FOOTNOTES
[18] [Apologists are not wanting who assert that it was chiefly Nero’s contempt for Roman customs which alienated the “respectable citizens”; that these citizens were really more brutal than Nero; and that the emperor’s chief fault was criminal indulgence towards his courtiers, rather than cruelty. Such views illustrate the curious oscillations of historical criticism, to which we have so often had occasion to refer. Even the most sympathetic and flattering view of Nero presents him as at least reflecting the conditions of a society in some respects monstrous.]
