count on us to put the scandal back into the stories of caligula and his chums.body, don't you? so what did the unknown renaissance silversmiths who made these pieces find to say in caligula's favour. this is a terrific one. he's built an ephemeral ball bridge over the bay of naples, a bridge of boats, a pontoon bridge and he is riding across it back and forth on horseback. in a recent article in the new york times, that passage from suetonius was used as a comparison with donald trump's campaign to build a wall in mexico. we have nero, here, and in fact, there are two seems there which might appear to be negative and they are both to do with nero's obsession with music. we see the people fleeing the fire and nero up in his tower playing his liar and singing. but hang on, there's more. i read about this tazza into the v&a and i asked to go and see it and they got it out of its case and it was supposed to be the bowl topped by a splendid figure. then the bell rang and i thought, "that's not the mission, that tiberius". they had managed to get the wrong emperor on