Chapter C: Julius Cæsar (6)

After his death in 745, Tiberius took the command. But soon afterwards followed his absence of seven years, during which little happened except that the Bructeri defeated the legate M. Lollius, annihilated his legion, and took his eagles. When Tiberius returned from Rhodes, his stepfather bestowed upon him the command in Gaul, that he might complete the conquest of Germany. Tiberius subdued the Sigambri, Bructeri, and Cherusci, and penetrated as far as the Elbe: there he was joined by the Roman fleet, which had either been equipped in the Ems, or had come from the Rhine to the Ems. How far it went up the Elbe cannot be made out; it may be that it got as far as Magdeburg, yet the Roman galleys were not able, like steam-boats, to run against the stream. After these campaigns, Tiberius again left Germany, as his predecessor had done, and as many of his successors did after him. The Romans wished to crush the Germans; but it did not seem worth their while to keep the country.

Whilst the tribes about the Hartz, and in the Thuringian forest, had their country invaded by the Romans, there existed in Bohemia the great kingdom of Marbod, which is indeed a perplexing phenomenon: we read of a large city in this realm, of an army of seventy thousand men, and of a body guard. Moeser rightly observes, that one is not to believe the Germans of those days to have been less civilized than the peasantry of Westphalia and Lower Saxony are now; only they were wanting in the refinement of those who live in towns:—their houses were certainly built like the worse ones which we have; the dwellings of the princes were very much the same as the buildings of the middle ages. Nothing is more preposterous than to take them for rude savages, when they were merely rough country people. Venantius Fortunatus, in his poem to Radagunda, speaks of the fallen splendour of the kingdom of her house, and of the bronze covered palaces of her forefathers, the Thuringian kings. There were indeed some things different from what they are now: in winter, for instance, they had certainly to burn candles by day, and when it rained to shut up everything with boards, because they had no glass windows; yet this was the case in Rome itself where there are houses of this kind to this day. Marbod, however, must have really had a civilized kingdom. He had immigrated with his Sueves into Bohemia, and subdued the Celtic Boians there: his seventy thousand men betoken something feudal. Against Marbod, Tiberius now armed himself; he meant to attack him on two sides, himself advancing from Noricum and Vindelicia, and Sentius Saturninus from the Rhine through Northern Germany, the Hercynian, and the Thuringian Forests. The Romans made great preparations, laying down for many miles, across the Dutch and Westphalian fens, large wooden causeways and wooden bridges—the bridge over the Elbe near Hamburgh—of which remains are found even to this day: the wood has stood exceedingly well, except that it has become black in the bogs. It was then that the consequences of the dissensions among the Germans began to show themselves. The northern Germans did not trust Marbod, and were afraid of losing by him their freedom, like the Marcomanni: these he had once left in the lurch, and hence they were so broken down, that they could not now come to his help. But whilst Tiberius was preparing himself for the attack, Dalmatia and Pannonia revolted. During this insurrection which lasted for three years, Marbod remained inactive: the Getæ also, and the Dacians, who had formerly often crossed the Danube, and fallen upon the Roman frontiers, now kept still, luckily for Rome, which otherwise might have been brought into fearful trouble. Augustus, quite appalled, trembled at the danger: it was reckoned that there were two hundred thousand men able to bear arms among these tribes; two Dalmatians, both of them called Bato, and a Pannonian, Pinnes, were their leaders. Velleius, who served in this war, tells us of their high state of civilization, especially of the Pannonians, nearly all of whom had Roman manners and spoke Latin: they must have been very much akin to the Romans, otherwise this would be hardly conceivable, as the Roman dominion there was still so recent. In this war the rebels spread as far as Macedonia, once driving back a Roman army which had come from Asia; and it was only by the extraordinary bravery of their soldiers that the Romans gained the victory after all. At last the nations fell out, and one of the Batos treacherously gave up the Pannonian general Pinnes to the Romans. The Pannonians were the first who submitted, and the Romans seem to have granted them very favourable conditions. Tiberius was now free to go against Marbod, who would have thus met with his punishment for having kept aloof, had not another event taken place.

