“Caligula’s grandmother?”
“Yes. She learned that Sejanus had an agent ready to denounce Caligula before the Senate on trumped-up charges, which she could prove false. She also had other evidence pointing to years of intrigue and conspiracy by Sejanus—”
“What? Sejanus actually guilty?”
“More on that in a moment. Antonia’s problem was how to get the information to Tiberius on Capri, with Sejanus controlling all communications between the island and the mainland. She managed to send word via Pallas, her most trusted slave, who luckily wasn’t searched. So, at long last, Tiberius’s eyes were finally opened. Immediately he summoned the young Caligula to Capri for protection, and then plotted the fall of Sejanus.”
“The princeps certainly proved himself a master deceiver…”
“He had to be, Pilate! Imagine, even Capri was crawling with Sejanus’s agents. The Praetorian Guard was his. The nearest legions were his. So Tiberius had to take him off guard, which explains those rumors about the tribunician power all but conferred on Sejanus. Fortunately for the emperor, Macro, as guard commander on Capri, was privately critical of his prefect, and Tiberius took him into his confidence. He told him to deliver the letter indicting Sejanus to the consul Regulus, not Trio, who was Sejanus’s friend.”
“If only he’d known! Sejanus would simply have surrounded the Senate with his praetorians. Why did they leave?”
“When Sejanus swallowed Macro’s bait about the tribunician power and hurried inside the Senate, Macro went back outside and confronted the praetorians. He produced a special commission from Tiberius, which appointed himself as new praetorian prefect to succeed Sejanus. Naturally the guardsmen were dumbfounded, but when Macro added that the princeps promised them a large bonus for quiet obedience, they obeyed his order to return to camp.”
“Incredible! Evidently Sejanus spent so much time in politics that he neglected to maintain close contact with the guards, his power base.”
“No sooner had the praetorians left than Laco, who was party to the plot, moved in to surround the Senate with his night watch. Tiberius’s letter was intentionally as long and rambling as possible to give Macro time enough to hurry over to the Castra Praetoria and establish command over the other praetorian cohorts before Sejanus could take countermeasures. By the way, Tiberius was so worried that the guards might stay loyal to Sejanus that he had escape ships waiting in the harbor of Capri which would take him to loyal armies in the provinces. And just to make sure he’d have a head start on Sejanus, he watched constantly from the high cliffs of Capri for a fire signal from the mainland which would alert him in case his counterplot failed.”
Pilate sat quietly for some moments, searching for moorings of logic in this flood of information. Then he turned angrily to his wife. “Wait a minute. Sejanus chasing down his own emperor? Are you suggesting he plotted against the very life of Tiberius?”
“It’s not clear yet. When I left Rome, the trials against Sejanus’s partisans, those who escaped the mobs, were just getting underway.”
“But would it have been reasonable for him to attack the only man who could name him heir apparent? And even if Sejanus were as black as you picture him, wouldn’t he have let Tiberius live out his life on Capri before making his move?”
“Perhaps. Though after Tiberius’s letter was read to the Senate, the Roman Empire wasn’t big enough for the two of them.”
Immersed in his own train of thought, Pilate now lashed out angrily. “The more I hear of this, the more convinced I am that probably the most monstrous injustice in history has taken place against a man who gave his emperor a lifetime of service, protecting him against a dozen plots. And what was his reward? Death—and the slaughter of his innocent family. What was this alleged ‘conspiracy’ and ‘intrigue’ of Sejanus? Likely a fable spun out by Antonia! After all, she is the mother-in-law of Agrippina and therefore prejudiced against—”
“Stop, Pilate!” Procula cried. “I’ve tried hard to avoid the I-told-you-so attitude in view of our political differences. You know how we’ve gone round and around on Sejanus and Agrippina. But Sejanus’s plot, his horrendous guilt, is now a sober and proven fact!”
“How proven?”
“Besides what I’ve already told you, one of the conspirators, Satrius Secundus, turned state’s evidence and supplied absolute proof. Some of Sejanus’s correspondence with provincial governors was intercepted, and it’s equally incriminating.”
Pilate looked as if his soul had been lacerated. For some time he deliberated, then admitted, “Sejanus’s letters did hint that some kind of showdown was approaching. What if they go through his files and find drafts of those letters to me which mentioned the approaching crisis? They may think I was party to the plot!”
Slowly, solemnly, Procula replied, “It could well mean the end of your prefecture, Pilate.” Both were silent. Tears ran down her cheeks. “You have to face the truth,” she finally cried. “Just having been a friend of Sejanus may incriminate you enough not only to lose your office, but”—she burst into tears—“your life itself.”
“Now, now,” Pilate consoled, “isn’t that a little extreme?”
“No! Before I left, Father warned me that you could be recalled at any moment. The prisons of Rome are bulging with supporters of Sejanus, and the trials may turn into a legal terror.”
“But Tiberius won his power play. Why is he now so vengeful?”
“Are you finally ready to hear the whole truth? You wouldn’t have believed it earlier.”
“Of course…”
“Do you remember Drusus?”
“Agrippina’s son?”
“No. The other Drusus—the only son Tiberius ever fathered—the one who died three years before we sailed for Judea.”
“Yes. Obviously. What about him?”
“What did he die of?”
“Some kind of fever, wasn’t it?”
“That’s what everyone believed at the time, including the princeps, who was heartbroken at not having his own flesh and blood succeed him on the throne. But the horrible truth was finally revealed by Apicata, the divorced wife of Sejanus. After she’d seen her children strangled and thrown down the Stairs, she committed suicide, but not before she wrote Tiberius that Drusus had not died a natural death.”
“What?”
“Sejanus had seduced Drusus’s wife Livilla…and the two of them poisoned Drusus, hoping to marry after his death.”
Pilate was too stricken to speak.
“When Tiberius learned the tragic truth, he nearly went mad. He now refuses to leave Capri, and lives only to avenge himself on everyone connected with Sejanus.”
“Sejanus…poisoned…Drusus?”
“Tiberius wouldn’t believe it from Apicata’s letter alone. After all, she might have invented the story in revenge for the execution of her children. But the slaves and attendants of Livilla corroborated the poisoning.”
“What did Tiberius do to Livilla?”
“She died of compulsory starvation…And by the way, do you recall how Nero died?”
“He committed suicide on Pontia.”
“Yes, but now it comes out how that happened. Sejanus’s agents lied to poor Nero that the Senate had condemned him to death. They even had an executioner stalk about the island, testing out a strangling rope, until it was too much for Nero and he took his own life.”
Pilate slumped in his chair. “Sejanus plotted that too?”
“Yes. And what, do you suppose, caused all the quarreling between Tiberius and Agrippina which led to her exile? Sejanus telling Agrippina the princeps was plotting against her, then telling the princeps Agrippina was plotting against him. And who imprisoned the younger Drusus on the Palatine? And who planned the judicial murder of the young Caligula? It was all part of Sejanus’s huge conspiracy to win the throne for himself, a plot which duped Tiberius for almost ten years!”