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Lateranus was an unprincipled and dissolute man, and in consequence of certain crimes which he committed in connection with Messalina, during the reign of Claudius, he had been condemned to death. The sentence of death was not executed, though Lateranus was deprived of his rank, and doomed to live in retirement and disgrace.
When Plautius Lateranus, the brave nobleman whose execution during Piso's conspiracy we have already related, had received on his neck an ineffectual blow of the tribune's sword, Epaphroditus, even at that dread moment, could not abstain from pressing him with questions. Under a man of this calibre it is hardly likely that a lame Phrygian boy would experience much kindness.
With the election of the first non-patrician consul the choice fell on one of the authors of this reform, the late tribune of the people, Lucius Sextius Lateranus the clan-aristocracy ceased both in fact and in law to be numbered among the political institutions of Rome.
The next death added by Nero was that of Plautius Lateranus, consul elect; and with such precipitation, that he would not allow him to embrace his children, nor the usual brief interval to choose his mode of death. He was dragged to the place allotted for the execution of slaves, and there, by the hand of Statius the tribune, slaughtered.
Lateranus, as soon as he was near enough, was to kneel down and suddenly draw the emperor's robes about his feet, and then clasp the feet thus enveloped, in his arms, so as to render Nero helpless. The other conspirators were then to rush forward and kill their victim with their daggers.
At the death of Claudius, and the accession of Nero, Lateranus was fully pardoned and restored to his former rank and position, through Nero's instrumentality.
But grander than any of these palaces is that of Plautius Lateranus, the egregioe Lateranorum oedes, which became imperial property in the time of Nero, and on whose site stands the basilica of St. John Lateran, the gift of Constantine to the bishop of Rome, one of the most ancient of the Christian churches, in which, for fifteen hundred years, daily services have been performed.
This hill was the residence of many distinguished Romans, among whose palaces was that of Claudius Centumalus, which towered ten or twelve stories into the air. But grander than any of these palaces was that of Plautius Lateranus, on whose site now stands the basilica of St.
In the mean time while Lateranus and his associates were perpetrating this deed in the circus where the games were to be exhibited, Piso was to station himself in a certain temple not far distant, to await the result; while Fenius, the officer of the guard, who has already been mentioned as the chief military reliance of the conspirators, was to be posted in another part of the city, with a military cavalcade in array, ready to proceed through the streets and bring Piso forth to be proclaimed emperor as soon as he should receive the tidings that Nero had been slain.
Plautius Lateranus, the cousul-elect, was to pretend to offer a petition, in which he was to embrace the Emperor's knees and throw him to the ground, and then Scaevinus was to deal the fatal blow.
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