The Forum

Kudos

The July/August 2004 Olympics Issue is a classic—most interesting and informative.

An Entourage of Asses

Tony Perrottet (“Walking to Olympia,” July/August 2004) notes that the Roman emperor Nero’s wife “brought 500 asses on the trip [to the games at Olympia in 67 A.D.], so that she could bathe in their milk.”

This famous milk-bath story is related by Pliny the Elder in Natural History. But the reference is to Poppaea Sabina, Nero’s second wife, who died in the summer of 65 A.D. So she could not have made the trip in late 66 and 67 A.D.

Yet Nero did take his empress with him to Greece. This lady was his third wife, Statilia Messallina, whom he married in early 66 A.D.—though, as far as we know, she did not have an entourage of asses with her. (For more information, see Miriam T. Griffin’s biography, Nero: The End of a Dynasty [1984].)

Dinosaur Bones?

Tony Perrottet’s excellent article on spectators at the ancient Olympic Games contains an error I feel compelled to correct, since I was cited as the source.