Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-04-23

o lty, and he ravaged the provinces and
the wealthy citizens, rebuilding Rome with
broader streets and 10 greater magnlfcence,
and pushing up on the hot ashes of the city
his golden house. which surpassed, for
cas.ly aud gorgeous display, any structure IN
ancient times and which had in the vestibuls
a statue of himself 125 feet high. When he
was in it he said. Now I am lodged like
human being
ssSuch crimes were leading the young
artist swiftly to Judgment. Says Farrar, IN
Early days of Christianity feom which
have condensed most of these facts, Ihe
air was full OF prodigies there were terrible
storms; the plague wrought fearful ravages;
rumors spread from lip to lip; men spoke OF
monslrous births; of deaths by lightning
under strange circumstances of brszsn
statue of Nero melted by the flash,
and OF sudden darkenings OF the sun.
A hurricane devastated Campania; comets
blazed in the heavens earthquakes shook the
ground. On all sides were traces OF dsep I'M
easiness and euperstitious terror Christians
and pagsns alike thought that the hour OF
their deliverauee from tyranny SO nonstrous
and disgraceful was near at hand Rebellion
after rebellion broke out first in Germany,
then in Spain; and then all the Generals and
armies deserted his cause. At one time, on
hearing the news, he tainted; at another, he
was angry, and kicked over the table where
he was fsasting, and prepared poison and put
it in golden box, for instant use when
needed. At last he disd, says Farrar, the
death of dog Bsrefooted. and with
faded coat thrown over him, he hid
his head and face in a kerchief
and fed from the city with
only four attendants, to the house OF freed
man Of his, four miles away crept towards
the house through q muddy reed-bed, and
crawied in through an aperture on his hands
and feet into slave chamber quote from
Farrar the closing scene: The wretch who,
without q psng had caused SO many brave
Romans and innocent Christians to De MUIR
dered, could not summon up resolution to die.
He devised every operate incident OF which ne
could think. When even his moat degraded
slaves urged him to have sufficient manliness
to save himself flom the fearful infamies
which otherwise awaited him, he ordered his
grave to be dug and fragments Of marble to
be collected for its adoranent, and water and
wood for his funeral pyre, perpetu Ally WIN
ing, What an artist to perish /! Meanwhile
a courier arrived with dispatches for Phaon.
Nero snatched the dispatches out oG his hand,
and read that the Senate had decided that he
should be punished in the ancestral fashion as
public enemy. Asking what the ancestral
fashion was he was informed that he would
rods. with his head thrust into fork. Hor-
rifed at this he seized two dsggevs, and after
theatrically trying their edges sheathed them
again, with the excuse that the fatal moment
had not vet arrived. Then he babe Sporus
begin to sing his funeral song, and begged
some one to show him how to die. Even his
own intense shame at his cowardice was an
insufficient stimulus, and he whiled away the
time in vapid epigrams and pompous quota
tions. The sound of horses hoofs then broke
on his ears, and rendering one more Greek
quotation he held the dagger to his throat,
and it was driven home by Epaphroditus,
one of his literary slaves.
$50 the atrocious and kingly crimes and
vices of the sensuous, cowardly. cruel, melo.
dramatic, esthetic Nero drew him on, like
reluctant bullock, to judgment. So he died.
and Farrar adds, The bystanders were hor--
rifed with the way in which his eyes seemed
to be starting out of bis head in rigid stare
That was the beginning His sins goirg be-
fore to judgment, and dragging him after"