The return of the emperor did not allay the discontent of the public. His frivolous pursuits, his ridiculous triumphal entry, disgusted all; and, far from curbing by his own authority the rapacity of his favourites, his presence gave the signal for renewing those crimes which had been perpetrated under his name during his absence. Cruelty seemed born of luxury; whatever could enervate the soul or corrupt the heart being united with the most unfeeling barbarity. Avarice and prodigality, forgetting their ancient opposition, appeared to sway the conduct of Nero and his satellites, whose rapacious gains were dissipated in voluptuous feasts and sumptuous shows. Till the death of his revered patron, Adonijah had never been present at any public spectacle or private entertainment; for Lucius, plain and simple in his manners, charged all the degeneracy of Rome upon the innovations of luxury: but Julius was fond of grandeur, and chose to be attended in public by the Hebrew, whose commanding stature and majestic features greatly added to the splendour of his retinue. In these scenes of riot and intemperance, Adonijah again beheld the master of the world. The laurelled brow, the sceptered hand, the smile, nay, even his wild participation in the unhallowed revelries in which he delighted, could not disguise Nero Cæsar from the eye of the slave who had witnessed his agonies of remorse at Corinth. To him the smile appeared mockery, and the mirth unreal; for in its very tones he seemed to hear the frantic cry with which he had fled from the spectral train his conscience had called up. He marked the guilty glare that shrank affrighted from every shadowy nook, as if he feared to see his mother rise armed with the scorpion-whip with which his agonized remorse had armed her hand; and in the gloomy, joyless eye, the lurking fear that saw the dagger in every hand, the poison lurking in every bowl, he recognised the imperial wretch who envied even laborious slavery its slumbers.