Note 441 — CANTO THE FOURTH[375]
Reading edition
[By "Cæsar's pageant" Byron means the pageant decreed by Tiberius Cæsar. Compare Don Juan, Canto XV. stanza xlix.—
"And this omission, like that of the bust Of Brutus at the pageant of Tiberius."
At the public funeral of Junia, wife of Cassius and sister of Brutus, A.D. 22, the busts of her husband and brother were not allowed to be carried in the procession, because they had taken part in the assassination of Julius Cæsar. But none the less, "Præfulgebant Brutus et Cassius eo ipso quod effigies eorum non videbantur" (Tacitus, Ann., iii. 76). Their glory was conspicuous in men's minds, because their images were withheld from men's eyes. As Tacitus says elsewhere (iv. 26), "Negatus honor gloriam intendit."]