ithet, and which from the impulse of self-preservation they
would persecute if they could--if there be such a religion now in the
world, it is not unlike Christianity as that same world viewed it when
first it came forth from its divine Author.

BURNING OF ROME UNDER NERO

A.D. 64

SIENKIEWICZ TACITUS

Nero when a youth was placed under charge of the philosopher
Seneca, who carefully attended to his education. During Nero's
nonage he was persevering in his studies and made great progress in
Greek. By a subterfuge of his mother's he was proclaimed emperor in
the place of Britannicus, the real heir to the throne. In the early
part of his reign public affairs were wisely conducted, but the
private life of Nero was given up to vice and profligacy. His love
for Poppaea led him into the crime of matricide, for she, wishing to
share the imperial throne, and knowing it was impossible while his
mother, Agrippina, lived, induced him to authorize her
assassination. Strange that Seneca and Burrhus should have approved
of this, yet Tacitus admits that such was the case. In the eighth
year of his reign Nero divorced his wife, Octavia, and married
Poppaea.

Nero was an accomplished musician and sang verses composed by
himself. He eagerly sought the plaudits of the multitude by
reciting his compositions in public. Historians are divided in
opinion as to whether Nero was the cause of the burning of Rome.
During the conflagration, to court popularity he ordered temporary
shelters to be provided for the houseless; yet the people did not
acclaim this deed, as it was reported that Nero, at "the very time
Rome was in flames," sang the destruction of Troy in his private
theatre, likening the present disaster to that ancient catastrophe.
In order to divert the masses from what they believed the true
origin of the fire, Nero charged it upon the Christians, many
hundreds of whom were sacrificed to his fury. He was the last of
the Caesars, and died by his own hand amid universal execrations, in
June, A.D. 68, four years after the destruction of Rome.

HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ

The fire began at the Circus Maximus, in that section which touches the
Palatine and Caelian hill; it rushed on with inconceivable rapidity and
fastened upon the whole centre of Rome. Since the time of Brennus never