ul,
but later, in the reign of Claudius, he was accused and his conduct
investigated. Claudius made no further demands for any sums still owing
and after collecting what had been paid in, partly from the treasury and
partly from Corbulo, he returned it to the persons who had been fined.
All that was later. At this time these unfortunates one by one and
practically everybody else in the City were, as one might say, despoiled.
Of those who possessed anything there was no one,--not a man nor a
woman,--who got off scot free. Though he allowed some of the more elderly
persons to live, yet by calling them his fathers, grandfathers, mothers,
and grandmothers, he got revenue from them during their lifetime and
inherited their property when they died.

[-16-] Up to this time he was always speaking ill of Tiberius before
everybody, and so far from rebuking others who criticised him privately
or publicly he enjoyed their language. But now he entered the
senate-house and eulogized his predecessor at length, besides severely
rebuking the senate and the people, saying that they did wrong in finding
fault with him. "I may do even this," he said, "in my capacity as
emperor, but you are not only unjust but also guilty of impiety[11] to
take such an attitude toward one who ruled you." Thereupon he considered
separately the case of each man who had lost his life and showed to his
own satisfaction that the senators had been responsible for the death of
most of them; some, he alleged, they had killed by accusation, some by
damning evidence, and all by sentence of condemnation. This he proved
by having some freedmen read it from those very documents which he once
declared he had burned. And he told them besides: "In case Tiberius
really did do wrong, you ought not to have honored him while he lived,
and at any rate, by Jupiter, you ought not to repudiate what you often
said and voted. But you both behaved toward him with fickleness and again
after filling Sejanus with conceit and spoiling him you put him to death,
and therefore I ought not either to expect any decent treatment from
you." After some such remarks he represented in his speech Tiberius
himself as saying to him: "All this that you have said has been good and
true. Therefore have no affection nor mercy for any one of them. They all
hate you: they all pray for your death. They will murder you if they can.
Hence do not stop to consider what acts of yours will please them and
heed no