The article analyses sources relating to the organ in the Roman Empire under the reign of
Nero. The research, conducted with a literary archaeological and figurative perspective, shows that the instrument had precise political and diplomatic features, aimed at presenting it as a sonorous image of the imperial power. The enquiry starts from Augustus’ engineer, Vitruvius, who chose to insert in his work De Architectura a description of the instrument as a complex machine, useful in time of peace to express the glorious and powerful image of the Emperor, who was able to construct it. The article reports on the presence of the instrument during Nero’s Empire, proposing the hypothesis of the existence of an instrument of this kind also in the private palace of the Emperor. Through the reading of some passages of Svetonius’ Vita Neronis and the examination of some archaeological evidence in the Domus Aurea on the Esquilino, the papers aims at proposing a new interpretation of Nero’s life, especially as far as its musical features are concerned. On the basis of the attributes of the young Emperor and his education, some connections of Nero with the Alexandrinian world have been traced. These contacts become obvious mostly in the palace on the Esquilino, where the architectural external features of the domus are plainly Hellenistic, as well as in the Dionysiac setting of the interia and the set designs. It is possible therefore to argue that Nero’s engineers, who had equipped the palace with some hydraulic devices invented by the engineer of Ptolemeus II Philadelphus, Ctesibius, did not neglect the hydraulic organ, described by Hero too. [p. 65]