3Gc CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY i DATE DUE "IJUEf^ "WJW .LJ_ Dili GAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S.A. Cornell University Library DG 278.B25 1907 Tragedy of the Caesars 3 1924 028 299 448 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028299448 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS BY THE SAME AUTHOR THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE STRANGE SURVIVALS SONGS OF THE WEST A GARLAND OF COUNTRY SONG OLD COUNTRY LIFE YORKSHIRE ODDITIES OLD ENGLISH FAIRY TALES A BOOK OF FAIRY TALES A BOOK OF GHOSTS A BOOK OF NURSERY SONGS AND RHYMES THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW A BOOK OF CORNVITALL A BOOK OF DARTMOOR A BOOK OF DEVON A BOOK OF NORTH WALES A BOOK OF SOUTH WALES A BOOK OF BRITTANY A BOOK Of THE PYRENEES A BOOK OF THE RHINE A BOOK OF THE RIVIERA ^^iUju/^^oL^ ^ AUUL Fig. 71-- -TIBERIUS and LI VI A.— :fciigrat'ed Gem at Florence. \_Fro}itisJ>iece. THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS A STUDY OF THE CHARACTERS OF THE CAESARS OF THE JULIAN AND CLAUDIAN HOUSES BY S. BARING- GOULD, M.A. AUTHOR OF 'THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE,' ETC., ETC. 1 NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1907 hi y CONTENTS On Roman Portraiture, PAGE I C. JULIUS CAESAR. I. Introductory, II. The Early Years of Caesar, III. Caesar's Candidature, IV. Caesar and Pompeius, V. Caesar in Gaul, VI. The Attempt to destroy Caesar, VII. Civil War, VIII. Caesar as Dictator, IX. The Murder, . 13 25 42 S8 69 75 83 93 97 MARCUS ANTONIUS. I. After the Murder, . II. Antony and Cleopatra, 117 134 AUGUSTUS. I. Early Years, . II. The Triumvirate, III. Livia, . IV. Julia, . V. Augustus, Emperor, . VI. The Grandchildren, VII. The Sons of Livia, . VIII. Domestic Life of Augustus, IX. The End, X. Portraits of Augustus, XI. Portraits of Livia, . 147 158 165 175 187 196 199 211 219 222 224 CONTENTS TIBERIUS. PAGE I. The Death of Postumus, . . 227 II. THE Early Life of Tiberius, 231 III. Tiberius, Emperor, . 254 IV. The Death of Germanicus, 270 V. The Trial of Piso, . 285 VI. The Death of Drusus, 293 VII. Agbippina, . . . , 302 VIII. Sejanus, 3" IX. The End of Nero, . 318 X. The Fall of Sejanus, 329 XI. After the Fall, 336 XII. The Deaths of Drusus and Agrippina, 351 XIII. The Last Years of Tiberius, 359 XIV. The Policy of Tiberius, . . . 366 XV. The Death of Tiberius, 374 XVI. Portraits of Tiberius, 382 CAIUS (CALIGULA). I. Early Years, .... • 38s II. The First Months, . ■ 390 III. The Tyrant, .... ■ 394 IV. The Madman, .... . 412 V. The Murder of Caius, . 424 VI. Portraits, .... - 436 CLAUDIUS. I. After the Murder, . II. The Youth of Claudius, III. The First Years, IV. The Freedmen, V. Deterioration, VI. The End of Messalina, VII. Agrippina Empress, . VIIL Nero and Britannicus, IX. The Struggle between Narcissus and Agrippina, X. Portraits of Claudius. .... 438 444 456 469 478 496 507 S18 526 539 CONTENTS Vll NERO, I. The Empress Mother, II. The Death of Britannicus, III. Growing Estrangement. IV. PoppAEA Sabina, V. The Death of Agrippina, VI. The Insanity of Nero, VII. The Burning of Rome, VIII. The Pisonian Conspiracy, IX, The Expedition to Greece, X. The End of Nero, . XI. Portraits of Nero, . 542 S5I 555 S6i 568 580 598 609 619 629 641 APPENDIX. I. The Constitution of the Early Principatb, II. Tacitus and Tiberius, 643 646 ILLUSTRATIONS PIG. 1. Etruscan Statuary in terra-cotta from Caere, in the Louvre, 2. Caius Marius — Bust in the Museum Chiaramonti, No. 512, 3. L. Cornelius Sulla — Denarius, enlarged, 4. M. TuLLius Cicero— Bust at Madrid (after Bernoulli), 5. M. TuLLlus Cicero — Profile of the Bust at Madrid, 6. C. Julius Caesar, as Hermes, in the Louvre, . 7. C. Julius Caesar — Profile of youthful Statue in the Louvre, 8. Cn. Pompeius Magnus — Coin, enlarged, 9. C. Julius Caesar — Bust in the Campo Santo, Pisa, 10. C. Julius Caesar— Head of the Statue in the Palace of the Con servatori, Rome, ..... 11. C. Julius Caesar — Profile of the Head of the Statue in the Palace of the Conservator!, Rome, .... C. Julius Caesar — Bust in the Museum Chiaramonti, No. 107 C. Julius Caesar — Bust in the Louvre, Cn. Pompeius Magnus — Bust at Naples, found at Pompeii, C. Julius Caesar — Bust in the British Museum, M. Junius BRUXUS^Gold Medal, enlarged, C. Julius Caesar — Bust in Green Basalt, Berlin, C. Julius Caesar — Profile of the Bust in the British Museum M. Junius Brutus — Bust in the National Museum, Naples, M. Junius Brutus — Bust in the Capitoline Museum, Rome, C. Julius Caesar — Bust in the Vatican (Museum Chiaramont: No. 107), . . . . . C. Julius Caesar — Profile of the Green Basalt Bust at Berlin, C. Julius Caesar — Bust in the Vatican, Hall of Busts, No. 272, C. Julius Caesar, as Pontifex Maximus, in the Museum Chiaramonti No. 135, Antonius — Bust in the Vatican, Braccio Nuovo, No. 97A. (Sa; to have been found at the Tor Sapienza, Rome, along with two others, Augustus and Lepidus), .... M. Aemilius Lepidus— Gold Medal of the Musidian gens, enlarged, Cleopatra — Bronze Medal of Alexandria, enlarged, M. Antonius — Silver Medal of Alexandria, enlarged, . Cleopatra— Silver Medal of Alexandria, enlarged. 12. 13- 14. IS- 16. 17- 18. 19- 20. 21. 22. 23- 24. 25. M, 26. 27. 28. 29- PAGE 4 30 31 33 34 39 40 44 S8 63 67 70 73 78 84 90 95 98 102 103 los 106 107 "3 118 133 134 136 »39 X ILLUSTRATIONS FIG. 30. OCTAVIA — Porph.yry Bust in the Louvre, 31. The young Oct AVius— Bust in the British Museum, 32. The young Octavius— Bust found at Ostia in 1805. Mus. Vatic. Hall of Busts, No. 273, ...••■ 33. OCTAVIANUS— Bust in the UfEzi Gallery, Florence, 34. OCTAVIANUS — Bust in Museum Chiaramonti, No. 401, . 35. OCTAVIANUS Augustus — Sardonyx in the British Museum, 36. LiviA— Sardonyx in the Hague Museum, enlarged, • 37. LiviA— Sardonyx in the Ufifizi Palace, Florence, enlarged, 38. LiViA, as Ceres— Statue in the Louvre, . 39. LiviA— Profile of the Head of the Statue in the Louvre, 40. Julia — Bust in the Museum Chiaramonti, No. 418, 41. M. Vipsanius Agrippa— Bust in the Louvre ; found at Gabii, 1792, 42 and 43. Caius and Lucius Caesar— Busts in the Museum Chiaramonti, Nos. 417, 419, . . . . • 44. Augustus— Statue at Berlin (Royal Museum, No. 343), 45. Augustus — Bust in the British Museum, 46. Augustus— Statue found in Livia's Villa at Prima Porta. Vatican Museum, Nuovo Braccio, No. 14, . 47. Agrippa Postumus — Medal struck at Corinth, . 48. LiViA — Sardonyx at St. Petersburg^ . . 49. Drusus Major— Statue in the Museo Nationale, Naples. Found at Pompeii in 1821, . . 50. Drusus Major — Bust in the Torlonia Museum, 51. Antonia — Statue in the Louvre, 52. Augustus — Statue in the Vatican, Gallery of Statues, No. 262. Found at Otricoli, . 53. Augustus — Bust in the Vatican Museum, Hall of Busts, No. 274, 54. Augustus, as Pontifex Maxijnus. Bust in the Louvre, . 55. Augustus — Bust in the Vatican Museum, Pio Clementino, No. 275, 56. Tiberius — Bust in the Lateran, . . 57. Agrippa Postumus — Medal struck at Corinth, . 58. Tiberius — Bust in the Capitoline Museum, 59. Tiberius— Bust in British Museum, .... 60. Tiberius — Bust at Berlin, No. 345. Acquired at Naples in 1842, 61. Tiberius— Bust in the Louvre, . . . 62. Tiberius — Bust in the Louvre, . . . . 63. Drusus Minor— Bust in Schloss Erbach, 64. Germanicus— Bust of the Statue in the Louvre, from Gabii, 65. Germapiicus — Sardonyx in the British Museum, enlarged, 66. Germanicus— Statue found at Veil ; in the Lateran Museum, . 67. Agrippina — Bronze Medal, enlarged, .... 68. Agrippina Major— Bust in the Museum Chiaramonti, No. 263, 69. Tiberius — Head of Statue from Cervetri in the Lateran Museum, ,70. Drusus Minor— Bust in the Torlonia Museum, 71. Tiberius and Livia— Engraved gem at Florence, enlarged, PAGE 142 148 149 1S9 161 164 167 169 171 173 176 178 183 188 191 194 199 200 204 207 210 212 214 220 221 226 228 234 23s 237 242 253 258 260 264 268 271 280 285 294 Frontispiece ILLUSTRATIONS xi PIG. PAGE 72. Agrippina Major — Bust in the Museum Chiaramonti, No. 369, . 304 73. Nero, son of Germanicus. Profile and Head of the Statue in the Lateran ; found at Cervetri, . . . . . 319 74. LiViA — Profile of the Statue found at Paestum, now in Madrid, . 321 75. Agrippina Major— Bust in the Chigi Palace, Rome (after Bernoulli), . 323 76. Tiberius — Bust from the Farnese Collection, National Museum, Naples, 337 77. Drusus, son of Germanicus (?). Bust in the Capitoline Museum, '. 351 78. Tiberius — Bust in the Capitoline Museum, .... 354 79. Agrippina Major— Bust in the Museum Chiaramonti, No. 369, . 356 80. Tiberius — Statue found at Veil, in the Vatican, . . . 360 81. Tiberius, as Pontifex Maximus. Bust found at Capri, in the British Museum, ........ 37J 82. Caius— Bust in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, .... 386 83. Caius — Basalt Bust, Capitoline Museum, . . .39' 84. Antonia — Bust, Museum Chiaramonti, No. 701, . . . 394 85. Tiberius Gemellus (?)— Bust in the Lateran Museum (after Bern >ulli), 397 86. Caius — Bronze Bust at Turin (after Bernoulli), .... 4°° 87. Caius — Statue in the National Museum, Naples. Found at Minturnae, 4'? 88. Caius— Bust from the Polignac Collection, at Berlin, . . . 426 89. Claudius — Seated Figure, found at Herculaneum, National Museum, Naples, ........ 439 90. Claudius — Statue in the Vatican, Nuovo Braccio, No. 117, . . 445 91. Antonia — Statue in the Louvre, ..... 447 92. Claudius — Bust in the Brunswick Museum, .... 469 93. Agrippina Minor — Head of the Statue in the Glyptothek, Munich, . 472 94. Agrippina Minor — Bust in the Capitoline Museum, No. 14, . . 475 95. Agrippina Minor — Bust in the Capitoline Museum, . . . 477 96. Claudius — Bust from the Farnese Collection, National Museum, Naples, 479 97. Messalina— Sardonyx in the Cabinet des Medailles, Paris, 98. Messalina — Bust in the Uffizi Palace, Florence, 99. DOMITIA Lepida (?) — Bust, Torlonia Museum, No. 527, 100. Agrippina Minor — Statue in the Lateran, found at Cervetri, . loi. Agrippina Minor — Profile of the Head of the Statue in the Lateran found at Cervetri, ...... 102. Agrippina Minor — Profile of the Head of the Statue as Hygieia, in the Vatican (after Bernoulli), .... 103. Claudius — Bust found at Otricoli ; Vatican, Rotunda, No. 551, 104. Agrippina Minor — Bust in Museum Chiaramonti, No. 605, lOJ. Claudius, as Jupiter — Statue found at Lanuvium ; Vatican, Rotunda, No. 550, 106. Agrippina Minor — Bust in the Louvre, 107. Nero — Bust in the Uffizi Palace, Florence, 108. Britannicus — Statue in the Lateran, .... 109. Agrippina Minor, Bust, National Museum, Naples, . no. Otho — Bust in the British Museum, .... 486 493 50s 508 SIS S18 523 527 533 537 543 552 556 567 xu ILLUSTRATIONS FIG. Ill Agrippina Minor— Statue at Naples, . 1 12. Agrippina Minor — Head of the seated Statue at Naples, 113. Nero— Bust in the Louvre, 114. Nero — Bust in the Capitoline Museum, . 115. Nero — Bust in the Louvre, 116. Nero — Basalt Bust at Florence, . 117. Nero — Bust in the British Museum, PAGB S69 572 581 589 599 610 630 DEDICATED TO MY WIFE ON OUR SILVER WEDDING PROV. XXXI. lO, II ON ROMAN PORTRAITURE Having been obliged by lack of health to spend two consecutive winters in Italy, I found my attention arrested, and then engrossed, by the collections of portrait-busts of the ancient Romans in the various Museums. The human face has exercised on me, from boyhood, a peculiar fascination. I have loved to find in the lineaments the hieroglyph of the mind within, and in the expression the revelation of the moral char- acter. When I have come to know intimately one whose face I have thus explored, it has been instructive to compare the man as I have found him with the man I imagined him, to correct errors in inter- pretation and supplement deficiencies in observation. It was accordingly inevitable that I should be riveted by these Roman historic busts. I found, however, that in this study it was necessary to be on one's guard, for, in the first place, a good deal of attribution is arbitrary, and cannot be justified. In the second place, all busts that are rightly attributed are not of equal value. In the third place, all the busts are not genuine antiques. I. A good deal of the attribution has been capricious. For instance, in the Vatican are two fine busts, placed side by side, obviously repre- senting the same man at different periods of his life ; one is catalogued as C. Marius, the other as Munatius Plancus. On examination of the reasons for so designating the latter, we find that it has been thought to bear a strong resemblance to a medal bearing the profile of Munatius Plancus, which medal, however, proves to be a forgery. Again, in the Capitoline Museum is the famous Agrippina Seduta, a noble statue of a Roman matron seated. Believing it to be Agrip- pina the Elder, one contemplates the stately countenance with interest and respect. But presently the practised eye discovers that the head- dress belongs to the period of the Antonines, and that therefore the figure must represent some lady who lived a century after the death of the wife of Germanicus. At Naples an unmistakable Claudius is labelled Galba, and in the Vatican an Octavius is pointed out as Caligula. Consequently, the first thing a student has to do who is studying Roman iconography is to establish certain canons by which to deter- mine the attribution of the portraits. i 2 INTRODUCTORY The first of these is the comparison of the profiles of the busts with those on the medals. But even here one does not stand on firm ground, for the medals do not always agree among themselves, nor are they always certainly accurate in portraiture. For instance, let any one compare the profiles of Julius Caesar on the coins, and he will see how variable is the type. Again, a good many medals were struck in honour of Livia, but almost certainly, in the majority of cases, no portrait was attempted— an ideal Greek face was given. The next of these is the occurrence of an inscription, either on the statue or found near it, which can assure one that this figure does repre- sent a certain person named. Unhappily such cases are most rare. The Agrippina Minor in the Lateran can be thus fixed with certainty, and by that the attribution of other statues and busts must be tested. In the Museums of Rome, Florence, Naples, there are fine heads catalogued as Seneca, but all certainly wrongly, for a Hermes exists at Berlin inscribed Seneca on one side, of a totally different type. So with the Ciceros in the Museums. They stand or fall according as they agree with the inscribed bust at Madrid. The next canon is founded on family likeness. The Claudian family had a strong family resemblance, and by observing this we can pick out a certain group of busts, and say that these had Claudians as their prototypes, though we cannot always say which of the family each bust represents. M. Vipsanius Agrippa had a remarkable frown. This frown is found in the bust of Agrippina, his daughter, in the Vatican, and on the countenance of Caius; his grandson. A remark- able asymmetry existed in the eyes of the Julian house, and this can be traced down to Caius. It is lost in Nero. Another canon, again, is the date of the sculpture, or of the arrange- ment of the hair. The finest and purest work belongs to the last age of the Republic and the first of Imperialism. After that the character of the sculpture declines. In female busts the mode of wearing the hair fixes the date approximately. To arrive with anything approaching to certainty as to the correctness of the attribution of the busts, all those of each several individual should be copied by photography and brought to one standard scale, and so compared. But this, unhappily, cannot now be done. And, secondly, each bust should have accurate measures taken of every part of the face and skull, and these should be compared. This, also, cannot be done now. Curators, very naturally, do not like to have a pair of compasses applied to a choice bust. II. In the second place, all busts are not of equal value. Some are from life, others are mere stock pieces done to order; those who ordered an imperial bust were sometimes indifferent about having a piece of accurate portraiture, and the artist took no interest in his work. The cities in the Roman world thought it incumbent on them ON ROMAN PORTRAITURE 3 to set up statues of the reigning Caesar, private individuals did the same, and reigning Caesars were turned out of the ateliers in scores, as are crucifixes and Madonnas now from the workshops of Ammergau. Such is the colossal head of Julius Caesar at Naples, clearly done by a sculptor who had never seen his model, and who did his work in a perfunctory manner. Of another quality are the busts of Caesar in the British Museum and in the Louvre, both by men who had studied the great commander, and loved him. It is not really difficult to the experienced eye to distinguish between the work of a sculptor who had studied the living model and that of the workman who knocked out a typical head that passed for a Tiberius or a Nero, and who had not a chance of observing the original. III. A third point to be considered is the genuineness of a bust. At the period of the Renaissance a fashion set in for having portrait- busts of the Romans of ancient times, and many were then turned out by the master sculptors of that age. There has also been, since the middle of last century, a manufacture of false antiques in this branch as well as in others. Modern imitations are easily detected. No one with a trained eye can fail to detect any of the Campana forgeries in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg, and in the Louvre. The late Prince Torlonia employed two good Italian artists to complete the defective statues in his great collection. Their work can be picked out at a glance. But the Renaissance sculpture was of a very different order. There is no finer head in the Capitoline Museum among the imperial busts than that of Nerva, and yet almost without a doubt it is the work Df some sculptor of the sixteenth century. In general the same rule applies to the false antiques as to the genuine third-rate antiques. They tell their own tale to the trained critic, and say that they are not from life ; they follow a conventional type, but are not actual studies. In one or two cases where possibly we have Renaissance work, this is so close a copy of first-rate ancient statuary that the busts retain their value in portraiture. When there is a question as to the value of a piece of sculpture as a study from life, the proper method is to submit what is doubtful to the trained sculptor's judgment. Here I may mention my deep gratitude to Mr. Conrad Dressier, the talented sculptor, to whom I have submitted the drawings and photographs I have collected, and whose critical acumen is of the highest order. Now a word or two relative to the history of Roman portraiture. The Romans in all probability derived their passion for it from the Etruscans, who modelled their gods and representations of living men and women in clay. Pliny speaks of the old Roman images as in terra-cotta, and says that they were painted. The standard, artistically speaking, attained by the Etruscan workmen was not high, and yet there was a certain skilfulness shown in fixing the features, though they INTRODUCTORY had not acquired the skill to catch an expression. A good number of the Etruscan terra-cotta portraits from tombs still exist. Fig. I. — Etruscan Statuary in terra-cotta from Caere, in the Louvre. The method of taking a cast of the human face was well understood, and Pliny says that sculptors liked to have these casts to work from. Such casts were, however, mere rough guides, and were by no means servilely copied, even in the terra-cotta figures, much less so in works of marble and bronze. The muscles of eyes and mouth are not contracted as would be those of a man submitting to have his face encased in clay. These casts served their purpose as a help to the artist to work from when his model was not sitting, much as a photograph now assists a portrait-painter. But the Roman nobility who had the jus imaginum, i.e. the right to have ancestral portraits, were not content with fictile busts; they had masks made in wax of the faces of members of the family, whether taken from the actual cast or from the bust made by the artist we do not now know ; these were coloured, and were used for a double pur- pose. In the hall or atrium of a noble house, the family tree was painted against the wall, and in each escutcheon, where we should put a name, there a Roman patrician set up the wax face of his ancestor in a case. These portraits were united by filaments, indicative of relation- ship and descent.! On festivals the boxes were opened, and the heads adorned with leaves and flowers. Under each mask or bust was a tablet, titulus, on which the offices held by the ancestor were inscribed. 