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THE ROMAN EMPERORS IN MARBLE. 1
29
unjust means were resorted to, to fill it again. The peo-
ple’s love for the young emperor had year by year grown
less : displeasure and wrath had increased year by year
;
and the time seemed at last to have come, when those
who would see the wild orgy ended, might hope to strike
a blow with success. They who hated Caesar, did so for
different reasons and belonged to different circles, but
sought each other out, and could join hands for coopera-
tion. Himself, the emperor seems to have judged pub-
lic opinion by the exultation with which the people in
Rome and Italy’s other cities thronged around him, and
the zeal with which those of rank hastened to approve
and imitate all he undertook. But Tigellinus saw some-
what deeper than the surface, and had long urged that
the emperor, to secure himself and his friends, should
apply the terrorizing system built on denunciation,
which had propped the preceding governments. Ever
since the year 61, from which Tacitus reckons the influ-
ence of Tigellinus over Nero, had this " red " Epicurean
captain of the praetorians sought to make the Stoics, in
particular, suspected ; and had constantly on his lips that
their philosophy " inspires men with a pride that makes
them restless and ambitious.’’ The first victims of these
suspicions were two Romans of high rank : Sulla and
Rubellius Plautus. The ruling tendency of the time
cannot possibly be better marked than by the reasons for
which Tigellinus recommended the removal of Plautus:
he has set up our republican ancestors as his models, he
has embraced the Stoic philosophy, he is rich and never-
theless does not give himself up to the pleasures of pri-
vate life, he troubles himself about the state and has a
taste for public affairs ! Sulla was killed in Massilia, by
assassins. Plautus, who then dwelt in Asia, had re-
6*
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