HKB
abilities, and your singular zeal and fidelity towards me, may justly claim: as when opportunity presents, either in Senate, or in a popular assembly, I shall not fail to testify."
In answer to this, Sejanus no longer soliciting the marriage, but filled with higher apprehensions, besought him "to resist the dark suggestions of suspicion; to despise the pratings of the vulgar, nor to admit the hostile breath of envy." And as he was puzzled about the crowds which incessantly haunted his house; lest by keeping them off he might impair his power; or by encouraging them, furnish a handle for criminal imputations; he came to this result, that he would urge the Emperor out of Rome, to spend his life remote from thence in delightful retirements. From this counsel he foresaw many advantages: upon himself would depend all access to the Emperor; all letters and expresses would, as the soldiers were the carriers, be in great measure under his direction; in a little time, the Prince, now in declining age, and then softened by recess, would more easily transfer upon him the whole charge of the Empire: he should be removed from the multitude of such as to make their court, attended him at Rome; and thence one source of envy would be stopped. So that by discharging the empty phantoms of power, he should augment the essentials. He therefore began by little and little to rail at the hurry of business at Rome, the throng of people, the flock of suitors: he applauded "retirement and quiet; where, while they were separate from irksome fatigues, nor exposed to the discontents and resentments of particulars, all affairs of moment were best despatched."
Next were heard ambassadors from the Lacedaemonians and Messenians, about the right that each people claimed to the Temple of Diana Limenetis; which the Lacedaemonians asserted to be theirs, "founded in their territory, and dedicated by their ancestors," and offered as proofs the ancient authority of their annals, and the hymns of the old poets. "It had been in truth taken from them by the superior force of Philip of Macedon, when at war with him; but restored afterwards by the judicial decision of Julius Caesar and Marc Anthony." The Messenians, on the contrary, pleaded, "the ancient partition of Peloponnesus amongst the descendants of Hercules; whence the territory where the temple stood, had fallen to their king; and the monuments of that allotment still remained, engraven in stone and old tables of brass; but, if the testimony of histories and poets were appealed to; they themselves had the most and the fullest. Nor had Philip, in his decision, acted by power, but from equity: the same afterwards was the adjudgment of King Antigonus; the same that of the Roman commander Mummius. Thus too the Milesians had awarded, they who were by both sides chosen arbitrators: and thus lastly it had been determined by Atidius Geminus, Praetor of Achaia." The Messenians therefore gained the suit. The citizens also of Segestum applied on behalf of "the Temple of Venus on Mount Eryx; which fallen through age, they desired might be restored." They represented the story of its origin and antiquity; a well-pleasing flattery to Tiberius; who frankly took upon himself the charge, as kinsman to the Goddess. Then was discussed the petition from the citizens of Marseilles; and what they claimed, according to the precedent of Publius Rutilius, was approved: for Rutilius, though by a law expelled from Rome, had been by those of Smyrna adopted a citizen: and as Volcatius Moschus, another exile, had found at Marseilles the same privilege and reception, he had to their Republic, as to his country, left his estate.