I, Claudius - Robert Graves [141]
For Piso had retained the most incriminating letter of all, one written to him by Livia but in the names of Tiberius and herself, and not stamped with the Sphinx seal [which Tiberius reserved for his own use]. He told Plancina to bargain for their lives with it. Plancina went to Livia. Livia told her to wait while she consulted Tiberius.
Livia and Tiberius then had their first quarrel. Tiberius was furious with Livia for having written the letter, and Livia said that it was his own fault for not allowing her to use the Sphinx seal and complained that he had been behaving very insolently to her lately. Tiberius asked, who was Emperor, he or she? Livia said that if he was, it was by her contrivance and that it was foolish of him to be rude to her, because as she had found means to make him, so she could find means to break him. She took a letter from her purse and began reading it: it was an old letter written to her by Augustus during Tiberius' absence in Rhodes, accusing him of treachery, cruelty and bestiality and saying that if he were not her son he would not live another day. "This is only a copy," she said. "But I have the original in safe keeping. It's only one of many letters in the same strain.
You wouldn't like them handed about the Senate, would you?"
Tiberius controlled himself and apologised for his bad temper: he said that it was clear that he and she were each able to ruin the other and that therefore it was absurd for them to quarrel. But how could he spare Piso's life, especially after having said that, if the charge of raising private forces and trying to win back Syria with them was proved, this would mean the death penalty, beyond hope of pardon?
"Plancina didn't raise any forces, though, did she?"
"I don't see what that has to do with it. I can't get the letter back from Piso merely by promising to spare PIancina."
"If you promise to spare Plancina, I'll get the letter from Piso: leave that to me. If Piso's killed that will satisfy public opinion. And if you are afraid of sparing Plancina on your own responsibility you can say that it was I who pleaded for her. That's fair enough, because I admit that it is a letter I wrote that all the trouble is about."
So Livia went to Plancina and told her that Tiberius refused to listen to reason, and that he would rather sacrifice his own mother to popular hatred than risk his own skin in standing by his friends. All that she had been able to get from him, she said, was a grudging promise of pardon for her if the letter were given up. So Plancina went to Piso with a letter in Tiberius' name, forged by Livia, and said that she had arranged everything beautifully and here was the promise of acquittal. As Piso handed her the letter in exchange she suddenly stabbed him in the throat with a dagger. As he lay dying she dipped the point of his sword in blood, clasped his sword-hand around the pommel and left him. She took the letter and the forged promise back to Livia as arranged.
In the Senate next day Tiberius read a statement which he said that Piso had made before his suicide, pleading complete innocence of the crime charged against him, protesting his loyalty to Livia and himself, and imploring their protection for his sons as having taken no part in the events which had been made the subject of his impeachment. Plancina's trial then began. She was proved