rt became softened with compassion, spectators failed to come, and
Nero felt obliged to yield to a general demand that the persecutions
should cease.

While all this went on at Rome, the people of the whole empire suffered
with those of the capital city. Italy was ravaged and the provinces
plundered to supply the demand for the rebuilding of the city and palace
and the unbounded prodigality of the emperor. The very gods were taxed,
their temples being robbed of golden treasures which had been gathering
for ages through the gifts of pious devotees; while in Greece and Asia
not alone the treasures of the temples but the statues of the deities
were seized. Nero was preparing for himself a load of infamy worthy of
the most frightful retribution, and which would not fail soon to reap
its fitting reward.

_THE DOOM OF NERO._

We have perhaps paid too much attention to the enormities of Caligula
and Nero. Yet the mad freakishness of the one and the cowardly
dissimulation of the other give to their stories a dramatic interest
which seems to render them worth repeating. Nero, one of the basest and
cruelest of the Roman emperors, is one of the best known to readers, and
the interest felt in him is not alone due to the story of his life, but
as well to that of his death, which we therefore here give.

A conspiracy against him among some of the noblest citizens of Rome was
discovered and punished with revengeful fury. It was followed, a few
years afterwards, by a revolt of the armies in Gaul and Spain. This was
in its turn quelled, and Nero triumphed in imagination over all his
enemies. But he had lost favor alike with the army and the people, and
an event now happened that threw the whole city into a ferment of anger
against him.

Food was scarce, and the arrival of a ship from Alexandria, supposed to
be loaded with corn, filled the people with joy. It proved instead to be
loaded with sand for the arena. In their disappointment the people broke
at first into scurrilous jests against Nero, and then into rage and
fury. A wild clamor filled the streets. On all sides rose the demand to
be delivered from a monster. Even the Praetorian guards, who had hitherto
supported the emperor, began to show signs of disaffection, and were
wrought to a spirit of revolt by two of the choice companions of Nero's
iniquities, who now deserted him as rats desert a sinking ship. The
senate was approached and told that Nero was no longer supp