mplained.

On a time a long and fruitless consultation was held in the house of
Tiberius, which had survived the fire. Petronius thought it best to
leave troubles, go to Greece, thence to Egypt and Asia Minor. The
journey had been planned long before; why defer it, when in Rome were
sadness and danger?

Caesar accepted the counsel with eagerness; but Seneca when he had
thought awhile, said,--

"It is easy to go, but it would be more difficult to return."

"By Heracles!" replied Petronius, "we may return at the head of Asiatic
legions."

"This will I do!" exclaimed Nero.

But Tigellinus opposed. He could discover nothing himself, and if the
arbiter's idea had come to his own head he would beyond doubt have
declared it the saving one; but with him the question was that Petronius
might not be a second time the only man who in difficult moments could
rescue all and every one.

"Hear me, divinity," said he, "this advice is destructive! Before
thou art at Ostia a civil war will break out; who knows but one of the
surviving collateral descendants of the divine Augustus will declare
himself Caesar, and what shall we do if the legions take his side?"

"We shall try," answered Nero, "that there be no descendants of
Augustus. There are not many now; hence it is easy to rid ourselves of
them."

"It is possible to do so, but is it a question of them alone? No longer
ago than yesterday my people heard in the crowd that a man like Thrasea
should be Caesar."

Nero bit his lips. After a while he raised his eyes and said:
"Insatiable and thankless. They have grain enough, and they have coal on
which to bake cakes; what more do they want?"

"Vengeance!" replied Tigellinus.

Silence followed. Caesar rose on a sudden, extended his hand, and began
to declaim,--

"Hearts call for vengeance, and vengeance wants a victim." Then,
forgetting everything, he said, with radiant face: "Give me the tablet
and stilus to write this line. Never could Lucan have composed the like.
Have ye noticed that I found it in a twinkle?"

"O incomparable!" exclaimed a number of voices. Nero wrote down the
line, and said,--

"Yes, vengeance wants a victim." Then he cast a glance on those around
him. "But if we spread the report that Vatinius gave command to burn the
city, and devote him to the anger of the people?"

"O divinity! Who am I?" exclaimed Vatmius.

"True! One more important than thou is demanded. Is it Vitelius?"

Vitelius grew pal