[125] Besides the two circumstances which I have mentioned there is a third which seems to me to have been brought about by divine providence. He had started on his voyage in early winter and endured a multitude of hardships, tasting of the terrors of the sea also, a just fate for one who had filled the elements of the universe with his impious deeds. When with difficulty he arrived in Italy the charges against him were taken up by two of his worst enemies, Isidorus and Lampo.
[126] It was not long since these men had ranked as his subjects and hailed him as their master and benefactor and saviour and the like. But now they appeared to plead against him with a strength which was not a mere match for his but vastly more powerful. For not merely had they confidence in the justice of their case but their most important advantage was that they saw that he who presided over human affairs was his mortal enemy, who would assume, indeed, the guise of a judge to save himself from appearing to condemn anyone by anticipation and without trial, but in his actions would be revealed as an enemy, who forestalled the accusation and defence by condemning him already in his soul and had fixed his punishment at the uttermost.
[127] And no lot is so hard as for superiors to be accused by inferiors and rulers by their former subjects; as well might masters be accused by the slaves whom they have bred in their house or purchased with their money.