羅馬 尼祿 | 迷霧中的皇帝

探討東西方哲學 理解宇宙的神祕奧祕 探討東西方哲學 理解宇宙的神祕 Hello, my name is Thorsten Opper. I'm a curator in the department of Greece and Rome here at the British Museum and curator of the Nero show. And I'm Francesca Bologna and I'm the project curator of this show. I'm very happy to welcome you to this exhibition Nero, the man behind the myth, supported by BP. Nero is the most infamous Roman emperor, the last of the Julio-Claudians. And to this day, his name is connected with cruelty, excesses, matricide, murder, the great fire of Rome. But actually, how much of these are lies? And how can we tell fact from fiction? As Francesca said, all we think we know about Nero is based on a very narrow range of ancient sources. And they were all written by elite authors hostile to Nero. You see an expression of this here in the exhibition prequel in the foyer. There's an object from the Musee Capitolini in Rome that's very famous now again because it's linked to the Wikipedia entry on Nero. And if you look closely, you see that only a very small part of the face is actually ancient. The rest is a brilliant restoration, technically highly accomplished, done in the late 17th century, and extremely well researched. He's really the cruel tyrant. He looks mean and exactly how you expect. And this is an interpretation of the literary source record. There are about 220 objects from all over the Roman Empire, including many new finds. And they give us different information. They're the voices of those who didn't write the literary sources. They help us to balance a lot of that record. We know that after his death, Nero was still very popular. The common people put flowers on his grave. There were impostors in the east of the empire pretending to be Nero and gathering a mass following. So there is a contrast between that and what the sources tell us. And that's really what the exhibition is all about, to find out more about the real or different Nero and the 1st century and what happened in Roman society during Nero's reign. We're now in the first section of the exhibition, the introduction. And one of our early decisions was to tell Nero's story as it were in real time from the beginning to the end. Nothing was predetermined. There were always different outcomes possible. And beside me here is the 1st image we have of Nero. It defies your expectations already. You remember the monster Nero we saw earlier in the prequel. And here is a little innocent boy. Even the statue is very small. We put him very low on the ground. Most visitors will tower over him. We can date that statue, which is now in the Louvre in Paris, probably comes from Rome or near Rome. We can date that statue fairly closely. It shows Nero as a 12 or 13-year-old boy. His mother Agrippina had just married the reigning emperor Claudius in 49. That is the 1st opportunity when his images were introduced to the public. And a year later in AD 50, he was adopted as Claudius' successor and heir. Nero was born in December AD 37 as Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus into a family closely related to the family of Augustus, the 1st emperor. If you look at this statue of Nero, the young boy, and these are the only statues, complete statues that have survived, you can get a sense of how the Roman public may have perceived him as a young prince. You could project all manner of expectations onto such a figure. And you can clearly see how powerful court factions might have thought they could dominate this young prince, use him as a puppet. Real history unfolded in quite a different way, as we will see. Nero was the 5th and last ruler of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Rome's 1st dynasty, the family of Augustus. Augustus had won a brutal civil war about 80 years before Nero came to power. And he then introduced a completely new political system, the so-called principate, the first man rule. The pretense was that he really had only restored the old republic. But in reality, the principate was a monarchy in disguise. And that led to decades of conflict between the senate that continued to exist and the imperial family. It was a constantly evolving compromise and improvisation. There were no clear rules, especially no clear rules for the succession. Every succession was troubled. Every transfer of power was challenged. This is the kind of background to Nero's reign. Roman society had undergone profound changes. The empire had hugely expanded during the republic and during Augustus' rule. There were lots of new people that had to be accommodated and integrated. There were wealthy leading provincials that wanted a say in the senate in Rome, and they started entering the senate under Claudius. There were former slaves who became extremely wealthy and wanted to express their status And this social aspiration among these people came up against status anxiety among the established elite. And these conflicts came to the fore during Nero's reign and ultimately led to the civil war that followed his death. Behind me you see members of this ruling family, all the emperors and some of their wives and princesses. These are the main players. As I said, every transition was troubled. Augustus died aged 76. His successor Tiberius was challenged by a military mutiny. The successor Caligula was assassinated. Claudius faced assassination attempts. So