1 Plin. Bist. Nat. xxxv. 6 : ' Stemmata vero lineis discurrebant ad imagines pictas ' ON ROMAN PORTRAITURE 5 At a uneral these wax masks were taken down, slaves or clients were dressed up in appropriate costumes, and the wax masks applied to their faces. Then they marched ahead of the deceased in long train, to represent the ancestors conducting the dead man to his final home. At the funeral of Julius Caesar a wax representation of the deceased figured, moved by mechanism. Dio Cassius, in his account of the funeral of Augustus, says that his wax image was there in triumphal garb. A golden bust was there as well, and a third headed the procession in a chariot, followed by a long- drawn procession of ancestors, Julius Caesar alone excluded, as he had been deified, and it was improper to carry in the train the image of a god. The line of ' forebears ' led from Romulus, whose portrait was, of course, imaginary. Pompeius the Great was included, as akin through his marriage with Caesar's daughter. Tacitus mentions as a matter of regret that at the funeral of Germanicus at Antioch the images of the ancestors could not be borne, because they were in the mansion at Rome. He relates how that at the obsequies of Junia, wife of C. Cassius, the images of twenty of the most illustrious families in Rome preceded the corpse, but the busts of Brutus and Cassius, the tyrannicides, were conspicuous by their absence. At the funeral of Drusus, son of Tiberius, the corpse was preceded by the statues and busts of ancestors, real and fictitious, from Aeneas, the kings of Alba, Romulus, and all the great men of the Claudian family, 'displayed in long train.' At a funeral in a noble family Pliny the Elder says (xxxv. 6) that the whole ancestry of the deceased attended. Cicero charged Sextus Clodius with showing indignity to the corpse of Publius Clodius in refusing it the ancestral images. Cicero and Varro both refer to the early portraits preserved in noble mansions, as having long hair, and beards. The first barbers appeared in Italy b.c, 300, and perhaps it took half a century for the fashion for shaving to prevail. Consequently these bearded family portraits dated from before b.c. 250. They must have been tolerably common, from the way in which they are alluded to. From fictile busts and statues to those cast in metal was no long stride ; sculpture in marble was probably of Greek importation, and the fashion for having marble sculpture drove out that for terra-cotta. In the Capitoline Museum is a bronze statue, bearded, that is thought, for no good reason, to represent L. Brutus, who expelled the kings. It does not belong to the post-Hadrian period, when the beard was allowed to grow, and it is probably a reproduction in bronze of some bearded ancestor of a noble house. At Naples is a marble head of another bearded man, at St. Petersburg another, another at Holkham Hall.' 1 Michaelis believes this to be a modern antique. 6 INTRODUCTORY These are reproductions in statuary marble of ancestors who were formerly represented in the hall by terra-cotta heads or wax masks. Where no genuine portraits existed, imaginary likenesses were contrived. Thus the Julian family, which pretended to derive from Aeneas on one side, and the Alban kings on the other, as we have seen, at their funerals produced the portraits of these mythical ancestors, much as in Holy- rood there are ranges of pictures of the ancient kings of Scotland. As the wax faces were coloured, hair, eyes, lips, cheeks, after life, so undoubtedly were the marble busts. Indeed, the painting of busts was - carried to a high condition of perfection, and Pliny complains that in his time the senseless love of display among the wealthy Romans led them to prefer to have their heads cast in precious metals, to the loss of one- half of their value in portraiture, inasmuch as by this means colour was discarded. Cicero declares in his invective against L. Piso that he resembled his ancestors' busts in naught save colour. The poets, moralists and satirists, ridiculed the false pride of families that boasted of their ranges of portraits. Tibullus (iv. i) praises Messala in that he strove to be great in himself, and was not content with these evidences of family importance. Juvenal (viii. i), sneering at pride of race, asks what value is there in pedigrees and rows of painted portraiture. Seneca (Ep. xliv.) says : ' In virtue lies true nobility. A stately hall crowded with illustrious portraits does not make a noble. A noble mind alone does that.' And in his De Beneficiis (iii. 28) he declares that all men have one origin, and that a man's conduct is what really ennobles him. ' Those who expose the family images in the hall, with the names in long order, and with plenty of lines of connection linking the branches of the family, all displayed in the principal place in the house, such are rather to be termed notables than nobles.' On the other hand, Valerius Maximus (v. 8. 3) speaks of the advantage to a man to be surrounded by ancestral images when they speak of honour- able deeds done and services rendered to the State. The custom of hanging up medallion portraits in the temples was introduced by Appius Claudius in B.C. 495. Attached to the escutcheon, on which was the head of the great man, was, in later times, ' a swarm of little medallions representing his children.' Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, B.C. 78, adorned the Basilica Aemilia with escutcheon portraits of his family, as well as his own mansion. These disks {dypei vnaginu7?i) almost certainly gave profiles only. Pliny speaks of a work pubHshed by M. Varro, born B.C. 116 in which he gave biographies of seven hundred eminent men, accompanied by their portraits, thus immortalising not merely their virtues but their likenesses. The passage is a very curious one. We cannot suppose that these were hand-painted or sketched portraits, but that rather each codv of the book was issued with a case of casts representing those whose biographies were given. ON ROMAN PORTRAITURE 7 In addition to sculpture and cast for portraiture, recourse was had to painting, and of the skill with which portraits were executed by Greek artists of the imperial age we have, happily, some examples in the British Museum from Naucratis. Nero had a portrait of himself painted on canvas 120 feet high that was struck by lightning as soon as completed. One of his freedmen gave a spectacle of gladiators at Antium, and in the portico, on canvas, were the likenesses of the combatants and their attendants. We can judge what this was like by the great mosaic in the Lateran, brought from the Baths of Caracalla, on which are the portraits of famous gladiators, repulsive in their fidelity to life. Only such families as were illustrious through holding ofiSces in the State had the jus imaginum, the right to a gallery of family portraits ; and apparently only such members of the race as had attained to civil and military distinction were represented. The ladies probably were not in the first period modelled and their faces set out at all, nor the youthful members of the family. The right to have family statuary and wax masks belonged, apparently, at first solely to the patrician houses, and only such portraits were permitted as represented those who had held office in the State. Later, the right was extended to plebeian houses, with the same limitation. When Cicero entered on his aedile- ship, he acquired at once the use of the ivory curule chair, and the right to have his portrait set up in his hall. This right of being repre- sented in portraiture was, in fact, the heraldic emblazonment of ancient Rome. A Roman family was as proud of the number of busts of ancestors, all office-holders, which it could show, as an English family now is of the quarterings on its shield. That the portraits of ladies were not set up in the halls or exhibited in public at the period of the fall of the Republic is almost certain.^ Ladies of rank had a right to exhibit the portraits of their ancestors, but no evidence is extant to show that any ancestress was represented,^ or that they had themselves a right to be modelled. Great hesitation seems to have been felt about introducing their likenesses on coins. Only when Livia appears conjointly with her husband or her son does her profile bear tokens of portraiture. Coins struck in her honour bear ideal heads of Salus Augusta, Pietas, or Justitia. The sole exception is a most doubtful one. On the medal of Fulvia, the masculine wife, first of P. Clodius, then of Scribonius Curio, lastly of Marc Antony, there is a head which would serve very well for her portrait; but whether it is a portrait is questionable. Pallas and Roma figure in the medals of the Fulvian gens. A certain amount of control was exercised over the portraits in a 1 Unless erected by decree of the senate, as was that of Claudia Quinta in the vestibule of the Temple of Cybele. 2 Cicero in Vat. ii. says that on the condemnation of C. Antonius his family portraits, ' imagines patris et frairis sui,' went with his niece to the house of her husband Vatinius, which Cicero calls a consignment to prison. 8 INTRODUCTORY family gallery. It was penal to retain that of a man who had fallen into disgrace, and whose name had been scored out of the Acts. Sulla made it illegal to have one of Caius Marius, and Julius Caesar violated the law, not only by exhibiting the face of his uncle at the funeral of his aunt, but also by retaining it in the family collection. It was a dangerous matter at one time for any nobleman to harbour among his family portraits one of C. Cassius or of M. Brutus. When the populace on the fall of a favourite threw down his statues exposed in public, it was in token that they demanded the removal as well of such as were reserved in the halls of his kindred. The erection of statues in public was general in the latter days of the Republic. We cannot quite credit Livy and Pliny when they tell us that there were statues of Horatius Codes, of Attus Navius, and of the three sibyls in the Forum at the time of the kings. Pliny tells us that Spurius Cassius erected a bronze statue of himself in the Forum about B.C. 486. In the period between the Decemviri and the burning of Rome by the Gauls, there is mention of the erection of statues of Minucius, prefectus equitum, of Ahala, and of the four Roman ambassadors who were put to death by the inhabitants of Fidenae. From the year B.C. 426 nearly a century passes without record of the setting up of public statues, but after that they became tolerably frequent. The fact of the original portraits being casts made from moulds of the actual face no doubt gave to the Romans their liking for fidelity in portraiture. Idealisation was not carried to any great extent ; it was, however, permitted where a Caesar or an Augusta was invested with divine attributes — hardly otherwise. Many of the busts we possess were originally intended for statues. This we know from the angular finish of the neck below, fashioned to be adjusted to a figure in toga. Comparatively few statues have heads and bodies in one piece, unless nude ; and in a draped or harnessed statue we can rarely be sure that the head belongs to the trunk. Caius knocked off the heads of many fine statues to replace them with his own likeness ; and, possibly enough, in many cities the inhabitants accom- modated themselves thus to circumstances. Instead of ordering a new statue of the new prince on a change of head to the State, they simply ordered a new head and put it on the already existing statue. So also with private individuals.^ Again, we cannot always depend on the shapes of the skulls being alike in portraits of the same individual. Busts that were intended to stand against a wall, or in shallow niches, had the posterior portion of the head reduced. Of this there are some conspicuous examples in the Vatican. So also the piece of stone sculptured sometimes determined the cranial form. This is the case with the basalt head of Julius Caesar at Berlin. The block employed did not allow of the shape being civen 1 Tacit. Ann. i, 74. ON ROMAN PORTRAITURE 9 to the head that was really proper to it. In the two cameo profiles of Maecenas, the exigencies of the shape of the sardonyx have made the engravers sacrifice truth. So long as the faces were like, they thought little of the shape of the skull. I will here quote the opinion of Mr. Dressier on Roman portraiture : ' There are works of art which bear on their face the impress of truth. Of these I think we can feel in little doubt. Others are inferior works, mere copies. Of these latter one can only pronounce with hesitation whether the originals were done from the life. One can generally judge whether a real portrait from life is done after a few or many sittings. But, then, a laborious study from life may itself be a very poor thing. Again, an admirable portrait may be taken without a sitting; but there is always present some evidence in the detail that reveals when it has been done with a sitter; there is a more searching realism, a closer adherence to natural forms, and a departure from conventionalisms. ' But, again, after holding for a long time the opinion that it was impossible to do any good work away from Nature, I have come to see that this is a fallacy, and that, perhaps, it is only when away from your model that you have power and freedom to sum up his qualities and his defects, to see him as a whole and in proper perspective, and to interpret your final and complete impressions in a form which bears the stamp of finality. One thing alone is indispensable, and that is that the artist should have got himself full of his subject, at its very source, in his presence and company, and under the influence of his acts and words, before he begins to pour it forth, as it were, in bust or statue. In this consists the beauty of the Roman portraiture in many cases : we have the clearest evidence of the direct, personal impress of the individual represented ; sa griffe, as the French say, is upon the work. Such, I think, is the case with the British Museum bust of Julius Caesar. It seems carved just as Julius Caesar would write and speak, just as he would have carved it himself had he been a sculptor. The decisive energy, the firmness, the elevation of the man are there, and have forced themselves into the style of the artist. ' Much of this transfusion of the spirit of one into the other, I am convinced, is to be found in all great works of portraiture ; and what is more, it takes place without the presence of the sitter himself; of that also I am convinced. But it is so only when the artist is of so receptive a nature that he can be filled with his subject, when he has the due qualities of memory and discrimination ; the one to retain his materials until the time comes for using them ; the other to arrange them in the manner which most truly represents his sitter. ' To sum up : I think that the strongest evidence in favour of the truthfulness of a portrait-bust is the impression of truth it makes on the intelligent and trained onlooker; and I think that evidences of to INTRODUCTORY detail, showing as they do a realism that indicates that sittings were given, may lead one to prefer mistakenly the inferior work to one that is really greater and truer.' For a catalogue of portrait statues, busts, and gems from the Republican age to Nero, there is no work comparable with Bernoulli's Romische Ikonographie (Stuttgart, 1881-86). E. Q. Visconti's great work, Iconographie romaine (181 7), was interrupted by his death before he had reached the imperial epoch. It was completed by the Chevalier Mongez in 1829, but many busts have been discovered since that date, and his criticism leaves much to be desired. A new work is advertised, Griechische und Romische Portrdts, by H. Brunn and P. Arndt (Miinchen, 1891), but the first number has not yet appeared. No satisfactory and final conclusions can be arrived at, except on the lines already indicated, of reduction to scale and accurate measurements. For this reason I cannot claim for this work to be more than an iconographie essay. Of many busts I could obtain no photo- graphs, or none that gave the profiles, and it is not possible to carry v/ith one so exact a recollection of a face in one museum as to be able to compare with it a face seen in another museum, perhaps not on the same day. I employed an Italian artist to draw me the profiles, but his work was not satisfactory, and no artist's drawing can be as accurate as the portrait drawn by the sun. Lastly, As to the story of the Caesars to the extinction of the Julian- Claudian race : no tragedy, to my mind, is comparable to it for dramatic force and pathos ; no novel of more human interest, or of more thrilling incident. The story is in all Histories of Rome somewhat obscured, because in history the political and military events of the period claim paramount attention. With the faces of the Caesarian house before me, I thought of the men and women themselves, their individual lives, their characters, their sorrows, their joys, their trials, and their triumphs. I, so to speak, lived among them for two winters, spending day after day looking into their faces, comparing them, and I felt as though I had made a personal acquaintance with them, and had come to understand them in a way none could apart from these galleries of speaking likenesses. To read Tacitus, Suetonius, and Dio in England, and to read them looking up into the eyes of those whose acts are recorded, are two very different things. It seemed to me that the study of those faces helped me to understand the characters and personal histories of these Julians and Claudians in a way impossible apart from them, and that it enabled me to correct many a partial judgment and explain many a psychological puzzle. When first I wrote this story of the Caesars, I crowded my pages with references to authorities for every particular advanced, and then took a pair of shears and cut them all, or nearly all, away. Every student ON ROMAN PORTRAITURE ii knows where to look for the authorities, and whereabout in these authorities to find what I have quoted. When I write about the Fall of Sejanus, he knows, without a reference, that he must look at Dio and not Tacitus, and turn to Juvenal's Tenth Satire. If I tell him that Tiberius liked Brussels sprouts, and sent to Germany for parsnips, he knows without being told that he must go to Pliny for this. The general reader is teased by a page speckled with numbers, and damped by seeing the foot as thick with references as is a ship's keel with barnacles. I do not wish my reader to misunderstand my purpose. This book is not a history of the Roman world, or of the Roman state, but is purely biographical. If in the stories of Julius Caesar and Augustus I have had to enter into the constitutional changes that were effected, it is because, without understanding the political conditions at the time, these two men themselves cannot be understood. But, as a rule, I do not desire to follow the ripples produced by the stone, and point out how far they extended, but to describe the nature of the stone itself Thus I have said nothing about the Gallic wars of Caesar, of the invasion of Britain, nothing about the struggles on the Armenian frontier with the Parthians, but have noted that Julius Caesar ate rancid oil without making a face over it, and that Agrippina the Younger had a pet white nightingale ; that Augustus every day kissed the little bust of a lost grandchild, that Tiberius scolded Drusus for disdaining cabbage ; and that Germanicus could not endure to hear a cock crow. As I have spared the ordinary reader references, he must take my word for it that, in the words of Montaigne, ' in the examples which I here bring in of what I have read, I have forbidden myself to dare to alter even the most light and indifferent circumstances ; my conscience does not falsify one tittle ; what my ignorance may do I cannot say.' One disadvantage I have had to contend with or surmount is, that of Julius Caesar and Octavius admirable and exhaustive histories have been written, into which almost every available biographical detail has been taken up. This is not the case; with the Caesars that follow. Con- sequently I have to begin by going over ground that has been well trodden, before I reach soil less trampled. As all writers of the history of this period must go to the few available original authorities, I have not scrupled here and there to extract from them passages which I would have to rewrite in an inferior manner, and again in the words of Montaigne I may say, ' I make others say for me what, either from want of language or want of sense, I cannot myself so well express.' C. JULIUS CAESAR I.