The Historians' History of the World 06

But the rest of the old site not occupied by his palace was laid out, not as after the Gallic fire, without discrimination and regularity, but with the lines of streets measured out, broad spaces left for transit, the height of the buildings limited, open areas left, and porticoes added to protect the front of the clustered dwellings. These porticoes Nero engaged to rear at his own expense, and then to deliver to each proprietor the areas about them cleared. He moreover proposed rewards proportioned to every man’s rank and private substance, and fixed a day within which, if their houses, single or clustered, were finished, they should receive them. He appointed the marshes of Ostia for a receptacle of the rubbish, and that the vessels which had conveyed grain up the Tiber should return laden with rubbish; that the buildings themselves should be raised to a certain portion of their height without beams, and arched with stone from the quarries of Gabii or Alba, that stone being proof against fire; that over the water springs, which had been improperly intercepted by private individuals, overseers should be placed, to provide for their flowing in greater abundance, and in a greater number of places, for the supply of the public; that every housekeeper should have in his yard means for extinguishing fire; neither should there be party walls, but every house should be enclosed by its own walls. These regulations, which were favourably received, in consideration of their utility, were also a source of beauty to the new city; yet some there were who believed that the ancient form was more conducive to health, as from the narrowness of the streets, and the height of the buildings the rays of the sun were more excluded; whereas now, the spacious breadth of the streets, without any shade to protect it, was more intensely heated in warm weather.

Such were the provisions made by human counsels. The gods were next addressed with expiations; and recourse had to the Sibyl’s books. By admonition from them, to Vulcan, Ceres, and Proserpine supplicatory sacrifices were made, and Juno was propitiated by the matrons, first in the Capitol, then upon the nearest shore, where, by water drawn from the sea, the temple and image of the goddess were besprinkled; and the ceremony of placing the goddess in her sacred chair, and her vigil, were celebrated by ladies who had husbands. But not all the relief that could come from man, not all the bounties that the prince could bestow, nor all the atonements which could be presented to the gods, availed to relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the conflagration. Hence, to suppress the rumour, he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished with the most exquisite tortures, the Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Accordingly, first those were seized who confessed they were Christians; next, on their information, a vast multitude were convicted, not so much on the charge of burning the city, as of hating the human race. And in their deaths they were also made the subjects of sport, for they were covered with the hides of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and when day declined, burned to serve for nocturnal lights. Nero offered his own gardens for that spectacle, and exhibited a Circensian game, indiscriminately mingling with the common people in the habit of a charioteer, or else standing in his chariot. Whence a feeling of compassion arose towards the sufferers, because they seemed not to be cut off for the public good, but victims to the ferocity of one man.c

In order to compensate for his prodigality in games and spectacles; to cover the expense of his purposeless edifices, above all, of his golden house; of his festivals, one of which cost four million sesterces for perfume alone; his extravagance in furniture and in clothes, of which he wore new ones each day, his distributions of bread, meat, game, clothes, money, and even precious stones, among the populace in return for their applause for his verses and singing; finally, I say, to compensate for all this wild expenditure, he multiplied proscriptions and sentences which carried with them the confiscation of property. Even office became a source of revenue, for he only bestowed it on condition that he should have a share in the profits. The provinces were thus again pillaged. It was not for this they had so loudly saluted the establishment of the empire, and they came within a measurable distance of its dissolution in the last years of this reign.b

CONSPIRACY MET BY CRUELTY AND PERSECUTION

[65 A.D.]