by Suetonius
20. Among other subjects in his boyhood Nero was instructed also in music. The moment he became emperor, he summoned the lyre-player Terpnus, considered the best at the time, and for days on end sat by him after dinner as he sang late into the night. Little by little, Nero too began to study and practice, omitting nothing that artists of this profession are in the habit of doing to protect or strengthen the voice. He even placed a lead plate on his chest as he lay down, purged himself with enemas and vomiting, and avoided eating fruits and other harmful foods. Pleased by his progress, even though his voice was weak and husky, he eventually yearned to appear on stage, repeatedly tossing out among his friends the Greek saying “Hidden music gets no respect.”
(2) He first appeared on stage at Naples and, even when the theater was rocked by an earthquake, did not stop singing until he had finished the song he had begun. He sang there often, through several days at a time. Even when he was taking a brief break to restore his voice, he could not stand being out of the limelight, but went from the baths to the theater and dined in the middle of the orchestra with a large crowd, promising them, in Greek, “If I sip a little something, I’ll produce some buzz.”
(3) Captivated by the rhythmical cheers of some Alexandrians who had come to Naples from a newly arrived convoy, he summoned more from Alexandria. With equal enthusiasm he selected young men of the equestrian order as well as more than 5,000 men from the general body of citizens who were at peak military age. Divided into squads, they learned the various methods of clapping—they were called “the bees,” “the roof-tiles,” and “the bricks”—and they really threw themselves into it when he sang. They were easily recognized by their very thick hair and fabulous clothes and by the absence of rings on their left hands.1 Their leaders earned 400,000 sesterces each.
21. Since he attached great value to singing at Rome too, he had the Neronian Games repeated before the regularly scheduled date.2 When everyone clamored for his divine voice, he replied that he would provide an opportunity for those who wished at his estate. But when the military guard then on duty added to the appeals of the ordinary people, he cheerfully offered to perform straightaway. Without delay, he ordered his name entered on the list of lyre-players who were competing, he drew lots with the others, and he appeared when it was his turn. With him were his praetorian prefects holding the lyre, behind them the tribunes of the soldiers, and close by his nearest friends. (2) When he took his place and got through the standard introduction, he announced, through the former consul Cluvius Rufus, that he would sing the role of Niobe and he kept going with it until late afternoon.3 He then put off the crowning and the rest of the contest until the following year, so that he would have an opportunity to sing further.
But as this started to seem too far off, he kept performing again and again. He even flirted with the idea of appearing as an actor in privately-given shows when one of the praetors offered him 1,000,000 sesterces. (3) He also sang tragedies, taking the part of heroes and gods, even heroines and goddesses, fashioning the masks to resemble his own face or the face of whichever woman he was in love with at the time. Among other parts he sang Canace in childbirth, Orestes the matricide, Oedipus blinded, and the mad Hercules. In this last play, the story goes, when a newly recruited soldier assigned to guard the entrance saw Nero outfitted and bound up with chains, as the plot demanded, he ran to his assistance.
22. He was especially inflamed with a passion for horses from his earliest years and talked a great deal about races in the Circus, even though he was forbidden to. When his tutor scolded him once for complaining to his fellow students that a charioteer of the Greens had been dragged along on the ground, Nero lied and said that he was talking about Hector.4 But then, in the early days of his rule, he would play every day with ivory chariots on a gaming table and would come up from his country retreat to all of the races in the Circus, even the smallest ones, first secretly, then fully in the open, so that nobody would doubt that he would be there on that particular day. (2) Nor did he hide his wish to see the number of prizes increased. As a result, races were added and the contests dragged on to a late hour. Even the managers of the racing clubs no longer thought it worth bringing out their companies unless it was for a whole day.
Soon he wished to drive chariots himself and to do so publicly and often. After a preliminary attempt on his estate before an audience of slaves and common people, he let everyone watch him in the Circus Maximus.5 A freedman of his dropped the signal-cloth from where the magistrates were accustomed to.
