Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 5, 2025
When I rolled into bed I had felt so utterly done up with the excitement of my interviews with Vedius and Satronius, with the exertion of standing in the Throne-room and through the Emperor's lecture on chariot design, that I had renounced my intention of calling on Vedia and had resigned myself to postponing my attempt to see her until the morrow.
"Not any more of a bumpkin than I or any of the rest of us here. You are too high and mighty, Opsitius. It is true that in our countryside the only senators are Aemilius, Vedius and Satronius, and that in our immediate vicinity Hirnio and Hedulio are the only proprietors of equestrian rank but we commoners here are no bumpkins or clodhoppers." "I apologize," Tanno spoke conciliatingly.
You know what that means to you." The Emperor spoke with a sustained, white-hot fury and it was comical to watch Satronius and Vedius, as I did by sidelong glances when the Emperor's eyes were not on my face. When he stopped, both magnates bowed low and each in turn expressed his loyal submissiveness. The Emperor dismissed them with a wave of his hand.
The first man I recognized was Faltonius Bambilio, unmistakably pompous and self-satisfied. Although a senator he came early. Later I saw Vedius Vedianus and, far from him, Satronius Satro. Didius Julianus, always the most ostentatious of the senators, was unmistakable even in section B, further from me than any part of the Circus except the left hand starting stalls and their neighborhood.
I felt impelled to state my case to both Vedius and Satronius, but I knew that even if I had been in the best of health, even if I should be eloquent beyond my best previous effort, there was little or no chance that anything I might say would avail to placate either magnate or to abate either's hostility toward me.
Satronius was similarly in contrast with Vedius, a man tall, bulky, swarthy, rubicund and overbearing. No finesse about Satronius, not a trace. From amid his bevy of sycophants and toadies, over the heads of his fashionably garbed guests, he towered, his face red as a beacon, his big bullet head wagging, his great mouth open.
No secrets here. Let us all in." The letter began with all the traditional polite formalities, as had that from Vedius. It read: "Satronius Dromo to his valued friend Andivius Hedulio. If you are well I am well also. I was writing at Villa Satronia on the day before the Nones of June.
When you are settled at Rome I beg that, when perfectly convenient to you, you convey my warmest regards to my cousin's widow, Vedia Venusta. "Farewell." At this letter I was fairly thunderstruck. That Satronius should take any notice of me at all was more amazing than the graciousness of Vedius.
Now, in the Imperial Audience Hall, he was almost a full head taller than any man in the press about him, so that I could not but be aware of his satirical gaze. He was a singularly handsome man, surpassed by few among our nobility, and I had remarked how he dwarfed Vedius, how he made him appear stunted and contemptible.
I lay abed, my mind milling over my situation, over Vedia's unexpected jealousy of Marcia, over the absurdity of it, over her illogical but impregnable indignation and over the equally baseless but similarly unalterable hostility of Vedius and Satronius. I concluded to try again to placate all three.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking