nor Pompey's theatre, nor the great hippodrome, but he desired also a
foreign tour, in order to become, as he said, victor in all the four
contests. [Footnote: Literally "victor of the periodos." This was a name
applied to an athlete who had conquered in the Pythian, Isthmian, Nemean
and Olympian games.] And a multitude not only of Augustans but of other
persons were taken with him, large enough, if it had been a hostile host,
to have subdued both Parthians and all other nations. But they were the
kind you would have expected Nero's soldiers to be, and the arms they
carried were zithers and plectra, masks and buskins. The victories Nero
won were such as befitted that sort of army, and he overcame Terpnus and
Diodorus and Pammenes, instead of Philip or Perseus or Antiochus. It is
probable that his purpose in forcing the Pammenes referred to, who had
been in his prime in the reign of Gaius, to compete in spite of his age,
was that he might overcome him and vent his dislike in abuse of his
statues.

[Sidenote: A.D. 67 (?)] [Sidenote:--9--] Had he done only this, he would
have been the subject of ridicule. So how could one endure to hear about,
let alone seeing, an emperor, an Augustus, listed on the program among the
contestants, training his voice, practicing certain songs, wearing long
hair on his head but with his chin shaven, throwing his toga over his
shoulder in the races, walking about with one or two attendants, eyeing
his adversaries suspiciously and ever and anon throwing out a word to them
in the midst of a boxing match; how he dreaded the directors of the games
and the wielders of the whip and spent money on all of them secretly to
avoid being shown up in his true colors and whipped; and how all that he
did to make himself victor in the citharoedic contest only contributed to
his defeat in the Contest of the Caesars? How find words to denounce the
wickedness of this proscription in which it was not [Footnote: [Greek: oi]
supplied by Reiske.] Sulla that bulletined the names of others, but Nero