He himself put on slave costume and covered his head with a hood. We were all sufficiently drunk that anything seemed amusing to us, so laughing and shouting, we tumbled down the steep street to the forum and shushed at each other as we passed the Vestal Virgins’ dwelling. Otho said something obscene about them, which showed his total god-lessness.

At the goldsmiths’ street, we met a drunken Roman knight complaining that he had lost his companions. Nero provoked a quarrel with him and knocked him down when he tried to fight. Nero was very strong for his eighteen years. Otho took off his cloak and we laughingly flung the man up into the air with it. In the end, Senecio pushed him into a sewer opening, but we pulled him out again so that he would not drown. Shouting noisily, thumping on the shop shutters and tearing down the signs as tokens of triumph, we finally reached the stinking alleys of Subura.

There we roughly cleared a little inn of its customers and forced the landlord to give us wine. The wine was wretched, as one might have imagined, so we broke his jars, spilling the wine all over the floor and out onto the street. Serenus promised to compensate the landlord for the damage when he wept over his helplessness. Nero was very proud of a cut he had received on one cheek and would not allow us to punish the drover from Latium who had hit him, but called the coarse-limbed lout a man of honor.

Senecio wanted us to go to a brothel but Nero said sadly that he was not permitted to keep even the very best prostitute company because of his mother’s strictness. Then Serenus, looking secretive, swore us all to secrecy, and took us to a handsome house on the slopes of Palatine. He said he had bought it and equipped it for the most beautiful woman in the world. Nero was confused and shy and several times asked, “Dare we disturb her so late?” and “Do you think I could read a poem to her?”

All this was mostly just talk, for in the house lived the freedwoman Acte, who had been a Greek slave, and who was in fact the very girl with whom Nero had fallen head-over-heels in love. Serenus only pretended to be her lover in order that in his name he could give her Nero’s innumerable presents. I must admit that Acte was extremely beautiful. Presumably she must have been very much in love too, for she was delighted to be wakened in the early hours of the morning to meet the drunken Nero and his reveling companions.

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Nero swore that Acte was descended from King Attalus and that he intended to prove this to the world one day. On my part, I did not approve that he felt it necessary to show us the girl naked, and boast about her incredibly snow-white skin. The girl seemed well brought up and entirely agreeable, but Nero only enjoyed seeing her blushes as he explained that he could not refuse his friends anything. They themselves must see that he was the happiest and most enviable youth in the world.

* * *

In this way my new life in Rome began, and it was not a very honorable life. Some time later, Nero offered me his favor if there were any particular oflicc I should like to have. He was even prepared to recommend me for a cohort command in the Praetorian Guard. I declined and said that I wished only to be his friend and companion, to learn the art of living. This pleased him, and he said, “You choose wisely, Minutus. There is no office insignificant enough not to waste a man’s time.”

In Nero’s favor, I must say that on those occasions when he was forced to sit in judgment on cases which he could not turn over to the City Prefect or Prefect Burrus, he judged fairly and considerately, limiting the lawyers’ verbiage and demanding written verdicts from the other judges to avoid ingratiation. After reading the three separate verdicts, he himself pronounced judgment the following day, according to his own opinion. Despite his youth, he could conduct himself with dignity in public, even though otherwise he dressed with artistic carelessness and wore his hair long.

I did not envy him his lot. It is difficult at seventeen to be exalted to the position of Emperor of Rome and rule over the world, constantly distressed by a jealous mother with a desire for power. I think that only Nero’s passionate love for Acte saved him from Agrippina’s influence and drew them apart, however bitter it was for Nero. But he could not endure his mother’s wounding words about Acte, and he could have made a worse choice, for Acte never mixed in State affairs and did not even angle for presents from him, although she was naturally pleased with what she received.

In unnoticeable ways, Acte also succeeded in subduing the Domitian wildness in Nero. She had great respect for Seneca, who secretly approved of the relationship since he considered it would have been much more dangerous if Nero had fallen in love with some noble Roman maiden or young matron. Nero’s marriage to Octavia was a mere formality, and they

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