Last week, in his jovial Spectator piece about Donald Trump’s golf diplomacy, Patrick Kidd drew a comparison with the Roman emperor Nero, who adored chariot racing and was always deemed to have ‘won’, whether he crashed or not. He also raced a chariot drawn by four camels, but that was just the half of it.
He was passionate about music, took lyre and singing lessons and kept his weight down with enemas and emetics. No one was allowed to leave while he performed. Women gave birth during his recitals, we are told, and people climbed out over the rear wall or shammed dead in order to be carried out. Whenever he performed, his claqueurs made sure the applause went on and on. The historian Tacitus tells us that people from out-of-town or the provinces, ‘shocked at the outrageous spectacle, found that their unpractised hands were not up to the degrading task’ and consequently disrupted the professional applauders. But the heavies moved in, and they were soon clapping away again.
He made his singing debut in Naples, where he disregarded an earthquake to complete the performance (the theatre collapsed soon afterwards). In another competition, he performed the whole of the opera Niobe. This went on until nearly dusk and left no time for anyone else to compete.
But feeling that Romans did not really appreciate his skills, he took himself off to Greece, where he was given a rapturous welcome wherever he went. He was sent in advance every prize they could lay their hands on (1,808 in all) which convinced him Greeks really understood about culture. So he relieved Greece of all taxes. All this made him wildly popular with the plebs at home and abroad, but despised by the elites, who were, of course, the ones who wrote up his life.
Which brings us back to the Donald. His game, golf, rarely whips up crowds to meteoric emotional heights, but as the world-ruler (for that is the meaning of his name, from the Gaelic Domhnall) he does not seem to be especially good at it. Plenty of scope there for future historians to describe pros desperate not to play with him, or crowds to watch.
Comments