[Sidenote:—­12—­] It became strikingly clear that Vespasian hated Helvidius Priscus not so much for personal affronts or on account of the friends that the man had abused as because he was a turbulent fellow that cultivated the favor of the rabble, was forever denouncing royalty and praising democracy.  Helvidius’s behavior, moreover, was consistent with his principles; he banded various men together, as if it were the function of philosophy to insult those in power, to stir up the multitudes, to overthrow the established order of things, and to incite people to revolution.  He was a son-in-law of Thrasea and affected to emulate the latter’s conduct:  his failure to do so was striking.  Thrasea lived in Nero’s time and disliked the tyrant.  Even so, however, he never spoke or behaved toward him in any insulting way:  he merely refused to share in his practices.  But Helvidius had a grudge against Vespasian and would not let him alone either in private or in public.  By what he did he invited death and for his meddlesome interference he was destined ultimately to pay the penalty.

Mucianus desired to be honored by all and beyond all, so that he was displeased not merely if a man insulted him but even if any one failed to extol him greatly.  Hence, just as he was never tired of honoring those who assisted him to even the slightest extent, so his hatred was most cruel for all who did not so conduct themselves.

Mucianus made a great number of remarkable statements to Vespasian against the Stoics, as, for instance, that they are full of empty boasting, and if one of them lets his beard grow long, elevates his eyebrows, wears his fustian cape thrown carelessly back and goes barefoot, he straightway postulates wisdom, bravery, righteousness as his own.  He gives himself great airs, even though he may not understand (as the proverb says) either letters or swimming.  They view everybody with contempt and call the man of good family a mollycoddle, the ill-born a dwarfed intellect, a handsome person licentious, an ugly person comely, the rich man an apostle of greed, and the poor man a servile groveler.

And Vespasian did immediately expel from Rome all the philosophers except Musonius:  Demetrius and Hostilianus he confined upon islands.  Hostilianus would not stop, to be sure,—­he happened to be conversing with somebody when he heard about the sentence of exile against him and merely inveighed all the more strongly against monarchy,—­yet he straightway withdrew.  Demetrius even now would not yield, and Vespasian bade it be told him:  “You are working every way to have me kill you, but I am not slaughtering barking dogs.”

[Sidenote:—­13—­] Before long many others who followed the so-called Stoic system made themselves prominent, among whom was Demetrius the cynic.  These men, abusing the title of philosophy, kept teaching their disciples publicly many pernicious doctrines, and in this way were gradually corrupting [Footnote:  Reading [Greek:  hypodiephtheiron] (Dindorf).] some.  Under these circumstances Mucianus, influenced more by anger than by fondness for speaking, uttered many charges against them and persuaded Vespasian to expel all such persons from the city.