He provided that the Provinces should not be
oppressed with new impositions; and that no extortion, or violence should
be committed by the magistrates in raising the old: there were no infamous
corporal punishments, no confiscations of goods.
The Emperor's possessions through Italy, were thin; the behaviour of his
slaves modest; the freedmen who managed his house, few; and in his
disputes with particulars, the courts were open and the law equal. All
which restraints he observed, not, in truth, in the ways of complaisance
and popularity; but always stern, and for the most part terrible; yet
still he retained them, till by the death of Drusus they were abandoned:
for, while he lived they continued; because Sejanus, while he was but
laying the foundations of his power, studied to recommend himself by good
counsels. He then had besides, an avenger to dread, one who disguised not
his enmity, but was frequent in his complaints; "that when the son was in
his prime, another was called, as coadjutor, to the Government; nay, how
little was wanting to his being declared colleague in the Empire? That the
first advances to sovereignty are steep and perilous; but, once you are
entered, parties and instruments are ready to espouse you.
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