Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - The Roman Emperors in Marble - 5. Nero
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98 ROMAN DAYS,
But how Tacitus thunders, and with what a mass of
clumsy antitheses Dio Cassius vainly endeavors to draw
from us tears over Rome’s humiliation on that day
!
In the fifth year of his reign, the emperor took what
he doubtless thought a decisive step towards the helleil-
ization of Rome, by introducing under the name of the
Neronic games, an imitation of the Olympic. The Nero-
nic were, like the latter, to be held every fifth year, and
include contests in poetry, eloquence, music, gymnastics,
riding and driving. All were exhorted to make these
games a high festival, worthy the greatness of the Roman
people. The emperor himself competed and won in Latin
eloquence and poetry, as well as playing upon the cithern.
All who appeared, and the greater part of the spectators,
were habited in the Greek costume ; and it looked, for
some time after, as if this should supplant the Roman,
even for daily use.
Nero’s plans for hellenization seemed to advance
very favorably. For that which we in our day should
call the introduction of art into life, a zeal, too hot to be
long-lived, had taken possession of the people of rank.
All, says Dio Cassius, practised that for which they
thought themselves fitted. Men, wives, girls and boys
had their separate training-schools, and those who could
not appear otherwise, sold themselves for the choruses in
the play.
But beneath the surface, there ran a stream of the
deepest indignation over these devices, in which Greece
avenged its overthrow upon Rome. The new Ilium by
the Tiber saw as it were, its walls open to another deceitful
tribute to Pallas Athena. Laocoons draped in the toga,
muttered imprecations upon the evil gifts of the Greeks,
Roman Cassandras foretold the destruction of the world,
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