Not even the senate was quiet, but such members of it as had paid court to Sejanus were greatly disturbed by dread of reprisals; and those who had accused or borne witness against any persons were filled with fear by the prevailing suspicion that they had destroyed their victims out of regard for the minister instead of for Tiberius. Very small indeed was the courageous element, which was unhampered by these terrors and expected that Tiberius would become milder. For as usually happens, they laid the responsibility for their previous misfortunes upon the dead man and charged the emperor with few or none of them. Of the most of this unjust treatment, they said, he had been ignorant, and he had been forced into the rest against his will. Privately this was the disposition of the various classes; publicly they voted, as if they had cast off some tyranny, not to hold any mourning over the deceased and to have a statue of Liberty erected in the Forum; also a festival was to be celebrated under the auspices of all the magistrates and priests,--as had never before occurred; and the day on which he died was to be made renowned by annual horse-races and slaughters of wild beasts, directed by those appointed to the four priesthoods and by the members of the Sodality of Augustus. This, too, had never before been done. To celebrate the ruin of the man whom they by the excess and novelty of their honors had led to destruction they voted solemnities that were not customary even for the gods. They comprehended so clearly that it was chiefly these honors which had bereft him of his senses that they at once forbade explicitly the giving of excessive marks of esteem to any one, as also the taking of oaths in the name of any one other than the emperor. Yet though they passed such votes, as if under a divine inspiration, they began shortly after to fawn upon Macro and Laco. They gave them great sums of money and to Laco the honors of ex-quaestors, while to Macro they extended the honors of ex-prætors. Similarly[6] they allowed them also to view spectacles in their company and to wear the toga praetextata at the ludi votivi. The men did not accept these privileges, however, for the recent example served as a deterrent. Nor would Tiberius take any honor bestowed, though many were voted him, chief among them being that he should begin from this time to be termed Father of his Country and that his birthday should be marked by ten equestrian contests and a senatorial banquet. Indeed, he gave notice anew that no one should introduce any such motion.--These were the events happening in the capital. [-13-] Tiberius for a time had certainly been in great fear that Sejanus would occupy the City and sail against him, and so he had prepared boats, to the end that, if anything of the sort should come to pass, he might escape. He had commanded Macro,--or so some say,--if there should be any uprising to bring Drusus before the senate and the people and appoint him emperor.