eveloped an early mania for
horse-racing, and when he was caught talking in school--where such
conversation was forbidden--about a charioteer who had fallen out of
his chariot and been dragged along the ground, he explained that he
was discussing the passage in Homer where Achilles drags the body of
Hector round the walls of Troy. In after life he carried both forms of
mania to amazing lengths. The highest form of music was then
represented by singing to the harp. Nero's ambition was no less than
to compete with the champion minstrels of the world. As he remarked,
"music is not music unless it is heard," and he decided to make public
appearances upon the stage like any professional. Whenever he did so,
a number of energetic youths, salaried for the purpose, were
distributed among the audience as _claqueurs_--the words actually used
for them being perhaps translatable as "boomers" or "rattlers." He
acted parts in plays--a proceeding which would correspond to an
appearance in opera--and made a peregrination through Greece and back
by way of Naples as an exponent of the art of singing to the harp.
While upon this tour, whenever he was performing in the theatre, the
doors were shut, and no one might leave the building for any reason
whatever. "Many," says the memoir-writer, "got so tired of listening
and praising that they jumped down from the wall, or pretended to be
dead, so as to get carried out." Naturally he always won the prize,
and, on his side, it should be remarked that he honestly believed he
had earned it. He practised assiduously, took hard physical training,
regulated his diet for the cultivation of his voice, which was not
naturally of the best, and probably became not at all a bad amateur.
His monstrous self-conceit did the rest. Besides singing to the harp,
he was prepared to perform upon the flute and the bagpipes, and to
give a dance afterwards. All this, of course, was undignified and
ridiculous, but it was scarcely tyranny. Doubtless there was
sufficient suffering among the audience, but that cruelty was hardly
deliberate. In the Roman noble, whose ideal of behaviour included
dignity and gravity, these public appearances perhaps often aroused
more indignation and scorn than did his sensual vices. The same
contempt was often evoked by other proceedings of a similar nature.
His insatiable fondness for horse-racing, or rather chariot-racing,
induced him to appear also as a charioteer. First he practised in h