At Rome also, being extremely proud of
					his singing, he ordered the games called Neronia to be celebrated before the
					time fixed for their return. All now becoming importunate to hear "his heavenly
					voice," he informed them, "that he would gratify those who desired it at the
					gardens." But the soldiers then on guard seconding the voice of the people, he
					promised to comply with their request immediately, and with all his heart. He
					instantly ordered his name to be entered upon the list of musicians who proposed
					to contend, and having thrown his lot into the urn among the rest, took his
					turn, and entered, attended by the prefects of the pretorian cohorts bearing his
					harp, and followed by the military tbunes, and several of his intimate friends.
					After he had taken his station, and made the usual prelude, he commanded Cluvius
					Rufus, a man of consular rank, to proclaim in the theatre, that he intended to
					sing the story of Niobe. This he accordingly did, and continued it until nearly
					ten o'clock, but deferred the disposal of the crown, and the remaining part of
					the solemnity, until the next year; that he might have more frequent
					opportunities of performing. But that being too long, he could not refrain from
					often appearing as a public performer during the interval. He made no scruple of
					exhibiting on the stage, even in the spectacles presented to the people by
					private persons, and was offered by one of the praetors, no less than a million
					of sesterces for his services. He likewise sang tragedies in a mask; the visors
					of the heroes and gods, as also of the heroines and goddesses, being formed into
					a resemblance of his own face, and that of any woman he was in love with.
					Amongst the rest, he sung "Canace in Labour," Canace was
						the daughter of an Etrurian king, whose incestuous intercourse with her
						brother having been detected, in consequence of the cries of the infant of
						which she was delivered, she killed herself. It was a joke at Rome , that some one asking, when Nero was
						performing in Canace, what the emperor was doing; a wag replied, "He is
						labouring in child-birth." "Orestes the Murderer of his Mother,"
					"Oedipus Blinded," and "Hercules Mad." In the last tragedy, it is said that a
					young sentinel, posted at the entrance of the stage, seeing him in a prison
					dress and bound with fetters, as the fable of the play required, ran to his
					assistance. He had from his childhood an extravagant passion for horses; and his constant
					talk was of the Circensian races, notwithstanding it was prohibited him.
					Lamenting once, among his fellow-pupils, the case of a charioteer of the green
					party, who was dragged round the circus at the tail of his chariot, and being
					reprimanded by his tutor for it, he pretended that he was talking of Hector. In
					the beginning of his reign, he used to amuse himself daily with chariots drawn
					by four horses, made of ivory, upon a table. He attended at all the lesser
					exhibitions in the circus, at first privately, but at last openly; so that
					nobody ever doubted of his presence on any particular day. Nor did he conceal
					his desire to have the number of the prizes doubled; so that the races being
					increased accordingly, the diversion continued until a late hour; the leaders of
					parties refusing now to bring out their companies for any time less than the
					whole day. Upon this, he took a fancy for driving the chariot himself, and that
					even publicly. Having made his first experiment in the gardens, amidst crowds of
					slaves and other rabble, he at length performed in the view of all the people,
					in the Circus Maximus, whilst one of his freedmen dropped the napkin in the
					place where the magistrates used to give the signal. Not satisfied with
					exhibiting various specimens of his skill in those arts at Rome , he went over to Achaia , as has been already said, principally
					for this purpose. The several cities, in which solemn trials of musical skill
					used to be publicly held, had resolved to send him the crowns belonging to those
					who bore away the prize. These he accepted so graciously, that he not only gave
					the deputies who brought them an immediate audience, but even invited them to
					his table. Being requested by some of them to sing at supper, and prodigiously
					applauded, he said, " the Greeks were the only people who had an ear for music,
					and were the only good judges of him and his attainments." Without delay he
					commenced his journey, and on his arrival at Cassiope, A
						town in Corcyra , now Corfu . There was a sea-port of the same
						name in Epirus . exhibited
					his first musical performance before the altar of Jupiter Cassius. He afterwards appeared at the celebrarion of all public games in Greece : for such as fell in different years,
					he brought within the compass of one, and some he ordered to be celebrated a
					second time in the same year. At Olympia , likewise, contrary to custom, he appointed a public
					performance of music: and that he might meet with no interruption in this
					employment, when he was informed by his freedman Helius, that affairs at
						 Rome required his presence, he
					wrote to him in these words: "Though now all your hopes and wishes are for my
					speedy return, yet you ought rather to advise and hope that I may come back with
					a character worthy of Nero. During the time of his musical performance, nobody w
					s allowed to stir out of the theatre upon any account, hoever necessary;
					insomuch, that it is said some wome with child were delivered there. Many of the
					spectator being quite wearied with hearing and applauding hir, because the town
					gates were shut, slipped privately over . the walls; or counterfeiting
					themselves dead, were ca ried out for their funeral. With what extreme anxiety h
					engaged in these contests, with what keen desire to be r away the prize, and
					with how much awe of the judges, s scarcely to be believed. As if his
					adversaries had been on a level with himself he would watch them narrowly,
					defame them privately, and sometimes, upon meeting them, rail at them in very
					scurrilous language; or bribe them, if they were better performers than himself,
					He always addressed the judges with the most profound reverence before he began,
					telling them, " he had done all things that were necessary, by way of
					preparation, but that the issue of the approaching trial was in the hand of
					fortune; and that they, as wise and skilful men, ought to exclude from their
					judgment things merely accidental." Upon their encouraging him to have a good
					heart, he went off with more assurance, but not entirely free from anxiety;
					interpreting the silence and modesty of some of them into sourness and
					ill-nature, and saying that he was suspicious of them. In these contests, he adhered so strictly to the rules, that he never durst spit,
					nor wipe the sweat from his forehead in any other way than with his sleeve.
