After her interment and Caligula’s return to Capri, the government assumed a character of cruel and crushing despotism. Those who had been friends of Livia were attacked and ruthlessly killed. Letters of complaint were sent to the Senate charging Nero with “lewdness,” Agrippina with a “turbulent and haughty spirit.” If people compared these bloody times with the peaceful reign of Augustus, they were killed. Innocent criticism was punished by death. Freedom of speech was stifled. Everywhere in the city there was a feeling of distrust. The streets of Rome appeared deserted. The surrounding towns and the villas by the sea became crowded. But even here spies were continually on the watch. As if to increase the gloom that hung over the city, a horrible catastrophe occurred at a small town near Rome, called Fidenae. In this place a freedman had erected a large wooden amphitheatre, and having gathered gladiators from all parts of the country, had promised a wonderful exhibition. People flocked to the games and filled the enormous structure. During the performance the supports gave way, precipitating the great crowd to the ground. Few escaped injury, and over thirty thousand perished. Nor was this all; for at Rome a violent fire broke out which consumed all the houses and temples on the Coelian Hill. The groan of the dying at Fidenae awakened no sympathy in the breast of the tyrant at Capri; but after the terrible fire on the Coelian Hill, the cries of the homeless touched his heart to such an extent that he ordered the public money to be used in rebuilding the devastated district. Amid all these catastrophes Sejanus did not cease to execute his infernal plots. His greatest desire had not yet been fulfilled. He had removed only one obstacle from his path to ultimate power,--the emperor’s son Drusus. By a stroke of good fortune, Tiberius had withdrawn himself from the city. Agrippina and her sons were the last remaining obstacles to be set aside. By artful and vicious enticing, he seduced the wife of Drusus, making her, therefore, a spy upon her husband. Through Livilla’s daughter, Julia, he became informed of the innermost thoughts of Nero. Through the young wives of these two princes he worked their destruction. What evidences of a treasonable nature were lacking in the actions of Agrippina he supplied from his fertile imagination. He made a last effort to entrap her. In the atrium of her home, where he had many times before questioned her, he accosted her. “Thou art jubilant, O Agrippina,” he said. “Wherefore art thou so happy?” “I am not happy, O Sejanus, but I am less distrustful.” “Still distrustful of me?” he asked; but receiving no reply, he added, “What if I were to tell thee that the emperor is a prisoner?” “What wouldst thou have me say?”