Power, exposed to great envy, hurls some headlong down to ruin. The long and splendid list of their titles and honors sinks[576] into the dust. Down come their statues,[577] and are dragged along with ropes: then the very wheels of the chariot are smashed by the vigorous stroke of the axe, and the legs of the innocent[578] horses are demolished. Now the fires roar! Now that head, once worshiped[579] by the mob, glows with the bellows and the furnace! Great Sejanus crackles! Then from that head, second only in the whole wide world, are made pitchers, basins, frying-pans,[580] and platters! "Crown your doors with bays![581] Lead to Jove's Capitol a huge and milk-white ox! Sejanus is being dragged along by the hook! a glorious sight!" Every body is delighted. "What lips he had! and what a face! If you believe me, I never could endure this man!" "But what was the charge under which he fell! Who was the accuser? what the information laid? By whose witness did he prove it?" "Nothing of the sort! a wordy and lengthy epistle came from Capreæ." "That's enough! I ask no farther. But how does the mob of Remus behave!" "Why, follow Fortune,[582] as mobs always do, and hate him that is condemned?" That self-same people, had Tuscan Nurscia[583] smiled propitious on her countryman--had the old age of the emperor been crushed while he thought all secure--would in that very hour have saluted Sejanus as Augustus. Long ago they have thrown overboard all anxiety. For that sovereign people that once gave away military command, consulships, legions, and every thing, now bridles its desires, and limits its anxious longings to two things only--bread, and the games of the circus! "I hear that many are involved in his fall." "No doubt: the little furnace[584] is a capacious one; I met my friend Brutidius[585] at the altar of Mars looking a little pale!" "But I greatly fear that Ajax, being baffled,[586] will wreak fearful vengeance, as having been inadequately defended. Let us rush headlong; and, while he still lies on the river-bank, trample on Cæsar's foe? But take care that our slaves witness the act! lest any of them should deny it, and drag his master to trial with a halter round his neck!" Such were the conversations then about Sejanus; such the smothered whispers of the populace? Would _you_ then have the same court paid to you that Sejanus had? possess as much, bestow on one the highest curule honors, give another the command of armies,[587] be esteemed the lawful guardian[588] of the prince that lounged away[589] his days with his herd of Chaldæan astrologers, in the rock of Capreæ that he made his palace?[590] Would you have centuries and cohorts, and a picked body of cavalry,[591] and prætorian bands at your beck? Why should you not covet these? Even those who have not the _will_ to kill a man would gladly have the _power_. But what brilliant or prosperous fortune is of sufficient worth that your measure of evils should balance your good