Causae variae traduntur: alii taedio novae curae semel placita pro aeternis serva-visse; quidam invidia, ne plures fruerentur; sunt qui existiment, ut callidum eius ingenium, ita anxium iudicium; neque enim eminentis virtutes sectabatur, et rursum vitia oderat: ex optimis periculum sibi, a pessimis dedecus publicum metuebat.
Various reasons are given. Some hold it was the weary dislike of recurring trouble which caused him to treat a decision once framed as eternally valid; others that he grudged to see too many men enjoying preferment; while there are those who believe that as his intellect was shrewd so his judgment was hesitant; for, on the one hand, he did not seek out pre-eminent virtue, and, on the other, he detested vice: the best he feared as a private danger, the worst as a public scandal.
final_alignments\Tacitus_Annals_Book1.json