He was disinterested, too,
refusing legacies when the testator left nearer heirs, and
therewith royally generous, covering his suite with presents, and
declaring that to him avarice of all vices was the lowest and most
vile. In short, you would have said another adolescent Nero come
to Rome; there was the same silken sweetness of demeanor, the same
ready blush, in addition to a zeal for justice and equity which
other young emperors had been too thoughtless to show.
His boyhood, too, had not been above reproach. The same things
were whispered about him that had been shouted at Augustus.
Manifestly he lacked not one of the qualities which go to the
making of a model prince. Vespasian alone had his doubts.
"Mushrooms won't hurt you," he cried one day, as Domitian started
at the sight of a ragout a la Sardanapale, which he fancied,
possibly, was a la Locuste, "It is steel you should fear."
At that time, with a father for emperor and a brother who was
sacking Jerusalem, Domitian had but one cause for anxiety, to wit
--that the empire might escape him. It was then he began his
meditations over holocausts of flies. For hours he secluded
himself, occupied solely with their slaughter. He treated them
precisely as Titus treated the Jews, enjoying the quiver of their
legs, the little agonies of their silent death.
Tiberius had been in love with solitude, but never as he. Night
after night he wandered on the terraces of the palace, watching
the red moon wane white, companioned only by his dreams, those
waking dreams that poets and madmen share, that Pallas had him in
her charge, that Psyche was amorous of his eyes.
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