The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-08-11
THAT CONCERT OF NERDS

From the Kansas City Star.
 6C1HE recent discovery of a coin stamped with the image of Nero = playing the bagpipe revives the historical enigma as to what instrument that monarch really was performing on when Rome went up in smoke untl
 the coin find. it had been popularly sup
 posed the instrument in question was
 the Tyre That, however, may have been
 merly phonetic misunderstanding on the
 part of the historian who first inter
 viewed Nero as to the truth of the music story.
 The bagpipe theory reopens the contro- of probability when one recollects that Nero was careless of the favor of the popuiace at the time. Of course, if he had been attempting to get on it's good side he never would have played the bagpipe But he held the good will of the people in such disdain, he set fire to the city for the spectacle it would make, l it is said. Even that might have been forgiven the royal scapegrace, but he went and topped 1t off by playing the bagpipe History tells us he was mur- dered later.
 Also in support of the bagpipe hypothe- SIS, is the widely known penchant of the players of that instrument for walking up and down as they perform. That, It has been suggested makes them harder to hit Nero. who was a wise and wary imperator in ways, undoubtedly realized the advantages of a moving target. The bagpipe of those days was called the zampagna. It consisted of goatskin bag as an air reservoir, attached to a flute-like tube with vents The mouth ot the tube. whence issued the sound. was carved to represent the head of some an imal probably in the realization tna' the noise emitted was not human. To continue to explore the possibilities the instrument of Nero's music mlen. have been the syrinx. sort Of plpes or nan arrangement, which was the recog- nized signal of Pans for summoning pymphs. If Nero had that in mino as he piped across the blazing city, he must have been attempting not only to sum mon the nymphs, but to smoke 'em out.
 A has relief suggests the double flute as another possibility. On the relief, sweet young thing is sculptured footing the double flute. Four very hard guys with marcelled boards, the audience of the musicale, are seen being restrained with difficulty from clubbing the mu- sician. Perhaps Nero lit up Rome :> divert any possible attack on his persoh. while performing on the double flute. Other instruments Nero might have held 1 forth on are the sanbuca. wind instru-
 ment of wooden tubes. the slide trombone | of the day. or the cithara- Now. the ci- thara was a sort of Roman ukuieie with the difference from the. modern that it
 possessed twenty-tour strings. That would make sound six tiues bad as
 the ukulele which has only four strings 1 And even a man who burned the imperial
 city and murdered his family and others
 would hardly dare that.
 I There was invented in Nero's day , hydraulic organ which, is described by
 historians as having two reservoirs of | elephant skin. from which a water flow created air pressure. The organ. the his- 1 torians relate. sounds like thunder" and there isn't much doubt but that it did Where also Was a wind organ which slaves blew up with their breath or bel lows.
 Both of the organ types, may De dis- carded as theories on the grounds that the Roman fire department would have com mandeered the water skins. And Nero
 could never have found the little boys