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THE ROMAN EMPERORS IN MARBLE. 1 3/
Two years later, during Nero’s sojourn in Greece, Ti-
gellinus marked out his honored commander Domitius
Corbulo as a victim. " It is my right," said Corbulo, and
threw himself upon his sword. A fine bust in the Capito-
Hne gallery wards for posterity the features of this hero.
So went the Stoics to death. Caius Petronius, Nero’s
former bosom friend, provided a hideous caricature of
their farewell to life. Tigellinus had on the loosest
grounds accused him of participation in the Pisonian con-
spiracy. All the admiration Nero had before given Pe-
tronius, had now gone over, the latter was aware, to the
new leader of the court festivities. Tigellinus was all
powerful. The emperor, whose soul could not dispense
with the chains of a passionate love or a blind friendship,
was now accustomed to say: "I cannot live without Ti-
gellinus, nor Tigellinus without me." Petronius resolved,
therefore, not to await the issue of the trial. He bade
his friends to a feast, opened his veins and bound them,
several times, to continue the merry supper, at which, to
the wine-cup they sang light songs and talked of the
newest love adventures in the high society of Rome. Of
his servants he took farewell, in part with gifts, in part with
stripes. Then he wrote his last will, and reckoned up in
the document, all Nero’s crimes and vices. When he had
sealed the testament and provided for its transmission
to the emperor, he went back to the gayety of the table,
and thence to his death-bed.
What the conspiracies in Rome had not been able to
do, was accomplished by revolutions in the provinces.
Julius Vindex, state governor in Gaul, was the first who
raised the flag of rebellion ; then Galba in Spain, and
Rufus in upper Germany. The tidings of the revolt of
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