burning Christians did Nero proceed to light up his gardens on one famous night, as a means of placating the populace whom he had offended, but who for the most part loved him for his misplaced generosity in the matter of “bread and sports.”  The tolerant attitude of the Romans towards foreign religions will be discussed in its own place; but the cruelty of a Nero in the year 64 can hardly be put down as properly a religious persecution in any way typical of the Roman government.

The sensual vices of Nero are indescribable, and that word must suffice.  His extravagances, whether in lavish presents or in personal expenditure, soon rendered him bankrupt.  He had no means of paying the soldiers or meeting his own appetites.  Then began, or increased, his attacks on wealthy persons, his executions and banishments of senators and other wealthy men, and his flimsy pretexts for all manner of confiscation.  The Senate he hated and the Senate hated him.  Nevertheless, so far as the empire itself was concerned, no systematic or widespread oppression can have been perceptible.  His officers and the officers of the Senate were apparently all the time governing and administering the law and the taxation throughout the empire in as sound and steady a way as if an Augustus sat upon the throne.

If we wish to picture Nero to ourselves, here is his description:  “He was of a fairly good height; his skin was blotched, and his odour unpleasant; his hair was inclined to be yellow; his face was more handsome than attractive; his eyes were grayish-blue and short-sighted; his neck was fat; he was protuberant below the waist; his legs were very slender; his health was good.”

Such was the man to whom St. Paul elected to have his case referred, when at Caesarea he exercised his privilege as a Roman citizen and appealed to the titular protector of the commons.  “Thou hast appealed unto Caesar, and unto Caesar shalt thou go.”  There is indeed no great probability that the apostle was ever brought directly before this precious emperor.  We may perhaps draw from bur inner consciousness elaborate and interesting pictures of the two men confronting each other, but we must not forget that they will be pure imagination.  The appeal of a citizen did not imply such right to an interview, for the Caesar in such minor cases commonly delegated his powers to other judicial authorities at Rome.  Paul’s object was gained if his case was safely removed from the local influences of Judaea and the weaker policy of its governor, the “agent of Caesar,” to the capital with its broader-minded men and its superiority to small bribes and local interference.

[Illustration:  FIG. 15.—­BUST OF NERO.]

CHAPTER VI

ADMINISTRATION AND TAXATION OF THE EMPIRE

We are now brought to the consideration of the methods by which this huge empire was organised and governed.