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MESSALINA AND AGRIPPINA.

These wives of Claudius were two of the worst women recorded in history. Nine. or ten plots against the life of the emperor led to terrible punishments.

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Thirty-five senators and 300 knights perished in his reign, and many were the victims of Messalina, whose cruelty equalled her other vices. Agrippina had a son of eleven years, by a former marriage, named Nero; she wished to secure him the inheritance of Claudius, though the latter had two children, Octavia and Britannicus. Octavia she married to Nero, and she alienated the mind of the feeble Claudius from Britannicus.

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She surrounded the emperor with her creatures, and appointed Burrhus prefect of the prætorium. Seneca, noted as a philosophical writer, had been named Nero's tutor.

Meanwhile, Britannicus was growing up, and it was to be feared that a return of affection might visit the heart of the emperor. Some threats had escaped him, in a drunken fit: Agrippina determined to put an end to her anxieties and to Britannicus. A poisoner by profession, Locusta, was charged to prepare a favourite dish for Claudius. His death was concealed long enough to let Burrhus present Nero to the prætorians, and they proclaimed him emperor. The senate confirmed the choice, overlooking Britannicus (Oct. 14). Claudius, as usual, was made a god.

CHAPTER XL.

NERO.

THE pupil of the philosopher Seneca was eighteen years of age when he ascended the throne. The first months of his reign inspired the most happy anticipations; he showed himself nobleminded and magnanimous, and the people related many traits

of his justice, gentleness, and greatness of soul. But ere long he gave himself up to excesses, and when his mother complained to him about this, and threatened him with being superseded by his step-brother Britannicus, Nero handed the latter a poisoned goblet at the next banquet. A greater crime soon followed this terrible fratricidal act-he caused even his mother to be put to death.

To appease the tortures of his conscience, he plunged into a whirlwind of extravagance and excesses. As he considered himself to be a great musician and actor, and a first-rate charioteer, he began to display his skill in those arts, first to princes and courtiers, and at last before the people. Ere long he showed himself on the stage. Every spectator who did not testify his applause, was put to death; even a man whose countenance showed disapprobation, was lost. He appeared also in Gaul, in the character of harper and charioteer,

and although he was thrown from his chariot, the prize was handed to him.

Meanwhile, this series of low and unworthy pastimes did not interrupt the course of crimes and cruelties that marked his entire reign. The murder of his mother was followed by that of his wife; at length the tyrant caused Rome to be set on fire, to give him special pleasure, and Seneca and many other men of note were put to death.

BURNING OF ROME (A.D. 64).

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This terrible crime caused great loss to Rome. Burrhus had died, perhaps poisoned, Seneca had gone to enjoy his immense riches far from court; Nero, to marry Poppæa, put to death Octavia, and now, according to common report, set Rome on fire. It is usually related that, in the month of July (A.D. 64), Rome was suddenly in flames. The fire lasted eight days, and only ceased when a third part of the houses, including some of the most majestic buildings and venerable temples, with countless. treasures of art, and other valuables, had been destroyed. During the fire, Nero is described as standing on the roof of a distant palace, playing on the lyre and declaiming some verses that describe the destruction of Troy. But in order to stave off the odium of having occasioned the misery of so many thou

sands, he accused the Christian community recently formed at Rome, of being the authors of the fire. The unhappy Christians were seized on this empty suspicion, and executed with dreadful tortures. Some were crucified, others were sewed up in the skins of wild animals and torn to pieces by dogs; others, again, were covered with a coat of pitch, and similar combustible materials, stationed in long rows along the circus, and set on fire, so that they lit up the night like torches or lamps. It is added that Nero descended to the streets and drove through them in his chariot, lighted up by this dreadful illumination.

The reconstruction of Rome after the conflagration, was a delight to the tyrant, for now he could give free scope to his tendency to extravagance. Accordingly the city was rebuilt with unheard-of magnificence. The new imperial palace, named the Golden House, occupied with its gardens, ponds, and baths, a whole quarter of the city, and its rooms were adorned with immense masses of gold, silver, pearls, precious stones, marbles, and valuable woods. In order to raise the necessary sums for this purpose, Nero caused all the provinces of the empire to be plundered by his functionaries, and even the temples to be robbed of their statues.

At length the universal detestation of the unexampled tyranny of Nero led to an outbreak. The Spanish and Gallic legions mutinied, and proclaimed the governor of Spain, Galba by name, emperor. When Nero heard this, he fled from Rome in order to conceal himself in the country house of a courtier. It was night when he sought refuge there on horseback, accompanied by four attendants; the thunder rolled, and forked flashes lighted up the path of the fugitives; the emperor had enveloped himself in an old cloak, and, in order not to be recognized, held a handkerchief before his face. Half dead with fear, he reached at length the villa; but as he did not venture to enter by the gate, because he feared that one of the slaves might recognize and betray him, he hid himself in a bog that lay at hand, till his companions had broken a way through the wall.

