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Rh decease." Apparently there was some very treasonable matter in Labienus's 'History,' since he avoided the trouble of being put to death by burying himself alive in the tomb of his ancestors; and his book, after his death, was ordered by the senate to be publicly burnt.

Nor did Tacitus confine his attention to private memoirs. He plumes himself on not excluding tales, resting on common rumour only, from his 'Annals.' Drusus Cæsar, the son of Tiberius, was poisoned by Sejanus, and his partner in guilt, Livia. But there was another version of the story, which Tacitus disbelieved, yet which he cannot refrain from repeating. The story was this: that Sejanus contrived to poison the cup which Drusus was about to present to his father, and warned Tiberius not to drink out of it. Drusus, having no suspicion of the fraud, drained the poisoned chalice, and Tiberius was persuaded that his son committed suicide through dread of being discovered. Tacitus says—"In my account of the death of Drusus, the best and most authentic of historians have been my guides. A report, however, which found credit at the time, and has not yet died out, ought not to be omitted." He admits that "the report cannot stand the test of examination." He gives excellent reasons for disbelieving it. He says, in another portion of the 'Annals,' that Rome was the most credulous and scandalous of cities; and yet he cannot refrain, sceptical as he was, from telling and commenting upon this monstrous story. The true reason peeps out at the last. The story furnished him with an arrow against the Cæsar. "The truth is," he writes, "Sejanus was capable of every species of villainy, however atrocious: the emperor's partiality for him increased the number