Then the audience, disturbed in spirit, but drunk with blood and wild, began to cry with hoarse voices,—
"The lions! the lions! Let out the lions!"
The lions were to be kept for the next day; but in the amphitheatres the people imposed their will on every one, even on Caesar. Caligula alone, insolent and changeable in his wishes, dared to oppose them, and there were cases when he gave command to beat the people with clubs; but even he yielded most frequently. Nero, to whom plaudits were dearer than all else in the world, never resisted. All the more did he not resist now, when it was a question of mollifying the populace, excited after the conflagration, and a question of the Christians, on whom he wished to cast the blame of the catastrophe.