Suetonius, Nero 12.3–4: Nero allows the Vestal virgins to attend the Neronia

Suetonius, Nero 12.3–4: Nero allows the Vestal virgins to attend the Neronia

ca. 70 - 121 CE

Biography

Literary source

He was likewise the first to establish at Rome a quinquennial​ contest in three parts, after the Greek fashion, that is in music,​ gymnastics, and riding, which he called the Neronia; at the same time he dedicated his baths and gymnasium,​ supplying every member of the senatorial and equestrian orders with oil. To preside over​ the whole contest he appointed ex-consuls, chosen by lot, who occupied the seats of the praetors. Then he went down into the orchestra among the senators and accepted the prize for Latin oratory and verse, for which all the most eminent men had contended but which was given to him with their unanimous consent; but when that for lyre-playing was also offered him by the judges, he knelt before it and ordered that it be laid at the feet of Augustus' statue. At the gymnastic contest, which he gave in the Saepta, he shaved his first beard to the accompaniment of a splendid sacrifice of bullocks, put it in a golden box adorned with pearls of great price, and dedicated it in the Capitol. He invited the Vestal virgins also to witness the contests of the athletes,​ because at Olympia the priestesses of Ceres were allowed the same privilege.

John C. Rolfe, Suetonius, Lives of the Ceasars, vol. 2, Claudius. Nero. Galba, Otho and Vitellius, Titus, Domitian, Lives of Illustrious Men: Grammarians and Rhetoricans, Poets (Terence. Virgil. Horace. Tibullus. Persius. Lucan). Lives of Pliny the Elder and Passienus Crispus), vol. 2 (= Loeb Classical Library; 38), Cambridge, MA/London 1914.

Instituit et quinquennale certamen primus omnium Romae more Graeco triplex, musicum gymnicum equestre, quod appellavit Neronia; dedicatisque thermis atque gymnasio senatui quoque et equiti oleum praebuit. Magistros toto certamini praeposuit consulares sorte, sede praetorum. Deinde in orchestram senatumque descendit et orationis quidem carminisque Latini coronam, de qua honestissimus quisque contenderat, ipsorum consensu concessam sibi recepit, citharae autem a iudicibus ad se delatam adoravit ferrique ad Augusti statuam iussit. Gymnico, quod in Saeptis edebat, inter buthysiae apparatum barbam primam posuit conditamque in auream pyxidem et pretiosissimis margaritis adornatam Capitolio consecravit. Ad athletarum spectaculum invitavit et virgines Vestales, quia Olympiae quoque Cereris sacerdotibus spectare conceditur.

John C. Rolfe (ed.), Suetonius , Lives of the Ceasars: Clausius. Nero. Galba, Otho and Vitellius, Titus, Domitian, Lives of Illustrious Men: Grammarians and Rhetoricans, Poets (Terence. Virgil. Horace. Tibullus. Persius. Lucan). Lives of Pliny the Elder and Passienus Crispus), vol. 2 (= Loeb Classical Library; 38), Cambridge, MA/London 1914.