(3) Not content with having given displays of these arts at Rome, he set out for Greece, as we have said, moved very much by the following circumstance.6 The communities where musical contests were customarily put on had adopted the practice of sending all of their crowns for the lyre-players to him. He was so happy to get these, he not only gave the envoys who had brought them the first audience of the day, he even invited them to private dinners. When some of them asked him to sing over dinner and then applauded effusively, he said: “The Greeks alone know how to listen and they alone are worthy of me and my efforts.”
He promptly set out. As soon as he reached Cassiope, he immediately began singing at the altar of Zeus Cassius. He then made the round of all the contests.
23. He ordered those which happen at widely different times to be moved into a single year—some were even repeated—and at Olympia he also arranged a musical competition contrary to established practice there. To prevent anything distracting or occupying his attention while he was focused on these pursuits, when his freedman Helius warned him that affairs in Rome required his presence, he replied: “However much you advise and wish that I return quickly, you ought rather to counsel and to hope that I return worthy of Nero.”
(2) When he was singing, it was not permitted to leave the theater, even in an emergency. And so some women, it is said, gave birth during his shows. It is also said that when the exits of the theater were sealed, many persons, wearied with listening and applauding, jumped secretly from the theater wall or pretended to be dead and were carried out for burial.
His fear and anxiety in competing, his intense jealousy of his rivals, and his dread of the judges can hardly be believed. He considered his opponents to be in exactly the same category as he; he would show respect to them and try to gain their favor, while he slandered them behind their backs, sometimes assailed them with insults in person, and even bribed any who were particularly talented. (3) Furthermore, he would address the judges most respectfully before he began, saying that he had done everything that could be done, but the outcome was in Fortune’s hands; they, like the wise and experienced men they were, must exclude accidents. When they encouraged him to take heart, he withdrew in a calmer mood, but even still had some worry, construing the silence and reticence of some of them as sourness and hostility and saying he was suspicious of them.
24. Still, he so strictly observed the rules in competition that he never dared clear his throat and only wiped the sweat from his brow with his arm.7 In one performance of a tragedy, when his scepter slipped and he quickly picked it up again, he trembled with fear that he would be disqualified from the competition for his error. He only took courage when an actor swore that amid all the cheers and cries of applause, it had not been noticed. But in fact, he himself would make the announcement that he was the winner, and for this reason he entered into the contest of the heralds everywhere. So that no memory or trace of any other victor in the games would remain, he ordered all their statues and portraits knocked over, dragged away with a hook, and cast into the latrines.
(2) He also drove chariots in many places, at Olympia even one with ten horses—although in one of his poems he had criticized King Mithridates for this very thing.8 Yet when he was thrown from it and then couldn’t stay on after he had gotten back on, he gave up before the final course—but still was crowned the winner. On his departure, he granted the entire province its freedom. He also gave the judges Roman citizenship as well a
s a great deal of money. Standing in the middle of the stadium on the day of the Isthmian Games, he personally announced these rewards.
25. He returned from Greece to Naples, because it was in this city that he had first displayed his art. He entered on white horses through a breach made in the city wall, as is customary for victors in Greek games. He made similar entries into Antium, then Albanum, then Rome. But at Rome, he was on the chariot on which Augustus had once ridden in triumph and he wore a purple robe and Greek cloak spangled with gold stars; he bore the Olympic crown on his head, the Pythian in his right hand, while all the rest were carried before him in a parade with placards stating where he had won, over whom, and with what song or play.9 His cheering squad followed like participants in a triumphal parade, shouting: “We are the Augustiani, the soldiers of his triumph.” (2) Then, having had an arch in the Circus Maximus taken down, he passed through the Velabrum and the Forum and went to the Palatine and Temple of Apollo. As he made his way, sacrificial victims were slaughtered here and there, the streets were continually sprayed with perfume, and birds, streamers, and sweets were showered on him. He placed the sacred crowns in his private apartments around his couches and also set up statues of himself in the costume of a lyre-player—a design he used on his coinage too.
