Seductions of art: Encolpius and Eumolpus in a Neronian picture gallery

The age of Nero is universally considered – even by its more circumspect modern historians – to be a zenith of decadence. This view is not simply the invention of modern writers. It is one point on which the ancient sources, not only historians from Tacitus to Cassius Dio, but also biographers such as Suetonius and poets like Martial, are agreed. One problem with the almost monotonous tale of vice, sexual and gastronomic excess, cruelty and murder, by which Nero's reign has been characterised, is that this is a story written by the winners in the turmoil which followed Nero's fall. It is hardly, in other words, an objective or unbiased account.