Nero
By JACOB ABBOTT
WITH ENGRAVINGS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1901
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand
eight hundred and fifty-three, by
Harper & Brothers,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.
Copyright, 1881, by Benjamin Vaughan Abbott, Austin
Abbott, Lyman Abbott, and Edward Abbott.
Environs of Rome.
PREFACE.
In writing the series of historical narratives to which the present work pertains, it has been the object of the author to furnish to the reading community of this country an accurate and faithful account of the lives and actions of the several personages that are made successively the subjects of the volumes, following precisely the story which has come down to us from ancient times. The writer has spared no pains to gain access in all cases to the original sources of information, and has confined himself strictly to them. The reader may, therefore, feel assured in perusing any one of these works, that the interest of it is in no degree indebted to the invention of the author. No incident, however trivial, is ever added to the original account, nor are any words even, in any case, attributed to a speaker without express authority. Whatever of interest, therefore, these stories may possess, is due solely to the facts themselves which are recorded in them, and to their being brought together in a plain, simple, and connected narrative.
CONTENTS.
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| I. | NERO'S MOTHER | [13] |
| II. | THE ASSASSINATION OF CALIGULA | [34] |
| III. | THE ACCESSION OF CLAUDIUS | [55] |
| IV. | THE FATE OF MESSALINA | [77] |
| V. | THE CHILDHOOD OF NERO | [105] |
| VI. | NERO AN EMPEROR | [124] |
| VII. | BRITANNICUS | [148] |
| VIII. | THE FATE OF AGRIPPINA | [172] |
| IX. | EXTREME DEPRAVITY | [208] |
| X. | PISO'S CONSPIRACY | [228] |
| XI. | THE FATE OF THE CONSPIRATORS | [250] |
| XII. | THE EXPEDITION INTO GREECE | [272] |
| XIII. | NERO'S END | [299] |
ENGRAVINGS.
| PAGE | |
| MAP—ENVIRONS OF ROME | [Frontispiece.] |
| ENCAMPMENT OF A ROMAN LEGION | [21] |
| CÆSONIA | [53] |
| DISCOVERY OF CLAUDIUS | [64] |
| MESSALINA IN THE GARDEN | [89] |
| THE POISONING OF CLAUDIUS | [132] |
| THE JEWELRY | [157] |
| THE ATTEMPT OF ANICETUS | [197] |
| BURNING OF ROME | [226] |
| THE KNIFE | [245] |
| BRINGING EPICHARIS TO THE TORTURE | [254] |
| PHAON AT THE WALL | [316] |