuzzle. There's
slobberty gullion, a slobbery or dirty fellow. Okay, kind of
soiled or stained. There's this one sounds dirty. It's not
a curse word, but just sounds dirty. Shot clog, Like
a shot clog is someone who's unwelcome in a social
(33:54):
situation but tolerated because he's paying the bill for everyone.
He's a shot clog. And I don't want to spoil
the surprise with more. Suffice to say, Erin, thank you
so much for sending us some of these cool, archaic,
ridiculous historical insults. Do you hear anything that particularly called
to you?
Speaker 2 (34:14):
No, not on that email. I actually haven't seen it.
I need to dig it up. Now because I am intrigued.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Well, thank you to Aaron and Ayumi, and thank you
to everyone for joining us on this strange journey. Huge
shout out to our guest super producer Paul Deckett.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
And even though he's abandoned us, we can still give
a shout out to Casey in absentia, and also to
Alex Williams who composed our theme.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
And thanks to our research associates, Eve's Jeffcote and Christopher
Hassiurtis and you know, thanks to you, Ben, and thanks
to you Nols looking at you. Thanks to both of
us for not poisoning people for a living. I think podcasting,
while not the most noble of professions, is better than
being a poisoner.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Right now, Dari, this is no it's as noble as
it gets.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
It's better than poisoning people.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
We're getting people through their shifts, man, Yeah, that's the ticket.
They're night shifts, or they're day shifts, or you know whatever.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Shift, they're shifting shifts.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Indeed, for more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Fellow Ridiculous historians, we are back with a classic and
this is this is a really weird one for us.
We started looking into Noel. I think it began because
we're looking into the history of serial killers, and we
found a story of someone who is often alleged to
(00:21):
be the world's first documented murderer of this type. This
doesn't sound ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
This sounds disturbing and upsetting, right, I'm sure we handle
it with wit and charm though. Discussion of La Costa
of Gaul we're talking about, if I'm not mistaken, wasn't
that like the region that became France?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. CCL cool. Ridiculous History is
a production of iHeartRadio, previously on Ridiculous History. I'm kidding.
(01:16):
I just always love when those voices come in at
the beginning of something like a lost.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
I was going to just chime in and be like,
what happened? I want to know I was there and
I don't even remember.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Right by the way, you're nol, I'm Ben. We are
joined with our guest super producer Paul Decant, who has
an awesome sound cue. I love that. I love that thing,
whatever that is is.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Paul get to pick out his own sound effect because
he's actually filling in for a super producer, Casey Pegram
here in the spirit nice, it's where the sound effect
goes Paul. And so, yeah, Paul could potentially pick out
his own sound effect.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
That's true, and I thought he did on a previous episode. Paul,
but we can't wait to hear it.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Wait a minute, We've we've been informed that Paul's had
a sound effect all along. Now we knew what it
sounded like. It's sort of a mission control Yeah, you know,
bleeps and bloops kind of sound effect.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, yeah, it's very spacey.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I'm just bummed that Paul doesn't going to pick out
his own sound effects. Clearly Casey picked that out for him.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, Paul, if you want to pick your own sound effects,
you completely have agency. Thanks for hanging out. I think
he should.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
You know, I think we should chuck Casey's not around,
screw him, you know, just chuck it out.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
How dare you?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
WHOA? I have feelings Casey abandoned us for France.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Yeah, well, Casey is living his other life and we'll
return across the pond. It's his best life. Also, he
is going to be back, so we need to be
careful what we say about it. I don't want to
angry Casey. He's not going to hear these. He doesn't
even edit him.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
He's not going to go back ridiculous to the show maker.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
He might go back and just to see if we've
talked any trash. Hey, Casey, thanks for tuning in, love
you buddy, And if he hasn't listened, fellow ridiculous his
Storyans do not snitch on us. We're being very serious.