— INTRODUCTORY To write a full and exhaustive biography of Caius Julius Caesar, the man who, perhaps above all other men, impressed an indelible stamp on the history, not of Rome only, but of all Western Europe — a man whose life has engaged the pens of the ablest writers and the most profound scholars, — would be an impertinence for me to attempt. My design is to bring together before the reader sufficient details of the history of this great man to enable him to understand him as a man, and to appre- ciate the significance of his life. But in order to understand him as a man, and to appreciate the significance of his life, it is not possible to dissociate him from the social and political history, not of his own epoch only, but of Rome from its cradle. He stood at a turning-point in the history of Rome, at a moment when it was quite uncertain whether Rome would maintain or lose her supremacy, — at a moment when it seemed as though, in a welter of antagonistic factions, the central authority must disappear, and the nations controlled and tortured by her would reassert their independence, and break for ever her yoke from off their necks, at a critical moment when, if Rome was to maintain her supremacy, her constitution must undergo consolidation and concentration. To put all this before the reader requires a summary of the con- stitutional history of Rome, and a picture of the factions in Rome itself in the time of Caesar. To do this thoroughly is unnecessary, as it has been done exhaustively by others. Without some notion of the incom- patibility of the constitution for what was required of it, of the deadlock at which affairs had arrived, of the futile struggles made first in one direction and then in the opposite, to solve the ever recurring problems, the story of Caesar's life would be unintelligible. Such a sketch is therefore a necessity. But a sketch alone must suffice. The people of ancient Rome were the legislative power. The king was the ruler (rex), but law (kx) was the compact voluntarily entered into by the community.^ The king could not make a law, nor ratify a law proposed to him. He proposed a law to the assembled I Not from Hgare, and so not a bond, but from the same root as licet, Hki). 14 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS people, that had been debated on by the senate, and put it to their vote; and only when they had thus sanctioned a law did it pass into a statute. This was the reverse of the principle of modern constitutional monarchy. The same theory manifested itself in another particular. The Court of Justice, acting under the king, might sentence a culprit to exile or to death. But there was always open to him an appeal to the ultimate authority — the people. Such an appeal was termed a 'provocation.' The people did not debate ; they voted. The king did not rule by any divine sanction. He was elected from among the heads of the houses, Patres, to act as administrator of the law, and he ruled by virtue of a compact with the people. Till he had been presented to the people, and they had accepted him, he had no authority. After that, the plenitude of the imperium was lodged in him. The Roman commonwealth was on a large scale the reproduction of the Roman household. That household consisted of father, children, guests, and servants. So, in the State the king represented the father, and the quirites the members of the family. And these alone were the citizens, patricians, descended from the heads of the families which had founded primitive Rome. But in addition to the citizens, the patricians, there was in Rome a large number of guests, members of other nations, perhaps alien, perhaps Latin, suffered to dwell on the banks of the Tiber, and exercise there their professions of mercantile enterprise or trade. These men had no civic rights. They sought the patronage of the patricians, and in reference to them were called clients. In the eye of the State they were the plebs, i.e. those void of rights. They existed on sufferance, but, in exchange for services rendered, were given a measure of protection. The citizens alone were qualified to serve in war. They were called out on occasion, but the campaign was closed, and the citizens disbanded, as soon as the work of agriculture demanded their presence on their farms. The proud name that the citizens assumed was Quirites, that had originally precisely the same signification as Germans, i.e. spear- men — the free citizens, alone qualified to bear arms.i As Rome subdued cities and peoples round about, many of the inhabitants of these cities, and masses of the people, were transferred to Rome, there to swell the population of the unfree. But these wars, carried on solely by the pure-blooded Roman citizens, thinned their ranks rapidly, and the plebs profited by the victories won without contributing anything towards gaining them. This plebeian population devoted itself to commerce, whereas the patrician held to agriculture. It became obvious that such a condition of affairs could not last Kin"- Servius Tullius introduced a reform. Such plebeians as had acquired wealth and estates, were granted the citizenship, and were called upon to assist in the defence of their adopted country, and to share the 1 Mommsen, i. 69, note. C. JULIUS CAESAR 15 economic burdens. Only the empty pockets and lacklands were excluded. But although the plebs were thus accorded the rights of citizenship, there was no attempt made to fuse the classes. On the contrary, the pure-blooded patrician, the representative of the original founders of Rome, could not contract marriage with a plebeian, until the Canuleian law was passed (a.u.c. 310). Nor was the plebeian allowed any voice in the debates. He could neither hold an office in the State nor enter the senate. Before the citizenship was accorded him, he had no legal right to possess land, and his patron exercised authority over him and dealt with his property at his discretion. The plebeian had gained a legal footing in the State, but not a legislative voice. With the banishment of Tarquinius Superbus the royalty was not abolished ; to the Roman mind the imperium, the administrative power and authority, must remain intact. But as a precaution against its mis- use, curious and unique measures were adopted to limit it, or rather to provide checks against its being used for the purpose of the furtherance of personal ambition. In the first place, in lieu of one king, two co-equal chief magistrates were elected, and called Consuls, i.e. those who sat together, — not one superior to the other, and possessed of a little more authority than the other.i Both received a co-ordinate authority; each received tlieimperium in its plenitude whole and undivided, and each in public solemnities wore the royal purple. Thus one consul acted as a check on the other. In the second place, the term of office was limited to one year. As long as the consul was chief magistrate, he, like the king, could not be taken to task for what he did. But no sooner had he laid down his office than he could be impeached for any action he had taken during his consulate that was in excess of the powers committed to him. In the third place, certain privileges that the king had possessed, chief among which was the appointment to the priesthood, were with- drawn from the consul, and the sacerdotal colleges were empowered to fill their vacancies by election. Such an arrangement of co-ordinate sovereigns had its practical disadvantages, that were not slow to manifest themselves. If the two consuls did not agree on a measure, one could completely paralyse the action of the other. In time of war the arrangement was fatal. To obviate this difficulty, a provision was made that ill cases of emergency a dictator could be appointed, supreme whilst he held his office, but the tenure of the dictatorship was limited to six months. No danger to the constitution was anticipated from such an arrangement, for not only was 1 Consul, or consol, from the root sol, which appears in solium, sella, etc., and which is the same as sed in sedeo, sedes, sodalis, etc. Consules are therefore those who sat together, and hence deliberated together ; cf. ex-sul, prae-sult and consilium. ' i6 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS the time during which the dictator exercised absolute power very short, but those over whom he exercised it were levied from among the citizens themselves, all watchful and jealous of his power. With the single exception of the appointment annually of the consuls, the constitution remained intact. It was an arch with the keystone knocked out, and its place supplied by two wooden wedges annually replaced. The wealth of the plebeians was on the increase, and the number of the hereditary legislators was on the decline. It was no longer possible wholly to exclude the richest plebeians from the senate. Those esteemed most deserving of the honour were accordingly enrolled (conscripti), and admitted to the senate — not to speak, but to listen to the debates, and debarred other means of expressing their opinions than by stamping with their feet. ' Nor were any of the offices in the State thrown open to them. Nor were they regarded as having any claim on the common land or domain belonging to the State that had been confiscated from the cities and peoples who had taken up arms against Roman pretensions. Presently, by means of conquest, the power of Rome extended beyond the confines of Italy, and it was no longer possible to limit military service to the winter months. Moreover the number of men raised from among the citizens did not suffice for the long and bloody wars entered upon. Accordingly the population of subjugated Italy was called on to furnish recruits, and to shed their blood in foreign lands for Rome, without being given any compensating advantage in return. The expedient of constituting two co-equal holders of the imperium was advantageous only for checking personal ambition. It stereotyped the constitution as it was; for one consul could nullify the acts of the other. One might see that great abuses were growing, see that arrangements suitable for a small State bounded by the Alban and Sabine mountains were utterly inadequate to meet the requirements of one that extended across the seas ; one consul could propose a law, but could not carry it without the sanction of his colleague. Moreover, the briefness of the tenure of office made the holder in- capable of obtaining a proper grasp of it. And the necessary consequence was that the executive fell into the hands of the one permanent body, the senate, and that the consul was converted into its chief functionary! The expulsion of the kings led accordingly to the enthronement in their place of an oligarchy, arrogating to themselves all offices in the State appropriating to themselves all the State domains, holding the keys of the treasury and occupying the courts of justice, therefore ruling the decisions of the judges to the profit of the order. The patrician landowners not only appropriated the common lands, but, by the employment of slave-labour, were able to undersell the free peasant m market produce. The peasant, moreover, drawn ofi" for C. JULIUS CAESAR 17 pnilitary service, could not cultivate his land properly, and became involved in debt. The large owners lent him money, and if he could not pay they seized on his farm, and he returned to Italy from foreign conquest to find his wife and children homeless. The condition of affairs became desperate, and a revolt of the plebs ensued, which led to the appointment of tribunes out of their class, for the protection of their interests. The tribunes were empowered to exercise a veto on any bill proposed by the consuls, and to use the inUrcessio to stop any legal action taken against one of the class to which they belonged. Their office was purely negative and obstructive, and it introduced another element of arbitrari- ness into the conduct of affairs. It conduced in no way to rectify what was faulty in the constitution; it served only to prevent legislation against their class, and to protect individuals against judicial injustice. As one consul could obstruct reformatory proposals made by his colleague, so now could one tribune prevent the united action of both consuls and his own colleague, without giving a reason for so doing. The measure taken served to block the wheels of government, in no way to ease them. Fresh difficulties were breeding. The brief tenure of office, not extending beyond one or two years, whether at home or abroad, incapacitated the functionaries from organis- ing and managing the finances in their detail. This called into existence a body of men who farmed the revenue, and paid lump sums into the treasury, extorting tolls and taxes from the people by their own agents. Moreover, the provisioning of the armies of Rome was in- trusted to these speculators, as it was not possible for the ever-shifting officials to understand and manage all the particulars necessary. As private individuals had not the means, companies were formed, and thus the populations which were not citizens of Rome were subjected to the rapacity of these irresponsible capitalists and their agents, from whom they had no effective appeal. These farmers, usurers, and managers of the commissariat, amassed vast fortunes, and were no longer content to sit speechless in the forum, and to be excluded from office. They succeeded in the first place in breaking down the wall of demarcation that prevented marriage between the classes, and then carried point after point till they had invaded every privilege and captured every office, even the consular. In process of time, therefore, every practical distinction between plebeian and patrician disappeared, and in the senate the patres et conscripti were resolved into the padres conscripti. Nevertheless, no real improvement in the constitution had been made. Now, indeed, the rich plebeian ranked with the patrician, but class distinction was not abolished. From the fusion grew the body of optimates, the nobility holding all power, and the great mass of the people were left unable to exercise any. £ i8 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS The senate, having made itself master ©f the executive, proceeded to still further despoil the consuls of their power. Formerly, like the king, the consul had nominated all under-officials for the term of his tenure of the consulship, but now all the important branches of administration — the control over the exchequer, the appointment to vacancies in the senate, the supervision over the courts of law, the maintenance of order in the city, — were withdrawn from the consulate and given by the senate to functionaries who were nominated by the community, so that in place of being under the consul they were independent of him. But if the consular office had lost much of its ancient significance, it had acquired in process of time a new value as a stepping-stone to the government of a province ; and the government of a province, though held for one or, at the outside, two years, meant the enrichment of the governor at the expense of the provincials. Rome had extended her conquests over three-quarters of the world, and the conquered countries and peoples lay at her feet to be sucked to exhaustion. The candidate for office had to obtain his election from the people, and the people were not blind to the value of what they gave. They asked for, they insisted on, repay- ment for their service in helping a candidate into the saddle. The candidate was constrained to stoop to the most degrading canvass for votes, and to pay for them with hard cash. And as the canvassing for all offices was in progress throughout the year for the officers for the ensuing year, Rome was kept in perpetual electioneering excitement, with all its concomitant demoralisation. But this was not all. It was customary for every beardless aspirant after office to advertise himself by impeaching a returned provincial governor for malversation or oppression. The accused had not much cause to be afraid. His judges belonged to the same class, and aspired to the same office. Moreover, they had itching palms, and were ready to acquit for a fee. Thus a governor sent to rule for a twelvemonth in a province had to extort money from the ruled to indemnify himself for what he had expended in purchasing his election to the consulship or praetorship, and in providing for the expenses of an impeachment when he resigned his governorship, as well as amassing a fortune for himself. In the meantime the condition of the peasant proprietor in Italy was becoming desperate. Every Roman general when he went to war was followed by speculators who bought those taken in battle, in an auction held on the field, or in a city after it had been stormed, and shipped them to Italy. In one day, in the market-place of Delos, 10,000 were produced and sold. Sicily was entirely cultivated by slave-labour. Corn poured in by sea from Egypt. Its price sank below the cost of produc- tion by the free peasant. The owners of small parcels of land struggled ineffectually against the competition, and sank in the struggle. They threw up their farms, sold them to the nearest noble owner, and came C. JULIUS CAESAR 19 to Rome to live there in idleness on what their votes would bring to them. In Etruria, the example of the Roman nobility was so closely followed that a century and a quarter before the Christian era there was not a free peasant remaining in the land. It was stated as an incontro- vertible fact in the Roman forum, that the citizen who claimed to be Lord of the World was not so well off as the beast of the field. That had its lair, whereas he had not a clod to call his own, and naught was his, save the air of heaven and the sunlight. But the Italian farmer was worse off than the Roman citizen. He had not even his vote to sell. In the army he was not treated on an equality with the Roman. A general might decapitate a Latin officer under him, but a private who was a Roman could appeal against his sentence. Cato asked what would happen to Rome when the wars came to an end, and this was precisely the problem that had to be solved when the city entered on its seventh century. ■ Opposition from without had ceased, but the internal cleavage now revealed itself. The question that excited greatest