Nero was interested in horsemanship from an early age, and could not be prevented from chattering endlessly about the races in the Circus. On one occasion when his tutor scolded him for bemoaning, to his fellow pupils, the fate of a charioteer of the Green faction who had been dragged behind his horses, he claimed untruthfully that he had been talking about Hector.
At the start of his reign he used to play with ivory chariots on a board, and came up from the country to attend the Games, however insignificant they might be, in secret at first and then so openly that everyone knew he would be in Rome that day. He soon set his heart on driving a chariot himself, and even competing regularly, so that after a trial run in the Palace gardens with an audience of slaves and idlers, he made his public appearance in the Circus, one of his freedmen dropping the napkin to start the race from the seat usually occupied by a magistrate.
Not satisfied with demonstrating his skills in Rome, he took a trip to Greece in 67AD , as I have said, influenced primarily by the fact that the cities holding music contests had started awarding him all their prizes for lyre-playing.
He was delighted by these, and would not only give precedence to the Greek delegates at his audiences, but would also invite them to dine with him in private. They begged him to perform after dinner and greeted his singing with such wild applause that he used to say that the Greeks alone had an ear for music, and were worthy of his efforts.
So he did not hesitate to set sail, and once arrived at Cassiope Kassiopi on Corfu he made his Greek debut as a singer at the altar of Jupiter Cassius, before making a round of the contests held by various cities. In order to achieve this he ordered that the various contests, though normally held at different intervals, should all be staged in his presence, even forcing some to be repeated that year.
He also introduced a music competition at Olympia contrary to normal practice. While he was singing no one could leave the theatre however urgent the need, forcing women to give birth there, or so they say. Many spectators, wearied with listening and applauding, furtively dropped from the wall at the back, since the doors were closed, or pretended to die and have themselves carried off for burial. His nervousness and anxiety when he took part, his acute competitiveness where rivals were concerned, and his awe of the judges, were scarcely credible.
He would treat the other contestants with respect almost as if they were equals, and try to curry favour with them, while abusing them behind their backs, and occasionally to their faces if he encountered them elsewhere, even offering bribes to those who were particularly skilled to encourage them to perform badly. Before he began his performance he would address the judges with the utmost deference, saying that he had prepared as well as he could, and that the outcome was in the hands of Fortune, but that they were equipped with the knowledge and experience to ignore the effects of chance.
When they had reassured him, he would take his place with greater equanimity, but not without a degree of anxiety even then, interpreting the diffidence and taciturnity of some as severity and malevolence, and declaring that he was doubtful of their intentions. He observed the rules scrupulously while competing, not daring to clear his throat, and wiping sweat from his brow only with his bare arm.
Once, while acting in a tragedy, he dropped his sceptre and quickly recovered it, but was terrified of being disqualified as a result, and his confidence was only restored when his accompanist whispered that the slip had passed unnoticed amidst the delight and acclamation of the audience. He took it upon himself to announce his own victories, and so always took part in the competition to select the heralds. To erase the record of previous victors in the contest, and suppress their memory, he ordered all their busts and statues to be toppled, dragged away with hooks and thrown into the sewers.
At many events he also raced a chariot, driving a ten-horse team at Olympia , although he had criticised Mithridates in one of his own poems for doing just that, though after being thrown from the chariot and helped back in, he was too shaken to stay the course, though he won the crown just the same.
Before his departure, on the day of the Isthmian Games, he himself announced, from the midst of the stadium, that he granted the whole province of Achaia the freedom of self-government, and all the judges Roman citizenship plus a large gratuity. Returning to Italy, Nero landed at Naples , since he had made his first stage appearance there. He had part of the city wall levelled, as is the custom for welcoming back victors in the sacred Games, and rode through behind a team of white horses.
At Rome he rode in the same chariot that Augustus had used for his triumphs in former times, and wore a purple robe, and a Greek cloak decorated with gold stars. He was crowned with an Olympic wreath, and carried a Pythian wreath in his right hand, while the other wreaths he had won were borne before him inscribed with details of the various contests and competitors, the titles of the songs he had sung, and the subjects of the plays in which he had acted.
His chariot was followed by his band of hired applauders as if they were the escort to a triumphal procession, shouting as they went that they were the companions of Augustus, and his victorious troops.
