Nero and an emerald viewIt is historically noted that Nero, emperor of Rome from 54-68 AD, used an e

Nero and an emerald viewIt is historically noted that Nero, emperor of Rome from 54-68 AD, used an emerald to watch the gladiator games. It is debated what intended use this emerald had, however. Vague referrals to the emerald use and Nero’s eye condition have led people to believe that the emerald could have been hollowed out, which acted as a concave lens to fix Nero’s possible extreme myopia (nearsightedness, or short-sightedness). Other people seem to think the emerald was polished so as to act like a mirror. The emerald was considered to have beneficial properties to sight just by viewing the stone itself, so some people argue that he simply used the stone as the mirror to garner the properties attributed to the stone, and that the stone did not truly fix his faulty distance viewing. The idea the stone had magical properties is also used to support the fact that if the emerald was hollowed out, the fact the concave lens focused the distance viewing would have been overlooked as a property due to the gem and not the type of lens. This would be why myopic lenses were not commonplace with this knowledge at this time.No general consensus has been made it seems as to the possible defect of Nero’s eyes, or the reason for using an emerald to view the Gladiator games. It is one of many mysteries lost in translation!-MHRead more: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC513155/?page=1http://bit.ly/1zwZCvkhttp://bit.ly/1wH9h19Image credit: Horatio Hunt, from the book “Nero… Revised, etc.” -- source link

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