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.