“That I will not do,” he emphatically declared.
“Then let the people and history judge of thy worthlessness and thy puerile nature,” she loudly exclaimed. “But tell me, O son of evil, why wilt thou not oblige me?”
“Already have I told thee. I like not thy friend.”
“He was trusted by thy divine step-father.”
“Ay, my mother. But now I conduct the affairs of the empire.”
“Let me but speak to the people, let me but unfold to them thy nature, and thy power will crumble like a child’s sand-hill before the rising tide of the ocean,” threatened the mother.
“Ah! Once did I fear thee, but never more,” drawled Tiberius. “Once I wished thy help, but now thy opinions in affairs of state are no longer sought. Hereafter my wishes shall be observed.”
“Thou mockest me, thou tauntest me, O Tiberius!” she cried. “I care not for the loss of power. But public insult is something I cannot and will not endure. Never did the Divine Augustus so treat me, and thou shalt not. Ingrate that thou art! no grain of respect or gratitude lives in thy bitter nature. But am I, the wife and the mother of an emperor, to be buffeted about by a thing that associates with the rabble of the street? Am I—”
“Hold, mother!” interrupted Tiberius. “I am thy son. Inheritance has left some marks upon me.”
“Ah! Inheritance is the cloak behind which cowards hide,” she said with bitter emphasis.