[Sidenote: A.D. 83 (a.u. 836)] [Sidenote:--3--] His wife, Domitia, he planned to put to death on the ground of adultery, but, having been dissuaded by Ursus, he sent her away and midway on the road murdered Paris, the dancer, because of her. And many people paid honor to that spot with flowers [Sidenote: A.D. 83 (a.u. 836)] and perfumes, he gave orders that they, too, should be slain. After this he took into his house, quite undisguisedly, his own niece,--Julia, that is to say. [Then on petition of the people he became reconciled, to be sure, with Domitia, but continued none the less his relations with Julia.] He was removing many of the foremost men on many pretexts and by means of murders and banishments. [He also conveyed many to some out-of-the-way place, where he got rid of them; and not a few he caused to die in some way or other by their own acts that they might seem to have suffered death by their own wish and not through outside force.] He did not spare even the vestal virgins, but punished them on charges of their having had intercourse with men. It is further reported that since their examination was conducted in a harsh and unfeeling manner, and many of them were accused and constantly being punished, one of the pontifices, Helvius Agrippa, could not endure it, but, horror-stricken, expired there in the senate where he sat. [Domitian also took pride in the fact that he did not bury alive, as was the custom, the virgins he found guilty of debauchery, but ordered them to be killed by some different way.] After this he set out for Gaul and plundered some of the tribes across the Rhine enjoying treaty rights,--a performance which filled him with conceit as if he had achieved some great success. Presumably on account of the victory he increased the soldiers' wages, so that whereas each had been receiving seventy-five denarii he commanded that a hundred be given them. Later he thought better of it, but instead of diminishing the amount he curtailed the number of men-at-arms. Both of these steps entailed great injury to the public weal: he had made the defenders of the State too few, while rendering their support an item of great expense.