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94 pupil compelled the tutor to consent to or justify deeds which disgraced them both? Had he lifted up his voice when Britannicus was foully murdered? Had he not composed the speech by which the son extenuated the still more atrocious murder of his mother? Some of these followers of Zeno he knew to be arrant knaves—hired witnesses, unscrupulous informers, hypocrites who preached virtue and practised vice under the shelter of an unkempt beard and a ragged gown. Even such as he respected he often blames for their want of common-sense. Their protests and struggles against Cæsarianism served for little else than to make it more oppressive. The rumour of a conspiracy increased a Cæsar's fears: its failure, his cruelty. The tendency of philosophers to suicide—and in readiness to poison or stab himself the Epicurean was not behind the Stoic—Tacitus thought a symptom of impatience or moral cowardice, rather than of true manliness or patriotism. When so few people were good and so many evil, why should the former hang themselves and the latter flourish like green bay-trees?

Many of the numerous anecdotes with which Tacitus enlivens his 'Annals' are, taken in connection with the more important events of the time, key-notes to Cæsarian history. The following words, addressed to Nero by a rough honest soldier, who had been engaged in Piso's conspiracy, may suffice for one among the many examples that might be given. "Asked by the emperor, what could induce him to forget the solemn obligation of his military oath, Subrius Flavius replied, 'There was a time when no soldier in your army was more devoted than I was to your service,