The Historians' History of the World 06

The deaths of his grandson Drusus, and his daughter-in-law Agrippina, were added to the atrocities of this year. The former perished by the famine to which he was destined, after he had sustained life till the ninth day by eating the stuffing of his bed. The tyrant then had the shamelessness to cause to be read in the senate the diary which had been kept of everything the unhappy youth had said or done for a course of years, and of the indignities which he had endured from the slaves and guards who were set about him. Agrippina had cherished hopes of meeting with justice after the fall of Sejanus; but finding them frustrated, she resolved to starve herself to death. Tiberius, when informed, ordered food to be forced down her throat, but she finally accomplished her purpose; he then endeavoured to defame her memory by charging her with unchastity. As her death occurred on the same day as that of Sejanus two years before, he directed it to be noted, and he took to himself as a merit that he had not caused her to be strangled or cast down the Gemonian steps. The obsequious senate returned him thanks for his clemency, and decreed that on the 18th of October, the day of both their deaths, an offering in gold should be made to Jupiter.

The Cæsarian family was now reduced to Claudius the brother and Caius the son of Germanicus, and his three daughters, Agrippina, Drusilla, and Livilla, (whom Tiberius had given in marriage respectively to Cn. Domitius, L. Cassius, and M. Vinicius,) and Tiberius and Julia the children of Drusus, which last had been married to her cousin Nero, and now was given in marriage to Rubellius Blandus.

[33-37 A.D.]

From his very outset in life, Tiberius had been obliged more or less to conceal his natural character. Augustus, Germanicus, Drusus, his mother, had successively been a check on him; and even Sejanus, though the agent of his cruelty, had been the cause of his lusts being restrained. But now all barriers were removed; for Caius was so abject a slave to him, that he modelled himself on his character and his words, only seeking to conceal his own vices. He therefore now at length gave free course to all his vicious propensities, and it almost chills the blood to read the details of the horrid practices in which he indulged amidst the rocks of Capreæ. Meantime there was no relaxation of his cruelty; Macro was as bad as Sejanus, only more covertly; there was no lack of delators, and men of rank perished daily.e

TACITUS DESCRIBES THE LAST DAYS OF TIBERIUS

[37 A.D.]

At Rome, meanwhile, were sown the seeds that were destined to yield a harvest of blood after the decease of Tiberius. Lælius Balbus had charged Acutia, sometime the wife of Publius Vitellius, with high treason; and, as the senate was, after her condemnation, decreeing a reward to the accuser, Junius Otho, tribune of the people, interposed his veto; hence their mutual hate, and afterwards the exile of Otho. Then Albucilla, infamous for her many amours, who had been married to Satrius Secundus, the man who revealed the conspiracy of Sejanus, was impeached of impiety towards the prince. In the charge were involved, as her accomplices and her adulterers, Cneius Domitius, Vibius Marsus, and Lucius Arruntius. Domitius was of noble descent. Marsus, too, was distinguished by the ancient dignities of his house, and his own fame for learning. The minutes, however, transmitted to the senate, imported, “that in the examination of the witnesses, and torture of the slaves, Macro had presided;” and as no letter came from the emperor against the accused, it was suspected, that, while he was ill, and perhaps without his privity, the accusations were in great measure forged, in consequence of the notorious enmity of Macro to Arruntius.