many years?
For who was unapprized of the ferocious disposition of Nero? Nor could
anything else be expected after he had murdered his mother and brother
than that he should proceed to destroy his nursing father and
preceptor."

After these and similar reasonings addrest to the company in general,
he embraced his wife; and after a brief but vigorous effort to get the
better of the apprehensions that prest upon him at that moment, he
besought and implored her "to refrain from surrendering herself to
endless grief; but endeavor to mitigate her regret for her husband by
means of those honorable consolations which she would experience in
the contemplation of his virtuous life." Paulina, on the contrary,
urged her purpose to die with him, and called for the hand of the
executioner. When Seneca, unwilling to impede her glory, and also from
affection, as he was anxious not to leave one who was dear to him
above everything, exposed to the hard usage of the world, thus addrest
her: "I had pointed out to you how to soften the ills of life; but you
prefer the renown of dying: I will not envy you the honor of the
example. Tho both display the same unflinching fortitude in
encountering death; still the glory of your exit will be superior to
mine." After this, both had the veins of their arms opened with the
same stroke. As the blood flowed slowly from the aged body of Seneca,
attenuated as it was too by scanty sustenance, he had the veins of his
legs and hams also cut; and unable to bear up under the excessive
torture, lest by his own sufferings he should overpower the
resolution of his wife, and by witnessing her anguish be betrayed into
impatience himself, he advised her to retire into another chamber. His
eloquence continued to flow during the latest moments of his
existence, and summoning his secretaries, he dictated many things,
which, as they have been published in his own words, I forbear to
exhibit in other language.

IV

THE BURNING OF ROME BY ORDER OF NERO[116]

(64 A.D.)

There followed a dreadful disaster; whether fortuitously, or by the
wicked contrivance of the prince[117] is not determined, for both are
asserted by historians: but of all the calamities which ever befell
this city from the rage of fire, this was the most terrible and
severe. It broke out in that part of the Circus which is contiguous to
mounts Palatine and Coelius; where, by reason of shops in which were
kept such goods as minister alim