In proportion as Claudius had been popular in Gaul did his adopted son and successor, Nero, quickly become hated.

There is nothing to show that he even went thither, either on the business of government or to obtain the momentary access of favor always excited in the mob by the presence and prestige of power.

It was towards Greece and the East that a tendency was shown in the tastes and trips of Nero, imperial poet, musician, and actor.

L.Verus, one of the military commandants in Belgica, had conceived a project of a canal to unite the Moselle to the Saone, and so the Mediterranean to the ocean; but intrigues in the province and the palace prevented its execution, and in the place of public works useful to Gaul, Nero caused a new census to be made of the population whom he required to squeeze to pay for his extravagance.

It was in his reign, as is well known, that a fierce fire consumed a great part of Rome and her monuments.