Nero took over at a really critical and difficult time. These are only the big figures. We're in the position of a Roman audience. These statues come from all over Italy and are now in different museums throughout Europe. But in Roman public buildings you would have encountered the imperial family in similar ways. But I love one object here in the first section in particular. And it's an altar that at the bottom has a crowd scene. There you see the common people, the ones that don't usually make it into the visual record in their short work tunics and with their families petitioning some official. The common people are what this exhibition is really all about. The emperors by definition were their champions, the champions of the plebs. And that led to conflict with the Senate or the senatorial elite as well. Now Augustus didn't have a son of his own which in patriarchal Roman society was a problem. The succession therefore from Augustus went through the female line. His daughter Julia, his sister Octavia and his wife Livia. So women of the ruling dynasty became extremely prominent and influential. And in the context of Roman society that was so patriarchal that also led to conflict as we will see later in the exhibition. Just two months short of Nero's 17th birthday he became emperor in AD 54. The transition was actually quite smooth unlikely what happened with some of his predecessors. Claudius, the previous emperor, had long designed Nero as his heir. He adopted him. He granted him public honours. He even had him marry his daughter, Claudia Octavia. Nero could count on the support of the Senate and of the Praetorian Guard, an elite military unit stationed in Italy. Among his advisors were Afranius Burrus, the commander of said Praetorian Guard, as well as the famous philosopher Seneca, who used to be his tutor. Agrippina, his mother, had gained incredible preeminence under Claudius and continued to play an important role at the beginning of Nero's reign as well. As we will see, things will soon change. From what survived of the literature of the time, the picture we get is quite a positive one. So it looks like the people had great expectation for this new young ruler and were expecting a new golden age. This portrait here was created exactly for Nero's ascension and it represents him as a young ruler in his prime. This is one of my favourite sections here in the exhibition, simply because of the range of material displayed. It's about war and diplomacy, aspects we don't often associate with Nero's reign. It's much more about Nero the artist than the common perception. But this was really crucial and it takes us to different ends of the empire. The action takes place at the border to the Parthian Empire, Rome's great rival in the east, in Greater Iran, and in the northwest, Britain, where the Boudicca Rebellion is really the key element of Nero's reign. Some of the finds here come from rescue excavations in very recent years. So we have things found in Colchester in 2014. We have writing tablets found in the city of London in excavations between 2009 and 2013. And the latest find in the exhibition is a lead pick from Wales that was discovered only in 2019. So a great range of really different objects. Now Nero inherited a lot of conflict from his predecessor Claudius, especially with the Parthians. It was a conflict about Armenia. Armenia, a buffer state in the Caucasus between the Roman Empire and the Parthian Empire. There was warfare, first victories, then setbacks, and finally a diplomatic solution, whereby Nero accepted a Parthian candidate for the Armenian throne but crowned him officially in Rome. It was a huge PR triumph and we'll pick up on that later in the exhibition. But the other great element is the Boudicca Rebellion. Britain had only been conquered 11 years before Nero became emperor under Claudius, partially conquered. The province was pretty vile still. There was a small part of the province in the southeast just handed over to civilian administration. And then a military frontier with a resource-rich tribal belt beyond. It's really the greed of the Roman administration that caused much of the conflict and the actual Boudicca Rebellion afterwards. Britain wasn't settled yet. It wasn't quite as regulated. Even the sources tell us a lot about military contractors, soldiers, tax farmers exploiting the locals. And this really gives us important evidence that shows us the ugly side of Roman imperialism. It's a really important corrective to the other main official story. Behind me is really a stunning object. It's a set of slave chains, gang chains, from the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff. It was found, probably dedicated in antiquity, on Anglesey, which was an important centre of the Druids in Britain. The context isn't quite clear, but that is revealing in its own right. It may have been used to chain up a gang of criminals, prisoners, slaves, even Roman prisoners of war. The fact that we don't know tells us a lot about life in Britain at the time. A very fierce rebellion under Boudicca. The nucleus of the Roman province was destroyed. The capital of Colchester, Londinium, Berlinium, all torched, burned to the ground. The rebels were eventually defeated, or freedom fighters, you might call them as well. Nero had to rebuild the province from the ground