Nero | Page 4

which he gave the first
day of his reign to the tribune on guard, was, "The (343) Best of
Mothers," and afterwards he frequently appeared with her in the streets
of Rome in her litter. He settled a colony at Antium, in which he placed
the veteran soldiers belonging to the guards; and obliged several of the
richest centurions of the first rank to transfer their residence to that
place; where he likewise made a noble harbour at a prodigious expense.
[568]
X. To establish still further his character, he declared, "that he designed
to govern according to the model of Augustus;" and omitted no
opportunity of showing his generosity, clemency, and complaisance.
The more burthensome taxes he either entirely took off, or diminished.
The rewards appointed for informers by the Papian law, he reduced to a
fourth part, and distributed to the people four hundred sesterces a man.
To the noblest of the senators who were much reduced in their
circumstances, he granted annual allowances, in some cases as much as
five hundred thousand sesterces; and to the pretorian cohorts a monthly
allowance of corn gratis. When called upon to subscribe the sentence,
according to custom, of a criminal condemned to die, "I wish," said he,
"I had never learnt to read and write." He continually saluted people of
the several orders by name, without a prompter. When the senate
returned him their thanks for his good government, he replied to them,
"It will be time enough to do so when I shall have deserved it." He
admitted the common people to see him perform his exercises in the
Campus Martius. He frequently declaimed in public, and recited verses
of his own composing, not only at home, but in the theatre; so much to
the joy of all the people, that public prayers were appointed to be put
up to the gods upon that account; and the verses which had been
publicly read, were, after being written in gold letters, consecrated to
Jupiter Capitolinus.
(344) XI. He presented the people with a great number and variety of
spectacles, as the Juvenal and Circensian games, stage-plays, and an
exhibition of gladiators. In the Juvenal, he even admitted senators and
aged matrons to perform parts. In the Circensian games, he assigned the
equestrian order seats apart from the rest of the people, and had races

performed by chariots drawn each by four camels. In the games which
he instituted for the eternal duration of the empire, and therefore
ordered to be called Maximi, many of the senatorian and equestrian
order, of both sexes, performed. A distinguished Roman knight
descended on the stage by a rope, mounted on an elephant. A Roman
play, likewise, composed by Afranius, was brought upon the stage. It
was entitled, "The Fire;" and in it the performers were allowed to carry
off, and to keep to themselves, the furniture of the house, which, as the
plot of the play required, was burnt down in the theatre. Every day
during the solemnity, many thousand articles of all descriptions were
thrown amongst the people to scramble for; such as fowls of different
kinds, tickets for corn, clothes, gold, silver, gems, pearls, pictures,
slaves, beasts of burden, wild beasts that had been tamed; at last, ships,
lots of houses, and lands, were offered as prizes in a lottery.
XII. These games he beheld from the front of the proscenium. In the
show of gladiators, which he exhibited in a wooden amphitheatre, built
within a year in the district of the Campus Martius [569], he ordered
that none should be slain, not even the condemned criminals employed
in the combats. He secured four hundred senators, and six hundred
Roman knights, amongst whom were some of unbroken fortunes and
unblemished reputation, to act as gladiators. From the same orders, he
engaged persons to encounter wild beasts, and for various other
services in the theatre. He presented the public with the representation
of a naval fight, upon sea-water, with huge fishes swimming in it; as
also with the Pyrrhic dance, performed by certain youths, to each of
whom, after the performance was over, he granted the freedom of
Rome. During this diversion, a bull covered Pasiphae, concealed within
a wooden statue of a cow, as many of the spectators believed. Icarus,
upon his first attempt to fly, fell on the stage close to (345) the
emperor's pavilion, and bespattered him with blood. For he very seldom
presided in the games, but used to view them reclining on a couch, at
first through some narrow apertures, but afterwards with the Podium
[570] quite open. He was the first who instituted [571], in imitation of
the Greeks, a trial of skill in the three several exercises of music,
wrestling, and horse-racing, to be performed at Rome