interest was however not political but social. Tiberius Gracchus demanded the restoration of the domains to the people. Pro- perly, it might be argued there could be no talk of restoration, as the common land had belonged to the original citizens of Rome, but, on the other hand, much had been added thereto since the fusion, and the plebeians had been admitted to the rights -of citizenship. It was a crying necessity that the free peasant should be encouraged, and how ■could that be better done than by distributing the State lands among the poor city populace ? Gracchus was tribune of the people for one year. His proposal touched so many interests that it was vetoed, and lie appealed away from the senate to the rabble. At the prospect of revolution all sympathy with him in the hearts of the capitalists dried up, and they threw in their lot with the nobles against him. His tribune- ship at an end, Tiberius Gracchus was unprotected, and was fallen lapon and murdered, along with three hundred of his adherents, by a party of fanatical nobles. The moderate among the optimates fully admitted the necessity for measures to be taken to restore the peasant proprietor in Italy, though to a man they disapproved of the methods adopted by Gracchus, and when he had perished, they did not cancel his measure, but filled up the commission for carrying it into effect, as far as was feasible without violating vested interests. Caius Gracchus, the younger brother of Tiberius, followed in his steps. The commission was acting too slowly, was too cautious to please him, and he resolved to obtain the parcelling out of the domains in a more thorough and less conciliatory manner. Conscious of the mistake in policy made by his brother in alienating the capitalists, Caius, on his election to the tribuneship, proceeded to gain them. This 20 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS he effected by proposing to transfer the courts of law from the senatorial order to that of the knights, or moneyed men of the people. Also, he offered to throw open to their rapacity the provinces of Asia that had hitherto not been submitted to them. Then, knowing his danger after his term of ofi&ce expired, he sought to secure the rabble, so as to effect his continuous re-election. This he did by proposing one of the most mischievous measures ever conceived by a popularity-hunter, and it was one which, when carried, Rome was never to shake itself free from. He proposed that a distribution of corn should be made to the citizens at the cost of the State, at less than half the average market price — thus at a stroke destroying the chief incentive to industry among the lower classes, and discouraging the citizen proprietor from the attempt to grow corn. Having bribed two classes to support him, Caius Gracchus proceeded to despoil the senate of nearly all its power, and to place it in the hands of the mob — that is to say, to exercise it himself. All his measures were carried in an unconstitutional manner, and in defiance of the opposition of the senate. He succeeded in acquiring the tribuneship for a second year, and aimed at re-election for the third, when he would be able to consolidate his position. But now he proposed to extend the rights of citizenship to the cities of Italy. If he were to carry this he could calculate on the support of the large populations outside of Rome, and by the aid of their votes could overwhelm the party of the optimates. But he had miscalculated the sense of justice and liberality of feeling in a Roman rabble. The people were alarmed at the suggestion; such an influx of votes as was contemplated by C. Gracchus would lower the market value of their votes. They forsook him. He fell through at the next election, and, attacked by a body of nobles, he was driven tq kill himself, and with him fell three thousand of his sympathisers. Then the senate proceeded to repeal every one of his reforms except only that of the transfer of the courts to the equites, which they left as a sop to the knights, and that of the dole of bread to the populace, which they did not venture to withdraw, at the risk of provoking a riot. Thirty years passed after the bloody corpse of Caius Gracchus had been flung into the Tiber, and the oligarchy had maintained all its recovered powers. In these thirty years, the misrule in the provinces, the depopulation of Italy, and the oppression of the inhabitants of the peninsula, had not been mitigated one jot. The transfer of the courts to the equestrian order had intensified the evil. The governor of a province was now no longer responsible to the senate, but to the body of the capitalists. He was at their mercy. If he checked their pro- ceedings in the provinces, if he did not allow them free rein to torture and despoil the people, he was haled on his return before their court and punished. A flagrant instance was that of Q. Mucius Scaevola. He had been C. JULIUS CAESAR 21 praetorian governor of Asia, and, roused by the sufferings of the unhappy people under him, he had arrested and punished the worst of their tormentors. On his return to Rome the knights did not indeed venture to attack a noble with powerful friends, but they dragged his lieutenant or legate, Publius Rufus, before the judges, confiscated his goods, and banished him from Italy. The worst, the most unprincipled governor escaped scot-free, and every attempt to mitigate the distress of the people was resented, and the proconsul or propraetor who had showed this dangerous humanity on his return paid for it before a prejudiced court. The scandal was so flagrant that an attempt to redress it was made by M. Livius Drusus, a member of the aristocracy. He sought to withdraw the administration of justice from the knights, and to restore it to the senate. But this could not be done without enlist- ing the populace on his side against the financiers. Accordingly, as a bribe to the people, the agrarian proposals of the Gracchi were revived, and the mischievous precedent of feeding the people free of cost was followed in an extended fashion. The people thus won, Drusus, invested with the tribuneship, carried his bill. But when, like the younger Gracchus, he also advocated the extension of the rights of citizenship to the Italians, he was deserted by the fickle mob ; he met with a fate similar to that of the Gracchi, and immediately on his death his measures were repealed. The Italians had hoped in vain that the righteousness of their cause would have received recognition, but when Drusus fell, they despaired of getting a hearing save at the point of the sword, and throughout Italy the fires of revolt blazed. Immediately, the ultras in Rome carried the appointment of a Commission of High Treason to investigate into the conduct of all such as had taken an active part in favour of the Italians, and to punish them with banishment and confiscation of goods. They thus cleared the ground of all the moderate and upright men. The insurrection gained ground, and Rome finally, in alarm, was constrained to grant the citizenship to those cities which had not as yet taken up arms, or would lay them down within a given time. This prevented the further spread of the conflagration, nevertheless the contest was maintained with great stubbornness for three years. When the Social War was ended, and the mode in which the franchise was to be accorded came to be considered, difficulties presented them- selves. If the new citizens were admitted on the same terms as the rest they would carry all before them by force of numbers. It was therefore resolved that they were to be qualified to vote, but were not to be suffered to vote unless the parties in Rome were so nicely balanced that they had to be called in to turn the scale one way or the other. It was, in fact, impossible to adapt to a great country a constitution originally 'fitted for a small civic community. And it was also evident that the new citizens would not rest long content with the scanty share of direct power 22 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS now accorded them. In fact, the discontent caused by disappointment was rife. It needed but an occasion for manifesting itself. The Social War had led to the concession of the principle, though not of the reality, of the great question of Italian enfranchisement. The business of farming the revenue, protected in all its abuses by the equestrian law courts, had vastly enriched the publicans, the knights.^ The Social War had impoverished temporarily many of the nobility whose estates throughout Italy had been trampled under foot and left untilled during the war. In their need for ready money they had gone to the capitalists, and they were relieved at a high rate of interest. Moreover the cost of election had become great, and a candidate for office had usually to borrow money to enable him to secure his election. Con- sequently the greater part of the ambitious nobles were indebted to the knights. Unable to recover themselves, they raked up an old law against usury, and refused to pay more than was by this law allowed. A case was brought before the praetor, Asellio ; and he admitted that the money-lenders had made themselves liable to prosecution. The fury of the knights knew no bounds. They fell on the praetor, pelted him with stones, and butchered him. Among the tribunes for this year was P. Sulpicius, who had been a friend of the unfortunate Drusus. He boldly gave notice of two measures — one admitting the Italians to the full franchise, placing them on a level with the old citizens ; and a second, by which all freedmen who had served in the Italian wars should be rewarded for their fidelity by the gift of the full franchise. In vain did the consuls exercise their legitimate rights to interfere with this measure being carried. Sulpicius surrounded himself with a body-guard of three thousand young men armed with daggers, and carried his laws by overawing his opponents. Then he introduced a third bill, and carried it as a matter of course, by which the command in a war just engaged in against Mithridates, king of Pontus, should be transferred from Sulla, the representative of the conservative party, to Marius, the favourite of the mob. A new element to complicate the strife of parties had grown up. This was the army, that was paid and retained under the standards for a term of years. The army had become a profession. It looked to its leaders to reward it for the services it rendered him in reaping laurels. There were at this epoch two rival commanders, C. Marius, a native of Arpinum, son of a small peasant, and Cornelius Sulla, member of an ancient but impoverished family. Each was ambitious to have the con- duct of the war in Asia Minor, which was likely not only to cover the Roman general with renown, but also to give him, at the head of his troops, absolute control over affairs at home. The command had been given to Sulla, but Sulpicius, by a law carried in defiance of the consuls and the senate, had transferred it to the 1 Cicero frequently speaks of the puilicani as identical with the equites. C. JULIUS CAESAR 23 rival Marius. Sulla was at the time in Southern Italy. He at once marched at the head of his troops to Rome ; Marius fled, the head of Sulpicius was struck off, and all his measures were repealed. Sulla, having re-established order, and replaced the government on its ancient footing, departed to the East to conduct the Mithridatic war. No sooner was Sulla with the army in Asia than Marius returned, collected a body of Italian soldiers, and executed bloody reprisals on the aristocratic party. Violence had become familiar in Rome from the time of the murder of Tiberius Gracchus ; each party as it attained the upper hand for a brief period, caused blood to flow in streams. Marius himself was no politician, but behind him stood a man who understood how to manage the people. This was Cornelius Cinna. He had no brilliant abilities, but he was ambitious, and he knew exactly what he wanted, and what he could get. He made use of Marius, threw on him the blame of all the murders, and when the old general died, ruled suprpme in Rome without him for the space of three years. The war in the East concluded, Sulla returned at the head of his soldiers and reversed all that had been done by Cinna and Marius. He was appointed dictator, and as dictator he undertook the revision of the constitution. As dictator for life he acted with very little regard for republican precederlt. The dictatorship had been in abeyance for a period of one hundred and twenty years ; and whoever was named ought to be named, according to the old constitutional rule, for six months only. But Sulla demanded it for himself without limitation of time, and to a man at the head of a victorious army it could not be refused. He indeed summoned the people to elect the consuls, but at the same time intimated that no one was to venture to appear as candidate without his permission. He cleared the stage of all antagonists by a remorseless proscription, and then endeavoured to prevent the families of the proscribed from ever again recovering influence or power. To this end he ordained that all their property should be sold, and the proceeds poured into the public treasury. Sulla next struck a blow at the power of the demo- cracy. Since the time of the Gracchi the tribunes had exercised great and growing powers, which they had usurped, absorbing more and more not only of the legislative but also of the executive power. To counter- act this he ordered that the candidates for the tribunate should hence- forth necessarily be members of the senate, and that no tribune should have the power to propose a law to the people. The tribunes had thus their teeth drawn, and were no longer, as he anticipated, to be feared as the representatives of the opposition. The old rule had been that no measure could be presented to the assembly of the people to be voted on till it had been ratified by the senate, but this had been dispensed with for the Comitia Tributa, b. c. 2 8 7. Sulla required that the old rule should be strictly enforced. He then proceeded to reconstruct 24 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS the senate, greatly reduced in numbers by wars, massacres, and proscriptions. He filled it up to the old complement of three hundred from the wealthiest of his own adherents, and from the knights. Finally, he took away the judicial power from the equestrian order, and restored it absolutely to the senate. Such were the chief measures of Sulla. The general purpose and effect of the whole was to restore the constitution in all points as nearly as possible to the condition which it had assumed before the time of the Gracchi. This he had effected because he had the military power behind him, and he taught the Romans the truth that no change was possible that would be enduring, unless it were effected by a man with material strength at his back to enable him to crush all opposition ; and moreover, that his work might endure, he must hold his office not for one or two years, but for a term during which he could secure the institu- tions he had called into being, and protect his measures of reform from being overthrown by the recoil wave of party feeling. Able and thorough as had been the remodelling of the constitution of Sulla, it was not destined to last above eight years ; then, under Pompeius, the tribunes were restored, and the independence of the assembly of the people was restored with it. Such, very briefly put, was the constitutional history of Rome, and such the position of parties when Caius Julius Caesar was required to decide the fate of the commonwealth. The authorities for a Life of Caesar are not many, nor are they of equal value. We have, apart from certain military records, his own Com- mentaries, and a man who takes the pen in hand can hardly fail to paint himself. We have the letters and speeches of Cicero, his friend in youth, his foe, though not openly, in manhood. Velleius Paterculus comes next ; he wrote just seventy-three years after the assassination of Caesar. Unfortunately his history is a dry compendium. Next we have the compilators separated from the age of Caesar by a century and a half, or two centuries, but who are valuable in that they have preserved notices from contemporary records now lost to us. These latter were naturally coloured by the passions called into life by the actions of Caesar. Moreover, the writers of a later age, looking back longingly to the golden epoch — golden to a single class, but of inexpres- sible misery to all beside, when Rome was in name a republic, in reality a close oligarchy,— took their view of the early Caesarg from the opinion entertained of them by that noble class they depressed. Suetonius, the best of these later authorities, perhaps strives to be fair, but he was a writer who sought above all to make his book amusing, and for this purpose stuffed his pages with the most piquant stories— their piquancy, not their truth, constituting their claim to insertion. C. JULIUS CAESAR 25 Plutarch, who comes next, used the writings of two of Caesar's friends and fellow-soldiers, Asinius Pollio and Caius Oppius, but though he derived from them certain personal incidents in the history of the gieat dictator, he went to his enemies for the interpretation of his motives. He was a Greek, and only visited Italy passingly. Consequently he had not the knowledge of the condition of the commonwealth in the age of Caesar to enable him rightly to judge of his conduct towards that commonwealth. As for Dio Cassius, our next authority, a native of Bithynia who wrote at Rome in the first years of the third century, ' It would be difficult,' says Mr. George Long, ' to find an instance in which this malignant writer ever speaks of any man as acting from a good motive.' Unhappily, for many of the facts relative to the life of Julius Caesar we are obliged, through default of earlier writers, to trust to Dio. For the Civil Wars we have also Appian, a compilator of the middle of the second century. II.— THE EARLY YEARS OF CAESAR. Caius Julius Caesar was the son of a father of the same name, and of Aurelia, probably the daughter of M. Aurelius Cotta. His paternal grandfather and great-grandfather also bore the name of Caius. His grandmother was a Marcia, and belonged to a family that assumed the cognomen of Rex, and traced their pedigree to Ancus Marcius, the fourth king of Rome, of Sabine race, who had extended the Roman citizenship to the heads of the Latin cities that had fallen under his sway. He it was who had given up the Aventine to Latin settlers. Ancus had pursued a liberal policy towards the surrounding peoples. It is possible that the recollection of the acts of his ancestor Ancus Marcius may have been one of the elements that combined to give direction to the policy of Julius Caesar — one of generosity towards provincials. He had an uncle, Sextus, and an aunt, Julia. The name of Sextus was a favourite in the family only second to Lucius. The Julian house was rich, though not one of the richest of the patrician houses. It pre- tended to be derived from an alliance between Anchises and Venus. Now the cult of the Greek goddess Aphrodite did not find entrance into Rome before b.c. 295, when, strangely enough, she was identified with Venus, the old Roman goddess of gardens. The Latin deities were abstractions, without personality, and with no myths surrounding them. Consequently the fable of descent from Aphrodite must have originated some time after the fusion had been effected, and is of value only so far as to show us that the garden patroness was the special divinity to whom the cult of the Julian gens was given. The cognomen of Caesar is variously deduced. It was popularly deduced from a Mauritanian word for an elephant, and a legend was told to account for its adoption. 