He progressed through the Circus , the entrance arch having been demolished, then via the Velabrum and Forum to the Palatine Temple of Apollo. Sacrificial offerings were made all along the route and the streets were sprinkled with fragrances, while song-birds were released, and ribbons and sweetmeats showered on him.
He scattered the sacred wreaths around the couches in his sleeping quarters, and set up statues of himself playing the lyre. He also ordered a coin to be struck bearing the same device. Far from neglecting or moderating his practice of the art thereafter, he would address his troops by letter or have his speeches delivered by someone else, to preserve his voice. And he never carried out anything in the way of business or entertainment without his elocutionist beside him, telling him to spare his vocal chords, and proffering a handkerchief with which to protect his mouth.
He offered his friendship to, or declared his hostility towards, hosts of people depending on how generous or grudging towards him they had shown themselves by their applause.
His initial acts of insolence, lust, extravagance, avarice and cruelty were furtive, increasing in frequency quite gradually, and therefore were condoned as youthful follies, but even then their nature was such they were clearly due to defects of character, and not simply his age. As soon as darkness fell, he would pull on a cap or wig and make a round of the inns or prowl the streets causing mischief, and these were no harmless pranks either; since he would beat up citizens walking home from a meal, stabbing those who resisted and tumbling them into the sewer.
He broke into shops and stole the goods, selling them at auctions he held in the Palace as if in a marketplace, and squandering the proceeds. In the violence that ensued from his exploits he often ran the risk of losing his sight or even his life, being beaten almost to death by a Senator whose wife he maltreated.
This taught him never to venture out after dark without an escort of Guards colonels following him at a distance, unobserved. Gradually, as the strength of his vices increased, he no longer hid them, or laughed them off, but dropped all disguise, and indulged freely in greater depths of wickedness. His revels lasted from noon to midnight. If it were winter he restored himself by a warm bath, or in summer plunged into water cooled with snow.
Occasionally he would drain the lake in the Campus Martius, and hold a public banquet on its bed, or in the Circus , waited on by harlots and dancing-girls from all over the City. And whenever he floated down the Tiber to Ostia , or sailed over the Gulf of Baiae , temporary eating and drinking houses appeared at intervals along the banks and shores, with married women playing the role of barmaids, peddling their wares, and urging him on, from every side, to land.
He extracted promises of banquets from his friends too; one spending forty thousand gold pieces on a dinner with an Eastern theme; another consuming an even vaster sum on a party themed with roses. Nero not only abused freeborn boys, and seduced married women, but also forced the Vestal Virgin Rubria. He virtually married the freedwoman Acte , after bribing some ex-consuls to perjure themselves and swear she was of royal birth.
He tried to turn the boy Sporus into a woman by castration, wed him in the usual manner, including bridal veil and dowry, took him off to the Palace attended by a vast crowd, and proceeded to treat him as his wife. He harboured a notorious passion for his own mother, but was prevented from consummating it by the actions of her enemies who feared the proud and headstrong woman would acquire too great an influence. His desire was more apparent after he found a new courtesan who was the very image of Agrippina , for his harem.
Some say his incestuous relations with his mother were proven before then, by the stains on his clothing whenever he had accompanied her in her litter. I have been told, more than once, of his unshakeable belief that no man was physically pure and chaste, but that most concealed their vices and veiled them cunningly.
He therefore pardoned every other fault in those who confessed to their perversions. Nero thought a magnificent fortune could only be enjoyed by squandering it, claiming that only tight-fisted miserly people kept a close account of their spending, while truly fine and superior people scattered their wealth extravagantly.
So he showered gifts on people and poured money away. He spent eight thousand gold pieces a day on Tiridates , though it seems barely believable, and made him a gift on parting of more than a million. He presented Menecrates the lyre-player and Spiculus the gladiator with mansions and property worthy of those who had celebrated triumphs, and gifted the monkey-faced moneylender Paneros town-houses and country estates, burying him with well-nigh regal splendour when he died.
Nero never wore the same clothes twice. He placed bets of four thousand gold pieces a point on the winning dice when he played. He fished with a golden net strung with purple and scarlet cord.
