[Imperial Horse Racing at the Christmas Market - Edinburgh 2012]
-------------------
"From his earliest years he had a special passion for
horses and talked constantly about the games in the Circus, though he was
forbidden to do so. Once when he was lamenting with his fellow pupils the fate of a
charioteer of the "Greens," who was
dragged by his horses, and his preceptor scolded him, he told a lie and
pretended that he was talking of
Hector.
At the beginning of his reign he used to play every
day with ivory chariots on a board, and he came from the country to all the
games, even the most insignificant, at first secretly, and then so openly that
no one doubted that he would be in Rome on that particular day. He made no secret of his wish to have the number of prizes
increased, and in consequence more races were added and the performance was
continued to a late hour, while the managers of the troupes no longer thought it
worth while to produce their drivers at all except for a full day's racing. He
soon longed to drive a chariot himself and even to show himself frequently to
the public; so after a trial exhibition in his gardens before his slaves and the
dregs of the populace, he gave all an opportunity of seeing him in the Circus
Maximus, one of his freedmen dropping the napkin from the place
usually occupied by the magistrates."
Suetonius, Life of Nero, 22
-------------------
