Two celebrated families, the Calvini and Aenobarbi, sprung from the race of the
					Domitii. The AEnobarbi derive both their extraction and their cognomen from one
					Lucius Domitius, of whom we have this tradition: -- As he was returning out of
					the country to Rome , he was met by two
					young men of a most august appearance, who desired him to announce to the senate
					and people a victory, of which no certain intelligence had yet reached the city.
					To prove that they were more than mortals, they stroked his cheeks, and thus
					changed his hair, which was black, to a bright colour, resembling that of brass;
					which mark of distinction descended to his posterity, for they had generally red
					beards. This family had the honour of seven consulships, one triumph, and two
					censorships; and being admitted into the patrician order, they continued the use
					of the same cognomen, with no other praenomina, than those of Cneius and
						 Lucius . These, however, they
					assumed with singular irregularity; three persons in succession sometimes
					adhering to one of them, and then they were changed alternately. For the first,
					second, and third of the AEnobarbi had the praenomen of Lucius , and again the three following,
					successively, that of Cneius, while those who came after were called, by turns,
					one, Lucius , and the other, Cneius. It
					appears to me proper to give a short account of several of the family, to show
					that Nero so far degenerated from the
					noble qualities of his ancestors, that he retained only their vices; as if those
					alone had been transmitted to him by his descent.

To begin, therefore, at a remote period, his greatgrandfather's grandfather,
					Cneius Domitius, when he was tribune of the people, being offended with the high
					priests for electing another than himself in the room of his father, obtained
					the transfer of the right of election from the colleges of the priests to the
					people. In his consulship, having
					conquered the Allobroges and the Arverni, he made a progress
					through the province, mounted upon an elephant, with a body of soldiers
					attending him, in a sort of triumphal pomp. Of this person the orator Licinius
					Crassus said, "It was no wonder he had a brazen beard, who had a face of iron,
					and a heart of lead." His son, during his praetorship, proposed that Cneius Caesar, upon the expiration of his
					consulship, should be called to account before the senate for his administration
					of that office, which was supposed to be contrary both to the omens and the
					laws. Afterwards, when he was consul himself, he tried to deprive Cneius of the command of the army, and having
					been, by intrigue and cabal, appointed his successor, he was made prisoner at
					Corsinium, in the beginning of the civil war. Being set at liberty, he went to
						 Marseilles , which was then
					besieged; where having by his presence, animated the people to hold out, he
					suddenly deserted them, and at last was slain in the battle of Pharsalia. He was
					a man of little constancy, and of a sullen temper. In despair of his fortunes,
					he had recourse to poison, but was so terrified at the thoughts of death, that,
					immediately repenting, he took a vomit to throw it up again, and gave freedom to
					his physician for having, with great prudence and wisdom, given him only a
					gentle dose of the poison. When Cneius Pompey was consulting with his friends in
					what manner he should conduct himself towards those who were neuter and took no
					part in the contest, he was the only one who proposed that they should be
					treated as enemies.

He left a son, who was, without doubt, the best of the family. By the Pedian law,
					he was condemned, although innocent, amongst others who were concerned in the
					death of Caesar. Upon this, he went
					over to Brutus and Cassius, his near relations; and, after their death, not only
					kept together the fleet, the command of which had been given him some time
					before, but even increased it. 
				 At last, when the party had everywhere been defeated, he voluntarily surrendered
					it to Mark Antony; considering it as a piece of service for which the latter
					owed him no small obligations. Of all those who were condemned by the law
					above-mentioned, he was the only man who was restored to his country, and filled
					the highest offices. When the civil war again broke out, he was appointed
					lieutenant under the.same Antony, and offered the chief command by those who
					were ashamed of Cleopatra; but not daring, on account of a sudden indisposition
					with which he was seized, either to accept or refuse it, he went over to
						Augustus, and died a few days
					after, not without an aspersion cast upon his memory. For Antony gave out, that
					he was induced to change sides by his impatience to be with his mistress,
					Servilia Nais.

This Cneius had a son, named Domitius, who was afterwards well known as the
					nominal purchaser of the family property left by Augustus's will; and no less famous in his youth for his
					dexterity in chariot-driving, than he was afterwards for the triumphal ornaments
					which he obtained in the German war. But he was a man of great arrogance,
					prodigality, and cruelty. When he was aedile, he obliged Lucius Plancus, the
					censor, to give him the way; and in his praetorship, and consulship, he made
					Roman knights and married women act on the stage. He gave hunts of wild beasts,
					both in the Circus and in all the wards of the city; as also a show of
					gladiators; but with such barbarity, that Augustus, after privately reprimanding
					him, to no purpose, was obliged to restrain him by a public edict.

By the elder Antonia he had Nero's father, a man of execrable character in every
					part of his life. During his attendance upon Caius Caesar in the East, he killed
					a freedman of his own, for refusing to drink as much as he ordered him. Being
					dismissed for this from Caesar's society, he did not mend his habits, for, in a
					village upon the Appian road, he suddenly whipped his horses, and drove his
					chariot, on purpose, over a poor boy, crushing him to pieces. At Rome , he struck out the eye of a Roman knight
					in the Forum, only for some free language in a dispute between them. He was
					likewise so fraudulent, that he not only cheated some silversmiths of the price of goods he had
					bought of them, but, during his praetorship, defrauded the owners of chariots in
					the Circensian games of the prizes due to them for their victory. His sister,
					jeering him for the complaints made by the leaders of the several parties, he
					agreed to sanction a law, " That, for the future, the prizes should be
					immediately paid." A little before the death of Tiberius, he was prosecuted for
					treason, adulteries, and incest with his sister T.picla, hut escaped in the
					timely change of affairs, and died of a dropsy, at Pyrgi ; leaving behind him his son, Nero, whom he had by
					Agrippina, the daughter of Germanicus.

Nero was born at Antium , nine months
					after the death of Tiberius, upon the eighteenth of the calends of January
					[15th December], just as the sun rose, so that its beams touched him before they
					could well reach the earth. While many fearful conjectures, in respect to his
					future fortune, were formed by different persons, from the circumstances of his
					nativity, a saying of his father, Domitius, was regarded as an ill presage, who
					told his friends who were congratulating him upon the occasion, "That nothing
					but what was detestable and pernicious to the public, could ever be produced of
					him and Agrippina." Another manifest prognostic of his future infelicity
					occurred upon his lustration day. For Caius Caesar being
					requested by his sister to give the child what name he thought proper -- looking
					at his uncle, Claudius, who afterwards, when emperor, adopted Nero , he gave his: and this not seriously, but
					only in jest; Agrippina treating it with contempt, because Claudius at that time
					was a mere laughing-stock at the palace. He lost his father when he was three
					years old, being left heir to a third part of his estate; of which he never got
					possession, the whole being seized by his co-heir, Caius. His mother being soon
					after banished, he lived with his aunt Lepida, in a very necessitous condition,
					under the care of two tutors, a dancing-master and a barber. After Claudius came
					to the empire, he not only recovered his father's estate, but was enriched with
					the additional inheritance of that of his step-father, Crispus Passienus. Upon
					his mother's recall from banishment, he ,vas advanced to such favour, through
						 Nero 's powerful /terest with the
					emperor, that it was reported, assassins were employed by Messalina, Claudius's
					wife, to strangle him, as Britannicus's rival, whilst he was taking his noon-day
					repose. In addition to the story, it was said that they were frightened by a
					serpent, which crept from under his cushion, and ran away. The tale was
					occasioned by finding on his couch, near the pillow, the skin of a snake, which,
					by his mother's order, he wore for some time upon his right arm, inclosed in a
					bracelet of gold. This amulet, at last, he laid aside, from aversion to her
					memory; but he sought for it again in vain, in the time of his extremity.

When he was yet a mere boy, before he arrived at the age of puberty, during the
					celebration of the Circensian Games, he
					performed his part in the Trojan play with a degree of firmness which gained him
					great applause. In the eleventh year of his age, he was adopted by Claudius, and
					placed under the tuition of Anneus Seneca , who had
					been made a senator. It is said, that Seneca dreamt the night after, that he was giving a lesson to
					Caius Caesar. Nero soon verified his dream,
					betraying the cruelty of his disposition in every way he could. For he attempted
					to persuade his father that his brother, Britannicus, was nothing but a
					changeling, because the latter had saluted him, notwithstanding his adoption, by
					the name of ,Enobarbus, as usual. When his aunt, Lepida, was brought to trial,
					he appeared in court as a witness against her, to gratify his mother, who
					persecuted the accused. On his introduction into the Forum, at the age of
					manhood, he gave a largess to the people and a donative to the soldiers; for the
					pretorian cohorts, he appointed a solemn procession under arms, and marched at
					the head of them with a shield in his hand; after which he went to return thanks
					to his father in the senate. Before Claudius, likewise, at the time he was
					consul, he made a speech for the Bolognese, in Latin, and for the Rhodians and
					people of Ilium , in Greek. He had the
					jurisdiction of praefect of the city, for the first time, during the Latin
					festival; during which the most celebrated advocates brought before him, not
					short and trifling causes, as is usual in that case, but trials of importance,
					notwithstanding they had instructions from Claudius himself to the contrary.
					Sooa afterwards, he married Octavia, and exhibited the Circensian games, and
					hunting of wild beasts, in honour of Claudius.

He was seventeen years of age at the death of that prince, and as soon as
					that event was made public, he went out to the cohort on guard between the hours
					of six and seven; for the omens were so disastrous, that no earlier time of the
					day was judged proper. On the steps before the palace gate, he was unanimously
					saluted by the soldiers as their emperor, and then carried in a litter to the
					camp; thence, after making a short speech to the troops, into the senate-house,
					where he continued until the evening; of all the immense honours which were
					heaped upon him, refusing but the title of FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY, on account of
					his youth.

