第138章 A.D.32-37(4)

Caninius Gallus, a book of the College of the Fifteen, had asked that it might be received among the other volumes of the same prophetess by a decree on the subject.This having been carried by a division, the emperor sent a letter in which he gently censured the tribune, as ignorant of ancient usage because of his youth.Gallus he scolded for having introduced the matter in a thin Senate, notwithstanding his long experience in the science of religious ceremonies, without taking the opinion of the College or having the verses read and criticised, as was usual, by its presidents, though their authenticity was very doubtful.He also reminded him that, as many spurious productions were current under a celebrated name, Augustus had prescribed a day within which they should be deposited with the city-praetor, and after which it should not be lawful for any private person to hold them.The same regulations too had been made by our ancestors after the burning of the Capitol in the social war, when there was a search throughout Samos, Ilium, Erythrae, and even in Africa, Sicily and the Italian colonies for the verses of the Sibyl (whether there were but one or more) and the priests were charged with the business of distinguishing, as far as they could by human means, what were genuine.Accordingly the book in question was now also submitted to the scrutiny of the College of the Fifteen.

During the same consulship a high price of corn almost brought on an insurrection.For several days there were many clamorous demands made in the theatre with an unusual freedom of language towards the emperor.This provoked him to censure the magistrates and the Senate for not having used the authority of the State to put down the people.

He named too the corn-supplying provinces, and dwelt on the far larger amount of grain imported by himself than by Augustus.So the Senate drew up a decree in the severe spirit of antiquity, and the consuls issued a not less stringent proclamation.The emperor's silence was not, as he had hoped, taken as a proof of patriotism, but of pride.

At the year's close Geminius, Celsus and Pompeius, Roman knights, fell beneath a charge of conspiracy.Of these Caius Geminius, by lavish expenditure and a luxurious life, had been a friend of Sejanus, but with no serious result.Julius Celsus, a tribune, while in confinement, loosened his chain, and having twisted it around him, broke his neck by throwing himself in an opposite direction.Rubrius Fabatus was put under surveillance, on a suspicion that, in despair of the fortunes of Rome, he meant to throw himself on the mercy of the Parthians.He was, at any rate, found near the Straits of the Sicily, and, when dragged back by a centurion, he assigned no adequate reason for his long journey.Still, he lived on in safety, thanks to forgetfulness rather than to mercy.

In the consulship of Servius Galba and Lucius Sulla, the emperor, after having long considered whom he was to choose to be husbands for his granddaughters, now that the maidens were of marriageable age, selected Lucius Cassius and Marcus Vinicius.Vinicius was of provincial descent; he was born at Cales, his father and grandfather having been consuls, and his family, on the other side, being of the rank of knights.He was a man of amiable temper and of cultivated eloquence.Cassius was of an ancient and honourable, though plebeian house, at Rome.Though he was brought up by his father under a severe training, he won esteem more frequently by his good-nature than by his diligence.To him and to Vinicius the emperor married respectively Drusilla and Julia, Germanicus's daughters, and addressed a letter on the subject to the Senate, with a slightly complimentary mention of the young men.He next assigned some very vague reasons for his absence, then passed to more important matters, the ill-will against him originating in his state policy, and requested that Macro, who commanded the praetorians, with a few tribunes and centurions, might accompany him whenever he entered the Senate-house.But though a decree was voted by the Senate on a liberal scale and without any restrictions as to rank or numbers, he never so much as went near the walls of Rome, much less the State-council, for he would often go round and avoid his native city by circuitous routes.

Meanwhile a powerful host of accusers fell with sudden fury on the class which systematically increased its wealth by usury in defiance of a law passed by Caesar the Dictator defining the terms of lending money and of holding estates in Italy, a law long obsolete because the public good is sacrificed to private interest.The curse of usury was indeed of old standing in Rome and a most frequent cause of sedition and discord, and it was therefore repressed even in the early days of a less corrupt morality.First, the Twelve Tables prohibited any one from exacting more than 10 per cent., when, previously, the rate had depended on the caprice of the wealthy.Subsequently, by a bill brought in by the tribunes, interest was reduced to half that amount, and finally compound interest was wholly forbidden.A check too was put by several enactments of the people on evasions which, though continually put down, still, through strange artifices, reappeared.On this occasion, however, Gracchus, the praetor, to whose jurisdiction the inquiry had fallen, felt himself compelled by the number of persons endangered to refer the matter to the Senate.In their dismay the senators, not one of whom was free from similar guilt, threw themselves on the emperor's indulgence.He yielded, and a year and six months were granted, within which every one was to settle his private accounts conformably to the requirements of the law.