In the hottest weather of the year 14 A.D., a hush fell upon the streets of old Rome, as the news rapidly circulated that her foremost citizen was dead, and that the man whose name had spelled peace and prosperity for the whole civilized world was no longer at the head of affairs. Few men were still living who could remember any rule but his; for forty-five years he had controlled without serious opposition the destinies of an Empire which stretched from the Euphrates to the English Channel; the men who had taken an active part in the events before the reins of government dropped into his skilful hands were now but few, and if they ever spoke of the days which immediately preceded his reign, it was to contrast fourteen years of anarchy with nearly half a century of order. Here and there in the palaces of the few old Roman families that had survived the revolutions of the middle of the last century the good old times were bewailed, when the spoils of the world were distributed between the members of a few princely houses theoretically associated in administering the affairs of only one Italian town, and bitter epigrams were circulated at the expense of the monarch who posed as the first man of a free city; but the vast body of the population had long forgotten the days of a liberty in whose privileges they had never shared, while they had suffered from its concomitant licence; the streets were no longer the scene of furious fights between the retainers of great noblemen, the citizens regularly received their supplies of corn, holidays were frequent and the amusements of the public provided for on a liberal scale; the Prince himself had been the foremost to enjoy all that delighted the hearts of his fellow citizens.