At last Agrippina arrived at Rome with the ashes of her husband, and she began with her usual vehemence to fill the imperial house, the senate, and all Rome with protests, imprecations, and accusations against Piso.  The populace, which admired her for her fidelity and love for her husband, was even more deeply stirred, and on every hand the cry was raised that an exemplary punishment ought to be meted out to so execrable a crime.

If at first Piso had treated these absurd charges with haughty disdain, he soon perceived that the danger was growing serious and that it was necessary for him to hasten his return to Rome, where a trial was now inevitable.  One of Germanicus’s friends had accused him; Agrippina, an unwitting tool in the hands of the emperor’s enemies, every day stirred public opinion to still higher pitches of excitement through her grief and her laments; the party of Germanicus worked upon the senate and the people, and when Piso arrived at Rome he found that he had been abandoned by all.  His hope lay in Tiberius, who knew the truth and who certainly desired that these wild notions be driven out of the popular mind.  But Tiberius was watched with the most painstaking malevolence.  Any least action in favor of Piso would have been interpreted as a decisive proof that he had been the murderer’s accomplice and therefore wished to save him.  In fact, it was being reported at Rome with ever-increasing insistence that at the trial Piso would show the letters of Tiberius.  When the trial began, Livia, in the background, cleverly directed her thoughts to the saving of Plancina; but Tiberius could do no more for Piso than to recommend to the senate that they exercise the most rigorous impartiality.  His noble speech on this occasion has been preserved for us by Tacitus.  “Let them judge,” he said, “without regard either for the imperial family or for the family of Piso.”  The admonition was useless, for his condemnation was a foregone conclusion, despite the absurdity of the charges.  The enemies of Tiberius wished to force matters to the uttermost limit in the hope that the famous letters would have to be produced; and they acted with such frenzied hatred and excited public opinion to such a pitch that Piso killed himself before the end of the trial.

The violence of Agrippina had sent an innocent victim to follow the shade of her young husband.  Despite bitter opposition, the emperor, through personal intervention, succeeded in saving the wife, the son, and the fortune of Piso, whose enemies had wished to exterminate his house root and branch.  Tiberius thus offered a further proof that he was one of the few persons at Rome who were capable in that trying and troubled time of passing judgment and of reasoning with calm.

IV

TIBERIUS AND AGRIPPINA