There  may  also  have  been  some  discontent  with  the
practice  instituted  by  Vespasian,  but  not  destined  to
survive  his  dynasty,  by  which  the  first  (or  ordinary)
consulship  of  each  year,  whose  holders  took  office  on
the  1st  of  January  and  gave  their  name  to  the  year,
was  almost  always  held  by  the  Emperor  and  his
relations,  so  that  an  empty  but  coveted  honour  was
denied  to  the  aristocracy.  Thus,  although  open
opposition  was  non-existent  and  in  fact  impossible,  a
clique  oi  frondeurs^  most  of  whom  professed  Stoic
principles,  were  at  little  pains  to  conceal  their  dis-
satisfaction with  the  government,  and,  seeing  that
they  had  no  longer  a  Nero  or  a  Tigellinus  to  fear,
talked  more  or  less  open  Republicanism.  The  chief
of  these  was  Helvidius  Priscus,  the  son-in-law  of
Nero's  victim,  Thrasea  Psetus,  and  the  natural  heir
to  a  position  which  we  can  scarcely  honour  with  the
name  of  party  leadership.  He  was  less  prudent  and
less  dignified  than  his  father-in-law,  while  equally
destitute  of  constructive  ideas — for  the  cult  of  Cato
and  Brutus  certainly  does  not  deserve  to  be  so
entitled — and  perhaps  deserves  to  be  remembered
chiefly  as  the  subject  of  the  immortal  epigram  in
which  Tacitus  describes  the  love  of  fame  as  the  last
infirmity  of  philosophic  minds.  Ultimately  Ves-
pasian banished  him  from  Rome,  then  ordered  him


Il8  THE   FLAVIAN  DYNASTY

to  be  put  to  dekth,  and  finally  attempted  (when  too
late)  to  cancel  the  order.  We  do  not  know  the  rights
of  the  case,  but  it  is  fair  to  say  that  the  Emperor's
detractors — the  party  to  whom  Helvidius  was  a
saint  and  martyr — never  questioned  his  reluctance
to  inflict  the  penalty  of  death.  He  expelled  the
professors  of  Stoic  and  Cynic  philosophy  from  Rome,
since  they  kept  up  a  ceaseless  agitation  against  his
government  ;  but  when  the  most  violent  of  them,  a
Greek  named  Demetrius,  refused  to  abate  his  tirades
against  monarchy,  Vespasian  merely  said  :  "  I  never
kill  a  barking  dog."  It  is  likely  enough,  therefore,
that  Helvidius  may  have  given  ground  for  the  sus-
picion that  he  was  engaged  in  treasonable  conspiracy.