The whole of the country between the Rhine, the Westerwald, and the Elbe, was about the year 760 brought under the rule of Rome: the Chauci, who dwelt in East-Friesland and Oldenburg, and the other inhabitants of the marshes were quite as much subdued as the Bructeri and Cherusci in Westphalia Proper. Quintilius Varus, who was of an old and illustrious patrician house, and an able general, but had made himself notorious for his shameful rapacity, quite thought himself the governor of nations which only recked fear and force. For him Arminius—whom we generally call Hermann, but whose name was probably not this, but Armin—laid a trap most cleverly. As things then stood, it was very difficult for the Germans who had no towns, to make head against the Romans: the German cavalry was superior to that which the Romans had of their own; but the Gaulish cavalry, which had the advantage of better horses, and of more complete armour, thenceforth constituted the flower of the Roman army, in which it had such a preponderance, that the terms which belonged to the cavalry service, were almost all of them of Celtic origin: so paramount was Gallic influence on discipline! Cunning against tyranny is all fair; so that I cannot blame Arminius in the least for what he did: the Germans had been most unjustly made war upon by the Romans, whom they could not possibly meet with open force. Arminius had in many Roman campaigns served with German cavalry, and very likely had distinguished himself in the Pannonian war: he was a perfect master of the Latin tongue, had the Roman franchise, and the rank of a knight; and, by dint of the greatest perseverance, he, as well as his fellow conspirators, had gained the unbounded, and even childlike confidence of Varus. Varus had made for himself a stationary camp, where, as in a Roman province, he held a court of justice which was a means for enriching himself; like the law-courts of the oppressive high bailiffs in Switzerland. The Roman soldiers were wont to purchase leave of absence and discharge, as was formerly the custom in the German army; for just as it was in France before the revolution, they then only got part of their pay: thus there might have been many of them roving about the country. There seemed to be the most profound peace, and the Germans made Varus believe that they felt indeed quite happy in their growing civilization; but when he was thus off his guard, and a great part of the soldiers gone perhaps away on furlough, some tribes in Lower Saxony revolted, as it had been arranged; so that Varus was got to draw near those countries. The conspirators persuaded him to turn off from the highways (_limites_) which led from the Rhine to the Lippe, and through Westphalia as far as the Weser;—these were straight roads cut through the woods, not yet paved indeed, but laid with logs; and when he had ventured sufficiently deep into the impassable forests, the insurrection broke out on all sides. He then tried to get back to the _limes_, and above all, no doubt, to the chief Roman stronghold in that part of the country, Aliso on the Lippe, in the neighbourhood of Hamm. The spot where Arminius routed Varus is no more to be ascertained: the only sensible way of tracing it, is to find out the direction in which the roads may have been laid down from the principal posts; yet even thus much cannot be made out, as the difficulties were every where pretty nearly the same: we might, however, perhaps take Cologne as such a starting point. It is infinitely harder to give an opinion on this subject, than on Hannibal’s passage across the Alps. On the first day, Varus was attacked on all sides; he lost a good deal of baggage, and with much trouble entrenched himself in a strong position for the night. The following day, he continued his march; but his columns were already seized with panic, so that in the evening when they wanted to pitch their camp, they were scarcely able to make head against the enemy’s attack: Varus and several of his chief officers, overcome by their despair, now put an end to their lives, dreading the account which they would have to give. It was then perhaps that Numonius Vala—very likely the one to whom Horace addresses one of his Epistles[38]—and three _alæ_ separated themselves from the infantry, and tried to cut their way out; but they also were overpowered, as they deserved to be for having deserted their own comrades. On the third day, the whole army was annihilated; three legions and as many _alæ_ (the cavalry attached to a legion), together with ten cohorts, were cut to pieces: a legion consisted of six thousand foot, and three thousand horse. The Germans took an awful vengeance upon their oppressors, in which there was moreover a great deal of superstition, many of them being sacrificed to the gods.

Of this victory the Germans, owing to their want of union, could not make the use which would have been desirable, and which Armin wished. It is true that very many Roman forts were taken and destroyed, and much besides may have been done, as the Romans have undoubtedly left many disasters untold; yet notwithstanding all this, Nonius Asprenas kept the left banks of the Rhine with two legions: the everlasting lamentable dismemberment of Germany, checked in this case also its progress, although its peoples tried to rise. Cædicius held out in Aliso, until at last he found an opportunity, when the Germans were dispersed, of fighting his way out with the rest of his brave men to the Rhine, where he stopped the advance of the enemy. Owing to the victory not being followed up on the side of the Germans, Germanicus was afterwards enabled to wreak his vengeance in his unhallowed expeditions.

The news of the disaster of Varus came like a thunderbolt on Augustus, who was one of those men who are given to fear the worst. At Rome it was thought that the Germans would cross the river, and destroy the legions on the Lower Rhine, and that the Gauls would also take up arms and unite with the Germans; so that a war in the Alps seemed near at hand. No doubt Augustus expected also that Marbod would rise; but the latter, who had here an opportunity of gaining eternal glory, shamefully kept quiet, for which he afterwards ended his days a prisoner at Ravenna. Augustus wished to make a general levy; yet he met with great difficulty, owing to the inconceivable aversion to military service which had all at once arisen among the Italians: in Marius’ times one might have raised as many legions as one wanted. Fathers maimed the hands of their children, to make them unfit for service; soldiers were taken from the lowest ranks of society; attempts were made to enlist freedmen; patrons were induced to emancipate strong slaves on condition of their entering the army: whereas formerly slaves were punished with death, if they presumed to take unto themselves the honour of military service. Tiberius had orders to set out in all haste for Gaul: Nonius Asprenas has the merit of having checked the tide; Tiberius went on with the work. Afterwards, Germanicus, the son of Drusus, was sent in his stead, who at once took measures for an offensive war. But Augustus did not live to see it.