He began his reign with an ostentation of dutiful regard to the memory of
					Claudius, whom he buried with the utmost pomp and magnificence, pronouncing the
					funeral oration himself, and then had him enrolled amongst the gods. He paid
					likewise the highest honours to the memory of his father Domitius. He left the
					management of affairs, both public and private, to his mother. The word which he
					gave the first day of his reign to the tribune on guard, was, "The Best of
					Mothers," and afterwards he frequently appeared with her in the streets of
						 Rome in her litter. He settled a
					colony at Antium , in which he placed
					the veteran soldiers belonging to the guards; and obliged several of the richest
					centurions of the first rank to transfer their residence to that place; where he
					likewise made a noble harbour at a prodigious expense.

To establish still further his character, he declared, "that he designed to
					govern according to the model of Augustus;" and omitted no opportunity of
					showing his generosity, clemency, and complaisance. The more burthensome taxes
					he either entirely took off, or diminished. The rewards appointed for informers
					by the Papian law, he reduced to a fourth part, and distributed to the people
					four hundred sesterces a man. To the noblest of the senators who were much
					reduced in their circumstances, he granted annual allowances, in some cases as
					much as five hundred thousand sesterces; and to the pretorian cohorts a monthly
					allowance of corn gratis. When called upon to subscribe the sentence, according
					to custom, of a criminal condemned to die, "I wish," said he, "I had never
					learnt to read and write." He continually saluted people of the several orders
					by name, without a prompter. When the senate returned him their thanks for his
					good government, he replied to them, " It will be time enough to do so when I
					shall have deserved it." He admitted the common people to see him perform his
					exercises in the Campus Martius . He
					frequently declaimed in public, and recited verses of his own composing, not
					only at home, but in the theatre; so much to the joy of all the people,'that
					public prayers were appointed to be put to the gods upon that account; and the
					verses which had been publicly read, were, after being written in gold letters,
					consecrated to Jupiter Capitolinus.

He presented the people with a great number and variety of spectacles, as the
					Juvenal and Circensian games, stage-plays, and an exhibition of gladiators. In
					the Juvenal, he even admitted senators and aged matrons to perform parts. In the
					Circensian games, he assigned the equestrian order seats apart from the rest of
					the people, and had races performed by chariots drawn each by four camels. In
					the games which he instituted for the eternal duration of the empire, and
					therefore ordered to be called Maximi, many of the senatorian and equestrian
					order, of both sexes performed. A distinguished Roman knight descended on the
					stage by a rope, mounted on an elephant. A Roman play, likewise, composed by
					Afranius, was brought upon the stage. It was entitled, "The Fire; " and in it
					the performers were allowed to carry off, and to keep to themselves, the
					furniture of the house, which, as the plot of the play required, was burnt down
					in the theatre. Every day during the solemnity, many thousand articles of all
					descriptions were thrown amongst the people to scramble f6r; such as fowls of
					different kinds, tickets for corn, clothes, gold. silver, gems. pearls,
					pictures, slaves, beasts of burden, wild beasts that had been tamed; at last,
					ships, lots of houses, and lands, were offered as prizes in a lottery.

These games he beheld from the front of the proscenium. In the show of
					gladiators, which he exhibited in a wooden amphitheatre, built within a year in
					the district of the Campus
						Martius , he ordered that
					none should be slain, not even the condemned criminals employed in the combats.
					He secured four hundred senators, and six hundred Roman knights, amongst whom
					were some of unbroken fortunes and unblemished reputation, to act as gladiators.
					From the same orders, he engaged persons to encounter wild beasts, and for
					various other services in the theatre. He presented the public with the
					representation of a naval fight, upon sea-water, with huge fishes swimming in
					it; as also with the Pyrrhic dance, performed by certain youths, to each of
					whom, after the performance was over, he granted the freedom of Rome . During this diversion, a bull covered
					Pasiphae, concealed within a wooden statue of a cow, as many of the spectators
					believed. Icarus, upon his first attempt to fly, fell on the stage close to the
					emperor's pavilion, and bespattered him with blood. For he very seldom presided
					in the games, but used to view them reclining on a couch, at first through some
					narrow apertures, but afterwards with the Podium quite
					open, He was the first who instituted, 
					in imitation of the Greeks, a trial of skill in the three several exercises of
					music, wrestling, and horse-racing, to be performed at Rome every five years, and which he called
					Neronia. Upon the aedication of his bath and gymnasium, he furnished the senate and the equestrian order with
					oil. He appointed as judges of the trial men of consular rank, chosen by lot,
					who sat with the praetors. At this time he went down into the orchestra among
					the senators, and received the crown for the best performance in Latin prose and
					verse, for which several persons of the greatest merit contended, but they
					unanimously yielded to him. The crown for the best performer an the harp, being
					likewise awarded to him by the judges, he devoutly saluted it, and ordered it to
					be carried to the statue of Augustus. In the gymnastic exercises, which he
					presented in the Septa, while they were preparing the great sacrifice of an ox,
					he shaved his beard for the first time, and putting it up in a casket of gold studded with
					pearls of great price, consecrated it to Jupiter Capitolinus. He invited the
					Vestal Virgins to see the wrestlers perform, because, at Olympia , the priestesses of Ceres are allowed the privilege of witnessing
					that exhibition.

Amongst the spectacles presented by him, the solemn entrance of Tiridates into the city
					deserves to be mentioned. This personage, who was king of Armenia , he invited to Rome by very liberal promises. But being
					prevented by very unfavourable weather from showing him to the people upon the
					day fixed by proclamation, he took the first opportunity which occurred; several
					cohorts being drawn up under arms, about the temples and in the forum, while he
					was seated on a curule chair on the rostra, in a triumphal dress, amidst the
					military standards and ensigns. Upon Tiridates advancing towards him, on a stage
					made shelving for the purpose, he permitted him to throw himself at his feet,
					but quickly raised him with his right hand, and kissed him. The emperor then, at
					the king's request, took the turban from his head, and replaced it by a crown,
					whilst a person of pretorian rank proclaimed in Latin the words in which the
					prince addressed the emperor as a suppliant. After this ceremony, the king was
					conducted to the theatre, where, after renewing his obeisance, Nero seated him
					on his right hand. Being then greeted by universal acclamation with the title of
					Emperor, and sending his laurel crown to the Capitol, Nero shut the temple of
					the two-faced Janus, as though there now existed no war throughout the Roman
					empire.

He filled the consulship four times: the first for two months. the second and last for six, and the
					third for four; the two intermediate ones he held successively, but the others
					after an interval of some years between them.

In the administration of justice, he scarcely ever gave his decision on the
					pleadings before the next day, and then in writing. His manner of hearing causes
					was not to allow any adjournment, but to dispatch them in order as they stood.
					When he withdrew to consult his assessors, he did not debate the matter openly
					with them; but silently and privately reading over their opinions, which they
					gave separately in writing, he pronounced sen- tence from the tribunal according
					to his own view of the case, as if it was the opinion of the majority. -'For a
					long time he would not admit the sons of freedmen into the senate; and those who
					had been admitted by former princes, he excluded from all public offices. To
					supernumerary candidates he gave command in the legions, to comfort them under
					the delay of their hopes. The consulship he commonly conferred for six months;
					and one of the two consuls dying a little before the first of January, he
					substituted no one in his place; disliking what had been formerly done for
					Caninius Rebilus on such an occa-, sion, who was consul for one day only. He
					allowed the triumphal honours only to those who were of quaestorian"' rank, and
					to some of the equestrian order; and bestowed them without regard to military
					service. And instead of the quaestors, whose office it properly was, he
					frequently ordered that the addresses, which he sent to the senate on certain
					occasions, should be read by the consuls.

He devised a new style of building in the city, ordering piazzas to be erected
					before all houses both in the streets and detached, to give facilities from
					their terraces, in case of fire, for preventing it from spreading; and these he
					built at his own expense. He likewise designed to extend the city walls as far
					as Ostia , and bring the sea from
					thence by a canal into the old city. Many severe regulations and new orders were
					made in his time. A sumptuary law was enacted. Public suppers were limited to
					the Sportulae; and victualling-houses restrained from selling any
					dressed victuals, except pulse and herbs, whereas before they sold all kinds of
					meat. He likewise inflicted punishments on the Christians, a sort of people who
					held a new and impious superstition. He forbad the revels of the charioteers, who had long
					assumed a licence to stroll about, and established for themselves a kind of
					prescriptive right to cheat and thieve, making a jest of it. The partisans of
					the rival theatrical performers were banished, as well as the actors
					themselves.

To prevent forgery, a method was then first invented, of having writings bored,
					run through three times with a thread, and then sealed. It was likewise provided
					that in wills, the two first pages, with only the testator's name upon them,
					should be presented blank to those who were to sign them as witnesses; and that
					no one who wrote a will for another, should insert any legacy for himself. It
					was likewise ordained that clients should pay their advocates a certain
					reasonable fee, but \, nothing for the court, which was to be gratuitous, the
					charges for it being paid out of the public treasury; that causes, the
					cognizance of which before belonged to the judges of the exchequer, should be
					transferred to the forum, aid the ordinary tribunals; and that all appeals from
					the judges should be made to the senate.

He never entertained the least ambition or hope of augmenting and extending the
					frontiers of the empire. On the contrary, he had thoughts of withdrawing the
					troops from Britain , and was only
					restrained from so doing by the fear of appearing to detract from the glory of
					his father. All that he did was to
					reduce the kingdom of Pontus , which was
					ceded to him by Polemon, and also the Alps , upon the death of Cottius, into the
					form of a province.

Twice only he undertook any foreign expeditions, one to Alexandria , and the other to Achaia ; but he abandoned the prosecution of
					the former on the very day fixed for his departure, by being deterred both by
					ill omens, and the hazard of the voyage. For while he was making the circuit of
					the temples, having seated himself in that of Vesta, when he attempted to rise,
					the skirt of his robe stuck fast; and he was instantly seized with such a
					dimness in his eyes, that he could not see a yard before him. In Achaia , he attempted to make a cut through the
						Isthmus; and,
					having made a speech encouraging his pretorians to set about the work, on a
					signal given by sound of trumpet, he first broke ground with a spade, and
					carried off a basket full of earth upon his shoulders. He made preparations for
					an expedition to the Pass of the Caspian mountains; forming a new legion out of his late levies in Italy , of men all six feet high, which he
					called the phalanx of Alexander the Great. These transactions, in part
					unexceptionable, and in part highly commendable, I have brought into one view,
					in order to separate them from the scandalous and criminal part of his conduct,
					of which I shall now give an account.

