When at a suitable moment I praised his brilliant artistic success, Nero asked me, “Do you think that if I weren’t the Emperor, I could support myself as an artist anywhere in the world?”
I assured him that as an artist he would certainly be both freer and in some ways wealthier than as Emperor, for as Emperor he had to fight for every Sta’te grant with his miserly Procurators. I said that it was my duty after my time as Praetor to pay for a theater performance for the people, but that in my opinion, there was no sufficiendy good singer in Rome. So with a feigned shyness, I made a suggestion.
“If you would appear at a performance,” I said, “which I would pay for, then my popularity would be assured. I’d pay you a million sesterces as a fee and naturally you can choose the play yourself.”
As far as I know, this was the highest fee ever offered any singer for a single performance. Even Nero was surprised.
“Do you really mean that you consider my voice worth a million sesterces,” he asked, “and that you’ll win the favor of the people with its help?”
I told him that if he would agree, it would be the greatest mark of favor I could think of. Nero frowned and pretended to meditate on his many duties.
“I must appear dressed as an actor,” he said finally, “with cothurni on my feet and a mask on my face. But to please you, I can of course have the mask made to look like myself. Let us test the artistic tastes of Rome. I won’t announce my name until after the performance. I’ll accept your invitation on those conditions. I think I’ll choose the part of Orestes, for I’ve long wanted to sing that. I should think the pent-up strength of my feelings would shake even the hardened audiences of Rome.”
His vanity as an artist drove him expressly to perform this role of a matricide, to allow his own feelings to run high. In some ways I understood him. By writing an amusing book, I had freed myself of my experiences as a prisoner which had driven me to the borders of insanity. For Nero, the murder of Agrippina had been a perturbing experience of which he was trying to free himself by singing. But I was afraid that I had exposed myself to considerable danger by inviting him to do this. It could happen that the audience would not recognize Nero and would not show their appreciation sufficiently.
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Worse could happen too. A mask resembling Nero in the part of a matricide might result in the audience misunderstanding the intention. The performance might be taken as a demonstration against Nero and it could sweep the audience away with it. Then I would be lost. Other people might begin to believe the rumors about Nero, and then the result would be a riot with many people killed.
So there was nothing else to do but secretly to spread it about that Nero himself was thinking of appearing as Orestes in my theater performance. Many of the more old-fashioned members of the Senate and the Noble Order of Knights refused to believe that an Emperor would degrade himself to the level of a professional jester and thus knowingly make a fool of himself. The choice of program also made them look on the rumor as an ill-considered joke.
Fortunately Tigellinus and I had mutual advantages to be gained in this matter. Tigellinus ordered a cohort of Praetorians to keep order in the theater and applaud at certain times in the performance, carefully following Nero’s own professional applauders’ example. Several young knights who understood music and singing and would not make the mistake of applauding in the wrong places were appointed leaders of the groups. All the applauders had to practice humming with delight, clapping with cupped hands so that it echoed, making loud claps and sighing wistfully in appropriate places.
Rumors of a political demonstration brought a huge audience who otherwise would hardly have bothered to honor my office of Praetor with their presence. The crowd was so immense that several people were trampled underfoot at the entrances, and some of the older senators’ powerful slaves had to fight their way through to carry their masters to the Senate’s seats of honor. It was just like one of the best days at the races.
Nero himself was so nervous and tense that he was violendy sick before the performance and kept dosing his throat with drinks recommended by his tutor to strengthen his vocal cords. But I must admit he gave a brilliant performance once he was onstage. His powerful voice rang through the theater into a good twenty thousand pairs of ears. He was so engrossed in his cruel role that some of the more sensitive women fainted from emotion in the crush.
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