up. London, Roman Londinium, is essentially a Roman new foundation, and there are fantastic elements here. One of the icons of the British Museum collection is this bronze head of Nero here behind me. That was probably ripped off a statue in Colchester during the Boudicca rebellion. The end of Nero's reign, he was en route to the east, to the Caucasus, to lead a military campaign there. It never happened, but it would have changed our perception of him considerably. One thing we have to do always is to reconstruct Nero's statues, and they tended to show him as a leading magistrate or a military commander-in-chief. So again, a very different picture of Nero that was put out during his lifetime. Here behind me, you can see a statue of a slave boy that comes from the Museo Nazionale Romano in Rome. This beautiful statue is a romanticised representation of slavery. The boy has fallen asleep while waiting for his master, who he will then accompany back home holding his lantern. Reality was, of course, very different, and Roman society was deeply divided and rife with social unrest. In AD 61, the prefect of the city of Rome was killed by one of his slaves. Despite the protest of the people, the Senate decided to uphold a pre-existing law according to which all enslaved members of household staff were supposed to be executed for the crime of just one of them. Despite the protest of the people, Nero decided to back the Senate decision. However, his building projects in Rome showed that he had the needs of his people uttered. He built amenities for the welfare and the entertainment of the people of Rome. So most famously, a grand covered market where every sort of food could be found and grandiose baths. And he always had very clearly in mind that it was extremely important to ensure the food supply of the capital. And because of this, he improved the connection between Rome and Portus, an artificial harbour that was built by Claudius near Ostia. Together with this, he also built a wooden amphitheatre where gladiatorial games and hunts would take place. Games, or ludi in Latin, were extremely important in Roman culture. Gladiatorial combat, chariot racing, theatrical performances, they were all extremely popular. So popular, in fact, that complex stages were recreated to decorate the inside of Roman houses. We have an example behind me that was found in Pompeii and comes from the Archaeological Museum in Naples. This sort of events were highly politicised. So the city arrangement was based on the social standing of the members of the audience. The audience itself had a chance to appeal directly to the emperor if he was in attendance and vent their discontent. And the emperor could decide to show that he was siding with the senate or with the plebs. Nero famously was the first emperor to appear on stage. This was described by ancient hostile sources as a scandalous and senseless act caused by Nero's misguided sense of his artistic skills. But if we consider all these it becomes quite clear that Nero decided to take the stage in order to steer the political discourse. In this section we meet some of the women around Nero. Under the Julio-Claudians the imperial wives and princesses became extremely important because the female bloodline ensured the succession. Looming behind me is a wonderful statue of Nero's mother, Agrippina. She was Augustus' great granddaughter and the daughter of the hero Germanicus who was Augustus' intended successor. Agrippina was very powerful,influential, very prominent in public life. Statues like this one which shimmers like bronze although it's carved from a rare exotic Egyptian hearthstone were set up all over Rome and the empire. And they really made clear to the public what an influential position she held in public life. She, like Nero her son, provided a lifeline for Claudius in terms of stabilising his own rule. Getting back as close as you could to Augustus, the founder of the dynasty, was crucial. And Agrippina was a key element in that. Roman girls were married especially of that social class, aged 14, 15, half children still. And they were treated as such. So when these women became influential that was resented by many in the elite. And the literary sources almost without exception vilify these women, accuse them of incest and adultery and so on. But most of these were trumped up politically motivated charges. Agrippina herself had been banished by her brother Caligula for a while and was then recalled under Claudius. Nero, and that's a key part of his legacy, killed, executed Agrippina. He's accused of having murdered his first wife, possibly his second wife. These stories dominate his legacy and that notion of Nero as a deranged criminal mind. There's probably a lot more of political context behind all these. And there's again contrasting evidence. We can't excuse Nero for some of these accusations. But perhaps more interesting is the reaction of the Senate. For example, after Agrippina's death, they weren't outraged at all. They accorded Nero an immense array of public honors in Rome. They were jubilant that Agrippina, this powerful uberwoman, had finally been removed. Her statues were toppled like so many others. And in this section we'll see some other portraits probably of Nero's wives. We can't always identify them with great certainty because although they