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Despite the multiplications of prosecutions, it is to be noted that it was still possible for a shrewd and tactful person, as exemplified by the career of Marcus Lepidus, to uphold the principles of justice and liberty without losing the favour of the emperor. Among other prosecutions, that of Cremutius, whose crime was that of praising the memory of Brutus and Cassius, demands attention, as the first of the kind.

The ambitions of Sejanus received a check when he had the presumption to request Tiberius to grant him the hand of the widow of Drusus in marriage. In order the more surely to bring disgrace on the house of Germanicus, he now implanted in the mind of Agrippina a conviction that Tiberius intended to poison her. That such suspicions were mere commonplaces of that terrible time is well illustrated by the story. Incapable of hiding her feelings, the persistent gloom of her face and voice, and her refusal of proffered dishes as she sat near Tiberius at dinner, attracted his attention; to test her, he personally commended and pressed on her some apples; this only intensified her suspicions, and she gave them to the attendants untasted. Tiberius made no open comment, but observed to his mother that it would hardly be surprising should he contemplate harsh measures towards one who obviously took him for a poisoner.

III.--Morbid Tyrant and Dotard

It was at this time that Tiberius withdrew himself from the capital, and took up his residence at a country seat where hardly anyone had access to him except Sejanus; whether at the favourite's suggestion or not is uncertain. The retreat finally selected was the island of Capræ.

The monstrous lengths to which men of the highest rank were now prepared to go to curry favour with Tiberius and Sejanus was exemplified in the ruin of Sabinus, a loyal friend of the house of Germanicus. The unfortunate man was tricked into speaking bitterly of Sejanus and Tiberius. Three senators were actually hidden above the ceiling of the room where he was entrapped into uttering unguarded phrases, and on this evidence he was condemned.

The death of the aged Livia Augusta removed the last check on the influence of Sejanus.

[The account of his two years of unqualified supremacy, and of his sudden and utter overthrow has been lost, two books of the "Annals" being missing here.]

From this time, the life of Tiberius at Capræ was one of morbid and nameless debauchery. The condition of his mind may be inferred from the opening words of one of his letters to the senate. "If I know what to write, how to write it, what not to write, may the gods and goddesses destroy me with a worse misery than the death I feel myself dying daily." The end came when Macro, the prefect of the Prætorians, who, to save his own life and secure the succession of Gaius Cæsar Caligula, the surviving son of Germanicus, caused the old emperor to be smothered.

[The record of the next ten years--the reign of Caligula, and the first years of Claudius--is lost. When the story is taken up again, the wife of Claudius, the infamous Messalina, was at the zenith of her evil career.]

While the doting pedant Claudius was adding new letters to the alphabet, Messalina was parading with utter shamelessness her last and fatal passion for Silius, and went so far as publicly to marry her paramour. It was the freedman Narcissus who made the outrageous truth known to Claudius, and practically terrorised him into striking. Half measures were impossible; a swarm of Messalina's accomplices in vice were put to death. To her, Claudius showed signs of relenting; but Narcissus gave the orders for her death without his knowledge. When they told Claudius that she was dead, he displayed no emotion, but went on with his dinner, and apparently forgot the whole matter.

A new wife had to be provided; Agrippina, the daughter of Germanicus, niece of Claudius himself, and mother of the boy Domitius, who was to become the emperor Nero, was the choice of the freedman Pallas, and proved the successful candidate. Shortly after, her new husband adopted Nero formally as his son. It was not long before she had assumed an air of equality with her husband; and all men saw that she intended him to be succeeded not by his own son Britannicus, but by hers, Nero.

Meanwhile, there had been a great revolt in Britain against the proprætor Ostorius. First the Iceni took up arms, then the Brigantes; then--a still more serious matter--the Silures, led by the most brilliant of British warriors, Caractacus. Even his skill and courage, however, were of no avail against the superior armament of the Roman legions; his forces were broken up, and he himself, escaping to the Brigantes, was by them betrayed to the Romans. The famous warrior was carried to Rome, where by his dignified demeanour he won pardon and liberty. In the Far East, Mithridates was overthrown by his nephew Rhadamistus, and Parthia and Armenia remained in wild confusion. The reign of Claudius was brought to an end by poison--the notorious Locusta was employed by Agrippina for the purpose--and he was succeeded by Nero, to whom his mother's artifices gave the priority over Britannicus.