Nero

Two celebrated families, the Calvini and Aenobarbi, sprung from the race of the Domitii. The AEnobarbi derive both their extraction and their cognomen from one Lucius Domitius, of whom we have this tradition:-As he was returning out of the country to Rome, he was met by two young men of a most august appearance, who desired him to announce to the senate and people a victory, of which no certain intelligence had yet reached the city. To prove that they were more than mortals, they stroked his cheeks, and thus changed his hair, which was black, to a bright colour, resembling that of brass; which mark of distinction descended to his posterity, for they had generally red beards. This family had the honour of seven consulships, one triumph, and two censorships; and being admitted into the patrician order, they continued the use of the same cognomen, with no other praenomina, than those of Cneius and Lucius. These, however, they assumed with singular irregularity; three persons in succession sometimes adhering to one of them, and then they were changed alternately. For the first, second, and third of the AEnobarbi had the praenomen of Lucius, and again the three following, successively, that of Cneius, while those who came after were called, by turns, one, Lucius, and the other, Cneius. It appears to me proper to give a short account of several of the family, to show that Nero so far degenerated from the noble qualities of his ancestors, that he retained only their vices; as if those alone had been transmitted to him by his descent.

To begin, therefore, at a remote period, his greatgrandfather's grandfather, Cneius Domitius, when he was tribune of the people, being offended with the high priests for electing another than himself in the room of his father, obtained the transfer of the right of election from the colleges of the priests to the people. In his consulship,[*](A.U.C. 632) having conquered the Allobroges and the Arverni,[*](The Allobroges were a tribe of Gauls, inhabiting Dauphiny and Savoy; the Averni have left their name in Auvergne.) he made a progress through the province, mounted upon an elephant, with a body of soldiers attending him, in a sort of triumphal pomp. Of this person the orator Licinius Crassus said, "It was no wonder he had a brazen beard, who had a face of iron, and a heart of lead." His son, during his praetorship,[*](A.U.C. 695) proposed that Cneius Caesar, upon the expiration of his consulship, should be called to account before the senate for his administration of that office, which was supposed to be contrary both to the omens and the laws. Afterwards, when he was consul himself,[*](A.U.C. 700) he tried to deprive Cneius of the command of the army, and having been, by intrigue and cabal, appointed his successor, he was made prisoner at Corsinium, in the beginning of the civil war. Being set at liberty, he went to Marseilles, which was then besieged; where having by his presence, animated the people to hold out, he suddenly deserted them, and at last was slain in the battle of Pharsalia. He was a man of little constancy, and of a sullen temper. In despair of his fortunes, he had recourse to poison, but was so terrified at the thoughts of death, that, immediately repenting, he took a vomit to throw it up again, and gave freedom to his physician for having, with great prudence and wisdom, given him only a gentle dose of the poison. When Cneius Pompey was consulting with his friends in what manner he should conduct himself towards those who were neuter and took no part in the contest, he was the only one who proposed that they should be treated as enemies.

He left a son, who was, without doubt, the best of the family. By the Pedian law, he was condemned, although innocent, amongst others who were concerned in the death of Caesar.[*](A. U. C. 711.) Upon this, he went over to Brutus and Cassius, his near relations; and, after their death, not only kept together the fleet, the command of which had been given him some time before, but even increased it.

At last, when the party had everywhere been defeated, he voluntarily surrendered it to Mark Antony; considering it as a piece of service for which the latter owed him no small obligations. Of all those who were condemned by the law above-mentioned, he was the only man who was restored to his country, and filled the highest offices. When the civil war again broke out, he was appointed lieutenant under the.same Antony, and offered the chief command by those who were ashamed of Cleopatra; but not daring, on account of a sudden indisposition with which he was seized, either to accept or refuse it, he went over to Augustus,[*](A. U. C. 723.) and died a few days after, not without an aspersion cast upon his memory. For Antony gave out, that he was induced to change sides by his impatience to be with his mistress, Servilia Nais. [*](Nais seems to have been a freedwoman, who had been allowed to adopt the family name of her master. )

