of the defeat of Vindex brought him little comfort, as the attitude of Verginius remained so ambiguous'; and all kinds of wild schemes of vengeance or flight were reported as contemplated 2.

A new danger now arose in what had been hitherto his great source of strength, the praetorian guards. Both the praefects of that body appear to have proved false to him; but Tigellinus, enervated by vice and disease, was cast into the shade by the bolder schemer Nymphidius Sabinus, who, when Nero had departed from the Palatium to the Servilian gardens, persuaded the soldiers that he had already fled to Egypt, and induced them to proclaim Galba emperor by offering in his name an enormous donative of 30,000 H.S. each o.

At midnight Nero found himself forsaken by the cohort in attendance and deprived of the poison which he kept for the last extremity, and fled in disguise, with four attendants, to a villa of his freedman Phaon, distant about four miles from Rome, between the Salarian and the Nomentan way'. The decision of the praetorians emboldened the senate to proclaim Galba emperor, to declare Nero a public enemy, and to sentence him to be put to death 'more maiorum 10. In his hiding-place he was informed that the soldiers were upon his track, and after vain attempts to despatch himself, received his deathstroke partly at his own hand, partly at that of his freedman Epaphroditus ". He died on June 9 12, aged thirty years, five months, and twenty-six days, having ruled thirteen years, seven months, and twenty-eight days; and received honorable burial at

1 The statement that Nero heard wepì τοῦ Ρούφου ὅτι αὐτοῦ ἀπέστη (Dio, 63. 27, 1) is inaccurate; but Verginius was evidently ready to recognise any new emperor appointed by the senate. Dio adds that Nero was 'deserted by all alike,' and Suet. speaks of 'ceterorum exercituum defectio' (Ner. 47). may refer to the troops under Rubrius and Petronius, some of which are said to have opened communications with Verginius (H. 1. 9, 4).

2 Suet. Ner. 43: Dio, 63. 27, 2.

This

The only full account of the action of Nymphidius, that of Plutarch, makes him not actually depose his colleague Tigellinus till after the death of Nero (Galb. 8), but wholly to act without him at the crisis here mentioned (Galb. 2). That Tigellinus was suffering from an incurable disease is stated in Plut. Oth. 2, and the fact may explain his inaction; but Tacitus, in cailing him the desertor ac proditor' of Nero (H. 1. 72, 2), certainly charges him with an important

the hands of two women who had nursed him in childhood, and of his concubine Acte 1.

At his death, the nominal power rested with the senate, but the real masters of the situation were Nymphidius and the praetorians. The action taken at Rome accelerated the movements in other quarters; the hesitation of Verginius was overcome, and the choice of Galba as emperor was generally ratified, though not without still remaining discontent and disaffection 2.

portance. It is also probable that the narrative was carried on beyond Nero's death to the close of the year, so as to complete the connexion with the Histories. There is therefore much reason for the supposition that the Annals when complete consisted of eighteen Books, falling into three equal subdivisions, corresponding to (1) the rule of Tiberius, (2) that of Gaius and Claudius, (3) that of Nero. It must however be admitted that such a view seems to make it very difficult not to suppose some error in the statement of Jerome (in Zach. B. iii. c. 14), that the whole work of Tacitus, from the death of Augustus to that of Domitian, was contained in thirty Books.

INDEX I.

HISTORICAL INDEX TO THE TEXT.