The Historians' History of the World 06

The Greeks on the other hand would regard, we may suppose, with more indulgence the caprices of their imperial visitor; they were accustomed to flatter, and in this instance there was some excuse for flattering a humour so flattering to themselves. The miserable vices he paraded before them were too like their own, at least in their period of corruption, to elicit strong moral reprobation. Nevertheless, if we may credit our accounts, he found more effectual means of disgusting them. The imperial tyranny was always pursued, as by its shadow, by profuse and fatal expenditure. It seemed unable to move without the attendance of a crowd of harpies, ever demanding their prey with maw insatiable. Every day required fresh plunder; every day proscriptions and confiscations revealed the prince’s necessities, and if these for a moment slackened for want of victims, his hands were laid on the monuments of art, on every object on which money could be raised throughout the devoted land. The temples as well as the dwellings and the forums of Greece were ransacked again for the costliest and most cherished treasures, to be sold by auction to the highest bidder, or redeemed at exorbitant prices by their unhappy owners. Greece was powerless to resist, and her murmurs were drowned in the acclamations of the hired applauders; but she felt her wrongs deeply, and the pretended boon of freedom, accompanied by a precarious immunity, was regarded perhaps as an insult rather than a favour.

Rome at least, it might be hoped, would breathe again during the absence of her hateful tormentor. But this, we are assured, was as far from her as ever. Her condition had become even more miserable. The emperor had given the government of Italy to a freedman named Helius, and this minion exercised cruelty and rapine at his own caprice, not even deigning to ask the prince’s pleasure beforehand on the executions and confiscations he commanded. Yet Helius was not unfaithful to his master’s interests. On the first symptoms of danger from discontent in the city or the provinces, for such symptoms began at last to threaten, he urged him to hasten back to the seat of government, and it was Nero’s obstinacy alone that postponed his return for some months. “You admonish me, you entreat me,” replied the infatuated wretch, “to present myself again at Rome; nay, but you should rather dissuade me from returning, until I have reaped my full harvest of laurels.” This harvest was not yet gathered in, and the cries of the keeper of the city, already trembling for the fate of the empire, were disregarded, while there yet remained a stadium to be trodden, or a chaplet to be won, in Greece. At the commencement, however, of the year 68 the aspect of affairs had become still more serious. Plots for the subversion of the government were believed to be rife in the armies of the West. The heads of administration at Rome knew not whom of their officers in Gaul or Spain to trust. Deep gloom had settled down on the upper classes in the capital; the temper of the populace itself, so long the stay of Nero’s tyranny, was uncertain. Helius again urged him to hasten his return. He crossed over to Greece to confer with him in person. He repeated his instances with increasing fervour. At last, when there seemed no more of fame or booty to be wrung from Greece, Nero deigned to take ship, though the season of navigation had not yet commenced, and urged his prow through stormy seas to the haven of Puteoli.

NERO’S RETURN TO ITALY AND TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO ROME