[The remainder of the fifth book and the beginning of the sixth, recounting Sejanus' marriage and fall and covering a space of nearly three years, are lost.Newer editions of Tacitus mark the division between the fifth and sixth books at this point rather than at the end of section 11; but references are regularly made to the older numbering, and so it has been retained here.The beginning of section 6 is obviously fragmentary.]
....forty-four speeches were delivered on this subject, a few of which were prompted by fear, most by the habit of flattery...
"There is now a change of fortune, and even he who chose Sejanus to be his colleague and his son-in-law excuses his error.As for the rest, the man whom they encouraged by shameful baseness, they now wickedly revile.Which is the most pitiable, to be accused for friendship's sake or to have to accuse a friend, I cannot decide.Iwill not put any man's cruelty or compassion to the test, but, while Iam free and have a clear conscience, I will anticipate peril.Iimplore you to cherish my memory with joy rather than with sorrow, numbering me too with those who by noble death have fled from the miseries of our country."Then detaining those of his friends who were minded to stay with him and converse, or, if otherwise, dismissing them, he thus spent part of the day, and with a numerous circle yet round him, all gazing on his fearless face, and imagining that there was still time to elapse before the last scene, he fell on a sword which he had concealed in his robe.The emperor did not pursue him after his death with either accusation or reproach, although he had heaped a number of foul charges on Blaesus.
Next were discussed the cases of Publius Vitellius and Pomponius Secundus.The first was charged by his accusers with having offered the keys of the treasury, of which he was prefect, and the military chest in aid of a revolution.Against the latter, Considius, an ex-praetor, alleged intimacy with Aelius Gallus, who, after the punishment of Sejanus, had fled to the gardens of Pomponius, as his safest refuge.They had no resource in their peril but in the courageous firmness of their brothers who became their sureties.Soon, after several adjournments, Vitellius, weary alike of hope and fear, asked for a penknife, avowedly, for his literary pursuits, and inflicted a slight wound in his veins, and died at last of a broken heart.Pomponius, a man of refined manners and brilliant genius, bore his adverse fortune with resignation, and outlived Tiberius.
It was next decided to punish the remaining children of Sejanus, though the fury of the populace was subsiding, and people generally had been appeased by the previous executions.Accordingly they were carried off to prison, the boy, aware of his impending doom, and the little girl, who was so unconscious that she continually asked what was her offence, and whither she was being dragged, saying that she would do so no more, and a childish chastisement was enough for her correction.Historians of the time tell us that, as there was no precedent for the capital punishment of a virgin, she was violated by the executioner, with the rope on her neck.Then they were strangled and their bodies, mere children as they were, were flung down the Gemoniae.
About the same time Asia and Achaia were alarmed by a prevalent but short-lived rumour that Drusus, the son of Germanicus, had been seen in the Cyclades and subsequently on the mainland.There was indeed a young man of much the same age, whom some of the emperor's freedmen pretended to recognise, and to whom they attached themselves with a treacherous intent.The renown of the name attracted the ignorant, and the Greek mind eagerly fastens on what is new and marvellous.The story indeed, which they no sooner invented than believed, was that Drusus had escaped from custody, and was on his way to the armies of his father, with the design of invading Egypt or Syria.And he was now drawing to himself a multitude of young men and much popular enthusiasm, enjoying the present and cherishing idle hopes of the future, when Poppaeus Sabinus heard of the affair.
At the time he was chiefly occupied with Macedonia, but he also had the charge of Achaia.So, to forestall the danger, let the story be true or false, he hurried by the bays of Torone and Thermae, then passed on to Euboea, an island of the Aegaean, to Piraeus, on the coast of Attica, thence to the shores of Corinth and the narrow Isthmus, and having arrived by the other sea at Nicopolis, a Roman colony, he there at last ascertained that the man, when skilfully questioned, had said that he was the son of Marcus Silanus, and that, after the dispersion of a number of his followers' he had embarked on a vessel, intending, it seemed, to go to Italy.Sabinus sent this account to Tiberius, and of the origin and issue of the affair nothing more is known to me.
At the close of the year a long growing feud between the consuls broke out.Trio, a reckless man in incurring enmities and a practised lawyer, had indirectly censured Regulus as having been half-hearted in crushing the satellites of Sejanus.Regulus, who, unless he was provoked, loved quietness, not only repulsed his colleague's attack, but was for dragging him to trial as a guilty accomplice in the conspiracy.And though many of the senators implored them to compose a quarrel likely to end fatally, they continued their enmity and their mutual menaces till they retired from office.