Suddenly Nero found himself alone. As the advancing rumor of
rebellion reached him, he thought of flight; there was no one that
would accompany him. He called to the pretorians; they would not
hear. Through the immensity of his palace he sought one friend.
The doors would not open. He returned to his apartment; the guards
had gone. Then terror seized him. He was afraid to die, afraid to
live, afraid of his solitude, afraid of Rome, afraid of himself;
but what frightened him most was that everyone had lost their fear
of him. It was time to go, and a slave aiding, he escaped in
disguise from Rome, and killed himself, reluctantly, in a hovel.
"Qualis artifex pereo!" he is reported to have muttered. Say
rather, qualis maechus.
VI
THE HOUSE OF FLAVIA
It was in those days that the nebulous figure of Apollonius of
Tyana appeared and disappeared in Rome. His speech, a commingling
of puerility and charm, Philostratus has preserved. Rumor had
preceded him. It was said that he knew everything, save the
caresses of women; that he was familiar with all languages; with
the speech of bird and beast; with that of silence, for silence is
a language too; that he had prayed in the Temple of Jupiter
Lycoeus, where men lost their shadows, their lives as well; that
he had undergone eighty initiations of Mithra; that he had
perplexed the magi; confuted the gymnosophists; that he foretold
the future, healed the sick, raised the dead; that beyond the
Himalayas he had encountered every species of ferocious beast,
except the tyrant, and that it was to see one that he had come to
Rome.
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