IX. (62) But after Macro and all his house had been sacrificed, Gaius then began to design a third more grievous piece of treachery still. His fatherin-law had been Marcus Silanus, a man full of wisdom, and very illustrious by birth. He, after his daughter had died by an early death, still was very attentive and affectionate to Gaius, showing all imaginable regard for him, not so much like a father-in-law as like an actual father, and he hoped that he should find that Gaius also entertained equal good will towards him, transforming himself according to the principles of equality from a son-in-law into a son; but he was, without knowing it, cherishing mistaken opinions, and deluding himself, (63) for he was continually uttering affectionate speeches, keeping back nothing which could tend to the amelioration and improvement of Gaius’s disposition and way of life and mode of government, speaking with all freedom, and looking upon his own surpassing nobility of birth and nearness of connexion by marriage as circumstances which gave him grounds for great familiarity and openness, for his daughter had been dead only a very short time, so that the laws and bonds which bind such kinsmen were scarcely destroyed, and one may almost say were still quivering with life, some relics of the breath of vitality being still left, as it were, and remaining warm in the body. (64) But Gaius, looking upon every admonition as an insult, because he fancied that he himself was the wisest and most virtuous of all men, and moreover the most valorous and the most just, hated all who ventured to offer him instruction more than even his avowed enemies. (65) Therefore, looking on Silanus as a bore, who only wished to check the impetuosity and indulgence of his appetites, and discarding all recollection of and regard for his deceased wife, he treacherously put her father to death, who was also his own father-in-law.
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