The following details will give a good idea of its size and splendour. The entrance hall was large enough to contain a huge, hundred-foot high, statue of the Emperor, and covered so much ground the triple colonnade was marked by milestones. There was an enormous lake, too, like a small sea, surrounded by buildings representing cities, also landscaped gardens, with ploughed fields, vineyards, woods and pastures, stocked with wild and domestic creatures.
Inside there was gold everywhere, with gems and mother-of-pearl. There were dining rooms whose ceilings were of fretted ivory, with rotating panels that could rain down flowers, and concealed sprinklers to shower the guests with perfume.
The main banqueting hall was circular with a revolving dome, rotating day and night to mirror the heavens. And there were baths with sea-water and sulphur water on tap. When the palace, decorated in this lavish style, was complete, Nero dedicated the building, condescending to say by way of approval that he was at last beginning to live like a human being.
He began work on a covered waterway flanked by colonnades, stretching from Misenum to Lake Avernus, into which he planned to divert all the various hot springs rising at Baiae. And he also started on a ship-canal connecting Avernus to Ostia , a distance of a hundred and sixty miles, of a breadth to allow two quinqueremes to pass. To provide labour for the tasks he ordered convicts from all over the Empire to be transported to Italy, making work on these projects the required punishment for all capital crimes.
Firstly, he introduced a law stating that if a freedman died who had taken the name of a family connected to himself, and could not justify why, five-sixths of their estate rather than merely half should be made over to him. Furthermore those who showed ingratitude by leaving him nothing or some paltry amount forfeited their property to the Privy Purse, and the lawyers who had written and dictated such wills were to be punished. Finally, anyone whose words or actions left them open to being charged by an informer was liable under the treason laws.
He recalled the gifts he had made to Greek cities which had awarded him prizes in their contests. After prohibiting the use of amethystine and Tyrian purple dyes, he sent an agent to sell them covertly in the markets, and closed down all the dealers who bought, confiscating their assets.
It is even said that on noticing a married woman in the audience at one of his recitals wearing the forbidden colour he pointed her out to his agents who dragged her out and stripped her there and then, not only of her robes but also her property.
Ultimately he stripped the very temples of their treasures and melted down the gold and silver images, including the Household Gods Penates of Rome, which Galba however recast not long afterwards. He tested it on a kid, but the creature took five hours to die, so he had her make a more concentrated brew and gave it to a pig which died on the spot. He then had it administered to Britannicus with his food. The lad dropped dead after the very first taste, but Nero lied to the guests claiming it as an instance of the epileptic fits to which the boy was liable.
The next day he had Britannicus interred, hastily and unceremoniously, during a heavy downpour. Lucusta was rewarded with a free pardon for past offences, and extensive country estates, and Nero also provided her with a stream of willing acolytes. His mother Agrippina annoyed him deeply, by casting an over-critical eye on his words and actions.
Initially he discharged his resentment simply by frequent attempts to damage her popularity, pretending he would be driven to abdicate and flee to Rhodes. He progressively deprived her of her honours and power, then of her Roman and German bodyguard, refusing to let her live with him, and expelling her from the Palace. He passed all extremes in his hounding of her, paying people to annoy her with lawsuits while she was in the City, and then after her retirement to the country, sending them by land and sea to haunt the grounds and disturb her peace, with mockery and abuse.
However, the newly deciphered poem from Egypt casts doubt on this, showing Poppaea in the afterlife wanting to stay with Nero. On the night of July 18, A. At the time it occurred, Nero was at Antium but immediately returned to Rome to oversee relief efforts. While ancient writers tend to blame Nero for starting the fire, this is far from certain. Much of Rome was made with combustible material and the city was overcrowded. After the flames died down Nero apparently tried to cast blame on the Christians, at the time a fairly small sect.
Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as nightly illumination when daylight had expired.
While it is not known whether Nero started the fire, he did take advantage of the space it cleared. He started work on a new palace called the Domus Aurea golden palace , which was said, at the entranceway, to have included a foot-long 37 meters column that contained a statue of him.
In Britain, in A. Her husband, King Prasutagus, had made a deal with Claudius that would see him rule as a client-king. Upon his death in A. At first, Boudicca was successful, overrunning a number of Roman settlements and military units. Ancient sources say that Nero considered evacuating the island, but this proved unnecessary as the Roman commander on the island Gaius Suetonius Paulinus massed a force of 10, men and defeated Boudicca at the Battle of Watling Street.
