were neither gold nor precious stones. Those decorations, long since introduced by luxury, were grown stale and hackneyed to the eye. A different species of magnificence was now consulted: expansive lakes and fields of vast extent were intermixed with pleasing variety; woods and forests stretched to an immeasurable length, presenting gloom and solitude amidst scenes of open space, where the eye wandered with surprise over an unbounded prospect. This prodigious plan was carried out under the direction of two surveyors, whose names were Severus and Celer. Bold and original in their projects, these men undertook to conquer nature, and to perform wonders even beyond the imagination and the riches of the prince. They promised to form a navigable canal from Lake Avernus to the mouth of the Tiber. The experiment, like the genius of the men, was bold and grand. The canal was to be made through a long tract of barren land, and in some places through opposing mountains. The country round was parched and dry, without one humid spot, except the Pomptinian marsh, from which water could be expected. A scheme so vast could not be accomplished without immoderate labor, and, if practicable, the end was in no proportion to the expense and labor. But the prodigious and almost impossible had charms for the enterprising spirit of Nero. He began to hew a passage through the hills that surround Lake Avernus, and some traces of his deluded hopes are visible at this day.

The ground which, after marking out his own domain, Nero left to the public, was not laid out for the new city in a hurry and without judgment, as was the case after the irruption of the Gauls. A regular plan was formed the streets were made wide and long;

the elevation of the houses was defined, with an open area before the doors, and porticos to secure and adorn the front. The expense of the porticos Nero undertook to defray out of his own revenue. He promised, besides, as soon as the work was finished, to clear the ground, and leave a clear space to every house, without any charge to the occupant. In order to excite a spirit of industry and emulation, he offered rewards proportioned to the rank of each individual, provided the buildings were finished in a limited time. The rubbish was removed by his order to the marshes of Ostia, and the ships that brought corn up the river were to return loaded with the refuse of the workmen. Besides all this the houses, built on a new principle, were to be raised to a certain elevation, without beams or woodwork, on arches of stone from the quarries of Alba or Gabii, those materials being impervious, and of a nature to resist the force of fire. The springs of water, which had been before that time intercepted by individuals for their separate use, were no longer suffered to be diverted from their channel, but left to the care of commissioners, that the public might be properly supplied, and in case of fire have a reservoir at hand to stop the progress of the mischief.

It was also settled that the houses should no longer be contiguous, with slight party-walls to divide them, but that every house should stand detached, surrounded and insulated by its own inclosure. These regulations, it must be admitted, were of public utility, and added much to the embellishment of the new city. But still the old plan of Rome was not without its advocates. It was thought more conducive to the health of the inhabitants. The narrowness of the streets

and the elevation of the buildings served to exclude the rays of the sun, whereas the more open space, having neither shade nor shelter, left men exposed to the intense heat of the day.

These several regulations were, no doubt, the best that human wisdom could suggest. The next care was to propitiate the gods. The Sibylline Books1 were consulted, and the consequence was that supplications were decreed to Vulcan, to Ceres, and to Proserpine. A band of matrons offered their prayers and sacrifices to Juno, first in the Capitol, and next on the nearest margin of the sea, where they supplied themselves with water to sprinkle the temple and the statue of the goddess. A select number of women, who had husbands actually living, laid the deities on their sacred beds,2 and kept midnight vigils with the usual solemnity. But neither these religious ceremonies nor the liberal donations of the prince could efface from the minds of men the prevailing opinion that Rome was set on fire by his own orders. The infamy of that horrible transaction still adhered to him. In order if possible to remove the imputation, he determined to transfer the guilt to others. For this purpose he punished with exquisite cruelty a race of men detested for their evil practices, by vulgar appellation commonly called Christians.

The name was derived from Christ, who in the reign of Tiberius suffered under Pontius Pilate, the procurator of Judea. By that event the sect of which he was the founder received a blow which for a time

1 A collection of oracles in Greek hexameters that had been brought to Rome in the reign of Tarquinius Superbus.

2 This was the ceremony of the lectisternium, in which images of gods were laid upon couches, a table with food being placed beside them.

checked the growth of a dangerous superstition; but it revived soon after, and spread with recruited vigor, not only in Judea, the soil that gave it birth, but even in the city of Rome, the common sink into which everything infamous and abominable flows like a torrent from all quarters of the world. Nero proceeded with his usual artifice. He found a set of profligate and abandoned wretches, who were induced to confess themselves guilty, and on the evidence of such men a number of Christians were convicted, not indeed on clear evidence of their having set the city on fire, but rather on account of their sullen hatred of the whole human race. They were put to death, and to their sufferings Nero added mockery and derision. Some were covered with the skins of wild beasts, and left to be devoured by dogs; others were nailed to the cross; numbers were burnt alive; and many, covered over with inflammable matter, were lighted, when the day declined, to serve as torches during the night.

For the convenience of seeing this tragic spectacle the emperor lent his own gardens. He added the sports of the circus, and assisted in person, sometimes driving a chariot, and occasionally mixing with the rabble in his charioteer's dress. At length the cruelty of these proceedings filled every breast with compassion. Humanity relented in favor of the Christians. The manners of that people were, no doubt, of a pernicious tendency, and their crimes called for the hand of justice, but it was evident that they fell a sacrifice, not for the public good, but to glut the rage and cruelty of one man only.

JUVENAL

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

THE paucity and meagreness of the traditions that have come down to us about the life of Juvenal preclude the possibility of anything but an extremely flimsy reconstruction of it. He lived during the last half of the first century of our era and the first part of the second, various activities, if we are to believe the ancient accounts, filling up his long life. He is said to have seen some military service, to have held certain municipal offices in Aquinum in Latium, presumably his native town, to have turned to the writing of satire only after spending many years in the practice of declamation, and finally in his eightieth year to have been banished to Egypt, under the pretext of a military command, as a penalty for having in one of his satires reflected upon an actor who was a favorite at court.

He has left us sixteen satires, some of them on general moral themes, but the majority satirizing conditions or tendencies in society at Rome. In some cases he handles the same topics as Martial, but instead of Martial's flippant light-heartedness we find bitterness and indignation, expressed with a rush of rhetoric and a mordancy of phrase that make them unique even in this kind of writing. His sincerity has often been impeached; but, while conceding that many passages are marred by exaggeration, and that in the heat of declamation the feeling is not infrequently forced, it seems probable that his work was for the most part based on genuine convictions. However this may be, there can be no question as to the brilliancy of his rhetoric,