Augustus was now full of days, but his health had very much improved: he had in fact, during the last third of his life, little or no illness at all. Thus he had gently become an old man, and was quite under the thraldom of his wife, who grew worse as she grew older, and shut out from all access to him every one who was not subservient to her. Towards her own son Drusus, she may indeed have had the feelings of a step-mother; to Germanicus at least she bore a deadly hatred. Germanicus and Agrippina were patterns of domestic excellence; their married life, at a time when every trace of the virtues of home had been lost, when elsewhere marriage was merely a bond of indifference, and often even of hatred, was most remarkably beautiful:—it was because Germanicus was fondly attached to his wife and his children, that he became an object of hatred to his grandmother. Livia did not at all like Tiberius’ own son Drusus, as he was too friendly with his adopted brother Germanicus, though otherwise he had quite the character of his father. Augustus passed the last years of his life in the consciousness of being enthralled: he was unhappy in more than one respect, and in this life already he had to suffer for many of his misdeeds; the overthrow of Varus put him utterly beside himself. Tiberius was going to Illyricum, and Augustus wished to meet him at Beneventum: he had passed several summers at Capreæ in the bay of Naples, the most paradise-like spot in the world, thus to recover from his cares and troubles, while the mildness of the climate would prolong his life. Here he fell sick, and was brought to Nola where he died on the 19th of August 765, fourteen years after the birth of Christ. The Romans laid a great stress on his having died the self-same day as that on which he had got the consulship for the first time by force; and on his having had as many consulates as Marius and Valerius Corvus together: to take any such things, is silly. He died as sure in the possession of his rule as any king who was born to a throne, and he gave his ring to Tiberius, who already had the tribunician power: no sensible man could doubt that the latter would now take the government upon himself.

The corpse was buried with almost godlike honours. From Nola to Bovillæ, the decurions of the towns bore it on their shoulders; and the _equites Romani_, from Bovillæ to the city itself. Tiberius and his son Drusus spoke the funeral orations from the _rostra vetera_ and _nova_, near the Curia Julia; and afterwards too, all such orations, and the proclamations of the emperors, were delivered from the new _rostra_.

The extent of the Roman empire when Augustus died, was as follows. He had once entertained the idea of conquering Britain; but he had given it up. The empire, however, was not bounded by the Rhine, but Holland and the adjoining Frisian countries were at that time under the power of the Romans; farther to the south indeed, as far as the Lake of Constance, the Rhine really formed the boundary, which from thence ran along the Danube to Lower Mœsia. But here the Romans were not masters of the river’s banks, as the Sarmatians often crossed it: the frontier was more to the south; Tomi (Kustendji) actually lay outside of the contiguous Roman empire. The so-called wall of Trajan,—it improperly bears that name,—along the old branch of the Danube, the salt water near Peuce, was very likely now built by Augustus; the country north of it, the Sarmatians overran without resistance: in Trajan’s days, even Moldavia and Wallachia, nay the whole range of land to the Dniester was subject to the Roman sway. In Asia, Cappadocia was still a kingdom under Roman supremacy; Armenia likewise in some measure acknowledged the _majestas populi Romani_; the Parthians had very much abated of their pride, and there were hostages of theirs among the Romans, whilst the standards of Crassus had been given back by Phraates; it is of this that Virgil and Horace speak: in a certain sense therefore, the dominion of Rome extended to the borders of India. The real boundary, however, in the East was the Euphrates: Syria, Egypt, Libya, and old Africa were Roman; and the eastern part of the Numidian coast, which had Cirta for its capital, was a Roman province. The Numidian kingdom had been overthrown by Cæsar; but the learned Juba had by way of compensation been presented by Augustus with western Algiers and Morocco, the realms of Bocchus. The rule of the Romans reached beyond Fezzan; they might easily have come as far as the negro countries. Those negro states on the rivers in the interior of Africa, may at different times have acknowledged Rome’s supremacy,—at least by embassies and tributes: we know of a caravan-road to Fezzan and Cydamus; the Garamantes are the inhabitants of Garama in Fezzan; (here there is a mistake in d’Anville’s map;) a short time ago, Roman ruins and inscriptions were found there by Ouseley. Once, the Romans had made an expedition against the Blemmyans in Dongola with success; another, under Ælius Gallus, against Yemen on the Arabian coast, was an utter failure.

The number of Roman citizens had very much increased in the western provinces, from which also the legions were principally recruited. There were in fact forty-seven legions, and a corresponding number of cohorts under arms. In Italy, there were only levies in cases of emergency; and, on the other hand, the army became more and more made up of the _auxilia_ and cohorts. Far more than nine-tenths of it were certainly new citizens. The franchise, however, was now of little worth; nor was it even always attended with exemption from taxes.

As a civil law-giver, Augustus aimed at a different object from what Cæsar did, who had wished to bring within bounds the wide range of the Roman laws and to have them worked up into one grand whole; just as Peel wants to do with the common law of England. This undertaking was very praiseworthy, however perilous and thankless a task it may be to make new codes of laws; but it is quite a different thing to bring the existing laws into harmony with each other. Augustus’ legislation, on the other, hand, was a new and arbitrary one. The _Lex Ælia Sentia_ is to be commended: in other enactments, he was wishing to struggle against the stream of custom and the monstrous immorality of the age. An aversion had sprung up against lawful wedlock, and the citizens lived in concubinage with their female slaves, whose children likewise became slaves, and mostly remained so; or at best, became freedmen: thus the free population had very considerably dwindled. One may say, that in the guilds of the different crafts, nineteen out of twenty were freedmen; this is shown by the names on the _alba_ found at Pompeii. Augustus was quite right in setting his face against such a state of things; but the way in which he did it in the _Lex Julia_ and the _Lex Pupia Poppæa_, was by most wretched make-shifts which only betrayed how helplessly he was striving against the stream: their definitions of honour, of the _jus trium liberorum_, and such like were of no use.[39]

TIBERIUS.

