When the fire was at length subdued, of the fourteen quarters of Rome only four were left entire; the remainder presented more or less utter ruin. The conflagration in the time of the Gauls had been little more complete, while the wealth now consumed was incomparably greater. The whole world had been robbed of its treasures to feed the flames of Rome. But the haste and ill-judged confusion with which the city was rebuilt after the irruption of the Gauls was not now repeated. A regular plan was formed; the new streets were made wide and straight; the elevation of the houses was defined, and each was given an open area before the door, and was adorned with porticos. The expense of these porticos Nero took upon himself. He ordered also that the new houses should not be contiguous, but that each should be surrounded by its own enclosure; and, in order to hurry the work, he offered rewards to those who should finish their buildings in a fixed period. As for the refuse of the fire, it was removed at Nero's expense to the marshes of Ostia in the ships that brought corn up the Tiber. These regulations, while they must have made much confusion among the rival claimants of building sites, added greatly to the beauty and comfort of the new city, and the Rome which rose from the ruins was far more stately and handsome than the Rome which had vanished in ashes and smoke. But Nero, while showing some passing feeling for the people and some wisdom in the rebuilding of the city, did not hesitate to use a generous portion of the devastated space for his own advantage. His palace had been destroyed, and he built a new and most magnificent one on the Palatine Hill, the famous "golden house," which after-ages beheld with unstinted admiration. But he did not confine his ostentation to the palace itself. A great space around it was converted into pleasure-grounds for his amusement, in which, as Tacitus says, "expansive lakes and fields of vast extent were intermixed with pleasing variety; woods and forests stretched to an immeasurable length, presenting gloom and solitude amid scenes of open space, where the eye wandered with surprise over an unbounded prospect." But nothing that Nero could do sufficed to remove from men's minds the belief that on him rested the infamy of the fire. This public sentiment troubled and frightened him, and to remove it he sought to lay the burden of guilt on others. It was now the year 64 A.D., and for at least thirty years the new sect of the Christians had been spreading in Rome, where it had gained many adherents among the humbler and more moral section of the population. The Christians were far from popular. They were accused of secret and evil practices and debasing superstitions, and on this despised sect Nero determined to turn the fury of the populace. [Illustration: THE TOMB OF HADRIAN.]