A sample redeems Nero, the notorious emperor

A broken window grill isn’t everyone’s idea of ​​a museum piece. It’s a rusty, warped piece of iron. However, over the next five months it will have its own storefront in the British Museum.

The gate is a relic of the Great fire in Rome in 64 AD. vs. and a centerpiece of the museum’s new extended exhibition, Nero: the man behind the myth, sure the 1st century Roman emperor who for 2,000 years was blamed for starting the fire and playing music as it spread. What the exhibition tries to demonstrate is that Nero has a bad reputation.

“Nero is reputed to be the Emperor who performed while Rome burned, a cruel and ruthless tyrant to his family and a somewhat pathetic megalomaniac prone to excess.”Hartwig Fischer, director of the British Museum, wrote in the exhibition catalog.

However, through sculptures and architectural fragments, coins and jewelry, frescoes and writing tablets, The British Museum offers an alternate account of a young man who became emperor when he was not yet 17 years old and who was driven to suicide by his opponents at the age of 30.

The statement of objections against Nero it is long and well known. He is accused of having an incestuous relationship with his mother; kill her and her first two wives; and to be “mostly bad – a glutton and a debauchery who set Rome on fire just to build a grand palace for himself,” said Thorsten Opper, curator of the exhibition.

These accusations “They are based on 2,000 years old and very powerful manipulations and lies.”Opper added. The negative propaganda campaign began when Nero he was still alive when members of the Roman elite felt threatened by the emperor’s social reforms and his promotion to the lower classes, he explained, and this continued long after his death. In fact, says Opper, Nero “tried really hard, but he had a really bad hand.”

Other reviews on Nero

the British museum This is not the first institution to review the history of Nero. In 2016, an exhibition at the Rhineland State Museum in Trier, Germany, presented him not as the prototype of the tyrant but as an arts lover who neglected politics and paid dearly.

In 2011, the Archaeological Park of the Colosseum in Rome, which oversees the Colosseum as well as the Palace of Nero, the Domus Aurea, organized an exhibition that reassessed the figure of Nero and his image of bloody arsonist.

The London show begins with An example of propaganda against Nero: a marble head which is one of the most reproduced representations of the emperor. The upper half is an original Roman sculpture of Nero, with its characteristic fringe.

It was re-sculpted in the likeness of another Roman emperor (as was often the case with statues of Nero) and was eventually converted back to a portrait of Nero in the 17th century, this time with a beard, a double chin and the corners of the head face down in a sneer.

“It’s a stereotype, an artificial image. The portraits from when Nero lived are completely different, ”said Opper.

However, this image of Nero it prevailed in the collective imagination. On the wall behind you will find what the catalog calls “the most emblematic evocation of Nero in the modern era “: a scene from the 1951 film Quo Vadis in which a bearded Peter Ustinov, who plays a crazy nero, play the lyre while Rome burns.

The exhibition reviews the legend through objects and documents from all over the Roman Empire.

It is revealed that the fire was almost certainly an accident and that Nero was not even in Rome when it started.

After the fire, Nero fed and sheltered the homeless and rebuilt the city. A gold coin one or two years later (in the catalog, but not in the exhibition) shows Nero on one side and, on the other, the new temple of Vesta, one of the first monuments he rebuilt.

Nero He also had to “declare himself guilty” for the fire, so he attacked a “Jewish subgroup,” later known as Christians, Opper explained. Nero he became “the antichrist” for the followers of what was to become the predominant faith in the West, Christianity.

During this time, he promoted shows such as chariot races, gladiatorial fights, and stage performances. (Clean Nero he was a chariot driver and musician).

Under the mandate of Nero, the Circus Maximus, a huge Roman stadium, could accommodate up to 150,000 spectators. The emperor had his own school of gladiators and chose a famous gladiator as the commander of his bodyguards.

Defamed for centuries

Mary Beard, Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Cambridge and Member of the Board of Trustees of the British Museum, he said that Nero he had been greatly slandered for indulging in celebrations and excesses, as had the emperors who had preceded and followed him, such as Caligula and Domitian.

“The numbers of these emperors are very puzzling,” he said. “They come to us thanks to a very strong political agenda that comes after them.”

“One of the things that material culture shows us is that the Roman Empire goes on pretty much the same way, with ups and downs, no matter who is on the throne,” he added.

Among the most beautiful sections of the exhibition is the one dedicated to the palace which Nero he built to house his court, the government of Rome and a service staff of thousands of people: the Domus Aurea, or Golden House.

It probably received this name during his reign in reference to its gilded interiors or architectural decorations that glistened in the sun.

The exhibit includes fragments of a gilded stucco panel and column decoration in bronze and precious stones of the type that made the palace famous as a spectacle of extravagance.

Only part of the Domus Aurea is preserved: the banquet and celebration rooms. The rest were demolished by Nero’s successors.

The palace next to the Colosseum

The Domus Aurea will reopen its doors to the public in the second half of June with a new entrance designed by architect Stefano Boeri. The complex, located next to the Colosseum, was first opened to visitors in 1999 but closed at the end of 2005 after heavy rains that required restoration work. It reopened in 2014 and was a popular tourist spot until the coronavirus outbreak.

Alfonsina Russo, director of the Colosseum Archaeological Park, said that while the Domus Aurea originally covered much of Rome, it was no more lavish than the palaces of other emperors.

Nero he was “a victim of his time: the last emperor of his dynasty, with many enemies, and someone who had a sad fate,” he said.

Attacked by a faction of the Roman Senate and abandoned by his own Praetorian guard, Nero committed suicide in a small village on the outskirts of Rome.

Russo explained that all sources on Nero are “negative sources” and that it is important to “recontextualize everything and compare Nero with other emperors who, although having committed crimes, did not suffer the same fate. “

Could the story be fairer Nero in the future? “I think so,” Russo replied. “That’s what academics should be aiming for.”

The New York Times – From London

Translation: Elisa Carnelli

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