There occurred too a thick succession of portents, which meant nothing.A woman gave birth to a snake, and another was killed by a thunderbolt in her husband's embrace.Then the sun was suddenly darkened and the fourteen districts of the city were struck by lightning.All this happened quite without any providential design; so much so, that for many subsequent years Nero prolonged his reign and his crimes.Still, to deepen the popular hatred towards his mother, and prove that since her removal, his clemency had increased, he restored to their ancestral homes two distinguished ladies, Junia and Calpurnia, with two ex-praetors, Valerius Capito and Licinius Gabolus, whom Agrippina had formerly banished.He also allowed the ashes of Lollia Paulina to be brought back and a tomb to be built over them.Iturius and Calvisius, whom he had himself temporarily exiled, he now released from their penalty.Silana indeed had died a natural death at Tarentum, whither she had returned from her distant exile, when the power of Agrippina, to whose enmity she owed her fall, began to totter, or her wrath was at last appeased.
While Nero was lingering in the towns of Campania, doubting how he should enter Rome, whether he would find the Senate submissive and the populace enthusiastic, all the vilest courtiers, and of these never had a court a more abundant crop, argued against his hesitation by assuring him that Agrippina's name was hated and that her death had heightened his popularity."He might go without a fear," they said, "and experience in his person men's veneration for him." They insisted at the same time on preceding him.They found greater enthusiasm than they had promised, the tribes coming forth to meet him, the Senate in holiday attire, troops of their children and wives arranged according to sex and age, tiers of seats raised for the spectacle, where he was to pass, as a triumph is witnessed.Thus elated and exulting over his people's slavery, he proceeded to the Capitol, performed the thanksgiving, and then plunged into all the excesses, which, though ill-restrained, some sort of respect for his mother had for a while delayed.
He had long had a fancy for driving a four-horse chariot, and a no less degrading taste for singing to the harp, in a theatrical fashion, when he was at dinner.This he would remind people was a royal custom, and had been the practice of ancient chiefs; it was celebrated too in the praises of poets and was meant to show honour to the gods.
Songs indeed, he said, were sacred to Apollo, and it was in the dress of a singer that that great and prophetic deity was seen in Roman temples as well as in Greek cities.He could no longer be restrained, when Seneca and Burrus thought it best to concede one point that he might not persist in both.A space was enclosed in the Vatican valley where he might manage his horses, without the spectacle being public.Soon he actually invited all the people of Rome, who extolled him in their praises, like a mob which craves for amusements and rejoices when a prince draws them the same way.
However, the public exposure of his shame acted on him as an incentive instead of sickening him, as men expected.Imagining that he mitigated the scandal by disgracing many others, he brought on the stage descendants of noble families, who sold themselves because they were paupers.As they have ended their days, I think it due to their ancestors not to hand down their names.And indeed the infamy is his who gave them wealth to reward their degradation rather than to deter them from degrading themselves.He prevailed too on some well-known Roman knights, by immense presents, to offer their services in the amphitheatre; only pay from one who is able to command, carries with it the force of compulsion.
Still, not yet wishing to disgrace himself on a public stage, he instituted some games under the title of "juvenile sports," for which people of every class gave in their names.Neither rank nor age nor previous high promotion hindered any one from practising the art of a Greek or Latin actor and even stooping to gestures and songs unfit for a man.Noble ladies too actually played disgusting parts, and in the grove, with which Augustus had surrounded the lake for the naval fight, there were erected places for meeting and refreshment, and every incentive to excess was offered for sale.Money too was distributed, which the respectable had to spend under sheer compulsion and which the profligate gloried in squandering.Hence a rank growth of abominations and of all infamy.Never did a more filthy rabble add a worse licentiousness to our long corrupted morals.
Even, with virtuous training, purity is not easily upheld; far less amid rivalries in vice could modesty or propriety or any trace of good manners be preserved.Last of all, the emperor himself came on the stage, tuning his lute with elaborate care and trying his voice with his attendants.There were also present, to complete the show, a guard of soldiers with centurions and tribunes, and Burrus, who grieved and yet applauded.Then it was that Roman knights were first enrolled under the title of Augustani, men in their prime and remarkable for their strength, some, from a natural frivolity, others from the hope of promotion.Day and night they kept up a thunder of applause, and applied to the emperor's person and voice the epithets of deities.Thus they lived in fame and honour, as if on the strength of their merits.
Nero however, that he might not be known only for his accomplishments as an actor, also affected a taste for poetry, and drew round him persons who had some skill in such compositions, but not yet generally recognised.They used to sit with him, stringing together verses prepared at home, or extemporised on the spot, and fill up his own expressions, such as they were, just as he threw them off.This is plainly shown by the very character of the poems, which have no vigour or inspiration, or unity in their flow.