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Saturday, July 31, 2010 - 1:06 PM
"Do not, Senators, think only of Sejanus's last day, but of his
sixteen years of power. We actually adored a Satrius
and a Pomponius. To
be known even to his freedmen and hall-porters was
thought something very
grand. What then is my meaning? Is this apology meant
to be offered for
all without difference and discrimination? No; it is
to be restricted within
proper limits. Let plots against the State, murderous
designs against the
emperor be punished. As for friendship and its
obligations, the same principle
must acquit both you, Caesar, and us."
The courage of this speech and the fact that
there had been found
a man to speak out what was in all people's thoughts,
had such an effect
that the accusers of Terentius were sentenced to
banishment or death, their
previous offences being taken into account. Then came a
letter from Tiberius
against Sextus Vestilius, an ex-praetor, whom, as a
special favourite of
his brother Drusus, the emperor had admitted into his
own select circle.
His reason for being displeased with Vestilius was
that he had either written
an attack on Caius Caesar as a profligate, or that
Tiberius believed a
false charge. For this Vestilius was excluded from the
prince's table.
He then tried the knife with his aged hand, but again
bound up his veins,
opening them once more however on having begged for
pardon by letter and
received a pitiless answer. After him a host of
persons were charged with
treason, Annius Pollio, Appius Silanus, Scaurus
Mamercus, Sabinus Calvisius,
Vinicianus too, coupled with Pollio, his father, men
all of illustrious
descent, some too of the highest political
distinction. The senators were
panic-stricken, for how few of their number were not
connected by alliance
or by friendship with this multitude of men of rank!
Celsus however, tribune
of a city cohort, and now one of the prosecutors,
saved Appius and Calvisius
from the peril. The emperor postponed the cases of
Pollio, Vinicianus,
and Scaurus, intending to try them himself with the
Senate, not however
without affixing some ominous marks to the name of
Scaurus.
Even women were not exempt from danger. Where
they could not be
accused of grasping at political power, their tears
were made a crime.
Vitia, an aged woman, mother of Fufius Geminus, was
executed for bewailing
the death of her son. Such were the proceedings in the
Senate. It was the
same with the emperor. Vescularius Atticus and Julius
Marinus were hurried
off to execution, two of his oldest friends, men who
had followed him to
Rhodes and been his inseparable companions at Capreae.
Vescularius was
his agent in the plot against Libo, and it was with
the co-operation of
Marinus that Sejanus had ruined Curtius Atticus. Hence
there was all the
more joy at the recoil of these precedents on their
authors.
About the same time Lucius Piso, the pontiff,
died a natural death,
a rare incident in so high a rank. Never had he by
choice proposed a servile
motion, and, whenever necessity was too strong for
him, he would suggest
judicious compromises. His father, as I have related,
had been a censor.
He lived to the advanced age of eighty, and had won in
Thrace the honour
of a triumph. But his chief glory rested on the
wonderful tact with which
as city-prefect he handled an authority, recently made
perpetual and all
the more galling to men unaccustomed to obey it.
In former days, when the kings and
subsequently the chief magistrates
went from Rome, an official was temporarily chosen to
administer justice
and provide for emergencies, so that the capital might
not be left without
government. It is said that Denter Romulius was
appointed by Romulus, then
Numa Marcius by Tullus Hostilius, and Spurius
Lucretius by Tarquinius Superbus.
Afterwards, the consuls made the appointment. The
shadow of the old practice
still survives, whenever in consequence of the Latin
festival some one
is deputed to exercise the consul's functions. And
Augustus too during
the civil wars gave Cilnius Maecenas, a Roman knight,
charge of everything
in Rome and Italy. When he rose to supreme power, in
consideration of the
magnitude of the State and the slowness of legal
remedies, he selected
one of the exconsuls to overawe the slaves and that
part of the population
which, unless it fears a strong hand, is disorderly
and reckless. Messala
Corvinus was the first to obtain the office, which he
lost within a few
days, as not knowing how to discharge it. After him
Taurus Statilius, though
in advanced years, sustained it admirably; and then
Piso, after twenty
years of similar credit, was, by the Senate's decree,
honoured with a public
funeral.
A motion was next brought forward in the
Senate by Quintilianus,
a tribune of the people, respecting an alleged book of
the Sibyl. Caninius
Gallus, a book of the College of the Fifteen, had
asked that it might be
received among the other volumes of the same
prophetess by a decree on
the subject. This having been carried by a division,
the emperor sent a
letter in which he gently censured the tribune, as
ignorant of ancient
usage because of his youth. Gallus he scolded for
having introduced the
matter in a thin Senate, notwithstanding his long
experience in the science
of religious ceremonies, without taking the opinion of
the College or having
the verses read and criticised, as was usual, by its
presidents, though
their authenticity was very doubtful. He also reminded
him that, as many
spurious productions were current under a celebrated
name, Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire had
prescribed a day within which they should be deposited
with the city-praetor,
and after which it should not be lawful for any
private person to hold
them. The same regulations too had been made by our
ancestors after the
burning of the Capitol in the social war, when there
was a search throughout
Samos, Ilium, Erythrae, and even in Africa, Sicily and
the Italian colonies
for the verses of the Sibyl (whether there were but
one or more) and the
priests were charged with the business of
distinguishing, as far as they
could by human means, what were genuine. Accordingly
the book in question
was now also submitted to the scrutiny of the College
of the
Fifteen.
During the same consulship a high price of
corn almost brought
on an insurrection. For several days there were many
clamorous demands
made in the theatre with an unusual freedom of
language towards the emperor.
This provoked him to censure the magistrates and the
Senate for not having
used the authority of the State to put down the
people. He named too the
corn-supplying provinces, and dwelt on the far larger
amount of grain imported
by himself than by Augustus. So the Senate drew up a
decree in the severe
spirit of antiquity, and the consuls issued a not less
stringent proclamation.
The emperor's silence was not, as he had hoped, taken
as a proof of patriotism,
but of pride.
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