The History of Rome: Rise and Fall of the Empire. John Bagnell Bury
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Rome to perform the functions of the consuls, on behalf of both himself and Tiberius, and he was received with abject flattery by senate and people. The senate decreed the consulate to him along with Tiberius for five years, and he was disappointed when Tiberius insisted on resigning it in the fifth month (31A.D.).
The messages, which from time to time arrived from Capri, were uncertain and puzzling. Tiberius intended to keep Sejanus in a state of restless uncertainty, he conferred upon him the proconsular power and raised him to the dignity of a priest, but at the same time he mentioned, his nephew Gaius Caesar with great favor, and conferred a priesthood on him also. Sejanus felt uneasy, and besought Tiberius to allow him to return to Capreae, to see his betrothed bride, who was ill. The request was refused, on the ground that the Emperor and his family were about to visit Rome. In a letter to the senate, which arrived soon after, “Sejanus” was mentioned without the addition of his titles, and it was forbidden to yield divine honors to a mortal. Besides this the enemies of the prefect were treated with favor. These things seemed to forebode disgrace, and Sejanus resolved to forestall his fall by overthrowing his master. A conspiracy was formed to kill Tiberius when he came to Rome, but Satrius Secundus, one of the conspirators, betrayed the plot to Antonia, and she hastened to reveal it to her brother-in-law.
It would hardly have been safe to denounce openly the treason of Sejanus. To strike down the prefect of the praetorian guards required caution and cunning. Tiberius selected a trusted officer, Sertorius Macro, to succeed Sejanus as prefect, and instructed him how he was to proceed. When Macro reached Rome (October 17) it was midnight. He immediately sought the house of the consul Memmius Regulus, and, having revealed the purpose of his coming, caused him to summon a meeting of the senate, early in the morning, in the temple of Apollo on the Palatine. This place of meeting was perhaps chosen, in order that, if a disturbance should arise, Drusus, who was a captive in the adjoining palace, might readily be produced. Macro then visited Graecinus Laco, the commander of the cohortes vigilum, and arranged with him that the approaches to the temple should be guarded. In the morning, as Sejanus was proceeding to the senate, attended by an aimed retinue, Macro met him and disarmed his suspicions by informing him that the business of the meeting would be to confer the tribunician power on Sejanus himself. This power was the only thing wanting to his association in the Empire, and Sejanus thought that his highest ambition was about to be fulfilled. When Sejanus had entered the temple, Macro informed the praetorians that he had been appointed their new prefect, and returned with them to their camp, as soon as he had given the Emperor’s letter to the consuls
This “great wordy epistle” from Capri which sounded the doom of Sejanus, began with some remarks on general matters, and then proceeded to a slight rebuke of Sejanus; then passed to some indifferent matters again, and finally demanded the punishment of Sejanus himself and some of his intimate friends. During the long recital of the letter, the suspense of the audience was intense, for none knew how it would end. Then the senators, who had been heaping Sejanus with congratulations, left his side. The consul ordered the lictors to seize him, and he was hurried off to prison. The people showed how much they rejoiced in the fall of the hated tyrant, by hurling down his statues. The senate, when they saw the temper of the populace, and as the praetorian guards did not intervene, met at a later hour of the same day in the Temple of Concord, and sentenced Sejanus to death. He was immediately strangled in the prison, and his corpse was dragged by the executioner’s hook to the Scalae Gemoniae, according to the usual custom in the reign of Tiberius. His death was followed by the execution of his family and friends. The senate decreed that a statue of Liberty should be set up in the Forum, and that the anniversary of the traitor’s fall should be solemnly kept as a day of deliverance.
Tiberius had in the meantime been agitated with fear and suspense. He had a fleet in waiting, ready to bear him to the east, in case Macro failed in the enterprise, and he posted himself on the highest cliff of the island, to watch for the appointed signal of success or failure. The fall of Sejanus was a relief to him, but it was soon followed by a horrible revelation. Apicata, the divorced wife of the fallen prefect, sent to Tiberius a full account of the details of the death of Drusus, showing how it had been compassed by Sejanus and Livilla; and having revealed this long-kept secret, she put an end to her life. The revelation was confirmed by the testimony of the slaves concerned in the affair, and the guilty Livilla was punished with death.
