some angst and some giggles

I can't decide whether it's unreasonable for me to even be contemplating applying/auditioning to two vastly different kinds of graduate program, or whether I should be able to do it, if I were more focused and organized and single-(double)minded.

On the other hand, some excerpts from Gwyn Morgan's 69 A.D.: The Year of Four Emperors (Oxford, 2006):

No sooner had Helvidius returned, however, than he took advantage of a senate meeting to try to settle scores with Marcellus. In later days, Helvidius too would be idolized by supposedly freedom-loving senators, but he must have been almost impossible to deal with in person. (49)

Tacitus asserts that nobody had the desire ore the nerve to claim Galba's corpse that day, but this need not contradict Plutarch's assertion that the insufferable Helvidius Priscus undertook the task. (72)

Also to humor the senators, the emperor attended meetings and acted as one of them, even when trivial matters were discussed. But one result was a confrontation with that prickly champion of "free speech," Helvidius Priscus. Helvidius seems to have proposed a motion contrary to Vitellius' wishes. (160)

Once they turned to the restoration of the temple, the stiff-necked Helvidius Priscus threw a wrench in the works. So was Rome robbed of any guidance, says Tacitus: the defeated Vitellians grumbled, the victorious Flavians got nothing done, and later senate meetings bogged down in petty quibbles and pointless recriminations. (257)

Helvidius Priscus resumed his career as the noisiest critic of every emperor from Nero on, until the otherwise equable Vespasion put him to death in 75. (267)

Wait, wait wait, Professor Morgan -- I think you are being too subtle with respect to your assessment of Helvidius Priscus' career.