Whether the conflagration which occurred at that time was the
result of accident or design is uncertain and in any event
immaterial. Tacitus says that when it began Nero was at Antium, in
which case he must have hastened to return, for admitting that he
did not originate the fire, it is a matter of agreement that he
collaborated in it. In quarters where it showed symptoms of
weakness it was by his orders coaxed to new strength; colossal
stone buildings, on which it had little effect, were battered down
with catapults.
Fire is a perfect poet. No designer ever imagined the surprises it
creates, and when, at the end of the week, three-fourths of the
city was in ruins, the beauty that reigned there must have been
sublime. That it inspired Nero is presumable. The palace on the
Palatine, which Tiberius embellished and Caligula enlarged, had
gone; in its place rose another, aflame with gold. Before it
Neropolis extended, a city of triumphal arches, enchanted temples,
royal dwellings, shimmering porticoes, glittering roofs, and wide,
hospitable streets. It was fair to the eye, purely Greek; and on
its heart, from the Circus Maximus to the Forum's edge, the new
and gigantic palace shone. Before it was a lake, a part of which
Vespasian drained and replaced with an amphitheatre that covered
eight acres. About that lake were separate edifices that formed a
city in themselves; between them and the palace, a statue of Nero
in gold and silver mounted precipitately a hundred and twenty
feet--a statue which it took twenty-four elephants to move.
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