26 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS The elephant was the totem or heraldic badge of the Caesars, and as such appears on some of the medals. It ornaments the breastplate of Caligula in one of his busts. ^ When on- the death of his aunt Julia, Caesar pronounced her pan- egyric, he said, ' She, on her maternal side, is the issue of kings ; on her paternal she descends from the immortal gods ; for her mother was a Marcia, and the family of Marcus Rex are the descendants of Ancus Marcius. The Julian family, to which I belong, traces its pedigree from Venus herself. Thus our house unites to the sacred character of kings, the most powerful among men, the venerated holiness of the gods who hold the very kings under their sway.' The marriage of this aunt Julia to Caius Marius was, in a fashion, a misalliance. The Aurelian gens from which issued Caesar's mother was plebeian, but Caius Marius was not the son of a wealthy plebeian or of an equestrian house. He was the son of a small peasant of Cereate, a village near Arpinum, in the hill-country near the banks ' which Liris eats with gentle wave.' It was an old Volscian town that had passed under the sway of the Saninites, from whom it had been wrested by the Romans and then given the franchise. Cicero, who was a native of Arpinum, but of equestrian rank, de- scribes its inhabitants as rustic and simple, like the rugged district they occupied, but with the virtues of mountaineers. The cyclopean walls and rude gate of the old city remain, constructed of vast blocks of un- tooled stones. Like one of these rude blocks was Caius Marius him- self. Juvenal says that in youth he had served for hire - as a common labourer, but this is a piece of late exaggeration. Plutarch simply says that he was the son of obscure parents who gained their living by the labour of their hands, and were very poor. In a word, he was the child of a boor. He entered the army at an early age, distinguished himself in Spain, and made his fame in the African war against Jugurtha, to which he put a climax by saving Italy from the Teutones and Cimbri, defeating the former near Aix and the latter at Vercellae. Marius never shook off the boor. He was rough in appearance and uncouth in manner all his days. He inherited the virtues and the vices of his class. Blunt in speech, ungracious in manner, uncom- fortable in the society of those who were his superiors, he was cunning, cautious, and ambitious. He lacked a high sense of honour; was remorseless in avenging personal slights ; was temperate and chaste, despised luxury, and was of considerable though not consummate military genius. Plutarch tells us a story of the man that may be quoted as charac- teristic. A Roman, especially a Roman soldier, showed his legs a great deal, and those of Caius Marius were disfigured by moles or something of the I Most probably Caesar meant ' with a full head of hair ' ; cf. Sanskrit Ke^a (hair). C. JULIUS CAESAR 27 sort. Probably at the representation of his wife, he submitted his legs to an operator to have the unsightly moles removed. He refused to be bound, but stretched out one leg, and bade the surgeon begin. It was a tedious business, and when one leg had been satisfactorily treated, Marius refused to stretch out the other to be dealt with in the same manner. ' The result,' said he, ' is not worth the pain.' His voice was harsh, his temper hot, and his face wore a threatening expression. Before an enemy in the field he could be cool, but he lost his composure in the forum. His hair was ragged, and he paid no regard to his personal appearance. He was superstitious as a peasant. In the campaign against the Ambrons and Teutons, he took about with him a Syrian prophetess called Martha, and he strove to obtain the consulate, not because he believed in his own talents, but because an Etruscan augur had discovered in the liver and kidneys of a calf that he was destined for that office. He was void of social tact and political intelligence. He offended the senate by marching into it in his triumphal military costume, and when he invited the aristocracy to his table, served up before them a dinner that might satisfy hungry soldiers, but was not palatable to pampered aristocrats. He did not care for Greek plays, and had the frankness to admit it. In his political career he was an inveterate blunderer. Such was Caesar's uncle by marriage. In spite of his defects, it is certain that his nephew entertained a lively admiration for the genius and virtues of the old general. But posterity cannot overlook his unworthy conduct in Africa towards his superior officer, Metellus, noi the butchery in Rome whereby he revenged the slights put upon him when his star was in the decline. Caius Julius Caesar was born on July 12th, B.C. 102.1 Of his fathet not much is known. He obtained the praetorship, and died at Pisa in B.C. 84, when his son was eighteen years old. Aurelia, the mother of Caius Julius, was a matron of the old school, managing her house with simplicity and frugality ; and holding tena- ciously to the traditional customs and virtues of the ancient Romans, virtues that were becoming unhappily as unfashionable as the customs 1 The date of Caesar's birth is usually put at 654, because Suetonius, Plutarch, and Appian say he was aged 56 when he died. But this is irreconcilable with the fact that he was aedile in 689, praetor in 692, and in 695 was consul. That is to say, he entered on all these offices two years before he legally could do so, and not a word about exception in his favour in this matter escapes any historian ; nor did his deadly foes make use of this legitimate plea of opposing his candidature. It is most probable that Suetonius, Appian, and Plutarch are quoting from the same authority, who was mistaken by two years in the age of Caesar. This is Mommsen's view, and I have ventured to follow him. The denarius struck at the outbreak of the Civil War bears on it the numerals LII., and if this does not mean his age, one does not know what it can mean. He was in fact at that time somewhat over 52. One does not see how he could have obtained the priesthood under Marius had he not assumed the toga virilis. See Mommsen, iii. p. 16, note. 28 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS of the elders. To the wise direction of his studies, and to the moral discipline of his boyhood, Caesar owed much of his after greatness. This Tacitus recognises when he couples Aurelia with the mother of the Gracchi. C. TuLius Caesar=Marcia. \ C. Marius^Julia. C. Julius Caesar=Aurelia. Sextus Julius Caesar. +664. I +686. +670. I +702. C. Marius. Juliai^M. Attios Balbus. C. JULIUS CAESAR. i. L. Pinarius^Julia + 672 (mi>wr-\\. 2. Q. Pedius. (.major). +702- ^^ Marius entered Rome, when Caesar was fifteen, to revenge the humiliations to which he had been subjected. Lucius Cornelius A u c 667 Cinna was consul at the time, a man of greater political ability B.C. 87. than Marius, and leader of the popular party. ' ' ^^' At the head of an army made up of Italian mercenaries, a thousand black savages from Africa, and ill-disciplined runaway slaves without number, Marius and Cinna entered Rome, now unprotected, as Sulla was in the East. For several days the city was in the hands of this rabble rout, which was allowed free scope to massacre, outrage^ and plunder. A bodyguard attended Marius, and cut down those whom he passed without a nod, whose salute he did not return, as he walked the streets. Marius made no attempt to curb the excesses of his followers, and it was due to the exertions of Cinna, aided by Sertorius, that they were finally brought to an end, the citizens themselves being helpless to protect themselves. The scenes of horror then enacted must have impressed the mind of young Caesar. In his sixteenth year, through the influence of his uncle, then entered on his seventh consulate, which he held for a few months only, Caesar A.u.c. 668. obtained the appointment oi flamen dialis, the priesthood B.C. 86. of Jupiter, with which went a handsome income. Marius died shortly after. Cinna entered on his third consulship in the following year, and his fourth in the next, a.u.c. 670. Then the tide turned. Sulla, the representative of the oligarchy, the man in whom all their hopes were concentrated, had nearly concluded his war against Mithridates, that he had been waging in daring independence of the home government, which was alarmed at his successes and his influence with the soldiery. He was now looking across the seas, muttering threats. He would shortly return to Italy, he said, and then deal with such as. had conducted themselves as the enemies of himself and of his order. Cinna, in attempting to raise troops to act against Sulla, was murdered by them. In the year following, when Caesar was but nineteen, he married C. JULIUS CAESAR 29 Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, lately deceased, and by so doing identified himself, or was thought to have identified himself, with the party of which Cinna had been the head. He had been ^ „ j, g engaged previously by his father to Cosueta, daughter of b.c. 83. a moneyed knight, but this engagement had been distasteful ^'' '^' to him, and on the death of his father, Caesar considered himself free to choose his own wife. By Cornelia he had a daughter, Julia, born within a year of his marriage. In October B.C. 82, Sulla entered Eome, and then ensued a massacre that threw into the shade the irregular slaughter that had followed the entry of Marius. 1 a u c 672 Sulla drew up proscription lists, and surrendered every one b.c. 82. whose name was published on them to be put to death' by whomsoever listed. Rewards were offered for the heads of the victims, and even to such as betrayed their places of concealment. Sulla not only desired to revenge himself on the friends of Marius and to break the power of the democracy, but also to obtain for his soldiery lands and treasure ; consequently the proscription lists were swelled with the names of those whose wealth and estates were coveted, as well as with such as were politically obnoxious. Not Rome only but all Italy was thus treated : cities as well as individuals were despoiled on the most frivolous pretences. To secure the army to his interest, it must be richly rewarded for past services, and to have the veterans ready to rise at his call they must be planted near Rome and throughout the Peninsula. Sulla had blue eyes and red hair, — golden he was pleased to consider it; his face was burnt by exposure and blotched by intemperance. The name Sulla was thought to be descriptive of his complexion, for it signified a brick earth that burnt to a purple red. A Greek wag composed on him a line to the effect that his head was a mulberry besprinkled with meal. He belonged to a patrician family, originally Rufinus, of the Cornelian gens, and the red hair or complexion may have been hereditary. Sulla inherited nothing from his father, and for some time had lived in lodgings. Many years later, when he was in power, he ordered the execution of a man who had sheltered one of the proscribed. ' What ! ' exclaimed the poor wretch, ' do you thus treat an old fellow-lodger ? I lived in the attic over you, at a rent of two thousand sesterces, when you were in the story below at three thousand.' Though his father left him nothing, yet he inherited an estate from his mother-in-law, and a woman who took a fancy to him constituted him her heir. In a desultory fashion he loved art and pursued litera- ture. He collected statues and wrote verses ; but he had low tastes also, and affected the society of buffoons and actresses. He was beloved and feared by his soldiery ; he shared their labours and privations, and was not above cutting coarse jests with them around the camp-fires. But 30 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS he was a disciplinarian, and demanded exact obedience. A gentleman by birth, he had been thrown with the vulgar in his youth, and through life he remained a mixture of refinement and grossness. ' A fox is he and a lion in one,' said Carbo of him ; ' but most dangerous as a fox.' His whole nature was double. He was reckless, and yet crafty ; generous, but also mean ; luxurious, but, when he chose, most abstemious. He was wholly indifferent to human suffering, and sacrificed lives without scruple, yet was not by nature cruel. It is much to be regretted that we cannot say with any degree of certainty whether we have portraits of Marius and Sulla in any of the Galleries in Europe. Unfortunately there is no medal that bears the profile of Marius. That seal in glass, inscribed C. Marius vii. cos., formerly in the Casali collection, cannot now be traced; Visconti believed it to be genuine, though not contemporaneous. It represented a man far too young to be Marius in his seventh consulship. Fig. 2.— CAIUS MARIUS. Uust in the Museum Chiaramonti, No. 512. There are two admirable heads in the Chiaramonti Gallery in the Vatican (Nos. 512, 510A), the first thought to be C. Marius, and the latter representing the same man has been erroneously called in the Catalogue Munatius Plancus. They belong to the first century, and are unmistakably portraits of the same man at different periods of his life. Both are remarkably fine and characteristic heads, and were both originally placed on statues. The first represents the head turned to C. JULIUS CAESAR , 31 the right, the other turned to the left. The hair is tossed wildly on the head ; the skull broadens above the ears. The brows hang down, and in the older portrait form very peculiar droopings over the eyes, which latter are eager and fierce. The mouth is large, and the lower lip pro- jects with a sharp sweep under it. The upper lip is long, and the chin square and small. The ears are large and ill-formed. These are indubitably the portraits of some man of conspicuous political import- ance, from the excellence of their execution ; they agree with the descrip- tion given us of C. Marius, and if they do not represent him we are moreover somewhat at a loss to know to whom else to apply them. There is another in the Wallraf Museum at Cologne whence obtained is not known, that agrees strikingly with the younger of these two portraits.* Fig. 3.— L. CORNELIUS SULLA. Denarius, enlarged. We are hardly better off with regard to portraits of Sulla. A silver medal struck by Q. Pompeius Rufus, his nephew, in B.C. 59, does indeed give us a clear and good profile ; but when we come to busts we are in difficulties. A very fine bust in the Vatican (Nuovo Braccio, No. 60) has been thought to represent Sulla ; the profile bears some likeness to that on the coin ; but what caused its attribution was probably the mole represented on the side of the mouth. We have no reason to say that Sulla had a mole. The joke about the mulberry applied to his colour, and not to his having an excrescence like a mulberry on his face. In the Torlonia Gallery (No. 412) is a bust of the same man from the Albani villa ; and a bust on a toga-statue in Lansdowne House repre- sents the same man at a more advanced age. All that can be said for these is that they may ^ossid/y be portraits of SuUa.^ One is tempted to compare the Chiaramonti busts supposed to 1 The statue at St. Petersburg has an inscription, but it is one of the Campana forgeries, with which the Hermitage is crowded. A bust in the Torlonia Gallery (No. 507) is somewhat lilce those in the Chiaramonti Gallery. The head is extremely flat at top. 2 Bernoulli thinks No. 424B in the Chiaramonti Gallery may be Sulla. The shape of the head is not that of the Sulla on the medal, nor does the formation of the mouth agree. The chin on the coin inclines to the double. The nose is a conjectural restoration. But for the smallness of the mouth, the bust might be intended for Julius Caesar. 32 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS represent Marius with that in the Nuovo Braccio, thought to be the portrait of Sulla, and indeed they do admirably express the characters of the different men ; but we have not sufficient certainty of the correct- ness of the attribution to warrant us in so dealing with them. We must return to Caesar, and go back a little. Probably in his uncle's house Caesar made the acquaintance of the two Ciceros, Marcus and Quintus, natives of Arpinum, whence also came Marius. They were remotely connected with him, i\f^t sufficiently connected for them to be able to use him and his house if convenient to themselves, and sufficiently remotely to be able to drop his acquaint- ance should it suit their purpose. Caesar and Marcus Cicero grew up together on terms of familiarity. They separated in policy later in life, for Cicero attached himself to the oligarchical party that employed and despised the clever new man from the country. Marcus Cicero never understood the character of his early friend. Great as were his abilities, sincere as was his love of his country, Cicero lacked breadth of mind. He contemplated everything from the standpoint of how it would affect himself first of all, and then how it would benefit his country. Politically he was one of -the most short-sighted of men, and was incapable of sounding the depths of such a mind and soul as were those of Caesar. It has been the fortune of Cicero to paint himself, in his voluminous correspondence, with all his little meannesses, his insincerity, his in- ordinate self-conceit, his lack of generosity, and his veritable stupidity in all matters demanding statesmanship. He no more saw what remedies were necessary for the sick constitution than he did the futility of those at which he grasped. He had so little appreciation of character that he leaned his whole weight on Pompeius, the most untrustworthy of men, and followed him even when he was well aware that his success would lead to more frightful excesses than were committed by Sulla. When he looked on Caesar passing his finger through his hair, deep in thought— it was a trick he had— he supposed that he was meditating the destruction, not the salvation, of the tottering State. Sulla had known his own mind ; he had remodelled the constitution so as to place the power absolutely in the hands of the aristocracy. And to maintain it there all that was needed was a massacre of the liberals every twenty or thirty years. Pompeius had himself made a breach in Sulla's reformed constitution, and yet Cicero trusted him to patch up the hole he himself had made. The nobles following Pompeius saw that this could only be effected by Sulla's method, and put their swords and daggers to the grindstone to carry it out. Cicero groaned in spirit, regretted that it must be so, but rather than abandon the chance of the rehabilitation of oligarchical supremacy was prepared to endure such infamous methods. But was it possible that the Roman world could submit to such mismanagement ? Was it the right way to secure stability to an mcompetent government by periodically making a clean sweep of C. JULIUS CAESAR 33 political opponents ? These were questions Cicero was incompetent to answer, though they were questions that started up in his confused mind. We obtain a better opinion of Cicero from his portraits than we should form from his political conduct. Happily the identification of these portraits can be made with some certainty. The well-known Magnesian bronze medal has long been regarded as giving us the type of the head of M. TuUius Cicero, but erroneously. It is a medal struck in honour of his son. The type-giving busts are two, one at Madrid with the genuine inscription on it, M. Cicero An. lxiii., that is to say, the great Fig. 4.— M. TULLIUS CICERO. Bust at Madrid (after Bernoulli). orator in his sixty-fourth year ; and another with his name on it in Apsley House, a rude replica of the Madrid bust, or, more probably, both are copies of a lost original. The Madrid bust, in Greek marble, certainly is a contemporary portrait, but a copy, for all that, from a better original. The upper lip is pointed, the nose sharp, the brow lofty, and the head high. There is a genial, amiable expression in the face, but at the same time a readiness in the sharp, nervous mouth to shoot forth c 34 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS Fig. s— M. TULLIUS CICERO. Profile of the Bust at Madrid. eyebrows. The head is much that of an English parson intellectually able, who is on the look-out for a deanery, and is careful to avoid pro- i I. Bust at Madrid, described above. 