[Sidenote:—­19—­] Helius having for some time sent Nero repeated messages urging him to return as quickly as possible, when he found that no attention was paid to them, went himself to Greece on the seventh day and frightened him by saying that a great conspiracy against him was on foot in Rome.  This news made him embark at double quick rate.  There was some hope of his perishing in a storm and many rejoiced, but to no purpose:  he came safely to land.  And cause for destroying some few persons was found in the very fact that they had prayed and hoped that he might perish.

[Sidenote:  A.D. 68 (a.u. 821)] [Sidenote:—­20—­] So, when he marched into Rome, a portion of the wall was torn down and a section of the gates broken in, because some asserted that each of these ceremonies was customary upon the return of garlanded victors from the games.  First entered men wearing the garlands which, had been won, and after them others with boards borne aloft on spears, upon which were inscribed the name of the set of games, the kind of contest, and a statement that “Nero Caesar first of all the Romans from the beginning of the world has conquered in it.”  Next came the victor himself on a triumphal car in which Augustus once had celebrated his many victories:  he wore a vesture of purple sprinkled with gold and a garland of wild olive; he held in his hand the Pythian laurel.  By his side in the vehicle sat Diodorus the Citharoedist.  After passing in this manner through the hippodrome and through the Forum in company with the soldiers and the knights and the senate he ascended the Capitol and proceeded thence to the palace.

[Sidenote:  A.D. 68 (a.u. 821)] The city was all decked with garlands, was ablaze with lights and smoky with incense, and the whole population,—­the senators themselves most of all,—­kept shouting aloud:  “Vah, Olympian Victor!  Vah Pythian Victor!  Augustus!  Augustus!  Hail to Nero the Hercules, hail to Nero the Apollo!!  The one National Victor, the only one from the beginning of time!  Augustus!  Augustus!  O, Divine Voice!  Blessed are they that hear thee!”—­Why should I employ circumlocutions instead of letting you see their very words?  The actual expressions used do not disgrace my history:  no, the concealment of none of them rather lends it distinction.

[Sidenote:—­21—­] When he had finished these ceremonies, he announced a series of horse-races, and transferring to the hippodrome these crowns and all the rest that he had secured by victories in chariot racing, he put them about the Egyptian obelisk.  The number of them was one thousand eight hundred and eight.  After doing this he appeared as charioteer.—­A certain Larcius, a Lydian, approached him with an offer of twenty-five myriads if he would play and sing for them.  Nero would not take the money, disdaining to do anything for pay; and so Tigillinus collected it, as the price of not putting Larcius to death.  However, the emperor did appear on the stage with an accompanied song and he also gave a tragedy.  In the equestrian contests he was seldom absent, and sometimes he would voluntarily let himself be defeated in order to make it more credible that he really won at other times.