Among the other liberal arts which he was taught in his youth, he was instructed
					in music; and immediately after his advancement to the empire, he sent for
					Terpnus, a performer upon the harp, who flourished at that time with the highest reputation.
					Sitting with him for several days following, as he sang and played after supper,
					until late at night, he began by degrees to practise upon the instrument
					himself. Nor did he omit any of those expedients which artists in music adopt,
					for the preservation and improvement of their voices. He would lie upon his back
					with a sheet of lead upon his breast, clear his stomach and bowels by vomits and
					clysters, and forbear the eating of fruits, or food prejudicial to the voice.
					Encouraged by his proficiency, though his voice was neither loud nor clear, he
					was desirous of appearing upon the stage, frequently repeating amongst his
					friends a Greek proverb to this effect: " that no one had any regard for music
					which they never heard." Accordingly, he made his first public appearance at
						 Naples ; and although the theatre
					quivered with the sudden shock of an earthquake, he did not desist, until he had
					finished the piece of music he had begun. He played and sung in the same place
					several times, and for several days together; taking only now and then a little
					respite to refresh his voice. Impatient of retirement, it was his custom to go
					from the bath to the theatre; and after dining in the orchestra, amidst a
					crowded assembly of the people, he promised them in Greek, " that after he had drank a
					little, he would give them a tune which would make their ears tingle." Being
					highly pleased with the songs that were sung in his praise by some Alexandrians
					belonging to the fleet just arrived at Naples , he
					sent for more of the like singers from Alexandria . At the same time, he chose young men of the
					equestrian order, and above five thousand robust young fellows from the common
					people, on purpose to learn various kinds of applause, called bombi, imbrices,
					and testae, 
					which the were to practice in his favour, whenever he performed. They were
					divided into several parties, and were remarkable for their fine heads of hair,
					and were extremely well dressed, with rings upon their left hands. The leaders
					of these bands had salaries of forty thousand sesterces allowed them.

At Rome also, being extremely proud of
					his singing, he ordered the games called Neronia to be celebrated before the
					time fixed for their return. All now becoming importunate to hear "his heavenly
					voice," he informed them, "that he would gratify those who desired it at the
					gardens." But the soldiers then on guard seconding the voice of the people, he
					promised to comply with their request immediately, and with all his heart. He
					instantly ordered his name to be entered upon the list of musicians who proposed
					to contend, and having thrown his lot into the urn among the rest, took his
					turn, and entered, attended by the prefects of the pretorian cohorts bearing his
					harp, and followed by the military tbunes, and several of his intimate friends.
					After he had taken his station, and made the usual prelude, he commanded Cluvius
					Rufus, a man of consular rank, to proclaim in the theatre, that he intended to
					sing the story of Niobe. This he accordingly did, and continued it until nearly
					ten o'clock, but deferred the disposal of the crown, and the remaining part of
					the solemnity, until the next year; that he might have more frequent
					opportunities of performing. But that being too long, he could not refrain from
					often appearing as a public performer during the interval. He made no scruple of
					exhibiting on the stage, even in the spectacles presented to the people by
					private persons, and was offered by one of the praetors, no less than a million
					of sesterces for his services. He likewise sang tragedies in a mask; the visors
					of the heroes and gods, as also of the heroines and goddesses, being formed into
					a resemblance of his own face, and that of any woman he was in love with.
					Amongst the rest, he sung "Canace in Labour," "Orestes the Murderer of his Mother,"
					"Oedipus Blinded," and "Hercules Mad." In the last tragedy, it is said that a
					young sentinel, posted at the entrance of the stage, seeing him in a prison
					dress and bound with fetters, as the fable of the play required, ran to his
					assistance.

He had from his childhood an extravagant passion for horses; and his constant
					talk was of the Circensian races, notwithstanding it was prohibited him.
					Lamenting once, among his fellow-pupils, the case of a charioteer of the green
					party, who was dragged round the circus at the tail of his chariot, and being
					reprimanded by his tutor for it, he pretended that he was talking of Hector. In
					the beginning of his reign, he used to amuse himself daily with chariots drawn
					by four horses, made of ivory, upon a table. He attended at all the lesser
					exhibitions in the circus, at first privately, but at last openly; so that
					nobody ever doubted of his presence on any particular day. Nor did he conceal
					his desire to have the number of the prizes doubled; so that the races being
					increased accordingly, the diversion continued until a late hour; the leaders of
					parties refusing now to bring out their companies for any time less than the
					whole day. Upon this, he took a fancy for driving the chariot himself, and that
					even publicly. Having made his first experiment in the gardens, amidst crowds of
					slaves and other rabble, he at length performed in the view of all the people,
					in the Circus Maximus, whilst one of his freedmen dropped the napkin in the
					place where the magistrates used to give the signal. Not satisfied with
					exhibiting various specimens of his skill in those arts at Rome , he went over to Achaia , as has been already said, principally
					for this purpose. The several cities, in which solemn trials of musical skill
					used to be publicly held, had resolved to send him the crowns belonging to those
					who bore away the prize. These he accepted so graciously, that he not only gave
					the deputies who brought them an immediate audience, but even invited them to
					his table. Being requested by some of them to sing at supper, and prodigiously
					applauded, he said, " the Greeks were the only people who had an ear for music,
					and were the only good judges of him and his attainments." Without delay he
					commenced his journey, and on his arrival at Cassiope, exhibited
					his first musical performance before the altar of Jupiter Cassius.

He afterwards appeared at the celebrarion of all public games in Greece : for such as fell in different years,
					he brought within the compass of one, and some he ordered to be celebrated a
					second time in the same year. At Olympia , likewise, contrary to custom, he appointed a public
					performance of music: and that he might meet with no interruption in this
					employment, when he was informed by his freedman Helius, that affairs at
						 Rome required his presence, he
					wrote to him in these words: "Though now all your hopes and wishes are for my
					speedy return, yet you ought rather to advise and hope that I may come back with
					a character worthy of Nero. During the time of his musical performance, nobody w
					s allowed to stir out of the theatre upon any account, hoever necessary;
					insomuch, that it is said some wome with child were delivered there. Many of the
					spectator being quite wearied with hearing and applauding hir, because the town
					gates were shut, slipped privately over . the walls; or counterfeiting
					themselves dead, were ca ried out for their funeral. With what extreme anxiety h
					engaged in these contests, with what keen desire to be r away the prize, and
					with how much awe of the judges, s scarcely to be believed. As if his
					adversaries had been on a level with himself he would watch them narrowly,
					defame them privately, and sometimes, upon meeting them, rail at them in very
					scurrilous language; or bribe them, if they were better performers than himself,
					He always addressed the judges with the most profound reverence before he began,
					telling them, " he had done all things that were necessary, by way of
					preparation, but that the issue of the approaching trial was in the hand of
					fortune; and that they, as wise and skilful men, ought to exclude from their
					judgment things merely accidental." Upon their encouraging him to have a good
					heart, he went off with more assurance, but not entirely free from anxiety;
					interpreting the silence and modesty of some of them into sourness and
					ill-nature, and saying that he was suspicious of them.

In these contests, he adhered so strictly to the rules, that he never durst spit,
					nor wipe the sweat from his forehead in any other way than with his sleeve.
					Having, in the performance of a tragedy, dropped his sceptre, and not quickly
					recovering it, he was in a great fright, lest he should be set aside for the
					miscarriage, and could not regain his assurance, until an actor who stood by
					swore he was certain it had not been observed in the midst of the acclamations
					and exultations of the people. When the prize was adjudged to him, he always
					proclaimed it himself; and even entered the list with the heralds. That no
					memory or the least monument might remain of any other victor in the sacred
					Grecian games, he ordered all their statues and pictures to be pulled down,
					dragged away with hooks, and thrown into the common sewers. He drove the chariot
					with various numbers of horses, and at the Olympic games with no fewer than ten;
					though, in a poem of his, he had reflected upon Mithridates for that innovation.
					Being thrown out of his chariot, he was again replaced, but could not retain his
					seat, and was obliged to give it up, before he reached the goal, but was crowned
					notwithstanding. On his departure he declared the whole province a free counry,
					and conferred upon the judges in the several games the freedom of Rome , with large sums of money. All these
					favours he proclaimed himself with his own voice, from the middle of the
					Stadium, during the solemnity of the Isthmian games.

On his return from Greece , arriving at
						 Naples , because he had commenced
					his career as a public performer in that city, he made his entrance in a chariot
					drawn by white horses through a breach in the city-wall, according to the
					practice of those who were victorious in the sacred Grecian games. In the same
					manner he entered Antium , Alba, and
						 Rome . He made his entry into the
					city riding in the same chariot in which Augustus had triumphed, in a purple
					tunic, and a cloak embroidered with golden stars, having on his head the crown
					won at Olympia , and in his right
					hand that which was given him at the Parthian games: the rest being carried in a
					procession before him, with inscriptions denoting the places where they had been
					won, from whom, and in what plays or musical performances; whilst a train
					followed him with loud acclamations, crying out, that " they were the emperor's
					attendants, and the soldiers of his triumph." Having then caused an arch of the
					Circus Maximus to be taken down, he passed through the
					breach, as also through the Velabrum and the forum, to the Palatine hill and the temple of Apollo. Every where as he
					marched along, victims were slain, whilst the streets were strewed with saffron,
					and birds, chaplets, and sweetmeats scattered abroad. He suspended the sacred
					crowns in his chamber, about his beds, and caused statues of himself to be
					erected in the attire of a harper, and had his likeness stamped upon the coin in
					the same dress. After this period, he was so tar from abating any thing of his
					application to music, that, for the preservation of his voice, he never
					addressed the soldiers but by messages, or with some person to deliver his
					speeches for him, when he thought fit to make his appearance amongst them. Nor
					did he ever do any thing either in jest or earnest, without a voice-master
					standing by him to caution him against overstraining his vocal organs, and to
					apply a handkerchief to his mouth when he did. He offered his friendship, or
					avowed open enmity to many, according as they were lavish or sparing in giving
					him their applause.

