Oderint modo metuant.

Let them hate me, so they do but fear me. But he of whom many are afraid, ought to be afraid of many, as was exemplified in the case of the Emperor Tiberius, who had this saying frequent in his mouth. He lived to be universally feared and execrated, and knowing what a host of enemies he had created by his cruelties and lust, he found it necessary to go into a sort of banishment, in the island of Caprea, where he drew out a miserable existence, alarmed at every noise, and fancying he saw a dagger in the hand of every one who approached him. The adage was also used to be applied to persons, whose sole pleasure or satisfaction centered in their wealth. Call me what you will, such men would say, I please myself with the knowledge that I am rich.

––––«Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo
Ipse domi, simulac nummos contemplor in area». (Horace, Satires, I, 1, 66-7)