NERO'S EXPERIMENTS WITH THE WATER-ORGAN

Abstract

AbstractThis article examines a pair of anecdotes in the works of Suetonius and Cassius Dio, describing Nero's passionate late-career interest in the instrument known as the hydraulis or water-organ. The first half of the article contextualizes the water-organ episode in light of both the history of the instrument's reputation and the wider characterization of Nero in the literary sources. The rest of the article uses the episode to shed light on Nero's self-representation as princeps, focussing on the significance of the water-organ as both a musical instrument and a technological marvel. On the one hand, the organ's popularity with Roman audiences of the Early Imperial period made it a politically strategic choice for a music-loving emperor with strong populist leanings. On the other hand, the association of the organ with the intellectual world of Hellenistic Alexandria appealed to a certain group of Roman elites (including Nero himself), who shared a keen interest in technological innovation and technical knowledge more broadly. In the end, however, Nero's experiments with the water-organ were cleverly trivialized by hostile writers and redeployed as an illustration of the emperor's most appalling vices.