Petulancy, lewdness, luxury, avarice, and cruelty, he practised at first with
					reserve and in private, as if prompted to them only by the folly of youth, but,
					even then, the world was of opinion that they were the faults of his nature, and
					not of his age. After it was dark, he used to enter the taverns disguised in a
					cap or a wig, and ramble about the streets in sport, which was not void of
					mischief. He used to beat those he met coming home from supper; and, if they
					made any resistance, would wound them, and throw them into the common-sewer. He
					broke open and robbed shops; establishing an auction at home for selling his
					booty. In the scuffles which took place on those occasions, he often ran the
					hazard of losing his eyes, and even his life; being beaten almost to death by a
					senator, for handling his wife indecently. After this adventure, he never again
					ventured abroad at that time of night, without some tribunes following him at a
					little distance. In the day-time he would be carried to the theatre incognito in
					a litter, placing himself upon the upper part of the proscenium, where he not
					only witnessed the quarrels which arose on account of the performances, but also
					encouraged them. When they came to blows, and stones and pieces of broken
					benches began to fly about, he threw them plentifully amongst the people, and
					once even broke a praetor's head.

His vices gaining strength by degrees, he laid aside his jocular amusements, and
					all disguise; breaking out into enormous crimes, without the least attempt to
					conceal them. His revels were prolonged from mid-day to midnight, while he was
					frequently refreshed by warm baths, and, in the summer time, by such as were
					cooled with snow. He often supped in public, in the Naumachia, with the sluices
					shut, or in the Campus Martius , or the
					Circus Maximus, being waited upon at table by common prostitutes of the town,
					and Syrian strumpets and gleegirls. As often as he went down the Tiber to Ostia , or coasted through the gulf of Baiae , booths furnished as brothels and
					eating-houses, were erected along the shore and river banks; before which stood
					matrons, who, like bawds and hostesses, allured him to land. It was also his
					custom to invite himself to supper with his friends: at one of which was
					expended no less than four millions of sesterces in chaplets, and at another
					something more in roses.

Besides the debauch of married women, he comnmitted rape upon Rubria, a Vestal
					Virfin. He was upon the point of marrying Acte, his freedwoman, having suborned some men of
					consular rank to swear that she was of royal descent. That he
					entertained an incestuous passion for his mother, but was
					deterred by her enemies, for fear that this haughty and overbearing woman
					should, by her compliance, get him entirely into her power, and govern in every
					thing, was universally believed; especially after he had introduced amongst his
					concubines a strumpet, who was reported to have a strong resemblance to
						Agrippina.



He thought there was no other use of riches and money than to squander them away
					profusely; regarding all those as sordid wretches who kept their expenses within
					due boundsLjand extolling those as truly noble and generous souls, who lavished
					away and wasted all they possessed. He praised and admired his uncle Caius upon no
					account more, than for squandering in a short time the vast treasure left him by
					Tiberius. Accordingly, he was himself extravagant and profuse, beyond all
					bounds. He spent upon Tiridates eight hundred thousand sesterces a day, a sum
					almost incredible; and at his departure, presented him with upwards of a
					million. He likewise
					bestowed upon Menecrates the harper, and Spicillus a gladiator, the estates and
					houses of men who had received the honour of a triumph. He enriched the usurer
					Cercopithecus Panerotes with estates both in town and country; and gave him a
					funeral, in pomp and magnificence little inferior to that of princes. He never
					wore the same garment twice. He has been known to stake four hundred thousand
					sesterces on a throw of the dice. It was his custom to fish with a golden net,
					drawn by silken cords of purple and scarlet. It is said, that he never travelled
					with less than a thousand baggage-carts; the mules being all shod with silver,
					and the drivers dressed in scarlet jackets of the finest Canusian cloth, 
					with a numerous train of footmen, and troops of Mazacans, with bracelets on their arms, and mounted upon
					horses in splendid trappings.

In nothing was he more prodigal than in his buildings. He completed his palace by
					continuing it from the Palatine to the
						 Esquiline hill, calling the
					building at first only "The Passage," but after it was burnt down and rebuilt,
					"The Golden House. Of its dimensions and furniture, it may be sufficient to say
					thus much: the porch was so high that there stood in it a colossal statue of
					himself a hundred and twenty feet in height; and the space included in it was so
					ample, that it had triple porticos a mile in length, and a lake like a sea,
					surrounded with buildings which had the appearance of a city. Within its area
					were corn fields, vineyards, pastures, and woods, containing a vast number of
					animals of various kinds, both wild and tame. In other parts it was entirely
					over-laid with gold, and adorned with jewels and mother of pearl. The supper
					rooms were vaulted, and compartments of the ceilings, inlaid with ivory, were
					made to revolve, and scatter flowers; while they contained pipes which shed
					unguents upon the guests. The chief banqueting room was circular, and revolved
					perpetually, night and day, in imitation of the motion of the celestial bodies.
					The baths were supplied with water from the sea and the Albula. Upon the
					dedication of this magnificent house after it was finished, all he said in
					approval of it was, "that he had now a dwelling fit for a man." He commenced
					making a pond for the reception of all the hot springs from Baiae , which he designed to have continued
					from Misenum to the Avernian lake,
					in a conduit, enclosed in galleries: and also a canal from Avernum to Ostia , that ships might pass from one to the
					other, without a sea voyage. The length of the proposed canal was one hundred
					and sixty miles; and it was intended to be of breadth sufficient to permit ships
					with five banks of oars to pass each other. For the execution of these designs,
					he ordered all prisoners, in every part of the empire, to be brought to
						 Italy ; and that even those who were
					convicted of the most heinous crimes, in lieu of any other sentence, should be
					condemned to work at them. He was encouraged to all this wild and enormous profu
					sion, not only by the great revenue of the empire, but by the sudden hopes given
					him of an immense hidden treasure, which queen Dido, upon her flight from
						 Tyre , had brought with her to
						 Africa . This, a Roman knight
					pretended to assure him, upon good grounds, was still hid there in some deep
					caverns, and might with a little labour be recovered.

But being disappointed in his expectations of this resource, and reduced to such
					difficulties, for want of money, that he was obliged to defer paying his troops,
					and the rewards due to the veterans: he resolved upon supplying his necessities
					by means of false accusations and plunder. In the first place, he ordered, that
					if any freedman, without sufficient reason, bore the name of the family to which
					he belonged; the half instead of three fourths, of his estate should be brought
					into the exchequer at his decease: also that the estates of all such persons as
					had not in their wills been mindful of their prince, shuld be confiscated; and
					that the lawyers who ha drawn or dictated such wills, shoud be liable to a fine.
					He ordained likewise, that all words and actions, upon which any informer could
					ground a prosecution, should be deemed treason. He demanded an equivalent for
					the cirowris which the cities of Greece 
					had at any time offered him in the solemn games. Having forbad any one to use
					the colours of amethyst and Tyrian purple, he privately sent a person to sell a
					few ounces of them upon the day of the Nundinae, and then shut up all the
					merchants' shops, on the pretext that his edict had been violated. It is said,
					that, as he was playing and singing in the theatre, observing a married lady
					dressed in the purple which he had prohibited, he pointed her out to his
					procurators; upon which she was immediately dragged out of her seat, and not
					only stripped of her clothes, but her property. He never nominated a person to
					any office without saying to him, " You know what I want: and let us take care
					that nobody has anything he can call his own." At last he rifled many temples of
					the rich offerings with which they were stored, and melted down all the gold and
					silver statues, and amongst them those of the penates, 
					which Galba afterwards restored.

He began the practice of parricide and murder with Claudius himself; for although
					he was not the contriver of his death, he was privy to the plot. Nor did he make
					any secret of it; but used afterwards to commend, in a Greek proverb, mushrooms
					as food fit for the gods, because Claudius had been poisoned with them. He
					traduced his memory, both by word and deed in the grossest manner; one while
					charging him with folly, another while with cruelty. For he used to say by way
					cff jest, that he had ceased morari 
					amongst men, pronouncing the first syllable long; and treated as null many of
					his decrees and ordinances, as made by a doting old blockhead. He enclosed the
					place where his body was burnt with only a low wall of rough masonry. He
					attempted to poison Britannicus, as much out of envy because he had a sweeter
					voice, as from apprehension of what might ensue from the respect which the
					people entertained for his father's memory. He employed for this purpose a woman
					named Locusta who had been a witness against some persons guilty of like
					practices. But the poison she gave him, working more slowly than he expected,
					and only causing a purge, he sent for the woman, and beat her with his own hand,
					charging her with administering an antidote instead of poison; and upon her
					alleging in excuse, that she had given Britannicus but a gentle mixture in order
					to prevent suspicion, "Think you," said he, " that I am afraid of the Julian
					law; " and obliged her to prepare, in his own chamber and before his eyes, as
					quick and strong a dose as possible. This he tried upon a kid: but the animal
					lingering for five hours before it expired, he ordered her to go' to work again;
					and when she had done, he gave the poison to a slave, who dying immediately, he
					commanded the poison to be brought into the eating-room and given to
					Britannicus, while he was at supper with him. The prince had no sooner tasted it
					than he sunk on the floor, Nero meanwhile pretending to the guests, that it was
					only a fit of the falling sickness, to which, he said, he was subject. He buried
					him the following day, in a mean and hurried way, during violent storms of rain.
					He gave Locusta a pardon, and rewarded her with a great estate in land, placing
					some disciples with her, to be instructed in her trade.