(3) Far from giving up or relaxing his study after this, to preserve his voice, he never addressed soldiers except in writing or if there was somebody else to read his words. Nor did he do anything, serious or fun, unless his singing teacher was standing nearby to warn him to spare his vocal organs and dab a cloth on his face to wipe off perspiration. To many men he offered friendship, or declared an enmity, based on how much, or how little, they had praised him.
40. After putting up with an emperor like this for just under fourteen years, the world finally abandoned him. The Gauls got the process started, under the leadership of Julius Vindex, who at the time served as governor there.
(2) Astrologers had predicted to Nero that he would one day be removed, which gave rise to that very famous saying of his: “Our art sustains us.” The remark doubtless was aimed to win him indulgence for studying lyre-playing—a pleasure for him as emperor, but for a private citizen a necessity. Some of the astrologers, though, had promised him dominion in the East, even when he was abandoned, with a few specially mentioning rule over Jerusalem; more said that all of his earlier fortunes would be restored. He was more inclined to hope for the latter and thought that after having lost Britain and Armenia and then gained each of them back, he had lived through the destined hardships. (3) He consulted the oracle of Apollo at Delphi and was told he should beware the seventy-third year. Thinking he would die only then, and failing to make any connection to the age of Galba, he had great faith that he not only would live to an old age, but also always have singular good fortune.10 After losing some very valuable objects in a shipwreck, he told his friends, with a straight face, “The fish will bring them back to me.”
(4) He learned about the rising of the Gallic provinces in Naples, on the anniversary of the day he had killed his mother. He took the news so calmly and coolly that he even aroused suspicion that he was rejoicing at the opportunity to plunder some very rich provinces according to the laws of war. He immediately made his way to the gymnasium and became deeply engrossed watching the athletes compete. Interrupted at dinner, too, by a more disturbing letter, he showed no more anger than to threaten punishment on those who had rebelled. In short, for eight days running he did not try to write back to anyone, nor make any orders or instructions, but buried the whole affair in silence.
41. Finally, the stream of abusive edicts from Vindex got to him and he urged the Senate in a letter to avenge him and the state—while pleading a sore throat as the reason he was not there. Yet nothing pained him so much as being criticized as a bad lyre-player and being called Ahenobarbus instead of Nero. He announced that while his family name had been thrown in his face as an insult, he would resume using it, laying aside his adoptive name.11 But the other attacks he rebutted as false, with the sole argument that he was being accused of lack of skill in an art which he had worked so hard on and perfected. He kept asking people individually, “Do you know anyone who is better?”
(2) Yet as urgent message came on top of urgent message, he returned to Rome in great fear. On the journey, his mood was slightly lifted by a silly omen: when he saw carved on a monument a Gallic soldier beaten by a Roman cavalryman and dragged by the hair, he jumped for joy at the sight and worshipped the heavens.
Not even at this time did he address the Senate or People in person. Instead, he called some of the leading men to his house and, after a hasty consultation, he spent the rest of the day leading them around water organs of a new and previously unknown type. He showed the organs one by one, explaining at length how each one worked and its complexity. “I will put all of them on display in the theater,” he even promised, “if Vindex allows it.”
42. Then, after learning that Galba and the Spanish provinces also had rebelled, he fainted. He lay dumbstruck for a long time without speaking a word, practically dead. When he came to his senses, he tore his clothes, struck his head, and announced that he was finished. His nurse tried to console him, reminding him that similar things had happened to other emperors before, and he replied: “In comparison with the others, I suffer something unheard of and unknown: I am losing supreme power while still alive.”
(2) Nevertheless, in no way did he cut back on or eliminate his customary luxury and laziness. On the contrary, whenever some agreeable news had reached him from the provinces, over a lavish dinner he would perform ribald songs about the leaders of the revolt, set to lewd music, and accompanied with gestures: these became widely known. Secretly brought into the seating area of a theater, he sent a message to an actor who was attracting applause: “You’re taking advantage of my being tied up with public duties.”
