of Rome was heavy with curses against his name. He
withdrew to Naples, and was at supper there on March 19, A.D. 68, the
anniversary of his mother's murder, when he heard that the first note of
revolt had been sounded by the brave C. Julius Vindex, prefect of
Farther Gaul. He was so far from being disturbed by the news that he
showed a secret joy at the thought that he could now order Gaul to be
plundered. For eight days he took no notice of the matter. He was only
roused to send an address to the senate because Vindex wounded his
vanity by calling him _Ahenobarbus_[37] and "a bad singer." But when
messenger after messenger came from the provinces with tidings of
menace, he hurried back to Rome. At last, when he heard that Virginius
Rufus had also rebelled in Germany, and Galba in Spain, he became aware
of the desperate nature of his position.

On receiving this intelligence he fainted away, and remained for some
time unconscious. He continued, indeed, his grossness and frivolity, but
the wildest and fiercest schemes chased each other through his
melodramatic brain. He would slay all the exiles; he would give up all
the provinces to plunder; he would order all the Gauls in the city to be
butchered; he would have all the senators invited to banquets, and would
then poison them; he would have the city set on fire, and the wild
beasts of the Amphitheatre let loose among the people; he would depose
both the consuls and become sole consul himself, since legend said that
only by a consul could Gauls be conquered; he would go with an army to
the province, and when he got there would do nothing but weep, and when
he had thus moved the rebels to compassion would next day sing with them
at a great festival the ode of victory which he must at once compose.
Not a single manly resolution lent a moment's dignity to his miserable
fall.

Sometimes he talked of escaping to Ostia and arming the sailors; at
others of escaping to Alexandria and earning his bread by his "divine
voice." Meanwhile he was hourly subjected to the deadliest insults, and
terrified by dreams and omens so sombre that his faith in the
astrologers who had promised him the government of the East and the
kingdom of Jerusalem began to be rudely shaken. When he heard that not a
single army or general remained faithful to him, he kicked over the
table at which he was dining, dashed to pieces on the ground two
favorite goblets embossed with scenes from the Homeric poems,