2. Bust at Apsley House. Much restored ; pose, lips, chin, new. 3. Head at Woburn Abbey, resembling the above. 4. Head in the Chiaramonti Gallery (No. 698) found in Roma Vecchia. Half the nose, ears, and breast new. A portrait of the same man, but a different portrait. The expression much more dissatisfied than in the Madrid bust. 5. Similar head to 4, at Turin, with a more cheerful expression. 6. Bust at Florence, of again another type, but of the same man. A fine head ; the upper lip not pointed ; the brow contracted as though in thought ; the nose sharp ; head somewhat turned to the left. Head at Mantua labelled Maecenas. Resembles 6. It is, however, much restored. Head in the Capitoline Museum. The identification more than doubtful. The portraits usually labelled Cicero in the Galleries belong, perhaps, to Corbulo. 7- C. JULIUS CAESAR 35 nounced opinions,— can tell a good story, preach a good sermon, likes to associate with titled persons, loves his glass of port, but will preside at a temperance meeting. In the proscription of Sulla Caesar escaped. The dictator spared the lad of twenty, but he was disposed to spare him on his own condi- tions. He must divorce his young wife, the mother of the little Julia, and ally himself to the daughter of a house engaged in the faction of the Optimates. Sulla had been strengthening his party by drawing into it promising young men from the other side by means of this sort. M. Pupius Piso, at the dictator's suggestion, had divorced his wife Annia, the widow of Cinna. Piso had belonged to the popular party whilst the sun shone on it, but changed sides as the shadows gathered over it, and in token of his conversion put away his wife, whom he had married barely a twelvemonth before, and placed his hand at the disposal of Sulla. Cnaeus Pompeius also, a handsome -^outh, with large melting €yes, so fresh-looking that one lady said she longed to eat him, was married to Antistia, daughter of P. Antistius and Calpurnia. She had been recently bereaved of both parents. Her father had been murdered by order of the younger Marius, and her mother, frantic with grief, had committed suicide. But Sulla's wife by her first husband had a daughter, Aemilia, married to M. Acilius Glabrio, the censor. Sulla advised Glabrio and Pompeius both to divorce their wives, and then ordered young Pompeius to take to him Aemilia. It was a heartless and ungenerous proceeding, as the father of Antistia had died for the cause of Sulla. But a woman's feelings weighed nothing with the dictator, nor were they considered by Pompeius when put in the scale against ambition. He submitted without a murmur. But it was otherwise with Caesar. Sulla recognised his abilities, and as he belonged to a fine old patrician family, thought it would be easy to break the loose threads that attached him to the pofulares. To him he made a similar proposal, with confidence that he would meet with as ready compliance. He was mistaken. The answer of Caesar was a decisive refusal. ' The terrible Sylla,' says Mr. Froude, ' in the fulness of his strength, after desolating half the houses in Italy, after revolutionising all Roman society, from the peasant's cottage in the Apennines to the senate- house itself, was defied by a mere boy. Throughout his career Caesar displayed always a singular indifference to life. He had no sentimental passion about him, no Byronic mock heroics. ... He intended, if he was to live at all, to live master of himself in matters which belonged to himself. Sylla might kill him if he so pleased. It was better to die than to put away a wife who was the mother of his child, and to marry some other woman at a dictator's bidding. Life on such terms was not worth keeping. So proud a bearing may have commanded Sylla's admiration, but it taught him, also, that a young man, capable of 36 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS assuming an attitude so bold, might be dangerous to the rickety in- stitutions which he had constructed so carefully. He took his wife's dowry from him, and confiscated the estate which he had inherited from his father. When this produced no effect, the rebellious youth was made over to the assassins, and a price was set on his head.'^ Caesar fled in time. He was ill with fever, and in this condition he wandered among those opalescent Sabine mountains that raise theii broken heads against the sky to the east of Rome, and changed his hiding- place nearly every night. Once he fell in with the party sent to capture and murder him, under a certain Cornelius Phagita. With difficulty he succeeded in bribing the fellow with two talents, equal to £4^0, to spare him. Years after when he had the power to punish this man he would not do so. 'He never could bear the thought of injuring Cornelius Phagita,' says Suetonius, ' who had dogged him in the night, when sick and a fugitive.' Presently the powerful friends of Caesar were able to interfere, chiefly Aurelius Cotta, his mother's brother, and Mamercus Lepidus, a connection. The Vestal Virgins moreover interceded in his favour. Sulla yielded at last, exclaiming, ' So be it then ! yet believe me, — of Marii there be many in this loose-girt lad.' ' Sulla had judged truly,' says Napoleon. ' Many a Marius, in fact, was summed up in this one Caesar : Marius, the great captain, but with a larger military genius ; Marius, the enemy of the oligarchy, but without hatred and without cruelty ; Marius, in a word, no longer the man of a faction, but the man of his age.' Although his life was spared, it was no longer prudent for Caesar to remain in Italy. He therefore crossed into Asia, and threw himself on the hospitality of Nicomedes, king of Bithynia. He never forgot the kindness of his reception, and in after years, when he had the oppor- tunity, he became the advocate of the Bithynians, and pleaded their cause against Cicero before the senate. Long afterwards scandalous stories circulated in Roman society relative to the moral conduct of Caius Julius during his residence at the Bithynian court. They were used against him by his political adversaries, who left no stone unturned beneath which some dirt might , be found wherewith to bespatter his character. Whether true or false mattered little. Cicero, we are informed, cast the charge in the face of Caesar when opposed to him in the trial above mentioned ; but Cicero was perfectly unscrupulous in his efforts to blacken the character of those to whom he was opposed. Bibulus, his defeated, skulking fellow-consul, spat out the same foul slanders just forty-one years after the visit of Caesar to Nicomedes. As far as can be gathered, this story was built on the gossip of some merchants who had seen the young Caesar associated 1 Froude, Caesar, ad ed. p. 95. C. JULIUS CAESAR 37 with persons of bad character, waiting at table on the king, and con- cluded that because he was in their company, therefore he was as bad as they. No better evidence than this to substantiate an infamous charge could be discovered by the ingenuity of Suetonius. Whilst Caesar was in Asia, Sulla had quelled opposition. His opponents were dead, banished, or remained still through fear. Then he undertook and carried through the reforms already spoken of. That done, Sulla resigned his dictatorship, and weary of the strain on his mind and the occupation of his time retired to his amusements, and diverted himself with a young and beautiful wife. The engagement came about in an odd fashion. He was sitting one day in the amphitheatre, when he felt a light pluck at his garment behind. He turned, to see a young lady with saucy eyes, who excused herself on the plea that she sought to pluck, along with the nap off his toga, some of his good luck to herself. This led to an acquaintance, and to his marrying the girl Valeria. He died not long after, esteeming himself the favourite of fortune to the end. No sooner was the redoubted dictator dead, than the democrats, who had retired into their holes, thrust forth their heads and looked about them, then stole forth and began to consult how to undo all that Sulla had done. There was no continuity in government ; it was a perpetual see-saw between rivals who regarded nothing save the interests of themselves and their party. On the death of Sulla, Caesar returned to Rome, to find that there was already a movement begun to undo Sulla's reform. It was headed by M. Aemilius Lepidus, who was consul when Sulla died, ^ ^ ^ g , and by D. Junius Brutus, who pretended to trace his b.c. 78. descent from the great Brutus, the king-expeller, and, failing ^^'' ^'*- to estabUsh the claim, made up for deficiency of proof by blatant republican sentiment. In B.C. 77 Lepidus was at the head of an army. He was then pro- consul, and he was joined by young Cinna, Caesar's brother-in-law. Lepidus demanded the restoration of all the lands confiscated by Sulla to the families and cities that had been despoiled. He further required the reinstatement of the tribunes in all their ancient privileges. Caesar either considered these demands too great, or he had no confidence in the leaders. He declined their overtures to join them, and the event justified his refusal. Cn. Pompeius and Catulus were invested by the senate with authority to raise an army against Lepidus and Brutus. The latter was slain. Lepidus fled to Sardinia, where he died. Thus ended this abortive attempt to undo the work of Sulla. But although Caesar would not join in this rash venture, he appeared before the public in the same year in such a manner as to show to Rome and the provinces what was the direction of his mind, and where his sympathies lay. M. Cornelius Dolabella had been proconsul of 38 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS Macedonia at the time that Caesar had been in Bithynia, and the cries of distress and murmurs of resentment uttered by the oppressed had reached his ears. He seized the occasion of his return to impeach Dolabella for malversation in his government. His object was twofold, and he attained it. In the first place, Dolabella being a prominent member of the oligarchy, by ^B.tyt' this impeachment Caesar showed that his party allegiance Aet. 26. jj^^ jjQj ^jggn shaken, and he let the provincials understand that he had their interests at heart. That he failed to obtain the condemnation of Dolabella was a fore- gone conclusion. Dolabella had been a favourite of Sulla, he belonged to the governing faction, and the court in which he was tried consisted exclusively of senators. Perhaps Caesar was dissatisfied with the effect of his oratory, for he immediately withdrew from Italy to place himself under instruction in elocution at Rhodes. On his way thither he was captured by pirates, who at this time infested the Mediterranean ; he was conveyed to the isle of Pharmacusa, and there detained till a ransom equal to about ten thousand pounds sterling was forthcoming. Whilst in their hands Caesar joined in their sports, observed their habits, measured their powers of resistance to a serious attack, and frankly told them that as soon as ever he was free, he would not rest till he had hung them to the last man. The ransom arrived, and Caesar was released. He at once collected armed vessels, caught his late captors when off their guard dividing the plunder, and had them strangled and then crucified. It was noted at the time as an act of exceptional humanity that the youthful Caesar should put the wretches to death before stretching their bodies on the crosses. That was not how Pompeius and Crassus, a few years later, treated Spartacus and the revolted slaves. They impaled six thousand of them, and suffered them to languish on their crosses for many days in indescribable torture. To this period of Caesar's life belongs the nude statue now in the Louvre. It is of admirable Greek art, perhaps the most beautiful portrait-statue we possess. It represents Caesar as Hermes ; the head is slightly bent forward, and his eyes are fixed on some object at a distance below the level of his feet. The attitude may be said to be that of an orator addressing the people from the rostrum. His arched, lofty head is covered with short locks combed forwards. It is re- markable that the top of the head was at one time different, and was removed, and the present one put in its place. The fingers and thumb of the left hand, that in a Hermes would hold the caduceus, seem also to have been altered. They were wanting in the statue when found. Whether a cap of Hermes covered the head, and it shocked Roman feeling to have a young man thus likened to a god, and consequently was altered, we cannot say. On the base below Fig. 6.— C. JULIUS CAESAR, as Hermes, in the Louvre. 40 THE TRAGEDV OF THE CAESARS the falling chlamys is the tortoise, symbol of the god. One hand is raised.! It was a happy thought of Cleomenes the Athenian, who was the artist, to catch a trick of Caesar, in raising his finger to his hair, and give thus to his portrait a character of its own. The left hand is lowered, with the mantle cast gracefully over it. The statue was found in Rome. There has been much hesitation over the identification. To my eye the profile and full face alike are those of a youthful Caesar. I sub- FlG. 7.-C. JULIUS CAESAR. Profile of youthful S.atu,: in the Louvre. mitted them to the critical eye of Mr. Conrad Dressier, the sculptor, and he arrived at the same conclusion. The moulding of the face is the same as that m the British Museum, making allowance for the difference m age. In this statue the mouth lacks perfection of beauty ; it is over large, and this, we know, was a blemish in Caesar's face. If we com- S' erti ,m n°,r ™Sentms : • Itaque compositus in dicendi modutn, erectis duobus aigi tis, tertium pollice comprimens, ita verbis exorsus est. ' C. JULIUS CAESAR 41 pare the statue with the most authentic busts, we shall find that the formation of the head, of the ears, of the Hps, and the chin are the same. The face lacks that kindliness and sweetness, and that far-away look, that are so noticeable in the portraits taken in later life.i The kind- liness grew in Caesar as he came to know men well, their weaknesses and infirmities, and to pity and bear with them. Youth is impatient and petulant ; old age tolerant and charitable. In this portrait his eyes are fixed on the earth, or on those moving on it. What is a special feature in those of the Caesar of advanced life is a look into far-away space, beyond the horizon, such as I remember to have noticed in no other classic bust. C. Juhus Caesar remained for two years in Rhodes engaged in his studies. ' During this time,' says Mr. Froude, ' the government of Rome was making progress in again demonstrating its unfitness for the duties which were laid upon it, and sowing the seeds which in a few years were to ripen into a harvest so remarkable. ' Two alternatives only lay before the Roman dominion — either dis- ruption or the abolition of the Constitution. If the aristocracy could not govern, still less could the mob govern. The Latin race was scattered over the basin of the Mediterranean, no longer bound by any special ties to Rome and Italy, each man of it individually vigorous and energetic, and bent before all things on making his own fortune. If no tolerable administration was provided for them at home, their obvious course could only be to identify themselves with local interests and nationalities, and make themselves severally independent. . . . Decent, industrious people in the provinces were given over to have their for tunes stolen from them, their daughters dishonoured, and themselves beaten or killed if they complained, by a set of wolves calling them- selves Roman senators — and these scenes not localised to any one unhappy district, but extending through the entire civilised part of mankind. There was no hope for these unhappy people, for they were under the tyranny of a dead hand. A bad king is like a bad season. The next may bring improvement, or, if his rule is wholly intolerable, he can be deposed. Under a bad constitution no such change is possible. It can be ended only by a revolution. Republican Rome had become an imperial state ; she had taken upon herself the guardianship of every country in the world, where the human race was industrious and prosperous, and she was discharging her great trust by sacrificing them to the luxury and ambition of a few hundred scandalous politicians.' In another way the existing condition of affairs was tending to 1 Bernoulli thinks the likeness is that of a man of forty years. It does not give nie the idea of a man of over twenty-eight. The Roman ripened sooner than an inhabitant of the North. 42 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS revolution. When a Roman general had gone forth in ancient times at the head of a conscription of Roman citizens, his return meant the dispersion of his soldiers to their farms. But the constitution of the Roman armies had been completely altered. The armies were now composed of mercenaries, and the return of a successful general pro- duced widespread alarm; it was a menace. Would he disperse his soldiers, and, if dispersed, whither would they go ? How were they to be properly rewarded ? Sulla answered these questioiis by massacring his political enemies and giving their estates to his soldiers. Others might do the same. Nor were the generals when at the head of their armies abroad amenable to the home government. Sulla had conducted his war against Mithridates in disregard of everything save his own will. Sertorius, appointed to the government of Spain, attempted to establish his independence in the peninsula and relieve it from Roman op- pression. A ruffian, L. Licinius Lucullus, sent to Spain, and finding there no war, made one, unauthorised. He wished to gain military reputation and to improve his fortune. Without any commission from the senate, and without any provocation, he fell on the Vaccaei. The central government had no control over their officers abroad, and trembled when they came home. No returning general could fail to see that he had but to put out his hand and grasp the dictatorship, and it was his. If he did not do so, he was lost ; the senate would humble and destroy him if it could. Carthage had treated her successful generals as public enemies, and Rome was necessarily falling into the same humour. Success to her armies was almost as dangerous to the Republic as a defeat. III.— CAESAR'S CANDIDATURE. As soon as Caesar was satisfied that he had learned as much as his Greek teacher could give, he returned to Rome. He had been absent two years. In Rome he lived with his mother in a small house in the Subura, the low part of Rome, under the Viminal and Esquiline hills. It was A.u.c. 686. ^" unfashionable quarter. It was noisy, and full of traffic.