intolerable; that is to say, among the men and women who had the
misfortune to come in his way with sufficient attraction of purse or
beauty to awaken his cupidity. And these were the Romans themselves,
senators and knights, not the populace, and in but a small degree, if
at all, the provincials in Spain or Greece or Palestine.

[Illustration: FIG. 13.--BUST OF SENECA. Archeologische Zeitung.]

Perhaps this is the time to look for a little while at this Nero,
whose name has deservedly passed into a byword for heartless
bestiality. In the year 64 he is 27 years of age, and has been seated
on the throne for ten years. Four years more are to elapse before he
perishes with the cry, "What an artist the world is losing!" In his
early years his vicious propensities, inherited from an abominable
father, had been kept in check partly by his preceptor, the
philosopher Seneca, and by Burrus, the commander of the Imperial
Guards, partly by his domineering and furious-tempered mother,
Agrippina, who seems to have so closely resembled the mother of Lord
Byron. But at this date he had got rid of both his tutors. Burrus was
dead, probably by poison, and Seneca was in forced retirement. The
emperor had also caused his own mother to be murdered. Poisoning,
strangling, drowning, or a command--explicit or implied--to depart
this life, were his ways of shaking off any incubus upon a free
indulgence of his will. His follies and vices had revealed themselves
from the first, and had gone to outrageous lengths, but now he is
entirely unhampered in exhibiting them.

[Illustration: Photo--Mansell & Co. FIG. 14--BUST OF AGRIPPINA, MOTHER
OF NERO.]