About this time Achaia and Asia were thrown into8
a groundless panic by a rumour that 'Nero was at
hand'. The accounts of his death being many and
various, people were all the more inclined to allege
and to believe that he was still alive. We shall mention
in the course of this work the attempts and the fate
of the other pretenders.[1] This time it was a slave
from Pontus, or, according to other traditions, a freedman
from Italy. His skill as a singer and harpist,
combined with his facial resemblance to Nero, gave
him some credentials for imposture. He bribed
some penniless and vagabond deserters by dazzling
promises to join him, and they all set out to sea.
A storm drove them on to the island of Cythnus,[2]
where he found some troops homeward bound on
leave from the East. Some of these he enrolled,
killing all who resisted, and then proceeded to plunder
the local merchants and arm all the sturdiest of the
slaves. Finding a centurion named Sisenna carrying
home a pair of silver hands[3] as a token of alliance from
the army in Syria to the Household Guards, he tried
by various devices to seduce him, until Sisenna took
fright and escaped secretly from the island in fear of
violence. Thus the panic spread. The great name
of Nero attracted many who pined for revolution and
hated the existing state of things. The rumours
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