The calamity which the city at this time experienced has no parallel
before or since, except in the Gallic invasion. The whole Palatine hill,
the theatre of Taurus, and nearly two-thirds of the remainder of the city
were burned and countless human beings perished. The populace invoked
curses upon Nero without intermission, not uttering his name but simply
cursing those who had set the city on fire: and this was especially the
case because they were disturbed by the memory of the oracle chanted in
Tiberius's day. These were the words:--

"Thrice three hundred cycles of tireless years being ended, Civil strife
shall the Romans destroy." [Footnote: Compare Book Fifty-seven, chapter
18.]

And when Nero by way of encouraging them reported that these verses were
nowhere to be found, they changed and went to repeating another oracle,
which they averred to be a genuine Sibylline production, namely:--

"Last of the sons of Aeneas a matricide shall govern."

And so it proved, whether this was actually revealed beforehand by some
divination or whether the populace now for the first time gave it the form
of a divine saying adapted to existing circumstances. For Nero was indeed
the last emperor of the Julian line descended from Aeneas.

He now began to collect vast sums from both individuals and nations,
sometimes using compulsion, with the conflagration for his excuse, and
sometimes obtaining it by "voluntary" offers; and the mass of the Romans
had the food supply fund withdrawn.