His mother being used to make strict inquiry into what he said or did, and to
					reprimand him with the freedom of a parent, he was so much offended, that he
					endeavoured to expose her to public resentment, by frequently pretending a
					resolution to quit the government, and retire to Rhodes . Soon afterwards, he deprived her of all honour and
					power, took from her the guard of Roman and German soldiers, banished her from
					the palace and from his society, and persecuted er in every way he could
					contrive; employing persons to harass her when at Rome with law-suits, and to disturb her in her retirement from
					town with the most scurrilous and abusive language, following her about by land
					and sea. But being terrified with her menaces and violent spirit, he resolved
					upon her destruction, and thrice attempted it by poison. Finding, however, that
					she had previously secured herself by antidotes, he contrived machinery, by
					which the floor over her bed-chamber might be made to fall upon her while she
					was asleep in the night. This design miscarrying likewise, through the little
					caution used by those who were in the secret, his next stratagem was to
					construct a ship which could be easily shivered, in hopes of destroying her
					either by drowning, or by the deck above her cabin crushing her in its fall.
					Accordingly, under colour of a pretended reconciliation, he wrote her an
					extremely affectionate letter, inviting her to Baiae , to celebrate with him the festival of Minerva. He had
					given private orders to the captains of the galleys which were to attend her, to
					shatter to pieces the ship in which she had come, by falling foul of it, but in
					such manner that it might appear to be done accidentally. He prolonged the
					entertainment, for the more convenient opportunity of executing the plot in the
					night; and at her return for Bauli, instead of
					the old ship which had conveyed her to Baiae , he offered that which he had contrived for her
					destruction. He attended her to the vessel in a very cheerful mood, and, at
					parting with her, kissed her breasts; after which he sat up very late in the
					night, waiting with great anxiety to learn the issue of his project. But
					receiving information that everything had fallen out contrary to his wish, and
					that she had saved herself by swimming, not knowing what course to take, upon
					her freedman, Lucius Agerinus, bringing word, with great joy, that she was safe
					and well, he privately dropped a poniard by him. He then commanded the freedman
					to be seized and put in chains, under pretence of his having been employed by
					his mother to assassinate him; at the same time ordering her to be put to death,
					and giving out, that, to avoid punishment for her intended crime, she had laid
					violent hands upon herself. Other circumstances, still more horrible, are
					related on good authority; as that he went to view her corpse, and handling her
					limbs, pointed out some blemishes, and commended other points; and that, growing
					thirsty during the survey, he called for drink. Yet he was never afterwards able
					to bear the stings of his own conscience for this atrocious act, although
					encouraged by the congratulatory addresses of the army, the senate, and people.
					He frequently affirmed that he was haunted by his mother's ghost, and persecuted
					with the whips and burning torches of the Furies. Nay, he attempted by magical
					rites to bring up her ghost from below, and soften her rage against him. When he
					was in Greece , he durst not attend the
					celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries, at the initiation of which, impious and
					wicked persons are warned by the voice of the herald from approaching the rites.
						 Besides the murder of his mother, he had been guilty of that of his
					aunt; for, being obliged to keep her bed in consequence of a complaint in her
					bowels, he paid her a visit, and she, being then advanced in years, stroking his
					downy chin, in the tenderness of affection, said to him: " May I but live to see
					the day when this is shaved for the first time, and I shall then die contented." He turned, however,
					to those about him, made a jest of it, saying, that he would have his beard
					immediately taken off; and ordered the physicians to give her more violent
					purgatives. He seized upon her estate before she had expired; suppressing her
					will, that he might enjoy the whole himself.

He had, besides Octavia, two other wives: Poppaea Sabina, whose father had borne
					the office of quaestor, and who had been married before to a Roman knight: and,
					after her, Statilia Messalina, great-granddaughter of Taurus, who was twice consul, and
					received the honour of a triumph. To obtain possession of her, he put to death
					her husband, Atticus Vestinus, who was then consul. He soon became disgusted
					with Octavia, and ceased from having any intercourse with her; and being
					censured by his friends for it, he replied, " She ought to be satisfied with
					having the rank and appendages of his wife." Soon afterwards, he made several
					attempts, but in vain, to strangle her, and then divorced her for barrenness.
					But the people, disapproving of the divorce, and making severe comments upon it,
					he also banished her. At last he put her to death, upon a charge of adultery,
					so impudent and false, that, when all those who were put to the torture
					positively denied their knowledge of it, he suborned his pedagogue, Anicetus, to
					affirm, that he had secretly intrigued with and debauched her. He married
					Poppaea twelve days after the divorce of Octavia, and entertained a great affection for her; but, nevertheless,
					killed her with a kick which he gave her when she was big with child, and in bad
					health, only because she found fault with him for returning late from driving
					his chariot He had by her a daughter, Claudia Augusta, who died an infant. There
					was no person at all connected with him who escaped his deadly and unjust
					cruelty. Under pretence of her being engaged in a plot against him, he ,put to
					dath Antonia, Claudius's daughter, who refused to marry him after the death of
					Poppaea. In the same way, he destroyed all yho were allied to him either by
					blood or marriage; amongst whom was young Aulus Plautinus. His step-son,
					Rufinus Crispinus, Poppaea's son, though a minor, he ordered to be drowned in
					the sea, while he was fishing, by his own slaves, because he was reported to act
					Trequenty amongst his play-fellows the part of a general or an emperor. He
					banished Tuscus, his nurse's son, for presuming, when he was procurator of
						 Egypt , to wash in the baths which
					had been constructed in expectation of his own coming. Seneca , his preceptor, he forced to kill
					himself though upon his
					desiring leave to retire, and offering to surrender his estate, he solemnly
					swore, "that there was no foundation for his suspicions, and that he would
					perish himself sooner than hurt him." Having promised Burrhus, the pretorian
					prefect, a remedy for a swelling in his throat, he sent him poison. Some old
					rich freedmen of Claudius, who had formerly not only promoted his adoption, but
					were also instrumental to his advancement to the empire, and had been his
					governors, he took off by poison given them in their meat or drink.

Nor did he proceed with less cruelty against those who were not of his family. A
					blazing star, which is vulgarly supposed to portend destruction to kings and
					princes, appeared above the horizon several nights successively. He felt great
					anxiety on account of this phenomenon, as being informed by one Babilus, an
					astrologer, that princes were used to expiate such omens by the sacrifice of
					illustrious persons, and so avert the danger foreboded to their own persons, by
					bringing it on the heads of their chief men, he resolved on the destruction of
					the principal nobility in Rome . He was
					the more encouraged to this, because he had some plausible pretence for carrying
					it into execution, from the discovery of two conspiracies against him; the
					former and more dangerous of which was that formed by Piso and discovered at Rome ; the other was that of Vinicius, at
						 Beneventum . The conspirators were
					brought to their trials loaded with triple fetters. Some ingenuously confessed
					the charge; others avowed that they thought the design against his life an act
					of favour for which he was obliged to them, as it was impossible in any other
					way than by death to relieve a person rendered infamous by crimes of the
					greatest enormity. The children of those who had been condemned, were banished
					the city, and afterwards either poisoned or starved to death. It is asserted
					that some of them, with their tutors, and the slaves who carried their satchels,
					were all poisoned together at one dinner; and others not suffered to seek their
					daily bread.

From this period he butchered, without distinction or quarter, all whom his
					caprice suggested as objects for his cruelty; and upon the most frivolous
					pretences. To mention only a few: Salvidienus Orfitus was accused of letting out
					three taverns attached to his house in the forum to some cities for the use of
					their deputies at Rome . The charge
					against Cassius Longinus, a lawyer who had lost his sight, was, that he kept
					amongst the busts of his ancestors that of Caius Cassius, who was concerned in
					the death of Julius Caesar. The only charge objected against Paetus Thrasea was,
					that he had a melancholy cast of features, and looked like a school-master. He
					allowed but one hour to those whom he obliged to kill themselves; and, to
					prevent delay, he sent them physicians " to cure them immediately, if they
					lingered beyond that time ;" for so he called bleeding them to death. There was
					at that time an Egyptian of a most voracious appetite, who would digest raw
					flesh, or any thing else that was given him. It was credibly reported, that the
					emperor was extremely desirous of furnishing him with living men to tear and
					devour. Being elated with his great success in the perpetration of crimes, he
					declared. " that no prince before himself ever knew the extent of his power." He
					threw out strong intimations that he would not even spare the senators who
					survived, but would entirely extirpate that order, and put the provinces and
					armies into the hands of the Roman knights and his own freedmen. It is certain
					that he never gave or vouchsafed to allow any one the customary kiss, either on
					entering or departing, or even returned a salute. And at the inauguration of a
					work, the cut through the Isthmus, he, with a loud voice, amidst the assembled multitude, uttered a prayer,
					that "the undertaking might prove fortunate for himself and the Roman people,"
					without taking the smallest notice of the senate.

He spared, moreover, neither the people of Rome , nor the capital of the country. Somebody in conversation
					saying ἐμοῦ θανόντοσ γαῖα μιχθήτω 
					 When I am dead let fire devour the world. 
					"Nay," said he, "let it be while I am living" [ ἐμοῦ ] And he acted accordingly; for, pretending to be disgusted
					with the old buildings, and the streets, he set the city on fire so openly, that
					many of consular rank caught his own household servants on their property with
					tow, and torches in their hands, but durst not meddle with them. There being
					near his Golden House some granaries, the site of which he exceedingly coveted,
					they were battered as if with machines of war, and set on fire, the walls being
					built of stone. During six days and seven nights this terrible devastation
					continued, the people being obliged to fly to the tombs and monuments for
					lodging and shelter. Meanwhile, a vast number of stately buildings, the houses
					of generals celebrated in former times, and even then still decorated with the
					spoils of war, were laid in ashes; as well as the temples of the gods, which had
					been vowed and dedicated by the kings of Rome , and afterwards in the Punic and Gallic wars: in short,
					everything that was remarkable and worthy to be seen which time had spared. This
					fire he beheld from a tower in the house of Maecenas, and, "being greatly
					delighted," as he said, "with the beautiful effects of the conflagration," he
					sung a poem on the ruin of Troy , in the
					tragic dress he used on the stage. To turn this calamity to his own advantage by
					plunder and rapine, he promised to remove the bodies of those who had perished
					in the fire, and clear the rubbish at his own expense: suffering no one to
					meddle with the remains of their property. But he not only received, but exacted
					contributions on account of the loss, until he had exhausted the means both of
					the provinces and private persons.

