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4Now Sejanus was growing greater and more formidable all the time, so that the senators and the rest looked up to him as if he were actually emperor and held Tiberius in slight esteem. When Tiberius learned this, he did not treat the matter lightly or disregard it, since he feared they might declare his rival emperor outright. He did nothing openly, to be sure, 2for Sejanus had completely won over the entire Pretorian guard and had gained the favour of the senators, partly by the benefits he conferred, partly by the hopes he inspired, and partly by intimidation: he had furthermore made all the associates of Tiberius so completely his friends that they immediately reported to him absolutely everything the emperor either said or did, whereas no one informed Tiberius of what Sejanus did. 3Hence Tiberius proceeded to attack him in another way; he appointed him consul and termed him Sharer of his Cares, often repeated the phrase “My Sejanus,” and published the same by using it in letters addressed to the senate and to the people. 4Men were accordingly deceived by this behaviour, taking it to be sincere, and so set up bronze statues everywhere to both alike, wrote their names together in the records, and brought gilded chairs into the theatres for both. Finally it was voted that they should be made consuls together every five years and that a body of citizens should go out to meet both alike whenever they entered Rome. And in the end they sacrificed to the images of Sejanus as they did to those of Tiberius.
5While matters were going thus with Sejanus, many of the other prominent men perished, among them Gaius Fufius Geminus. This man, having been accused of maiestas against Tiberius, took his will into the senate-chamber and read it, showing that he had left his inheritance in equal portions to his children and to the emperor. 6Upon being charged with cowardice, he went home before a vote was taken; then, when he learned that the quaestor had arrived to look after his execution, he wounded himself, and showing the wound to the official, exclaimed: “Report to the senate that it is thus one dies who is a man.” Likewise his wife, Mutilia Prisca, against whom some complaint had been lodged, entered the senate chamber and there stabbed herself with a dagger, which she had brought in secretly.
7Next he destroyed Mucia and her husband and two daughters on account of her friendship for his mother.
8Under Tiberius all who accused any persons received money, and large sums too, both from the victims’ estates and from the public treasury, and various honours besides. There were cases, too, where men who recklessly threw others into a panic or readily passed sentence of death upon them obtained either images or triumphal honours. Hence several distinguished men who were held worthy of some such honour would not accept it, lest they might one day be thought to have been like these men. 9Tiberius, feigning illness, sent Sejanus on to Rome with the assurance that he himself would follow. He declared that a part of his own body and soul was being wrenched away from him, and with tears he embraced and kissed him, so that Sejanus was still more elated.
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