43. When the revolt first broke out, Nero is believed to have made many frightful plans, though they were in keeping with his nature. He intended to send out successors and murderers of those who were ruling provinces and armies, on the grounds that these men were all of one mind and conspiring against him. He intended to slay all exiles everywhere and all men from Gaul in the city of Rome—the former, so that they could not join those in rebellion, and the latter, on the grounds that they were aware of their countrymen’s plans and supported them. And he intended to turn over the Gallic provinces to his armies for plundering, to murder the entire Senate with poison at banquets, and to set fire to Rome after unleashing wild animals on the people so that it would be that much harder for them to defend themselves.
(2) But he was deterred, not so much by remorse as despair that he could carry these things out. Believing that an expedition was necessary, he deprived the consuls of office before their term was over and in their place took up the consulship alone, on the grounds that it was fated that the Gallic provinces could be defeated only by a consul. When, after dinner, he left his couch and took up his fasces, he leaned on the shoulders of his friends and said, “As soon as I reach the province, I will present myself unarmed before the armies and do nothing but weep. After the rebels are brought to remorse, on the following day, I will rejoice with them and sing victory songs, which reminds me . . . I should be composing them now.”
44. In preparing his expedition, he took most care in choosing carts to carry organs for the theater and in giving the concubines he was bringing with him masculine haircuts and equipping them with the battle-axes and shields of Amazons. Next, he summoned the city-dwellers of Rome to military service. When nobody suitable responded, he required slave-owners to provide a fixed number of slaves. He accepted only the best from each household and did not even make exceptions for accountants or secretaries. (2) He also ordered all classes to surrender part of their property and, in addition, the tenants of private buildings and apartment blocks to pay at once their annual rent. With excessive fastidiousness and severity, he demanded coins in m
int condition, silver that was the purest, and gold of the finest quality, with the result that many men openly refused to pay all of their tribute and there were widespread demands that, instead, whatever rewards the informers had received should be recovered.
45. Hostility to him also grew because he was making a profit out of the high price of grain. As luck would have it, during a general shortage of food, word went out that a ship from Alexandria had arrived, carrying a load of sand for the wrestlers of Nero’s court.
(2) As a result, everyone’s hatred for him increased and there was no insult he did not endure. On a statue of him, a lock of hair was attached to his forehead, with the Greek inscription: “Now finally you have competition: throw in the towel!”12 On the neck of another, a leather bag was tied, along with a sign: “I did what I could, but you deserve the sack.”13 And on columns it was written: “Nero’s singing has awoken even the Gauls.”14 At night, many pretended to have altercations with their slaves and kept calling out for a “Vindicator.”15
46. He also was terrified by clear signs of what was to come, in dreams and auspices and omens, old and new alike. Although never previously in the habit of dreaming, just after he killed his mother he had a vision in his sleep that he was piloting a ship and the steering oar was wrenched away from him. He dreamt that he was being dragged by his wife Octavia into thickest darkness and now was being crowded in by a multitude of winged ants, now surrounded by the statues of the nations dedicated at the Theater of Pompey and blocked from moving forward. And he dreamt that a Spanish horse in which he took the greatest delight was, in its lower parts, transformed into a monkey; only its head was intact and it let out melodious neighs.
(2) The doors of the Mausoleum spontaneously burst open and from within a voice was heard summoning him by name. On New Year’s Day, lavishly-decorated Lares fell down amid the preparations for the sacrifice.16 As Nero was taking the auspices, Sporus made the gift of a ring, the stone of which was engraved with the rape of Persephone.17 When vows were being made and a great throng of people of all ranks had gathered, the keys of the Capitol could not be found for a long time.18 (3) A speech of Nero attacking Vindex was being read out in the Senate which said that the wretches would pay the penalty and meet their just deserts soon, at which everyone shouted: “You will do it, Augustus!” It also had not gone unnoticed that the last play that he had sung publicly was Oedipus in Exile and he had ended with this line: “Wife, mother, father, force me to die.”