Cæsar accepted the counsel with eagerness; but Seneca when he had thought awhile, said,—
“It is easy to go, but it would be more difficult to return.”
“By Heracles!” replied Petronius, “we may return at the head of Asiatic legions.”
“This will I do!” exclaimed Nero.
But Tigellinus opposed. He could discover nothing himself, and if the arbiter’s idea had come to his own head he would beyond doubt have declared it the saving one; but with him the question was that Petronius might not be a second time the only man who in difficult moments could rescue all and every one.
“Hear me, divinity,” said he, “this advice is destructive! Before thou art at Ostia a civil war will break out; who knows but one of the surviving collateral descendants of the divine Augustus will declare himself Cæsar,