were so prominent, their memory was excised after Nero's death and their statues, like Nero's own, were removed. There's one particularly touching sculpture here in this section. And that's a statue of a young girl probably reflecting her premature death. And there are details of the iconography that may suggest that this could be an idealized portrait of Nero's young daughter who died only three months old. There's another very quirky object here in the section. And that's part of a kitchen wall from Pompeii. And it has graffiti incised in it. And these graffiti commemorate a visit by Nero and his second wife, Poppaea Sabina, who was popular in the Vesuvius region, to Pompeii. They dedicated jewelry in the Temple of Venus there. That gets me to an important element. The cities of Vesuvius were destroyed during the eruption of Vesuvius 11 years after Nero's death. And that means that there is a lot of evidence preserved there that we haven't got for other emperors. The things like graffiti, inscriptions put out on the walls of houses and so on, they give us a very different, ground-up picture of Nero and his family. It was a lot more popular than the literary sources make us believe. And playing off these sources against each other in these different types of evidence helps to tell a much more rounded story. To us, the defining moment of Nero's reign is the Great Fire of Rome. It started on the night of the 18th of July in AD 64, lasted for nine days, and it destroyed three of the 14 districts in which the city of Rome was divided, and it heavily affected seven more. Nero, despite the story, was not even in Rome where the fire started. He was actually in his coastal residence in Antium. He rushed to the city and he led the relief effort. After, he blamed and persecuted the Christians for the fire, which, of course, cemented his later negative reception. Once the fire was abated, Nero also led the rebuilding of the city, and by introducing new building regulation, he improved the living quarters in Rome. He also famously built a new grandiose palace, the Domus Aurea. The Domus Aurea, or the Golden House, was described by hostile sources as the epitome of decadent luxury and the house of a tyrant who expropriated both public and private land destroyed by the fire. It was indeed a grandiose palace, but it wasn't so far removed in terms of structure, appearance and furnishing from the big aristocratic villas that could be found in the countryside of the empire. You have an example behind me. It is a fresco coming from the Archaeological Museum in Naples. They give us an idea of what these aristocratic mansions built by the seaside or lakes could look like. So we must imagine Nero's Domus Aurea looking something like what you see behind me. However, Nero's palace was built on a grander scale than anything before, and instead of being on the countryside, it was actually built in the middle of the city of Rome, which broke with traditions. Nero's palace was supposed to act as the political backdrop for important public events, for the entertainment of the court and the senators, but part of it was very likely also for the enjoyment of the people. One such public event was the visit of the Persian royal delegation in Rome in AD 66. This was Nero's golden day when Tiridates was supposed to travel all the way to Rome to be crowned king of Armenia by Nero himself. This happened in the forum, at the presence of the people of Rome, and then celebration continued in the theatre of Pompeii. Here behind me you have the gravestone of Alchemus, a stagewalker in the theatre of Pompeii which might have been there and helped with the preparation of the theatre. After Tiridates' coronation, Nero travelled to Greece. Ancient sources tell us that he only did so because he wanted to take part in all the games and festivals in the region. However, this was probably the first step of Nero's tour of the East. Unfortunately, Nero's plan changed. He had to rush back to Rome because of the rebellion in Judea and senatorial conspiracies. In the end, Nero was abandoned by most of his followers and forced to commit suicide in a small villa outside Rome. He was only surrounded by his wet nurses and freedmen. In the last section of the exhibition there are some monuments that give us their names and details. There followed a year of savage civil war, the so-called Year of Four Emperors, when different usurpers fought it out throughout Italy. We have some touching objects from these battlefields. The final object in the exhibition is right behind me. It's a portrait of Vespasian, the first emperor of the Flavian dynasty that followed Nero. It's an interesting object because originally this was a portrait of Nero himself. It was then changed, altered, recarved into a portrait of Vespasian. That's what happened to most of Nero's legacy. His monuments disappeared. His name was erased from inscriptions. His portrait statues were dismantled, destroyed, reused. There's very little that survived this process of editing and destruction. But we know from the literary sources that there were various usurpers for many decades still that attracted a mass following and kept Nero's memory alive among the common people. Thank you for joining us in this Curator's Tour of the Nero Exhibition. We hope you enjoyed it and thank you for your support.