If in the latter part of the history of the republic, the end of an accomplished career still affords an interest, although a painful one; even this ceases in the subsequent history of the emperors, in which we no longer find any more of that which charmed us in the earlier times: it is the history of a huge, corrupted mass, wherein brute force alone has weight; and in which the doom of a hundred millions of men, and even more, rests with one individual, and with the few who are next about him. The western part of this world still keeps up a sort of unity, though a feeble one, in the language which is common to the educated classes, yet in the provinces degenerates into a jargon; in the east, the Greek nationality is again established. It was a state of things of which no power on earth was able to check the march: from the war with Hannibal, there is nothing but struggles to bring about a crisis; a hundred years later, even this ceases. There was henceforth but a play of mechanical powers, all those that had life in them had entirely vanished. Nature is no longer able to bring about a crisis: it is a dying away by inches; an undefined, but deadly disease was at work, which could not fail to bring on the end. For the history of the world, this period is very remarkable; but as the history of a nation and of a state, it is sad and cheerless. In its practical application, it is still more important than that of the republic; for it is indispensably necessary for all branches of learning, especially divinity and jurisprudence. It was not therefore without reason that people formerly bestowed so much care on the study of the history of the emperors: the knowledge of this indeed is but too much neglected. I can, however, only give a very slight sketch of it now.

The first part of the history of the emperors, we should have in the greatest masterpiece which perhaps antiquity has produced, had we the complete work of Tacitus, who has written it from the death of Augustus down to Trajan; first, the _Historiæ_, then the _Annales_, which reach from the death of Augustus to the accession of Galba. It is the general belief that the _annales_ ended with the sixteenth book; I have elsewhere recorded my own opinion as to this point: it is more likely that there were twenty books. As far as Tacitus will reach, it would be foolish to seek for another source; where he is wanting we must avail ourselves of Dio Cassius, who, however, is also somewhat mutilated here, and of Suetonius, who indeed is a most wretched help. His idea of writing the history of those times in biographies, is quite correct; but he was not able to carry it out: he did not know what he would be at; and therefore there is no keeping in his work, and he rambles from one thing to another. Tacitus, in his Tiberius, has before him an anterior history; but what work, is uncertain: perhaps it was that of the father of the philosopher Seneca, which in all likelihood was one of the best; or that of Servilius Nonianus. With regard to the personal character of Tiberius, there are excellent materials in Velleius Paterculus, one of the most ingenious writers, whatever may be thought of him in other respects: he has much of the mannerism of the French writers of the eighteenth century, with their affectation, and pretension to wit. Leaving the badness of the man out of the question, he has much experience, has seen a very great deal, and tells it well; wherever he has no motive for perverting truth, he is not only trustworthy but an excellent authority: his narrative is strikingly beautiful.

