There was in the Senate one Junius Rusticus, who
having been appointed by the emperor to register its debates was therefore
supposed to have an insight into his secret purposes. This man, whether
through some fatal impulse (he had indeed never before given any evidence of
courage) or a misdirected acuteness which made him tremble at the uncertain
future, while he forgot impending perils, attached himself to the waverers,
and warned the consuls not to enter on the debate. He argued that the
highest issues turned on trivial causes, and that the fall of the house of
Germanicus might one day move the old man's remorse. At the same moment the
people, bearing the images of Agrippina and
TIBERIUS' TYRANNY INTENSIFIED |
Nero, thronged round the
Senate-house, and, with
words of blessing on the emperor, kept shouting that the letter was a
forgery and that it was not by the prince's will that ruin was being plotted
against his house. And so that day passed without any dreadful result.
Fictitious speeches too against Sejanus were published under the names
of ex-consuls, for several persons indulged, all the more recklessly because
anonymously, the caprice of their imaginations. Consequently the wrath of
Sejanus was the more furious, and he had ground for alleging that the Senate
disregarded the emperor's trouble; that the people were in revolt; that
speeches in a new style and new resolutions were being heard and read. What
remained but to take the sword and chose for their generals and emperors
those whose images they had followed as standards.
