From the time of this campaign, Domitian’s cruelty displayed itself more and more. Before this, some individuals had already been put to death either on suspicion, or because he hated them; an insurrection also had broken out under L. Antonius Saturninus in _Germania Superior_, that is to say, Alsace and Suabia, as far as the _limites_: these districts were covered with Roman troops, and Saturninus had himself proclaimed emperor by them, but was conquered by L. Appius Maximus, and paid for it with his life. Domitian’s cruelty was within the bounds of human nature, being different from that of Caligula and Nero. Caligula was mad, and Nero very nearly so; they were downright brutes, and their cruelty, to use an expression of Aristotle’s, was παρὰ φύσιν: to characters like these, the rules of morality do not apply; they are degenerate specimens of humanity. Domitian’s cruelty was that of a thoroughly bad man; it sprang from human passions, from envy, malice, and the mere love of mischief: avarice there was none in it, as this is rather an eastern vice. In the senate, at that time, there were men who were worthy of being the friends of Agricola and Tacitus: Herennius Senecio had written the life of Helvidius Priscus; Arulenus Rusticus, that of Pætus Thrasea; and their writings displayed much warmth of heart. Maternus and others were likewise authors, though perhaps not altogether free from declamation; but literature had now again some reality in it, and it was that very reality which gave offence to the tyrant. Then arose the horrible class of the informers, the description of which is one of the most interesting things in Pliny’s letters: they were a very different set from the _delatores_ of Tiberius’ reign. These men are justly abhorred in a moral point of view; but they were men of intellect, and some of them of no common talent. The great mass was in the days of Tiberius much worse than it was now; and so it was, of course, with the victims: for though the women, as we learn from Juvenal, were still thoroughly depraved, the men, owing to the length of their training in the school of hardship, had become better and more energetic. Domitian was even present at the _delationes_: the informers were ingenious, well-bred persons, who lived in good society, and also turned their talents against equally distinguished, but noble-minded people. The time was awful; it passed, as Tacitus says, in silent dread: the impression which it made on a great mind, is incomparably described in the introduction of the Agricola and in the _Historiæ_. Particularly fearful were the three last years of Domitian. Had his rage been only directed against the better men, he might have lived longer; but he also turned it against the bad and fierce ones, against Prætorian officers and his own wife Domitia, who had offended him, and whom he had offended. Then was the conspiracy formed against him, and he was stabbed by the officers of his guards.