But in our continuing streak of telling spookier tales as
we get closer and closer to Halloween, Noel, you and
(03:14):
I have touched on some gruesome practices such as cannibalism,
and we've touched on legends of monsters. But today we're
looking at real life monsters. Yeah, I mean, says you, Okay,
all right, Yes, we're talking about serial killers. And it
is true that in the US often serial killers are
(03:35):
given this kind of infamy. They're almost like there's something
that's occasionally celebrated about them, which just terrible.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yeah, especially in like you know, in our industry, the
podcast world, where it's like we're just up to our
ears in true crime stories and I'm actually working on
a true crime story right now. That is a little different.
It's not so much celebrating the idea of the serial killer.
It's a little bit more of looking at what it
means to be human, what it means to have these impulses,
or to what the obsession with serial killers actually means
(04:06):
to us as a culture, like why is it so fascinating?
My theory is that it makes us feel better about ourselves.
It makes us be like, well, I'm not at least
I'm not that crazy. At least I've never actually murdered
multiple people and one of these just yell at my mom.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yeah right, I'm not that bad. One of the factors
in this almost deification at times is certainly the question
that people end up asking themselves, would I be someone
capable of this? Have? Could I understand that mentality? And
it's it's a deep and dark question. But luckily we're
(04:43):
not going too far into the psychology of that kind
of process on today's show, although we do want to
hear what you think about it. Feel free to write
in We're ridiculous at how stuff works dot com. Today, Instead,
we're delving into a question that has personally and just
speak for myself here. Person only haunted me for a while,
and that is this who was the world's first serial killer. Yeah,
(05:09):
I actually.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Googled this ben like you do when you're when you're
trying to find things out. That's what we've been reduced
to is professional googlers. You know, I don't even know
how to use a card catalog.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
I go to the library, or you know, I live
next door to a library. You go there, Yeah, I
go there, go in there.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I love the libraries. I love libraries too. I'm kidding.
I know how to use the card cattalog.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Point being, I googled first serial killer like I'm doing
right now, and a name that commonly pops up is
a guy named Herman Webster Mudget known as H. H. Holmes,
and he is considered on paper at least to be
the first American serial killer, right right, Yeah, But the
story we have today is not about mister Mudget.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
It's about a lady serial killer.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yes, And the notion of the serial killer name is divisive,
and I think there's an issue with maybe calling this
person this person was more of an assassin, really.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Yes, more of a poisoner. I do want to stuff though,
because you mentioned HH Holmes. There's an amazing book if
you haven't read it yet, The Devil in the White
City by Eric Larsen. White City being Chicago. Yeah, hh
Holmes built a murder house. Gruesome, grim and gory stuff.
But you're right, No, there's a question about what makes
(06:24):
someone a serial killer. And we've looked into this and
previous episodes on other shows. This person, Locusta of gall
was a poisoner. She wasn't out there, you know, sneaking
up behind people and cutting their throats.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
But one could argue, because of the benefits that she
enjoyed with the protections that we're going to get into
of that she experienced, that she may well have fallen
into a pattern where she just kind of did it
for lulls.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Yeah. Yeah, definitely not a mentally healthy person. So this
occurs in the first century a d. We don't know
a ton of stuff. We don't know very much at
all about Lacusta's early life other than that she was
(07:14):
from Gaul, because that's what people called her, Lacusta from Gaul.
Maybe there were a ton of other Lacustas and there
was like Lacusta from Rome, Lacusta from Gaul. Maybe that's
how they differentiate. But Gaul itself was where northern Italy
and the Alps are, and it's got three geographical regions
(07:37):
around the time this happened. What I'm saying is it's
a big place. It's France now, right, It's France and
then northern Italy. So we bring this point up to
say that knowing just that she is from Gaul doesn't
really help us, right, Like.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
What we do sort of know about her, though, is
that she grew up living off the land as it were,
or at least in terms of like some of the
the species of plants that were available in that region.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
She was an active.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Forager and kind of got herself real familiar with some
of the uses of some of these herbs and flowers
and various things that could be used for good or
for ill.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
There we go, I like that dramatic noe yes so
or for ill for yeah, yeah, yeah we're good, Yeah,
we got it. So this person living off the land
has a encyclopedic knowledge of the different plants that grow
in her area and the different medicinal or nefarious uses
(08:43):
of these plants, people recognized talent, and there was an
impress named Agrippina the younger who noticed that Lucusta had,
as leam nice would say, a certain set of skills,
and Acousta at this point was already pretty notorious.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, how did her reputation precede her that it made
it up to such high levels of government and like
influencers or whatever.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Ben Well, they stopped calling her Lucusta from Gaul and
started calling her Lucusta the Poisoner, so that became her
new name.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Wasn't she also a Lacusta the sorcerer at some point? Yeah, yeah,
she's a woman of many names.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Crazy.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
So she was already kind of like doing little hits
early on and even getting arrested.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
I believe she was. She was imprisoned when Agrippina approached
her in a D fifty four, and Agrippina had a
particular job for her. She said, Lucusta, I want you
to poison my husband Claudius. Oh real quick.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
There's an amazing name given to her profession that combines
her like you know, knowledge and know how with herbs
and their uses, with this idea of being an assassin
necro entrepreneur. Oh yeah, yeah, and this was coined, maybe
not coined, but used in this particular situation by doctor
Catherine Ramsland, who is a PhD in psychology.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Yeah, there's first off, that's my favorite phrase we've learned recently.
