Chapter I: Preface

In writing the series of historical narratives to which the present work pertains, it has been the object of the author to furnish to the reading community of this country an accurate and faithful account of the lives and actions of the several personages that are made successively the subjects of the volumes, following precisely the story which has come down to us from ancient times. The writer has spared no pains to gain access in all cases to the original sources of information, and has confined himself strictly to them. The reader may, therefore, feel assured in perusing any one of these works, that the interest of it is in no degree indebted to the invention of the author. No incident, however trivial, is ever added to the original account, nor are any words even, in any case, attributed to a speaker without express authority. Whatever of interest, therefore, these stories may possess, is due solely to the facts themselves which are recorded in them, and to their being brought together in a plain, simple, and connected narrative.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. NERO'S MOTHER 13

II. THE ASSASSINATION OF CALIGULA 34

III. THE ACCESSION OF CLAUDIUS 55

IV. THE FATE OF MESSALINA 77

V. THE CHILDHOOD OF NERO 105

VI. NERO AN EMPEROR 124

VII. BRITANNICUS 148

VIII. THE FATE OF AGRIPPINA 172

IX. EXTREME DEPRAVITY 208

X. PISO'S CONSPIRACY 228

XI. THE FATE OF THE CONSPIRATORS 250

XII. THE EXPEDITION INTO GREECE 272

XIII. NERO'S END 299

ENGRAVINGS.

PAGE

MAP--ENVIRONS OF ROME _Frontispiece._

ENCAMPMENT OF A ROMAN LEGION 21

CAESONIA 53

DISCOVERY OF CLAUDIUS 64

MESSALINA IN THE GARDEN 89

THE POISONING OF CLAUDIUS 132

THE JEWELRY 156

THE ATTEMPT OF ANICETUS 197

BURNING OF ROME 225

THE KNIFE 244

BRINGING EPICHARIS TO THE TORTURE 253

PHAON AT THE WALL 316

NERO