ted.--His extraordinary fate.--Nero is pleased.--The guests at
Vestinus's supper.--Appearances of public rejoicing.--Nero grants gifts
to the army.--Nature of despotic government.--Secret of their
power.--Doubt in respect to Piso's conspiracy.

As soon as Nero had obtained all the information which he and his
officers could draw from Scevinus and Natalis, and had sent to all
parts of the city to arrest those whom the forced disclosures of
these witnesses accused, he thought of Epicharis, who, it will be
recollected, had been sent to prison, and who was still in
confinement there. He ordered Epicharis to be told that concealment
was no longer possible,--that Scevinus and Natalis had divulged the
plot in full, and that her only hope lay in amply confessing all
that she knew.

This announcement had no effect upon Epicharis. She refused to admit
that she knew any thing of any conspiracy.

Nero then ordered that she should be put to the torture. The engines
were prepared and she was brought before them. The sight of them
produced no change. She was then placed upon the wheel, and her
frail and delicate limbs were stretched, dislocated, and broken,
until she had endured every form of agony which such engines could
produce. Her constancy remained unshaken to the end. At length, when
she was so much exhausted by her sufferings that she could no longer
feel the pain, she was taken away to be restored by medicaments,
cordials, and rest, in order that she might recover strength to
endure new tortures on the following day.

In the mean time, panic and excitement reigned throughout the city.
Nero doubled his guards; he garrisoned his palace; he brought out
bodies of armed men, and stationed them on the walls of the city and
in the public squares, or marched them to and fro about the streets.
As fast as men were accused they were put to the question, and as
each one saw that the only hope for safety to himself was in freely
denouncing others, the names of supposed confederates were revealed
in great numbers, and as fast as these names were obtained the men
were seized and imprisoned or executed--the innocent and the guilty
together.

On the very first announcement that the plot had been discovered,
those of the conspirators who were still at large made all haste to
the house of Piso. They found him prostrate in consternation and
despair. They urged him immediately to come forth, and to put
himself at the head of an armed for