The pipe organ has always been considered a relegated instrument in the Catholic Churches for the Catholic Churches, in reality, the dignity and history of this instrument are much deeper and more interesting.
Its importance in the literary, archaeological and figurative fields shows an instrument with precise political and diplomatic characteristics, such as to make it a sound image of the imperial power of Ancient Rome.
As with all stories you don't expect, this article will talk about one of the most famous and talked about Roman Emperors: Nero. The historical sources on this particular story have been handed down to us by Suetonius and Vitruvius, with two completely different political visions.
The contribution starts from the choice of Vitruvius, engineer of the first Augustus, to include in De Architectura the instrument as a complex machine, useful in times of peace to express the image of the glory and power of the emperor who was able to build it.
It then continues, referring to the presence of the instrument during the empire of Nero and proposing the hypothesis of the existence of an instrument in the emperor's private palace. Through the re-reading of some passages from Suetonius' Vita Neronis and some archaeological findings brought to light in the Domus Aurea on the Esquiline, a new interpretation of Nero's life, above all musical, is proposed.
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NERON AND HELLENISM
Nero, like the members of the Ptolemy family, is educated by figures with a 'special' character such as a dancer and a barber (remember that, according to the Vitruvian and Athenaeus of Naucratis tradition, Ctesibio himself was the son of a barber or barber himself) Nero's propensity for music, theater and entertainment grew with him and reached its maximum expression when he became emperor. Like the Hellenistic kings, he knew that the glory of his empire in times of peace was also demonstrated through the grandeur of the spectacles.
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His contacts with the Hellenistic world can be seen in the relationships he establishes with the Alexandrians. An important number of his collaborators, in fact, were of Alexandrian origin, such as T. Claudio Balbillo, the prefect sent to Egypt at the beginning of the Neronian Empire, who was in charge of the museum and library.
There is evidence relating to the organ in the Roman Empire during the reign of Nero. The literary and archaeological itinerary shows an instrument with precise political and diplomatic characteristics, such as to make it a sound image of imperial power. Thus the instrument had already taken shape since its invention by the hand of Ctesibio, an engineer at the court of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. The relationship between Ctesibius and Ptolemy, in fact, appears in summary as the relationship between a technites and a technocrat, or rather between a technites who proposes to his technocrat client machines for good governance.
This relationship seems to recur, in the Roman environment, with Vitruvius and the dedicatee of his work: the emperor Augustus.
In this 'political perspective' – that is, the organ as an artefact linked to the logic of power valid in times of peace – the presence of the instrument also during the reign of Nero (54-68 AD) should be reconsidered.
Nero man of art ... much less a man of politics
In Suetonius' Life of the Caesars we read that the young emperor had been greatly fascinated by oriental culture and had especially appreciated the sensitivity towards art and the competitive spirit that characterized the competitions, true examples of culture. However, Nero's involvement is total and, for Suetonius, negative: the emperor is involved to such an extent that he forgets his public duties. Thus when in Naples, in March 1968, he received the news of the insurrection of Gaul, led by Giulio Vìndice legate of the Lugdunense colony, he «disturbed during dinner by an alarming letter, limited his anger to threatening all harm to those who had rebelled
This testifies to both the existence of this "high-tech musical instrument" and its displeasure, not for the rebellion of the colony, but for the delay in the development of the hydraulic organ.
Nero's attitude recalls the trust that the Hellenistic kings placed in knowledge: in the apparent madness, he seems convinced of being able to keep his kingdom stable through the demonstration of knowledge and technological knowledge.
Where could Nero's Hydraulis be located?
The palatial complex of the Domus Aurea covered an area of no less than 80 hectares and occupied the heart of the city, extending, with an ideological intention, over one of the holiest sites of Roman times: the ancient Septimontium. The part of the architectural complex that interests us here is the one located on the Esquiline pavilion, a sector of the Domus reserved for the emperor's otium, with functions of representation and propaganda.
The structure can be divided into two parts: the western one, with a traditional architectural layout, seems to have been reserved for the emperor, while the eastern area, with its innovative structure, seems to have been intended for representation. The latter was characterized by the presence of an octagonal room which today is considered the fulcrum around which the rest of the wing of the building developed in a radial pattern.
It is therefore possible that Nero's engineers, who had equipped the Esquiline palace with some Ctesibian hydraulic apparatuses, had not neglected even the hydraulic organ, described by the contemporary Alexandrian mechanic transplanted to Rome: Heron.
When Nero called the senators "to his home" to show them a new kind of hydraulic organ, it is probable that he had taken them right to the eastern part of the palace on the Esquiline. It would perhaps have been the ideal place: it was a private palace but equally representative. Furthermore, Nerone seems to be the only one who knew the instrument (or, at least, it was still an unknown model that he would soon bring to the theater to show it to the general public); therefore the instrument could not be found in the Palatium on the Palatine Hill, the political center par excellence habitually frequented by senators and all Roman patricians.
The organum novi generis, which Nero wanted to show to his men, could therefore be found in the eastern part of the private palace: if not exactly in the octagonal hall, intended for the most sumptuous banquets, or in those definable local alcoves, the instrument could be in a next room and antechamber to those environments, such as the Nymphaeum, an environment linked to the cult of water and made more suggestive by the presence of another hydraulic device: the waterfall fed with water from the Esquiline.
Suetonius and his "small arrows" to Nero.
Unfortunately our main source, the Life Suetonian, does not help us beyond supporting the hypothesis about this main location. Although Nero and the intellectuals of the time – such as Heron, Pliny and Seneca – had retained the traits of Ptolemaic 'mechanical' politics, something in the process of transmission of technocratic politics from Nero's Roman world to the Suetonian one had changed. Evidently the Roman culture of the Svetonian period had removed the memory of the Hellenistic conception of power understood as knowledge and technological superiority applied to the various fields of knowledge. Suetonius' generation perhaps lacked a figure.
Times had changed and with them the magic of Hellenistic technocratic culture.
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