and by a flash of lightning which
darted full in his face, and heard from the neighboring camp the
shouts of the soldiers, wishing his destruction, and prosperity to
Galba. He also heard a traveler they met on the road, say, "They are
in pursuit of Nero": and another ask, "Is there any news in the city
about Nero?" Uncovering his face when his horse was started by the
scent of a carcass which lay in the road, he was recognized and
saluted by an old soldier who had been discharged from the guards.
When they came to the lane which turned up to the house, they quitted
their horses, and with much difficulty he wound among bushes and
briars, and along a track through a bed of rushes, over which they
spread their cloaks for him to walk on. Having reached a wall at the
back of the villa, Phaon advised him to hide himself a while in a
sand-pit; when he replied, "I will not go underground alive." Staying
there some little time, while preparations were made for bringing him
privately into the villa, he took up some water out of a neighboring
tank in his hand, to drink, saying, "This is Nero's distilled water."
Then his cloak having been torn by the brambles, he pulled out the
thorns which stuck in it. At last, being admitted, creeping upon his
hands and knees, through a hole made for him in the wall, he lay down
in the first closet he came to, upon a miserable pallet, with an old
coverlet thrown over it; and being both hungry and thirsty, tho he
refused some coarse bread that was brought him, he drank a little warm
water.

All who surrounded him now pressing him to save himself from the
indignities which were ready to befall him, he ordered a pit to be
sunk before his eyes, of the size of his body, and the bottom to be
covered with pieces of marble put together, if any could be found
about the house; and water and wood to be got ready for immediate use
about his corpse; weeping at everything that was done, and frequently
saying, "What an artist is now about to perish!" Meanwhile, letters
being brought in by a servant belonging to Phaon, he snatched them out
of his hand, and there read, "That he had been declared an enemy by
the senate, and that search was making for him, that he might be
punished according to the ancient custom of the Romans." He then
inquired what kind of punishment that was; and being told, that the
practise was to strip the criminal naked, and scourge him to death
while his neck was fastened within a forked