You can still hear the joke at the time, that the world would have been better of if Nero's father Domitius had married a wife like Sporus. He took this Sporus, all dressed up like an empress and carried along in a litter, to the assemblies and markets of Greece; soon after this he took him round the image-market in Rome, repeatedly kissing him.
No one doubted that he wanted sexual relations with his own mother, and was prevented by her enemies, afraid that this ruthless and powerful woman would become too strong with this sort of special favour.
What added to this opinion was that he included among his mistresses a certain prostitute who they said looked very like Agrippina. They also say that , whenever he rode in a litter with his mother, the stains on his clothes afterwards proved that he had indulged in incest with her. Chapter 33 Nero's saevitia Claudius was the first member of his family to be murdered ; he may not have been the one to arrange it, but he certainly knew about it.
He did not hide the fact because later he used to praise mushrooms the poison was administered to Claudius in a dish of mushroom , as "the food of the gods," in the words of the Greek proverb. In fact, after Claudius's death he made fun of him with every insult he could accusing him of stupidity and cruelty; he used to joke that Claudius had stopped "being the idiot" among men , by lengthening the first syllable of the word, and he treated as worthless many of his decrees and acts as if they had been done by a crazy fool; as a final humilation for Claudius, he neglected his tomb providing it with nothing except a low-walled enclosure.
Nero tried to kill Britannicus with poison; he saw him as a rival in singing , since his voice was pleasanter than his own, but an equal motive for the murder was the fear that he might at some point gain more influence and support because men remembered his father.
He got the poison from a certain well-known poisoner, Locusta. When the poison worked more slowly than expected, since it only gave Britannicus a serious stomach-ache, he had the woman summoned and he beat her himself.
He accused her of giving him a remedy instead of the poison. Her excuse was that she had given Britannicus less in order to keep the crime secret and save Nero from being suspected. He replied: "Obviously to you I am afraid of the Julian law. He tested it on a kid-goat, which took 5 hours to die; so he had her cook it again so that it was stronger still, and he gave it to a pig. The pig dropped dead at once.
He ordered the poison to be taken to the dining-room and given to Britannicus who dined with him that day. The boy fell dead the moment he tasted it, but Nero lied to his guests saying that he had been attacked by an illness , which he had suffered from for some time. The very next day Nero had Britannicus quickly buried in a simple funeral in the middle of a thunder storm.
At the gymnastic contest, which he gave in the Saepta, he shaved his first beard to the accompaniment of a splendid sacrifice of bullocks, put it in a golden box adorned with pearls of great price, and dedicated it in the Capitol. He invited the Vestal virgins also to witness the contests of the athletes, because at Olympia the priestesses of Ceres were allowed the same privilege.
I may fairly include among his shows the entrance of Tiridates into the city. He was a king of Armenia, whom Nero induced by great promises to come to Rome; and since he was prevented by bad weather from exhibiting him to the people on the day appointed by proclamation, he produced him at the first favourable opportunity, with the praetorian cohorts drawn up in full armour about the temples in the Forum, while he himself sat in a curule chair on the rostra in the attire of a triumphing general, surrounded by military ensigns and standards.
As the king approached along a sloping platform, the emperor at first let him fall at his feet, but raised him with his right hand and kissed him. Then, while the king made supplication, Nero took the turban from his head and replaced it with a diadem, while a man of praetorian rank translated the words of the suppliant and proclaimed them to the throng.
From there the king was taken to the theatre, and when he had again done obeisance, Nero gave him a seat at his right hand. Because of all this Nero was hailed as Imperator, and after depositing a laurel wreath in the Capitol, he closed the two doors of the temple of Janus, as a sign that no war was left anywhere.
He held four consulships, the first for two months, the second and the last for six months each, the third for four months. The second and third were in successive years, while a year intervened between these and each of the others.
In the administration of justice he was reluctant to render a decision to those who presented cases, except on the following day and in writing. The procedure was, instead of continuous pleadings, to have each point presented separately by the parties in turn.
