104 



shown that the charges directed against the earher hfe of Tiberius are 

 to a great extent futile, we shall have no difficulty in proving the same 

 of the last and most melancholy period. 



The long and extraordinary success of Sejanus had raised him to an 

 eminence on wliich it was impossible to stop, and from which he could 

 descend only by a sudden and crushing fall. He had long possessed the 

 unlimited confidence of Tiberius. He rose higher after every deadly 

 blow aimed at the house of his master. During Tiberius' sojourn at 

 Caprese he was de facto the master of the Roman world. He seemed to 

 be within reach of the great prize, for which he had been working all 

 his life. But the old man was not so reckless of what was going on 

 around him, nor so absorbed in sensual enjoyment as we are desired to 

 believe ; his eyes were opened on the doings of his favourite, and from 

 that hour that favourite was lost. 



This is not the place to detail the events that accompanied the fall of 

 Sejanus. We have to investigate only one point: if, in the reaction that 

 followed, Tiberius indulged a passion for innocent blood and extended 

 his victory beyond the limits prescribed by justice, fair retribution, and 

 a due consideration for his own safety and that of the state. 



In the first place we must not forget that Sejanus was guilty of a 

 conspiracy of the most dangerous kind. He was the commander of the 

 most formidable body of troops in Italy, the dreaded Praetorian guards, 

 devoted to liim without reserve, and commanded by officers of his 

 own choice. He had for a long time been the exclusive channel of 

 imperial favours ; his nominees filled eveiy important and lucrative 

 office. In the immediate company of the Emperor at Caprese he had 

 his spies and trusty adherents, some of them chosen from among the 

 oldest and most intimate friends of Tiberius. Proportionate to the 

 extent and subtlety of these ramifications was the difficulty of distin- 

 guisliing innocence and guilt, and even the most unbiassed tribunal 

 would have been unable, in its calmest deliberations, to dispense justice 

 with an unerring hand. But after a political storm the equilibrium of 

 the balance of justice is disturbed, and a fatal momentum is given to the 

 scale of the %dctorious party. This has been the case in modern history and 

 in tribunals where at least all the forms of justice were preserved. What 

 can we expect from bloody sessions in the time of Tiberius, when the 

 memory was fresh of the wholesale slaughters and the iniquitous pro- 

 scriptions of the triumvirs ? I do not now speak of the first ebullition 

 of the long pent-up rage of the Roman people against Sejanus and his 

 party. In those horrid acts of revenge even the forms of justice were 

 disregarded, though the hangman did not forget to execute on the in- 

 nocent little daughter of Sejanus the brutal law of ancient Rome, 



