 Favourites were the subject of much contemporary debate, some of it involving a certain amount of danger for the participants.There were a large number of English plays on the subject, amongst the best known to be Marlowe's "Edward II" in which Piers Gaveston is a leading character, and "Sejanus His Fall" (1603), for which Ben Jonson was called before the Privy Council, accused of "Popery and treason", as the play was claimed by his enemies to contain allusions to the contemporary court of James I of England.Sejanus, whose career under Tiberius was vividly described by Tacitus, was the subject of numerous works all around Europe.