Yet why should one wonder at this, seeing that this monarch would fasten
naked boys and girls to poles, and then putting on the hide of a wild
beast would approach them and satisfy his brutal lust under the appearance
of devouring parts of their bodies? Such were the indecencies of Nero.

When he received the senators he wore a short flowered tunic with muslin
collar, for he had already begun to transgress precedent in wearing ungirt
tunics in public. It is stated also that knights belonging to the army
used in his reign for the first time saddle-cloths during their public
review.

[Sidenote:--14--] At the Olympic games he fell from the chariot he was
driving and came very near being crushed to death: yet he was crowned
victor. In acknowledgment of this favor he gave to the Hellanodikai the
twenty-five myriads which Galba later demanded back from them. [And to the
Pythia he gave ten myriads for giving some responses to suit him: this
money Galba recovered.] Again, whether from vexation at Apollo for making
some unpleasant predictions to him or because he was merely crazy, he took
away from the god the territory of Cirrha and gave it to the soldiers. In
fact, he abolished the oracle, slaying men and throwing them into the rock
fissure from which the divine _afflatus_ arose. He contended in every
single city that boasted any contest, and in all cases requiring the
services of a herald he employed for that purpose Cluvius Rufus, an
ex-consul. Athens and the Lacedaemonians were exceptions to this rule,
being the only places that he did not visit at all. He avoided the second
because of the laws of Lycurgus, which stood in the way of his designs,
and the former because of the story about the Furies.--The proclamation
ran: "Nero Caesar wins this contest and crowns the Roman people and his
world." Possessing according to his own statement a world, he went on
singing and playing, making proclamations, and acting tragedies.