Tiberius was the eldest son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and of Livia Drusilla: his father was quæstor with Cæsar, but afterwards joined the republicans, to whom he seems to have been staunch and true; after the battle of Philippi, he declared for L. Antonius and Fulvia, 711, as he had to expect no mercy from Augustus. (Tiberius was born in the year 710 according to Cato.) On the unfortunate issue of the Perusian war, Claudius fled with his family to Naples, and from thence to Sextus Pompey in Sicily; Tiberius was then in his second year, and his life was in the greatest danger. The father did not stay with Pompey, who offended him, but fled to Antony in Greece: he got his pardon at the peace of Brundusium, and returned to Italy. Livia Drusilla was daughter of one Livius Drusus, who, however, was not directly descended from the consul and tribune of that house: his real name was Appius Claudius Pulcher, and he was adopted by Livius; so that both by father and mother’s side, Tiberius came from the race of the Claudii, all the terrible qualities of which he had inherited. Soon afterwards, Augustus compelled Nero to give up to him his wife, who was with child at the time, and brought forth Drusus in the Palace. Tiberius, being the step-son of the Emperor, was brought up as a child of the very highest rank; yet no one ever thought of the possibility of the dominion of the world passing over to him. Augustus had hoped for some time to have children by Livia; and when this expectation was not fulfilled, he built his hopes on the children of Julia, his daughter by Scribonia, and especially on her husband M. Marcellus, and her children by Agrippa. Tiberius, who had a Greek philological education, displayed extraordinary talents which he helped besides by industry. Being at an early age employed in business, he had the _quæstura Ostiensis_, and then he was sent to Armenia. In everything that he did, he showed himself very able, and public attention was aroused to his eminent qualities: he was as much distinguished as a general, as he was as a civil governor. But people very soon remarked in him a great want of openness, with a leaning towards vice, which he practised in secret, and hid from the eyes of the world. Reserved and moody, he had no friend, nor did he trust a soul but his mother: he was especially on his guard against all those who stood between him and Augustus, and from Agrippa and Marcellus he stood aloof. This mistrust, for which as much cause may have been given to him as he himself gave to others, had the most injurious effects on his character; very like those which were seen in the Emperor Paul. Tiberius, and also his brother Drusus, and his nephew Germanicus, were first-rate generals. Nature had done very much for him: he had great judgment, wit, and industry; indestructible health; a very happily and beautifully organized body; a tall majestic figure; a fine head: his statue and that of Augustus are the finest among those of the emperors. He also spoke extraordinarily well. After the death of Agrippa, who was his avowed enemy, his mother Livia and Augustus, the latter of whom placed his reliance more and more upon him—conceived the plan of marrying him to Julia, a most profligate and abandoned woman: Tiberius was very loth to make up his mind to this match, although it brought him nearer to Augustus. Caius and Lucius Cæsar, her two sons adopted by Augustus, were then still living, who indeed stood between him and the lordship of the earth. The conduct of his wife lowered him in the eyes of the world in a way which he could not bear, and made him the laughing-stock of the Romans: he therefore wanted to go to Rhodes, as he did not think that he could do anything against Julia. There were at that time plots in the family of Augustus like those in the houses of Cosmo of Medicis and of Philip the Second: its members hatching conspiracies and intrigues against each other. Augustus would not hear of his going away; but Tiberius insisted upon it, which Augustus took exceedingly ill. Before this, Tiberius had distinguished himself in Rhætia, Vindelicia and the first Pannonian war. Seven years passed away, ere Livia, after the death of C. and L. Cæsar, could manage to get the consent of Augustus to his return: for he so hated him, that many thought to please the Emperor by treating Tiberius with contempt. In the meanwhile, Julia was condemned and banished by her father himself: yet even this did not change anything in the position of Tiberius; Livia’s rule only became unbounded by degrees. Drusus was likewise dead. When Tiberius at length came back, he was adopted with Agrippa Postumus; the latter, however, was soon banished for his brutal ways. Tiberius now obtained the tribunician power, and was regularly made known to the world as the one who was next to the throne: he sat on public occasions by the side of Augustus, though indeed it was not openly proclaimed that he was to be his successor. All this time, he was of great service to the Roman state: the danger threatening from Marbod arose, and then the insurrection of the Pannonians and Illyrians. These last Tiberius overpowered with great difficulty; and he was likewise successful against the Germans, whose hopes he baffled after the death of Varus. In the year 765 (14 after Christ), Augustus died at Nola, and Tiberius, who was on his way to Illyricum, was in all haste called back by a messenger from his mother. In the will, Tiberius was left heir of two-thirds; with regard to the commonwealth, however, Augustus had not said a word, as if he had no decision to make on this point. Yet every possible precaution was adopted to preserve the power for Tiberius; the prætorian cohorts, as soon as ever Augustus was dead, took the oaths to him. As Tiberius held the tribunician power, which was the symbol of supreme authority, he was able to call the senate together whenever he liked, and to put a stop to anything that was hostile to him. When the corpse of Augustus had been brought to Rome, and his ashes entombed in the Mausoleum, the funeral orations having been spoken by Tiberius and his son Drusus; the step was still to be taken by which Tiberius had to put himself in the possession of the supreme power. He now showed at once a remarkable duplicity: he was not a coward on the field of battle; yet he was uncommonly afraid of attempts upon his life. He had carried his dissimulation to a pitch of refinement, being one of those persons who can never make up their minds to speak out, but must be guessed; like Cromwell, to whom he otherwise has no resemblance: such men are not seldom met with in every-day life, and they are quite unbearable. Tiberius wished to have before the world the appearance of a moral man, and yet to give himself quietly up to all sorts of excesses: he never uttered what he really thought, for fear of saying something too much. With this character, he played the farce with which the work of Tacitus most painfully begins. There it is told at some length how he refused to take the reins of government, and made the senate urge him to do it for the sake of the common good. When he saw that he tired the people, he yielded so far as to compel them to force him.

The first beginning of his reign is marked by a mutiny of the troops in Illyricum and on the Rhine. It was one of the institutions of Augustus, that the legions had permanent camps on the frontiers, in which they were stationed until the men were superannuated: after having served a number of years, these were for some time longer to be kept up as a reserve _sub vexillis_ in the provinces, as Augustus wanted to have as many old soldiers who had seen service as possible; and then at length they were to become quite free, and the whole legion was disbanded, and a military colony established for it. This system was a terrible one for the provinces and for the soldiers; but in a military point of view it was admirably suited for the protection of the empire. Now were new legions first formed and sent out. Yet what had been promised the soldiers, had not been made good to them, and they had had to remain much longer under arms than they ought: in this state of things, the soldier became the terror of every one, being himself frightfully oppressed and plundered by his officers. The detailed account of this outbreak in Tacitus, is excellent. Drusus overcame the danger in Illyricum; Germanicus, on the Rhine. In reality, however, the government had to give way: the ringleaders were punished, but the rest got their relief, and had the advantages of the reserve secured to them.

