The Historians' History of the World 06

His precautions, however, were needless. Before the letter was read, the senators, expecting to hear nothing but the praises of Sejanus and the grant of the tribunician power, were loud in testifying their zeal towards him; but as the reading proceeded their conduct sensibly altered; their looks were no longer the same; even some of those who were sitting near him rose and left their seats; the prætors and tribunes closed round him lest he should rush out and try to raise the guards, as he certainly would have done had not the letter been composed with such consummate artifice. He was in fact so thunderstruck, that it was not till the consul had called him the third time that he was able to reply. All then joined in reviling and insulting him; he was conducted to the prison by the consul and the other magistrates. As he passed along the populace poured curses and abuse on him; they cast down his statues, cut the heads off of them, and dragged them about the streets. The senate seeing this disposition of the people, and finding that the guards remained quiet, met in the afternoon in the temple of Concord, close to the prison, and condemned him to death. He was executed without delay; his lifeless body was flung down the Gemonian steps, and for three days it was exposed to every insult from the populace; it was then cast into the Tiber. His children also were put to death; his little daughter, who was to have been the bride of the prince’s grand nephew, was so young and innocent, that as they carried her to prison she kept asking what she had done, and whither they were dragging her, adding that she would do so no more, and that she might be whipped if naughty. Nay, by one of those odious refinements of barbarity which trample on justice and humanity while adhering to the letter of the law, because it was a thing unheard of for a virgin to be capitally punished, the executioner was made to deflower the child before he strangled her. Apicata, the divorced wife of Sejanus, on hearing of the death of her children, and seeing afterwards their lifeless bodies on the steps, went home; and having written to Tiberius a full account of the true manner of the death of Drusus and of the guilt of Livilla, put an end to herself. In consequence of this discovery Livilla, and all who were concerned in that murder, were put to death.

The rage of the populace was also vented on the friends of Sejanus, and many of them were slaughtered. The prætorian guards, too, enraged at being suspected and at the watchmen being preferred to them, began to burn and plunder houses. The senators were in a state of the utmost perturbation, some trembling on account of their having paid court to Sejanus, others, who had been accusers or witnesses, from not knowing how their conduct might be taken. All however conspired in heaping insult on the memory of the fallen favourite.

[31-33 A.D.]

Tiberius, now free from all apprehension, gave loose to his vengeance. From his island-retreat he issued his orders, and the prison was filled with the friends and creatures of Sejanus; the baleful pack of informers was unkennelled, and their victims of both sexes were hunted to death. Some were executed in prison; others were flung from the Capitol; the lifeless remains were exposed to every kind of indignity, and then cast into the river. Most however chose a voluntary death; for they thus not only escaped insult and pain, but preserved their property for their children.

In the following year (32) Tiberius ventured to leave his island, and sail up the Tiber as far as Cæsar’s gardens; but suddenly, no one knew why, he retreated again to his solitude, whence by letters he directed the course of cruelty at Rome. The commencement of one was so remarkable that historians have thought it deserving of a place in their works; it ran thus: “What I shall write to you, P. C., or how I shall write, or what I shall not write at this time, may the gods and goddesses destroy me worse, than I daily feel myself perishing, if I know.” A knight named M. Terentius at this time, when accused of the new crime of Sejanus’ friendship, had the courage to adopt a novel course of defence. He boldly acknowledged the charge, but justified his conduct by saying that he had only followed the example of the prince, whom it was their duty to imitate. The senate acquitted him and punished his accusers with exile or death, and Tiberius expressed himself well pleased at the decision. But in the succeeding year (33) his cruelty, joined with avarice (a vice new to him), broke out with redoubled violence. Tired of murdering in detail, he ordered a general massacre of all who lay in prison on account of their connection with Sejanus. Without distinction of age, sex, or rank, they were slaughtered; their friends dared not to approach, or even be seen to shed tears; and as their putrefying remains floated along the Tiber, no one might venture to touch or to burn them.