Page:The Sins of the Cities of the Plain.djvu/229

This page has been validated.
CITIES OF THE PLAIN
115

consular family, bawled out publicly that he had been having the Emperor until his back ached.

Cladius stuck to women, although he saw no harm in boys being debauched. Even his own son-in-law (to show the prevalence of the vice), we may observe, was stabbed and murdered while in the act of having his favourite boy.

Nero, of course, is not behindhand, and shows himself a true Roman Emperor by having the young Aulus Plautius by force, and then having him executed—the terrible result of worn-out desires, the irresistible impulse to remove from the face of the earth the man or woman you have satiated yourself with.

Our old friend Vitellus, when he came to the throne, managed the state entirely by the advice of the lowest classes, at