Domitilla was merely banished to Pandateria; but Glabrio, colleague of Trajan in the consulship, after being accused on various regular stock charges, and also of fighting with wild beasts, suffered death.  This ability in the arena was the chief cause of the emperor’s anger against him,—­an anger prompted by jealousy.  In the victim’s consulship Domitian had summoned him to Albanum to attend the so-called Juvenalia and had imposed on him the task of killing a large lion.  Glabrio not only had escaped all injury but had despatched the creature with most accurate aim.

As a consequence of his cruelty the emperor was suspicious of all mankind and ceased now to put hopes of safety in either the freedmen or the prefects, whom he usually caused to be tried during their very term of office.  Moreover, Epaphroditus, who belonged to Nero, he first drove out and then slew, censuring him for not having defended Nero; his object was by the vengeance that he took in this person’s case to terrify his own freedmen long enough in advance to prevent their ever attempting a similar deed. [Sidenote:  A.D. 96 (a.u. 849)] It did him no good, however, for he became the object of a conspiracy in the following year and perished in the consulship of Gaius [Footnote:  An error, possibly emanating from Dio.  The man’s right name is T.  Manlius Valens.] Valens (who died after holding the consular office in his ninetieth year) and of Gaius Antistius. [Sidenote:—­15—­] Those who attacked him and prepared the undertaking were Parthenius his cubicularius (though he was the recipient of such marks of imperial favor as to be allowed to wear a sword) and Sigerus, [Footnote:  Probably the person who is called Saturius in Suetonius, Domitian, chapter 17.] who was also a member of the excubiae, as well as Entellus, the person entrusted with the care of the state documents, and Stephanus, a freedman.  The plot was not unknown to Domitia, the emperor’s wife, nor to the prefect Norbanus, nor to the latter’s partner in office, Petronius Secundus:  at least, this is the tradition.  Domitia was ever an object of the imperial hatred and consequently stood in terror of her life; the rest no longer loved their sovereign, some of them because complaints had been lodged against them and others because they were expecting them to be lodged.  For my part, I have heard also the following account,—­that Domitian, having become suspicious of all these persons, conceived a desire to kill them, and wrote their names on a two-leaved tablet of linden wood, and put it under his pillow on the couch where he was wont to repose; and one of the naked prattling [Footnote:  Compare Book Forty-eight, chapter 44.] boys, while the emperor was asleep in the daytime, filched it away and kept it without knowing what it contained.  Domitia then chanced upon it and reading what was written gave information of the matter to those involved.  As a result, they changed their plans somewhat and hastened the plot; yet they did not proceed to action