At present he was captain of the guards, chief officer of the most important military body in the empire. Moreover, he was the associate and particular friend of the emperor. He was yet more,--the confidant and principal adviser of the emperor. In all the emperor’s shameless pleasures, fiendish intrigues, and atrocious villanies, Sejanus was an abettor and a panderer. Step by step he had risen; and although these steps were stained with vice, robbery, and murder, he had reached the eminence of being the second man in Rome. In this rise to power Sejanus had not abandoned his old associates; but as he mounted higher, he drew them with him. Neither did he allow the halo of influence to dazzle and bewilder him. On the contrary, like the eagle, the higher he soared, the better view he took of his surroundings. He was always easy of access, and by his servility to the emperor and by his graciousness to those below him he had gathered about him a cordon of friends, so that whenever he walked through the streets he was greeted with cheers. Such was his versatile nature that he was equally at ease in the palaces of the most refined and in the camp with his soldiers over their cups. He could talk the airy nothings of social gossip to the flippant ladies of the city, and then join the noble matrons and converse on serious subjects. He was the friend of virtuous senators and of vicious profligates, of pure aristocrats and learned philosophers, of foul vermin of the under strata and of vulgar voluptuaries. Cruelty was another trait of his character. When he beat his little son so hard that he broke a limb, he watched the sufferings of the child without raising a helping hand. He could look at one of his slaves--punished for some trivial offence--writhing under the lash, and smile even when the welts were sweating blood. Without a gleam of pity he would torture a man to swear to a lie until the flame of his victim’s life was nearly extinct. As he found that his wife and children weighed heavily upon him and prevented him from progressing, he abandoned them. With all his servility, graciousness, and dissimulation, there was only one idea that ruled him,--ambition. He had made Livilla, the wife of Drusus, believe that he loved her, and had even penetrated to her chamber and so compromised her that an exposure of her indiscretion would have meant death or exile to them both. The letter that Gannon had carried from Livilla contained her acquiescence to a foul and terrible deed. Sejanus believed that Gannon had not read the letter; but doubt on a question so important made him ill at ease. After having sent Gannon to his room, he went to see Livilla. Livilla and her little twin sons were playing with some gold-fish in a fountain when Sejanus was announced. She left the little boys in charge of their nurse and retired to her room.