He commanded the several orders of the people to bring in a fixed
proportion of their estates, as they stood in the censor's books; all
tenants of houses and mansions to pay one year's rent forthwith into the
exchequer; and, with unheard-of strictness, would receive only new coin
of the purest silver and the finest gold; insomuch that most people
refused to pay, crying out unanimously that he ought to squeeze the
informers, and oblige them to surrender their gains.

XLV. The general odium in which he was held received an increase by the
great scarcity of corn, and an occurrence connected with it. For, as it
happened just at that time, there arrived from Alexandria a ship, which
was said to be freighted (374) with dust for the wrestlers belonging to
the emperor [621]. This so much inflamed the public rage, that he was
treated with the utmost abuse and scurrility. Upon the top of one of his
statues was placed the figure of a chariot with a Greek inscription, that
"Now indeed he had a race to run; let him be gone." A little bag was
tied about another, with a ticket containing these words; "What could I
do?"--"Truly thou hast merited the sack." [622] Some person likewise
wrote on the pillars in the forum, "that he had even woke the cocks [623]
with his singing." And many, in the night-time, pretending to find fault
with their servants, frequently called for a Vindex. [624]

XLVI. He was also terrified with manifest warnings, both old and new,
arising from dreams, auspices, and omens. He had never been used to
dream before the murder of his mother. After that event, he fancied in
his sleep that he was steering a ship, and that the rudder was forced
from him: that he was dragged by his wife Octavia into a prodigiously
dark place; and was at one time covered over with a vast swarm of winged
ants, and at another, surrounded by the national images which were set up
near Pompey's theatre, and hindered from advancing farther; that a