This Cneius had a son, named Domitius, who was afterwards well known as the nominal purchaser of the family property left by Augustus's will; [*](By one of those fictions of law, which have abounded in all systems of jurisprudence, a nominal alienation of his property was made in the testator's life-time.) and no less famous in his youth for his dexterity in chariot-driving, than he was afterwards for the triumphal ornaments which he obtained in the German war. But he was a man of great arrogance, prodigality, and cruelty. When he was aedile, he obliged Lucius Plancus, the censor, to give him the way; and in his praetorship, and consulship, he made Roman knights and married women act on the stage. He gave hunts of wild beasts, both in the Circus and in all the wards of the city; as also a show of gladiators; but with such barbarity, that Augustus, after privately reprimanding him, to no purpose, was obliged to restrain him by a public edict.

By the elder Antonia he had Nero's father, a man of execrable character in every part of his life. During his attendance upon Caius Caesar in the East, he killed a freedman of his own, for refusing to drink as much as he ordered him. Being dismissed for this from Caesar's society, he did not mend his habits, for, in a village upon the Appian road, he suddenly whipped his horses, and drove his chariot, on purpose, over a poor boy, crushing him to pieces. At Rome, he struck out the eye of a Roman knight in the Forum, only for some free language in a dispute between them. He was likewise so fraudulent, that he not only cheated some silversmiths[*](The suggestion offered (note, p. 138), that the Argentarii, like the goldsmiths of the middle ages, combined the business of bankers, or money changers, with dealings in gold and silver plate, is confirmed by this passage. It does not, however, appear that they were artificers of the precious metals, though they dealt in old and current coins, sculptured vessels, gems, and precious stones. ) of the price of goods he had bought of them, but, during his praetorship, defrauded the owners of chariots in the Circensian games of the prizes due to them for their victory. His sister, jeering him for the complaints made by the leaders of the several parties, he agreed to sanction a law, " That, for the future, the prizes should be immediately paid." A little before the death of Tiberius, he was prosecuted for treason, adulteries, and incest with his sister T.picla, hut escaped in the timely change of affairs, and died of a dropsy, at Pyrgi;[*](Pyrgi was a town of the ancient Etruria, near Antium, on the sea coast, but it has long been destroyed.) leaving behind him his son, Nero, whom he had by Agrippina, the daughter of Germanicus.

Nero was born at Antium, nine months after the death of Tiberius,[*](A.U.C. 791; A.D. 39) upon the eighteenth of the calends of January [15th December], just as the sun rose, so that its beams touched him before they could well reach the earth. While many fearful conjectures, in respect to his future fortune, were formed by different persons, from the circumstances of his nativity, a saying of his father, Domitius, was regarded as an ill presage, who told his friends who were congratulating him upon the occasion, "That nothing but what was detestable and pernicious to the public, could ever be produced of him and Agrippina." Another manifest prognostic of his future infelicity occurred upon his lustration day.[*](The purification, and giving the name, took place, among the Romans, in the case of boys, on the ninth, and of girls, on the tenth day. The customs of the Judaical law were similar. See Matt. i. 59-63. Luke iii. 21, 22.) For Caius Caesar being requested by his sister to give the child what name he thought proper—looking at his uncle, Claudius, who afterwards, when emperor, adopted Nero, he gave his: and this not seriously, but only in jest; Agrippina treating it with contempt, because Claudius at that time was a mere laughing-stock at the palace. He lost his father when he was three years old, being left heir to a third part of his estate; of which he never got possession, the whole being seized by his co-heir, Caius. His mother being soon after banished, he lived with his aunt Lepida, in a very necessitous condition, under the care of two tutors, a dancing-master and a barber. After Claudius came to the empire, he not only recovered his father's estate, but was enriched with the additional inheritance of that of his step-father, Crispus Passienus. Upon his mother's recall from banishment, he ,vas advanced to such favour, through Nero's powerful /terest with the emperor, that it was reported, assassins were employed by Messalina, Claudius's wife, to strangle him, as Britannicus's rival, whilst he was taking his noon-day repose. In addition to the story, it was said that they were frightened by a serpent, which crept from under his cushion, and ran away. The tale was occasioned by finding on his couch, near the pillow, the skin of a snake, which, by his mother's order, he wore for some time upon his right arm, inclosed in a bracelet of gold. This amulet, at last, he laid aside, from aversion to her memory; but he sought for it again in vain, in the time of his extremity.