And people did in a way respect this person's abilities.
There were multiple poisoners in the area in ancient Rome
at the time, but Lucusto was by far one of
the most well known and notorious.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
We're also going to get into why, because it wasn't
just that she you know, anyone can slip somebody some
poison or just like make poison or find it used
to buy it, right, But she was very wily.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
And clever and crafty.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
And then we'll get into the next story involving her
employ under Agrippina that becomes infinitely clear.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
There's an excellent paper I found called Poisons, pois and
the Drug Trade in Ancient Rome by L. Cilliers and
FP Retief at the University of the Free State, and
in this they give us some more details about exactly
how Lucusta came to be in the employee of Agrippina.
(11:18):
So she had been convicted of multiple crimes during the
reign of Claudius. She was a known repeat offender. She
was bad medicine, which I guess works on a couple
of levels. But let's keep going. Agrippina, you see, was
the second wife of Cloudius, and she had a son
(11:39):
named Nero, who I am sure is familiar to a
lot of ridiculous historians. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah, it was the name of that app he used
to use to burn CDs back in the early two thousands.
Oh wow, deep cut. Yeah, it's because. But the reason
it was named that is because Nero was a bit
of a pyromaniac, and he was known for burning rome
to the ground to some degree playing a fiddle. There's
another story that we're going to get to that allegedly happened,
(12:05):
but it's fun to talk about, you know, legend and
myth can sometimes be more interesting than the true.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Yeah, yes, agreed. So, as we were saying, Agrippino wants
her son, Nero, to be the new ruler, and she
like a lot yeah, like yes, a life or death
sort of desire, and she asked Lucusta to poison Uh.
Let's see, I was saying Cloudiu, let's say Claudius. Yeah,
(12:31):
that sounds good. And she did it with It was
almost like a heist because, as you can imagine, this
guy has a lot of security and tasters. Even he's
got a food taster named Halotus. So how what does
she do? How does she get past this? Do you
think that's where holatosis comes from? We can only hope.
I want I was wondering the same thing.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, so she, like, I don't know, did how did
she exactly circumvent hallitus? It was a little weird, like
she did she bribe him to kind of get out
of the way. Is that what happened?
Speaker 1 (13:06):
So the way she gets passed this is through the
use of poison mushrooms, which originally are given to the
emperor by his food taster. But that doesn't quite work right,
I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yeah, so I read that she Agrippina bribed this food
taster to kind of get him out of the picture,
and then gave the mushrooms to her husband herself, because
apparently he was like a huge mushroom fan.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
He really really liked the shrooms. I can relate to that,
And some people will say that are some sources, at
least for report that the closest day the food taster
was sick, and then others will say no, Agrippina bribed
him to a linger.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Either way, he wasn't around, right, And the mushrooms went
directly into the hands of Claudius, who was apparently a
lethal drunk, and he did not kill him, but it
made him convulse violently and have really bad tummy troubles.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Right mm hm. And so they wanted to induce vomiting.
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
So one source that I read has Agrippina herself feigning
concern for her, you know, convulsing husband and daintily sticking
this poison feather down his throat, because that was a thing.