A very great change which took place at the first beginning of Tiberius’ reign, was the abolition of the popular elections, and the transferring of them to the senate,—a change which after all was so completely a form, and a farce, that Tacitus hardly bestows a word upon it: it had no longer any reality; if it had, it would have been useful. The so-called people which in the days of Augustus held the _comitia_ on the Campus Martius, was the smallest and worst part of the nation; whereas the senate was the choice of it from all countries, particularly from all Italy.—Of much importance was the drawing up of a list, according to which the governments were to be given.

Tiberius’ reign of twenty-three years is anything but rich in events: in the very first years only, Germanicus’ wars in Germany give it some interest. For these, however, I must altogether refer you to Tacitus. The wars were carried on as far as the Weser, with a very large military force: one cannot understand how such masses should have been used against tribes which had no fortified towns whatever, and therefore were utterly unable to offer any resistance; nor yet that they should have produced no effect. The Germans could not stand their ground in the open field; and so they fled into the woods and impassable parts of the country. It is moreover strange that the Romans make here the same mistake over and over again: they try to overawe the enemy by striking a great blow in the interior, and thus they hope to subdue them; then they build some military roads with bridges over the marshes in Overyssel, in Lower Münster, and on the Lippe. The only means would have been slowly to advance; but this perhaps did not seem to them worth the trouble, and they might thus have only got the country as a waste. We (Germans) may, however, thank Heaven that Tiberius from jealousy called back Germanicus after his last brilliant achievements. He seems not to have had much desire to conquer Germany: shrinking from great undertakings, he merely tried to maintain the frontiers. The tactics of the Germans show that it is most absurd to look upon them as having been few in number and uncivilized; for they encountered the Romans in quite regular battles, and carried on the war with much ability. But Tiberius did all for peace, as he could not bear that generals under him should distinguish themselves; he even put up with humiliations: thus, for instance, he shut his eyes to the slight which he had had to suffer in Armenia and Parthia, even the expulsion of the king whom he had himself given to the Parthians. The historical interest of his reign is therefore entirely confined to what happened in his own family, and to affairs at home.

Tiberius, at that time, had a son of his own, Drusus, and an adopted son, Germanicus the child of his brother. Drusus must have been a fine young man; but Germanicus was the idolized hero of the Romans, a worthy son of a worthy father,—the hero of the German wars,—a great and noble soul. It may indeed have been a fanciful freak in Drusus, to ask Augustus to restore the republic which would not have been able to hold its ground for one year; but that wish could only have sprung from a lefty and generous mind. Germanicus declined the offer of the legions, who, after the death of Augustus, called upon him to take the government; he remained faithful to his adoptive father, although he certainly could not have loved him. Tiberius, on the other hand, had no faith in virtue and purity of heart; so he removed him from the scene of his triumphs, and recalled him to Rome. But his ill humour was yet increased, when Germanicus, on his return thither, met with an enthusiastic reception from the people. As Tiberius was conscious of the vices and the tyranny which he kept hidden from the world, he hated a man like Germanicus; he shrank from a contrast with his single-minded nephew: yet it may just as well have been fear for the interests of his son, as the pain of seeing by his side one so good as Germanicus, while he himself felt his own utter depravity. Germanicus now had, like Agrippa before him, the commission of superintending the _res Orientis_, the eastern frontiers and provinces; but he died shortly afterwards. Whether he died from poison or from natural causes, is a question with regard to which the ancients themselves were in the dark; yet I rather believe that his death was natural, as the accounts point rather to witchcraft than to poison, and those who chose the former expedient—to which, owing to the superstition then prevailing in Rome, people were very much inclined—would not have been likely to try the other. It is credible enough that Piso had attempted his life; but what is quite unaccountable, is that he could have fancied that conduct like this could be left unpunished by such a prince as Tiberius was. He indeed thought to curry favour with Tiberius by his insolence to Germanicus; yet he could not but have seen, that if ever the matter came to be talked of, Tiberius would sacrifice him: for although the emperor might in his heart have been rejoiced at the deed, he would, notwithstanding, have been obliged, before the world, to avenge it on the very man who had dared to act up to his wishes. Even Tacitus, in his time, had great doubts on this subject, the most contradictory rumours about it were then afloat. Thus, the Dauphiné deemed her husband, the Dauphin, the son of Louis XV., to have been poisoned by the Duc de Choiseul, which nowadays is less credited. The Dauphin, being religious, and even somewhat bigoted, was very hateful to the Duke, who was a very gay man and a freethinker, and who did not wish the expulsion of the Jesuits to be thwarted by the Dauphin, nor his own power to be shaken. There were indeed some motives for the crime; but it does not follow thence that it was really committed, and I certainly doubt it. Piso’s poisoning Germanicus, might have been winked at by Tiberius; but his insulting and publicly reviling him, was an offence against the _majestas_ which he could not have overlooked when his adopted son was in the case: and moreover that Piso, when Germanicus was sent to succeed him, would not give up the province of Syria, but drew together his troops and prepared to march to Rome, is the most puzzling event in Roman history. Piso and his wife Munatia Plancina, a daughter of the orator Munatius Plancus, were condemned, and the secret was buried with them. There were some suspicion that Livia herself had suggested the plan of poisoning Germanicus: she was horrible enough not to spare her grandson, and it may be that she did not care at all about offending Tiberius.

