Several threatening appearances moreover
dismayed him: some avoided to meet him; others having just paid him the
salute, turned instantly away: many, in the midst of conversation, broke
off and left him; while the creatures of Sejanus stood still fearlessly by
and sneered upon him. For Tiberius; he always entertained him with a stern
face, or a hollow smile; and whether the youth spoke or said nothing,
there were crimes in his words, crimes in his silence: nor was he safe
even at the dead of night; since his uneasiness and watchings, nay, his
very sighs and dreams were, by his wife, divulged to her mother Livia, and
by Livia to Sejanus; who had also drawn his brother Drusus into the
combination, by tempting him with the immediate prospect of Empire, if his
elder brother, already sinking, were once set effectually aside. The
genius of Druses naturally furious, instigated besides by a passion for
power, and by the usual hate and competition between brothers, was further
kindled by the partiality of Agrippina, who was fonder of Nero. However,
Sejanus did not so far favour Drusus, but that against him too he was even
then ripening the studied measures of future destruction; as he knew him
to be violent, and thence more obnoxious to snares.
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