There was no addition to the price, although about two hundred ships were destroyed in the very harbour by a violent storm, and one hundred more, which had sailed up the Tiber, by an accidental fire.Nero next appointed three ex-consuls, Lucius Piso, Ducennius Geminus, and Pompeius Paulinus, to the management of the public revenues, and inveighed at the same time against former emperors whose heavy expenditure had exceeded their legitimate income.He himself, he said, made the state an annual present of sixty million sesterces.
A very demoralizing custom had at this time become rife, of fictitious adoptions of children, on the eve of the elections or of the assignment of the provinces, by a number of childless persons, who, after obtaining along with real fathers praetorships and provinces, forthwith dismissed from paternal control the sons whom they had adopted.An appeal was made to the Senate under a keen sense of wrong.Parents pleaded natural rights and the anxieties of nurture against fraudulent evasions and the brief ceremony of adoption."It was," they argued, "sufficient reward for the childless to have influence and distinction, everything, in short, easy and open to them, without a care and without a burden.For themselves, they found that the promises held out by the laws, for which they had long waited, were turned into mockery, when one who knew nothing of a parent's solicitude or of the sorrows of bereavement could rise in a moment to the level of a father's long deferred hopes."On this, a decree of the Senate was passed that a fictitious adoption should be of no avail in any department of the public service, or even hold good for acquiring an inheritance.
Next came the prosecution of Claudius Timarchus of Crete, on such charges as often fall on very influential provincials, whom immense wealth has emboldened to the oppression of the weak.But one speech of his had gone to the extremity of a gross insult to the Senate; for he had repeatedly declared that it was in his power to decide whether the proconsuls who had governed Crete should receive the thanks of the province.Paetus Thrasea, turning the occasion to public advantage, after having stated his opinion that the accused ought to be expelled from Crete, further spoke as follows:-"It is found by experience, Senators, that admirable laws and right precedents among the good have their origin in the misdeeds of others.Thus the license of advocates resulted in the Cincian bill;the corrupt practices of candidates, in the Julian laws; the rapacity of magistrates, in the Calpurnian enactments.For, in point of time, guilt comes before punishment, and correction follows after delinquency.And therefore, to meet the new insolence of provincials, let us adopt a measure worthy of Roman good faith and resolution, whereby our allies may lose nothing of our protection, while public opinion may cease to say of us, that the estimate of a man's character is to found anywhere rather than in the judgment of our citizens.
"Formerly, it was not only a praetor or a consul, but private persons also, who were sent to inspect the provinces, and to report what they thought about each man's loyalty.And nations were timidly sensitive to the opinion of individuals.But now we court foreigners and flatter them, and just as there is a vote of thanks at any one's pleasure, so even more eagerly is a prosecution decided on.Well;let it be decided on, and let the provincials retain the right of showing their power in this fashion, but as for false praise which has been extorted by entreaties, let it be as much checked as fraud or tyranny.More faults are often committed, while we are trying to oblige than while we are giving offence.Nay, some virtues are actually hated; inflexible strictness, for example, and a temper proof against partiality.Consequently, our magistrates' early career is generally better than its close, which deteriorates, when we are anxiously seeking votes, like candidates.If such practices are stopped, our provinces will be ruled more equitably and more steadily.
For as the dread of a charge of extortion has been a check to rapacity, so, by prohibiting the vote of thanks, will the pursuit of popularity be restrained."This opinion was hailed with great unanimity, but the Senate's resolution could not be finally passed, as the consuls decided that there had been no formal motion on the subject.Then, at the emperor's suggestion, they decreed that no one was to propose to any council of our allies that a vote of thanks ought to be given in the Senate to propraetors or proconsuls, and that no one was to discharge such a mission.
During the same consulship a gymnasium was wholly consumed by a stroke of lightning, and a statue of Nero within it was melted down to a shapeless mass of bronze.An earthquake too demolished a large part of Pompeii, a populous town in Campania.And one of the vestal virgins, Laelia, died, and in her place was chosen Cornelia, of the family of the Cossi.
During the consulship of Memmius Regulus and Verginius Rufus, Nero welcomed with something more than mortal joy the birth of a daughter by Poppaea, whom he called Augusta, the same title having also been given to Poppaea.The place of her confinement was the colony of Antium, where the emperor himself was born.Already had the Senate commended Poppaea's safety to the gods, and had made vows in the State's name, which were repeated again and again and duly discharged.