But when, on the next morning, he learnt that the senate had pronounced him to be an enemy of his country, and had done homage to Galba, he tried, amid loud lamentations, to put himself to death, but he had not the courage to do it. At length he seized a dagger and pierced his throat with the aid of a slave, exclaiming, "Ah, what an artist dies in me!" Such was the end of this monster, in the thirty-second year of his age. Nero was very indiscriminate in his cruelty. Eminent literary

men were among his victims, especially Seneca and Lucan.. Seneca has left us some interesting works on philosophy and ethics, in a Latin rather too pompous for good taste, but with some sentiments of so Christian a tone, that many have thought he must have known St. Paul, at that time at Rome in bonds. Lucan, nephew of Seneca, was a clever satirist, and in his writings was imprudent enough to reflect on the emperor. They had both also joined a conspiracy of many senators and knights to put Calpurnius Piso in the place of Nero. Accounts vary as to the manner in which Seneca conducted himself at his end. It is probable that he showed more weakness than was compatible with the character of the perfect Stoic sage. Being given his choice as to his mode of death, he opened his veins in his bath.

Another victim was Thraseas, who died nobly as he had lived; and Vespasian almost fell a victim to the emperor's atrocity, having dropped off to sleep while Nero was acting.

CHAPTER XLI.

GALBA, OTHO, AND VITELLIUS.

We turn over a page in Roman history after the extinction of the Cæsarean family with Nero. The Cæsars had ruled the empire for five generations, and for a hundred years had given the world breathing time to prepare it for the outbreak of fierce international warfare, as well as of civil commotion, which now follows.

The idea that Nero still survived long lingered among the Romans, for the people could not realize the fact that the dynasty which had so long ruled them, could have passed away.

When the news of Nero's condemnation and death had reached Galba he no longer delayed to advance. Envoys from the enate met him on the road, charged to convey the sanction f the state to his claim. The prefect of the prætorians, Nymphidius Sabinus, thinking himself secure of the support f the restless and discontented body of whom he was the eader, offered himself to them as Cæsar, but even with them the question of empire was one of descent and dynasty. The soldiers swore fidelity to Galba, and hacked their unfortunate prefect in pieces, when he rashly trusted himself among them.

Meanwhile, Galba had assumed the title of Cæsar. Competitors, indeed, there still were in various quarters, but Galba's vigour and severity put down his opponents, and as the chosen

of the senate, he entered Rome, and all classes hastened to the capital to sacrifice to the gods, and swear allegiance to the new emperor (Jan 1, A.D. 69). "Six months had elapsed since the death of Nero, and the citizens had time to meditate on the step they were about to take, in transferring supreme command from the divine race of the Julii to a mere earthborn dynasty. The heroic age of the empire had vanished in that short interval. The attempt to connect an imperial house with the national divinities would never succeed again. The illusion had perished like a dream of youth, and the poetry of Roman life was extinguished for ever." There was no other claim to empire now but force, and notwithstanding the disappearance of Galba's rivals, fresh competitors might arise. The Germanic legions were hostile to Galba. The four legions in Britain, intent on advancing their own fortunes and estates in the land of their adoption, took little interest in the crisis at Rome. A mutiny of the legions of Upper Germania induced Galba to adopt Piso, a young man of antique sobriety, and gravity of demeanour, as a successor; but, on the whole, the new emperor's policy satisfied neither the soldiers nor the people. "The frugal habits of Galba were not conducive to popularity, his parsimony was even excessive. He groaned aloud when a rich banquet was served him. He rewarded the service of his chamberlain with a dish of lentils; and a distinguished flutist he rewarded with five denarii, drawn deliberately from his own pocket. Such was the successor of the refined Augustus and the magnificent Nero."

The adoption of Piso by Galba as his colleague and successor was not popular, though Piso himself was in every way deserving the distinction, but his virtues were no recommendation in an age of universal depravity. There was one man in Rome who had been long a favourite of Galba, and who had hoped to be adopted by him; disappointed in his anticipations, Otho, a descendant of the ancient kings of Tuscany, and former companion of Nero, who had raised him to the highest offices of the state, resolved upon obtaining the empire by force. He began by tampering with the soldiers. The studied munificence of Otho contrasted favourably in the minds of the common soldiers with the parsimony of Galba, who had stiffly refused their largesses. Further, the news of the revolt in Germany shook their faith in the authority of their imperator. Not many days after the appointment of Piso the prætorians, who sighed for the licence of Nero' reign, had been gained over. They carried off Otho to

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