Furthermore, whenever he withdrew for consultation, he did not discuss any matter with all his advisers in a body, but had each of them give his opinion in written form; these he read silently and in private and then gave a verdict according to his own inclination, as if it were the view of the majority. For a long time he would not admit the sons of freedmen to the senate and he refused office to those who had been admitted by his predecessors.
Candidates who were in excess of the number of vacancies received the command of a legion as compensation for the postponement and delay. He commonly appointed consuls for a period of six months. When one of them died just before the Kalends of January, he appointed no one in his place, expressing his disapproval of the old-time case of Caninius Rebilus, the twenty-four hour consul.
He conferred the triumphal regalia even on men of the rank of quaestor, as well as on some of the knights, and sometimes for other than military services. As regards the speeches which he sent to the senate on various matters, he passed over the quaestors, whose duty it was to read them, and usually had them presented by one of the consuls.
He devised a new form for the buildings of the city and in front of the houses and apartments he erected porches, from the flat roofs of which fires could be fought; and these he put up at his own cost. He had also planned to extend the walls as far as Ostia and to bring the sea from there to Rome by a canal. During his reign many abuses were severely punished and put down, and no fewer new laws were made: a limit was set to expenditures; the public banquets were confined to a distribution of food; the sale of any kind of cooked viands in the taverns was forbidden, with the exception of pulse and vegetables, whereas before every sort of dainty was exposed for sale.
Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition. He put an end to the diversions of the chariot drivers, who from immunity of long standing claimed the right of ranging at large and amusing themselves by cheating and robbing the people. The pantomimic actors and their partisans were banished from the city. It was in his reign that a protection against forgers was first devised, by having no tablets signed that were not bored with holes through which a cord was thrice passed.
In the case of wills it was provided that the first two leaves should be presented to the signatories with only the name of the testator written upon them, and that no one who wrote a will for another should put down a legacy for himself; further, that clients should pay a fixed and reasonable fee for the services of their advocates, but nothing at all for benches, which were to be furnished free of charge by the public treasury; finally as regarded the pleading of cases, that those connected with the treasury should be transferred to the Forum and a board of arbiters, and that any appeal from the juries should be made to the senate.
So far from being actuated by any wish or hope of increasing or extending the empire, he even thought of withdrawing the army from Britain and changed his purpose only because he was ashamed to seem to belittle the glory of his father. He increased the provinces only by the realm of Pontus, when it was given up by Polemon, and that of Cottius in the Alps on the latter's death.
He planned but two foreign tours, to Alexandria and Achaia; and he gave up the former on the very day when he was to have started, disturbed by a threatening portent. For as he was making the round of the temples and had sat down in the shrine of Vesta, first the fringe of his garment caught when he attempted to get up, and then such darkness overspread his eyes that he could see nothing.
In Achaia he attempted to cut through the Isthmus and called together the praetorians and urged them to begin the work; then at a signal given on a trumpet he was first to break ground with a mattock and to carry off a basketful of earth upon his shoulders.
He also prepared for an expedition to the Caspian Gates, after enrolling a new legion of raw recruits of Italian birth, each six feet tall, which he called the "phalanx of Alexander the Great.
Having gained some knowledge of music in addition to the rest of his early education, as soon as he became emperor he sent for Terpnus, the greatest master of the lyre in those days, and after listening to him sing after dinner for many successive days until late at night, he little by little began to practise himself, neglecting none of the exercises which artists of that kind are in the habit of following, to preserve or strengthen their voices.
For he used to lie upon his back and hold a leaden plate on his chest, purge himself by the syringe and by vomiting, and deny himself fruits and all foods injurious to the voice. Finally encouraged by his progress, although his voice was weak and husky, he began to long to appear on the stage, and every now and then in the presence of his intimate friends he would quote a Greek proverb meaning "Hidden music counts for nothing.
In the same city he sang frequently and for several days. Even when he took a short time to rest his voice, he could not keep out of sight but went to the theatre after bathing and dined in the orchestra with the people all about him, promising them in Greek, that when he had wetted his whistle a bit, he would ring out something good and loud.
He was greatly taken too with the rhythmic applause of some Alexandrians, who had flocked to Naples from a fleet that had lately arrived, and summoned more men from Alexandria. Not content with that, he selected some young men of the order of knights and more than five thousand sturdy young commoners, to be divided into groups and learn the Alexandrian styles of applause they called them "the bees," "the roof-tiles," and "the bricks" , and to ply them vigorously whenever he sang.
