The History of Rome: Rise and Fall of the Empire. John Bagnell Bury
idea that the Emperor was planning to poison her, and when she was invited to sup with him, she absolutely refused to partake of any of the food that was presented to her. This undisguised declaration of her suspicions alienated the Emperor still more.
SECT. III. — TIBERIUS AT CAPRI — FALL OF SEJANUS
Hitherto Tiberius had resided continually at Rome, and devoted himself assiduously to the conduct of affairs. He had constantly talked of visiting the provinces, and even made the preliminary arrangements for the journey, but when it came to the point, he had always found a pretext for not going. He never went further from the city than Antium. But as he grew older— in 26 A.D. he had reached the age of sixty-seven—his reserve, his distrust of his fellow-creatures, his dislike to the pomp of public life, seem to have increased. He had always been reserved, sensitive, and shy; his temper had been soured by disappointments, both in his early life and in his recent years. His unpopularity in Rome, of which he was fully conscious, may have irritated him more as he became older; and his domestic life was full of worry, with Livia and Livilla on one side, and Agrippina on the other. All this might be enough to explain the motives which led him to take the momentous step of abandoning Rome and living permanently elsewhere. But if such motives operated, their effect was supported by the persuasions of the favorite Sejanus, who desired nothing better than to remove the Emperor to a distance, so as to have a free scene for his own plans. It is possible, however, that Tiberius may have been decided by a political motive. He may have wished to give Nero, the eldest son of Germanicus, an opportunity of gradually undertaking an active part in the government, and assisting him somewhat as he had himself assisted Augustus. Silly and malicious stories were circuited by the Emperor’s enemies. It was said that he sought a place of concealment for the practice of licentiousness; or that he wished to hide from the public view a face and figure deformed by old age.
He left Rome (26 A.D.) on the pretext of consecrating a temple of Jupiter at Capua, and a temple of Augustus at Nola, recently built. His attendants were one senator, Cocceius Nerva; two knights, Sejanus and another; and some men of science, and astrologers. During the Emperor’s progress in Campania, an accident happened, which increased his confidence in Sejanus. The imperial party were dining at a country house called the “Cave” (Spelunca), formed of a natural grotto, between the gulf of Amyclae and the hills of Fundi. The rocks at the entrance suddenly fell in and crushed some of the servants, and the guests fled in panic. Sejanus placed himself in front of the Emperor, and received the falling stones. This incident convinced Tiberius that his prefect was a man who had no care for himself.
Having dedicated the temples, he proceeded to the little island of Capreae, which Augustus, struck by its salubrious climate, had purchased from the people of Neapolis. Lonely and difficult to approach by its precipitous lime cliffs, yet near enough to the mainland, this island, about eleven miles in circuit and rising at either end to higher points of vantage, was an attractive retreat for the wearied statesman. Twelve villas were built by Tiberius in various parts of the island, which was vigilantly guarded from intrusion. But while his subjects thought that he had entirely relinquished the conduct of affairs to the praetorian prefect, and was spending his days in consultation with his astrologers or in foul debauchery, Tiberius still bestowed constant attention to the details of public business. But he no longer troubled himself to suppress the servility of the senate, or to check the abuses of delation. Many innocent men were betrayed by the indefatigable informers, and the senators lived in fear and peril of their lives.
