ames swiftly sped
alike through the humblest and the stateliest quarters of the mighty
capital.

"The shrieks and lamentations of women, the infirmities of age, and the
weakness of the young and tender," says Tacitus, "added misery to the
dreadful scene. Some endeavored to provide for themselves, others to
save their friends, in one part dragging along the lame and impotent, in
another waiting to receive the tardy, or expecting relief themselves;
they hurried, they lingered, they obstructed one another; they looked
behind, and the fire broke out in front; they escaped from the flames,
and in their place of refuge found no safety; the fire raged in every
quarter; all were involved in one general conflagration.

"The unhappy wretches fled to places remote, and thought themselves
secure, but soon perceived the flames raging round them. Which way to
turn, what to avoid, or what to seek, no one could tell. They crowded
the streets; they fell prostrate on the ground; they lay stretched in
the fields, in consternation and dismay resigned to their fate. Numbers
lost their whole substance, even the tools and implements by which they
gained their livelihood, and, in that distress, did not wish to survive.
Others, wild with affliction for their friends and relations whom they
could not save, embraced voluntary death, and perished in the flames."

The story goes that, while the city was in its intensest blaze, Nero
watched it with high enjoyment from a tower in the house of Maecenas, and
finally went to his own theatre, where in his scenic dress he mounted
the stage, tuned his harp, and sang the destruction of Troy.

How far Nero was guilty and to what extent the stories told of him were
true will never be known, but he was destined to feel the calamity
himself, for in time the devouring flames reached the imperial palace,
and laid it with all its treasures and surrounding buildings in ruins.
For six days the fire raged uncontrolled, and then, when it seemed
subdued, a new conflagration broke out and burned with all the old fury,
spreading still more widely the area of ruin and devastation.

The number of buildings destroyed cannot be ascertained. Not only
dwellings and shops, but temples, porticos, and other public buildings,
were destroyed, among them the most venerable monuments of antiquity,
which the worship of ages had rendered sacred; and with these the
trophies of uncounted victories, the inimitable works of the great