Left alone in his office, Tiberius began to reason with himself. “Antonia is right,” he said, “Macro is right, and the young man Gyges, whose honesty in the Circus is unquestioned, also seems to speak the truth. Ah, Sejanus, thy cunning, then, has deceived me! Full well do I now understand thy lying statements! Ye gods! I admire thy villany! ‘Take not the first cup!’ were his words of warning. Ah! Drusus has been wronged! Now do I comprehend why his hand did not tremble when he drank of that cup! Now do I understand why thou, Sejanus, didst wish to marry Livilla! What subterfuge! What villany! But the emperor can outstrip thee! He can— By the infernal deities! can the emperor do anything? Am I truly the emperor? Antonia calls me the ‘prisoner of Capri’! Of a truth, nothing can come from Rome except through the office of Sejanus. Ah, he has trapped me! But has he not sacrificed many things for me? Did he not risk his life in the grotto? True, the danger was over when he protected me, and his sacrifices were, after all, but so many steps towards his own glory. Ah, he has made great strides! But I will match my cunning against his. My mind is not yet dead. It can still contrive new plans. Ay, by the essences of Hades! I will make thee consul, O Sejanus; but while thou sippest glory from a golden chalice, I will undermine thy power. Macro shall be the new prefect. Money will win him and the soldiers!”
He called his secretaries and wrote three letters,—one to Macro, one to Statius the Senator, and one to Antonia. He wrote one more,—to Sejanus, the future consul.
At daybreak the next morning, with a passport bearing the emperor’s seal, Gyges carried three letters from Capri. The letter for Sejanus was sent by the imperial carriers.
On the day of Gyges’ departure from Capri the emperor’s nervousness increased. He became gloomy and depressed. Every noise irritated him. He went into the courtyard and watched the men gather the fragments of the overthrown statue of Victory. He thought of the words of the soothsayer, “An enemy who has long been victorious will soon be crushed.” “He spoke truly,” said Tiberius to himself.
The day after the violent storm was as clear as crystal. The waters had again become tranquil, and the bay of Neapolis, like a huge flower, had unfolded with added beauty in the light of the glorious sun. Tiberius climbed the watch-tower and looked towards the city of Neapolis. As he vacantly stared, the waters seemed to change into the Campagna of Rome, which was as red as blood. In the outline of the city he seemed to see the fawning face of Sejanus. The emperor turned away and looked towards Surrentum, but even there he had left his trail of blood. To the south he saw the open sea, but the rocks beneath him were streaked with the blood of those whom he had murdered. He glanced towards the west, but there the islands of Pandataria and Ponza, like bloody fingers, pointed towards him. For on Pandataria Julia, his wife, had been starved; on Ponza, Nero had lately been strangled. Everywhere he looked he saw blood, blood, blood!
That night he retired early. The lights were extinguished, and he tried to find comfort in sleep. But his sleep revealed to him a new world. Indistinct figures moved before him with stealthy steps, like famished jackals. They were images of his own crimes and of his victims. In his vision he saw sturdy, robust men reduced to weak and silly effeminacy by participation with him in the vicious pleasures that consumed vitality around him. He saw fantastic faces of violated virgins, of filthy prostitutes with flabby breasts floating in the foul air of his corrupt nature. There passed before him visions of sweet and lovely children dragged from the heights of purity, ruined by contact with his corruption. He twisted and groaned in torment. He seemed to breathe an air infected with the foul breath of low, vulgar people, the smell of filthy sewers, the stench of carrion, the belching of drunken men, the sweat of panting prostitutes. He yelled as there passed before him apparitions of tortured forms with screaming faces smeared with blood. In all this horrible vision he heard, like the screeching of a monstrous bird of prey, the words of his mother, Livia, “Woe unto thee, Tiberius; woe unto thee!” Suddenly, amid the din of the terrible cries of woe, he saw bloody fingers that wrote prophecies on the filthy mud of his soul.
With frenzied screams he jumped from his couch. He called for lights. He awakened the princes. He must bury the memory of those old crimes, of those old obscenities, of those old murders, with new ones. “Call the Greeks!” he ordered. “Call the dancers! Kill the cowardly captain!” he cried in madness, as the sleepy servants slowly lit the lamps in the luxurious rooms of the villa.
Chapter XXI
“THE prisoner at Capri confers new honors on his jailer, O Livilla,” said Sejanus, with an evil smile, after he had received the letter from Tiberius offering him the consulship. “He begins to fear me.”
“As consul, my Sejanus, there is nothing thou canst not do!” replied Livilla.