w by
the name of Calpurnius Piso to keep a weather eye open on him,
and neutralize, as far as might be, extravagant actions. The
choice, it must be said, was a bad one; for the two fought like
cat and dog the better part of the time. Then Germanicus died,
supposing that Piso had poisoned him; and Agrippina his wife
came home, an Ate shrieking for revenge. She had exposed her
husband's naked body in the marketplace at Antioch, that all
might see he had been poisoned; which shows the kind of woman
she was. Germanicus was given a huge funeral at Rome; he
was the darling of the mob, and the funeral was really a
demonstration against Tiberius. then Piso was to be tried for
the murder: a crabbed but honest old plebeian of good and
ancient family, who Tiberius knew well enough was innocent.
There were threats of mob violence if he should be acquitted;
and the suggestion studiously sown that Piso, guilty, had been
set on to the murder by the Princeps. Tiberius, knowing the
popular feeling, did not attend the funeral of his nephew. It
was a mistake in policy, perhaps; but his experience had been
unpleasant enought at the funeral of Augustus. Tacitus says he
stayed away fearing lest the public, peering into his face thus
from close to, might see the marks of dissimulation in it, and
realize that his grief was hypocrisy. How the devil did Tacitus
know? Yet what he says comes down as gospel.

This sort of thing went on continually, and provided him a poor
atmosphere in which to do his great and important work. As he
grew older, he retired more and more. He trusted in his minister
Sejanus who had once heroically save his life: an exceedingly
able, but unfortunately also an exceedingly wicked man. Sejanus
became his link with Rome and the senate; and used that
position, and the senate's incompetence, to gather into his own
hands a power practically absolute in home affairs. Home
affairs, be it always remembered, were what the Princeps expected
the senate to attend to: their duty, under the constitution.
Instead, however, they fawned on Sejanus _ad lib._ 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. Sejanus wa