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Updated: September 11, 2025
He was even more active and influential than Drusus, for the latter was frequently absent on distant military missions to the confines of the empire, while Sejanus, as commander of the pretorian guard, was virtually always at Rome, where the emperor now appeared less and less frequently.
Finally, commanding silence anew, he cried, "I promised you panem et circenses; and now give a shout in honor of Cæsar, who feeds and clothes you; then go to sleep, dear populace, for the dawn will begin before long." He turned his horse then, and, tapping lightly with his cane the heads and faces of those who stood in his way, he rode slowly to the pretorian ranks. Soon he was under the aqueduct.
As if conscious of strength which they could use against Cæsar himself, they looked with contempt on the rabble of the street, forgetting, it was evident, that many of themselves had come to that city in manacles. But they were insignificant in numbers, for the pretorian force had remained in camp specially to guard the city and hold it within bounds.
He instantly ordered his name to be entered upon the list of musicians who proposed to contend, and having thrown his lot into the urn among the rest, took his turn, and entered, attended by the prefects of the pretorian cohorts bearing his harp, and followed by the military tribunes, and several of his intimate friends.
For he made a bridge, of about three miles and a half in length, from Baiae to the mole of Puteoli , collecting trading vessels from all quarters, mooring them in two rows by their anchors, and spreading earth upon them to form a viaduct, after the fashion of the Appian Way . This bridge he crossed and recrossed for two days together; the first day mounted on a horse richly caparisoned, wearing on his head a crown of oak leaves, armed with a battle-axe, a Spanish buckler and a sword, and in a cloak made of cloth of gold; the day following, in the habit of a charioteer, standing in a chariot, drawn by two high-bred horses, having with him a young boy, Darius by name, one of the Parthian hostages, with a cohort of the pretorian guards attending him, and a party of his friends in cars of Gaulish make . Most people, I know, are of opinion, that this bridge was designed by Caius, in imitation of Xerxes, who, to the astonishment of the world, laid a bridge over the Hellespont, which is somewhat narrower than the distance betwixt Baiae and Puteoli.
The crowd were awe-struck by his authoritative tone and imperious manner, but their spokesman showed more courage. "Tell us who you are, or you shall not pass." "Fellow," cried Marcellus, "stand aside! Do you not know me? I am a Pretorian." At that dreaded name the crowd quickly opened, and Marcellus passed through it. But scarcely had he moved five paces away than a voice exclaimed: "Seize him!
Accordingly, he suborned two tribunes stationed in the pretorian guard, Nemesianus and Apollinarius, brothers belonging to the Aurelian gens, and Julius Martialius, who was enrolled among the evocati and had a private grudge against Antoninus for not giving him the post of centurion on request. Thus he made his plot, and it was carried out as follows.
The bare agitation of such a point would have excited immediate and strong anxiety for its final result; while the friends of a republican government, who were still far more numerous than those of the other party, would have strained every nerve to procure a determination in their own favour; and the pretorian guards, the surest protection of Augustus, finding their situation rendered precarious by such an unexpected occurrence, would have readily listened to the secret propositions and intrigues of the republicans for securing their acquiescence to the decision on the popular side.
After some reflection in the corner of the Pretorian where Anitchkoff once told me his story, I have come measurably into the clear about the whole matter. Mantovani's position is plain up to a certain point. Either the 'Zorzi' was given to him or else he bought it in his hopeful youth. In either case he surely kept it merely as a solemn hoax on his learned contemporaries.
The beautiful Sabina realized her hopes she divorced her husband, and married the Emperor of Rome. She died from a sudden kick given her by the booted foot of her liege. Three years after the death of Seneca, Nero passed hence by the same route, killing himself to escape the fury of the Pretorian Guard. And so ended the Julian line, none of whom, except the first, was a Julian.
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