h the utmost danger to the army. London
therefore was reduced to ashes; and the Romans, and all strangers, to the
number of seventy thousand, were put to the sword without distinction,
the Britons seeming determined to convince the enemy that they would
acquiesce in no other terms than a total evacuation of the island. This
massacre, however, was revenged by Suetonius in a decisive engagement,
where eighty thousand of the Britons are said to have been killed; after
which, Boadicea, to avoid falling into the hands of the insolent
conquerors, put a period to her own life by means of poison. It being
judged unadvisable that Suetonius should any longer conduct the war
against a people whom he had exasperated by his severity, he was
recalled, and Petronius Turpilianus appointed in his room. The command
was afterwards given successively to Trebellius Maximus and Vettius
Bolanus; but the plan pursued by these generals was only to retain, by a
conciliatory administration, the parts of the island which had already
submitted to the Roman arms.

During these transactions in Britain, Nero himself was exhibiting, in
Rome or some of the provinces, such scenes of extravagance as almost
exceed credibility. In one place, entering the lists amongst the
competitors in a chariot race; in another, contending for victory with
the common musicians on the stage; revelling in open day in the company
of the most abandoned prostitutes and the vilest of men; in the night,
committing depredations on the peaceful inhabitants of the capital;
polluting with detestable lust, or drenching with human blood, the
streets, the palace, and the habitations of private families; and, to
crown his enormities, setting fire to Rome, while he sung with delight in
beholding the dreadful conflagration. In vain would history be ransacked
for a parallel to this emperor, who united the most shameful vices to the
most extravagant vanity, the most abject meanness to the strongest but
most preposterous ambition; and the whole of whose life was one continued
scene of lewdness, sensuality, rapine, cruelty, and folly. It is
emphatically observed by Tacitus, "that Nero, after the murder of many
illustrious personages, manifested a desire of extirpating virtue
itself."

Among the excesses of Nero's reign, are to be mentioned the horrible
cruelties exercised against the Christians in various parts of the
empire, in which inhuman transactions the natural barbarity of the