第135章 A.D.32-37(1)

CNEIUS Domitius and Camillus Scribonianus had entered on the consulship when the emperor, after crossing the channel which divides Capreae from Surrentum, sailed along Campania, in doubt whether he should enter Rome, or, possibly, simulating the intention of going thither, because he had resolved otherwise.He often landed at points in the neighborhood, visited the gardens by the Tiber, but went back again to the cliffs and to the solitude of the sea shores, in shame at the vices and profligacies into which he had plunged so unrestrainedly that in the fashion of a despot he debauched the children of free-born citizens.It was not merely beauty and a handsome person which he felt as an incentive to his lust, but the modesty of childhood in some, and noble ancestry in others.Hitherto unknown terms were then for the first time invented, derived from the abominations of the place and the endless phases of sensuality.

Slaves too were set over the work of seeking out and procuring, with rewards for the willing, and threats to the reluctant, and if there was resistance from a relative or a parent, they used violence and force, and actually indulged their own passions as if dealing with captives.

At Rome meanwhile, in the beginning of the year, as if Livia's crimes had just been discovered and not also long ago punished, terrible decrees were proposed against her very statues and memory, and the property of Sejanus was to be taken from the exchequer and transferred to the imperial treasury; as if there was any difference.The motion was being urged with extreme persistency, in almost the same or with but slightly changed language, by such men as Scipio, Silanus, and Cassius, when suddenly Togonius Gallus intruding his own obscurity among illustrious names, was heard with ridicule.He begged the emperor to select a number of senators, twenty out of whom should be chosen by lot to wear swords and to defend his person, whenever he entered the Senate House.The man had actually believed a letter from him in which he asked the protection of one of the consuls, so that he might go in safety from Capreae to Rome.

Tiberius however, who usually combined jesting and seriousness, thanked the senators for their goodwill, but asked who could be rejected, who could be chosen? "Were they always to be the same, or was there to be a succession? Were they to be men who had held office or youths, private citizens or officials? Then, again, what a scene would be presented by persons grasping their swords on the threshold of the Senate House? His life was not of so much worth if it had to be defended by arms." This was his answer to Togonius, guarded in its expression, and he urged nothing beyond the rejection of the motion.

Junius Gallio however, who had proposed that the praetorian soldiers, after having served their campaigns, should acquire the privilege of sitting in the fourteen rows of the theatre, received a savage censure.Tiberius, just as if he were face to face with him, asked what he had to do with the soldiers, who ought to receive the emperor's orders or his rewards except from the emperor himself? He had really discovered something which the Divine Augustus had not foreseen.Or was not one of Sejanus's satellites rather seeking to sow discord and sedition, as a means of prompting ignorant minds, under the pretence of compliment, to ruin military discipline? This was Gallio's recompense for his carefully prepared flattery, with immediate expulsion from the Senate, and then from Italy.And as men complained that he would endure his exile with equanimity, since he had chosen the famous and lovely island of Lesbos, he was dragged back to Rome, and confined in the houses of different officials.

The emperor in the same letter crushed Sextius Paconianus, an ex-praetor, to the great joy of the senators, as he was a daring, mischievous man, who pryed into every person's secrets, and had been the chosen instrument of Sejanus in his treacherous designs against Caius Caesar.When this fact was divulged, there came an outburst of long-concealed hatreds, and there must have been a sentence of capital punishment, had he not himself volunteered a disclosure.

As soon as he named Latinius Latiaris, accuser and accused, both alike objects of execration, presented a most welcome spectacle.

Latiaris, as I have related, had been foremost in contriving the ruin of Titius Sabinus, and was now the first to pay the penalty.By way of episode, Haterius Agrippa inveighed against the consuls of the previous year for now sitting silent after their threats of impeaching one another."It must be fear," he said, "and a guilty conscience which are acting as a bond of union.But the senators must not keep back what they have heard." Regulus replied that he was awaiting the opportunity for vengeance, and meant to press it in the emperor's presence.Trio's answer was that it was best to efface the memory of rivalries between colleagues, and of any words uttered in quarrels.When Agrippa still persisted, Sanquinius Maximus, one of the ex-consuls, implored the Senate not to increase the emperor's anxieties by seeking further occasions of bitterness, as he was himself competent to provide remedies.This secured the safety of Regulus and the postponement of Trio's ruin.Haterius was hated all the more.Wan with untimely slumbers and nights of riot, and not fearing in his indolence even the cruellest of princes, he yet plotted amid his gluttony and lust the destruction of illustrious men.