In the mean time the morning had come, and at Rome all was excitement and commotion. The Senate came together and proclaimed Galba emperor. They also passed a decree pronouncing Nero an enemy to the state, and sentencing him to be punished as such in the ancient manner. When this news transpired, a friend of Phaon wrote a letter to him, giving an account of what the Senate had done, and sent it off with the utmost haste by a trusty messenger. The messenger arrived at Phaon's house, and brought the letter in. Nero seized it from Phaon's hands, and read it. "What is the ancient manner?" he asked, in a tone of great anxiety and terror. They told him that it was to be stripped naked, and then to be secured by having his head fastened in a pillory, and in that position to be whipped to death. At hearing this, Nero broke forth in fresh groans and lamentations. He could not endure such a death as that, he said, and he would kill himself, therefore, at once, if they would give him a dagger. There were daggers at hand. Nero took them, examined the points of them with a trembling touch, seemed undecided, and finally put them away again, saying that his hour was not yet quite come. Presently he took one of the daggers again, and made a new attempt to awaken in himself sufficient resolution to strike the blow, but his courage failed him. He moaned and raved all this time in the most incoherent and distracted manner. He even begged that one of the attendants who were with him would take the dagger and kill himself first, in order to encourage Nero by letting him see that it was not after all so dreadful a thing to die. But no one of the attendants seemed sufficiently devoted to his master to be willing to render him such a service as this. In the midst of this perplexity and delay a noise was heard as of horsemen riding up to the door. Nero was terrified anew at the sound. They were coming, he said, to seize him. He immediately drew one of the daggers, and putting it to his throat, attempted desperately to nerve himself to the work of driving it home. But he could not do it. The noise at the door in the mean time increased. Nero then gave the dagger to one of the men standing by, and begged that he would kill him. The man took the dagger with great reluctance, but presently gave the fatal stab, and Nero sank down upon the ground mortally wounded.