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19At the time in question he spared, among others who had been intimate with Sejanus, Lucius Caesianus, a praetor, and Marcus Terentius, a knight. He overlooked the action of the former, who at the Floralia had seen to it that all the merry-making up to nightfall was done by baldheaded men, in order to poke fun at the emperor, who was bald, 2and at night had furnished light to the people as they left the theatre by torches in the hands of five thousand boys with shaven pates. Indeed, Tiberius was so far from becoming angry at him that he pretended not to have heard about it at all, though all baldheaded persons were thenceforth called Caesiani. 3As for Terentius, he was spared because, when on trial for his friendship with Sejanus, he not only did not deny it, but even affirmed that he had shown the greatest zeal in his behalf and had paid court to him for the reason that the minister had been so highly honoured by Tiberius himself; “consequently 4,” he said, “if the emperor did right in having such a friend, I, too, have done no wrong; and if he, who has accurate knowledge of everything, erred, what wonder is it that I shared in his deception? For surely it is our duty to cherish all whom he honours, without concerning ourselves overmuch about the kind of men they are, but making our friendship for them depend on just one thing—the fact that they please the emperor.” 5The senate, because of this, acquitted him and rebuked his accusers besides; and Tiberius concurred with them. When Piso, the city prefect, died, he honoured him with a public funeral, a distinction that he also granted to others. In his stead he chose Lucius Lamia, whom he had long since assigned to Syria, but was detaining in Rome. 6He did the same also with many others, not that he really had any need of them, but he thus made an outward show of honouring them. Meanwhile Vitrasius Pollio, the governor of Egypt, died, and he entrusted the province for a time to a certain Hiberus, an imperial freedman.
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