SIENKIEWICZ TACITUS
Nero when a youth was placed under charge of the philosopher Seneca, who carefully attended to his education. During Nero's nonage he was persevering in his studies and made great progress in Greek. By a subterfuge of his mother's he was proclaimed emperor in the place of Britannicus, the real heir to the throne. In the early part of his reign public affairs were wisely conducted, but the private life of Nero was given up to vice and profligacy. His love for Poppæa led him into the crime of matricide, for she, wishing to share the imperial throne, and knowing it was impossible while his mother, Agrippina, lived, induced him to authorize her assassination. Strange that Seneca and Burrhus should have approved of this, yet Tacitus admits that such was the case. In the eighth year of his reign Nero divorced his wife, Octavia, and married Poppæa.
Nero was an accomplished musician and sang verses composed by himself. He eagerly sought the plaudits of the multitude by reciting his compositions in public. Historians are divided in opinion as to whether Nero was the cause of the burning of Rome. During the conflagration, to court popularity he ordered temporary shelters to be provided for the houseless; yet the people did not acclaim this deed, as it was reported that Nero, at "the very time Rome was in flames," sang the destruction of Troy in his private theatre, likening the present disaster to that ancient catastrophe. In order to divert the masses from what they believed the true origin of the fire, Nero charged it upon the Christians, many hundreds of whom were sacrificed to his fury. He was the last of the Cæsars, and died by his own hand amid universal execrations, in June, a.d. 68, four years after the destruction of Rome.
HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ
The fire began at the Circus Maximus, in that section which touches the Palatine and Cælian hill; it rushed on with inconceivable rapidity and fastened upon the whole centre of Rome. Since the time of Brennus never had the city witnessed such an awful catastrophe.
A freedman of Cæsar's, Phaon by name, ran panting into Nero's presence, shrieking: "Rome is in flames! the conflagration is great."
All Cæsar's guests arose from their recumbent attitude. "Ye gods! I shall see a burning city; now can I finish the Troyade," exclaimed Nero, placing his lute aside. "If I go at once, can I view the fire?"
"My lord, the whole city is as a sea of flame; the smoke is suffocatingly heavy and is destroying the people. The inhabitants faint away or rashly cast themselves into the fire, maddened with terror. All Rome perishes." And Nero raised his hands and cried, "Woe, woe to thee, thou sacred city of Priam!"
Fires were frequent enough in Rome; during these conflagrations violence and robbery were rampant, particularly so in those sections of the city inhabited by needy half-barbarian peoples, a folk comprising rabble from every part of the world. The fear of servile rebellion was like a nightmare, which had stifled Rome for many years. It was believed that hundreds of thousands of those people were thinking of the times of Spartacus, and merely waiting for a favorable moment to seize arms against their oppressors and Rome. Now the moment had come! Perhaps war and slaughter were raging in the city together with fire.
It was possible even that the prætorians had hurled themselves on the city and were slaughtering at command of Cæsar. And that moment the hair rose on Vinicius' head from terror. He recalled all the conversations about burning cities which for some time had been repeated at Cæsar's court with wonderful persistence; well he recalled Cæsar's complaints that he was forced to describe a burning city without having seen an actual fire; his contemptuous answer to Tigellinus, who offered to burn Antium or an artificial wooden city; finally, his complaints against Rome, and the pestilential alleys of the Subura.