Hence it was suspected, that, while he was ill, and perhaps
without his privacy, the accusations were in great measure forged by
Macro, in consequence of his notorious enmity to Arruntius.
Domitius therefore by preparing for his defence, and Marsus by seeming
determined to famish, both protracted their lives. Arruntius chose to die;
and to the importunity of his friends, urging him to try delays and
evasions, he answered, "that the same measures were not alike honourable
to all men: his own life was abundantly long; nor had he wherewithal to
reproach himself, save that he had submitted to bear thus far an old age
loaded with anxieties, exposed to daily dangers, and the cruel sport of
power; long hated as he was by Sejanus, now by Macro, always by some
reigning minister; hated through no fault of his own, but as one
irreconcilable to baseness and the iniquities of power. He might, in
truth, outlive and avoid the few and last days of Tiberius: but how escape
the youth of his heir? If upon Tiberius at such an age, and after such
consummate experience, the violent spirit of unbridled dominion had
wrought with such efficacy, as entirely to transport and change him; was
it likely that Caligula, he who had scarce outgrown his childhood, a youth
ignorant of all things, or nursed and principled in the worst, would
follow a course more righteous under the guidance of Macro; the same
Macro, who, for destroying Sejanus, was employed as the more wicked of the
two, and had since by more mischiefs and cruelties torn and afflicted the
Commonweal? For himself; he foresaw a servitude yet more vehement, and
therefore withdrew at once from the agonies of past and of impending
tyranny.
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