Could he do so, however? This Emperor, whom so many inexperienced historians have represented as a terrible despot, was in reality possessed of much less power as head of the State than his present-day detractors suppose. He was obliged to take into account public opinion, however obtuse and mad it might be. He was vaguely suspected of having prompted Piso to poison Germanicus, or at least of having willingly shut his eyes to the crime. If he prevented the charge being brought, would not this be the strongest confirmation of this mad calumny? Would not the whole populace murmur in their anger that the unfortunate Germanicus had been robbed, first of life, and then of vengeance,—and by the man who was his adoptive father? This, in the eyes of the ancients, constituted the gravest dereliction of family obligations. The trial was a satisfaction which the public demanded; and the Emperor—that pretended despot, lord of the whole State—had not power enough to refuse it. So Tiberius was forced to consent to the trial. Being, however, a wise and level-headed man, he remitted it to the Senate, the one of the two tribunals which might be expected with greater reason to be enlightened and serene. The other—the _quæstio_, or, as we should say, the jury—was too closely in contact with public opinion, and not likely to be able to exercise calm judgment in a case in which public opinion was so much excited and prejudiced against the principal defendant. The Senate, on the contrary, was the gravest body in the Republic, and might be expected to rise superior to popular passions in the exercise of its judicial functions. Nevertheless, even in the Senate, the friends of Germanicus and the enemies of Tiberius were to be found in force. Not only this, but a fierce antipathy divided the ancient from the new nobility. During the fifty years which followed the end of the civil wars, many recently ennobled families had entered the Senate. Amongst these, the families of ancient nobility, those whose glory dated back to the grand era of the Republic, at this time formed only a small yet haughty minority, which lived apart, despised the new nobility, and kept aloof as far as possible. Now Piso belonged to one of these ancient families, and to one of the most glorious of them. The constitution of the Senate as the tribunal, meant, therefore, entrusting the decision of the case to the new, upstart nobility, which was full of blind rancour against the haughtiness of the old families.