These men were noticeable for their thick hair and fine apparel; their left hands were bare and without rings, and the leaders were paid four hundred thousand sesterces each. Considering it of great importance to appear in Rome as well, he repeated the contest of the Neronia before the appointed time, and when there was a general call for his "divine voice," he replied that if any wished to hear him, he would favour them in the gardens; but when the guard of soldiers which was then on duty seconded the entreaties of the people, he gladly agreed to appear at once.
So without delay he had his name added to the list of the lyre-players who entered the contest, and casting his own lot into the urn with the rest, he came forward in his turn, attended by the prefects of the Guard carrying his lyre, and followed by the tribunes of the soldiers and his intimate friends.
Having taken his place and finished his preliminary speech, he announced through the ex-consul Cluvius Rufus that "he would sing Niobe"; and he kept at it until late in the afternoon, putting off the award of the prize for that event and postponing the rest of the contest to the next year, to have an excuse for singing oftener.
But since even that seemed too long to wait, he did not cease to appear in public from time to time. He even thought of taking part in private performances among the professional actors, when one of the praetors offered him a million sesterces. He also put on the mask and sang tragedies representing gods and heroes and even heroines and goddesses, having the masks fashioned in the likeness of his own features or those of the women of whom he chanced to be enamoured.
From his earliest years he had a special passion for horses and talked constantly about the games in the Circus, though he was forbidden to do so. Once when he was lamenting with his fellow pupils the fate of a charioteer of the "Greens," who was dragged by his horses, and his preceptor scolded him, he told a lie and pretended that he was talking of Hector. At the beginning of his reign he used to play every day with ivory chariots on a board, and he came from the country to all the games, even the most insignificant, at first secretly, and then so openly that no one doubted that he would be in Rome on that particular day.
He made no secret of his wish to have the number of prizes increased, and in consequence more races were added and the performance was continued to a late hour, while the managers of the troupes no longer thought it worth while to produce their drivers at all except for a full day's racing.
He soon longed to drive a chariot himself and even to show himself frequently to the public; so after a trial exhibition in his gardens before his slaves and the dregs of the populace, he gave all an opportunity of seeing him in the Circus Maximus, one of his freedmen dropping the napkin from the place usually occupied by the magistrates.
Not content with showing his proficiency in these arts at Rome, he went to Achaia, as I have said, influenced especially by the following consideration. The cities in which it was the custom to hold contests in music had adopted the rule of sending all the lyric prizes to him. These he received with the greatest delight, not only giving audience before all others to the envoys who brought them, but even inviting them to his private table.
When some of them begged him to sing after dinner and greeted his performance with extravagant applause, he declared that "the Greeks were the only ones who had an ear for music and that they alone were worthy of his efforts. To make this possible, he gave orders that even those which were widely separated in time should be brought together in a single year, so that some had even to be given twice, and he introduced a musical competition at Olympia also, contrary to custom.
To avoid being distracted or hindered in any way while busy with these contests, he replied to his freedman Helius, who reminded him that the affairs of the city required his presence, in these words: "However much it may be your advice and your wish that I should return speedily, yet you ought rather to counsel me and to hope that I may return worthy of Nero.
And so it is said that some women gave birth to children there, while many who were worn out with listening and applauding, secretly leaped from the wall, since the gates at the entrance were closed, or feigned death and were carried out as if for burial. The trepidation and anxiety with which he took part in the contests, his keen rivalry of his opponents and his awe of the judges, can hardly be credited.
As is his rivals were of quite the same station as himself, he used to show respect to them and try to gain their favour, while he slandered them behind their backs, sometimes assailed them with abuse when he met them, and even bribed those who were especially proficient.
Before beginning, he would address the judges in the most deferential terms, saying that he had done all that could be done, but the issue was in the hands of Fortune; they however, being men of wisdom and experience, ought to exclude what was fortuitous. When they bade him take heart, he withdrew with greater confidence, but not even then without anxiety, interpreting the silence and modesty of some as sullenness and ill-nature, and declaring that he had his suspicions of them.
