ABSTRACT
During the discussion about murrhine cups, Pliny refers to a collection of murrhine artefacts that Nero had taken away from the children of a collector after his death, and exhibited for a short time in a private theatre. Pliny was very surprised to see the fragments of a broken cup included in the exhibition, since it was decided that the fragments of that cup would have the same treatment as the body of Alexander the Great. The equation between the body of the king, and the fragments of the object is indicative of the fetishisation of the artefact (and of Alexander).