When he was yet a mere boy, before he arrived at the age of puberty, during the celebration of the Circensian Games,[*](A.U.C. 806) he performed his part in the Trojan play with a degree of firmness which gained him great applause. In the eleventh year of his age, he was adopted by Claudius, and placed under the tuition of Anneus Seneca, [*](Seneca. the celebrated philosophical writer. had been released from exile in Corsica, shortly before the death of Tiberius. He afterwards fell a sacrifice to the jealousy and cruelty of his former pupil, Nero.) who had been made a senator. It is said, that Seneca dreamt the night after, that he was giving a lesson to Caius Caesar.[*](Caligula) Nero soon verified his dream, betraying the cruelty of his disposition in every way he could. For he attempted to persuade his father that his brother, Britannicus, was nothing but a changeling, because the latter had saluted him, notwithstanding his adoption, by the name of ,Enobarbus, as usual. When his aunt, Lepida, was brought to trial, he appeared in court as a witness against her, to gratify his mother, who persecuted the accused. On his introduction into the Forum, at the age of manhood, he gave a largess to the people and a donative to the soldiers; for the pretorian cohorts, he appointed a solemn procession under arms, and marched at the head of them with a shield in his hand; after which he went to return thanks to his father in the senate. Before Claudius, likewise, at the time he was consul, he made a speech for the Bolognese, in Latin, and for the Rhodians and people of Ilium, in Greek. He had the jurisdiction of praefect of the city, for the first time, during the Latin festival; during which the most celebrated advocates brought before him, not short and trifling causes, as is usual in that case, but trials of importance, notwithstanding they had instructions from Claudius himself to the contrary. Sooa afterwards, he married Octavia, and exhibited the Circensian games, and hunting of wild beasts, in honour of Claudius.

He was seventeen years of age at the death of that prince,[*](A. U. C. 809—A. D. 87.) and as soon as that event was made public, he went out to the cohort on guard between the hours of six and seven; for the omens were so disastrous, that no earlier time of the day was judged proper. On the steps before the palace gate, he was unanimously saluted by the soldiers as their emperor, and then carried in a litter to the camp; thence, after making a short speech to the troops, into the senate-house, where he continued until the evening; of all the immense honours which were heaped upon him, refusing but the title of FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY, on account of his youth.

He began his reign with an ostentation of dutiful regard to the memory of Claudius, whom he buried with the utmost pomp and magnificence, pronouncing the funeral oration himself, and then had him enrolled amongst the gods. He paid likewise the highest honours to the memory of his father Domitius. He left the management of affairs, both public and private, to his mother. The word which he gave the first day of his reign to the tribune on guard, was, "The 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.[*](Antium, the birth-place of Nero, an ancient city of the Volscians, stood on a rocky promontory of the coast, now called Capo d' Anzo, about thirty-eight miles from Rome. Though always a place of some naval importance, it was indebted to Nero for its noble harbour. The ruins of the moles yet remain; and there are vestiges of the temples and villas of the town, which was the resort of the wealthy Romans, it being a most delightful winter residence. The Apollo Belvidere was discovered among these ruins. )

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 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.

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 f6r; 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.

