That people which granted him his triumph — it deserves the reviling more than Nero.
What was this Nero whom they worshipped?... He was coarse of nature, callow.
...A dwarf — it was they who set him up on high and knelt before him, till he snorted with pride.
They magnified him and stretched him tall, till he sprawled out, filling the horizons with outrage.
They granted him, out of their own strength, that by which he became a tyrant over them — or worse.
...The man of power strikes only when he does not fear the striking of those who gave him his power.
Nero began by governing to his people's good, opening his reign with bounty in plenty,
Consulting caution in his dealings with them — until he had tested the people, and never returned to caution again.
...He was gentle until he found pliancy in them; then he turned harsh, then cruel, then rained down worse.
No forbearance was theirs: once he sensed forbearance had lulled them, he stripped himself of it.
Then a madness clothed him, which made fair to him a scheme most presumptuous against the throne, most demeaning.
He resolved upon the journey in his procession, braving its passage by sea and by land,
Turning his face toward Athens — for toward the people of art he ever inclined.
...Seeking to have her witness him in an assembly whose splendor rose in the darkness like a full moon,
Letting her evening company hear his lute, displaying his acting inside and out.
So he accomplished his desire, then turned back, in the contentment of one who has done an unheard-of deed.
...He came home in high fortune, while every man harbored grief within, yet showed it only in secret.
And the people of Rome received him as men receive a conqueror fresh from a dazzling conquest.
...They raised up gates in homage to him, and ringed his train about with a massed army,
And they set up illuminations under the wing of darkness that turned Rome to heavens and blazing stars —
Illuminations the like of which creation had never beheld before that age.
They bewitched him and stirred his fancy; and he folded up the night with a design hidden in his heart:
He would surely work in her a wonder,
Gathering into it all the
