A similar fate befell
Trebellienus Rufus and Sextius Paconianus. Trebellienus perished by his own
hand; Paconianus was strangled in prison for having there written some
lampoons on the emperor. Tiberius received the news, no
PROSECUTIONS AND SUICIDES |
longer parted by the sea, as
he had been once, or through messengers from a distance, but in close
proximity to
Rome, so that on the same day, or after
the interval of a single night, he could reply to the despatches of the
consuls, and almost behold the bloodshed as it streamed from house to house,
and the strokes of the executioner.
At the year's close Poppæus
Sabinus died, a man of somewhat humble extraction, who had risen by his
friendship with two emperors to the consulship and the honours of a triumph.
During twenty-four years he had the charge of the most important provinces,
not for any remarkable ability, but because he was equal to business and was
not too great for it.
