landscape. For hours you may have the scene all to yourself. Even
Rome, from this distance, looks like a city of dreams! Its walls and
domes have disappeared behind the misty green veil of the horizon; and
only the colossal statues of the apostles on the top of the church of
S. John Lateran stand out in a halo of golden light, and seem to
stretch forth their hands to welcome the approaching pilgrim.

It is well known to historians that the villa of Seneca, in which he
put himself to death by command of Nero, stood near the fourth
milestone on the Appian Way. The circumstances of his death are
exceedingly sad. Wishing to get rid of his former tutor, who had
become obnoxious to him, the bloodthirsty emperor first attempted to
poison him; and when this failed, he accused him, along with his
nephew the poet Lucan and several others, of being concerned in a
conspiracy against his life. This accusation was false; but it served
the purpose of bringing Seneca within reach of his vengeance, under a
colour of justice. A tribune with a cohort of soldiers was sent to
intimate his fate to the philosopher; allowing him to execute the
sentence of death upon himself by whatever means he preferred. Seneca
was at supper with his wife Paulina and two friends when the fatal
message came. Without any sign of alarm he rose and opened the veins
of his arms and legs, having bade farewell to his friends and embraced
his wife; and while the blood, impoverished by old age, ebbed slowly
from him, he continued to comfort his friends and exhort them to a
life of integrity. The last words of one so justly renowned were taken
down, and in the time of Tacitus the record was still extant. We
should value much these interesting memorials; but they are now
irrecoverably lost. His wife, refusing to live without him, also
endeavoured to bleed herself to death; but she was recovered by order
of Nero almost at the last moment. She remained pale and emaciated