empire, and that Tiberius, who had by this time retired to Capri, was
only the dependent prince of that tributary island. He even went so far
in degrading the emperor, as to have him introduced in a ridiculous light
upon the stage. Advice of Sejanus's proceedings was soon carried to the
emperor at Capri; his indignation was immediately excited; and with a
confidence founded upon an authority exercised for several years, he sent
orders for accusing Sejanus (246) before the senate. This mandate no
sooner arrived, than the audacious minister was deserted by his
adherents; he was in a short time after seized without resistance, and
strangled in prison the same day.

Human nature recoils with horror at the cruelties of this execrable
tyrant, who, having first imbrued his hands in the blood of his own
relations, proceeded to exercise them upon the public with indiscriminate
fury. Neither age nor sex afforded any exemption from his insatiable
thirst for blood. Innocent children were condemned to death, and
butchered in the presence of their parents; virgins, without any imputed
guilt, were sacrificed to a similar destiny; but there being an ancient
custom of not strangling females in that situation, they were first
deflowered by the executioner, and afterwards strangled, as if an
atrocious addition to cruelty could sanction the exercise of it. Fathers
were constrained by violence to witness the death of their own children;
and even the tears of a mother, at the execution of her child, were
punished as a capital offence. Some extraordinary calamities, occasioned
by accident, added to the horrors of the reign. A great number of houses
on Mount Caelius were destroyed by fire; and by the fall of a temporary
building at Fidenae, erected for the purpose of exhibiting public shows,
about twenty thousand persons were either greatly hurt, or crushed to
death in the rains.