^ Ae( 28 ^^"^ taverns were in the street. At the bottom lived the leather-sellers and shoemakers, but there were booksellers m the parallel Vicus Sandaliarius. At the top of the street was the Lacus Orphei, a sort of amphitheatrical depression with seats round It, and at the higher end a statue of Orpheus surrounded by beasts and birds. It was probably a lounging-place for the people wherem to sit on a summer evening and listen to ballad-singers. Here a street branched off to the fashionable Carinae, where, on the slope ' Martial calls it clamosa, and Juvenal,/eTO«Hj. C. JULIUS CAESAR 43 above where now stands the Colosseum, the knights had their resi- dences. Not far off was the Tigillum Sororis, ' the Sister's beam,' a gate of wood, commemorating the act of the last of the three Horatii, who there stabbed his sister because she bewailed the death of her lover, whom he had slain. Along the little street where was this monument, Caesar walked when he visited Pompeius or Cicero, passing on his way the open accursed space where had stood the house of Spurius Cassius, suspected of having aspired to the kingship, torn down and devoted to perpetual desolation. Caesar was not in good circumstances, and the simple style in which his mother kept house was due almost certainly to straitened means as much as to choice. Sulla had confiscated his paternal inheritance, his wife's dower, and his priestly salary, and none of these had been re- stored to him, as far as we know. A main object of Lepidus and Brutus had been to obtain the restoration of confiscated estates and mcomes, but they had failed to effect it. Caesar was always devotedly attached to his mother, and he lived with her as long as she remained alive. Indeed she, and not his girlish wife, kept house for him. He showed himself in the Forum, that was hard by, and spoke when occasion offered. We do not know the exact spot where his house stood, but it was probably where he afterwards laid out his forum, buying up the houses round it. In appearance Caesar was handsome and well-built,^ had courteous and easy manners, and a graciousness that won the hearts of all who came in contact with him. Cicero notices the fascination of his manner. He was scrupulously neat, even dainty, about his clothing, due to the innate love of order and propriety that marked all he did. When he spoke his style was crystalline, and flowed easily, simply, unladen and unobscured by flowers. When he wrote it was the same, limpid and direct. He had dark eyes, penetrating, and not soft and ox-like as were those of Pompeius; a straight nose, well bridged. The mouth was regular, but large,^ or it may be the lips were unduly full. His hair was always kept trimmed by a barber, and his face shaved. So particular was he never to appear with a ' frouzy ' chin that some said he had had the hair plucked out ; and so careful was he not to ruffle his hair when he scratched his head that he put but one finger through his locks. His voice was sonorous, his gesture when speaking grave and dignified. His complexion was a pale olive ; his cheeks never full, in middle life inclined to fall in. He wore his toga ornamented with a purple ' ' Forma magnifica et generosa,' ' forma omnium civium excellentissimus,' says Cicero. 2 The expression ' ore pleniore ' of Suetonius is a little vague, as os has a double mean- ing, but in the case of Caesar, whose face was thin , it must apply to the mouth. Plutarch speaks of his thinness, Caes. 17. Some have thought it referred to his eloquence, but this is not possible from the coritext. The passage felaies to:lhfe;pei-sonal appearance of Caesar. 44 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS stripe of the eques, and had it fringed. It was girt, but girt loosely about him. On his finger was his signet-ring engraved with the tutelary Venus victrix. Whilst Caesar had been in Rhodes, his friends at home had not forgotten him. On the vacation of the office of pontiff by his uncle L. Aurelius Cotta, who died suddenly in Gaul, he was given the pon- tificate ; and when he returned to Rome from Rhodes he was elected a military tribune. This gave him military command. He however remained quiet, and though there were troubles on all sides, B.C. '73. in the East, in Spain, and in Italy, where the gladiators Aet.29. .jygj.g jjj revolt, Caesar took no part in military affairs. It is indeed probable that he held the office for a very brief period, 01 he would almost certainly have been called to serve in some of the wars then being carried on. The year 70 was memorable, for it saw the repeal of some of Sulla's most important alterations in the Constitution. Pompeius and Crassus ..,„<:<. were consuls. The former had been one of Sulla's steady A.U.C. 004. ^ B.C. 70. supporters, but his success in war, due mainly to his luck, ^^'' 3^- had roused the jealousy of the aristocratic party, and Pom- peius, partly through irritation at their hostility, partly out. of love of applause, turned towards the populares, and released by their aid the Tribunician authority from all the trammels imposed on it by Sulla. He had thereby knocked out the foundation-stone on which Sulla's constitution rested; and he did it without in the least knowing the Fig. 8.-Cn. POMPEIUS MAGNUS. Coin, enlarged. importance of what he was about. Pompeius, in pursuance of his object to punish the senate for their jealousy, sought to restore to the knights their control over the judicial system, but over this the senate fought a desperate battle ; and finally a compromise was effected whereby a court was erected, composed in part of members of the senate, in part of knights, and the third part of members elected from the class of Tribuni aerarii. Thus a second breach had been effected in Sulla's constitution, and that by Pompeius, a member of the sena- torial party, an adherent of Sulla, to gratify his pique C. JULIUS CAESAR 45 Cnaeus Pompeius belonged to a plebeian family. He was six years older than Caesar, and a few months younger than Cicero. At the age of three-and-twenty he had been given the name of Magnus, 'the Great,' by Sulla — one is inclined to suppose in jest, but it was accepted in sober earnest. Yet never was a man less qualified to bear the title. He was a successful man in war, because he came in to terminate cam- paigns in which the hard fighting had been done by others ; he wore the laurels others had reaped. The secret of his success was that he seldom risked a battle till he had made certain of victory. He was saved from utter rout in Spain by Metellus. He was handsome, had courteous manners, and was rich. Cicero in vain sought to fathom his purposes, to discover his principles. But Pompeius had no principles, and his purposes never lay far afield. By his antecedents he was the representative of the aristocracy, yet for the sake of applause he dealt his order its death-wound. Plutarch speaks of his engaging countenance, his princely air, and ready accessibility. He had curly hair, and, as has been already said, soft eyes. He is held to have been honest ; and moderate in his diet. The story is told of him that once, when ill, he was ordered a thrush for his meal. None could be pro- cured in the market, but he was informed that Lucullus had thrushes in his aviary. But Lucullus was of all men the one to whom he did not wish to be beholden, and he refused to ask for one of the birds, saying, ' What ! is my life to hang on the luxury of Lucullus ? Cook me something else.' On his finger he bore as his signet the device of a lion bearing a sword. The face of Pompeius is known for certain by the profiles on the coins. The characteristics are a tuft of hair bunching out over his fore- head, a face very straight from brow to chin, with a nose but slightly projecting beyond this line, the nose ill bridged, the nostrils drawn up as though he were taking snuff, and there are creases from the nostril roots to the chin, the latter inclined to be double. The lips are tightly closed, with an affectation of firmness, forming creases that start from the nostrils, and give a puffy look to the lips. This must have been a peculiarity of Pompeius, for it is exaggerated on some of the coins. As to busts and statues of Pompeius, though there are many so labelled, there is not one that can with confidence be asserted really to represent him, and perhaps least of all can this be said of the statue in the Palazzo Spada, of which it is by no means certain whence the head came that has been aiSxed to the figure, exhumed without one. Perhaps the bust that has most claim to be regarded as a portrait of Pompeius is that found in 1869 in Pompeii, now in the National Museum at Naples. Directly that Pompeius showed readiness to adopt liberal measures, Caesar was at his side, and warmly seconded him. Caesar was now elected quaestor, and obtained a seat in the senate. Soon after this his 46 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS aunt Julia, the widow of Marius, died. We do not know much of this lady. At the time when the Teutons threatened Italy she accompanied her husband, taking with her a Syrian prophetess, who dressed 'b.c. 68. herself in purple, and bore in her hand a staff wreathed with Aet. 34. flowers and fluttering with ribbons. C. Marius and Julia, with the prophetess Martha between them, are represented on a stone at Les Baux in Provence, near the spot where Marius had his camp. The monument was apparently erected by C. Coelius Caldus, one of his lieutenants. On the occasion of the funeral of Julia, Caesar produced the bust of Marius, in defiance of the law of Sulla prohibiting its exposure, and pro- nounced her panegyric, as, in later days, did Augustus over another Julia, Caesar's sister. In the same year he made an oration over his wife Cornelia, who died. It was unusual that young matrons should be thus honoured, but Caesar's attachment to Cornelia, and respect for her memory, induced him to violate the custom, and popular sentiment approved. For this woman, it was remembered, he had risked his life, and suffered the spoiling of his goods. The pirates had been rapidly increasing in numbers and in audacity since the death of Sulla. They swept the Mediterranean with their war- galleys, and even the armies of Rome cowered before them, not venturing to cross from Brundusium except under the protection of winter storms. Commerce was paralysed, the cities on the coast menaced, and the corn supply for the capital was jeopardised. That Rome could recover possession of the seas was not doubted, but the senate shrank from committing to any man the command of a sufficient navy. There was, indeed, in popular opinion but one man capable of coping with the pirates, and this man was an object of sus- picion already. At length, when the pirates had had the temerity to enter Ostia, the port of Rome, and carry off the inhabitants to slavery ; when they had sunk in mid-seas a Roman fleet under the orders of a consul, and had made two praetors prisoners ; when they had burned Gaeta, and had seized and held to ransom ambassadors of foreign States to the Republic : the people rose with loud cries, demanding the suppres- sion of these insolent marauders, and accused the senate of being in league with the pirates, of receiving pay from them to defeat every measure taken to obtain redress for the wrongs done by them. In the midst of a tumult of excitement among the people, fearing lest the supplies of bread should be cut off, the tribune Gabinius proposed a A.U.C. 687. ^'^^ '° empower a man of consular rank to collect a fleet of two B.C. 67. hundred sail and proceed against the pirates, with command "• 35- for three years. But the senate preferred that the scandal and danger to the city should continue rather than that such power should' be put into the hands of'Pompeius, and they offered to the bill the most strenuous opposition. However, the blood of the commonalty was up. C. JULIUS CAESAR 47 They caught the consul Piso, one of the most stubborn opponents of the bill, and would have torn him to pieces had not Gabinius interfered. Caesar now issued from his retirement, and with all the energy of his character urged the carrying of the bill. He knew by his own experience both the daring of these freebooters and the ease with which they could be put down. The measure was carried to the vote of the tribes, where^ upon the tribune Trebellius, gained by the senate, interposed his veto. The people at once threatened to deprive him of his office, and carried their measure in improved shape, for they voted further supplies than had been at first demanded, and Pompeius was named as invested with the office of putting an end to piracy. Caesar's anticipations were verified. Pompeius had no sooner ap- peared on the high seas than the pirates gave way. He pursued them to their quarters without difficulty, almost without resistance, and burnt their fleets. Whilst thus engaged, news reached Pompeius that he had been appointed to another command. Mithridates, king of Pontus, had defied the forces of the Republic, and taxed its resources for twenty-four years. LucuUus had been sent against him, and had driven the king out of Pontus, and had pursued him into Armenia. But the knights, the financiers, had no love for Lucullus, who forbade their exactions and protected the population of Asia against the tax-farmers and usurers of Rome, who had seized and sold the wives and children of such as could not meet their deinands. Accordingly the knights at home combined to effect his recall, whilst their agents in Asia stirred up disaffection among his soldiers, so that, unsupported by fresh troops from Italy, and with those he commanded in mutiny, Lucullus was forced to retire, and at once received his recall. Thereupon the people demanded that the conduct of the Asian war should be intrusted to Pom- peius. The senate, of course, resisted ; better lose Asia than put such a weapon into the hands of Pompeius, nevertheless the people insisted on their point, and it was finally conceded. In the same year that Pompeius went against the pirates, Caesar, as quaestor, accompanied the praetor, Antistius Verus, into Spain, and had an opportunity of seeing a province still bleeding under wanton mis- usage. As delegate of Verus he visited the various towns, administering justice, and everywhere left behind him a favourable opinion of his spirit of equity and conciliation that did not rapidly fade away. A story told of this period may be safely rejected as an after fabrica- tion. It is said that on seeing a statue of Alexander he sighed to think that he had done nothing at an age when Alexander had conquered the world. From Spain Caesar returned at the end of a year to Italy, but halted in Cisalpine Gaul, the present Lombardy. The colonies founded in this country had been vainly entreating for the rights of Roman citizen- ship that had been accorded to Italy south of the Po. Caesar's 48 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS sympathies were enlisted ; he encouraged the hopes of the inhabitants, hopes which were realised afterwards by full citizenship, obtained by Caesar for them ; now, however, the senate took umbrage, '^ B.C.' 66^' accused him of stirring up the Transpadane Gauls to ask for Aet. 36. ^jj^f j,Qyi(j jjgygr be granted, and detained in Italy two of the legions equipped for the East, on the excuse that they mistrusted Caesar, were uneasy at the agitation in Cisalpine Gaul, actually because they were jealous of Pompeius's success, and desired to cripple him as Lucullus had been crippled and made innocuous. In this year Caesar married Pompeia, daughter of Q. Pompeius Rufus, a member of another branch of the Pompeian clan than that to which Pompeius Magnus belonged. The mother of Pompeia was Cornelia, daughter of the dictator Sulla. For 65 Caesar was elected curule aedile along with one Bibulus, a man devoted heart and soul to the senatorial faction. The aediles were the managers of the amusements of the people, and had care B.C. 65. of the public buildings. No salary was attached to the office, Aet. 37. vvhich had become a very costly one, as every aedile was expected to lavish large sums on games and on the adornment of the city, without which his prospects of advancement to a higher office were few. The electors were bribed by the aedile with a view to his candi- dature for the praetorship and consulship. To be chosen aedile a man must be at least thirty-seven, and he could not aspfre to be praetor till the age of forty, nor to be consul till he had attained forty-three. But the aedileship was a necessary step to be taken by an aspirant to the highest offices, and Caesar must so use it as to secure his future rise. His means were moderate ; he was still deprived of his patrimony ; but he had friends who believed in and trusted him, and they advanced the necessary sums. Caesar gave shows of extraordinary splendour, adorned the capital with a colonnade, and erected a temple to the Sacred Twins. Bibulus had indeed contributed his share to the expenses; but the people attributed all to Caesar. 'I see,' said Bibulus, 'it is with us as with the Dioscuri : every one speaks of the Temple of Castor, and forgets to name his fellow, Pollux.' Now that Caesar was curator of the public monuments he restored the trophies of his uncle Marius. Sulla had attempted to efface the remembrance of the deliverer of Italy and Rome from the last great invasion of the barbarians. He had forced a law through the comitia forbidding the exhibition of a bust of Marius ; every memorial of his victories was levelled with the dust, and the ashes of the great general were torn from their sepulchre and scattered to the winds. Caesar had been kindly treated by the old man ; from him he had received his first piece of preferment. The memory of Marius deserved rehabilitation. The trophies of very little generals and very great rascals adorned the Capitol and Rome. There was a ' monumentum Catuli,' there was a C. JULIUS CAESAR 49 portico on the Palatine in commemoration of the general who had been beaten by the Cimbri and had lost his camp, and who was saved from annihilation on the fields of Vercellae by the help of Marius. And it was a capital crime to show the bust and arms of the latter. Caesar restored the trophies on the Capitol, commemorative of the victories of Aquae Sextiae and Vercellae, to the delight of the people, and amidst the tears of the veterans who had fought under the great general in the two most glorious days in their lives. The senate was furious. Q. Lutatius Catulus, son of the colleague of Marius at Vercellae, leaped from his seat and denounced Caesar as a transgressor of the law. In his rage he burst into a torrent of extravagant nonsense. The exhibition of the Cimbric and Teutonic trophies, said he, was ' an attempt to beat down the constitution with battering-rams.' The senate was willing enough to condemn the act of Caesar, but the temper of the people would not suffer the removal of the replaced monuments. It took a mean revenge. Caesar was embarrassed for money ; he solicited an appointment that would transfer him to Egypt, where he might fill his empty purse. The senate refused his request, and then, to show its malevolence, aimed a blow at his clients, certain that he would feel it keenly. A decree was passed to expel from Rome all aliens sojourning in the city ; it was a slap in the face levelled at the Cisalpine Gauls resident in the capital pressing for the privileges of citizenship. Caesar retaliated. He was entitled to preside in the court to which were referred charges of murder, and in this capacity he had some of Sulla's ruffians brought before his tribunal. But he did not stop there. He was resolved to teach the nobles a lesson that the lives of the citizens were sacred, and were not to be taken away recklessly. By the ancient constitution the citizen who had been condemned in court might appeal to the people. But during the last seventy years all safeguards had been cast aside, and blood had been spilled as water in the faction feuds. Tiberius Gracchus had had his brains knocked out with the leg of a stool. Its weight in gold had been given for the head of his brother. Riot and butchery had been the order of the day. Each party, on getting the upper hand, had washed its hands in the blood of the adversary. Caesar determined to recall the Romans to a sense of responsibility for such acts, and for this purpose he took an extreme case, and one that touched and affected both parties. There was an old fellow, Rabirius by name, who thirty-six years before had been involved in one of these broils, in which L. Saturninus, tribune of the people, had been murdered. Saturninus had headed the ultra-revolu- tionaries, and his revolt had been put down by C. Marius himself and the moderate democrats. In the riot Saturninus had been killed off- hand without a trial. This was the case taken up by Caesar; and the lesson he designed