three days and three nights [792]; besides a plague, such as was scarcely
ever known before. Amidst these many great disasters, he not only
manifested the concern (472) which might be expected from a prince but
even the affection of a father, for his people; one while comforting them
by his proclamations, and another while relieving them to the utmost of
his power. He chose by lot, from amongst the men of consular rank,
commissioners for repairing the losses in Campania. The estates of those
who had perished by the eruption of Vesuvius, and who had left no heirs,
he applied to the repair of the ruined cities. With regard to the public
buildings destroyed by fire in the City, he declared that nobody should
be a loser but himself. Accordingly, he applied all the ornaments of his
palaces to the decoration of the temples, and purposes of public utility,
and appointed several men of the equestrian order to superintend the
work. For the relief of the people during the plague, he employed, in
the way of sacrifice and medicine, all means both human and divine.
Amongst the calamities of the times, were informers and their agents; a
tribe of miscreants who had grown up under the licence of former reigns.
These he frequently ordered to be scourged or beaten with sticks in the
Forum, and then, after he had obliged them to pass through the
amphitheatre as a public spectacle, commanded them to be sold for slaves,
or else banished them to some rocky islands. And to discourage such
practices for the future, amongst other things, he prohibited actions to
be successively brought under different laws for the same cause, or the
state of affairs of deceased persons to be inquired into after a certain
number of years.

IX. Having declared that he accepted the office of Pontifex Maximus for
the purpose of preserving his hands undefiled, he faithfully adhered to
his promise. For after that time he was neither directly nor indirectly
concerned in the death of any person, though he sometimes was justly