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Pliny the Elder wrote that emperor Nero used a big emerald as a magnifying glass to see things in more detail than his eyes could provide. This is, so far, the oldest description of the use of a precious stone as an instrument, in this case, for magnifying images.

Thus, we would have to conclude that despite what we think of Nero in terms of his decadent lifestyle, cruelty, incompetence and bad taste as an artist, he should be considered as the father of optics. But it is difficult to believe that someone like Nero, who in order to attract some public to his poetry sessions he had to force them with his guard, would have invented something as brilliant as the magnifying glass; more likely, he was just using it.

From what Pliny wrote, it is possible to conclude various things: the stone in question was not probably an emerald, because knowledge of gemology at that time was rudimentary at best; in fact, this activity was not even a science but a craft developed mainly by Greek immigrants into the empire. Instead, it is more likely that it was an aquamarine, a stone that got confused with emeralds relatively often in the ancient world. This stone is less expensive than emeralds and would have made a good raw material to create something as a magnifying glass. Besides, there are no second sources which describe that particular emerald, which would have had to be of a good size and certainly would have been mentioned, because big emeralds are indeed, very rare and expensive.

But the other aspect of Pliny's writings is that it makes evident that the magnifying properties of certain crystals was already known at least during the Roman period. Romans had good jewellers and quite a trade evolved in the sector.

Considering the user in question, and the fact that magnifying glasses would have been made of good, big crystals - meaning expensive -, it is probable that this kind of product was high-end, and destined for the aristocracy. But there are other signs telling us that lenses and optical magnification were known pretty well before the works of people like Galileo and Fraunhofer.

It is known, for example, that in medieval times some monks writing manuscripts used magnifying glasses, albeit it is dubious that during that age such technologies evolved much.It is also known that Indians belonging to the advanced American civilisations were also able to work quartz crystals into the shapes needed to amplify images.

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