There is a tradition, that Tiberius, as often as he
went out of the Senate, was wont to cry out in Greek, _Oh men prepared for
bondage!_ Yes, even Tiberius, he who could not bear public liberty,
nauseated this prostitute tameness of slaves.
BOOK IV
A.D. 23-28.
When Caius Asinius and Caius Antistius were Consuls, Tiberius was in his
ninth year; the State composed, and his family flourishing (for the death
of Germanicus he reckoned amongst the incidents of his prosperity) when
suddenly fortune began to grow boisterous, and he himself to tyrannise, or
to furnish others with the weapons of tyranny. The beginning and cause of
this turn arose from Aelius Sejanus, captain of the Praetorian cohorts. Of
his power I have above made mention; I shall now explain his original, his
manners, and by what black deeds he strove to snatch the sovereignty. He
was born at Vulsinii, son to Sejus Strabo, a Roman knight; in his early
youth, he was a follower of Caius Caesar (grandson of Augustus) and lay
then under the contumely of having for hire exposed himself to the
constupration of Apicius; a debauchee wealthy and profuse: next by various
artifices he so enchanted Tiberius, that he who to all others was dark and
unsearchable, became to Sejanus alone destitute of all restraint and
caution: nor did he so much accomplish this by any superior efforts of
policy (for at his own stratagems he was vanquished by others) as by the
rage of the Gods against the Roman State, to which he proved alike
destructive when he flourished and when he fell.
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