he Greeks are! see what the Greeks are!' From that evening
it has seemed to me that his hatred for Rome is increasing. Meanwhile
special couriers were hurried to Rome announcing the triumph, and we
expect thanks from the Senate one of these days. Immediately after
Nero's first exhibition, a strange event happened here. The theatre fell
in on a sudden, but just after the audience had gone. I was there, and
did not see even one corpse taken from the ruins. Many, even among the
Greeks, see in this event the anger of the gods, because the dignity of
Caesar was disgraced; he, on the contrary, finds in it favor of the
gods, who have his song, and those who listen to it, under their evident
protection. Hence there are offerings in all the temples, and great
thanks. For Nero it is a great encouragement to make the journey to
Achaea. A few days since he told me, however, that he had doubts as to
what the Roman people might say; that they might revolt out of love for
him, and fear touching the distribution of grain and touching the games,
which might fail them in case of his prolonged absence.

"We are going, however, to Beneventum to look at the cobbler
magnificence which Vatinius will exhibit, and thence to Greece, under
the protection of the divine brothers of Helen. As to me, I have noted
one thing, that when a man is among the mad he grows mad himself,
and, what is more, finds a certain charm in mad pranks. Greece and the
journey in a thousand ships; a kind of triumphal advance of Bacchus
among nymphs and bacchantes crowned with myrtle, vine, and honeysuckle;
there will be women in tiger skins harnessed to chariots; flowers,
thyrses, garlands, shouts of 'Evoe!' music, poetry, and applauding
Hellas. All this is well; but we cherish besides more daring projects.
We wish to create a species of Oriental Imperium,--an empire of
palm-trees, sunshine, poetry, and reality turned into a dream, reality
turned into the delight of life only. We want to forget Rome; to fix the
balancing point of the world somewhere between Greece, Asia, and Egypt;
to live the life not of men but of gods; not to know what commonness is;
to wander in golden galleys under the shadow of purple sails along the
Archipelago; to be Apollo, Osiris, and Baal in one person; to be rosy
with the dawn, golden with the sun, silver with the moon; to command,
to sing, to dream. And wilt thou believe that I, who have still sound
judgment to the value of a sestertium, and s