[-2-] It was due to this characteristic that, as emperor, he sent a dispatch straight from Nola to the legions and provinces declaring that he was emperor. This name, which was voted him along with the rest, he would not accept, and though taking the portion of Augustus he would not adopt this title of his. At a time when he was already surrounded by the body-guards he asked the senate to help him escape suffering any violence at the burial of the emperor's body. He was afraid some men might snatch it up and burn it in the Forum, as they had that of Cæsar. When somebody thereupon as a compliment voted that he be given a guard, as if he had none, he saw through the man's flattery and answered: "The soldiers are not mine but the public's." Besides doing this he administered in fact all the business of the empire, meanwhile declaring that he wanted none of it. At first he said he should give it all up on account of his age,--fifty-six,--and his near-sightedness (although he saw extremely well in the dark, his eyes in the daylight were very weak). Later he asked for some associates and colleagues, though not to take charge of the whole domain at once, as in an oligarchy, but he divided it into three parts, one of which he should retain himself and yield the remaining two to others. One of these portions consisted of Rome and the rest of Italy, the second of the legions, the third of the subject peoples outside. Though he became very urgent, most of the senators still opposed him and begged him to govern the entire realm. But Asinius Gallus, who employed the frank speech of old days more than was good for him, replied: "Choose whichever part you wish." Tiberius rejoined: "How is it feasible for the same man both to make the division and to choose?" Gallus, perceiving into what a plight he had fallen, framed his words to flatter him, interrupting to the effect that: "I not setting before you the idea of your having a third but the impossibility of the empire's being divided." In fact, however, he did not mollify Tiberius, but after first undergoing many dire sufferings was subsequently murdered. For Gallus had married the former wife of the new ruler and claimed Drusus as his son, and consequently there had been hatred between them before this.