第91章 A.D.54-58(13)

Not one, however, of Sulla's slaves or clients was recognised, and his character, despicable as it was and incapable of a daring act, was utterly at variance with the charge.Still, just as if he had been found guilty, he was ordered to leave his country, and confine himself within the walls of Massilia.

During the same consulship a hearing was given to two conflicting deputations from Puteoli, sent to the Senate by the town council and by the populace.The first spoke bitterly of the violence of the multitude; the second, of the rapacity of the magistrates and of all the chief citizens.That the disturbance, which had gone as far as stoning and threats of fire, might not lead on to bloodshed and armed fighting, Caius Cassius was appointed to apply some remedy.As they would not endure his rigour, the charge of the affair was at his own request transferred to the brothers Scribonii, to whom was given a praetorian cohort, the terror of which, coupled with the execution of a few persons, restored peace to the townspeople.

I should not mention a very trivial decree of the Senate which allowed the city of Syracuse to exceed the prescribed number in their gladiatorial shows, had not Paetus Thrasea spoken against it and furnished his traducers with a ground for censuring his motion."Why,"it was asked, "if he thought that the public welfare required freedom of speech in the Senate, did he pursue such trifling abuses?

Why should he not speak for or against peace and war, or on the taxes and laws and other matters involving Roman interests? The senators, as often as they received the privilege of stating an opinion, were at liberty to say out what they pleased, and to claim that it should be put to the vote.Was it the only worthy object of reform to provide that the Syracusans should not give shows on a larger scale? Were all other matters in every department of the empire as admirable as if Thrasea and not Nero had the direction of them? But if the highest affairs were passed by and ignored, how much more ought there to be no meddling with things wholly insignificant."Thrasea in reply, when his friends asked an explanation, said "that it was not in ignorance of Rome's actual condition that he sought to correct such decrees, but that he was giving what was due to the honour of the senators, in making it evident that those who attended even to the merest trifles, would not disguise their responsibility for important affairs."That same year, repeated demands on the part of the people, who denounced the excessive greed of the revenue collectors, made Nero doubt whether he should not order the repeal of all indirect taxes, and so confer a most splendid boon on the human race.But this sudden impulse was checked by the senators, who, having first heartily praised the grandeur of his conception, pointed out "that the dissolution of the empire must ensue if the revenues which supported the State were to be diminished; for as soon as the customs were swept away, there would follow a demand for the abolition of the direct taxes.Many companies for the collection of the indirect taxes had been formed by consuls and tribunes, when the freedom of the Roman people was still in its vigour, and arrangements were subsequently made to insure an exact correspondence between the amount of income and the necessary disbursements.Certainly some restraint, they admitted, must be put on the cupidity of the revenue collectors, that they might not by new oppressions bring into odium what for so many years had been endured without a complaint."Accordingly the emperor issued an edict that the regulations about every branch of the public revenue, which had hitherto been kept secret, should be published; that claims which had been dropped should not be revived after a year; that the praetor at Rome, the propraetor or proconsul in the provinces, should give judicial precedence to all cases against the collectors; that the soldiers should retain their immunities except when they traded for profit, with other very equitable arrangements, which for a short time were maintained and were subsequently disregarded.However, the repeal of the two per cent.and two-and-a-half per cent.taxes remains in force, as well as that of others bearing names invented by the collectors to cover their illegal exactions.In our transmarine provinces the conveyance of corn was rendered less costly, and it was decided that merchant ships should not be assessed with their owner's property, and that no tax should be paid on them.

Two men under prosecution from Africa, in which province they had held proconsular authority, Sulpicius Camerinus and Pomponius Silvanus, were acquitted by the emperor.Camerinus had against him a few private persons who charged him with cruelty rather than with extortion.Silvanus was beset by a host of accusers, who demanded time for summoning their witnesses, while the defendant insisted on being at once put on his defence.And he was successful, through his wealth, his childlessness, and his old age, which he prolonged beyond the life of those by whose corrupt influence he had escaped.

Up to this time everything had been quiet in Germany, from the temper of the generals, who, now that triumphal decorations had been vulgarised, hoped for greater glory by the maintenance of peace.

Paulinus Pompeius and Lucius Vetus were then in command of the army.

Still, to avoid keeping the soldiers in idleness, the first completed the embankment begun sixty-three years before by Drusus to confine the waters of the Rhine, while Vetus prepared to connect the Moselle and the Arar by a canal, so that troops crossing the sea and then conveyed on the Rhone and Arar might sail by this canal into the Moselle and the Rhine, and thence to the ocean.Thus the difficulties of the route being removed, there would be communication for ships between the shores of the west and of the north.