"
In answer to this, Sejanus no longer soliciting the marriage, but filled
with higher apprehensions, besought him "to resist the dark suggestions of
suspicion; to despise the pratings of the vulgar, nor to admit the hostile
breath of envy." And as he was puzzled about the crowds which incessantly
haunted his house; lest by keeping them off he might impair his power; or
by encouraging them, furnish a handle for criminal imputations; he came to
this result, that he would urge the Emperor out of Rome, to spend his life
remote from thence in delightful retirements. From this counsel he foresaw
many advantages: upon himself would depend all access to the Emperor; all
letters and expresses would, as the soldiers were the carriers, be in
great measure under his direction; in a little time, the Prince, now in
declining age, and then softened by recess, would more easily transfer
upon him the whole charge of the Empire: he should be removed from the
multitude of such as to make their court, attended him at Rome; and thence
one source of envy would be stopped. So that by discharging the empty
phantoms of power, he should augment the essentials.
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