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Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database



10518
Suetonius, Nero, 21


nanConsidering it of great importance to appear in Rome as well, he repeated the contest of the Neronia before the appointed time, and when there was a general call for his "divine voice," he replied that if any wished to hear him, he would favour them in the gardens; but when the guard of soldiers which was then on duty seconded the entreaties of the people, he gladly agreed to appear at once. So without delay he had his name added to the list of the lyre-players who entered the contest, and casting his own lot into the urn with the rest, he came forward in his turn, attended by the prefects of the Guard carrying his lyre, and followed by the tribunes of the soldiers and his intimate friends.,Having taken his place and finished his preliminary speech, he announced through the ex-consul Cluvius Rufus that "he would sing Niobe"; and he kept at it until late in the afternoon, putting off the award of the prize for that event and postponing the rest of the contest to the next year, to have an excuse for singing oftener. But since even that seemed too long to wait, he did not cease to appear in public from time to time. He even thought of taking part in private performances among the professional actors, when one of the praetors offered him a million sesterces.,He also put on the mask and sang tragedies representing gods and heroes and even heroines and goddesses, having the masks fashioned in the likeness of his own features or those of the women of whom he chanced to be enamoured. Among other themes he sang "Canace in Labor," "Orestes the Matricide," "The Blinding of Oedipus" and the "Frenzy of Hercules." At the last named performance they say that a young recruit, seeing the emperor in mean attire and bound with chains, as the subject required, rushed forward to lend him aid.


Intertexts (texts cited often on the same page as the searched text):

5 results
1. Petronius Arbiter, Satyricon, 109.9 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)

2. Petronius Arbiter, Satyricon, 109.9 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)

3. Suetonius, Nero, 28 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)

4. Tacitus, Annals, 13.17, 14.20 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)

13.17.  The same night saw the murder of Britannicus and his pyre, the funeral apparatus — modest enough — having been provided in advance. Still, his ashes were buried in the Field of Mars, under such a tempest of rain that the crowd believed it to foreshadow the anger of the gods against a crime which, even among men, was condoned by the many who took into account the ancient instances of brotherly hatred and the fact that autocracy knows no partnership. The assertion is made by many contemporary authors that, for days before the murder, the worst of all outrages had been offered by Nero to the boyish years of Britannicus: in which case, it ceases to be possible to regard his death as either premature or cruel, though it was amid the sanctities of the table, without even a respite allowed in which to embrace his sister, and under the eyes of his enemy, that the hurried doom fell on this last scion of the Claudian house, upon whom lust had done its unclean work before the poison. The hastiness of the funeral was vindicated in an edict of the Caesar, who called to mind that "it was a national tradition to withdraw these untimely obsequies from the public gaze and not to detain it by panegyrics and processions. However, now that he had lost the aid of his brother, not only were his remaining hopes centred in the state, but the senate and people themselves must so much the more cherish their prince as the one survivor of a family born to the heights of power. 14.20.  In the consulate of Nero — his fourth term — and of Cornelius Cossus, a quinquennial competition on the stage, in the style of a Greek contest, was introduced at Rome. Like almost all innovations it was variously canvassed. Some insisted that "even Pompey had been censured by his elders for establishing the theatre in a permanent home. Before, the games had usually been exhibited with the help of improvised tiers of benches and a stage thrown up for the occasion; or, to go further into the past, the people stood to watch: seats in the theatre, it was feared, might tempt them to pass whole days in indolence. By all means let the spectacles be retained in their old form, whenever the praetor presided, and so long as no citizen lay under any obligation to compete. But the national morality, which had gradually fallen into oblivion, was being overthrown from the foundations by this imported licentiousness; the aim of which was that every production of every land, capable of either undergoing or engendering corruption, should be on view in the capital, and that our youth, under the influence of foreign tastes, should degenerate into votaries of the gymnasia, of indolence, and of dishonourable amours, — and this at the instigation of the emperor and senate, who, not content with conferring immunity upon vice, were applying compulsion, in order that Roman nobles should pollute themselves on the stage under pretext of delivering an oration or a poem. What remained but to strip to the skin as well, put on the gloves, and practise that mode of conflict instead of the profession of arms? Would justice be promoted, would the equestrian decuries better fulfil their great judicial functions, if they had lent an expert ear to emasculated music and dulcet voices? Even night had been re­quisitioned for scandal, so that virtue should not be left with a breathing-space, but that amid a promiscuous crowd every vilest profligate might venture in the dark the act for which he had lusted in the light.
5. Cassius Dio, Roman History, 63.8.2 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)



Subjects of this text:

subject book bibliographic info
actor Lateiner and Spatharas, The Ancient Emotion of Disgust (2016) 274
actors, tragic Csapo et al., Theatre and Autocracy in the Ancient World (2022) 99
biography, and greek athletics Hubbard, A Companion to Greek and Roman Sexualities (2014) 253
death Lateiner and Spatharas, The Ancient Emotion of Disgust (2016) 274
drama see also comedy, satyrplay, theatre, tragedy\n, excerpts/extracts of Csapo et al., Theatre and Autocracy in the Ancient World (2022) 99
encolpius Pinheiro et al., Narrating Desire: Eros, Sex, and Gender in the Ancient Novel (2012a) 232
excrement Lateiner and Spatharas, The Ancient Emotion of Disgust (2016) 274
gaze, erotic, of spectators Hubbard, A Companion to Greek and Roman Sexualities (2014) 253
gender, roles, reversal of Pinheiro et al., Narrating Desire: Eros, Sex, and Gender in the Ancient Novel (2012a) 232
giton, love elegy, and Pinheiro et al., Narrating Desire: Eros, Sex, and Gender in the Ancient Novel (2012a) 232
giton, nero and Pinheiro et al., Narrating Desire: Eros, Sex, and Gender in the Ancient Novel (2012a) 232
giton Pinheiro et al., Narrating Desire: Eros, Sex, and Gender in the Ancient Novel (2012a) 232
nero Pinheiro et al., Narrating Desire: Eros, Sex, and Gender in the Ancient Novel (2012a) 232
nero (emperor), as citharoedus Csapo et al., Theatre and Autocracy in the Ancient World (2022) 99
nero (emperor) Csapo et al., Theatre and Autocracy in the Ancient World (2022) 99
neronia (festival) Csapo et al., Theatre and Autocracy in the Ancient World (2022) 99
niobe Csapo et al., Theatre and Autocracy in the Ancient World (2022) 99
nudity, athletics Hubbard, A Companion to Greek and Roman Sexualities (2014) 253
petronius Pinheiro et al., Narrating Desire: Eros, Sex, and Gender in the Ancient Novel (2012a) 232
pharmakos Lateiner and Spatharas, The Ancient Emotion of Disgust (2016) 274
rape Pinheiro et al., Narrating Desire: Eros, Sex, and Gender in the Ancient Novel (2012a) 232
satire, hexameter Hubbard, A Companion to Greek and Roman Sexualities (2014) 253
taste Lateiner and Spatharas, The Ancient Emotion of Disgust (2016) 274
womb' Lateiner and Spatharas, The Ancient Emotion of Disgust (2016) 274