They would use a feather to induce vomiting and stick
it down your throat and tickle your your gullet or
whatever and then make you puke up the bad stuff.
(14:33):
But instead this feather was laced with an even deadlier poison.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Oh and you know what, let me step back just
a second to clarify here. I think I've got the
turn of events correct. So the day before the poison,
Lucousta poisons the bodyguard, and the bodyguard has to call
out sick, and then Agrippina bribes the food taster, so
they removed two people from me. See, she's thinking several
steps ahead of even us. Four D says track podcasters.
(15:03):
So dies because the feather has been poisoned. It's soaked
in strychnine. Right, And all of a sudden, immediately after
the death of this emperor, Nero ascends to the throne,
and they recognize that Lucusta, she has a lot of potential,
especially if you are a power hungry emperor. Right. And
(15:26):
there's an interesting pattern that transpires here because we mentioned
she had been arrested more than once, multiple times. Twice
she was arrested for murder, but each time she was arrested,
a Roman senator bailed her out. People speculate it was
kind of a way of buying a future kill.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Absolutely, she had friends in high places, no question about it.
But the thing that's messed up here is that Agrippina,
who obviously was trying to set these events in motion
and get her boy Nero in the throne, she immediately
threw Lacusta under the bus.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Immediately immediately she said she poisoned my husband. I wonder
if that was like a strategic moved totally, That's what
they call getting in front of getting ahead of it.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, but I wonder if it was really like Lacusta
was in on it, maybe where it's like, all right,
I'm going to take the fall for this because I'm
already a known poisoner, or if she just was caught
completely unaware, whatever the case might be. Nero, who is
now a power hungry looney tune on his own, Yeah,
because Agrippina has really been jockeying for this stuff and
(16:28):
trying to manipulate events, and now she's got what she
wanted more or less. But Nero doesn't seem like he's
acquiescing to his mother anymore. He's kind of got his
own acts to grind, in the form of another potential
heir to the throne, a fourteen year old who Claudius
had given it sired under a previous marriage, named Britannicus
(16:54):
right right.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
And Lucusta is in a terrible spot because the death
sentence she receives is death by bludgeoning, and by the
time Nero reaches out to her, she's been in jail
for several months. Here's the deal. He cracks in about
fifty five eighty or so. He frees Lacousta, the poisoner
at this point from prison, he gives her a bunch
of money, he gives her some land, and he says
(17:17):
he's going to make her an aristocrat, publicly absolved of
all crimes she has committed or will ever commit. And
all she has to do is poison this fourteen year old.
Britannicus is fourteen years old. Other all she has to
do is poison this child. And reputedly allegedly, Acousta had
(17:39):
one question. She said, do you want it to be
fast or do you want it to be extended and painful?
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yeah, there's nothing monstrous about that, like at all.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
That's her concern about poisoning your fourteen year old.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Fast or protracted and painful.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
It's like, look, I work for you now, Nero. So
the story, No, some of the details made differ here, Nola.
But here's here's what I heard. I heard that Nero
invited this fourteen year old Britannicus again I like the name,
to a huge party one of the palaces, and they
(18:15):
were passing around wine. Fourteen year olds drank wine at
that time, and Britannicus takes his sip from his wine
goblet and then starts convulsive.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Is this the one though, where like he had complained,
the wine was.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
This is good? Oh yeah, this is the one. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
So apparently back in those days they would dilute wine
with hot water, so you'd be drinking hot wine that
does not sound very refreshing with dinner. That was common
and I was not aware of this at all. And
apparently Britannicus found his hot wine to be too hot,
so he wanted somebody to cool it on down for him.
(18:53):
And the tasters tasted his hot wine, they did not
taste the cold water that was added to it to
make it less hot. And that's of course where the
poison came into play again. Very very's, very very sharp,
very smart.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Hot wine is just such a weird phrase. Would you
guys like that on a T shirt?
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Muld wine?
