the governors was, however, far less than what it had been in the times of the republic; at least, it was so under Tiberius, in whose reign a fraudulent proconsul would certainly not have been acquitted. NERO. After the death of Claudius, Nero, then a youth of seventeen years, mounted the throne without any opposition: whether Claudius had still made a disposition in favour of Britannicus, can no longer be made out. Nero was endowed by nature with bountiful gifts; he had a talent for music and the fine arts, and also for mechanics: there is no reason to doubt that in music he was a virtuoso. He was a pupil of Seneca. At first, he gave birth to the fairest hopes; yet even thus early, it was difficult for farsighted people to believe in them, who felt sure that a viper’s brood must be vipers. His mother Agrippina was the unworthy daughter of the worthy Germanicus, and the worthy sister of Caligula; his father, Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, was quite her match, and he said himself, that from him and Agrippina a monster only could have been born. The whole of the Roman world shared in this foreboding; and therefore people were so much the more astonished at Nero’s behaving at first like the disciple of Seneca and Burrhus. The latter was a fine honest man of the old school, and a good officer, who was appointed by Nero as _præfectus prætorio_; Seneca was a refined man of the world, who busied himself a great deal about virtue, and may also have looked upon himself as an old Stoic, believing for certain that there was not a more clever and virtuous man living than himself: yet this did not prevent his giving himself every moment a dispensation from his virtue. The influence of these two men during the first years of this reign was decided; but the beautiful dream of Nero’s amiability was very short, as both of these tutors were very soon set aside. The first impulse was given by the profligacy to which Nero had yielded himself up from his earliest youth; and then by his mother, who left no means untried to keep her son in a state of dependence. She was opposed by Burrhus and Seneca: the former withstood her out of love for his country; the latter perhaps from the same motives, but just as much from personal grounds, Agrippina being his enemy. When this change took place, cannot be exactly ascertained. The progress of it—the personal connexions in which Nero lived; the influence of Poppæa Sabina, a woman of high rank and wonderful beauty, but tainted with the profligacy of her age, in whose nets he was irretrievably entangled; the still more baneful influence of his mother—is described by Tacitus: I will not speak of Nero’s degeneracy and unbounded depravity; all of it is too well known,—his name alone is enough. He resolved to murder his own mother, against whom he bore a grudge; and after an unsuccessful attempt, he carried out his purpose, owing, as Dio represents it, to Seneca’s instigation. That the