nt, and himself
hurried to the camp to prevent any uprising.

[-10-] Meanwhile the letter was read. It was a long one and contained
no wholesale denunciations of Sejanus but first some indifferent
matters, then a slight censure of his conduct, then something else, and
after that some further objection to him. At the close it said that two
senators that were very intimate with him must be punished and that
he himself must be kept guarded. Tiberius did not give them orders
outright to put him to death, not because such was not his desire, but
because he feared that some disturbance might be the result of it. But
since, as he said, he could not take the journey safely, he had sent for
one of the consuls.

This was all that the composition disclosed. During the reading many
diverse utterances and expressions of countenance were observable. First,
before the people heard the letter, they were engaged in lauding the
man, whom they supposed to be on the point of receiving the tribunician
authority. They shouted their approval realizing in anticipation all
their hopes and making a demonstration to show that they would concur in
granting him honor. When, however, nothing of the sort was discovered,
but they kept hearing just the reverse of what they expected, they fell
into confusion and subsequently into deep dejection. Some of those seated
near him even withdrew. They now no longer cared to share the same seat
with the man whom previously they were anxious to claim as friend. Then
praetors and tribunes began to surround him to prevent his causing any
uproar by rushing out,--which he certainly would have done, if he had
been startled at the outset by any general tirade. As it was, he paid no
great heed to what was read from time to time, thinking it a slight
matter, a single charge, and hoping that nothing further, or at any rate
nothing serious in regard to him had been made a matter of comment. So
he let the time slip by and remained where he was.

Meantime Regulus called him forward, but he paid no attention, not out
of contempt,--for he had already been humbled,--but because he was
unaccustomed to hearing any command given him. But when the consul
shouted at him a second and a third time, at the same time stretching out
his arm and saying: "Sejanus, come here!" he enquired blankly: "Are you
calling _me_?" So at last he stood up, and Laco, who had entered,
took his stand beside him. When finally the reading of the letter