urns to
resume his government at Rome.

That moment was the culminating moment of the ancient civilization. It
is complete in its centralizing power; it is complete in its external
beauty; it is complete in its crime. Beautiful as Eden to the eye, with
luxury, with comfort, with easy indolence to all; but dust and ashes
beneath the surface! It is corrupted at the head! It is corrupted at
the heart! There is nothing firm!

This is the moment which I take for our little picture. At this very
moment there is announced the first germ of the new civilization. In the
very midst of this falsehood, there sounds one voice of truth; in the
very arms of this giant, there plays the baby boy who is to cleave him
to the ground. This Nero slowly returns to the city. He meets the
congratulations of a senate, which thank him and the gods that he has
murdered his own mother. With the agony of an undying conscience
torturing him, he strives to avert care by amusement. He hopes to turn
the mob from despising him by the grandeur of their public
entertainments. He enlarges for them the circus. He calls unheard-of
beasts to be baited and killed for their enjoyment. The finest actors
rant, the sweetest musicians sing, that Nero may forget his mother, and
that his people may forget him.

At that period, the statesmen who direct the machinery of affairs inform
him that his personal attention is required one morning for a state
trial, to be argued before the Emperor in person. Must the Emperor be
there? May he not waste the hours in the blandishments of lying
courtiers, or the honeyed falsehoods of a mistress? If he chooses thus
to postpone the audience, be it so; Seneca, Burrhus, and his other
counsellors will obey. But the time will come when the worn-out boy will
be pleased some morning with the almost forgotten majesty of state. The
time comes one day. Worn out by the dissipation of the week, fretted by
some blunder of his flatterers, he sends for his wiser counsellors, and
bids them lead him to the audience-chamber, where he will attend to
these cases which need an Emperor's decision. It is at that moment that
we are to look upon him.

He sits there, upon that unequalled throne, his face sickly pale with
boyish debauchery; his young fore head worn with the premature sensual
wrinkles of lust; and his eyes bloodshot with last night's intemperance.
He sits there, the Emperor-boy, vainly trying to excite himself, and
forget her, in the blaz