Soon after the death of Germanicus, began the prosecutions for _crimen majestatis_,—those never to be defined charges against which no man could shield himself; for it was a crime which, as early as the republic, had the most different meanings, and indeed might have been applied to anything: whoever had brought any calamity upon the state, was wont to be thus prosecuted. In the reign of Augustus, by a law which we do not know, an offence against the _imperator_ was made a _crimen majestatis_, as formerly those against the republic had been. All trials for this were conducted before the senate, which in fact was only a condemning machine in the hands of the tyrant; just as the National Convention was under Robespierre. Many things were classed under the head of _crimen majestatis_, which in reality did not belong to it at all; as for instance, amours with princesses. At first, that charge was met with very seldom indeed under Tiberius; but gradually there grew up a herd of informers who made it their business to bring to judgment any one who had given offence to the emperor. Tiberius himself acted a neutral part; but the senate got more and more into the frightful habit of condemning whenever it was at all agreeable to the emperor.—On the whole, however, the state during the first nine years of Tiberius was in a very happy condition: there were very few condemnations indeed; and in several of these cases the persons whom they affected were hardly deserving of sympathy. Tiberius lived in retirement, but with dignity and great outward decorum, treating the first men of the nation with much distinction. Augustus was not a close-fisted manager; at the end of his reign he was even in financial difficulties; but he regularly published the accounts of the year before: this was not kept up by Tiberius, who laid by huge hoards. The indirect taxes in Italy were raised, and some new ones brought in. This state of things lasted as long as old Livia lived; and as yet apprehensions were felt only by those who were sharp-sighted enough to foresee the clouds which would gather when she was once dead. Tiberius stood in fear and dread of his mother to the very end of her days, and all affection between them had now for a great while been no more: she was a terrible woman; and yet her life was a blessing for Rome,—at least for those who had forgotten the old times. After her death, Tiberius had nothing to restrain him: he dropped the virtues which he had formerly displayed owing to his diligence while under the authority of another to whom he had to give account; he allowed his activity to flag, and became quite lost in his hateful and gloomy disposition. The only enjoyment he had in life, was in most infamous lusts; and a man advanced in years, who gives himself up to shameful pleasures, must irretrievably sink into the basest state of worthlessness.

Napoleon is said to have once told a deputation of the Institute that Tiberius had been very hardly dealt with, and that Tacitus had been unjust to him. Napoleon was far from being a learned man, his knowledge was all picked up; but Roman military history he knew very well. He must have said,—“if we form our opinion of Tiberius only from Tacitus, and deem him to have been an infamous, brutal voluptuary, and a tiger of cruelty, then we have not a correct idea of him; for Tiberius was in his youth, and even up, to his fiftieth year, a great general and statesman. None of his _vitia subdola_ came to light before that time; and whilst he kept the energetic and good qualities of his disposition in full play, he behaved as if he were quite another man.” This view is a perfectly true one. Tiberius’ only friend was Ælius Sejanus, the son of Seius Strabo, a Vulsinian, _equestri loco natus_; him he made _præfectus prætorio_. Sejanus’ character has a great likeness to that of his master, and he ought not to be looked upon with contempt: he was an excellent officer, a man of great strength of will, of courage and of much talent; but without any sort of principle. To him alone Tiberius unbosomed himself; and he knew how to make the emperor feel quite comfortable, and to lead him to yield himself up entirely to his own propensities: Tiberius’ mind was at rest while Sejanus gave him security against those whom he was most afraid of, namely, his own family, and the few grandees who still remained. Sejanus increased the prætorian cohorts; and he suggested to Tiberius the plan of concentrating them in the _Castrum Prætorianum_ (a citadel outside the wall of Servius Tullius, but in what is now the very midst of the city); just as the Italian tyrants were wont to do. This is the most momentous event in the history of the emperors. The prætorians now became the real sovereigns, like the janissaries at Algiers; so that they are the pivots on which the Roman history turns, down to the times of Diocletian: by this means, Rome was converted into a military republic, which was generally dormant except when the occupant of the throne was changed. Sejanus aimed at nothing less than supreme power. Drusus was yet alive and had children; Germanicus had left three sons; and a brother of his, who afterwards became the Emperor Claudius, was likewise still living: the whole of this family, Sejanus wished to root out, and so he seduced the wife of Drusus, Livilla, a daughter of the elder Drusus. With her help, he poisoned Drusus; after which he also cruelly made away with the sons of Germanicus, Caius alone excepted, who was still a child, and whom he kept in reserve. He gave Tiberius such confidence, that he withdrew from Rome to Capreæ, there to wallow in his lusts; and in the meanwhile he himself ruled in Rome. Prosecutions now were rife, and here begin the frightful annals of the reign of Tiberius: the lists of those who are condemned to die, are made up of men, who were all of them more or less eminent, although all were not precisely respectable; Tiberius therefore deserves to be called the very pattern of a tyrant. Much must be laid to the charge of Tiberius personally; but much also to that of Sejanus, whose influence increased more and more. The banishment of Agrippina is his work; the last tortures, however, which were inflicted on her, were after his death.

