Piso, sending forward his son to Rome, with instructions how to soften the
Emperor, proceeded himself to Drusus: him he hoped to find less rigid for
the death of a brother, than favourable for the removal of a rival.
Tiberius, to make show of a spirit perfectly unbiassed, received the young
man graciously, and honoured him with the presents usually bestowed on
young noblemen. The answer of Drusus to Piso was, "That if the current
rumours were true, he stood in the first place of grief and revenge; but
he hoped they were false and chimerical, and that the death of Germanicus
would be pernicious to none." This he declared in public, and avoided all
privacy: nor was it doubted but the answer was dictated by Tiberius; when
a youth, otherwise easy and unwary, practised thus the wiles and cunning
of age.
Piso having crossed the sea of Dalmatia, and left his ships at Ancona,
took first the road of Picenum and then the Flaminian way, following the
legion which was going from Pannonia to Rome, and thence to garrison in
Africa. This too became the subject of popular censure, that he
officiously mixed with the soldiers, and courted them in their march and
quarters: he therefore, to avoid suspicion; or, because when men are in
dread, their conduct wavers, did at Narni embark upon the Nar, and thence
sailed into the Tiber.
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