And also this,—­that he investigated carefully, case by case, all the slighting remarks that any persons were accused of uttering against him and then called himself all the ill names that other men invented.  Even if a person made some statement secretly and to a single companion, he would publish this too, and actually had it entered on the official records.  Often he falsely added, from his own consciousness of defects, what no one had even said as really spoken, in order that it might be thought he had juster cause for his wrath.  Consequently it came to pass that he himself committed against himself all those outrages for which he was wont to chastise other people on the ground of impiety; and he likewise became subject to no little ridicule.  For, if persons denied having spoken certain phrases, he, by asserting and taking oath that it had been said, wronged himself with greater show of reality.  For this reason some suspected that he was bereft of his senses.  Yet he was not generally believed to be insane simply for this behavior.  All other business he managed in a way quite beyond criticism.  For instance, he appointed a guardian over a certain senator that lived licentiously, as he might have done for a child.  Again, he brought Capito, procurator of Asia, before the senate, and, after charging him with using soldiers and acting in some other ways as if he had supreme command, he banished him.  In those days officials administering the imperial funds were allowed to do nothing more than to levy the customary tribute, and they were compelled, in the case of disputes, to stand trial in the Forum and according to the laws, on an equal footing with private persons.—­So great were the contrasts in Tiberius’s conduct.

[A.D. 24 (a. u. 777)]

[-24-] When the ten years of his office had expired, he did not ask any vote for its resumption, for he had no wish to receive it piecemeal, as Augustus had done.  The decennial festival, however, was held.

[A.D. 25 (a. u. 778)]

Cremutius Cordus was forced to lay violent hands upon himself, because he had come into collision with Sejanus.  He was at the gates of old age and had lived most irreproachably, so much so that no sufficient complaint could be found against him and he was tried for the history which he had long before composed regarding the deeds of Augustus and the latter himself had read.  The ground of censure was that he had praised Cassius and Brutus and had attacked the people and the senate.  Of Caesar and Augustus he had spoken no ill, but at the same time had shown no excessive respect for them.  This was the complaint against him, and this it was that caused his death as well as the burning of his works,—­those found in the city at this time being destroyed by the aediles, and those abroad by the officials of each place.  Later they were published again, for his daughter Marcia in particular, as well as others, had hidden copies, and they attracted much greater attention by reason of the unhappy end of Cordus.