Author Description

All that we know of Epicharus comes from a few lines, totaling a short paragraph, in "The Annals" of the Roman historian Tacitus as he describes her role in the so-called "Pisonian Conspiracy" of 65 A.D., named after the Senator Gaius Calpurnius Piso. She was a Greek former slave who consorted with senatorial conspirators to assassinate the Roman Emperor Nero. She also urged a captain in the Roman Imperial fleet to mutiny and rebellion against Nero, for which she was arrested and tortured. However, she never revealed the names of her fellow conspirators, and committed suicide rather than talk. She was a hero and this her story of resistance to tyranny in ancient Rome.