"Is it Priscus who was put to death for the poem in which he was suspected to have caricatured under fictitious names the emperor's divorce from his wife?"
"The very same."
"Senecio," said Sisinnius, "ought to have been taught by the fate of Rusticus, who was executed for having written the life of Thrasea at the request of Arria, Faunia's mother. But he was always outspoken and headstrong in defence of friendship and truth. Hermogenes of Tarsus, who met a like fate for a like offence, was another example to warn him."
"Well, well," said Aurelian, "I do not wonder that Tacitus prefers to drudge as a civil officer in a distant province to remaining at Rome, although his great father-in-law Agricola, the conqueror of Britain, needs him to cheer his sinking spirits; nor that Pliny keeps himself so quiet and hidden."
"It was reported that Pliny was to have delivered Senecio's funeral oration," said Zoilus.
"Pliny in the affair of Bebius Masia showed himself a man of courage. But he has too much sense, I think, to do such an unnecessary thing in the present state of the imperial temper," said Aurelian.
"Yes, indeed, when we see the poetess Sulpicia in danger of her head for her ode on the expulsion of the philosophers; when booksellers are crucified; and when only those escape who, like Josephus, Juvenal, Martial, and Quinctilian, lay the unction of flattery unblushingly on, it were madness to attempt it. Alas!" continued Sisinnius, "are we not returning to a worse barbarism than that of the iron age? Philosophy, history, and poesy divine in exile, in prison, or in the tombs! Never was there an age that had more, purer, or nobler names to inscribe on the roll of fame! And all at the whim of one man who calls himself a god, and who thinks he proves his divinity by having the road to the capitol crowded with the flocks to be immolated to his statue!"
"It is the story of arbitrary authority invested in individuals from the monarch to the slave-owner, when its influence is not directed by humanity or religion," said Aurelian.
"Ay," interposed Zoilus, "and to the slave himself, who is by law allowed a vicarious ownership (dominium vacarium) over others. The little tyrant who has not the fulness of power is the worst; he always strives to swell himself to the bull size, like the frog in the fable, and tramples on the feelings where he cannot tread out the lives of his victims, just as recklessly as the elephant in the arena tramples on the corns of the gladiators. One of these, whom I know well to my cost, compassed the death of Senecio, and is likely to bring red ruin to many others before he dies himself."
"Who is he?" asked Aurelian.