第86章 A.D.54-58(8)

Restrictions were also put on the powers of the aediles and a limit fixed to the amount of bail or penalty which curule and plebeian aediles could respectively exact.On this, Helvidius Priscus, a tribune of the people, followed up a personal quarrel he had with Obultronius Sabinus, one of the officials of the exchequer, by insinuating that he stretched his right of confiscation with merciless rigour against the poor.The emperor then transferred the charge of the public accounts from these officers to the commissioners.

The arrangement of this business had been variously and frequently altered.Augustus allowed the Senate to appoint commissioners; then, when corrupt practices were suspected in the voting, men were chosen by lot for the office out of the whole number of praetors.This did not last long, as the lot strayed away to unfit persons.Claudius then again appointed quaestors, and that they might not be too lax in their duties from fear of offending, he promised them promotion out of the usual course.But what they lacked was the firmness of mature age, entering, as they did, on this office as their first step, and so Nero appointed ex-praetors of approved competency.

During the same consulship, Vipsanius Laenas was condemned for rapacity in his administration of the province of Sardinia.Cestius Proculus was acquitted of extortion, his accusers dropping the charge.

Clodius Quirinalis, having, when in command of the crews at Ravenna, caused grievous distress to Italy by his profligacy and cruelty, just as if it were the most contemptible of countries, forestalled his doom by poison.Caninius Rebilus, one of the first men in legal knowledge and vastness of wealth, escaped the miseries of an old age of broken health by letting the blood trickle from his veins, though men did not credit him with sufficient resolution for a self-inflicted death, because of his infamous effeminacy.Lucius Volusius on the other hand died with a glorious name.There was his long life of ninety-three years, his conspicuous wealth, honourably acquired, and his wise avoidance of the malignity of so many emperors.

During Nero's second consulship with Lucius Piso for his colleague, little occurred deserving mention, unless one were to take pleasure in filling volumes with the praise of the foundations and timber work on which the emperor piled the immense amphitheatre in the Field of Mars.But we have learnt that it suits the dignity of the Roman people to reserve history for great achievements, and to leave such details to the city's daily register.I may mention that the colonies of Nuceria and Capua were strengthened by an addition of veterans; to every member of the city populace four hundred sesterces were given, and forty million paid into the exchequer to maintain the credit of the citizens.

A tax also of four per cent.on the sale of slaves was remitted, an apparent more than a real boon, for as the seller was ordered to pay it, purchasers found that it was added as part of the price.The emperor by an edict forbade any magistrate or procurator in the government of a province to exhibit a show of gladiators, or of wild beasts, or indeed any other public entertainment; for hitherto our subjects had been as much oppressed by such bribery as by actual extortion, while governors sought to screen by corruption the guilty deeds of arbitrary caprice.

The Senate next passed a decree, providing alike for punishment and safety.If a master were murdered by his slaves, all those who were enfranchised by his will and lived under the same roof, were to suffer the capital punishment with his other slaves.Lucius Varius, an ex-consul, who had been crushed in the past under charges of extortion, was restored to his rank as a senator.Pomponia Graecina, a distinguished lady, wife of the Plautius who returned from Britain with an ovation, was accused of some foreign superstition and handed over to her husband's judicial decision.Following ancient precedent, he heard his wife's cause in the presence of kinsfolk, involving, as it did, her legal status and character, and he reported that she was innocent.This Pomponia lived a long life of unbroken melancholy.After the murder of Julia, Drusus's daughter, by Messalina's treachery, for forty years she wore only the attire of a mourner, with a heart ever sorrowful.For this, during Claudius's reign, she escaped unpunished, and it was afterwards counted a glory to her.

The same year saw many impeached.One of these, Publius Celer, prosecuted by the province of Asia, the emperor could not acquit, and so he put off the case till the man died of old age.Celer, as Ihave related, had murdered Silanus, the pro-consul, and the magnitude of this crime veiled his other enormities.Cossutianus Capito was accused by the people of Cilicia; he was a man stained with the foulest guilt, and had actually imagined that his audacious wickedness had the same rights in a province as he had claimed for it at Rome.But he had to confront a determined prosecution, and at last abandoned his defence.Eprius Marcellus, from whom Lycia demanded compensation, was so powerfully supported by corrupt influence that some of his accusers were punished with exile, as though they had imperilled an innocent man.

Nero entered on his third consulship with Valerius Messala, whose great-grandfather, the orator Corvinus, was still remembered by a few old men, as having been the colleague of the Divine Augustus, Nero's great-grandfather, in the same office.But the honour of a noble house was further increased by an annual grant of five hundred thousand sesterces on which Messala might support virtuous poverty.

Aurelius Cotta, too, and Haterius Antonius had yearly stipends assigned them by the emperor, though they had squandered their ancestral wealth in profligacy.