We should understand just how arrogantly he carried out his cruelty. Someone might think we're getting off topic here, but this digression connects to unusual bursts of anger. He beat senators with rods. He did it so often that people could say, "That's just how things are done now." He tortured them with every horrible device imaginable — ropes, boots, the rack, fire, and the sight of his own face. Even to this we might say: "Tearing three senators apart with whips and fire like criminal slaves was no great crime for someone who planned to butcher the entire Senate. This was a man who wished the Roman people had just one neck, so he could concentrate all his evil into one day and one blow instead of spreading it across so many places and times." Was there ever anything so unheard-of as an execution at night? Highway robbers seek the cover of darkness, but the more public an execution is, the more power it has as an example and lesson.
It is to the purpose that we should know how haughtily his cruelty was exercised, although some one might suppose that we are wandering from the subject and embarking on a digression; but this digression is itself connected with unusual outbursts of anger. He beat senators with rods; he did it so often that he made men able to say, “It is the custom.” He tortured them with all the most dismal engines in the world, with the cord, the boots, the rack, the fire, and the sight of his own face. Even to this we may answer, “To tear three senators to pieces with stripes and fire like criminal slaves was no such great crime for one who had thoughts of butchering the entire Senate, who was wont to wish that the Roman people had but one neck, that he might concentrate into one day and one blow all the wickedness which he divided among so many places and times. Was there ever anything so unheard-of as an execution in the night-time? Highway robbery seeks for the shelter of darkness, but the more public an execution is, the more power it has as an example and lesson.