MovieChat Forums > Quo Vadis (1951) Discussion > Neros fiddle?

Neros fiddle?

posted 16 years ago by Blueghost
7 replies | jump to latest

Wasn't Nero supposed to play the fiddle as Rome burned? Here he doesn't do much of anything except touch his lute a few times then continue to rave like that madman he is.

Any thoughts?

[–] turtletommy 16 years ago

Well the supposed Nero fiddle-playing is more apocryphal than anything and the filmmakers did give a nod to it by having Nero touching a lute during the fire scene. Throughout the movie he was shown playing it and singing songs he had composed (both terrible!) to establish his supposed historical ability to play a musical instrument.

[–] bgoleary-1 16 years ago

Actually Nero's instrument was a lyre. Like the violin/fiddle, the lute did not exist in Nero's time.

[–] turtletommy 16 years ago

That's right, an earlier form of stringed instrument that was plucked or strummed with a pick (plectrum) like a guitar.

[–] Blueghost 16 years ago

Ah, that makes more sense. Thanks much.

[–] Hairy_Lime 16 years ago

Fiddle's roughly 10th C, and evolved from the lute. But "Nero luted while Rome burned" lacks resonance.

All I say is, kings is kings and you got to make allowances.

[–] FloatingOpera7 16 years ago

That's right. Nero's instrument was a lyre, which was the top instrument at the time and what most soloists used. Poets, musicians had been reciting/singing while playing a lyre since the time of the ancient Greeks. Homer who wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey (and mentioned in this movie) used a lyre. The Muse of music used a lyre (or invented it) as did Apollo the god of the sun and music.

Nero thought he was a great musician but also a great actor. He not only forced people to hear him recite poetry he wrote or music he wrote (which by most accounts was bad/lousy) but he also enjoyed appearing in public as an actor in plays in amphitheaters. This was seen as being vulgar by the upper class Romans and some thought he was perverse by appearing in public as he did with commoners but Nero thought himself more of an artist type. Nero was a megalomaniac. He thought he was a great architect, musician, poet, lover, emperor, god, etc, when he was just a crazy, cruel, sadistic pyschopath

[–] silvercometred1 11 years ago

The fiddle or Violin didn't exist then. Violins first appeared in the 16th Century AD.