Thus his popularity and prestige were greater when he won, than while he ruled the empire,¢ though he gave many proofs of being an excellent prince ; but he was by no means so much loved for those qualities as he was hated for his acts of the opposite character. He was wholly under the control of three men, who were commonly known as his tutors because they lived with him in the palace and never left his side. They were Titus Vinius, one of his generals in Spain, a man of unbounded covetousness ; Cornelius Laco, advanced from the position of judge’s assistant to that of prefect of the Guard and _intolerably haughty and indolent; and his own freedman Icelus, who had only just before received the honour of the gold ring¢ and the surname of Marcianus, yet already aspired to the highest office open to the equestrian order.’ To these brigands, each with his different vice, he so entrusted and handed over as their tool, that his conduct was himself far from consistent; for now he was more exacting and niggardly, and now more extravagant and reckless than became a prince chosen by the people and of his time of life. He condemned to death divers distinguished men of both orders on trivial suspicions without a trial. He rarely granted Roman citizenship, and the privileges of threefold paternity? to hardly one or two, and even to those only for a fixed and limited time. When the jurors petitioned that a sixth division be added to their number, he not only refused, but even deprived them of the privilege granted by Claudius,? of not being summoned for court duty in winter and at the beginning of the year.