ic
priests attending him. And at a solemn entertainment, he desired a
harper who pleased the company much, to sing something in praise of
Domitius; and upon his beginning some songs of Nero's, he started up in
presence of the whole assembly, and could not refrain from applauding
him, by clapping his hands.

XII. After such a commencement of his career, he conducted (435) his
affairs, during the greater part of his reign, entirely by the advice and
direction of the vilest amongst the players and charioteers, and
especially his freedman Asiaticus. This fellow had, when young, been
engaged with him in a course of mutual and unnatural pollution, but,
being at last quite tired of the occupation, ran away. His master, some
time after, caught him at Puteoli, selling a liquor called Posca [711],
and put him in chains, but soon released him, and retained him in his
former capacity. Growing weary, however, of his rough and stubborn
temper, he sold him to a strolling fencing-master; after which, when the
fellow was to have been brought up to play his part at the conclusion of
an entertainment of gladiators, he suddenly carried him off, and at
length, upon his being advanced to the government of a province, gave him
his freedom. The first day of his reign, he presented him with the gold
rings at supper, though in the morning, when all about him requested that
favour in his behalf, he expressed the utmost abhorrence of putting so
great a stain upon the equestrian order.

XIII. He was chiefly addicted to the vices of luxury and cruelty. He
always made three meals a day, sometimes four: breakfast, dinner, and
supper, and a drunken revel after all. This load of victuals he could
well enough bear, from a custom to which he had enured himself, of
frequently vomiting. For these several meals he would make different
appointments at the houses of his friends on the same day. None ever
entertained him at less expense than four hundred thousand sesterces
[712]. The most famous was a set entertainment given him by his brother,
at which, it is said, there were served up no less than two thousand
choice fishes, and seven thousand birds. Yet even this supper he himself
outdid, at a feast which he gave upon the first use of a dish which had
been made for him, and which, for its extraordinary size, he called "The
Shield of Minerva." In this dish there were tossed up together the
livers of char-fish, the brains of pheasants and peacoc