Nero’s back for a great exhibition in Rome (or, Elvis is in the building)

Colos­sal head of Nero’s mom; Agrip­pina all but ran the show dur­ing Nero’s early reign

View of the dark­ened Curia, filled with impor­tant images of Nero and his family

Who was Nero?

Nero (54–68) was one fas­ci­nat­ing Roman ruler.  Can you imag­ine becom­ing the emperor when still a teenager, after your mother poi­soned your step­fa­ther!?!  It’s a predica­ment that I don’t think that they cover in such out­ra­geous dra­mas as Gos­sip Girl and True Blood.  Though, never fear, parts of the rest of his adult­hood were a mess and spi­raled down to great depths. And even after his sui­cide in AD 68, he remained very pop­u­lar, with many ‘sight­ings” of this dra­matic ruler — think Elvis of the Ancient World.  Just take a look at his por­trai­ture through­out his life. In his teenage years, he had his  hair combed to appear as a Juli0-Claudian suc­ces­sor (as Claudius’ step­son suc­ces­sor), while in adult-age, he flaunted an exu­ber­ant style– wavy hair and fuller face, long side­burns, dare I say lamb chops a la “70s” Elvis??

His­tor­i­cally, he’s blamed for the great fire of 64 even though he was out of town and his newly built palace on the Pala­tine, known as the Domus Tran­si­to­ria, was one of the first things to be torched.  He’s also noto­ri­ous for putting Chris­tians on the map (and in the arena).  Notwith­stand­ing these actions, Nero rebuilt Rome in a mod­ern fash­ion after three-quarters of the city was destroyed.  He was in many ways an inno­va­tor and fair admin­is­tra­tor, though his mega­lo­ma­nia did grow over time , as did his appetite for excess, as he “matured”.

The Nero Exhibition

The Nero show  appears in all three venues of the Forum, Pala­tine, and Colos­seum.  I just checked it out with many aca­d­e­mic col­leagues yes­ter­day after­noon.  It’s a scary sight to have so many aca­d­e­mics and super­in­ten­dents walk­ing through the forum; we’re all lost in catch­ing up and look­ing around at the new exhi­bi­tion.  I did catch up with Ger­man col­leagues who are study­ing the Basil­ica Julia; casu­ally met an Altemps (delight­ful!) I also caught an ear­ful from a dear col­league at the Medieval museum in EUR because dur­ing her recent trip to Boston I had for­got­ten to intro­duce her to some col­leagues there! (Pazienza!)

Here’s why I think the show will be a great success:

Notice­ably, the famed Domus Aurea is not part of the exhibit– but I think a bit a white ele­phant in the room.  The recent col­lapse of some walls is still fresh in the world’s mem­ory.  The only way to fix the sit­u­a­tion there is to exca­vate the entire site from the top (reveal­ing the upper floors already doc­u­mented).  Only in this way can the super­in­ten­dency address the water infil­tra­tion issues that con­tinue to lead to inter­nal wall col­lapses.  With the recent surge in invest­ment and spon­sor­ship I have no doubts that such activ­i­ties already are in the works.

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