nd the most venerable monuments of ancient superstition. In
a few touches of inimitable compression, such as the stern genius of the
Latin language permits, but which are too condensed for direct
translation, Tacitus has depicted the horror of the scene,--wailing of
panic-stricken women, the helplessness of the very aged and the very
young, the passionate eagerness for themselves and for others, the
dragging along of the feeble or the waiting for them, the lingering and
the hurry, the common and inextricable confusion. Many, while they
looked backward, were cut off by the flames in front or at the sides; if
they sought some neighboring refuge, they found it in the grasp of the
conflagration; if they hurried to some more distant spot, that too was
found to be involved in the same calamity. At last, uncertain what to
seek or what to avoid, they crowded the streets, they lay huddled
together in the fields. Some, having lost all their possessions, died
from the want of daily food; and others, who might have escaped died of
a broken heart from the anguish of being bereaved of those whom they had
been unable to rescue; while, to add to the universal horror, it was
believed that all attempts to repress the flames were checked by
authoritive prohibition; nay more, that hired incendiaries were seen
flinging firebrands in new directions, either because they had been
bidden to do so, or that they might exercise their rapine undisturbed.

The historians and anecdotists of the time, whose accounts must be taken
for what they are worth, attribute to Nero the origin of the
conflagration; and it is certain that he did not return to Rome until
the fire had caught the galleries of his palace. In vain did he use
every exertion to assist the homeless and ruined population; in vain did
he order food to be sold to them at a price unprecedentedly low, and
throw open to them the monuments of Agrippa, his own gardens, and a
multitude of temporary sheds. A rumour had been spread that, during the
terrible unfolding of that great "flower of flame," he had mounted to
the roof of his distant villa, and delighted with the beauty of the
spectacle, exulting in the safe sensation of a new excitement, had
dressed himself in theatrical attire, and sung to his harp a poem on the
burning of Troy. Such a heartless mixture of buffoonery and affectation
had exasperated the people too deeply for forgiveness, and Nero thought
it necessary to draw off the general