ekker (followed by Dindorf) regarded it as coming after "secretly"
and consisting of but a word or two (e.g. "he hated them") but Boissevain
locates it as indicated above and believes that considerably more is
missing.] because he understood that they were doing this secretly
[Lacuna] Then there was another thing] that resembled play-acting.
Domitian pretended that he too loved his brother and mourned him. He read,
with tears, the eulogies upon him [and hastened to have him enrolled among
the heroes], pretending just the opposite of what he really wished.
(Indeed, he abolished the horse-race on Titus's birthday). People in
general were not safe whether they sympathized with his indignation or
with his joy. In one case they [Footnote: Reading [Greek: emellon]
(Dindorf, Boissevain).] were sure to offend his feelings and in the other
to let their lack of genuineness appear.

[Sidenote: A.D. 83 (a.u. 836)] [Sidenote:--3--] His wife, Domitia, he
planned to put to death on the ground of adultery, but, having been
dissuaded by Ursus, he sent her away and midway on the road murdered
Paris, the dancer, because of her. And many people paid honor to that spot
with flowers [Sidenote: A.D. 83 (a.u. 836)] and perfumes, he gave orders
that they, too, should be slain. After this he took into his house, quite
undisguisedly, his own niece,--Julia, that is to say. [Then on petition of
the people he became reconciled, to be sure, with Domitia, but continued
none the less his relations with Julia.]

He was removing many of the foremost men on many pretexts and by means of
murders and banishments. [He also conveyed many to some out-of-the-way
place, where he got rid of them; and not a few he caused to die in some
way or other by their own acts that they might seem to have suffered death
by their own wish and not through outside force.] He did not spare even
the vestal virgins, but punished them on charges of their having had
intercourse with men. It is further reported that since their examination
was conducted in a harsh and unfeeling manner, and many of them were
accused and constantly being punished, one of the pontifices, Helvius
Agrippa, could not endure it, but, horror-stricken, expired there in the
senate where he sat. [Domitian also took pride in the fact that he did not
bury alive, as was the custom, the virgins he found guilty of debauchery,
but ordered them to be killed by some different way.]

After this he set out for Gaul and