n guard, upon which
depended the security and the safety of the imperial authority, was one
of the things which must seriously have preoccupied Tiberius,
particularly in the face of the persistent and insidious intrigues and
accusations of the party of Agrippina. The guard lived at Rome, in
continual contact with the senate and the imperial house. Everything
which was said in the senatorial circles or in the palaces of the
emperor or of his relatives was quickly repeated among the cohorts, and
the memory of Drusus and Germanicus was deeply venerated by the
pretorians. If the guard could have been persuaded that the emperor
was a poisoner of his kindred, their loyalty would have been exposed to
numberless intrigues and attempts at seduction. In such a condition of
affairs, a commander of the guard who could inspire Tiberius with a
complete and absolute trust might easily acquire a great influence over
him. Sejanus knew how to inspire this trust. This was partly by
reason of his origin, for the equestrian order, on account of its
ancient rivalry with the senatorial nobility, was more favorably
inclined than the latter toward the imperial authority; and partly also
on account of certain reforms which he had succeeded in introducing
into the pretorian guard.

[Illustration: A Roman feast in the time of the Caesars.]

Once he had acquired the emperor's confidence, the ambitious and
intelligent prefect of the pretorians proceeded to render himself
indispensable in all things. The moment was favorable; Tiberius was
becoming more and more wearied of his many affairs, of his many
struggles, of his countless responsibilities; more and more disgusted
with Rome, with its society, with the too frequent contact with the men
whom it was his fate to govern. He was in the earlier stages of that
settled melancholy which grew deeper and deeper in the last ten years
of his life, and which had grown upon him as the result of long
antagonisms, of great bitterness, and of continual terrors and
suspicions; and if it is true that Tiberius was addicted to the vice of
heavy drinking, as we hear from ancient writers, the abuse of wine may
also have had its part in producing it. The tyrant, as historians have
been pleased to call him, did actually seem to weaken in the fight for
those ideals in which he had so long and so ardently believed. He
tried to please the people by advocating no measures that might seem
harsh or excessive to the