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,[*](A.U.C. 810) 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 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[*](The Podium was part of the amphitheatre, near the orchestra, allotted to the senators, and the ambassadors of foreign nations; and where also was the seat of the emperor, of the peison who exhibited the games, and of the Vestal Virgins. It projected over the wall which surrounded the area of the amphitheatre, and was raised between twelve and fifteen feet above it; secured with a breast-work or parapet against the irruption of wild beasts. ) quite open, He was the first who instituted,[*](A. U. C. 813) 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 every five years, and which he called Neronia. Upon the aedication of his bath[*](The baths of Nero stood to the west of the Pantheon. They were, probably, incorporated with those afterwards constructed by Alexander Severus; but no vestige of them remains. That the former were magnificent, we may infer from the verses of Martial: Quid Nerone pejus?Quid thermis melius Neronianis. B. vii. ch. 34. What worse than Nero? What better than his baths? ) and gymnasium, he furnished the senate and the equestrian order with oil. He appointed as judges of the trial men of consular rank, chosen by lot, who sat with the praetors. At this time he went down into the orchestra among the senators, and received the crown for the best performance in Latin prose and verse, for which several persons of the greatest merit contended, but they unanimously yielded to him. The crown for the best performer an the harp, being likewise awarded to him by the judges, he devoutly saluted it, and ordered it to be carried to the statue of Augustus. In the gymnastic exercises, which he presented in the Septa, while they were preparing the great sacrifice of an ox, he shaved his beard for the first time, [*](Among the Romans, the time at which young men first shaved the beard was marked with particular ceremony. It was usually in their twenty-first year, but the period varied. Caligula (c. x.) first shaved at twenty; Augustus at twenty-five. ) and putting it up in a casket of gold studded with pearls of great price, consecrated it to Jupiter Capitolinus. He invited the Vestal Virgins to see the wrestlers perform, because, at Olympia, the priestesses of Ceres are allowed the privilege of witnessing that exhibition.

Amongst the spectacles presented by him, the solemn entrance of Tiridates [*](A. U. C. 819. See afteiwards, c. xxx. ) into the city deserves to be mentioned. This personage, who was king of Armenia, he invited to Rome by very liberal promises. But being prevented by very unfavourable weather from showing him to the people upon the day fixed by proclamation, he took the first opportunity which occurred; several cohorts being drawn up under arms, about the temples and in the forum, while he was seated on a curule chair on the rostra, in a triumphal dress, amidst the military standards and ensigns. Upon Tiridates advancing towards him, on a stage made shelving for the purpose, he permitted him to throw himself at his feet, but quickly raised him with his right hand, and kissed him. The emperor then, at the king's request, took the turban from his head, and replaced it by a crown, whilst a person of pretorian rank proclaimed in Latin the words in which the prince addressed the emperor as a suppliant. After this ceremony, the king was conducted to the theatre, where, after renewing his obeisance, Nero seated him on his right hand. Being then greeted by universal acclamation with the title of Emperor, and sending his laurel crown to the Capitol, Nero shut the temple of the two-faced Janus, as though there now existed no war throughout the Roman empire.

He filled the consulship four times:[*](A.U.C. 808, 810, 811, 813) the first for two months. the second and last for six, and the third for four; the two intermediate ones he held successively, but the others after an interval of some years between them.

In the administration of justice, he scarcely ever gave his decision on the pleadings before the next day, and then in writing. His manner of hearing causes was not to allow any adjournment, but to dispatch them in order as they stood. When he withdrew to consult his assessors, he did not debate the matter openly with them; but silently and privately reading over their opinions, which they gave separately in writing, he pronounced sen- tence from the tribunal according to his own view of the case, as if it was the opinion of the majority. -'For a long time he would not admit the sons of freedmen into the senate; and those who had been admitted by former princes, he excluded from all public offices. To supernumerary candidates he gave command in the legions, to comfort them under the delay of their hopes. The consulship he commonly conferred for six months; and one of the two consuls dying a little before the first of January, he substituted no one in his place; disliking what had been formerly done for Caninius Rebilus on such an occa-, sion, who was consul for one day only. He allowed the triumphal honours only to those who were of quaestorian"' rank, and to some of the equestrian order; and bestowed them without regard to military service. And instead of the quaestors, whose office it properly was, he frequently ordered that the addresses, which he sent to the senate on certain occasions, should be read by the consuls.

