Book 28
1.40
Nevertheless, the iron-hearted judge, often as he deviated from law and justice, was endurable in what may be called one special thing. For at times he could be prevailed upon to show mercy to some; although this, we read in the following passage in Cicero,Ad Quint. Frat. i. 1, 13, 39. is almost a vice: For, he says, when anger is implacable, there is extreme severity; but if it yields to entreaties, the greatest inconstancy: yet the latter, as a choice of evils, is to be preferred to severity.
1.41
After this, Maximinus received a successor,Ursicinus; see § 44, below. and was summoned to the emperor’s court, as LeoCf. 1, 12, above. had been before him; and there, being promoted to the praetorian prefecture, he was no whit milder, but like the basilisk,Cf. xxii. 15, 27, and Spenser, F.Q. iv. 8, 39: Like as the Basiliske, of serpents seede, From powrefull eyes close venim doth convey Into the lookers hart, and killeth farre away. was harmful even from a distance.
1.42
At that time, or not much earlier, the brooms with which the assembly-hall of the nobles was swept were seen to bloom, and this was an omen that some men of the most despised station would be raised to high rank in the offices of state.
