Petronius repeated in public, it is true, that it was all one to him, and that he had spoken to Caesar only privately, as the arbiter elegantiarum whose aesthetic taste was offended by a barbarous slaughter befitting Scythians and not Romans.

Nevertheless, people who were indignant because of the slaughter loved Petronius from that moment forth.

But he did not care for their love.

He remembered that that crowd of people had loved also Britannicus, poisoned by Nero; and Agrippina, killed at his command; and Octavia, smothered in hot steam at the Pandataria, after her veins had been opened previously; and Rubelius Plautus, who had been banished; and Thrasea, to whom any morning might bring a death sentence.

The love of the mob might be considered rather of ill omen; and the sceptical Petronius was superstitious also.