To these terrible and shameful calamities brought upon the people by their
					prince, were added some proceeding from misfortune. Such were a pestilence, by
					which, within the space of one autumn, there died no less than thirty thousand
					persons, as appeared from the registers in the temple of Libitina: a great
					disaster in Britain , where two of
					the principal towns belonging to the Romans were plundered; and a dreadful havoc
					made both amongst our troops and allies; a shameful discomfiture of the army of
					the East; where, in Armenia , the
					legions were obliged to pass under the yoke, and it was with great difficulty
					that Syria was retained. Amidst all
					these disasters, it was strange, and, indeed, particularly remarkable, that he
					bore nothing more patiently than the scurrilous language and railing abuse which
					was in every one's mouth; treating no class of persons with more gentleness,
					than those who assailed him with invective and lampoons. Many things of that
					kind were posted up about the city, or otherwise published, both in Greek and
					Latin: such as these, Νέρων Ὀρέστης, 
						 Νεόνυμφον, Νέρων, ἰδίαν μήτερ' ἀπέκτεινεν. 
					 
					 Orestes and Alcmaon -- Nero too, 
						 The lustful Nero, worst of all the crew, 
						 Fresh from his bridal -- their own mothers slew. 
					 Quis neget Aeneae magna de stirpe Neronem? 
						 Sustulit hic matrem: sustulit ille patrem. 
					 Sprung from Aeneas, pious, wise and great, 
						 Who says that Nero is degenerate? 
						 Safe through the flames, one bore his sire; the other, 
						 To save himself, took off his loving mother. 
					 Dum tendit citharam noster, dum cornua Parthus, 
						 Noster erit Peean, ille ἑκατηβελέτησ 
					 His lyre to harmony our Nero strings; 
						 His arrows o'er the plain the Parthiah wings: 
						 Ours call the tuneful Paean, famed in war, 
						 The other Phoebus name, the god who shoots afar. 
					 Roma domus fiet: Vejos migrate, Quirites, 
						 Si non et Vejos occupat ista domus. 
					 All Rome will be
						one house: to Veii fly, Should
							it not stretch to Veii , by and
								by. But he neither made any
					inquiry after the authors, nor when information was laid before the senate
					against some of them, would he allow a severe sentence to be passed. Isidorus,
					the Cynic philosopher, said to him aloud, as he was passing along the streets, "
					You sing the misfortunes of Nauplius well, but behave badly yourself." And
					Datus, a comic actor, when repeating these words in the piece. "Farewell,
					father! Farewell mother!" mimicked the gestures of persons drinking and
					swimming, significantly alluding to the deaths of Claudius and Agrippina: and on
					uttering the last clause, Orcus vobus ducit pedes; You st md this moment on the
					brink of Orcus; he plainly intimated his application of it to the precarious
					position of the senate. Yet Nero only banished the player and philosopher from
					the city and Italy ; either because he
					was insensible to shame, or from apprehension that if he discovered his
					vexation, still keener things might be said of him.

The world, after tolerating such an emperor for little less than fourteen years,
					at length forsook him; the Gauls, headed by Julius Vindex, who at that time
					governed the province as pro-praetor, being the first to revolt. Nero had been
					formerly told by astrologers, that it would be his fortune to be at last
					deserted by all the world; and this occasioned that celebrated saying of his,
					"An artist can live in any country;" by which he meant to offer as an excuse for
					his practice of music, that it was not only his amusement as a prince, but might
					be his support when reduced to a private station. Yet some of the astrologers
					promised him, in his forlorn state, the rule of the East, and in express words
					the kingdom of Jerusalem . But the
					greater part of them flattered him with assurances o fhis being restored to his
					former fortune. And being most incluined to believe the latter prediction, upon
					losing Britain and Armenia , he imagined he had run through all
					his misfortunes which the fates had decreed him. But when, upon consulting the
					oracle of Apollo at Delphi , he was
					advised to beware of the seventy-third year, as if he were not to die till then,
					never thinking of Galba's age, he conceived such hopes, not only of living to
					advanced years, but of constant and singular good fortune, that having lost some
					things of great value by shipwreck, he scrupled not to say amongst his friends,
					that "the fishes would bring them back to him." At Naples he heard of the
					insurrection in Gaul , on the
					anniversary of the day on which he killed his mother, and bore it with so much
					unconcern, as to excite a suspicion that he was really glad of it, since he had
					now a fair opportunity of plundering those wealthy provinces by the right of
					war. Immediately going to the gymnasium, he witnessed the exercise of the
					wrestlers, with the greatest delight. Being interrupted at supper with letters
					which brought yet worse news, he expressed no greater resentment, than only to
					threaten the rebels. For eight days together, he never attempted to answer any
					letters, nor give any orders, but buried the whole affair in profound
					silence.

Being roused at last by numerous proclamations of Vindex, treating him with
					reproaches and contempt, he in a letter to the senate exhorted them to avenge
					his wrongs and those of the republic; desiring them to excuse his not appearing
					in the senate house, because he had got cold. But nothing so much galled him, as
					to find himself railed at as a pitiful harper, and, instead of Nero, styled
					Aenobarbus: which being his family name, since he was upbraided with it, he
					declared he would resume it, and lay aside the name he had taken by adoption.
					Passing by the other accusations as wholly groundless, he earnestly refuted that
					of his want of skill in an art upon which he had bestowed so much pains, and in
					which he had arrived at such perfection; asking frequently those about him, "if
					they knew any one who was a more accomplished musician?" But being alarmed by
					messengers after messengers of ill news from Gaul , he returned in great consternation to Rome . On the road, his mind was somewhat
					relieved, by observing the frivolous omen of a Gaulish soldier defeated and
					dragged by the hair by a Roman knight, which was sculptured on a monument; so
					that he leaped for joy, and adored the heavens. Even then he made no appeal
					either to the senate or people, but calling together some of the leading men at
					his own house, he held a hasty consultation upon the present state of affairs,
					and then, during the remainder of the day, carried them about with him to view
					some musical instruments, of a new invention, which were played by water; exhibiting all the
					parts, and discoursing upon the principles and difficulties of the contrivance;
					which, he told them, he intended to produce in the theatre, if Vindex would give
					him leave.

Soon afterwards, he received intelligence that Galba and the Spaniards had
					declared against him; upon which, he faiited, and losing his reason, lay a long
					time speechless, and apparently dead. As soon as he recovered from this state of
					stupefaction, he tore his clothes, and beat his head, crying, " It is all over
					with me !" His nurse endeavoring to comfort him, and telling him that the like
					things had happened to other princes before him, he replied, " I am beyond all
					example wretched, for I have lost an empire whilst I am still living." He,
					nevertheless, abated nothing of his usual luxury and inattention to business.
					Nay, on the arrival of good news from the provinces, he, at a sumptuous
					entertainment, sung with an air of merriment some jovial verses upon the leaders
					of the revolt, which were made public; and accompanied them with suitable
					gestures. Being carried privately to the theatre, he sent word to an actor who
					was applauded by the spectators, " that he had it all his own way, now that he
					himself did not appear on the stage."

At the first breaking out of these troubles, it is believed that he had formed
					many designs of a monstrous nature, although conformable enough to his natural
					disposition. These were to send new governors and commanders to the provinces
					and the armies, and employ assassins to butcher all the former governors and
					commanders, as men unanimously engaged in a conspiracy against him; to massacre
					the exiles in every quarter, and all the Gaulish population in Rome ; the former lest they should join the
					insurrection; the latter as privy to the designs of their countrymen, and ready
					to support them; to abandon Gaul 
					itself, to be wasted and plundered by his armies; to poison the whole senate at
					a feast; to fire the city, and then let loose the wild beasts upon the people,
					in order to impede their stopping the progress of the flames. But being deterred
					from the execution of these designs, not so much by remorse of conscience, as by
					despair of being able to effect them; and judging an expedition into Gaul necessary, he removed the consuls from
					their office, before the time of its expiration was arrived; and in their room
					assumed the consulship himself without a colleague, as if the fates had decreed
					that Gaul should not be conquered, but
					by a consul. Upon assuming the fasces, after an entertainment at the palace, as
					he walked out of the room leaning on the arms of some of his friends, he
					declared, that as soon as he arrived in the province, he would make his
					appearance amongst the troops, unarmed, and do nothing but weep: and that, after
					he had brought the mutineers to repentance, he would, the next day, in the
					public rejoicings, sing songs of triumph, which he must now, without loss of
					time, apply himself to compose.

In preparing for this expedition, his first care was to provide carriages for his
					musical instruments and machinery to be used upon the stage; to have the hair of
					the concubines he carried with him dressed in the fashion of men; and to supply
					them with battle-axes, and Amazonian bucklers. He summoned the city-tribes to
					enlist; but no qualified persons appearing, he ordered all masters to send a
					certain number of slaves, the best they had, not excepting their stewards and
					secretaries. He commanded the several orders of the people to bring in a fixed
					proportion of their estates, as they stood in the censor's books; all tenants of
					houses and mansions to pay one year's rent forthwith into the exchequer; and
					with unheard-of strictness, would receive only new coin of the purest silver and
					the finest gold; insomuch that most people refused to pay, crying out
					unanimously that he ought to squeeze the informers, and oblige them to surrender
					their gains.

The general odium in which he was held received an increase by the great scarcity
					of corn, and an occurrence connected with it. For, as it happened just at that
					time, there arrived from Alexandria a ship, which was said to be freighted with dust for
					the wrestlers belonging to the emperor. This so much
					inflamed the public rage, that he was treated with the utmost abuse and
					scurrility. Upon the top of one of his statues was placed the figure of a
					chariot with a Greek inscription, that " Now indeed he had a race to run; let
					him begone." A little bag was tied about another, with a ticket containing these
					words: "What could I do?"-"Truly thou hast merited the sack." 
					Some person likewise wrote on the pillars in the forum, " that he had even woke
					the cocks with his singing." And many, in the night-time, pretending to
					find fault with their servants, frequently called for a Vindex.

