True it is, conscript fathers,
that we have raised Sejanus from obscure, and almost unknown gentry
Sen. How, how!
to the highest and most conspicuous point of greatness, and, we
hope, deservingly, yet not without danger: it being a most bold
hazard in that sovereign, who, by his particular love to one, dares
adventure the hatred of all his other subjects.
Arr. This touches; the blood turns.
But we affy in your loves and understandings, and do no way suspect
the merit of our Sejanus, to make our favours offensive to any.
Sen. O! good, good.
Though we could have wished his zeal had run a calmer course
against Agrippina and our nephews, howsoever the openness of their
actions declared them delinquents, and, that he would have
remembered, no innocence is so safe, but it rejoiceth to stand in
the sight of mercy: the use of which in us, he hath so quite taken
away, towards them, by his loyal fury, as now our clemency would be
thought but wearied cruelty, if we should offer to exercise it.
Arr. I thank him; there I look'd for't. A good fox!
Some there be that would interpret this his public severity to be
particular ambition, and that, under a pretext of service to us, he
doth but remove his own lets: alleging the strengths he hath made
to himself, by the praetorian soldiers, by his faction in court and
senate, by the offices he holds himself, and confers on others, his
popularity and dependents, his urging and almost driving us to this
our unwilling retirement, and, lastly, his aspiring to be our
son-in-law.
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