As the case became exclusively political, Plancina naturally dropped out of it; “machinations of Livia,” shrieked Agrippina, and Tacitus has repeated the shriek. The case had an abrupt and tragic termination. Piso, seeing that the hostile evidence steadily accumulated, and that Tiberius preserved an absolutely impartial and judicial attitude, killed himself, leaving a letter to Tiberius, from which the following extract has been preserved: “Crushed by a conspiracy of my private enemies, and the hatefulness of a false accusation, inasmuch as no opportunity is left for the truth and the establishment of my innocence, I call heaven to witness, Cæsar, that I have lived loyally to you, and dutifully to your mother; and I implore you to take charge of my children, of whom Gnæus Piso was certainly not concerned in my fortunes whatever may have been their character, for he spent the whole time at Rome, and Marcus Piso dissuaded me from returning to Syria. And I wish that I had rather given way to the counsels of my young son than he to those of his aged father. I beg the more earnestly that his innocence may not pay the penalty of my perversity. I beg for the safety of my unhappy son in the name of forty-five years of loyal duty, of a consulship shared with yourself, of the confidence placed in me by Augustus, of the friendship with yourself, and as a last request.” He made no mention of his wife in this dying petition. Tiberius exempted Marcus Piso from any complicity in the charges brought against his father, and also spoke on behalf of Plancina. A two days’ inquiry was held into her conduct, but to the disgust of Agrippina she was acquitted. Her escape was attributed to the influence of Livia. The Senate passed severe sentences upon the sons of Piso, which Tiberius, as usual, considerably modified. Honours and rewards were bestowed on the accusers, but Tiberius, in promising Fulcinius Trio office later on, significantly hinted that he was in danger of spoiling his eloquence by excessive violence. It had been in the power of Tiberius to confiscate the property of Piso, but he bestowed it upon his son Marcus. Tacitus comments in characteristic fashion--“Superior to the temptation of money, as I have often recorded, and the more readily appeased at that time through an uneasy conscience about the acquittal of Plancina.”