He devised a new style of building in the city, ordering piazzas to be erected before all houses both in the streets and detached, to give facilities from their terraces, in case of fire, for preventing it from spreading; and these he built at his own expense. He likewise designed to extend the city walls as far as Ostia, and bring the sea from thence by a canal into the old city. Many severe regulations and new orders were made in his time. A sumptuary law was enacted. Public suppers were limited to the Sportulae;[*](The Sportulae were small wicker baskets, in which victuals or money were carried. The word was in consequence applied to the public entertainments at which food was distributed, or money given in lieu of it.) and victualling-houses restrained from selling any dressed victuals, except pulse and herbs, whereas before they sold all kinds of meat. He likewise inflicted punishments on the Christians, a sort of people who held a new and impious[*]("Superstitionis novae et maleficae," are the words of Suetonius; the latter conveying the idea of witchcraft or enchantment. Suidas relates that a certain martyr cried out from his dungeon "Ye have loaded me with fetters as a sorcerer and profane person." Tacitus calls the Christian religion "a foreign and deadly [exitiabiis] superstition," Annal. xiii. 32; Pliny, in his celebrated letter to Trajan, "a depraved, wicked (orprava), and outrageous superstition." EPist. x. 97.Tacitus also describes the excruciating torments inflicted on the Roman Christians by Nero. He says that they were subjected to the derision of the people; dressed in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to be torn to pieces by dogs in the public games, that they were crucified, or condemned to be burnt; and at night-fall served in place of lamps to lighten the darkness, Nero's own gardens being used for the spectacle. Annal. xv. 44.Traditions of the church place the martyrdoms of SS Peter and Paul at Rome, under the reign of Nero. The legends are given by Ordericus Vitalis. See vol. i. of the edition in the Antiq. Lib. pp. 206, etc., with the notes and reference to the apocryphal works on which they are founded.) superstition. He forbad the revels of the charioteers, who had long assumed a licence to stroll about, and established for themselves a kind of prescriptive right to cheat and thieve, making a jest of it. The partisans of the rival theatrical performers were banished, as well as the actors themselves.

To prevent forgery, a method was then first invented, of having writings bored, run through three times with a thread, and then sealed. It was likewise provided that in wills, the two first pages, with only the testator's name upon them, should be presented blank to those who were to sign them as witnesses; and that no one who wrote a will for another, should insert any legacy for himself. It was likewise ordained that clients should pay their advocates a certain reasonable fee, but \, nothing for the court, which was to be gratuitous, the charges for it being paid out of the public treasury; that causes, the cognizance of which before belonged to the judges of the exchequer, should be transferred to the forum, aid the ordinary tribunals; and that all appeals from the judges should be made to the senate.

He never entertained the least ambition or hope of augmenting and extending the frontiers of the empire. On the contrary, he had thoughts of withdrawing the troops from Britain, and was only restrained from so doing by the fear of appearing to detract from the glory of his father.[*](Claudius had received the submission of some of the British tribes. See c. xvii. of his Life. In the reign of Nero, his general, Suetonius Paulinus, attacked Mona or Anglesey, the chief seat of the Druids, and extirpated them with great cruelty. The successes of Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, who inhabited Derbyshire, were probably the cause of Nero's wishing to withdraw the legions; she having reduced London, Colchester, and Verulam, and put to death seventy thousand of the Romans and their British allies. She was, however, at length defeated by Suetonius Paulinus, who was recalled for his severities. See Tacit. Agric. xv. I, xvi. ; and Annal. xiv. 29.) All that he did was to reduce the kingdom of Pontus, which was ceded to him by Polemon, and also the Alps,[*](The dominions of Cottius embraced the valleys in the chain of the Alps, extending between Piedmont and Dauphiny, called by the Romans the Cottian Alps. See TIBERIUS, c. xxxvii. ) upon the death of Cottius, into the form of a province.

