Thread by @pjgoodman

The discussion about this exhibition which I came down to take part in is finished now, ending very congenially over wine in the Great Court cafe. It was a new kind of event, put together by @wmarybeard in her role as trustee, bringing academics and museum curators into dialogue.

https://twitter.com/pjgoodman/status/1443601662631944194

They wanted to know what we had got out of the exhibition, what an exhibition can do for us as academics, and we wanted to know about the decision-making process, the logistics shaping how it was put together, etc. I think both sides got a lot out of it.

Personally, I spend a lot of time trying to 'read' exhibitions about Augustus, mostly mounted by the long-dead, so it was fascinating to hear from a modern equivalent. E.g. they had to reduce all text in this exhibition by 20% to prevent people lingering too long due to COVID.

We had lots of chat about good /bad emperors, why a big name is needed to get people in, what sort of audience comes to these exhibitions and when the decision to hold it and foreground themes of populism and 'fake news' was made in relation to Trump, the Brexit referendum etc.

Mary had carefully and deliberately brought together a cross-section of academics from PhD students to eminent professors and from all across the country, and created a friendly, non-hierarchical atmosphere in which all clearly felt at ease about contributing. It was appreciated.

Anyway, here are some of the other things I was going to say earlier, but ran out of time. One, the way this statue of Nero, the first in the exhibition, casts two shadows on the plinth, as though representing the split between image and reality right from the start.

I asked Thorsten Opper, the curator, whether that had been deliberate. He said, well, it was now, but what had _really_ been deliberate was the much larger shadow cast on the wall behind the figure, dwarfing it with a sense of what was to come.

Splendid to see this praetorian guard relief in 3D, after years of knowing it only through photos. The heads which stand proud of the stone are restored, as are parts of the background, but there's enough that's original to be sure that it was really high quality sculpture.

(Slight hiatus there while I checked into my hotel and there was palaver around getting my key to work.) But yes... liked this use of simple frames to represent figures and give a sense of artefacts in context without distracting from them or creating any misleading impressions.

Liked this visual layering of texts, suggesting how the story of Agrippina asking Nero to stab her in the womb might have evolved. You had to come to this with some sense of the dates of the texts in question to understand that point, though - it wasn't spelt out.

Loved seeing this iron grating, found in context in archaeological layers securely dateable to the Great Fire, and visibly warped by the heat. We discussed this a fair bit - how well it evokes that event, the challenge of bringing it to the UK when it is very fragile.

Had some questions, though, about this line at the end of the accompanying video about the fire. It's very striking to me how the agency changes partway through, so that Nero gets the credit for the relief effort, but not the blame for the judicial crackdown.

Also liked how we move from the reds of the fire to these cool watery blues in an octagonal domed recreation of the Domus Aurea. You can still hear the fire video in the DA pavilion, which felt like a pointed reminder of how Nero was able enjoy such luxury: even if not by choice.

Honestly did not know this - apparently some luxury houses on the edges of Rome really did have gilt and gems on the walls. So when Suetonius says the Domus Aurea was 'overlaid with gold and adorned with gems and mother-of‑pearl', that might actually be... true?

Loved this ominous dagger hanging over the final wing of the exhibition, signalling the bloody end looming inexorably into view.

And finally this splendid video showing how this bust of Vespasian must have been reshaped from a bust of Nero which had become surplus to requirements after his damnatio. The give-aways are its unusually deep-set eyes and a bit of leftover Neronian coiffure at the back.

All in all, certainly thought-provoking, full of interesting and astutely-selected artefacts, and very much seeing. But the accumulated weight of Nero's legacy is quite a challenge to take on!

Two final points I can't resist adding to this thread this morning. One, these purple-backed questions, designed for kids, go hard on moral binaries, and have clearly encouraged people to see the exhibition in those terms.

https://twitter.com/pjgoodman/status/1443603623225790465

But we learnt in the discussion session that they were not written by the lead curator Thorsten Opper. He didn't really specify who had written them - a kids' engagement team? But it's a good example of why we shouldn't see an exhibition as the product of a single mind.

Two, the exhibition and how it has gone down is a good example of what Charles Martindale always said about classical receptions. They made a conscious decision not to include reception material in its own right, and to focus as much as possible on contemporary Neronian material.

But of course you can't just skip straight past the reception history to a pure original reality of Nero, because everyone comes in knowing his posthumous reputation anyway. I think a lot of the public response reflects that.

People haven't been very convinced that Nero _doesn't_ deserve his reputation, because they didn't get the chance to see how and why it has been constructed and exaggerated. They were just given a different narrative, without the relation between the two being clear.

I got the impression yesterday that the museum staff genuinely didn't mind that, or how people went away thinking of Nero in the end. They saw their role as being to share some interesting material and provoke discussions, which they've certainly done!