The trial and condemnation of Agrippina and Nero were certainly the
machinations of Sejanus, who carried along with him not only the senate
and the friends of the imperial family, but perhaps even Tiberius
himself. They prove how much Sejanus had been able to strengthen
imperial authority, which had been hesitating and feeble in the last
decade. Sejanus had dared to do what Tiberius had never succeeded in
doing; he had destroyed that center of opposition which gathered about
Agrippina in the house of Germanicus. It is therefore scarcely
necessary to say that the ruin of Agrippina still further increased the
power of Sejanus. All bowed trembling before the man who had dared
humiliate the very family of the Julio-Claudii. Honors were showered
upon his head; he was made senator and pontifex; he received the
proconsular power; there was talk of a marriage between him and the
widow of Nero; and it was finally proposed that he be named consul for
five years. Indeed, in 31, through the will of Tiberius, he actually
became the colleague of the emperor himself in the consulate. He
needed only the tribunician power to make him the official collaborator
of the emperor and his designated successor. Every one at Rome,
furthermore, considered him the future prince.

[Illustration: Remains of the House of the Vestal Virgins.]

But having arrived at this height, Sejanus's head was turned, and he
asked himself why he should exercise the rule and have all its burdens
and dangers while he left to others the pomp, the honors, and the
advantages. Although Tiberius allowed the senate to heap honors upon
his faithful prefect of the pretorians, and though he himself showed
his gratitude to him in many ways, even going to the point of being
willing to give him the widow of Nero in marriage, he never really
expected to take him as his colleague or to designate him as his