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Wednesday, July 28, 2010 - 2:38 PM
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, Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire, 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.
Several charges were next brought, as soon as
the opportunity offered,
against Cotta Messalinus, the author of every unusually
cruel proposal,
and consequently, regarded with inveterate hatred. He
had spoken, it was
said, of Caius Caesar, as if it were a question whether
he was a man, and
of an entertainment at which he was present on
Augusta's birthday with
the priests, as a funeral banquet. In remonstrating too
against the influence
of Marcus Lepidus and Lucius Arruntius, with whom he
had disputes on many
matters, he had added the remark, "They will have the
Senate's support;
I shall have that of my darling Tiberius." But the
leading men of the State
failed to convict him on all the charges. When they
pressed the case, he
appealed to the emperor. Soon afterwards, a letter
arrived, in which Tiberius
traced the origin of the friendship between himself
and Cotta, enumerated
his frequent services, and then requested that words
perversely misrepresented
and the freedom of table talk might not be construed
into a
crime.
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