The History of Rome: Rise and Fall of the Empire. John Bagnell Bury
he regarded delation as an admirable instrument for securing the administration and enforcement of justice, and therefore encouraged it. But when he discovered how terribly it was abused and how odious it was to his subjects, he concluded that it was too dangerous a remedy, and set himself to check it, for he was honestly anxious to administer justice purely and strictly. The citizens lived in fear and terror of the unscrupulous informers; and Tiberius tried to hinder the distortion of the laws by instituting a tribunal of fifteen senators. But he relapsed afterwards into countenancing the practice of delation, owing to the influence of the praetorian prefect, Sejanus; and as the law of treason became more comprehensive and extravagant, the delators became more terrible.
SECT. II. — RISE OR SEJANUS — DEATH OF DRUSUS
The death of Germanicus removed difficulties from the path of Tiberius, in regard to the succession. It had been difficult for him to hold the balance evenly between Germanicus and his own son. How precisely he endeavored to make no distinction between them is shown by a coin of Sardis, where Drusus comes first in the inscription, but Germanicus sits on the right hand in the picture. Drusus was morally and intellectually inferior to his cousin, but was deeply attached to him, and after his death, acted as a father to his children. The attitude of Tiberius to Germanicus seems to have been much like that of Augustus to Tiberius himself. From a feeling of duty to the state, he might acquiesce in the designation of his nephew as his successor, but his affection prompted him to prefer Drusus, though the father and son were not always on the best terms. After the mysterious death of Germanicus, he set himself to secure the succession of Drusus, to the exclusion of his nephew’s children. Ovations had been decreed to both the young Caesars for the successful discharge of their tasks in Armenia and Illyricum. The pacifier of Armenia never returned to Rome, but Drusus celebrated his ovation in 20 A.D., and in the following year held the consulship for the second time. In 22 A.D. his father raised him to the position of an imperial consort, by causing the senate and people to confer upon him the tribunician power.
But though the Emperor seemed to have cause to regard his nephew’s death as a piece of good luck, his hopes for his son were destined to be frustrated. Drusus had married the sister of Germanicus, the younger Livia, generally called Livilla to distinguish her from the wife of Augustus. She was beautiful, ambitious, and unscrupulous, and seems to have had an ally in her namesake, the Augusta. She was seduced into an intrigue with Sejanus, the handsome and powerful prefect of the guards, who pretended to be in love with her and flattered her ambitious hopes with promises of marriage and the imperial throne, if the hindrance, which stood in their way, were once removed. Sejanus was a native of Vulsinii in Etruria, and belonged to the equestrian class. In his youth he had served on the staff of Gaius Caesar. By his address and tact he had worked himself into the confidence of Tiberius, and had at length become indispensable as an adviser and semi-official minister. The Emperor did not dream how high the ambition of his favorite soared. For Sejanus was not content with being the right hand of his master; he longed to occupy himself the highest position in the state. But Tiberius was thoroughly blinded by his useful and servile instrument, and used to throw off his habitual reserve in his intercourse with Sejanus. He even went so far as to call the prefect, not only in private conversation, but in addresses to the senate and the people, “the associate of my labours”, and allowed his busts to be placed in the theatres and fora. But these marks of favor were given freely, just because it never entered the thought of Tiberius that a man of the origin and position of Sejanus could possibly be dangerous. Drusus saw more deeply into the character of his father’s favorite, and murmured at the influence which an alien had acquired at the expense of a son. On one occasion he raised his hand to strike the hated prefect. Sejanus, who had already begun to pave his way to the throne by arranging an alliance between his own daughter and a son of Claudius, the brother of Germanicus, determined to sweep Drusus from his path.
