[Sidenote:--18--] All who had sense, likewise, bewailed the multitude of
expenditures. Every costliest viand that men eat, everything else, indeed,
of the highest value,--horses, slaves, teams, gold, silver, raiment of
varied hues,--was given away by tickets. Nero would throw tiny balls, each
one appropriately inscribed, among the populace and that article
represented by the token received would be presented to the person who had
seized it. The sensible, I say, reflected that, when he spent so much to
prevent molestation in his disgraceful course, he would not be restrained
from any most outrageous proceedings through mere hope of profit.

Some portents had taken place about this time, which the seers declared
imported destruction to him, and they advised him to divert the danger
upon others. So he would have immediately put numbers of men out of the
way, had not Seneca said to him: "No matter how many you may slay, you can
not kill your successor."

It was now that he celebrated a corresponding number of "Preservation
Sacrifices," as he called them, and dedicated the forum for the sale of
dainties, called _Macellum_. [Sidenote:--19--] Somewhat later he
instituted a different kind of feast (called Juvenalia, a word that showed
it belonged in some way to "youth"). The occasion was the shaving of his
beard for the first time. The hairs he cast into a small golden globe and
offered to Jupiter Capitolinus. To furnish amusement members of the
noblest families as well as others did not fail to give exhibitions. For
instance, Aelia Catella danced: he was first of all a man prominent for
family and wealth and also advanced in years,--he was eighty years of age.
Others who on account of old age or disease could not do anything on their
own account sang as chorus. All devoted themselves to practicing as much
as and by whatever way they were able. Regularly appointed "schools" were