orted by his
friends, and that they might now regain the power of which they had been
deprived.

Some whisper of what was afloat reached Nero's ears. Filled with craven
fury, he resolved to massacre the senate, to set fire again to the city,
and to let loose his whole collection of wild beasts. He proposed to fly
to Egypt during the consternation that would prevail. A trusted servant,
to whom he told this design, revealed it to the senate. It filled them
with fear and rage. Yet even in so dire a contingency they could not be
prevailed upon to act with vigor, and all might have been lost by their
procrastination and timidity but for the two men who had organized the
revolt.

These men, Nymphidius and Tigellinus by name, went to the palace, and
with a show of deep affliction informed Nero of his danger. "All is
lost," they said: "the people call aloud for vengeance; the Praetorian
guards have abandoned your cause; the senate is ready to pronounce a
dreadful judgment. Only one hope remains to you, to fly for your life,
and seek a retreat in Egypt."

It was as they said; revolt was everywhere in the air, and affected the
armies near and far. Nero sought assistance, but sought it in vain. The
palace, lately swarming with life, was now deserted. Nero wandered
through its empty chambers, and found only solitude and gloom.
Conscience awoke in his seared heart, and he was filled with horror and
remorse. Of all his late crowd of courtiers only three friends now
remained with him,--Sporus, a servant; Phaon, a freedman; and
Epaphroditus, his secretary.

"'My wife, my father, and my mother doom me dead!'" he bitterly cried,
quoting a line from a Greek tragedy.

With a last hope he bade the soldiers on duty to hasten to Ostia and
prepare a ship, on which he might embark for Egypt. The men refused.

"'Is it, then, so wretched a thing to die?'" said one of them, quoting
from Virgil.

This refusal threw Nero into despair. He hurried to the Servilian
gardens, with a vial of deadly poison, which, on getting there, he had
not the courage to take. He returned to the palace and threw himself on
his bed. Then, too agitated to lie, he sprang up and called for some
friendly hand to end his wretched life. No one consented, and in his
wild despair he called out, in doleful accents, "My friends desert me,
and I cannot find an enemy."

The world had suddenly fallen away from the despicable Nero. A week
before he had ordered it at his wil