Piso returned slowly to Rome. He sent his son ahead with letters to Tiberius, in which he represented himself as the aggrieved party, and accused Germanicus of debauchery and arrogance; he sought on his way an interview with Drusus, who had returned to Illyria after his brother’s funeral. Drusus received him coldly, and dismissed him with words so politic that they were thought to have been suggested by a cooler head. The day after he arrived in Rome, Fulcinius Trio, the prosecutor of Scribonius Libo, took the first formal steps in a process against him. The story of this famous trial is so narrated by Tacitus as to convey the impression that there was a serious miscarriage of justice, and that the oppressors of Germanicus were protected by the influence of Livia and Tiberius; but, as usual, the narrative, wherever it depends upon accessible documentary evidence, does not support such a view of the case. Accusers and accused alike pressed Tiberius to hear the case himself, knowing “that he was impervious to the influence of rumour,” and fearing the excitability of a large court. Tiberius, after hearing the evidence, referred the whole case to the Senate. Five of the most respected men in Rome refused to act as counsel for the defence. Among the three who did eventually defend Piso was Marcus Lepidus, whom we have already seen in possession of the full confidence of the Emperor. On the day of the trial Tiberius opened the proceedings in the Senate; he said that Piso had been a trusted officer and friend of Augustus, that he had himself assigned him as an assistant to Germanicus in the administration of the East with the authority of the Senate. It was the duty of the court to decide without prejudice whether he had exasperated the young man by insubordination and opposition and rejoiced over his death, or had killed him with malice and aforethought, “for if the subordinate officer exceeded the limits of his office, if he refused to pay proper respect to his superior, and rejoiced over his death, and my sorrow, I shall hate him, and shall exclude him from my house, and punish his enmity as a private matter, not with the power I hold as Princeps. But if it is discovered that a crime in bringing about the death of any man requires punishment, then do you confer upon the children of Germanicus and us his relatives our proper consolation. And at the same time you must carefully consider this point, whether Piso handled the armies in an insubordinate and seditious fashion, whether he tampered disloyally with the affections of the soldiers, whether he attempted to recover the province by force of arms, or have the accusers exaggerated these charges? I may say that I have good reason to be annoyed with their exercise of partisanship. For was it proper to strip the body, to expose it to the eager scrutiny of the eyes of the vulgar, and even to allow statements to spread among foreigners that he had been poisoned, if this was still uncertain and