except when the occupant of the throne was changed. Sejanus aimed at nothing less than supreme power. Drusus was yet alive and had children; Germanicus had left three sons; and a brother of his, who afterwards became the Emperor Claudius, was likewise still living: the whole of this family, Sejanus wished to root out, and so he seduced the wife of Drusus, Livilla, a daughter of the elder Drusus. With her help, he poisoned Drusus; after which he also cruelly made away with the sons of Germanicus, Caius alone excepted, who was still a child, and whom he kept in reserve. He gave Tiberius such confidence, that he withdrew from Rome to Capreæ, there to wallow in his lusts; and in the meanwhile he himself ruled in Rome. Prosecutions now were rife, and here begin the frightful annals of the reign of Tiberius: the lists of those who are condemned to die, are made up of men, who were all of them more or less eminent, although all were not precisely respectable; Tiberius therefore deserves to be called the very pattern of a tyrant. Much must be laid to the charge of Tiberius personally; but much also to that of Sejanus, whose influence increased more and more. The banishment of Agrippina is his work; the last tortures, however, which were inflicted on her, were after his death. This went on, until at last Sejanus became suspected by Tiberius, and very likely with good reason; for Sejanus at best would have waited for his death, and then at the head of the Prætorian cohorts have made himself master of Rome. Tiberius himself had raised Sejanus to be his equal; among the Prætorian cohorts, sacrifices were already offered to the latter as well as to the emperor. But it now happened that a still worse being got near Tiberius: virtue and genius could not have shaken down Sejanus; this was done by a yet more wicked man than he, by one who had not his great qualities, but analogous vices. Tiberius expressed his dread of a conspiracy, and gave out that he wanted to go to Rome: but he only came into the neighbourhood, and sent orders to arrest Sejanus; which was done with consummate cunning. There was a _verbosa et grandis epistola_, in which one might remark that he was aiming at something, with some cuts at Sejanus; at the conclusion was the warrant for the arrest. Macro who had been made _Præfectus Vigilum_, surrounded the senate with his people. Sejanus was now seized in the senate, and on this, men showed themselves in the most hateful light: all those who but that very morning had fawned for a gracious look of his, now started up and raised an outcry against him as one guilty of high treason, calling for his immediate execution, so that the cohorts might not hear of it. He was instantly strangled. Tiberius now slaked his thirst for blood by persecuting the followers and friends of Sejanus. Yet those who were not, were also persecuted; for things did not grow better but worse: Macro now ruled just as tyrannically as Sejanus, and, like him, was