Nero is looking for appearances, for Nero is a coward.

But Tiberius was not a coward; still he justified every step he took.

Why is this?
What a marvellous, involuntary homage paid to virtue by evil! And knowest thou what strikes me?
This, that it is done because transgression is ugly and virtue is beautiful.

Therefore a man of genuine aesthetic feeling is also a virtuous man.

Hence I am virtuous.