This went on, until at last Sejanus became suspected by Tiberius, and very likely with good reason; for Sejanus at best would have waited for his death, and then at the head of the Prætorian cohorts have made himself master of Rome. Tiberius himself had raised Sejanus to be his equal; among the Prætorian cohorts, sacrifices were already offered to the latter as well as to the emperor. But it now happened that a still worse being got near Tiberius: virtue and genius could not have shaken down Sejanus; this was done by a yet more wicked man than he, by one who had not his great qualities, but analogous vices. Tiberius expressed his dread of a conspiracy, and gave out that he wanted to go to Rome: but he only came into the neighbourhood, and sent orders to arrest Sejanus; which was done with consummate cunning. There was a _verbosa et grandis epistola_, in which one might remark that he was aiming at something, with some cuts at Sejanus; at the conclusion was the warrant for the arrest. Macro who had been made _Præfectus Vigilum_, surrounded the senate with his people. Sejanus was now seized in the senate, and on this, men showed themselves in the most hateful light: all those who but that very morning had fawned for a gracious look of his, now started up and raised an outcry against him as one guilty of high treason, calling for his immediate execution, so that the cohorts might not hear of it. He was instantly strangled. Tiberius now slaked his thirst for blood by persecuting the followers and friends of Sejanus. Yet those who were not, were also persecuted; for things did not grow better but worse: Macro now ruled just as tyrannically as Sejanus, and, like him, was master of the detestable old man. He was, however, not a whit more faithful to him. C. Cæsar, the son of Germanicus, generally known by the name of Caligula, linked himself to Macro by the most infamous tie; and assured him that he should hold under him the very highest power, just as he had under Tiberius, if he would but rid him and his family of the old man. And there is scarcely any doubt but that the death of Tiberius, who in his seventy-eighth year lay sick not far from the headland of Misenum, was hastened, either by poison which the physicians gave him, or by strangulation. In fact they thought him dead; and when he rallied, he is said to have been strangled. This was in the twenty-third year of his reign (37 after Christ).

CAIUS CÆSAR, OTHERWISE CALIGULA.

Germanicus and Agrippina had three sons and three daughters: of the sons, two had been murdered in the reign of Tiberius; the youngest only, Caius, survived. Caius was not born on the banks of the Rhine; but, as Suetonius satisfactorily proves, at Antium, and thence he was sent out to his father’s camp: so that the history of his childhood is indeed connected with this neighbourhood. After the death of his father, he got into the power of his adoptive grandfather Tiberius; and this old man, who, after all had never lost his judgment, very soon recognised in him the monster which he really was; nor did he make any secret of it. Caius could not hide from himself that his life was in danger, and it may be that fear had very early made him mad; but his madness was so malignant and wicked as to leave no doubt of the utter baseness of his nature. He saved his life by the greatest servility towards Tiberius and those who were in power, which, as matters stood, was the most sensible thing that he could have done. Afterwards he attached himself to Macro, and with his aid he rid himself of Tiberius. He had been little seen in public. He was a handsome young man, very like his father, and he was in his twenty-sixth year: the memory of his father, and his own good looks, got for him a most favourable reception; so that no one was so enthusiastically welcomed as he was. The nickname of Caligula, like that of Caracalla, has passed into common use; but neither of them is to be met with in ancient writers instead of the real name: no contemporary called the son of Septimius Severus, Caracalla. The name of Caligula was only given him by the soldiers when a child; his real name was Caius Cæsar, and the former one is beneath the dignity of history. All who had seen much of Caius at the court of Tiberius, perceived a deep cunning in him, and foreboded the worst wickedness: yet they were but very few. His first acts were, on the contrary, such as to give the public at large great hopes of him. The illusion, however, very soon vanished. Suetonius is very explicit with regard to him: he is a writer who has little of the antique about him, and he indulges in anecdotes and details, being quite unable to impart method and unity to his work; so that his biographies are rambling performances, and contain numberless repetitions. He is a man of shrewd judgment but a bad writer; one sees in him an age in which the classical in arrangement and style is waning fast.

Caligula was really a madman. The worst human depravity would not account for all the things which he has done: his true nature is expressed in the words “abortion of dirt and fire,”[40]—a shocking combination of obscenity and cruelty. Juvenal is reproached with having chiefly undertaken in his writings to describe depravity; yet indelicate as he was, his disgust was excited, and he did not dwell on it with pleasure. Suetonius, on the other hand, was without doubt infected with the profligacy of his time. Suetonius himself is uncertain what to believe of Caligula’s insanity, whether it was mere satanic malignity or the satanic malignity of madness; but he mentions a circumstance which is decisive, namely, that he scarcely ever slept, which is a sure symptom. Sleep is given to us yet more to keep up the powers of the intellect, and the elasticity of the mind, than for the strengthening of the body. It is now twenty years since Christian VII. of Denmark died, a prince whose state was well governed for a long time, so that his madness was little noticed, but who under other circumstances would have shown himself a Caligula: he also was afflicted with sleeplessness, and was often seen for whole nights walking up and down in his room. Some Asiatic princes also have been insane, among the Mahommedans and Persians but especially among the Tartars. In Caligula’s day, moreover, there were no means, and, above all, no religious ones, for the treatment of insanity.