18/10/2026
Today, October 18. Exactly 1,995 years ago, in Rome, the most powerful man in the empire after Tiberius was executed. He was born in Bolsena.
Lucius Aelius Sejanus, commander of the Praetorian Guard, fell in a single day: a letter from the emperor accused him of treason, and that same evening he was put to death. Then came the damnatio memoriae. Almost a century later, the satirical poet Juvenal would write that the bronze of his portraits ended up as pitchers, basins, and frying pans.
The baths given to Volsinii by his father, Lucius Seius Strabo, and his family are still here, in the archaeological area of Poggio Moscini. Much of them is still waiting to be discovered.
Second episode of "Figures of Lake Bolsena." Next episode: Saint Christina.
Portrait and voice created with artificial intelligence: no reliable portraits of Sejanus survive, the damnatio memoriae erased them.
Visit Bolsena