Speaker 1 (19:14):
That mold wine sounds weird because you had some herbs,
it's the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Yeah, hot wine sounds like the wine has gone bad.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Here's another interesting aspect of the story. Apparently Britannicus might
have had epilepsy, so Nero was able to say, no, no,
don't mess with him. He's having an epileptic fit.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Yeah, And apparently, like dinner went on as usual, with
the guests just kind of like awkwardly looking at this
convulsing fourteen year old in the corner of the room
and not wanting to offend the psychotic emperor, just went
about their business, drinking their hot wine.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Drinking their hot wine. And it is a success. So
instead of accusing Acousta of murdering Britannicus the way Agrippina did,
Nero says, you know, all right, done deal, here's your land,
here's your house, and treasures, treasures, pardons.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yes, for all of the previous poisonings that she'd been
accused of or convicted of.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Or what have you, clearing her name, impunity, indemnity, and
little cherry on top here an official title Imperial Poisoner.
Nero even sets up a poisoning school. Yeah that's right. Yeah,
and she was the head. Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
That's so brazen, though I wouldn't think that's something you would.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Maybe it is. Maybe it's sort of.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Like, hey, look at me, I got my own poison
or don't mess with me kind of.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Thing, I guess. So, yeah, like how much of it
is a propaganda thing? But check this out. For the
next fourteen years she is performing assassinations and poison poison
what would you call it, poison operations, poison projects. Sure, yeah,
she's doing that. And she has immunity from the law.
(21:03):
She's above the law. And she did she she did
train women in the art of poisoning at her school.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
We talked about this in the episode we did on
like a brief History of poisoning or arsenic I believe
very gendered. Yeah, very gendered, and almost unfairly so it
became like a stereotype that was a little bit like
like the idea of that being like a woman's weapon
or something.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
I think a little bit misogynistic. It's incredibly misogynistic. Yeah.
So she used over time a ton of different things, hemlock, belladonna, nightshade, arsenic.
What's what's this stuff you used to treat malaria? Queenine? Yeahine, cyanide, opium.
(21:45):
Cyanide is a speculative thing. But the other stuff we
know pretty much for sure. And she practiced the scientific method.
She would keep track of what worked and how, which
is why she asked questions like do you want a
painful slow down? Do you want something fast? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
I mean I've almost even seen her described as something
of a researcher, like you know, practicing that scientific method,
trial and error, seeing what would have the effects that
she wanted and what would be the best substance to
use for a particular situation. I'm sure she had tons
of notes and data on this stuff. It'd be fascinating
to get a hold of absolutely.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Yeah, So we have to wonder is that stuff lost
to history? Is it still around somewhere? Would you want
to read it? If it is, we can say that
although life went pretty well for this arch villain for
a while, it did not end well for her. See,
(22:46):
Nero always carried this is so hard cornal. Nero always
carried a suicide poison kit that Lacusta had made for him.
And when he was sentenced to death in sixty nine
eight and trying to escape his assassins, he forgot his
suicide poison kit, so he killed himself with a knife,
(23:08):
and the protection that Lacousta enjoyed for so long was gone.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Yeah, and with that, her prospects weren't looking so good
because she was very much tied to this notion of Nero,
very similar to Caligula we talked about in the episode
we did with christopherostiotis about non human candidates, where Caligula
the other insane I mean, I'm sure there was more
than one, but another insane Roman emperor of Note nominated
(23:38):
his horse to be a consul when he died a
lot of his crazy stuff and the people his hangers
on you know, did not look too good and did
not have the protection they needed to continue living the
lives that they were living. Such is the case with Lacusta,
because the people saw Nero as a dangerous force, as
(23:59):
a monster. Are a completely narcissistic, self involved megalomaniac who
didn't care anything about the common people and only wanted
to like, you know, feed his lavish lifestyle and again
actually burned part of Rome.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Do you know the story about that? I'm not. Well,
Here's here's how the story started. There the Great Fire
of Rome, which is what that refers to. That myth
of him playing a violin while the city burned. It
comes from two people, Setonius and Cassius Dio, who alleged
(24:35):
that Nero didn't play a fiddle, but that he sang
a song called the Sacavillium, dressed in stage like theater costumes,
while the city burned, and the idea of him playing
a fiddle itself is propaganda. It's meant to help criticize
Nero's earlier attempts to rewrite the Augustine models of governance
(24:58):
and rulership. So it's okay, kind of like Napoleon not
really being short, that's right. And then the Great Fire
they were blaming.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
It's not even one hundred percent confirmed, but many historians
do blame, or at least one in particular, a guy
named Tacitus blamed Nero for starting a fire in order
to circumvent the Roman senates and to create like a
hubbub so that he could, you know, usurp power and
do whatever.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
He wants and being a total class act. Tacitus said
that Nero accused Christians of starting the fire to take
the heat off them, sort of like a like mother
like son kind of thing, sort of a.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
We didn't start the fire, it was always burning since
the world was turning.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Yeah, absolutely situation now the death of Laucusta also, want
to I want to correct. I think we said sixty
nine eighty for the death of you were That's that's
not quite correct. It was in the late sixties a
d A Lacousta. When we get to her death, we
run full on, face first into the realm of legend.
