For some time no member of the government appeared to have resolution
enough to come forward and harangue the people on the subject of the
unsuccessful embassy. After a long interval, however, the Prefect
Pompeianus himself, urged partly by the selfish entreaties of his
friends, and partly by the childish love of display which still adhered
to him through all his present anxieties and apprehensions, stepped into
one of the lower balconies of the Senate-house to address the citizens
beneath him.
The chief magistrate of Rome was no longer the pompous and portly
personage whose intrusion on Vetranio's privacy during the commencement
of the siege has been described previously. The little superfluous
flesh still remaining on his face hung about it like an ill-fitting
garment; his tones had become lachrymose; the oratorical gestures, with
which he was wont to embellish profusely his former speeches, were all
abandoned; nothing remained of the original man but the bombast of his
language and the impudent complacency of his self-applause, which now
appeared in contemptible contrast to his crestfallen demeanour and his
disheartening narrative of degradation and defeat.
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