Kitap 28
1.35
The woman, fearful of these troubles, and wishing to protect herself by the help of Maximinus, pretended that her husband in a will which he had made shortly before his death had left him 3000 pounds of silver. Maximinus then, enflamed with excessive greed—for he was not free from that vice also—demanded half of her inheritance. But by no means content even with this, which he thought too little, he devised another plan, honourable and safe (as he thought), and in order not to lose the opportunity which was offered him for profiting from rich estate, he asked for the hand of the step-daughter of Victorinus (Anepsia’s own child) for his son; and this was quickly secured with the woman’s consent.
1.36
Through these and other equally lamentable crimes, which were a blot on the fair aspect of the Eternal City, this man, to be named only with groans, made his violent way over the ruins of many fortunes, passing beyond the limits afforded by the courts. For he is said to have had a cord hanging from a secluded window of his palace, the lower end of which could pick up certain seemingly incriminating charges, supported, it is true, by no evidence, but nevertheless likely to injure many innocent persons.The text is very uncertain, and probably corrupt; see the crit. note. The general meaning is clear. And sometimes he ordered Mucianus and Barbarus, his attendants, who were most skilled in deception, severally to be cast out of his house.
