After Tiberius had retired to Capreæ the conspirators Sejanus and Livilla were able, we are told, to control the correspondence which was sent to him from the capital. Imprudent remarks made by Agrippina and her sons were carefully reported to him; the provocation which had occasioned them was not reported. The old man was induced to see in the conduct of his great-nephews a repetition of the excesses which had ruined Caius and Lucius Cæsar at the same age. Sejanus fomented discord between the brothers. Drusus the elder was given the office of Prefect of the city; he was encouraged to fear the jealousy of his brother, who was his mother’s favourite. After the death of the aged Livia, Agrippina and her son Nero acted in such a way as to give an opportunity to their enemies; they courted popular favour, and their friends openly advised them to take refuge with the armies on the Rhine, or to take sanctuary with the Senate and invoke the protection of the Roman people. Meanwhile Sejanus had in A.D. 25 formally begged Tiberius to confer upon him the hand of Livilla, the widow of his son Drusus. Tacitus gives what profess to be extracts from the letter which he addressed to the Emperor on the subject, and from the reply which he received. They are to the following effect. Sejanus is represented to have said that “he had become so habituated to the kindness of Augustus, and then by many proofs to that of Tiberius, as to address his hopes and prayers to the ears of the Princes as soon as to the gods. He had never asked for brilliant office, he preferred to share with the common soldiers the toils of guarding the Emperor. Still he had obtained what he thought most honourable, he was thought worthy of association with Cæsar. On this his hopes were founded. And as he heard that Augustus had once taken into consideration the claims of Roman knights when he was thinking about placing his daughter, so he begged Tiberius, if a husband were sought for Livilla, to remember a friend who would be content with the mere honour of relationship. He did not wish to be relieved of the duties which had been imposed upon him; he thought it sufficient that the family should be strengthened against the malicious persecutions of Agrippina, and that for the sake of the children. For himself the life which he had already lived with such a Prince would be much and more than enough.”