then, that suddenly,
when already old, he should have soiled himself with all the vices? At
all events, if there is any truth contained in these accounts, we can
at most conclude that as an old man Tiberius became subject to some
mental infirmity and that the man who took refuge at Capri was no
longer entirely sane.

Certain it is, in any case, that after his retirement to Capri,
Tiberius seriously neglected public affairs, and that Sejanus was
finally looked upon at Rome as the _de facto_ emperor. The bulletins
and reports which were sent from the empire and from Rome to the
emperor passed through his hands, as well as the decisions which
Tiberius sent back to the state. At Rome, in all affairs of serious or
slight importance, the senators turned to Sejanus, and about him, whom
all fell into the habit of considering as the true emperor, a court and
party were formed. In fear of his great power, the senators and the
old aristocracy suppressed the envy which the dizzy rise of this
obscure knight had aroused. Rome suffered without protest that a man
of obscure birth should rule the empire in the place of a descendant of
the great Claudian family, and the senators of the most illustrious
houses grew accustomed to paying him court. Worse still, virtually all
of them aided him, either by openly favoring him or by allowing him a
free hand, to complete the decisive destruction of the party and the
family of Germanicus,--of that same Germanicus of whom all had been
fond and whose memory the people still venerated.

[Illustration: Costume of a chief vestal (virgo vestalis maxima).]

After the retirement of Tiberius to Capri, all felt that Agrippina and
her sons were inevitably doomed sooner or later to succumb in the duel
with the powerful, ambitious, and implacable prefect of the pretorians
who represented Tiberius at Rome. Only a few generous idealists
remained faithful to the conquered, who were now near their
destruction; such supporters as might possibly ease the misery of ruin,
but not ward it off or avoid it. Among these last faithful and heroic
friends was a certain Titius Sabinus, and the implacable Sejanus
destroyed him with a suit of which Tacitus has given us an account, a
horrible story of one of the most abominable judicial machinations
which human perfidy can imagine. Dissensions arose to aggravate the
already serious danger in which Agrippina and her friends had been
placed. Nero, the first-born son