Senatus et primores in incerto erant, procul an coram atrocior haberetur: dehinc, quae natura magnis timoribus, deterius credebant quod evenerat.
The senate and high aristocracy were in doubt whether his cruelty was more formidable at a distance or at close quarters: in the upshot, as is inevitable in all great terrors, they believed the worse possibility to be the one which had become a fact.
final_alignments\Tacitus_Annals_Book15.json