(26:00):
Big time we have. We've got two stories for you.
A bit of a tall tale, a bit of a
it's a long tail, for sure. It's a short story
with a long tail, a long neck, really, a long
neck really. So the first one, one of the more
commonly accepted, the more mundane stories, is that Lucusta had
(26:21):
tried to escape or lay low and continue getting away
with her murderous career, but the emperor who came after Nero,
Emperor Galba was was not having it, and Lucusta was
chained up and dragged through the street and then just executed.
But there's another legend.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Yeah, it's a totally bonkers legend. It can't be true.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
I don't know how you would even train inge you
raft to do this right, But I did hear.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
And this is a little gross, guys, this is very gross. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Supposedly, you know, according to this particular version of her
demid eyes, Lacusta was uh smeared with vaginal secretions from
a giraffe, a female giraffe, and then.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
And then died the result of the activity.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
The ensuing activity from a male giraffe who was trained
to do this thing.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
So the good news is that is we can say
with a high degree of certainty that that that probably
didn't have just logistically, man, I mean, it doesn't seem
but it's definitely it's in the record. It's it's a
it's it's a it's a.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Legend for sure, and it does bring and then torn
apart by wild animals and then can't forget that that
that's that's huge.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
But that's a part of the whole thing. So we
looked into this where this claim would originate, and this
kind of stuff like its surfaces in the Encyclopedia of
Serial Killers by guy named Michael Newton, at least in
the first version. But there's no precise date of death,
there's no precise location. There's not really in confirmation that
(28:08):
has happened. And when we talk about stories of people
living in this time, especially people who had a lot
of enemies, there's a ton of propaganda. There are a
ton of made up things that were meant to ridicule,
mock or vilify a particular person right or event or
government or institution. And the moral of the story is
(28:31):
I guess that eventually justice did catch up with Lacusta.
Is she history's first documented serial killer? Well, it depends
on how you define it, because the term serial killer
didn't exist at the time. And then you know, if
she's doing this as a job, she's essentially doing hits
(28:52):
on people. Does that make all mafia or yakuza assassins.
Does that make them serial killers or they just people
doing a job for monetary games. Well, that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
And we also don't know because of how free to
go about her Mary poisoning way she was, if she
didn't kind of get off on it a little bit,
get some jolly's from it, right, because the definition of
a serial killer that we used today largely implies some
kind of abnormal release. I guess that you get from
doing it or some kind of like you're compelled to
(29:24):
do it, certainly not just a functional.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Day job kind of situation. Right, Yeah, absolutely, And I
don't know's it's comforting to me that eventually justice was served,
but it is terrifying to think that someone could be
acting with impunity, literally above the law, and have it
be known. Thing I'm sure, there are different operators for
(29:50):
different countries intelligence agencies who do stuff like this, who
are you know, legally required at times to take lives?
But for this to be so latent is surprising. And
if even some of this stuff is true, this person
was a monster, a real monster.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
I mean, the fourteen year old boy poisoning where nobody
would help him as he kicked and screamed and convulsed
on the floor during a dinner party.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Horrific. That's pretty horrific. So that that is the story
of Lucusta. And one thing that we are running into
with our HALLOWEENI or Halloween Ish episodes is this strange
thing at the end where we get to we get
to the conclusion of a tale and it's a real downer.
