In
this way, and contending with such hardships, they reached at length the
postern side of the villa. Here we must suppose that there was no regular
ingress; for, after waiting until an entrance was pierced, it seems that
the emperor could avail himself of it in no more dignified posture, than
by creeping through the hole on his hands and feet, (_quadrupes per
angustias receptus_.)
Now, then, after such anxiety, alarm, and hardship, Nero had reached a
quiet rural asylum. But for the unfortunate concurrence of his horse's
alarm with the passing of the soldier, he might perhaps have counted on a
respite of a day or two in this noiseless and obscure abode. But what a
habitation for him who was yet ruler of the world in the eye of law, and
even _de facto_ was so, had any fatal accident befallen his aged
competitor! The room in which (as the one most removed from notice and
suspicion) he had secreted himself, was a cella, or little sleeping closet
of a slave, furnished only with a miserable pallet and a coarse rug. Here
lay the founder and possessor of the Golden House, too happy if he might
hope for the peaceable possession even of this miserable crypt.
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