LIV. Towards the end of his life, he publicly vowed, that if his power
in the state was securely re-established, he would, in the spectacles
which he intended to exhibit in honour of his success, include a
performance upon organs [635], as well as upon flutes and bagpipes, and,
on the last day of the games, would act in the play, and take the part of
Turnus, as we find it in Virgil. And there are some who say, that he put
to death the player Paris as a dangerous rival.

LV. He had an insatiable desire to immortalize his name, and acquire a
reputation which should last through all succeeding ages; but it was
capriciously directed. He therefore (381) took from several things and
places their former appellations, and gave them new names derived from
his own. He called the month of April, Neroneus, and designed changing
the name of Rome into that of Neropolis.

LVI. He held all religious rites in contempt, except those of the Syrian
Goddess [636]; but at last he paid her so little reverence, that he made
water upon her; being now engaged in another superstition, in which only
he obstinately persisted. For having received from some obscure plebeian
a little image of a girl, as a preservative against plots, and
discovering a conspiracy immediately after, he constantly worshipped his
imaginary protectress as the greatest amongst the gods, offering to her
three sacrifices daily. He was also desirous to have it supposed that he
had, by revelations from this deity, a knowledge of future events. A few
months before he died, he attended a sacrifice, according to the Etruscan
rites, but the omens were not favourable.

LVII. He died in the thirty-second year of his age [637], upon the same
day on which he had formerly put Octavia to death; and the public joy was
so great upon the occasion, that the common people ran about the city