The case of Titius Sabinus, a Roman knight, who was tried and put to death in 28 A.D., was an episode in the struggle between Sejanus and the party of Agrippina, to which Sabinus belonged. Sabinus, who had been a friend of Germanicus, had made himself conspicuous by the attention which he paid to the wife and children of that prince, after his death. Four ex-praetors, who wished to obtain the consulship and sought for that purpose to ingratiate themselves with Sejanus, conceived the idea that the destruction of Sabinus would be an effectual means of winning the favorite’s favor. Accordingly they laid a plot. One of them, named Latinius Latiaris, who was slightly acquainted with Sabinus, entered one day into conversation with him, praised him for not having abandoned the house of Germanicus in the hour of adversity, and spoke in compassionate terms of Agrippina. Sabinus, who was of a soft nature, took Latiaris completely into his confidence, burst into invectives against the cruelty of Sejanus, and did not spare Tiberius himself. Several treasonable conversations took place, but as it was necessary to have more witnesses, and as Sabinus would not have spoken freely in the presence of the others, the three accomplices hid themselves between the ceiling and the roof in a room in the house of Latiaris, who induced Sabinus to visit him there on the plea of making a disclosure. The utterances of the entrapped knight on this occasion were quite sufficient for his condemnation, and the conspirators immediately dispatched a letter to the Emperor informing him of the treason of Sabinus. Tiberius, in his letter to the senate on January 1st (28 A.D.), mentioned the treasonable designs of Sabinus, and suggested that it might be well to punish him. The senate condemned him to death without hesitation and received a letter of thanks from Tiberius, hinting, however, that he still apprehended treachery, but without mentioning names. He was supposed to allude to Agrippina and her son Nero.
The year 29 A.D. was marked by the death of Livia, or, as she was publicly called, Julia Augusta, at the age of eighty-six. Her funeral oration was pronounced by Gaius, the third son of Agrippina, then in his seventeenth year. Tiberius did not regret his imperious mother. The funeral was marked by little ceremony; the senate was forbidden to decree her divine honors; her will remained long unexecuted. The memory of Livia has been much wronged by history. The consort of Augustus is forgotten in the mother of Tiberius; and it is only remembered that she had done much to raise to the throne an unpopular ruler, whom the Romans cursed as a tyrant. There is reason to suppose, however, that her influence, exerted in the interests of clemency, sometimes thwarted Sejanus, and it is worthy of notice that he did not carry out his design against Agrippina until after the death of Livia. It has even been said that her death was a turning-point in the reign. Her friends, who, under her powerful protection, had ventured to speak somewhat boldly against the Emperor, were persecuted when she died. Conspicuous among these was the husband of the Emperor’s divorced wife Vipsania, Asinius Gallus, who was confined in prison for three years and then put to death.
The body of Livia had not been long bestowed in the mausoleum of Augustus, when the senate received a letter from Tiberius, containing charges against Agrippina and Nero. The son was charged with gross licentiousness, the mother with insolence and a contumacious spirit. There was no hint of disloyalty or treason, and the Emperor did not signify what he wished the senate to do. The people assembled outside the doors of the senate-house, and cried that the letter was a forgery, hinting that it was the work of Sejanus, and hearing aloft the images of Agrippina and Nero. A second message soon came from Caprese, rebuking the citizens for their rebellious behavior, and urging the senate to take definite action on the charges against the accused. The servile senators found them guilty, and they were banished to barren islands, Agrippina to Pandateria and Nero to Pontia. Agrippina’s second son Drusus still remained, but his fall, too, was speedily contrived by Sejanus. Just as he had seduced Livilla to compass the death of the elder Drusus, so now he seduced Lepida, the wife of the younger Drusus, and suborned her to calumniate her husband to Tiberius. Drusus, who, with his younger brother Gaius, lived at Capreae, was sent to Rome, as a mark of disgrace, and the senate hastened to declare him a public enemy. For the right of declaring an individual a public enemy, as of declaring war, still belonged to the senate. He was then arrested and imprisoned in the palace.
The power of Sejanus had now reached its highest point. He was regarded with greater awe than the Emperor himself. He seemed to be the true sovereign and Tiberius the mere “lord of an island” (nesiarch). Altars were raised and sacrifices offered before his statues, games were voted in his honor. But his fall was at hand. Tiberius had become jealous and suspicious of the designs of his minister; and the graver his suspicions became, the more assiduously did he seek to disguise them until the time should come for the final blow. He loaded the prefect with honors. He betrothed him to his granddaughter Julia, the widow of Nero, who had died in exile at Pontia, and he conferred on him the honor of being his colleague in the consulship. This honor also furnished him with a pretext of ridding himself of the prefect’s presence