An excerpt
out of
NERO
CLAUDIUS CAESAR
XVI. He devised a new style of building in the city, ordering piazzas to be
erected before all houses, both in the streets and detached, to give facilities
from their terraces, in case of fire,
for preventing it from spreading; and these he built at his own expense. He
likewise designed to extend the city walls as far as Ostia, and bring the sea
from thence by a canal into the old city. Many severe regulations and new
orders were made in his time. A sumptuary law was enacted. Public suppers were
limited to the Sportulae 576; and victualling-houses restrained from selling any
dressed victuals, except pulse and herbs, whereas before they sold all kinds of
meat. He likewise inflicted punishments on the
Christians, a sort of people who held a new and impious 577 superstition.
Another translation reads as follows:
“[XVI.] After the great fire at
“XXXVI. Nor did he proceed with less cruelty against
those who were not of his family. A blazing
star, which is vulgarly supposed to portend destruction to
kings and princes, appeared above the horizon several nights successively 610. He felt great anxiety on account of this phenomenon,
and
being informed by one Babilus, an astrologer, that
princes were used to expiate such omens by the sacrifice of illustrious
persons, and so avert the danger foreboded to their own persons, by bringing it
on the heads of their chief men, he resolved on the destruction of the
principal nobility in Rome. He was the more encouraged to this,
because he had some plausible pretence for carrying it into execution, from the
discovery of two conspiracies against him; the former and more
dangerous of which was that formed by Piso 611, and discovered at Rome; the other was that of Vinicius 612, at Beneventum.”
“610 (return) This comet,
as well as one which appeared the year in which Claudius died, is described by Seneca,
Natural. Quaest. VII. c. xvii. and xix. and by Pliny, II. c. xxv.”
“611 (return) See Tacitus, Annal. xv.
49-55.
“612 (return) The sixteenth book of
Tacitus, which would probably have given an account of the Vinician conspiracy,
is lost. It is shortly noticed by Plutarch.”
“XXXVIII. He [Nero] spared, moreover, neither the
people of Rome, nor the capital of his country. Somebody in conversation
saying—
Emou thanontos gaia michthaeto pyri
When I am dead let fire devour the world—
"Nay," said he, "let it be while I am living" [emou
xontos]. And he acted accordingly: for, pretending to be disgusted with the old
buildings, and the narrow and winding streets, he set the city on fire so
openly, that many of consular rank caught his own household servants on their
property with tow, and (368) torches in their hands, but durst not meddle with
them. There being near his Golden House some granaries, the site of
which he exceedingly coveted, they were battered as if with machines of war,
and set on fire, the walls being built of stone. During
six days and seven nights this terrible devastation continued,
the people being obliged to fly to the tombs and monuments for lodging and
shelter. Meanwhile, a vast number of stately buildings, the houses of generals
celebrated in former times, and even then still decorated with the spoils of
war, were laid in ashes; as well as the temples of the gods, which had been
vowed and dedicated by the kings of Rome, and afterwards in the Punic and
Gallic wars: in short, everything that was remarkable and worthy to be seen
which time had spared 614. This fire he beheld from a tower in the house of
Mecaenas, and "being greatly delighted," as he said, "with the
beautiful effects of the conflagration," he sung a poem on the ruin of
Troy, in the tragic dress he used on the stage. To turn this calamity to his
own advantage by plunder and rapine, he promised to remove the bodies of those
who had perished in the fire, and clear the rubbish at his own expense;
suffering no one to meddle with the remains of their property. But he not only
received, but exacted contributions on account of the loss, until he had
exhausted the means both of the provinces and private persons.”