Note 73:2 — INTRODUCTION.[vii:1] (continued 2)

Some interpreters suppose that this creature is a swan. I have no doubt that it is a frog. Even had not the empire passed entirely out of the possible reach of the Caesars, I do not believe that Plutarch would have shown any tenderness to Nero’s memory, and certainly there was no conceivable motive for it under the reign of Titus or Domitian. There is a fine satire in this final destiny of Nero. He has been horribly punished, and has been tortured into the likeness of the reptile regarded by the ancients as the only matricide in their zoölogy; and now for the one good act of his reign a little mercy is shown him. He had prided himself and annoyed his subjects as a singer, and now he is transformed into the singer that is a perpetual annoyance to all dwellers near swamps and ponds.