e, wearing the Green
uniform. Beasts, moreover, in large numbers were slaughtered at his house
and many also in public. Again, he would contend as gladiator: (at home he
killed a man in this way, and, in pretending to shave others, instead of
taking off the hairs he sliced off one man's nose, another's ears, and
some other feature of a third;) but in public his contests were [Footnote:
It is just barely possible that the original gave some different idea from
"his contests were" (cp. the text of Boissee).] minus the steel and human
blood. Before entering the theatre he would put on a cleeved tonic of
silk, white interwoven with gold, and we greeted him standing there in
this attire. When he actually went in he donned a pure purple dress
sprinkled with gold, assuming also a similar chlamys of Greek pattern and
a crown made of Indic gems and gold, and carried such a herald's staff as
Mercury does. The lion skin and club were carried before him along the
streets, and at the theatres were invariably placed on a gilded chair,
whether he was present or absent. He himself would enter the theatre in
the garb of Mercury, and casting off everything else begin his performance
in simple tunic and unshod.

[Sidenote:--18--] On the first day he individually killed a hundred bears
by shooting down at them from the top of the elevated circle. The whole
theatre had been divided up by some diameters built in, which supported a
circular roof and intersected each other, the object being that the
beasts, divided into four herds, might be more easily speared at short
range from any point. In the midst of the struggle he grew weary, and
taking from a woman some sweet wine cooled in a club-shaped cup drank it
down at a gulp. At this both the populace and we on the instant all
shouted this phrase, common at drinking bouts: "Long life to you!"

Let no one think that I sully the dignity of history in noting down such
happenings. In general I should have preferred not to mention it, but
since it was one of the emperor's acts and I was myself present, taking
part in everything seen and heard and spoken, I have judged it proper to
suppress none of the details, but to hand them down to the attention of
those who shall live hereafter, just as I should do in the case of
anything else especially great and important. And, indeed, all the
remaining events that took place in my lifetime I shall polish and
elaborate more than earlier occurrences for the rea