Suddenly Drusus died (23 A.D.), seemingly of an accidental illness; but eight years after it was discovered that poison had been administered to him by the machinations of his wife Livilla, and her paramour Sejanus. It was a heavy blow to Tiberius. The children of his son were still too young to be designated as his successors, and nothing was left but to adopt Nero and Drusus, the eldest sons of Germanicus. He led the youths before the senate and recommended them as the future rulers of the state. Sejanus, who had divorced his wife Apicata, proposed to marry Livilla, but Tiberius forbade the union, which could only lead to new candidates for power. The prefect was driven to frame new plans. He resolved to destroy the family of Germanicus.
Tiberius was now surrounded by four imperial widows who made his court a scene of perpetual jealousy and intrigue. These were his mother Livia and his daughter-in-law Livilla, his sister-in-law Antonia, and Agrippina. The will of Augustus had left Livia a share in the supreme power, and she desired to exert it. Her name appeared with that of her son on the imperial rescripts. Tiberius was unable to shake off her influence, while he deprecated her interference in public affairs, and she had a strong party of adherents in the senate, who proposed to call her mater patriae. The ambition of the strong-minded Agrippina had been disappointed by the death of her husband, but she hoped to rise again through her children. Her chastity and fertility made her an ideal Roman matron, but she had a violent temper and an unbridled tongue. She regarded the Emperor as her natural enemy, and the leniency which was shown to her rival Plancina filled her with resentment. Nor was she satisfied even when her sons, Nero and Drusus, were marked out as the successors of Tiberius. The fulfillment of her ambitious dreams seemed still too far away.
After the death of Drusus, Tiberius leaned more and more on Sejanus, and from this period the Romans remarked a degeneration in the home government. The prefect worked on the Emperor’s fears by pretending to discover conspiracies against him, and many acts of cruelty were committed. But it must be noted that this change for the worse affected only the circles of nobles and officials, and did not involve any deterioration in the general prosperity of the Empire. Many victims, in high positions, were sacrificed unjustly to suspicion and intrigue, but the Roman world, as a whole, was still well governed. The key to the tyranny which marked the second half of the principal of Tiberius is probably to be found in his knowledge that Agrippina had a large party of sympathizers in the senate, who, after the death of Drusus, joyfully looked forward to the succession of her children. This party he and Sejanus determined to crush out. The first victim attacked by Sejanus was C. Silius, whom we have seen doing good work in the northern frontiers, and whose wife was a friend of Agrippina. He was accused of having connived at the rebellion of Sacrovir and of extortion, and the charges pressed him so hard that he committed suicide before sentence was passed. His wife was banished, and his possessions, said to have been wrung from the provincials of Gaul, were confiscated. It is doubtful whether Cremutius Cordus, a Stoic philosopher, and author of Annals of the Republic during the period of the civil wars, was also a partisan of Agrippina. In his work he had cabled Cassius “the last of the Romans”, and although Augustus had read the book and found no fault in it, this expression was now made a cause of accusation against him. It was said that this work was an attempt to excite a rebellion. Cremutius thinking that his case was prejudged, delivered a bitter speech in the senate, and, returning home, starved himself to death. All that could then be done was to burn his books.
In the following year (26 A.D.) the delators attacked Agrippina through her cousin Claudia Pulchra. They charged this lady with the crime of adultery and also with having made attempts on the Emperor’s life by poison and magic. Thereupon Agrippina sought the presence of Tiberius, and found him sacrificing to the divinity of his father. “The same man”, she cried, “cannot offer victims to the divine Augustus, and persecute his posterity”. Stung by the reproaches which she heaped upon him, Tiberius quoted a Greek verse to this effect: “My daughter, have I done you wrong, because you are not a queen?”. On the news of the condemnation of her cousin, Agrippina fell dangerously ill. When Tiberius visited her, she besought him to permit her to take a second husband. To such a step there were the same objections which he had opposed to the union of Livilla and Sejanus, but Tiberius deemed it more prudent not to urge them then, and he left the room abruptly. This anecdote was told in the Memoirs of Agrippina’s daughter, the mother of Nero. Such scenes as these were calculated to widen the breach between Agrippina and Tiberius, and suspicions of her kinsman were artfully distilled, by the contrivance of Sejanus, into the mind of the princess.