y because he did not deem it right
for the soldiers to bestow the supreme authority upon any one (for he
declared this to be the prerogative of the senate and the people), or
because he was entirely highminded and felt no personal desire for the
imperial power, to secure which others were willing to do everything.

[Sidenote:--26--] [Nero was informed of the Vindex episode as he was in
Naples viewing the gymnastic contest just after luncheon. He was naturally
far from sorry, and leaping from his seat vied in prowess with some
athlete. He did not hurry back to Rome but merely sent a letter to the
senate, in which he asked them to regard leniently his non-arrival,
because he had a sore throat, implying that when he did come he wanted to
sing to them. And he continued to devote the same care and attention to
his voice, to his songs, and to the zither tunes, not only just then but
also subsequently: so he would not try a tone of his intended program. If
he was at any time compelled by circumstances to make some exclamation,
yet somebody, reminding him that he was to appear as citharoedist, would
straightway check and control him.

In general he still behaved in his accustomed manner and
he was pleased with the news brought him because he had been expecting in
any event to overcome Vindex and because he thought he had now secured a
justifiable ground for money-getting and murders. He enjoyed the same
degree of luxury; and upon the completion and adornment of the heroum of
Sabina he gave it a brilliant dedication, taking care to have inscribed
upon it: "The Women have built This to Sabina, the Goddess Venus." And the
writing told the truth: for the building had been constructed with money
of which a great part had been stolen from women. Also he had his numerous
little jokes, of which I shall mention only one, omitting the rest.] One
night he suddenly summoned in haste the foremost senators and knights,
apparently to make some communication to them regarding the political
situation. When they were assembled, he said: "I have discovered a way by
which the water organ"--I must write exactly what he said--"will produce a
greater and more harmonious volume of sound." Such were his jokes about
this period. And little did he reck that both sets of doors, those of the
monument and those of the bedchamber of Augustus, opened of their own
accord in one and the same night, or that at Albanum it rained so much
blood that rivers of it fl