					Having, in the performance of a tragedy, dropped his sceptre, and not quickly
					recovering it, he was in a great fright, lest he should be set aside for the
					miscarriage, and could not regain his assurance, until an actor who stood by
					swore he was certain it had not been observed in the midst of the acclamations
					and exultations of the people. When the prize was adjudged to him, he always
					proclaimed it himself; and even entered the list with the heralds. That no
					memory or the least monument might remain of any other victor in the sacred
					Grecian games, he ordered all their statues and pictures to be pulled down,
					dragged away with hooks, and thrown into the common sewers. He drove the chariot
					with various numbers of horses, and at the Olympic games with no fewer than ten;
					though, in a poem of his, he had reflected upon Mithridates for that innovation.
					Being thrown out of his chariot, he was again replaced, but could not retain his
					seat, and was obliged to give it up, before he reached the goal, but was crowned
					notwithstanding. On his departure he declared the whole province a free counry,
					and conferred upon the judges in the several games the freedom of Rome , with large sums of money. All these
					favours he proclaimed himself with his own voice, from the middle of the
					Stadium, during the solemnity of the Isthmian games. On his return from Greece , arriving at
						 Naples , because he had commenced
					his career as a public performer in that city, he made his entrance in a chariot
					drawn by white horses through a breach in the city-wall, according to the
					practice of those who were victorious in the sacred Grecian games. In the same
					manner he entered Antium , Alba, and
						 Rome . He made his entry into the
					city riding in the same chariot in which Augustus had triumphed, in a purple
					tunic, and a cloak embroidered with golden stars, having on his head the crown
					won at Olympia , and in his right
					hand that which was given him at the Parthian games: the rest being carried in a
					procession before him, with inscriptions denoting the places where they had been
					won, from whom, and in what plays or musical performances; whilst a train
					followed him with loud acclamations, crying out, that " they were the emperor's
					attendants, and the soldiers of his triumph." Having then caused an arch of the
					Circus Maximus The Circus Maximus, frequently mentioned by
						Suetonius, was so called because it was the largest of all the circuses in
						and about Rome . Rudely constructed
						of timber by 'arquinius Drusus, and enlarged and improved with the growing
						fortunes of the republic, under the emperors it became a most superb
						building. Julius Caesar (c. xxxix) extended it, and surrounded it with a
						canal, ten feet deep and as many broad, to protect the spectators against
						danger from the chariots during the races. Claudius (c. xxi.) rebuilt the
						carceres with marble, and gilded the mete. This vast centre of attraction to
						the Roman people, in the games of which religion, politics, and amusement,
						were combined, was, according to Pliny, three stadia (of 625 feet) long, and
						one broad, and held 260,000 spectators; so that Juvenal says, "Totam hodie
						Roman circus capit."-Sat. xi. 195. This poetical exaggeration is applied by
						Addison to the Colosseum: "That on its public shews unpeopled Rome ."-Letter to Lord Halfax. The area of
						the Circus Maximus occupied the hollow between the Palatine and Aventine hills, so that it was overlooked by the imperial
						palace, from which the emperors had so full a view of it, that they could
						from that height give the signals for commencing the races. Few fragments of
						it remain; but from the circus of Caracalla, which is better preserved, a
						tolerably good idea of the ancient circus may be formed. For details of its
						parts, and the mode in which the sports were conducted, see Burton's
						Antiquities, p. 309, c. to be taken down, he passed through the
					breach, as also through the Velabrum The Velabrum was a
						street in Rome . See JULIUS Caesar,
						C. Xxxvii. and the forum, to the Palatine hill and the temple of Apollo. Every where as he
					marched along, victims were slain, whilst the streets were strewed with saffron,
					and birds, chaplets, and sweetmeats scattered abroad. He suspended the sacred
					crowns in his chamber, about his beds, and caused statues of himself to be
					erected in the attire of a harper, and had his likeness stamped upon the coin in
					the same dress. After this period, he was so tar from abating any thing of his
					application to music, that, for the preservation of his voice, he never
					addressed the soldiers but by messages, or with some person to deliver his
					speeches for him, when he thought fit to make his appearance amongst them. Nor
					did he ever do any thing either in jest or earnest, without a voice-master
					standing by him to caution him against overstraining his vocal organs, and to
					apply a handkerchief to his mouth when he did. He offered his friendship, or
					avowed open enmity to many, according as they were lavish or sparing in giving
					him their applause.