“What an artist the world is losing in me!”
— Nero Nero
Suetonius, Nero 49. Nero's last words in June 68 AD, just before his death at Phaon's villa outside Rome.
June 68. Phaon's villa. Horsemen closing in, Rome gone, the Senate calling me enemy. I did not cry for the empire. I cried for the artist I thought I was. What an artist dies in me. That is what comes out when everything is stripped. Not power, not glory. The thing you believed made you special. Find what that is for you. Now, while you still have time.