ius knew already that he must fall
in that struggle, and he understood why. As Caesar fell lower daily to
the role of a comedian, a buffoon, and a charioteer; as he sank deeper
in a sickly, foul, and coarse dissipation,--the exquisite arbiter became
a mere burden to him. Even when Petronius was silent, Nero saw blame in
his silence; when the arbiter praised, he saw ridicule. The brilliant
patrician annoyed his self-love and roused his envy. His wealth and
splendid works of art had become an object of desire both to the ruler
and the all-powerful minister. Petronius was spared so far in view of
the journey to Achaea, in which his taste, his knowledge of everything
Greek, might be useful. But gradually Tigellinus explained to Caesar that
Carinas surpassed him in taste and knowledge, and would be better able
to arrange in Achaea games, receptions, and triumphs. From that moment
Petronius was lost. There was not courage to send him his sentence in
Rome. Caesar and Tigellinus remembered that that apparently effeminate
and aesthetic person, who made "day out of night," and was occupied only
in luxury, art, and feasts, had shown amazing industry and energy,
when proconsul in Bithynia and later when consul in the capital. They
considered him capable of anything, and it was known that in Rome he
possessed not only the love of the people, but even of the pretorians.
None of Caesar's confidants could foresee how Petronius might act in a
given case; it seemed wiser, therefore, to entice him out of the city,
and reach him in a province.

With this object he received an invitation to go to Cumae with other
Augustians. He went, though suspecting the ambush, perhaps so as not
to appear in open opposition, perhaps to show once more a joyful face
devoid of every care to Caesar and the Augustians, and to gain a last
victory before death over Tigellinus.

Meanwhile the latter accused him of friendship with the Senator
Scevinus, who was the soul of Piso's conspiracy. The people of
Petronius, left in Rome, were imprisoned; his house was surrounded by
pretorian guards. When he learned this, he showed neither alarm nor
concern, and with a smile said to Augustians whom he received in his own
splendid villa in Cumae,--

"Ahenobarbus does not like direct questions; hence ye will see his
confusion when I ask him if it was he who gave command to imprison my
'familia' in the capital."

Then he invited them to a feast "before the longer journey,"