No one of the people ventured either to pity or to hate the wretched
creature. One of the soldiers, to be sure, on seeing him bound, grew
indignant, ran up, and set him free. Another in reply to a question: "What
is the emperor doing?" had to answer: "He is in labor pains," for Nero was
then acting the part of Canace. Not one of them conducted himself in a way
at all worthy of a Roman. Instead, because so much money fell to their
share, they offered prayers that he might give many such performances and
they in this way get still more.

[Sidenote:--11--] And if things had merely gone on like this, the affair,
while being a source of shame and of ridicule alike, would still have been
deemed free from danger. But as a fact he devastated the whole of Greece
precisely as if he had been despatched to some war and without regard to
the fact that he had declared the country free, also slaying great numbers
[of men, women and children. At first he commanded the children and
freedmen of those who were executed to leave him half their property at
their death, and allowed the original victims to make wills in order to
make it seem less likely that he had killed them for their money; and he
invariably took all that was bequeathed to him, if not more. In case any
one left to him or to Tigillinus less than they were expecting, the wills
were of no avail.--Later he deprived persons of their _entire_
property and banished all their children at once by one decree. Not even
this satisfied him, but he destroyed not a few of the exiles.] For no one
could begin to enumerate all the confiscated possessions of men allowed to
live and all the votive offerings that he stole from the very temples in
Rome. [The despatch-bearers hurried hither and thither with no piece of
news other than "kill this man!" or that that man was dead. No private
messages, only state documents, were delivered; for Nero had taken many of
the foremost men to Greece under pretence of needing some assistance from