of his sovereign, he turned to him with
looks of open and angry defiance and said--

"It was because I hated and detested you, unnatural monster as you
are. There was a time when there was not a soldier in your service
who was more devoted to you than I. But that time has passed. You
have drawn upon yourself the detestation and abhorrence of all
mankind by your cruelties and your crimes. You have murdered your
mother. You have murdered your wife. You are an incendiary. And not
content with perpetrating these enormous atrocities, you have
degraded yourself in the eyes of all Rome to the level of the lowest
mountebank and buffoon, so as to make yourself the object of
contempt as well as abhorrence. I hate and defy you."

Nero was of course astonished and almost confounded at hearing such
words. He had never listened to language like this before. His
astonishment was succeeded by violent rage, and he ordered Flavius
to be led out to immediate execution.

The centurion to whom the execution was committed conducted Flavius
without the city to a field, and then set the soldiers at work to
dig the grave, as was customary at military executions, while he
made the other necessary preparations. The soldiers, in their haste,
shaped the excavation rudely and imperfectly. Flavius ridiculed
their work, asking them, in a tone of contempt, if they considered
that the proper way to dig a military grave. And when at length,
after all the preparations had been made, and the fatal moment had
arrived, the tribune who was in command called upon him to uncover
his neck and stand forth courageously to meet his fate--he replied
by exhorting the officer himself to be resolute and firm. "See,"
said he, "if you can show as much nerve in striking the blow,
as I can in meeting it." To cut down such a man, under such
circumstances, was of course a very dreadful duty, even for a Roman
soldier, and the executioner faltered greatly in the performance of
it. The decapitation should have been effected by a single blow; but
the officer found his strength failing him when he came to strike,
so that a second blow was necessary to complete the severance of the
head from the body. The tribune was afraid that this, when
represented to Nero, might bring him under suspicion, as if it
indicated some shrinking on his part from a prompt and vigorous
action in putting down the conspiracy; and so on his return to Nero
he boasted of his performance as if it had be