Cornutus justly remarked that no one would read so many. It was pointed
out that the Stoic's master, Chrysippus, had written even more. 'Yes,'
said Cornutus, 'but they were of some use to humanity.' Cornutus was
banished, but he saved Rome from the epic. Nero was also prolific in
speeches and, proud of his voice, often appeared on the stage. He
impersonated Orestes matricida, Canace parturiens, Oedipus blind, and
Hercules mad.[43] It is not improbable that the words declaimed or sung
in these scenes were composed by Nero himself.[44] For the encouragement
of music and poetry he had established quinquennial games known as the
Neronia. How far his motives for so doing were interested it is hard to
say. But there is no doubt that he had a passionate ambition to win the
prize at the contest instituted by himself. In A.D. 60, on the first
occasion of the celebration of these games, the prize was won by Lucan
with a poem in praise of Nero.[45] Vacca, in his life of Lucan, states
that this lost him Nero's favour, the emperor being jealous of his
success. The story is demonstrably false,[46] but that Nero subsequently
became jealous of Lucan is undoubted. Till Lucan's fame was assured,
Nero extended his favour to him: then partly through Lucan's extreme
vanity and want of tact, partly through Nero's jealousy of Lucan's
pre-eminence that favour was wholly withdrawn.[47] Nevertheless, though
Nero may have shown jealousy of successful rivals, he seems to have had
sufficient respect for literature to refrain from persecution. He did
not go out of his way to punish personal attacks on himself. If names
were delated to the senate on such a charge, he inclined to mercy. Even
the introduction into an Atellan farce of jests on the deaths of
Claudius and Agrippina was only punished with exile.[48] Only after the
detection of Piso's conspiracy in 65 did his anger vent itself on
writers: towards the end of his reign the distinguished authors,
Virginius Flavus and the Stoic Musonius Rufus, were both driven into
exile. As for the deaths of Seneca and Lucan, the two most distinguished