In competition he observed the rules most scrupulously, never daring to clear his throat and even wiping the sweat from his bow with his arm. Once indeed, during the performance of a tragedy, when he had dropped his sceptre but quickly recovered it, he was terribly afraid that he might be excluded from the competition because of his slip, and his confidence was restored only when his accompanist swore that it had passed unnoticed amid the delight and applause of the people.
When the victory was won, he made the announcement himself; and for that reason he always took part in the contests of the heralds. To obliterate the memory of all other victors in games and leave no trace of them, their statues and busts were all thrown down by his order, dragged off with hooks, and cast into privies. He also drove a chariot in many places, at Olympia even a ten-horse team, although in one of his own poems he had criticised Mithridates for just that thing.
But after he had been thrown from the car and put back in it, he was unable to hold out and gave up before the end of the course; but he received the crown just the same. On his departure he presented the entire province with freedom and at the same time gave the judges Roman citizenship and a large sum of money. These favours he announced in person on the day of the Isthmian Games, standing in the middle of the stadium.
Returning from Greece, since it was at Naples that he had made his first appearance, he entered that city with white horses through a part of the wall which had been thrown down, as is customary with victors in the sacred games.
In like manner he entered Antium, then Albanum, and finally Rome; but at Rome he rode in the chariot which Augustus had used in his triumphs in days gone by, and wore a purple robe and a Greek cloak adorned with stars of gold, bearing on his head the Olympic crown and in his right hand the Pythian, while the rest were carried before him with inscriptions telling where he had won them and against what competitors, and giving the titles of the songs or of the subject of the plays.
His car was followed by his claque as by the escort of a triumphal procession, who shouted that they were the attendants of Augustus and the soldiers of his triumph. Then through the arch of the Circus Maximus, which was thrown down, he made his way across the Velabrum and the Forum to the Palatine and the temple of Apollo.
All along the route victims were slain, the streets were sprinkled from time to time with perfume, while birds, ribbons, and sweetmeats were showered upon him. He placed the sacred crowns in his bed-chambers around the couches, as well as statues representing him in the guise of a lyre-player; and he had a coin too struck with the same device. So far from neglecting or relaxing his practice of the art after this, he never addressed the soldiers except by letter or in a speech delivered by another, to save his voice; and he never did anything for amusement or in earnest without an elocutionist by his side, to warn him to spare his vocal organs and hold a handkerchief to his mouth.
To many men he offered his friendship or announced his hostility, according as they had applauded him lavishly or grudgingly. Although at first his acts of wantonness, lust, extravagance, avarice and cruelty were gradual and secret, and might be condoned as follies of youth, yet even then their nature was such that no one doubted that they were defects of his character and not due to his time of life.
No sooner was twilight over than he would catch up a cap or a wig and go to the taverns or range about the streets playing pranks, which however were very far from harmless; for he used to beat men as they came home from dinner, stabbing any who resisted him and throwing them into the sewers.
He would even break into shops and rob them, setting up a market in the Palace, where he divided the booty which he took, sold it at auction, and then squandered the proceeds.
In the strife which resulted he often ran the risk of losing his eyes or even his life, for he was beaten almost to death by a man of the senatorial order, whose wife he had maltreated.
Warned by this, he never afterwards ventured to appear in public at that hour without having tribunes follow him at a distance and unobserved. Even in the daytime he would be carried privately to the theatre in a sedan, and from the upper part of the proscenium would watch the brawls of the pantomimic actors and egg them on; and when they came to blows and fought with stones and broken benches, he himself threw many missiles at the people and even broke a praetor's head.
Little by little, however, as his vices grew stronger, he dropped jesting and secrecy and with no attempt at disguise openly broke out into worse crime. He prolonged his revels from midday to midnight, often livening himself by a warm plunge, or, if it were summer, into water cooled with snow. Sometimes too he closed the inlets and banqueted in public in the great tank, in the Campus Martius, or in the Circus Maximus, waited on by harlots and dancing girls from all over the city.
Whenever he drifted down the Tiber to Ostia, or sailed about the Gulf of Baiae, booths were set up at intervals along the banks and shores, fitted out for debauchery, while bartering matrons played the part of inn-keepers and from every hand solicited him to come ashore.
He also levied dinners on his friends, one of whom spent four million sesterces for a banquet at which turbans were distributed, and another a considerably larger sum for a rose dinner.
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