To this minister,
Paterculus attributes as many virtues as he has bestowed upon Tiberius: "a
man grave and courteous," he says, "with 'a fine old-fashioned grace';
leisurely in his ways, retiring, modest; appearing to be careless, and
therefore gaining all his ends; outwardly polite and quiet, but an eager
soul, wary, inscrutable, and vigilant." Whatever he may have been in
reality, he was at one time valued by Tiberius. "The whole Senate," Bacon
says, "dedicated an altar to Friendship as to a Goddess, in respect of the
great Dearness of Friendship between them two:" and in the Essay "Of
Friendship," Bacon has many deep sentences about the favourites of Kings,
their "Participes Curarum." I would summon out of "The Annals," that
episode of Tiberius imprisoned within the falling cave, and shielded by
Sejanus from the descending roof. "Coelo Musa beat:" Sejanus has
propitiated no Muse; and although something more, than the "invida
taciturnitas" of the poet, lies heavy upon his reputation, he shall find
no apologist in me. But over against the hard words of Tacitus, it is only
fair to place the commendations of Paterculus, and even Tacitus remarks,
that after the fall of Sejanus, Tiberius became worse; like Henry VIII.
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