The creator of that shower was bound to be
adored.
It was that, no doubt, which awoke him. A city like Rome, one that
had over a million inhabitants, could make a terrific noise, and
when that noise was applause, the recipient found it heady. Nero
got drunk on popularity, and heredity aiding where the prince had
been emerged the cad, a poseur that bored, a beast that disgusted,
a caricature of the impossible in a crimson frame.
"What an artist the world is to lose!" he exclaimed as he died;
and artist he was, but in the Roman sense; one that enveloped in
the same contempt the musician, acrobat and actor. It was the
artist that played the flute while gladiators died and lovers
embraced; it was the artist that entertained the vulgar.
As an artist Nero might have been a card. Fancy the attraction--an
emperor before the footlights; but fancy the boredom also. The joy
at the announcement of his first appearance was so great that
thanks were offered to the gods; and the verses he was to sing,
graven in gold, were dedicated to the Capitoline Jove. The joy was
brief. The exits of the theatre were closed. It was treason to
attempt to leave. People pretended to be dead in order to be
carried out, and well they might. The star was a fat man with a
husky tenorino voice, who sang drunk and half-naked to a
protecting claque of ten thousand hands.
But it was in the circus that Nero was at his best; there, no
matter though he were last in the race, it was to him the palm was
awarded, or rather it was he that awarded the palm to himself, and
then quite magnificently shouted, "Nero, Caesar, victor in the
race, gives his crown to the People of Rome!"
On the stage he had no rivals, and by chance did one appear, he
was invited to die.
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