In other words, the folly of Libo having been brought to the notice of Tiberius, he paid no very serious attention, and endeavoured to demonstrate the error of his ways by admitting him to familiar intercourse, for vague though the historian’s “meanwhile” may be taken to be, there is no improbability in assuming that the first experiment of Catus was foiled by the Emperor’s common sense. The next stage in the proceedings was more exciting. Libo endeavoured to bribe one Junius to call up the spirits of the dead by means of incantations. This person, probably a professional necromancer, gave information to Fulcinius Trio, a professional prosecutor so far as such a thing existed at the time. “The ability of Trio was well known among the accusers of those days, and his eager love of notoriety.” Trio did not allow the grass to grow under his feet; he held a “plump juicy offender” in his hands, and was determined to make the best of him; he went to the consuls and demanded a hearing before the Senate. Libo, for his part, was not idle; on hearing of his peril he put on mourning and, accompanied by ladies of rank, visited the palaces of the great, implored his family connexions, demanded the aid of their voices to encounter his danger; but all refused; their excuses were different, but fear was the real reason for all. Fear of what? Tacitus leaves us to infer that Tiberius was the object of dread, but even if we allow that the historian was correct in assigning fear as the motive of abstention from assisting Libo, there was another possible cause of fear. The black art was no laughing matter to the men and women of those days, and a fashionable gentleman, who was suddenly discovered to have been engaged in an attempt to raise the dead, was an awe-inspiring object in spite of his train of aristocratic ladies. On the day of the meeting of the Senate Libo was carried in a litter to the doors, either pretending illness or worn out with anxiety and vexation; he leaned on his brother, and appealed to Tiberius by word and gesture, who for his part preserved the immobility proper to his position. In due time the Emperor read the declarations aloud and the names of their authors, in such a way as not to indicate his own opinion. By this time Trio was not the only accuser; Catus was there, Fonteius Agrippa and Vibius Serenus, Senators of repute, all anxiously offering information, and wrangling between themselves as to which of them was to have the honour of making the speech for the prosecution. Libo had no defender. At last Vibius was allowed to state the charges; there seemed to be little reason for alarm in them. Among other things Libo had asked his diviners whether he should have enough money to cover the Appian Way with coin from Rome to Brindisi.