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Updated: May 9, 2025
The emperor is supposed to have told Sejanus that too many feminine quarrels were already disturbing and agitating the house of the Caesars, to the serious detriment of his nephew's sons. And what would happen, he asked, if this marriage should still further foment existing hatreds? Quid si intendatur certamen tali conjugio?
She had also been the greatest benefactress to Tiberius, when there was a very dangerous plot laid against him by Sejanus, a man who had been her husband's friend, and wire had the greatest authority, because he was general of the army, and when many members of the senate and many of the freed-men joined with him, and the soldiery was corrupted, and the plot was come to a great height.
He was greatly influenced by his mother, Livia, an artful and ambitious princess, and by Sejanus, his favorite, a man of rare energy and ability, who was prefect of the prætorian guards. This office, unknown to the republic, became the most important and influential under the emperors.
There was also in the youth himself an engaging modesty, and a gracefulness becoming a princely person: ornaments which, by the known hatred that threatened him from Sejanus, became still more dear and adored. I am aware that most of the transactions which I have already related, or shall hereafter relate, may perhaps appear minute, and too trivial to be remembered.
For Sejanus, when he saw the death of Drusus pass unrevenged upon his murderers, and no public lamentation following it; undaunted as he was in villainy since his first efforts had succeeded; cast about in himself, how he might destroy the sons of Germanicus, whose succession to the Empire was now unquestionable.
In an instant, under this blow, the fortunes of Sejanus collapsed. The envy and the latent hatred against the parvenu, the knight who had risen higher than all others, and who had humiliated the senatorial aristocracy with his good fortune, were reawakened, and the senate and public opinion turned fiercely against him.
There is scarce a Poet or Historian, among the Roman authors of those times, whom he has not translated in SEJANUS and CATILINE: but he has done his robberies so openly, that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors, like a Monarch; and what would be Theft in other Poets, is only Victory in him.
Sejanus was thus in a fair way to the ends of his ambition: to be named the successor to the Principate. Then Tiberius found him out; and sent a message to a senate engaged in Sejanus-worship, demanding the punishment of the murderers of Drusus. Sejanus had built up his power by fostering the system of delation.
The removal, it may be remarked, cost Simonides exactly five talents Roman money in hand paid to Sejanus, who was then in height of power as imperial favorite; the object being to help Ben-Hur, by lessening his exposure while in and about Jerusalem attempting discovery of his people.
With these we may associate the moralizing history that dealt in five books respectively with the persecutions of Sejanus, Flaccus, and Caligula, the ill-starred embassy, and the final triumph of the Jews over their enemies. But their general purport is clear: they were an apologetic presentation of Jewish life, written to show the falsity of anti-Semitic calumnies.
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