Didn't Nero have ball bearings in his rotating restaurant? Would that have pre-dated the 'Parisian Bicycles Mechanic' that is credited with them?

This article misses the point. The thing they describe is a "wheelset", where the wheels are hard-attached to the axle and cannot spin unless the axle spins with them. The invention of the "wheel" involved a brass hub that allows each wheel to turn freely on a stationary axle, but this article says nothing about that.