[13] Writers differ as to her age. Tacitus merely says extrema ætate. Pliny[k] (XIV, 8) makes her eighty-two, Dion[j] (LVIII, 1) eighty-six years old. This last seems to be the more correct, as her son Tiberius was now seventy years of age.
[14] According to Josephus,[h] Antonia, the widow of his brother Drusus, wrote him a full account of Sejanus’ proceedings, and sent it by a trusty slave named Pallas.
[15] [In attempting clearly to comprehend the disturbances that attended the later period of Tiberius, we must bear in mind that the republican reaction against the empire was now at its height, and that severe measures were doubtless necessary in crushing the movement. The adoption of such measures does not necessarily imply that Tiberius had changed his public policy: it was but natural that he should defend the principate to the utmost of his ability. But such conditions reacted disastrously upon the public morals, and fostered the hatred of the emperor.]
[16] [It must, however, be understood that Tacitus unquestionably based his opinions upon contemporary accounts that have not come down to us, or upon the verbal testimony of eye-witnesses. Tacitus was born only about twenty years after the death of Tiberius. It would appear, however, that the famous historian was led to adopt systematically the opinions, and even the indignant gossip, of the emperor’s enemies.]
[17] Seneca, Apocol. 13. Claudius Cæsar venit … ἑυρήκαμεν, συγχαίρωμεν. Great has been the success of this remarkable passage, which may possibly have suggested the noble lines of Shakespeare (Rich. III. Act i. sc. 4):
“Clarence is come, false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,
That stabbed me in the field by Tewksbury.”
It is more probable that Voltaire had it in his mind when he pronounced on the fate of Constantine and Clovis; and more than one stanza of Byron’s Vision of Judgment is evidently suggested by it.