
Nero’s Rotating Dining Room [video] - alceufc
https://news.cnrs.fr/videos/neros-rotating-dining-room
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dom96
That's a really nice overview of this archaeological find. Inspiring to think
about what it would have been like to dine with Nero on this structure. Are
there any other such structures? Perhaps even modern ones?

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PodcastListnr
Well, one famous story about dining with Nero is that he would round up local
Christians, dip them in oil, crucify them, have the crosses planted around his
dinner table, and light them on fire so that the burning Christians would
serve as torches for his banquets.

Let's see...he became emperor when he was 17. He had his own mother executed.
He banished a wife for not bearing him children, and then when his wife after
her died, he had her body stuffed. He spent all of his time faffing about with
his lute and his chariot-racing, but of course being emperor, he would have
all the great chariot racers fake losing to him and all the greatest artists
say how much better he was than them, and then he go around talking about how
he was the greatest of all time.

He grossly mismanaged the empire, and when large portions of Rome were burned
during a great fire, he took the opportunity to annex huge chunks of downtown
real estate to build an enormous, gaudy palace (featured in the linked video).
The palace itself was such an embarassment to the administration that
successive political leaders of Rome tore it down, sold off the valuable bits,
and used the land for public benefit (the Colosseum stands over part of land
annexed for this palace).

So, I think dining with Nero in this structure would be a bit like dining in
Saddam Hussein's palace. It would be shocking to piss in the gold toilets and
stuff but you wouldn't really have the capacity to take it all in because
you'd be in abject horror of being burned alive for failing to praise the
beauty of the emperor's singing voice.

Some people believe that all that shit in The Book of Revelations about 'the
antichrist', '666' etc was code about Nero. Before Nero, the Romans pretty
much regarded the Christians as weird hippies, mostly broke foreigners who
spoke Latin with heavy accents if at all, but hey, if they wanna talk about
love all day and live in communes, who cares. Nero, however, needed someone to
blame for all the troubles (mostly caused by him), and so he looked to the
Christians: poor, foreign, weird...perfect people to scapegoat. So he's the
one who really got Roman persecution of the Christians rolling.

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TheOtherHobbes
I think it's interesting that this occasional architectural trope was invented
by a psychotic emperor.

Never mind a meal - it's more fun to imagine the initial design meeting with
the engineers:

"An outdoor dining terrace that rotates, oh shining light of the world? Yes, I
think we can do that. Oh - and gold toilets too? Yes. Of course."

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cm2187
France's most majestic castles are the result of megalomaniac kings and
noblemen (Versailles, Vaux le Vicomte, etc).

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wsc981
Germany's Neuschwanstein also fits the bill:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuschwanstein_Castle#](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuschwanstein_Castle#)

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Animats
The Hyatt in downtown SF has a rotating restaurant, but it broke down in 2007
and was never reopened. Here it is.[1]

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJoyN2P-M_M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJoyN2P-M_M)

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frik
Watching the video, it reminds me of a old word-play:

Upcoming next, Nero burning Rome

Upcoming next, NERO Burning ROM _(=official name of once popular CD burning
application)_

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dahart
Who can estimate the cost of building this same structure today?

