REPRODUCED FROM A CONTORNIATE IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. ] A.D. 54.—The cruel Emperor Nero was an accomplished musician, and a contorniate of his time has given rise to many assertions connecting him with the pipes. It is generally referred to as a coin, but it is in reality a contorniate or medal, which was given away at public sports. The sketch here reproduced (full-size) is from a specimen in the British Museum, and very little study will show that it proves almost nothing relating to the bagpipe. The obverse bears the head of Nero and the usual inscription. On the reverse there seems to be the form of a wind organ with nine irregular pipes, all blown by a bellows and having underneath what is probably a bag. It is more closely related to the organ than to the bagpipe, and, as has been said, it proves nothing. Some writers call the instrument on which Nero played a flute with a bladder under the performer’s arm, a description which does more to identify it as the bagpipe. It cannot have been considered a very honourable thing in Nero’s day to play the pipes, for the emperor on hearing of the last revolt, that which cost him his throne and his life, vowed solemnly that if the gods would but extricate him from his troubles he would play in public on the bagpipe, as a sort of penance or thank offering probably. Perhaps history has made a mistake, and it may have been the pipes and not the fiddle Nero played on while Rome was burning. The medal, it may be added, is believed by the authorities at the British Museum to date from about A.D. 330, although it bears the impress of Nero.