20 February 2010

Image of an Emperor: Nero


"In stature he was little under the average height. His body full of spots and freckles and foul skin besides. His hair was yellowish; his countenance fairly agreeable but not handsome; his eyes grey and dull, his neck thick, his belly prominent, his legs very slender, and his health excellent. For, intemperate as he was, and given to riotous living, he suffered, in the space of fourteen years, only three attacks of illness; and these so slight, that he neither forbore the use of wine, nor modified his usual diet. In his dress and grooming, he was so indifferent that he had his hair cut in rings, one above another; and when in Achaia, he let it grow long behind. He generally appeared in public in the loose and effeminate garment he wore at table, with a fine lawn handkerchief around his neck, and wearing neither a girdle or shoes."

[Suetonius, Nero, 51]

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Colinus