Beginning with the torture of an innocent dog as a child in the First stage of cruelty, Nero progresses to beating his horse as a man in the Second stage of cruelty, and then to robbery, seduction, and murder executed to perfection in his third stage of Cruelty. Finally, in The Reward of cruelty, he receives what Hogarth warns is the inevitable fate of those who start down the path Nero has followed, by having their head chopped off by some ridiculous French invention (guillotine).