(30:39):
We went through something dark and grim. We've got to
bring the mood up, Noel, There's only one way to
do it. And I think you know what it is,
boy do I? Ever?
Speaker 2 (30:50):
It's listener mail, Ben, and our first mail comes from
a you me who writes, Hello, historians, I'm listening to
your episode. A dead pope goes to court and you
were wondering about mock ac sense in other English speaking
places now I'm American, so I don't know firsthand, but
much like with other foreign languages, a lot of English
textbooks explore and show examples of English in different accents,
up to and including foreign accents. I have one textbook
(31:13):
that I use with high level English as foreign language speakers.
That's from the UK, and the listening features conversations and monologues.
They want to showcase many accents. However, for me, it's
incredibly obvious that all the voices are being done by
English people that who are putting on accents, and they
do include that Italian accent with a character actually named Amario,
(31:34):
and an over the top Spanish accents for a character
asking a friend if he would like more paea. I
know it's something Americans do professionally too, so we're no better,
but I thought you might like to know about that.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Cheers a Umill. That's great, thank you for thank you
for writing in. You've written in a couple of times.
We'll always love to hear from you. Absolutely, and we
want to be very clear here that whenever we're doing
of course it triulger without saying, let's say it. Whenever
we are doing funny voices or accents We're absolutely not
trying to be derogatory at all. We just we sometimes
(32:10):
think we're funny. We're not even we're not even really
so much making fun of Richard Nixon as we are
enjoying doing that voice, Yeah, making fun of ourselves. If
you can't do that, then you know what good are you?
Exactly if you can't laugh at yourself. Here's a speaking
of however, there's a good segue speaking speaking of being
(32:30):
derogatory or using pejorative language. We'd like to read a
short and sweet letter from Aaron m. Aaron, you write
in and gave us, and you give us some nicknames
here you say Vito Ben and Nul Sapien. I think
you all should do a segment on ridiculous historical insults.
I thought you would find the link below comical and entertaining.
(32:51):
This is from Aaron in Chicago, and there are some
great insults in this in this source she sent us
from OX. I don't know if you have pulled this
up or got a chance to look at it, but
there's a flibberty gibbet flibbity gibbet Is it gibbit GiB
I haven't, yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Because it's in Uh, it's in a song from the
Sound of Music called nobody has a problem like Maria.
How do you solve a problem like Marie? It's like
a flibbity gibbet, a whin of the wisp, a clown, yeah,
a shattering or gossiping person.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
And then there's a fuzzle. Now that's what I don't know,
but I love it.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Who's it sounds like something from like a Doctor Seuss book.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Someone who's behind the times, A fuzzle, a fuzzle. There's
slobberty gullion, a slobbery or dirty fellow. Okay, kind of
soiled or stained. There's this one sounds dirty. It's not
a curse word, but just sounds dirty. Shot clog, Like
a shot clog is someone who's unwelcome in a social
(33:54):
situation but tolerated because he's paying the bill for everyone.
He's a shot clog. And I don't want to spoil
the surprise with more. Suffice to say, Erin, thank you
so much for sending us some of these cool, archaic,
ridiculous historical insults. Do you hear anything that particularly called
to you?
Speaker 2 (34:14):
No, not on that email. I actually haven't seen it.
I need to dig it up. Now because I am intrigued.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Well, thank you to Aaron and Ayumi, and thank you
to everyone for joining us on this strange journey. Huge
shout out to our guest super producer Paul Deckett.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
And even though he's abandoned us, we can still give
a shout out to Casey in absentia, and also to
Alex Williams who composed our theme.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
And thanks to our research associates, Eve's Jeffcote and Christopher
Hassiurtis and you know, thanks to you, Ben, and thanks
to you Nols looking at you. Thanks to both of
us for not poisoning people for a living. I think podcasting,
while not the most noble of professions, is better than
being a poisoner.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Right now, Dari, this is no it's as noble as
it gets.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
It's better than poisoning people.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
We're getting people through their shifts, man, Yeah, that's the ticket.
They're night shifts, or they're day shifts, or you know whatever.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Shift, they're shifting shifts.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Indeed, for more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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