Twice only he undertook any foreign expeditions, one to Alexandria, and the other to Achaia; but he abandoned the prosecution of the former on the very day fixed for his departure, by being deterred both by ill omens, and the hazard of the voyage. For while he was making the circuit of the temples, having seated himself in that of Vesta, when he attempted to rise, the skirt of his robe stuck fast; and he was instantly seized with such a dimness in his eyes, that he could not see a yard before him. In Achaia, he attempted to make a cut through the Isthmus;[*](It was a favourite project of the Caesars to make a navigable canal through the Isthmus of Corinth, to avoid the circumnavigation of the southern extremity of the Morea, now Cape Matapan, which, even in our days, has its perils. See JULIUS Caesar, C. xliv. and CALIGULA, C. xxi. ) and, having made a speech encouraging his pretorians to set about the work, on a signal given by sound of trumpet, he first broke ground with a spade, and carried off a basket full of earth upon his shoulders. He made preparations for an expedition to the Pass of the Caspian mountains;[*](Caspiae Porta; so called from the difficulties opposed by the narrow and rocky defile to the passage of the Caucasus from the country washed by the Euxine, now called Georgia, to that lying between the Caspian and the sea of Azof. It commences a few miles north of Teflis, and is frequently the scene of contests between the Russians and Circassian tribes.) forming a new legion out of his late levies in Italy, of men all six feet high, which he called the phalanx of Alexander the Great. These transactions, in part unexceptionable, and in part highly commendable, I have brought into one view, in order to separate them from the scandalous and criminal part of his conduct, of which I shall now give an account.

Among the other liberal arts which he was taught in his youth, he was instructed in music; and immediately after his advancement to the empire, he sent for Terpnus, a performer upon the harp,[*](Citharoedus: the word signifies a vocalist, who with his singing gave an accompaniment on the harp.) who flourished at that time with the highest reputation. Sitting with him for several days following, as he sang and played after supper, until late at night, he began by degrees to practise upon the instrument himself. Nor did he omit any of those expedients which artists in music adopt, for the preservation and improvement of their voices. He would lie upon his back with a sheet of lead upon his breast, clear his stomach and bowels by vomits and clysters, and forbear the eating of fruits, or food prejudicial to the voice. Encouraged by his proficiency, though his voice was neither loud nor clear, he was desirous of appearing upon the stage, frequently repeating amongst his friends a Greek proverb to this effect: " that no one had any regard for music which they never heard." Accordingly, he made his first public appearance at Naples; and although the theatre quivered with the sudden shock of an earthquake, he did not desist, until he had finished the piece of music he had begun. He played and sung in the same place several times, and for several days together; taking only now and then a little respite to refresh his voice. Impatient of retirement, it was his custom to go from the bath to the theatre; and after dining in the orchestra, amidst a crowded assembly of the people, he promised them in Greek,[*](It has already been observed that Naples was a Greek colony, and consequently Greek appears to have continued the vernacular tongue.) " that after he had drank a little, he would give them a tune which would make their ears tingle." Being highly pleased with the songs that were sung in his praise by some Alexandrians belonging to the fleet just arrived at Naples,[*](See AUGUSTUS, c. xciv.) he sent for more of the like singers from Alexandria. At the same time, he chose young men of the equestrian order, and above five thousand robust young fellows from the common people, on purpose to learn various kinds of applause, called bombi, imbrices, and testae,[*](Of the strange names given to the different modes of applauding in the theatre, the first was derived from the humming of bees; the second from the rattling of rain or hail on the roofs; and the third from the tinkling of porcelain vessels when clashed together. ) which the were to practice in his favour, whenever he performed. They were divided into several parties, and were remarkable for their fine heads of hair, and were extremely well dressed, with rings upon their left hands. The leaders of these bands had salaries of forty thousand sesterces allowed them.