The overthrow of Sejanus brought no alleviation to the miseries of Agrippina in her island or her son Drusus in his prison. It is not clear why the Emperor determined to destroy Drusus; perhaps he thought that one so deeply injured would be dangerous if released. He allowed him to perish by starvation, and then wrote a letter to the senate, describing minutely the manner of his death, even the curses which in his last moments he had vented against Tiberius himself. The object of this strange communication, which excited the horror of the senators, is not evident; perhaps it was intended to show beyond doubt that Drusus was really dead, for an impostor, pretending to be Drusus, had recently created some disturbances in Greece and Asia. The death of Agrippina by voluntary abstinence from food soon followed that of her son. The senate, at the Emperor’s wish, decreed that her birthday should be ill-omened, and remarked that her death took place on the anniversary of the execution of Sejanus (18th October, 33 A.D.). The bodies of her and her children were not admitted to the mausoleum of the family until the reign of Gaius, who exhumed them from the lowly tombs in which they had been thrown.
The prosecutions of those who were supposed to have been connected with the conspiracy of Sejanus were protracted over a year, but at length, in 33 A.D., the Emperor, weary of the proceedings, issued an order for the summary execution of all who were still detained in prison, whether men, women, or children. A certain Marcus Terentius, who was impeached in the senate on the ground of friendship with Sejanus, is reported to have made a bold speech. Others had repudiated their friendly relations with the fallen prefect, but he candidly acknowledged that “he was the friend of Sejanus, had eagerly sought to be such, and was delighted when he succeeded”. “Do not think, fathers”, he said, “only of the last day of Sejanus, but of his sixteen years of power. To be known even to his freedmen and hall-porters was regarded as a distinction. Let plots against the state, conspiracies for the murder of the Emperor, be punished; but as to friendship, the same issue of our friendship to Sejanus must absolve alike you, Caesar, and us”. Terentius was saved by his boldness, and his accusers were condemned to banishment or death, according to the nature of their previous offences. But if a rare senator spoke out boldly, most of the order made the fall of the minister an occasion for obsequiousness. Some went so far in their proposals that they drew upon themselves the ridicule or severe censure of Tiberius. Thus Togonius Gallus begged the Emperor to choose a number of senators, of whom twenty should be selected by lot as a bodyguard whenever he entered the curia. This man had actually taken seriously a letter of the Emperor asking for the protection of a consul from Capri to Rome. Tiberius, who had a fashion of combining jest and seriousness, thanked the senators for their kindness, but suggested several difficulties. Who were to be chosen? Were they to be always the same? Were they to be men who had held office, or youths? And would it not be strange to see persons taking up swords on the threshold of the senate-house? But if he knew how to answer a fool according to his folly, he could also sharply rebuke an impertinence. Junius Gallio proposed that the praetorian soldiers, after having served their allotted time, should have the right of sitting among the knights in the fourteen rows of the theatre. Tiberius asked what he had to do with the praetorian guards, who received their commands and their reward only from the Imperator; and suggested that Gallio was one of the satellites of Sejanus, seeking to tamper with the soldiery. Gallio was then, in return for his flattery, expelled from the senate and banished from Italy.
Recent experiences had aggravated the Emperor’s suspicious nature. He became more difficult of access, and committed many acts of cruelty. His faithful adviser, Cocceius Neiva, who was his companion at Capri, weary, it is said, of seeing the harshness of his sovereign, put himself to death, in spite of the prayers and remonstrances of Tiberius. Of the twenty members of the imperialconsilium there soon remained only two or three; the others had been the victims of delation. Public report ascribed to Tiberius a life of bestial debauchery in the inaccessible island, and the Parthian king actually A.D. addressed to him an impertinent rebuke for his licentious habits, and called upon him to satisfy public opinion by committing suicide. There is little doubt that Tiberius lived licentiously,