these encounters, and of the
women some were strangled and some were seized and carried off.

[Sidenote:--16--] After this Nero had the wish (or rather it had always
been a fixed purpose of his) to make an end of the whole city and
sovereignty during his lifetime. Priam he deemed wonderfully happy in that
he had seen his country perish at the same moment as his authority.
Accordingly he sent in different directions men feigning to be drunk or
engaged in some indifferent species of rascality and at first had one or
two or more blazes quietly kindled in different quarters: people, of
course, fell into the utmost confusion, not being able to find any
beginning of the trouble nor to put any end to it, and meanwhile they
became aware of many strange sights and sounds. For soon there was nothing
to be observed but many fires as in a camp, and no other phrases fell from
men's lips but "This or that is burning "; "Where?"; "How?"; "Who set
it?"; "To the rescue!" An extraordinary perturbation laid hold on all
wherever they might be, and they ran about as if distracted, some in one
direction and some in another. Some men in the midst of assisting their
neighbors would learn that their own premises were on fire. Others
received the first intimation of their own possessions being aflame when
informed that they were destroyed. Persons would run from their houses
into the lanes with some idea of being of assistance from the outside, or
again they would dash into the dwellings from the streets, appearing to
think they could accomplish something inside. The shouting and screaming
of children, women, men, and graybeards all together were incessant, so
that one could have no consciousness nor comprehension of anything by
reason of the smoke and shouting combined. On this account some might be
seen standing speechless, as if dumb. All this time many who were carrying
out their goods and many more who were stealing what belonged to others
kept encountering one another and falling over the merchandise. It was not
possible to get anywhere, nor yet to stand still; but people pushed and
were pushed back, they upset others and were themselves upset, many were
suffocated, many were crushed: in fine, no evil that can possibly happen
to men at such a crisis failed to befall them. They could not with ease
find even any avenue of escape, and, if any one did save himself from some
immediate danger, he usually fell into another one and was lost.

[Si