He was also terrified with manifest warnings, both old and new, arising from
					dreams, auspices, and omens. He had never been used to dream before the murder
					of his mother. After that event, he fancied in his sleep that he was steering a
					ship, and that the rudder was forced from him: that he was dragged by his wife
					Octavia into a prodigiously dark place; and was at one time covered over with a
					vast swarm of winged ants, and at another, surrounded by the national images
					which were set up near Pompey's theatre, and hindered from advancing farther;
					that a Spanish jennet he was fond of, had his hinder parts so changed, as to
					resemble those of an ape; and having his head only left unaltered, neighed very
					harmoniously. The doors of the mausoleum of Augustus flying open of themselves,
					there issued from it a voice, calling on him by name. The Lares being adorned
					with fresh garlands on the calends (the first) of January, fell down during the
					preparations for sacrificing to them. While he was taking the omens, Sporus
					presented him with a ring, the stone of which had carved upon it the Rape of
					Proserpine. When a great multitude of the several orders was assembled, to
					attend at the solemnity of making vows to the gods, it was a long time before
					the keys of the Capitol could be found. And when, in a speech of his to the
					senate against Vindex, these words were read, "that the miscreants should be
					punished and soon make the end they merited," they all cried out, "You will do
					it, Augustus." It was likewise remarked, that the last tragic piece which he
					sung, was Oedipus in Exile, and that he fell as he was repeating this verse:
						 θανεῖν μ' ἄνῳγε σύγγαμος, μήτηρ, 
					 Wife, mother, father, force me to my
					end.

Meanwhile, on the arrival of the news, that the rest of the armies had declared
					against him, he tore to pieces the letters which were delivered to him at
					dinner, overthrew the table, and dashed with violence against the ground two
					favourite cups, which he called Homer's, because some of that poet's verses were
					cut upon them. Then taking from Locusta a dose of poison, which he put up in a
					golden box, he went into the Servilian gardens, and thence dispatching a trusty
					freedman to Ostia , with orders to
					make ready a fleet, he endeavoured to prevail with some tribunes and centurions
					of the pretorian guards to attend him in his flight; but part of them showing no
					great inclination to comply, others absolutely refusing; and one of them crying
					out aloud, Usque adeone mori miserum est? 
					 Say, is it then so sad a thing to die? 
					 he was in great perplexity whether
					he should submit himself to Galba, or apply to the Parthians for protection, or
					else appear before the people dressed in mourning, and, upon the rostra, in the
					most piteous manner, beg pardon for his past misdemeanors, and, if he could not
					prevail, request of them to grant him at least the government of Egypt . A speech to this purpose was afterwards
					found in his writing-case. But it is conjectured that he durst not venture upon
					this project, for fear of being torn to pieces, before he could get to the
					forum. Deferring, therefore, his resolution until the next day, he awoke about
					midnight, and finding the guards withdrawn, he leaped out of bed, and sent round
					for his friends. But none of them vouchsafing any message in reply, he went with
					a few attendants to their houses. The doors being every where shut, and no one
					giving him any answer, he returned to his bed-chamber; whence those who had the
					charge of it had all now eloped; some having gone one way, and some another,
					carrying off with them his bedding and box of poison. He then endeavoured to
					find Spicillus, the gladiator, or some one to kill him; but not being able to
					procure any one, "What!" said he, "have I then neither friend nor foe ?" and
					immediately ran out, as if he would throw himself into the Tiber .

But this furious impulse subsiding, he wished for some place of privacy, where he
					might collect his thoughts; and his freedman Phaon offering him his
					country-house, between the Salarian and Nomentan roads,
					about four miles from the city, he mounted a horse, barefoot as he was, and, in
					his tunic, only slipping over it an old soiled cloak; with his head muffled up,
					and an handkerchief before his face, and four persons only to attend him, of
					whom Sporus was one. He was suddenly struck with horror at an earthquake, and by
					a flash of lightning which darted full in his face, and heard from the
					neighbouring camp 
					the shouts of the soldiers, wishing his destruction, and prosperity to Galba. He
					also heard a traveller they met on the road say, "They are in pursuit of Nero:"
					and another ask, "Is there any news in the city about Nero?" Uncovering his face
					when his horse was started by the scent of a carcase which lay in the road, he
					was recognized and saluted by an old soldier who had been discharged from the
					guards. When they came to the lane which turned up to the house, they quitted
					their horses, and with much difficulty he wound among bushes and briars, and
					along a track through a bed of rushes, over which they spread their cloaks for
					him to walk on. Having reached a wall at the back of the villa, .Phaon advised
					him to hide himself awhile in a sand-pit; when he replied, "I will not go
					under-ground alive." Staying there some little time, while preparations were
					made for bringing him privately into the villa, he took some water out of a
					neighbouring tank in his hand, to drink, saying, "This is Nero's distilled
						water." Then his cloak having been torn by the brambles, he pulled out
					the thorns which stuck in it. At last, being admitted, creeping upon his hands
					and knees, through a hole made for him in the wall, he lay down in the first
					closet he came to, upon a miserable pallet, with an old coverlet thrown over it;
					and being both hungry and thirsty, though he refused some coarse bread that was
					brought him, he drank a little warm water.

All who surrounded him now pressing him to save himself from the indignities
					which were 'ready to befall him, he ordered a pit to be sunk before his eyes, of
					the size of his body, and the bottom to be covered with pieces of marble put
					together, if any could be found about the house; and water and wood, to be got ready for immediate use about his corpse;
					weeping at every thing that was done, and frequently saying, "What an artist is
					now about to perish!" Meanwhile, letters being brought in by a servant belonging
					to Phaon, he snatched them out of his hand, and there read, "That he had been
					declared an enemy by the senate, and that search was making for him, that he
					might be punished according to the ancient custom of the Romans." He then
					inquired what kind of punishment that was; and being told, that the practice was
					to strip the criminal naked, and scourge him to death, while his neck was
					fastened within a forked stake, he was so terrified that he took up two daggers
					which he had brought with him, and after feeling the points of both, put them up
					again, saying, " The fatal hour is not yet come." One while, he begged of Sporus
					to begin to wail and lament; another while, he entreated that one of them would,
					set him an example by killing himself; and then again, he condemned his own want
					of resolution in these words: " I yet live to my shame and disgrace: this is not
					becoming for Nero: it is not becoming. Thou oughtest in such circumstances to
					have a good heart: Come, then: courage, man!" The horsemen who had received orders to bring him away alive,
					were now approaching the house. As soon as he heard them coming, he uttered with
					a trembling voice the following verse, 
						 ἵππων μ' ὠκυπόδων ἀμφὶ κτύποσ οὔατα 
						 Il. x. 535. 
					 
					 The noise of swift-heel'd steeds assails my
						ears; he drove a dagger into his throat, being assisted in the
					act by Epaphroditus, his secretary. A centurion bursting in just as he was
					half-dead, and applying his cloak to the wound, pretending that he was come to
					his assistance, he made no other reply but this, "'Tis too late; and "Is this
					your loyalty ?" Immediately after pronouncing these words, he expired, with his
					eyes fixed and starting out of his head, to the terror of all who beheld him. He
					had requested of his attendants, as the most essential favour, that they would
					let no one have his head, but that by all means his body might be burnt entire.
					And this, Icelus, Galba's freedman, granted. He had but a little before been
					discharged from the prison into which he had been thrown, when the disturbances
					first broke out.

The expenses of his funeral amounted to two hundred thousand sesterces; the bed
					upon which his body was carried to the pile and burnt, being covered with the
					white robes, interwoven with gold, which he had worn upon the calends of January
					preceding. His nurses, Ecloge and Alexandra , with his concubine Acte, deposited his remains in
					the tomb belonging to the family of the Domitii, which stands upon the top of
					the Hill of the Gardens, and is to be seen from the Campus Martius . In that monument, a coffin of
					porphyry, with an altar of marble of Luna over it, is enclosed by a wall built of stone brought from
						 Thasos .

In stature he was a little below the common height; his skin was foul and
					spotted; his hair inclined to yellow; his features were agreeable rather than
					handsome; his eyes grey and dull, his neck was thick, his belly prominent, his
					legs very slender, his constitution sound. For, though excessively luxurious in
					his mode of living, he had, in the course of fourteen years, only three fits of
					sickness; which were so slight, that he neither forbore the use of wine, nor
					made any alteration in his usual diet. In his dress, and the care of his person
					he was so careless, that he had his hair cut in rings, one above another; and
					when in Achaia , he let it grow long
					behind; and he generally appeared in public in the loose dress which he used at
					table, with a handkerchief about his neck, and without either a girdle or
					shoes.

He was instructed, when a boy, in the rudiments of almost all the liberal
					sciences; but his mother diverted him from the study of philosophy, as unsuited
					to one destined to be an emperor; and his preceptor, Seneca , discouraged him from reading the
					ancient orators, that he might longer secure his devotion to himself. Therefore,
					having a turn for poetry, he composed verses both with pleasure and ease; nor
					did he, as some think, publish those of other writers as his own. Several little
					pocketbooks and loose sheets have come into my possession, which contain some
					well-known verses in his own hand, and written in such a manner, that it was
					very evident, from the blotting and interlining, that they had not been
					transcribed from a copy, nor dictated by another, but were written by the
					composer of them.

He had likewise great taste for drawing and painting, as well as for moulding
					statues in plaster. But, ab've all things, he most eagerly 'oveted popularity,
					beinighe rival of every man who obtained the applause of the people for anything
					he did. It was the general belief, that, after the crowns he won by his
					performances on the stage, he would the next lustrum have taken his place among
					the wrestlers at the Olympic games. For he was continually practising that art;
					nor did he witness the gymnastic games in any part of Greece otherwise than sitting upon the ground
					in the stadium, as the umpires do. And if a pair of wrestlers happened to break
					the bounds, he would with his own hands drag them back into the centre of the
					circle. Because he was thought to equal Apollo in music, and the sun in
					chariot-driving, he resolved also to imitate the achievements of Hercules. And
					they say that a lion was got ready for him to kill, either with a club, or with
					a close hug, in view of the people in the amphitheatre; which he was to perform
					naked.

Towards the end of his life, he publicly vowed, that if his power in the state
					was securely re-established, he would, in the spectacles which he intended to
					exhibit in honour of his success, include a performance upon organs, as well as upon flutes and bagpipes,
					and, on the last day of the games, would act in the play, and take the part of
					Turnus, as we find it in Virgil. And there are some who say, that he put to
					death the player Paris as a dangerous
					rival.

