“I advise the journey to Achæa.”
“Ah!” answered Nero, “I looked for something more from thee. The Senate hates me. If I depart, who will guarantee that it will not revolt and proclaim some one else Cæsar? The people have been faithful to me so far, but now they will follow the Senate. By Hades! if that Senate and that people had one head!—”
“Permit me to say, O divinity, that if thou desire to save Rome, there is need to save even a few Romans,” remarked Petronius, with a smile.
“What care I for Rome and Romans?” complained Nero. “I should be obeyed in Achæa. Here only treason surrounds me. All desert me, and ye are making ready for treason. I know it, I know it. Ye do not even imagine what future ages will say of you if ye desert such an artist as I am.”
Here he tapped his forehead on a sudden, and cried,—
“True! Amid these cares even I forget who I am.”
Then he turned to Petronius with a radiant face.
“Petronius,” said he, “the people murmur; but if I take my lute and go to the Campus Martius, if I sing that song to them which I sang during the conflagration, dost thou not think that I will move them, as Orpheus moved wild beasts?”
To this Tullius Senecio, who was impatient to return to his slave women brought in from Antium, and who had been impatient a long time, replied,—
“Beyond doubt, O Cæsar, if they permit thee to begin.”