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Rh counterfeited by ambition for the acquisition of power."

That such a person as Sejanus should ever have existed, Tacitus ascribes to the wrath of the gods against the Roman state, to which this minister "was equally fatal in the height of his power and his death." Had he confined the fatality to Tiberius himself, we should have been the more inclined to agree with the historian; he in fact ascribes to the minister the political depravation of the emperor.

The first important measure of Sejanus was to concentrate the prætorians, or imperial body-guard, in one camp. Hitherto this division of the army had been quartered either in the capital or in neighbouring towns. They appear to have been billeted on private householders or lodged in taverns, and were doubtless, in the one case, a nuisance to their hosts, while, in the other, they were put in the way of evil companions. Viewed at the moment it was effected, and not judged of by its results, this collection of the guards into one camp appears to have been a prudent measure—one that even a wise and honest minister might have devised or sanctioned. It assured the Government of ready support when needed; it would protect respectable citizens from the fury of a Roman mob, like those which occasionally disgraced the later years of the commonwealth. It was, in fact, a very similar innovation to that in our own history, when a standing army took the place of a militia; and it was more the fault of the time than of the change which rendered the prætorians the tools of Cæsar, or the arbiters or donors of imperial power. An Augustus, who knew how to win the affections as well as the respect of his subjects, could dispense with a