HKB
importance, to have it thus protected by arms." So much in answer to Togonius, without asperity of words; nor did he farther, than this, press them to cancel the motion.
But Junius Gallio escaped not thus. He had proposed "that the Praetorian soldiers, having accomplished their term of service, should thence acquire the privilege of sitting in the fourteen rows of the theatre allotted to the Roman knights." Upon him Tiberius fell with violent wrath, and, as if present, demanded, what business had he with the soldiers? men whose duty bound them to observe only the orders of the Emperor, and from the Emperor alone to receive their rewards. Gallio had forsooth discovered a recompense which had escaped the sagacity of the deified Augustus? Or was it not rather a project started by a mercenary of Sejanus, to raise sedition and discord; a project tending to debauch the rude minds of the soldiers with the show and bait of new honour; to corrupt their discipline, and set them loose from military restrictions? This reward, had the studied flattery of Gallio; who was instantly expelled the Senate, and then Italy: nay, it became a charge upon him, that his exile would be too easy, having for the place of it chosen Lesbos, an island noble and delightful; he was therefore haled back to Rome and confined a prisoner in the house of a Magistrate. Tiberius in the same letter demanded the doom of Sextus Paconianus, formerly Praetor, to the extreme joy of the Senate, as he was a man bold and mischievous, one armed with snares, and continually diving into the purposes and secret transactions of all men; and one chosen by Sejanus, for plotting the overthrow of Caligula. When this was now laid open, the general hate and animosities long since conceived against him, broke violently out, and had he not offered to make a discovery, he had been instantly condemned to death.
The next impeached was Cotta Messalinus, the author of every the most bloody counsel, and thence long and intensely hated. The first opportunity was therefore snatched to fall upon him with a combination of crimes; as that he had called Caius Caligula by the feminine name of Caia Caligula, and branded him with constuprations of both kinds; that when he celebrated among the Priests the birthday of Augusta, he had styled the entertainment a funeral supper; and that complaining of the great sway of Marcus Lepidus, and of Lucius Arruntius, with whom he had a suit about money, he had added; "they indeed will be supported by the Senate, but I by my little Tiberius." [Footnote: Tiberiolus meus.] Of all this he stood exposed to conviction by men of the first rank in Rome; who being earnest to attack him, he appealed to Caesar: from whom soon after a letter was brought in behalf of Cotta; in it he recounted "the beginning of their friendship," repeated "his many good services to himself," and desired "that words perversely construed, and humorous tales told at an entertainment, might not be wrested into crimes."