a fitting tribute to the germ of a divine existence hereafter to blossom into flower. But the ardour with which Nero aspired to distinctions among mortal men was itself a guarantee against his usurping the character of the impassive godhead, which can neither enjoy a triumph nor suffer a disgrace. Nor again, though described by Tacitus as _lusting after the incredible_, had Nero the same passion as Caligula for realising apparent impossibilities to prove his superhuman power. He was not impelled in a career of marvels by restless and aimless pride. Once removed from the sphere of theatrical shows and contests, he had no higher notion of his position than as enabling him to accumulate, to multiply, or to enlarge the commonest objects of luxury. He never travelled, it is asserted, with less than a thousand carriages in his train. His banquets were those of the noble debauchees of the day on a still vaster scale of expense; in the height of his extravagance, he would equip his actors with masks or wands covered with genuine pearls; he would stake four hundred thousand sesterces on a single cast of the dice; he bathed in unguents, and stimulated his friends to expend four millions on the perfumes alone of a single supper. His presents to favourites were sums of money many times greater than had ever been given to favourites before; his buildings were colonnades longer, halls wider, towers higher, than had been raised by his predecessors. His projected canal from Puteoli to Rome would only have been the longest of canals; the attempt he latterly made to cut through the isthmus of Corinth was only a repetition of previous attempts, neither better planned, nor more steadfastly persevered in.