" Age, domestic custom, and
the ancient men were for Corbulo: on the other side, Mamercus Scaurus,
Lucius Arruntius, and others laboured for their kinsman Sylla: warm
speeches were made, and the examples of our ancestors were urged, "who by
severe decrees had censured and restrained the irreverence of the youth."
Drusus interposed with arguments proper for calming animosities, and
Corbulo had satisfaction made him by Scaurus, who was to Sylla both
father-in-law and uncle, and the most copious orator of that age. The same
Corbulo, exclaiming against "the condition of most of the roads through
Italy, that through the fraud of the undertakers and negligence of the
overseers, they were broken and unpassable;" undertook of his own accord
the cure of that abuse; an undertaking which he executed not so much to
the advantage of the public as to the ruin of many private men in their
fortunes and reputation, by his violent mulcts and unjust judgments and
forfeitures.
Upon this occasion Caecina Severus proposed, "that no magistrate should go
into any province accompanied by his wife." He introduced this motion with
a long preface, "that he lived with his own in perfect concord, by her he
had six children; and what he offered to the public he had practised
himself, having during forty years' service left her still behind him,
confined to Italy.
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