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Into a fellowship in the guilt was assumed Eudemus, physician to Livia; and, under colour of his profession, frequently with her in private. Sejanus too, to avoid the jealousy of the adulteress, discharged from his bed Apicata his wife, her by whom he had three children. But still the mightiness of the iniquity terrified them, and thence created caution, delays, and frequently opposite counsels.
The reader has perhaps not forgotten that eight years before, when Sejanus was hoping to marry Livilla, he had repudiated his first wife, Apicata. Apicata had not wished to outlive the ruin of her former husband, and she killed herself, but only after having written Tiberius a letter in which she accused Livilla of having poisoned Drusus through connivance with Sejanus, whom she wished to marry.
Since the two accomplices would have been obliged to hide their infamous deed from all, there was no one from whom they would have concealed it more carefully than from Apicata. We must further note that it is not probable that a cautious man, as Sejanus was in the year 23, would have thought of committing so serious a crime as that of poisoning the son of his protector.
Apicata did not belong to the aristocracy, and, unlike the ladies of the senatorial families, she had not therefore been brought up with the idea of having to serve docilely as an instrument for the political career of her own husband.
But as Sejanus was reckoned the framer of every wickedness, therefore, from the excessive fondness of Tiberius towards him, and from the hatred of all others towards both, things the most fabulous and direful were believed of them; besides that common fame is ever most fraught with tales of horror upon the departure of Princes: in truth, the plan and process of the murder were first discovered by Apicata, wife of Sejanus, and laid open upon the rack by Eudemus and Lygdus.
I confess that this accusation seems to me hardly probable, and I do not believe that the denunciation of Apicata is sufficient ground for admitting it. Above all, it is well to inquire what proofs Apicata could have had of this crime, and how she could have procured them even if the crime had been committed.
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