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Page 28
[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, and Drusus, the second, became
hostile at the very moment when they should have united against the
ruthless adversary who wished to exterminate them all. A last rock of
refuge remained to protect the family of Germanicus. It was Livia, the
revered old lady who had been present at the birth of the fortunes of
Augustus and the new imperial authority, and who had held in her arms
that infant world which had been born in the midst of the convulsions
of the civil wars, and a little later had watched it try its first
steps on the pathway of history. Livia did not much love Agrippina,
whose hatred and intrigues against Tiberius she had always blamed; but
she was too wise and too solicitous of the prestige of the family to
allow Sejanus entirely to destroy the house of Germanicus. As long as
she lived, Agrippina and Nero could dwell safely in Rome. But Livia
was feeble, and in the beginning of 29, at the age of eighty-six, she
died. The catastrophe which had been carefully prepared by Sejanus was
now consummated; a few months after the death of Livia, Agrippina and
Nero were subjected to a suit, and, under an accusation of having
conspired against Tiberius, were condemned to exile by the senate.
Shortly after his condemnation, Nero committed suicide.
The account which Tacitus gives us of this trial is obscure, involved,
and fragmentary, for the story is broken off at its most important
point by an unfortunate lacuna in the manuscript. The other historians
add but little light with their brief phrases and passing allusions.
We do not therefore entirely understand either the contents of the
charges, the reason for the condemnation, the stand taken by the
accused, or the conduct of Tiberius with regard to the accusation. It
seems hardly probable that Agrippina and Nero could have been truly
guilty of a real conspiracy against Tiberius. Isolated as they had
been by Sejanus after the retirement of Tiberius to Capri, they would
scarcely have been able to set a conspiracy on foot, even if they had
so desired. They were paying the penalty for the long war of calumnies
and slanders which they had waged upon Tiberius, for the aversion and
the scorn which they had always shown for him. In this course of
conduct many senators had encouraged them as long as Tiberius alone had
not dared to have recourse to violent and cruel measures in order to
make himself respected by his family. But such acts of disrespect
became serious crimes for the unfortunate woman and her hapless son,
even in the eyes of the senators who had encouraged them to commit
them, now that Sejanus had reinvigorated the imperial authority with
his energy, and now that all felt that behind Tiberius and in his name
and place there was acting a man of decision who knew how to punish his
enemies and to reward his friends.
The trial and condemnation of Agrippina and Nero were certainly the
machinations of Sejanus, who carried along with him not only the senate
and the friends of the imperial family, but perhaps even Tiberius
himself. They prove how much Sejanus had been able to strengthen
imperial authority, which had been hesitating and feeble in the last
decade. Sejanus had dared to do what Tiberius had never succeeded in
doing; he had destroyed that center of opposition which gathered about
Agrippina in the house of Germanicus. It is therefore scarcely
necessary to say that the ruin of Agrippina still further increased the
power of Sejanus. All bowed trembling before the man who had dared
humiliate the very family of the Julio-Claudii. Honors were showered
upon his head; he was made senator and pontifex; he received the
proconsular power; there was talk of a marriage between him and the
widow of Nero; and it was finally proposed that he be named consul for
five years. Indeed, in 31, through the will of Tiberius, he actually
became the colleague of the emperor himself in the consulate. He
needed only the tribunician power to make him the official collaborator
of the emperor and his designated successor. Every one at Rome,
furthermore, considered him the future prince.
[Illustration: Remains of the House of the Vestal Virgins.]
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