s, b. xiv. xv.

[610] This comet, as well as one which appeared the year in which
Claudius died, is described by Seneca, Natural. Quaest. VII. c. xvii. and
xix. and by Pliny, II. c. xxv.

[611] See Tacitus, Annal. xv. 49-55.

[612] The sixteenth book of Tacitus, which would probably have given an
account of the Vinician conspiracy, is lost. It is shortly noticed by
Plutarch.

[613] See before, c. xix.

[614] This destructive fire occurred in the end of July, or the
beginning of August, A.U.C. 816, A.D. 64. It was imputed to the
Christians, and drew on them the persecutions mentioned in c. xvi., and
the note.

[615] The revolt in Britain broke out A.U.C. 813. Xiphilinus (lxii. p.
701) attributes it to the severity of the confiscations with which the
repayment of large sums of money advanced to the Britons by the emperor
Claudius, and also by Seneca, was exacted. Tacitus adds another cause,
the insupportable tyranny and avarice of the centurions and soldiers.
Prasutagus, king of the Iceni, had named the emperor his heir. His widow
Boadicea and her daughters were shamefully used, his kinsmen reduced to
slavery, and his whole territory ravaged; upon which the Britons flew to
arms. See c. xviii., and the note.

[616] Neonymphon; alluding to Nero's unnatural nuptials with Sporus or
Pythagoras. See cc. xxviii. xxix. It should be neonymphos.

[617] "Sustulit" has a double meaning, signifying both, to bear away,
and put out of the way.

[618] The epithet applied to Apollo, as the god of music, was Paean; as
the god of war, Ekataebaletaes.

[619] Pliny remarks, that the Golden House of Nero was swallowing up all
Rome. Veii, an ancient Etruscan city, about twelve miles from Rome, was
originally little inferior to it, being, as Dionysius informs us, (lib.
ii. p. 16), equal in extent to Athens. See a very accurate survey of
the ruins of Veii, in Gell's admirable TOPOGRAPHY OF ROME AND ITS
VICINITY, p. 436, of Bohn's Edition.

[620] Suetonius calls them organa hydralica, and they seem to have been
a musical instrument on the same principle as our present organs, only
that water was the inflating power. Vitruvius (iv. ix.) mentions the
instrument as the invention of Ctesibus of Alexandria. It is also well
described by Tertullian, De Anima, c. xiv. The pneumatic organ appears
to have been a later improvement. We have before us a contorniate
medallion, of Caracalla, from the collection of Mr. W. S