made himself a name
as an officer by the subjugation of the Scordisci,(12) Drusus was, like
his father, of strictly conservative views, and had already given
practical proof that such were his sentiments in the insurrection of
Saturninus. He belonged to the circle of the highest nobility, and was
the possessor of a colossal fortune; in disposition too he was a genuine
aristocrat--a man emphatically proud, who scorned to bedeck himself with
the insignia of his offices, but declared on his death-bed that there
would not soon arise a citizen like to him; a man with whom the
beautiful saying, that nobility implies obligation, was and continued
to be the rule of his life. With all the vehement earnestness of his
temperament he had turned away from the frivolity and venality that
marked the nobles of the common stamp; trustworthy and strict in morals,
he was respected rather than properly beloved on the part of the common
people, to whom his door and his purse were always open, and
notwithstanding his youth, he was through the personal dignity of his
character a man of weight in the senate as in the Forum. Nor did he
stand alone. Marcus Scaurus had the courage on occasion of his defence
in the trial for extortion publicly to summon Drusus to undertake a
reform of the judicial arrangements; he and the famous orator, Lucius
Crassus, were in the senate the most zealous champions of his proposals,
and were perhaps associated with him in originating them. But the mass
of the governing aristocracy was by no means of the same mind with
Drusus, Scaurus, and Crassus. There were not wanting in the senate
decided adherents of the capitalist party, among whom in particular a
conspicuous place belonged to the consul of the day, Lucius Marcius
Philippus, who maintained the cause of the equestrian order as he had
formerly maintained that of the democracy(13) with zeal and prudence,
and to the daring and reckless Quintus Caepio, who was induced to this
opposition primarily by his personal hostility to Drusus and Scaurus.
More dangerous, however, than these decided opponents was the cowardly
and corrupt mass of the aristocracy, who no doubt would have preferred
to plunder the provinces alone, but in the end had not much objection to
share the spoil with the equites, and, instead of taking in hand the
grave and perilous struggle against the haughty capitalists, reckoned
it far more equitable and easy to purchase impunity at their hands by