[A.J.Armitage]

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[Billthedrill]

I've read other sources indicating that the guy really was more than simply a dilettante when it came to art, but unfortunately "emperoring" was a full-time-plus job that killed if it wasn't seen to properly. Gibbon remarked that if Nero had been judged by his first two years of ruling as Trajan was he would have been held in similarly high regard. Other emperors "born to the cloth" - Gratian comes to mind with his hunting obsession - who ignored the needs of office ended up the same way.

Some of what Seutonius repeats is scandalous and of dubious veracity, notably his clear imputation that Nero was culpable in the great fire of Rome. At the time the rumor was that he had done so in order to clear space for his palace, but his subsequent behavior in providing housing and food for the survivors leads us to take this with a grain of salt. His persecution of Christians as scapegoats in that fire was opportunistic and cowardly, but not, evidently, done out of any particular animus for that new religion. Nor did it get him off the hook, as a glance at Seutonius shows.

For those interested in commentary on Seutonius I'd recommend Michael Grant's The Twelve Caesars.

[annalex]

[RnMomof7]

Nero is an interesting figure..sometimes the subject of conversations with my son, The history Buff (he has a special interest in Roman history

XI. He gave many entertainments of different kinds: the Juvenales, chariot races in the Circus, stage-plays, and a gladiatorial show. At the first-mentioned, he had even old men of consular rank and aged matrons take part. For the games in the Circus he assigned places to the equites apart from the rest, and even matched chariots drawn by four camels. At the plays which he gave for the "Eternity of the Empire," which by his order were called the Ludi Maximi, parts were taken by several men and women of both the orders; a well known Roman eques mounted an elephant and rode down a rope; a Roman play of Afranius, too, was staged, entitled "The Fire," and the actors were allowed to carry off the furniture of the burning Curia and keep it. Every day all kinds of presents were thrown to the people; these included a thousand birds of every kind each day, various kinds of food, tickets for grain, clothing, gold, silver, precious stones, pearls, paintings, slaves, beasts of burden, and even trained wild animals; finally, ships, blocks of houses, and farms.

Not unlike recent American history!

I am going to send this to my son..thanks for the flag!

[primeval patriot]

Thanks A.J. -- I promise to post some Boethius soon.

[A.J.Armitage]

Starting out the list I added here.

[sheltonmac]

BUMP. Thanks.

[Marianne]

Thank you for posting.

[tet68]

To the neck of another statue a sack was tied and with it the words: “I have done what I could, but you have earned the sack” [the one in which parricides were put; see Aug. xxxiii.1].

You learn something new every day, I often wondered where
that came from.