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Foul air flies even here to my house and my gardens. Oh, if an earthquake would destroy Rome, if some angry god would level it to the earth! I would show how a city should be built, which is the head of the world and my capital." "Cæsar," answered Tigellinus, "thou sayest, 'If some angry god would destroy the city, is it so?" "It is! What then?" "But art thou not a god?"
Through his head flew the thought, it is true, that in that event he might give command to seize Lygia and shut her up in his house, but he felt that he ought not to do so, and he was not capable of acting thus. He was tyrannical, insolent, and corrupt enough, if need be he was inexorable, but he was not Tigellinus or Nero.
And he fell to seeking expressions the most splendid to describe the danger of the moment, but, seeing around him alarmed looks and pale faces, he was frightened, with the others. "Give me my dark mantle with a hood!" cried he; "must it come really to battle?" "Lord," said Tigellinus, in an uncertain voice, "I have done what I could, but danger is threatening.
At command of Tigellinus, who had hastened from Antium the third day before, houses on the Esquiline were torn down so that the fire, reaching empty spaces, died of itself. That was, however, undertaken solely to save a remnant of the city; to save that which was burning was not to be thought of. There was need also to guard against further results of the ruin.
The journey had been planned long before; why defer it, when in Rome were sadness and danger? Cæsar accepted the counsel with eagerness; but Seneca when he had thought awhile, said, "It is easy to go, but it would be more difficult to return." "By Heracles!" replied Petronius, "we may return at the head of Asiatic legions." "This will I do!" exclaimed Nero. But Tigellinus opposed.
"In Egypt I will marry the Moon, who is now a widow, and I shall be a god really." "And thou wilt give us stars for wives; we will make a new constellation, which will be called the constellation of Nero. But do thou marry Vitelius to the Nile, so that he may beget hippopotamuses. Give the desert to Tigellinus, he will be king of the jackals."
If the cruelty of Nero be allowed entirely voluntary, and not rather the effect of constant fear and resentment; it is evident that Tigellinus, preferably to Seneca or Burrhus, must have possessed his steady and uniform approbation.
Yes; truly Cæsar has commanded the burning of the city! Only he could give such a command, as Tigellinus alone could accomplish it. But if Rome is burning at command of Cæsar, who can be sure that the population will not be slaughtered at his command? The monster is capable of just such a deed. Conflagration, a servile revolt, and slaughter!
Such was the message which the tribune took back to Nero, whom he found sitting with his dearest and most detestable advisers, his wife Poppaea and his minister Tigellinus. Nero asked "whether Seneca was preparing a voluntary death." On the tribune replying that he showed no gloom or terror in his language or countenance, Nero ordered that he should at once be bidden to die.
Hadst thou recognized the Augusta and refused her, thou wouldst have been ruined beyond rescue, thou, Lygia, and I, perhaps." "I have enough of Rome, Cæsar, feasts, the Augusta, Tigellinus, and all of you!" burst out Vinicius. "I am stifling. I cannot live thus; I cannot. Dost understand me?" "Vinicius, thou art losing sense, judgment, moderation." "I love only her in this world." "What of that?"
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