"That is what we call speaking with sound reason," said Nero. "For art and poetry it is permitted, and it is right, to sacrifice everything. Happy were the Achaeans who furnished Homer with the substance of the Iliad, and happy Priam who beheld the ruin of his birthplace. As to me, I have never seen a burning city."
A time of silence followed, which was broken at last by Tigellinus.
"But I have said to thee, Caesar, already, command and I will burn Antium; or dost thou know what? If thou art sorry for these villas and palaces, give command to burn the ships in Ostia; or I will build a wooden city on the Alban Hills, into which thou shalt hurl the fire thyself. Dost thou wish?"