beautiful,--and with brilliant results; and this is why, not fancying her
appearance in a mirror one day, she prayed that she might die before she
passed her prime. Nero missed her so that [after her death, at first, on
learning that there was a woman resembling her he sent for and kept this
female: later] because a boy of the _liberti_ class, named Sporus,
resembled Sabina, he had him castrated and used him in every way like a
woman; and in due time he formally married him though he [Nero] was
already married to a freedman Pythagoras. He assigned the boy a regular
dowry according to contract, and Romans as well as others held a public
celebration of their wedding.

While Nero had Sporus the eunuch as a wife, one of his associates in Rome,
who had made a specialty of philosophy, on being asked whether the
marriage and cohabitation in question met with his approval replied: "You
do well, Caesar, to seek the company of such wives. If only your father
had had the same ambition and had dwelt with a similar
consort!"--indicating that if this had been the case, Nero would not have
been born, and the government would have been relieved of great evils.

This was, however, later. At the time with which we are immediately
concerned many, as I stated, were put to death and many who purchased
their preservation with Tigillinus with a great price were released.

[Sidenote:--29--] Nero continued to commit many ridiculous acts, among
which may be cited his descending at a kind of popular festival to the
orchestra of the theatre, where he read some Trojan lays of his own: and
in honor of these there were offered numerous sacrifices, as there were
over everything else that he did. He was now making preparations to
compile in verse a narration of all the achievements of the Romans: before
composing any of it, however, he began to consider the proper number of