But this purpose also he dismissed in the very moment of
utterance; and turning away despairingly, he apostrophized himself in
words reproachful or animating, now taxing his nature with infirmity of
purpose, now calling on himself by name, with adjurations to remember his
dignity, and to act worthy of his supreme station: _ou prepei Neroni_,
cried he, _ou prepeu naephein dei en tois toidaetois ale, eleire seauton_--
i.e. "Fie, fie, then Nero! such a season calls for perfect self-
possession. Up, then, and rouse thyself to action."
Thus, and in similar efforts to master the weakness of his reluctant
nature--weakness which would extort pity from the severest minds, were it
not from the odious connection which in him it had with cruelty the most
merciless--did this unhappy prince, _jam non salutis spem sed exitii
solatium quaerens_, consume the flying moments, until at length his ears
caught the fatal sounds or echoes from a body of horsemen riding up to the
villa. These were the officers charged with his arrest; and if he should
fall into their hands alive, he knew that his last chance was over for
liberating himself, by a Roman death, from the burthen of ignominious
life, and from a lingering torture.
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