a Roman historian, who, after having lived long and blamelessly, was impeached by two of his
own clients before Tiberius of having praised Brutus and denominated Cassius " the last of the
Romans"--" crimine," says Tacitus, " novo ac tunc primum audito." His real offence, however,
was the freedom of speech in which he had indulged against Sejanus, for the work in which the
objectionable passages occurred had been published for many years, and had been read with
approbation by Augustus himself. Perceiving from the relentless aspect of the emperor that
there was no room for hope, Cordus delivered an apology, the substance of which has been
preserved or fabricated by Tacitus, appealing to the impunity enjoyed under similar
circumstances by all preceding annalists, and then quitting the senate-house retired to his
own mansion, where he starved himself to death. (
Octav. 35, Tib. 61, Calig. 16; Senec. Suasor. vii., and especially his