But when he
dreadful
to the rabble grew,
Him, who so many lords had slain, they slew.
Him, who so many lords had slain, they slew.
Tacitus
D.
93: for this appears by the Fasti Consulares to have been the year of the consulate of Collega and Priscus.
He was therefore only in his fifty-fourth year when he died; so that the copyists must probably have written by mistake LVI.
instead of LIV.
]
147 (return)
[ From this representation, Dio appears to have been mistaken in asserting that Agricola passed the latter part of his life in dishonor and penury. ]
148 (return)
[ Juvenal breaks out in a noble strain of indignation against this savage cruelty, which distinguished the latter part of Domitian's reign:
Atque utinam his potius nugis tota illa dedisset
Tempora saevitiae: claras quibus abstulit Urbi
Illustresque animas impune, et vindice nullo.
Sed periit, postquam cerdonibus esse timendus
Coeperat: hoc nocuit Lamiarum, caede madenti. —Sat. iv. 150.
"What folly this! but oh! that all the rest
Of his dire reign had thus been spent in jest!
And all that time such trifles had employ'd
In which so many nobles he destroy'd!
He safe, they unrevenged, to the disgrace
Of the surviving, tame, patrician race!
But when he dreadful to the rabble grew,
Him, who so many lords had slain, they slew. "—DUKE. ]
149 (return)
[ This happened in the year of Rome 848. ]
150 (return)
[ Carus and Massa, who were proverbially infamous as informers, are represented by Juvenal as dreading a still more dangerous villain, Heliodorus.
—Quem Massa timet, quem munere palpat
Carus. —Sat. i. 35.
"Whom Massa dreads, whom Carus soothes with bribes. "
Carus is also mentioned with deserved infamy by Pliny and Martial. He was a mimic by profession. ]
151 (return)
[ Of this odious instrument of tyranny, Pliny the younger thus speaks: "The conversation turned upon Catullus Messalinus, whose loss of sight added the evils of blindness to a cruel disposition. He was irreverent, unblushing, unpitying, Like a weapon, of itself blind and unconscious, he was frequently hurled by Domitian against every man of worth. " (iv. 22. ) Juvenal launches the thunder of invective against him in the following lines:—
Et cum mortifero prudens Vejento Catullo,
Qui numquam visae flagrabat amore puellae,
Grande, et conspicuum nostro quoque tempore monstrum,
Caecus adulator, dirusque a ponte satelles,
Dignus Aricinos qui mendicaret ad axes,
Blandaque devexae jactaret basia rhedae.
147 (return)
[ From this representation, Dio appears to have been mistaken in asserting that Agricola passed the latter part of his life in dishonor and penury. ]
148 (return)
[ Juvenal breaks out in a noble strain of indignation against this savage cruelty, which distinguished the latter part of Domitian's reign:
Atque utinam his potius nugis tota illa dedisset
Tempora saevitiae: claras quibus abstulit Urbi
Illustresque animas impune, et vindice nullo.
Sed periit, postquam cerdonibus esse timendus
Coeperat: hoc nocuit Lamiarum, caede madenti. —Sat. iv. 150.
"What folly this! but oh! that all the rest
Of his dire reign had thus been spent in jest!
And all that time such trifles had employ'd
In which so many nobles he destroy'd!
He safe, they unrevenged, to the disgrace
Of the surviving, tame, patrician race!
But when he dreadful to the rabble grew,
Him, who so many lords had slain, they slew. "—DUKE. ]
149 (return)
[ This happened in the year of Rome 848. ]
150 (return)
[ Carus and Massa, who were proverbially infamous as informers, are represented by Juvenal as dreading a still more dangerous villain, Heliodorus.
—Quem Massa timet, quem munere palpat
Carus. —Sat. i. 35.
"Whom Massa dreads, whom Carus soothes with bribes. "
Carus is also mentioned with deserved infamy by Pliny and Martial. He was a mimic by profession. ]
151 (return)
[ Of this odious instrument of tyranny, Pliny the younger thus speaks: "The conversation turned upon Catullus Messalinus, whose loss of sight added the evils of blindness to a cruel disposition. He was irreverent, unblushing, unpitying, Like a weapon, of itself blind and unconscious, he was frequently hurled by Domitian against every man of worth. " (iv. 22. ) Juvenal launches the thunder of invective against him in the following lines:—
Et cum mortifero prudens Vejento Catullo,
Qui numquam visae flagrabat amore puellae,
Grande, et conspicuum nostro quoque tempore monstrum,
Caecus adulator, dirusque a ponte satelles,
Dignus Aricinos qui mendicaret ad axes,
Blandaque devexae jactaret basia rhedae.
