Nero ‘didn’t fiddle while Rome burned “” he wasn’t even in the city’! – MENAFN.COM

Nero ‘didn’t fiddle while Rome burned “” he wasn’t even in the city’! – MENAFN.COM

Nero, one of the most notorious Roman emperors of them all, murdered his mother and two wives, ruthlessly persecuted early Christians, including Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and even set fire to Rome itself famously fiddling amid the flames to make room to build himself a vast, luxurious palace. Or did he? That is the question posed by an exhibition opening at the British Museum next month which seeks, if not to rehabilitate Nero's reputation, at least to challenge some of history's assumptions about him. Assembled in 'nail-biting fashion during Europe's latest lockdown, and launching just days after the museum itself is expected to reopen its doors, 'Nero: the man behind the myth' will bring together more than 200 artefacts that, say its curators, present a more complex picture of a figure long reviled in popular culture. These include a statue of the young Nero aged about 12, already with his distinctive close-cropped fringe and prominent ears, who just four years later would become ruler of the vast Roman world, and the famous bronze head found in a Suffolk river and probably torn from a statue toppled during Boudicca's destruction of Colchester in AD61. The Fenwick hoard, hastily buried by