with
the intention of not being very rich. Nero therefore declared that, as he
lacked many things, he must be covetous of the goods of others, and
consequently caused a fictitious charge to be brought against him of
aspiring to imperial power.]

And why should one be surprised that such complaints
were fastened upon them, [Footnote: A slight gap in the MS. exists here,
filled by a doubtful conjecture of Boissevain's.] seeing that one man
[Footnote: _Salvidienus Orfitus_ (according to Suetonius, Life of
Nero, chap. 37).] was brought to trial and slain for living near the
Forum, for letting out some shops, or for receiving a few friends in them;
and another [Footnote: _C. Cassius Longinus_ (ibid)..] because he
possessed a likeness of Cassius, the murderer of Caesar?

The conduct of a woman named Epicharis also deserves mention. She had been
included in the conspiracy and all its details had been trusted to her
without reserve; yet she revealed none of these though often tortured in
all the ways that the skill of Tigillinus could devise. And why should one
enumerate the sums given to the Pretorians on the occasion of this
conspiracy or the excessive honors voted to Nero and his friends? Let me
say only that it led to the banishment of Rufus Musonius, the philosopher.
Sabina also perished at this time through an act of Nero's. Either
accidentally or intentionally he had given her a violent kick while she
was pregnant.

[Sidenote:--28--] The extremes of luxury indulged in by this Sabina I will
indicate in the briefest possible terms. She had gilded girths put upon
the mules that carried her and caused five hundred asses that had recently
foaled to be milked each day that she might bathe in their milk. She
devoted great thought to making her person appear youthful and lustrously
beautiful,--and with brilliant results; and this is why, not fancying her
appearance in a mirror one day, she prayed that she might die before she
passed her prime. Nero missed her so that [after her death, at first, on
learning that there was a woman resembling her he sent for and kept this
female: later] because a boy of the _liberti_ class, named Sporus,
resembled Sabina, he had him castrated and used him in every way like a
woman; and in due time he formally married him though he [Nero] was
already married to a freedman Pythagoras. He assigned the boy a regular
dowry according to contract, and Romans as well as others held a public
celebration