Upon this the prosecutor named Cneius Lentulus and Seius Tubero, to the great confusion of the emperor, at finding a hostile rebellion and disturbance of the public peace charged on two leading men in the state, his own intimate friends, the first of whom was in extreme old age and the second in very feeble health. They were, however, at once acquitted. As for the father, his slaves were examined by torture, and the result was unfavourable to the accuser. The man, maddened by remorse, and terror-stricken by the popular voice, which menaced him with the dungeon, the rock, or a parricide's doom, fled from Rome. He was dragged back from Ravenna, and forced to go through the prosecution, during which Tiberius did not disguise the old grudge he bore the exile Serenus. For after Libo's conviction, Serenus had sent the emperor a letter, upbraiding him for not having rewarded his special zeal in that trial, with
A FATHER ACCUSED BY HIS SON |