[Sidenote:—­17—­] For this and other purposes he needed great sums of money; and as he was a promoter of great enterprises and a liberal giver and at the same time feared an attack from the persons of most influence while he was thus engaged, he destroyed many excellent men.  Of most of these I shall omit any mention, merely saying that the stock complaint under which all of them were brought before him was uprightness, wealth, and family:  all of them either killed themselves or were slaughtered by others.  I shall pause to consider only Corbulo and (of the Sulpicii Scribonii) Rufus and Proculus.  These two deserve attention because they were in a way brothers and contemporaries, never doing anything separately but united in purpose and in property as they were in family:  they had for a long time administered the affairs of the Germanies and had come to Greece at the summons of Nero, who affected to want something from them.  A complaint of the kind which that period so prodigally afforded was lodged against them.  They could obtain no hearing on the matter nor even get within sight of Nero; and as this caused them to be slighted by all persons without exception, they began to long for death and so met their end by slitting open their veins.—­And I notice Corbulo, because the emperor, after giving him also a most courteous summons and invariably calling him (among other names) “father” and “benefactor,” then, as this general approached Cenchrea, commanded that he be slain before he had even entered his presence.  Some explain this by saying that Nero was about to sing with zither accompaniment and could not endure the idea of being seen by Corbulo while he wore the long ungirded tunic.  The condemned man, as soon as he understood the import of the order, seized a sword, and dealing himself a lusty blow exclaimed:  “Your due!” Now for the first time in his career was he ready to believe that he had done ill both in sparing the zither-player and in going to him unarmed.

[Sidenote:—­18—­] This is the substance of what took place in Greece.  Does it add much to mention that Nero ordered Paris the dancer killed because he wished to learn dancing from him and was disappointed?  Or that he banished Caecina Tuscus, governor of Egypt, for bathing in the tub that had been specially constructed for his coming visit to Alexandria?

In Rome about this same time Helius committed many acts of outrage.  One of these was his killing of a distinguished man, Sulpicius Camerinus, together with his son; the complaint against them was that whereas they were called Pythici after some of their ancestors they would not abandon possession of this name, thus blaspheming Nero’s Pythian victories by the use of a similar title.—­And when the Augustans offered to build a shrine to the emperor worth a thousand librae, the whole equestrian order was compelled to help defray the expense they had undertaken.—­As for the doings of the senate, it would be a task to describe them all in detail.  For so many sacrifices and days of thanksgiving were announced that the whole year would not hold them all.