] be banished for ten years: and to Plancina, at the request of
Livia, indemnity should be granted."
Much of this sentence was abated by the Emperor; particularly that of
striking Piso's name out of the annals, when "that of Marc Anthony, who
made war upon his country; that of Julius Antonius, who had by adultery
violated the house of Augustus, continued still there." He also exempted
Marcus Piso from the ignominy of degradation, and left him his whole
paternal inheritance; for, as I have already often observed, he was to the
temptations of money incorruptible, and from the shame of having acquitted
Plancina, rendered then more than usually mild. He likewise withstood the
motion of Valerius Messalinus, "for erecting a golden statue in the Temple
of Mars the Avenger;" and that of Caecina Severus, "for founding an altar
to revenge." "Such monuments as these," he argued, "were only fit to be
raised upon foreign victories; domestic evils were to be buried in
sadness." Messalinus had added, "that to Tiberius, Livia, Antonia,
Agrippina and Drusus, public thanks were to be rendered for having
revenged the death of Germanicus;" but had omitted to mention Claudius.
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