Page:Tacitus Histories Fyfe (1912) Vol1.djvu/66

62 Piso's wife Verania and his brother Scribonianus laid out his body, and this was done for Vinius by his daughter Crispina. They had to search for the heads and buy them back from the murderers, who had preserved them for sale.

Piso was in his thirty-first year. His reputation was better than his fortune. His brothers had been executed, Magnus by Claudius, Crassus by Nero. He himself after being long in exile was a Caesar for four days. Hastily adopted in preference to his elder brother, the only advantage he reaped was to be killed first.

Titus Vinius in his fifty-seven years had displayed strange contrasts of character. His father belonged to a family of praetorian rank; his mother's father was one of the proscribed. A scandal marked his first military service under the general Calvisius Sabinus. The general's wife suffered from a suspicious desire to inspect the arrangements of the camp, which she entered by night disguised in soldier's uniform. There she brazenly interfered with the guard and the soldiers on duty, and eventually had the effrontery