andria as London compares with Paris; it had
a splendor of its own, but a splendor that could be heightened.

Whether the conflagration which occurred at that time was the result of
accident or design is uncertain and in any event immaterial. Tacitus
says that when it began Nero was at Antium, in which case he must have
hastened to return, for admitting that he did not originate the fire,
it is a matter of agreement that he collaborated in it. In quarters
where it showed symptoms of weakness it was by his orders coaxed to new
strength; colossal stone buildings, on which it had little effect, were
battered down with catapults.

Fire is a perfect poet. No designer ever imagined the surprises it
creates, and when, at the end of the week, three-fourths of the city
was in ruins, the beauty that reigned there must have been sublime.
That it inspired Nero is presumable. The palace on the Palatine, which
Tiberius embellished and Caligula enlarged, had gone; in its place rose
another, aflame with gold. Before it Neropolis extended, a city of
triumphal arches, enchanted temples, royal dwellings, shimmering
porticoes, glittering roofs, and wide, hospitable streets. It was fair
to the eye, purely Greek; and on its heart, from the Circus Maximus to
the Forum's edge, the new and gigantic palace shone. Before it was a
lake, a part of which Vespasian drained and replaced with an
amphitheatre that covered eight acres. About that lake were separate
edifices that formed a city in themselves; between them and the palace,
a statue of Nero in gold and silver mounted precipitately a hundred and
twenty feet--a statue which it took twenty-four elephants to move.
About it were green savannahs, forest reaches, the call of bird and
deer, while in the distance, fronted by a stretch of columns a mile in
length, the palace stood--a palace so ineffably charming that on the
day of reckoning may it outbalance a few of his sins. Even the cellars
were frescoed. The baths were quite comfortable; you had waters salt or
sulphurous at will. The dining halls had ivory ceilings from which
flowers fell, and wainscots that changed at each service. The walls
were alive with the glisten of gems, with marbles rarer than jewels. In
one hall was a dome of sapphire, a floor of malachite, crystal columns
and red-gold walls.

"At last," Nero murmured, "I am lodged like a man."

No doubt. Yet in a mirror he would have seen a bloated beast in a
flowered gown, the hair