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Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 6:39 PM
When Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire had done with his mimicries of sorrow he entered the Senate,
and having first referred to the authority of the senators and the concurrence
of the soldiery, he then dwelt on the counsels and examples which he had
to guide him in the right administration of empire. "His boyhood," he said,
"had not had the taint of civil wars or domestic feuds, and he brought
with him no hatreds, no sense of wrong, no desire of vengeance." He then
sketched the plan of his future government, carefully avoiding anything
which had kindled recent odium. "He would not," he said, "be judge in all
cases, or, by confining the accuser and the accused within the same walls,
let the power of a few favourites grow dangerously formidable. In his house
there should be nothing venal, nothing open to intrigue; his private establishment
and the State should be kept entirely distinct. The Senate should retain
its ancient powers; Italy and the State-provinces should plead their causes
before the tribunals of the consuls, who would give them a hearing from
the senators. Of the armies he would himself take charge, as specially
entrusted to him."
He was true to his word and several arrangements were made on the
Senate's authority. No one was to receive a fee or a present for pleading
a cause; the quaestors-elect were not to be under the necessity of exhibiting
gladiatorial shows. This was opposed by Agrippina, as a reversal of the
legislation of Claudius, but it was carried by the senators who used to
be summoned to the palace, in order that she might stand close to a hidden
door behind them, screened by a curtain which was enough to shut her out
of sight, but not out of hearing. When envoys from Armenia were pleading
their nation's cause before Nero, she actually was on the point of mounting
the emperor's tribunal and of presiding with him; but Seneca, when every
one else was paralysed with alarm, motioned to the prince to go and meet
his mother. Thus, by an apparently dutiful act, a scandalous scene was
prevented.
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