The day after the violent storm was as clear as crystal. The waters had again become tranquil, and the bay of Neapolis, like a huge flower, had unfolded with added beauty in the light of the glorious sun. Tiberius climbed the watch-tower and looked towards the city of Neapolis. As he vacantly stared, the waters seemed to change into the Campagna of Rome, which was as red as blood. In the outline of the city he seemed to see the fawning face of Sejanus. The emperor turned away and looked towards Surrentum, but even there he had left his trail of blood. To the south he saw the open sea, but the rocks beneath him were streaked with the blood of those whom he had murdered. He glanced towards the west, but there the islands of Pandataria and Ponza, like bloody fingers, pointed towards him. For on Pandataria Julia, his wife, had been starved; on Ponza, Nero had lately been strangled. Everywhere he looked he saw blood, blood, blood! That night he retired early. The lights were extinguished, and he tried to find comfort in sleep. But his sleep revealed to him a new world. Indistinct figures moved before him with stealthy steps, like famished jackals. They were images of his own crimes and of his victims. In his vision he saw sturdy, robust men reduced to weak and silly effeminacy by participation with him in the vicious pleasures that consumed vitality around him. He saw fantastic faces of violated virgins, of filthy prostitutes with flabby breasts floating in the foul air of his corrupt nature. There passed before him visions of sweet and lovely children dragged from the heights of purity, ruined by contact with his corruption. He twisted and groaned in torment. He seemed to breathe an air infected with the foul breath of low, vulgar people, the smell of filthy sewers, the stench of carrion, the belching of drunken men, the sweat of panting prostitutes. He yelled as there passed before him apparitions of tortured forms with screaming faces smeared with blood. In all this horrible vision he heard, like the screeching of a monstrous bird of prey, the words of his mother, Livia, “Woe unto thee, Tiberius; woe unto thee!” Suddenly, amid the din of the terrible cries of woe, he saw bloody fingers that wrote prophecies on the filthy mud of his soul. With frenzied screams he jumped from his couch. He called for lights. He awakened the princes. He must bury the memory of those old crimes, of those old obscenities, of those old murders, with new ones. “Call the Greeks!” he ordered. “Call the dancers! Kill the cowardly captain!” he cried in madness, as the sleepy servants slowly lit the lamps in the luxurious rooms of the villa. Chapter XXI “The prisoner at Capri confers new honors on his jailer, O Livilla,” said Sejanus, with an evil smile, after he had received the letter from Tiberius offering him the consulship. “He begins to fear me.” “As consul, my Sejanus, there is nothing thou canst not do!” replied Livilla.