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21After this, when his consulship had expired, he came to Rome and prevented the consuls from acting as advocates for some persons in court, remarking: “If I were consul, I should not have done so.” 2One of the praetors was accused of having made some impious remark or of having committed some offence against him, whereupon the man left the senate and having taken off his robe of office returned, demanding as a private citizen to have the complaint lodged at once; at this the emperor was greatly grieved and molested him no further. 3He banished the actors from Rome and would allow them no place in which to practise their profession, because they kept debauching the women and stirring up tumults. He honoured many men after their death with statues and public funerals, but for Sejanus he erected a bronze statue in the theatre during his lifetime. As a result, numerous images of Sejanus were made by many different persons, and many eulogies were delivered in his honour, both before the people and before the senate. 4The leading citizens, including the consuls themselves, regularly resorted to his house at dawn, and communicated to him not only all the private requests that any of them wished to make of Tiberius, but also the public business which required to be taken up. In a word, no business of this sort was transacted henceforth without his knowledge.
5About this time one of the largest porticos in Rome began to lean to one side, and was set upright in a remarkable way by an architect whose name no one knows, because Tiberius, jealous of his wonderful achievement, would not permit it to be entered in the records. This architect, then, whatever his name may have been, first strengthened the foundations round about, so that they should not collapse, 6and wrapped all the rest of the structure in fleeces and thick garments, binding it firmly together on all sides by means of ropes; then with the aid of many men and windlasses he raised it back to its original position. At the time Tiberius both admired and envied him; for the former reason he honoured him with a present of money, and for the latter he expelled him from the city. 7Later the exile approached him to crave pardon, and while doing so purposely let fall a crystal goblet; and though it was bruised in some way or shattered, yet by passing his hands over it he promptly exhibited it whole once more. For this he hoped to obtain pardon, but instead the emperor put him to death.
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