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. He paused from his restless motions,
listened attentively, then repeated a line from Homer--

Ippon m' ochupodon amphi chtupos ouata ballei

(The resounding tread of swift-footed horses reverberates upon my ears);--
then under some momentary impulse of courage, gained perhaps by figuring
to himself the bloody populace rioting upon his mangled body, yet even
then needing the auxiliary hand and vicarious courage of his private
secretary, the feeble-hearted prince stabbed himself in the throat. The
wound, however, was not such as to cause instant death. He was still
breathing, and not quite speechless, when the centurion who commanded the
party entered the closet; and to this officer, who uttered a few hollow
words of encouragement, he was still able to make a brief reply. But in
the very effort of speaking he expired, and with an expression of horror
impressed upon his stiffened features, which communicated a sympathetic
horror to all beholders.