Peter entering. Peter by making the sign of the cross renders the dog
tame towards himself, but so furious against his master Simon that the
latter had to leave the city in disgrace.

Simon, however, still retains the emperor's favour by his magic power.
He pretends to permit his head to be cut off, and by the power of
glamour appears to be decapitated, while the executioner really cuts off
the head of a ram.

The last act of the drama is the erection of a wooden tower in the
Campus Martius, and Simon is to ascend to heaven in a chariot of fire.
But, through the prayers of Peter, the two daemons who were carrying him
aloft let go their hold and so Simon perishes miserably.

Dr. Salmon connects this with the story, told by Suetonius[76] and Dio
Chrysostom,[77] that Nero caused a wooden theatre to be erected in the
Campus, and that a gymnast who tried to play the part of Icarus fell so
near the emperor as to bespatter him with blood.

So much for these motley stories; here and there instructive, but mostly
absurd. I shall now endeavour to sift out the rubbish from this
patristic and legendary heap, and perhaps we shall find more of value
than at present appears.


FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Smith's _Dictionary of the Bible_, art. "Acts of the
Apostles."]