On Nero

[coh_nut]

It might have been possible to excuse his insolent, lustful, extravagant, greedy, or cruel early practices (which were furtive and increased only gradually), by saying that boys will be boys; yet at the same time, this was clearly the true Nero, not merely Nero in his adolescence. As soon as night fell he would snatch a cap or a wig and make a round of the taverns, or prowl the streets in search of mischief - and not always innocent mischief either, because one of his games was to attack men on their way home from dinner... During these escapades he often risked being blinded or killed - once he was beaten almost to death by a senator whose wife he had molested, which taught him never to go out after dark unless an escort of colonels was following him at an unobserved distance.

--- Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars