ns of Roman society, to which Thrasea Paetus
was alone in refusing to be a party. The emperor forthwith began to
plunge into the wild extravagances on which his mother's life had been
some check. He took cover for his passion for chariot-driving and
singing by inducing men of noble birth to exhibit themselves in the
arena; high-born ladies acted in disreputable plays; the emperor himself
posed as a mime, and pretended to be a patron of poetry and philosophy.
The wildest licence prevailed, and there were those who ventured even to
defend it.

About this time the Roman governor in Britain, Suetonius, crossed the
Menai Strait and conquered the island of Anglesea. But outrages
committed against Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, stirred that tribe to
fierce revolt. Being joined by the Trinobantes, they fell upon the
Romans at Camulodunum and massacred them. Suetonius, returning hastily
from the west, found the Roman population in panic. The troops, however,
inspired by the general's resolution, won a decisive victory, in which
it is said that no fewer than 80,000 Britons, men and women, were
slaughtered.

Not long after, Burrus died--in common belief, if not in actual fact, of
poison; and Seneca found himself driven into retirement, while
Tigellinus became Nero's favourite and confidant. Nero then capped his
matricide by suborning the same scoundrel who had murdered Agrippina to
bring foul and false charges against his innocent wife, Octavia; who was
thus done to death when not yet twenty, that her husband might be free
to marry Poppaea. As a matter of course, the crime was duly celebrated by
a public thanksgiving.

The dispatch of an incompetent general into Asia resulted in a most
inglorious Parthian campaign. Nero, however, was more interested first
in extravagant rejoicings at the birth of a daughter to Poppaea, and then
in equally extravagant mourning over the infant's death. It was well
that Corbulo, marching from Syria, restored the Roman prestige in the
Far East.

These events were followed by the famous fire which devastated Rome;
whether or no it was actually Nero's own work, rumour declared that he
appeared on a private stage while the conflagration was raging, and
chanted appropriately of the fall of Troy. He planned rebuilding on a
magnificent scale, and sought popularity by throwing the blame of the
fire--and putting to the most exquisite tortures--a class hated for
their abominations, called Christians, from