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As for the public, ever ready to believe all the infamies which were reported of the imperial house, it was firmly convinced that Livilla was an abominable poisoner. A great trial was set on foot; many suspects were put to torture, which is evidence that they were arriving at no definite conclusions, and this was probably because they were seeking for the proofs of an imaginary crime.
The obscure woman, without ancestry, who was accusing her from the grave, would be taken at her word by every one; she would convince posterity and history; against all reason she would prevail over the greatness of Livilla! So Livilla took refuge in her mother's house and starved herself to death, for she was unable to outlive an accusation which it was impossible to refute.
But in proportion as Caligula became more and more fervid in this adoration of his dead sister, the disagreement between himself and his other two sisters became more embittered. Julia Livilla was exiled in 38; Agrippina, the wife of Domitius Enobarbus, in 39, and about this same time the venerable Antonia died.
He was disgraced by the vices of debauchery and cruelty, and was finally poisoned by his wife, Livilla, at the instance of Sejanus. So long as Germanicus lived, the court was divided between the parties of Drusus and Germanicus, and Tiberius artfully held the balance of favor between them, taking care not to declare which should be his successor.
Sejanus murdered Tiberius' son Drusus, and aspired to the hand of Livilla, his widow: she was the daughter of Germanicus and Agrippina; and she certainly, and Agrippina probably, were accessories to the murder of Drusus. For Agrippina was obsessed with hatred for Tiberius: with the idea that he had murdered her husband, and with thirst for revenge.
Caligula discovered, or pretended to discover, a conspiracy against him, and he accused Agrippina and another of his sisters named Livilla of being implicated in it.
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.
His mother was ashamed of him, and his grandmother, Livia, despised him, and his sister, Livilla, ridiculed him. He was withheld from public life, and he devoted himself to literary pursuits, and even wrote a history of Roman affairs from the battle of Actium, but it gained him no consideration. Tiberius treated him with contumely, and his friends deserted him.
This favorite was affianced to Livilla, the widow of Drusus, and was made consul conjointly with Tiberius. Sejanus conspired against his life, but the emperor shrank from openly denouncing him to the Senate.
On the accession of Claudius, he was banished to Corsica at the instance of the Empress Messalina, on the charge of being the favoured lover of Julia Livilla, Caligula's youngest sister.
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