The Historians' History of the World 06 [The Early Roman Empire]

Roman Lamp

At length (26) Tiberius quitted Rome and went into Campania, under the pretext of dedicating a temple to Jupiter at Capua, and one to Augustus at Nola; but with the secret intention of never returning to the city. Various causes, all perhaps true, are assigned for this resolution. The suggestions of Sejanus were not without effect; he was grown thin, and stooped; he was quite bald, and his face was full of blotches and ulcers, to which he was obliged to have plasters constantly applied; and he may therefore have sought, on this account, to retire from the public view. It is further said that he wished to escape from the authority of his mother, who seemed to consider herself entitled to share the power which he had obtained through her exertions. [But whatever the exact motive that actuated Tiberius, his withdrawal constituted a virtual desertion of the capital, since he never returned.]

He was accompanied only by one senator, Cocceius Nerva, who was deeply skilled in the laws, by Sejanus and another knight, and by some persons, chiefly Greeks, who were versed in literature. A few days after he set out an accident occurred, which was near being fatal to him, but proved fortunate for Sejanus. As at one of his country-seats near Fundi, named the Caverns (Speluncæ), he was, for the sake of the coolness, dining in one of the natural caverns, whence the villa derived its appellation, a great quantity of the stones, which formed its roof, fell down and crushed some of the attendants to death. Sejanus threw himself over Tiberius to protect him with his own body, and was found in that position by the soldiers who came to their relief. This apparent proof of generous self-devotion raised him higher than ever in the estimation of the prince.

While Tiberius was rambling from place to place in Campania (27), a dreadful calamity occurred at Fidenæ, in consequence of the fall of a temporary amphitheatre erected by a freedman named Atilius for giving a show of gladiators; the number of the killed and maimed is said to have been fifty thousand.[11] The conduct of the nobility at Rome on this melancholy occasion showed that all virtue had not departed from them; they threw open their houses for the sufferers, and supplied them with medical attendance and remedies; so that, as the great historian observes, the city wore the appearance of the Rome of the olden time, when after battles the wounded were thus humanely treated. This calamity was immediately followed by a tremendous fire on the Cælian Hill; but Tiberius alleviated the evil by giving the inhabitants the amount of their losses in money.

Having dedicated the temples, and rambled for some time through the towns of Campania, Tiberius finally fixed on the islet of Capreæ [the modern Capri] in the Bay of Naples as his permanent abode. This isle, which lay at the short distance of three miles from the promontory of Surrentum, was accessible only in one place; it enjoyed a mild temperature, and commanded a most magnificent view of the bay of Naples and the lovely region which encompassed it.[12] But the delicious retreat was speedily converted by the aged prince into a den of infamy, such as has never perhaps found its equal; his vicious practices, however, were covered by the veil of secrecy, for he still lay under some restraint.

[27-29 A.D.]

When Tiberius left Rome, Sejanus renewed his machinations against Agrippina and her children and friends. He directed his first efforts against her eldest son Nero, whom he surrounded with spies; and as this youth was married to a daughter of Livia, his wife was instructed by her abandoned mother to note and report all his most secret words and actions. Sejanus kept a faithful register of all he could learn in these various ways, and regularly transmitted it to Tiberius. He also drew to his side Nero’s younger brother Drusus, a youth of a fiery turbulent temper, and who hated him because he was his mother’s favourite. It was however Sejanus’ intention to destroy him also when he should have served his purpose against Nero.

At this time also he made his final and fatal attack on Titius Sabinus, whose crime was his attachment to the family of Germanicus. The bait of the consulate, of which Sejanus alone could dispose, induced four men of prætorian dignity to conspire his ruin. The plan proposed was that one of them, named Latinius Latiaris, who had some knowledge of Sabinus, should draw him into conversation, out of which a charge of treason might be manufactured. The plot succeeded; Latiaris, by praising the constancy of Sabinus in friendship, led him gradually on to speak as he thought of Sejanus, and even of Tiberius. At length, under pretence of having something of great importance to reveal, he brought him into a chamber where the other three were concealed between the ceiling and the roof. A charge of treason was therefore speedily concocted and forwarded to Tiberius, from whom a letter came on New Year’s Day (28), plainly intimating to the senate his desire of vengeance. This sufficed for that obsequious body, and Sabinus was dragged forth and executed without delay.

In his letter of thanks to the senate, Tiberius talked of the danger he was in, and of the plots of his enemies, evidently alluding to Agrippina and Nero. These unfortunate persons lost their only remaining refuge the following year (29) by the death of the prince’s mother, Julia Augusta,[13] whose influence over her son, and regard for her own descendants, had held Sejanus in restraint. This soon appeared by the arrival of a letter from Tiberius, accusing Nero of unnatural practices, and speaking of the arrogance of Agrippina; but while the senate were in debate, the people surrounded the house, carrying the images of Agrippina and Nero, and crying out that the letter was forged, and the prince deceived. Nothing therefore was done on that day, and Sejanus took the opportunity of irritating the mind of Tiberius, who wrote again to the senate; but as in the letter he forbade their proceeding to extremes, they passed a decree, declaring themselves prepared to avenge the prince, were they not hindered by himself.

[29-31 A.D.]

Most unfortunately the admirable narrative of Tacitus fails us at this point; and for the space of more than two years, and those the most important of the reign of Tiberius, we are obliged to derive our knowledge of events from the far inferior notices of Dion Cassius and Suetonius. We are therefore unable to display the arts by which Sejanus effected the ruin of Agrippina and her children, and can only learn that she was relegated to the isle of Pandataria, where, while she gave vent to her indignation, her eye was struck out by a centurion; and that Nero was placed in the isle of Pontia, and forced to terminate his own life. The further fate of Agrippina and Drusus we shall have to relate.

Sejanus now revelled in the enjoyment of power; every one feared him, every one courted and flattered him. “In a word,” says Dion,[o] “he seemed to be emperor, Tiberius merely the ruler of an island”; for while the latter dwelt in solitude and apparently unthought of, the doors of the former were thronged every morning with saluting crowds, and the first men of Rome attended him on his way to the senate. His pride and insolence, as is always the case with those who rise otherwise than by merit, kept pace with his power, and men hated while they feared and flattered him.e

Let us cite an instance of this fulsome flattery from the pages of the contemporary chronicler, Velleius Paterculus, a Roman who had served nine years as a soldier in Germany, and who had been military tribune and afterwards quæstor and prætor. The panegyric with which Velleius closes his Epitome of Roman History eulogises Sejanus along with the emperor himself, and his mother. This eulogium is worth transcribing at length as it illustrates the contrast between contemporary estimates—be they candid or hypocritical—and the judgment of posterity.a