As he has now
heard the charge, so you shall now hear the defense of my Prefect of the
Praetorium."
I must say that Perennis, though manifestly thunderstruck, kept his
senses, kept his self-command and, after a brief instant in which he
paled, swayed and seemed utterly dazed, rose to the occasion. For that
brief instant he appeared as overcome as his horrified wife and sister,
who all but fainted on their seats; as his horrified sons, who stood,
agape, dead-pale, one by his white-faced mother, and the other by his
incredulous aunt.
Perennis, certainly, gathered himself together promptly, got himself under
full control, had all his wits about him and made a perfectly conceived,
finely delivered, coherent, logical, telling speech in his own defence. It
was long, but nowhere diffuse, and it held the attention manifestly, not
only of the mutineers, but of the Emperor himself, and of all his retinue,
even the most vacuous of the mere courtiers. As he ended it, it was plain
that Perennis believed he had cleared himself completely and had not only
vindicated himself before his master, but had convinced the mutineers of
his guiltlessness and loyalty. His expression of face, as he wound up his
eloquent peroration, was that of a man who, unexpectedly to himself,
transmounts insuperable difficulties and triumphs.
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