All the honest men of the city were outraged. The most precious antiquities of Rome, the houses of the ancient leaders, decorated with triumphal spoils, the most holy objects, the trophies, the ancient _ex-votos_, the most revered temples, all the belongings of the old worship of the Romans, had disappeared. It was as if they mourned the souvenirs and the traditions of the whole country. They celebrated expiatory services; they consulted the books of the Sibyl: the ladies especially observed various _piacula_. But the secret consciousness of a crime and infamy still remained. Then an infernal idea took possession of the mind of Nero. He cast about to see if he could find anywhere some miserable wretches, still more detested by the Roman plebeians than himself, upon whom he could rest the odium of the incendiarism. He thought of the Christians. The horror which they testified towards the temples and the most venerated edifices of the Romans made the idea plausible, that they should have been the authors of this fire, the result of which was the destruction of these sanctuaries. Their air of sadness in regarding the monuments appeared like an injury to the nation. Rome was a very religious city, and whoever protested against the national worship was at once remarked. It should be remembered that certain rigorous Jews went so far as to refuse to touch money which bore an effigy: they even saw a great crime in bearing or looking at an image, unless engaged in the occupation of carving. Others refused to pass beneath a city gate surmounted by a statue. All this excited the ridicule and ill-will of the people. Perhaps the idea that the Christians were incendiaries gained force from their manner of talking about the final conflagration, their sinister prophecies, their love of reiterating that the world would soon be ended, and ended by fire. It is even admissible that some of the faithful might have committed imprudences, and that there were pretexts for accusing them of having wished, by anticipating the celestial flames, to justify their oracles, at any price. Four and a half years later the Apocalypse was to present a chant upon the burning of Rome, for which the event of 64 probably furnished more than one feature. The destruction of Rome by fire had been a Christian and Jewish dream; and it was not merely a dream: the pious sectaries were pleased to see in spirit the saints and angels applauding from the heights of heaven what they regarded as a just expiation.