Even in those days, however,
imperfect as were the means of travelling, rebellion moved somewhat too
rapidly to allow any long interval of security so light-minded as this.
One courier followed upon the heels of another, until he felt the
necessity for leaving Naples; and he returned to Rome, as the historian
says, _praetrepidus_; by which word, however, according to its genuine
classical acceptation, we apprehend is not meant that he was highly
alarmed, but only that he was in a great hurry. That he was not yet under
any real alarm (for he trusted in certain prophecies, which, like those
made to the Scottish tyrant "kept the promise to the ear, but broke it to
the sense,") is pretty evident, from his conduct on reaching the capitol.
For, without any appeal to the senate or the people, but sending out a few
summonses to some men of rank, he held a hasty council, which he speedily
dismissed, and occupied the rest of the day with experiments on certain
musical instruments of recent invention, in which the keys were moved by
hydraulic contrivances. He had come to Rome, it appeared, merely from a
sense of decorum.
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