Let's see...he became emperor when he was 17. He had his own mother executed. He banished a wife for not bearing him children, and then when his wife after her died, he had her body stuffed. He spent all of his time faffing about with his lute and his chariot-racing, but of course being emperor, he would have all the great chariot racers fake losing to him and all the greatest artists say how much better he was than them, and then he go around talking about how he was the greatest of all time.
He grossly mismanaged the empire, and when large portions of Rome were burned during a great fire, he took the opportunity to annex huge chunks of downtown real estate to build an enormous, gaudy palace (featured in the linked video). The palace itself was such an embarassment to the administration that successive political leaders of Rome tore it down, sold off the valuable bits, and used the land for public benefit (the Colosseum stands over part of land annexed for this palace).
So, I think dining with Nero in this structure would be a bit like dining in Saddam Hussein's palace. It would be shocking to piss in the gold toilets and stuff but you wouldn't really have the capacity to take it all in because you'd be in abject horror of being burned alive for failing to praise the beauty of the emperor's singing voice.
Some people believe that all that shit in The Book of Revelations about 'the antichrist', '666' etc was code about Nero. Before Nero, the Romans pretty much regarded the Christians as weird hippies, mostly broke foreigners who spoke Latin with heavy accents if at all, but hey, if they wanna talk about love all day and live in communes, who cares. Nero, however, needed someone to blame for all the troubles (mostly caused by him), and so he looked to the Christians: poor, foreign, weird...perfect people to scapegoat. So he's the one who really got Roman persecution of the Christians rolling.
So, they needed a villain for the martyrdom of their saints, and Nero was very convenient to paint as one.
Never mind a meal - it's more fun to imagine the initial design meeting with the engineers:
"An outdoor dining terrace that rotates, oh shining light of the world? Yes, I think we can do that. Oh - and gold toilets too? Yes. Of course."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3270786/California-m...
Upcoming next, Nero burning Rome
Upcoming next, NERO Burning ROM (=official name of once popular CD burning application)
