8 August 2018

Ad Litus Neronianum

I am off for a few days, leaving other members of my family in our Oxford house, to a daughter's house near the Sussex Coast. As usual, I hope to post every day but will not deal with incoming traffic until my return to the apices somniantes.

I think of Sussex as the Costa Neroniana because, at Fishbourne Palace, there is what has been identified as a statue of the infant Nero, smashed after his damnatio; at Bosham a detached head from a large monumental statue has been suspected of being Nero's, dislodged post-damnatio; and, by chance, a statue in the Egremont Collection at Petworth is thought to be, again, the infant emperor.

Sussex, as a client kingdom, was 'Romanised' very early. The Palace at Fishbourne was not just another of England's numerous rather standard-issue second-century 'Roman Villas', but a lavish first-century sea-side palace "of a great King", in the style which the Roman aristocracy (and King Herod) borrowed from the culture of Royal Macedonia.


I suppose it could be contrasted with Prinny's preposterous erection at Brighton.

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