Lucius Aelius Sejanus

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Sējānus, Lucius Aelius (d. AD 31), Roman statesman. He was appointed prefect of praetorians in AD 14 and exercised a steadily increasing influence over the emperor Tiberius. When the latter's son Drusus died suddenly in 23, Sejanus was suspected of poisoning him and of hoping to bring about a dynastic marriage with his widow, Livilla. His background, however, was too humble for the emperor to accede to this request. When at his persuasion Tiberius withdrew to Capri in 27 Sejanus became all-powerful. Tiberius, however, denounced him in a letter to the senate (the poet Juvenal's verbosa et grandis epistula, ‘long-winded and lengthy letter’) and Sejanus was brought before the senate, condemned of plotting to overthrow the emperor, and executed. It is said that after his execution his body was torn to pieces by the people whose hatred he had incurred, and thrown into the Tiber. Ben Jonson's Sejanus his Fall was produced in 1603 with Shakespeare in the cast.