He had an insatiable desire to immortalize his name, and acquire a reputation
					which should last through all succeeding ages; but it was capriciously directed.
					He therefore took from several things and places their former appellations, and
					gave them new names derived from his own. He called the month of April,
					Neroneus, and designed changing the name of Rome into that of Neropolis.

He held all religious rites in contempt, except those of the Syrian Goddess; but
					at last he paid her so little reverence, that he made water upon her; being now
					engaged in another superstition, in which only he obstinately persisted. For
					having received from some obscure plebeian a little image of a girl, as a
					preservative against plots, and discovering a conspiracy immediately after, he
					constantly worshipped his imaginary protectress as the greatest amongst the
					gods, offering to her three sacrifices daily. He was also desirous to have it
					supposed that he had, by revelations from this deity, a knowledge of future
					events. A few months before he died, he attended a sacrifice, according to the
					Etruscan rites, but the omens were not favourable.

He died in the thirty-second year of his age, upon the same day on which he
					had formerly put Octavia to death; and the public joy was so great upon the
					occasion, that the common people ran about the city with caps upon their heads.
					Some, however, were not wanting, who for a long time decked his tomb with spring
					and summer flowers. Sometimes they placed his image upon the rostra, dressed in
					robes of state; at another, they published proclamations in his name, as if he
					were still alive, and would shortly return to Rome , and take vengeance on all his enemies. Vologesus, king of
					the Parthians, when he sent ambassadors to the senate to renew his alliance with
					the Roman people, earnestly requested that due honour should be paid to the
					memory of Nero ; and, to conclude, when,
					twenty years afterwards, at which time I was a young man, some person of obscure birth gave himself out
					for Nero , that name secured for him so
					favourable a reception from the Parthians, that he was very zealously supported,
					and it was with much difficulty that they were prevailed upon to give him up.

Remarks on Nero 
				 THOUGH no law had ever passed for regulating the transmission of the imperial
					power, yet the design of conveying it by lineal descent was implied in the
					practice of adoption. By the rule of hereditary succession, Britannicus, the son
					of Claudius, was the natural heir to the throne; but he was supplanted by the
					artifices of his stepmother, who had the address to procure it for her own son,
					Nero. From the time of Augustus it had been the custom of each of the new
					sovereigns to commence his reign in such a manner as tended to acquire
					popularity, however much they all afterwards degenerated from those specious
					beginnings. Whether this proceeded entirely from policy, or that nature was not
					yet vitiated by the intoxication of uncontrolled power, is uncertain; but such
					were the excesses into which they afterwards plunged, that we can scarcely
					exempt any of them, except, perhaps, Claudius, from the imputation of great
					original depravity. The vicious temper of Tiberius was known to his own mother,
					Livia; that of Caligula had been obvious to those about him from his infancy;
					Claudius seems to have had naturally a stronger tendency to weakness than to
					vice; but the inherent wickedness of Nero was discovered at an early period by
					his preceptor, Seneca . Yet even this
					emperor commenced his reign in a manner which procured him approbation. Of all
					the Roman emperors who had hitherto reigned, he seems to have been most
					corrupted by profligate favourites, who flattered his follies and vices, to
					promote their own aggrandisement. In the number of these was Tigellinus, who met
					at last with the fate which he had so amply merited. 
				 The several reigns from the death of Augustus present us with uncommon scenes of
					cruelty and horror; but it was reserved for that of Nero to exhibit to the world the atrocious act of an emperor
					deliberately procuring the death of his mother. 
				 Julia Agrippina was the daughter of Germanicus, and married Domitius Enobarbus,
					by whom she had Nero. At the death of Messalina she was a widow; and Claudius,
					her uncle, entertaining a design of entering again into the married state, she
					aspired to an incestuous alliance with him, in competition with Lollia Paulina,
					a woman of beauty and intrigue, who had been married to C. Caesar. The two
					rivals were strongly supported by their respective parties; but Agrip pina, by
					her superior interest with the emperor's favourites, and the familiarity to
					which her near relations gave her a claim, obtained the preference; and the
					portentous nuptials of the emperor and his niece were publicly solemnized in the
					palace. Whether she was prompted to this flagrant indecency by personal ambition
					alone, or by the desire of procuring the succession to the empire for her son,
					is uncertain; but there remains no doubt of her having removed Claudius by
					poison, with a view to the object now mentioned. Besides Claudius, she projected
					the death of L. Silanus, and she accomplished that of his brother Junius
					Silanus, by means likewise of poison. She appears to have been richly endowed
					with the gifts of nature, but in her disposition intriguing, violent, imperious,
					and ready to sacrifice every principle of virtue, in the pursuit of supreme
					power or sensual gratification As she resembled Livia in the ambition of a
					mother, and the means by which she indulged it, so she more than equalled her in
					the ingratitude of an unnatural son and a parricide. She is said to have left
					behind her some memoirs, of which Tacitus availed .himself in the composition of
					his Annals. 
				 In this reign, the conquest of the Britons still continued to be the principal
					object of military enterprise, and Suetonius Paulinus was invested with the
					command of the Roman army employed in the reduction of that people. The island
					of Mona , now Anglesey , being the chief seat of the Druids,
					he resolved to commence his operations with attacking a place which was the
					centre of superstition, and to which the vanquished Britons retreated as the
					last asylum of liberty. The inhabitants, endeavoured, both by force of arms and
					the terrors of religion, to obstruct his landing on this sacred island. The
					women and Druids assembled promiscuously with the soldiers upon the shore, where
					running about in wild disorder, with flaming torches in their hands, and pouring
					forth the most hideous exclamations, they struck the Romans with consternation.
					But Suetoniusanimating his troops, they boldly attacked the inhabitants, routed
					them in the field, and burned the Druids in the same fires which had been
					prepared by those priests for the catastrophe of thle invaders, destroying at
					the same time all the consecrated groves and altars in the island. Suetonius
					having thus triumphed over the religion of the Britons, flattered himself with
					the hopes of soon effecting the reduction of the people. But they, encouraged by
					his absence, had taken arms, and under the conduct of Boadicea, queen of the
					Iceni, who had been treated in the most ignominious manner by the Roman
					tribunes, had already driven the haughty invaders from their several
					settlements, Suetonius hastened to the protection of London , which was by this time a flourishing
					Roman colony; but he found upon his arrival, that any attempt to preserve it
					would be attended with the utmost danger to the army. London therefore was reduced to ashes; and the
					Romans, and all strangers, to the number of seventy thousand, were put to the
					sword without distinction, the Britons seeming determined to convince the enemy
					that they would acquiesce in no other terms than a total evacuation of the
					island. This massacre, however, was revenged by Suetonius in a decisive
					engagement, where eighty thousand of the Britons are said to have been killed;
					after which, Boadicea, to avoid falling into the hands of the insolent
					conquerors, put a period to her own life by means of poison. It being judged
					unadvisable that Suetonius should any longer conduct the war against a people
					whom he had exasperated by his severity, he was recalled, and Petronius
					Turpilianus appointed in his room. The command was afterwards given successively
					to Trebellius Maximus and Vettius Bolanus; but the plan pursued by these
					generals was only to retain, by a conciliatory administration, the parts of the
					island which had already submitted to the Roman arms. 
				 During these transactions in Britain ,
					Nero himself was exhibiting, in Rome 
					or some of the provinces, such scenes of extravagance as almost exceed
					credibility. In one place, entering the lists amongst the competitors in a
					chariot race; in another contending for victory with the common musicians on the
					stage; revelling in open day in the company of the most abandoned prostitutes
					and the vilest of men; in the night, committing depredations on the peaceful
					inhabitants of the capital; polluting with detestable lust, or drenching with
					human blood, the streets, the palaces, and the habitations of private families;
					and, to crown his enormities, setting fire to Rome , while he sung with delight in beholding the dreadful
					conflagration. In vain would history be ransacked for a parallel to this
					emperor, who united the most shameful vices to the most extravagant vanity, the
					most abject meanness to the strongest but most preposterous ambition; and the
					whole of whose life was one continued scene of lewdness, sensuality, rapine,
					cruelty, and folly. It is emphatically observed by Tacitus, " that Nero, after
					the murder of many illustrious personages, manifested a desire of extirpating
					virtue itself." 
				 Among other excesses of Nero's reign, are to be mentioned the horrible cruelties
					exercised against the Christians in various parts of the empire, in which
					inhuman transactions the natural barbarity of the emperor was inflamed by the
					prejudices and interested policy of the pagan priesthood. 
				 The tyrant scrupled not to charge them with the act of burning Rome ; and he satiated his fury against them by
					such outrages as are unexampled in history. They were covered with the skins of
					wild beasts, and torn by dogs; were crucified, and set on fire, that they might
					serve for lights in the night-time. Nero offered his garden for this spectacle, and exhibited the
					games of the Circus by this dreadful illumination. Sometimes they were covered
					with wax and other combustible materials, after which a sharp stake was put
					under their chin, to make them stand upright, and they were burnt alive, to give
					light to the spectators. 
				 In the person of Nero , it is observed by
					Suetonius, the race of the Casars became extinct; a race rendered illustrious by
					the first and second emperors, but which their successors no less disgraced. The
					despotism of Julius Caesar, though haughty and imperious, was liberal and
					humane: that of Augustus, if we exclude a few instances of vindictive severity
					towards individuals, was mild and conciliating; but the reigns of Tiberius , Caligula, and Nero (for we except Claudius from part of the
					censure), while discriminated from each other by some peculiar circumstances,
					exhibited the most flagrant acts of licentiousness and perverted authority. The
					most abominable lust, the most extravagant luxury, the most shameful
					rapaciousness, and the most inhuman cruelty, constitute the general
					characteristics of those capricious and detestable tyrants. Repeated experience
					now clearly refuted the opinion of Augustus, that he had introduced amongst the
					Romans the best form of government: but while we make this observation, it is
					proper to remark, that, had he even restored the republic, there is reason to
					believe that the nation would again have been soon distracted with internal
					divisions, and a perpetual succession of civil wars. The manners of the people
					were become too dissolute to be restrained by the authority of elective and
					temporary magistrates; and the Romans were hastening to that fatal period when
					general and great corruption, with its attendant debility, would render them an
					easy prey to any foreign invaders.