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Question of the Day
Question:
“Did the Roman emperor Nero actually ‘fiddle while Rome burned?’”Answer:
This accusation, that the mad Julio-Claudian, whose full name was Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus, was so unconcerned with the predicament of his subjects that he played the violin as the Great Fire of Rome in A.D. 64 killed thousands, is clearly hogwash. There were no violins back then, folks. Some say he played the cythera, ancestor of the modern zither, as its name suggests. But I said, responding to a six-dollar gratuity in the envelope, that he tootled on the bagpipes. There was universal groaning at this declaration, while Chicken John snickered in derision. But in fact, the Emperor was an expert bagpiper (though he didn't wear a kilt). According to the Roman journalist-historian Suetonius, he "knew how to play the pipe with his mouth and the bag thrust under his arm." He was known to play it for the long-suffering public at the Roman athletic games. Actually, the bagpipe is not a Scottish invention but an ancient instrument that musicologists have traced to pre-Christian Asia.
Askdrhal.com by
Jascha Ephraim,
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