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which had fond remembrances of Drusus, Plautus’ grandfather by marriage and cousin and adoptive brother of Nero’s own grandfather, Germanicus Caesar. Drusus had won acclaim for his work as a statesman in the East. Plautus’ familial connection with Drusus might be enough, said his accuser, for the people of the East to rise up to support him against Nero. 9
     
    Sulla had given no indication that he had ambitions to replace Nero. In fact, he showed complete apathy toward politics in general and had never made a single noteworthy speech. This was no defense, according to Tigellinus. That air of apathy displayed by Sulla, said Tigellinus, was a fabrication, designed to deflect suspicion, “while he is seeking an opening for his reckless ambition.” 10
     
    Convincing Nero to authorize Sulla’s execution, Tigellinus had acted without delay. Six days after the co-prefect’s meeting with Nero, a Praetorian execution party landed at Massilia by ship. The executioners burst in on Sulla while he was reclining at the dinner table with friends. The Praetorian centurion in charge promptly dragged Sulla across the table by the hair and lopped off his head while Sulla’s companions watched in disbelief.
     
    It was only necessary for a condemned man’s head to be returned to Rome as proof of his execution. The head was displayed in public, usually on the Gemonian Stairs, which ran down the southern slope of the Capitoline Mount between the Tabularium and the Tullianum to the Forum Romanum. Sometimes, these heads were displayed on the Rostra in the Forum. When Nero saw the grisly object before it was put on public display, he nervously commented that the victim’s hair was prematurely gray.
     
    Plautus’ removal was not as easy to accomplish. His wealth made him well placed in Roman society, with many influential men owing their loyalty to him—because they were his clients or were literally in his debt. So, it was necessary to fabricate a story about his “crime.” Tigellinus had a rumor circulated that Plautus had attempted to bring Nero’s famous general Corbulo, who was now governor of Syria and controlled a number of legions, into a plot against the emperor. According to another fabricated story that ran around the streets and bathhouses of Rome, troops had been sent to execute Plautus but the people of Asia had taken up arms in his defense, and the soldiers sent to be his executioners had gone over to his side, necessitating the dispatch of a larger execution force.
     
    These rumors also reached the ears of Plautus’ father-in-law, Lucius Antistius Vetus, in Rome. Vetus had shared the consulship with Nero several years back and had also served as governor of Asia—one of the most prestigious and sought-after of Rome’s proconsular appointments. When Vetus learned that Tigellinus had received Nero’s approval to execute Plautus and that a centurion was to lead a party of sixty Praetorians to Asia to carry out the act, the father-in-law sent one of the freedmen that Plautus had left behind at Rome hurrying to warn his master. With the benefit of good winds, the freedman’s ship had landed him in Asia ahead of the Praetorians, and he was able to pass on Vetus’ warning to Plautus.
     
    Vetus’ message cautioned Plautus to react not by taking his own life, as many a Roman would have done in the same circumstances, suicide being legal and considered a noble resort by the Romans. Instead, Vetus had said, Plautus should rally supporters around himself and seek every resource to repel the Praetorian detachment. Then, said Vetus, in the delay caused by a message being sent back to Tigellinus by his centurion seeking reinforcements to complete the mission, Plautus could raise an army and go to war against Nero.
     
    Plautus ignored the warning from his father-in-law. Under the influence of two teachers of philosophy, who counseled that he “await death with firmness rather than lead a precarious and anxious life,”