that it should convey was that length of time since D so THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS a deed of illegal violence had been committed did not guarantee the guilty against punishment. Cicero undertook the defence of Rabirius. C. Julius Caesar and his kinsman Lucius Caesar were judges. The charge was capital. Rabirius was condemned, and appealed to the people. They, however, would have ratified the condemnation had not his life been saved by an expedient, probably suggested by Caesar, who had no desire that blood should be shed. It was customary for a white flag to fly on the Janiculan Hill. When that was hauled down it was a token that the city was menaced by invaders. Metellus Celer, a praetor, seeing that the people were resolved on the rejection of the appeal, ran to the hill and lowered the flag. The assembly was at once dissolved, and never reassembled to reconsider the case of Rabirius. Caesar next stood forward in vindication of justice to the AUobroges, a Gallic people seated on the Upper Rhone, who had been pillaged by the proconsul, Cn. Calpurnius Piso. Caesar impeached him, Cicero defended him, and the interested judges, as a matter of course, acquitted him. Q. Lutatius Catulus was a member of the senatorial party ; in the general mediocrity of talent there, and deficiency of principle, he was esteemed as something extraordinary. He had sufficient intelligence to warn him that the extreme men on the right wing were likely to ruin the cause, and to perceive that in the matter of the law-courts some conces- sion must be made to the demands of the people that the administra- tion of justice should be purified. But he was obstinate, suspicious, and tricky. Catulus had been bitterly mortified at the success of Caesar in maintaining the Marian trophies after he had restored them. This he regarded as a defiance of his order, and as a slight cast on his father, whom the oligarchical clique insisted on regarding as the real victor over the Cimbri. He had opposed the Gabinian bill for sending Pompeius against the pirates, and had been beaten; he had again opposed the Manilian bill conferring on the same general the conduct of the war in Asia, and had again been beaten. That ' beardless dandy ' Caesar had met him at every point and had defeated him. He was now to encounter a more galling disappointment. Q. Metellus had been Pontifex Maximus, and he died. Catulus and Servilius Vatia Isauricus stood forward as candidates. Catulus was sure A.U.C. 691. °{ *^^ ^°*^^ °^^^^ nobility, and of such as they could influence B.C. 63. with their money. Elections were managed in Rome now by Aet. 39. agents who had gangs of voters in their pay. Servilius hoped that past services rendered to the Republic would count with the people. The Servilian gens had as their palladium a small copper token, that was supposed to expand and contract with the fortunes of the family. Servilius probably had not consulted the coin when he stood for the high-priesthood. Suddenly, to the surprise and disgust of both candi- C. JULIUS CAESAR 5, dates, Caesar appeared in the field against them. Catulus contemptu- ously sent him an offer to pay his debts if he would withdraw from the contest. Caesar rejected the insulting offer and appealed to the people. He could not buy their votes : his funds and credit were exhausted ; but he reckoned on their dissatisfaction with oligarchic misrule. He did not disguise from himself that on this contest he staked his future. If he failed, the senatorial party would find or forge weapons for his destruction. On the day of the election, his mother, Aurelia, with tears, accompanied him to the door of the Uttle house in the Subura. It seemed to her that the nobihty and the electoral wire-pullers would be too much for him. But Caesar trusted that the people could' be spasmodically just and generous. ' Mother,' said he, ' to-day I shall return as chief pontiff, or not at all' The narrow streets were dense with voters streaming to the place of election. The shoemakers had closed their shops. The stalls in the great market (Macellum) were deserted ; men half-tipsy, loud with pro- testations of good-will, tumbled out of the taverns as Caesar passed. The butchers had left their shambles, the fishmongers their shops ; the Argiletum that opened on the Comitium was thick with people. Caesar was elected over the heads of Catulus and Servilius, carried into office by a wave of genuine popular enthusiasm for the one and only man in Rome who cared for the commonwealth above his own selfish interests. Caesar now removed to the official residence of the pontiff in the Forum, not many steps from the spot where, a few years later, his funeral pyre would burn, and where a temple was to rise to his honour, the concrete walls of which still remain. Soon after, Caesar was chosen praetor for the ensuing year, having now reached the age at which he could legally assume that office, and the way to the consulship was open. But Piso, whom he had impeached, and Catulus, whom he had defeated, vowed vengeance ; and an opportunity soon offered at which they grasped. In the next year Cicero was consul. There had existed for some time a simmering dissatisfaction among the young nobles at the condition of affairs. It is difficult to get at the truth in this matter, but it is probable that the discontent arose from financial difficulties. The leader of the malcontents was Catilina, a man of ability, determina- tion, and singular charm of manner. He belonged to an ancient patrician family that had sunk into poverty. Moreover, he had been a zealous partisan of Sulla. Perhaps he considered that the plums had been put into other mouths, and sought a disturbance of the public peace, in order that he might snatch them for his own eating. With him was associated C. Antonius Hybrida, an officer of Sulla who had been left behind in Greece, which he had plundered ruthlessly, and had been impeached for it by Caesar. He was now Cicero's colleague in the 52 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS consulship, and could look forward to a province to despoil, so that it is not clear what advantage he could gain by the conspiracy of Catilina. There were others : Cassius, who had stood unsuccessfully for the consul ship; Bestia, a tribune-elect; Lentulus and Cethegus, members of the Cornelian house, and the two nephews of Sulla. A good deal of loose talk about a conspiracy got about, but nothing definite was known ; many entirely disbelieved in the existence of a plot, though they admitted that there were well-born grumblers disappointed at being out of office. This had been going on for some time. Finally, under the consulship of Cicero and Antonius, the conspiracy came, or was forced, to a head. Unhappily we know of the designs of the conspirators onlyfromthe pens of the most incompetent of historians, Sallust, and the most untrustworthy of advocates, Cicero, and it is impossible to elicit from their accounts the truth relative to the designs of, and measures taken by, the confederates. These are charged with purposing to overthrow the government, to extend the franchise to Cisalpine Gaul, and to set fire to and pillage the capital. The government was corrupt and incompetent, and might well be recast. The extension of citizenship was but a justice. To burn Rome certainly never entered into the heads of the conspirators. That was an accusation trumped up by Cicero, who, in order to effect the destruction of the malcontents, must charge them with something that would strike the imagination and rouse the fears of the citizens. The people could not be excited by the denunciation of these men as desiring to subvert an incapable government ; the extension of the fran- chise was a proposal that no longer awoke their alarm ; but their selfish fears were at once enlisted against Catilina and his crew when they were represented as would-be cut-throats, robbers, and incendiaries. The conduct of Cicero, moreover, with regard to the conspiracy, was such as to waken mistrust as to its having attained any coherency at all. He pretended to have damning proofs of guilt in his hands, and tried threats, even entreaties, to induce Catilina to declare himself the enemy of Rome by leaving it and flying to arms.i Yet all the while he had no better evidence than the chatter of a loose woman, the mistress of one of the pretended conspirators. Her story, tricked out with all the adornments her lively imagination could furnish, found an eager and uncritical hearer in Cicero, who was delighted to have a plot to unveil, so that he might posture before Rome as its saviour. But even this woman's romance was not sufficiently extravagant to satisfy Cicero, and he added to it colours of his own, expanding the plot into a panorama of a city in flames, given over to massacre and incendiarism, that curdled the blood of his hearers. When Rome had been worked up to a paroxysm of panic over this marvellous 'revelation,' the nobility seized 1 'What real traitor did you ever e-xpose?' -Did you not destroy in disgraceful manner Catilina wl^o asked for nothing more than an office ? ' So did Q. Fufius Calenus say later, to Cicero. Dio. xlvi. lo. ao. ' C. JULIUS CAESAR S3 the occasion to accuse Caesar of complicity in it. Catulus and Piso urged on Cicero to include his name in the list of the conspirators. They were ready, with suborned witnesses, to furnish false testimony against him. But Cicero, though a vain man, was not a scoundrel, and he hesitated. Caesar had himself been the first to give him informa- tion that some plot was hatching ; and to destroy him merely because he was distasteful to the oligarchy on a false charge was what Cicero's con- science would not suffer. 1 On the 2nd of December none of the conspirators were in the hands of Cicero ; he had had nothing in the way of evidence hitherto, except a woman's untrustworthy talk, on which to base a capital charge. But now Catilina had been driven by fear to leave Rome, and those left behind, in alarm for themselves, had entered into negotiations with some delegates of the Allobroges, then leaving Rome. These men were caught and the letters taken from them. Now, finally, Cicero had what he wanted. There was treasonable correspondence with the Gauls, and this was in his hands. Never did a prouder day dawn on the vain orator. He con- vened the senate to decide what was to be done. But no regular court was constituted, no jury detailed, no fair trial accorded the accused. The senate, indeed, had no legal authority to sit as a tribunal of justice, not even to appoint a commission to try the alleged conspirators who were now arrested. But Cicero and his party were afraid to trust the conduct of the case out of their hands, and to suffer the hoUowness of the charge to be discovered. They rushed to a capital condemnation with indecent precipitancy. Didius Silanus, consul-elect, was for a death-sentence, so apparently were Catulus and Piso, who bitterly re- sented the weakness of Cicero in not implicating Caesar in the, charge. Then it came to the turn of Caesar himself to speak. ' Those,' said he, ' who deliberate on difficult matters ought to free their minds from the influence of hatred, friendship, anger, and compassion ; for the mind is often blinded to the truth by the clouds of passion that arise, and no man has ever followed his heated feelings and his true interest at the same time.' He bade the fathers lay aside all personal rancour, and consider only what was exacted of them by justice. Their mode of pro- ceeding, he contended, was unusual, as it was illegal. There were regularly constituted criminal courts ; let the accused be tried in them, and accorded a fair chance of clearing their reputations. Silanus had given his opinion with perfect honesty, and had urged death ; but in so doing he 1 No conspiracy is so puzzling as this of Catilina. We cannot see that he pretended to belong to any one of the existing parties in Rome. He was not a Conservative. He was attacked and destroyed by a combination of the Optimates. He was not a Liberal ; his principal supporters were the friends and veterans of Sulla, who hated the Marian party. The offer of extension of franchise to the Italians was made only at the last, as a desperate expedient. Probably Catilina desired a dictatorship for himself, like that of Sulla, for purely selfish ends, to enrich himself and his adherents by a new proscrip- tion. That the sympathy of Caesar can have been enlisted in behalf of such a scheme is a moral impossibility. 54 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS had violated the fundamental constitution of the State. ' Why,' he asked of Silanus, ' did you not propose that these men should be whipped first and executed after ? Because, forsooth, the Porcian law forbids the whip- ping of a Roman citizen. But are there not laws that equally forbid the putting a man to death untried, unconvicted ? To sentence men capi- tally who have not been tried by the ordinary and legal process was to create a bad precedent. It was possible enough that in this particular case no wrong might be done, because, doubtless, the accused deserved death. But how might it be under another consul ? Who was to fix the bounds to which the shedding of blood was to be permitted, independent of a trial ? Another consul, less scrupulously just than Cicero, might arise, and the senate be moved by unreasoning panic or by its animosities to commit frightful injustice.' Caesar spoke with caution. He knew that he was surrounded by enemies seeking his destruction, but his words were so forcible that he swayed the majority of his hearers. He even shook the resolution of Silanus. Tiberius Nero moved an adjournment, and Silanus expressed his readiness to vote for the motion of Nero. Cicero spoke next. He allowed his hearers to understand that he desired the summary execution of the accused, but that he was afraid to take the responsibility on himself. Caesar had warned him that the people were sure to commiserate the victims of a lawless judgment, he had given timely notice, by the prosecution of Rabirius, that the illegal murder of citizens subjected those who committed such acts to lifelong risk. The wise and humane speech of Caesar would certainly have withlield the senate from plunging into a great mistake had it not been for the interference of a wrong-headed but sincere man, M. Porcius Cato, now tribune-elect, who rushed into the debate to drown the voice of Caesar, and neutralise the effect of his words by an appeal to the fe.irs of the senate. 'Verily,' he exclaimed, 'your leniency will lead to ultimate sorrow. Are you afraid of doing your manifest duty? By want of spirit you are letting everything slide. It is not by vows and by womanish tears that we get the help of the gods. Success follows promptitude. Yield to fear of future consequences, hesitate, and the gods in disgust will turn their backs on you.' When Cato reseated himself, a large part of the senate applauded, and like weak men clung to a strong if stupid man, and voted the death of the conspirators. It was during this debate that an incident occurred which is related by Plutarch. A note was slipped into the hand of Caesar. Cato saw it and tried to raise suspicion against the recipient, and demanded that the letter should be read aloud. Thereupon Caesar handed the note over to Cato, who found it to be a love-letter from his own half-sister, Servilia, to Caesar. He threw it back angrily to Caesar, with, ' Take it, you drunkard ! ' The story is improbable as it stands. It was assuredly unlikely that a lady should send a love-billet in the most public manner possible, C. JULIUS CAESAR 55 before the eyes of her husband and brother. That there is some truth in the anecdote is however probable, and we may conjecture that what really took place was that a note was handed to Caesar which, when required, he passed on to Cato, and that it really had reference to a consignment of wine from his wine-merchant. Thus only is the exclama- tion intelligible : ' Take it, you drunkard ! ' for Caesar was notoriously temperate. But the enemies of Caesar, or the general scandalmongers, were not satisfied with this, and conjectured that the letter contained something piquant. Who would have divulged the contents of a love- letter? Not Caesar certainly. Not Cato, to reveal the dishonour of his sister. No sooner had the senate empowered Cicero to put the prisoners to death, than they were forthwith strangled. ' Vixerunt,' was the answer Cicero gave as he met the inquirmg looks of the people in his passage through the Forum. The nobles, ill-satisfied that Cicero had not en- veloped Caesar in the accusation, sought to relieve themselves of him by violence. As he descended the steps of the temple where the senate had assembled, he was assailed by certain knights with drawn swords, and they looked eagerly to the consul for a signal to hew him in pieces. Cicero held back from encouragement of violence, and Curio, a young friend of Caesar, had time to throw his cloak around him and convey him to a place of safety. On January ist, in the new year, Caesar entered on the praetorship to which lie had been elected, and he began it with a passage of arms with his enemy, Catulus. This man had been intrusted with ^ ^ ^ public money for the completion of the temple of Jupiter on b.c. 62. the Capitol. It was nearly ready, and Caesar called on Aet. 40. Catulus to produce his accounts. Further, as Pompeius had sent home large contributions for the temple, he desired that the name of Pompeius, who had supplied the funds, rather than Catulus, who had merely supervised the expenditure, should be affixed to the building. The proposal was ingenious. It was a trap laid for the aristocracy, and it was one they fell into at once. They rushed to the defence of their representative, and defeated the motion of Caesar. That mattered nothing to him. He had provoked the opposite faction into casting a slight on Pompeius, who had now finished the war in the East, and was returning homewards at the head of his legions. A very general ap- prehension existed as to what he would do. His army was devoted to him. There was no one capable of resisting him if he elected to be dictator like Sulla. Neither the oligarchy nor the democracy knew his policy. He had swayed from side to side. It was at this critical juncture that Caesar caught him by his weakness, and skilfully contrived to make the senatorial party act in such a manner as to rufHe his temper. The men capable of throwing themselves into a pitfall dug before their eyes were capable of any folly. To this they added other 56 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS blunders. Catilina was at large, between Faesulae and Pistoria, at the head of a large force made up of the discontented provincials of >3orthern Italy. Metellus Nepos, a returned officer of Pompeius, sent before to feel the pulse of the government and the people, proposed that Pompeius should be invited to put down Catilina. Cato opposed this motion energetically. There was a tumult. Metellus Nepos had been elected tri- bune. He and Caesar addressed the people on the proposal from the plat- form before the temple of the Twins. Cato and Thermus, both tribunes, jostled their way through the crowd, ascended the steps and the temple, and Cato flung himself into the seat between Caesar and Metellus, and snatched the bill rudely from the hand of the latter. Metellus recited his motion from memory, whereupon Thermus fell on him and covered his mouth with his hands. Sticks and stones flew about. But the senatorial party had hired a gang of cut-throats, and these burst through the people, and drove Metellus from the Forum. Flushed with success, the senate hastily assembled and deposed Metellus and Caesar from their offices, an exercise of authority that was illegal. Metellus fled to Asia to pour his complaints into the ear of Pompeius. Caesar treated his deprivation as illegal, and continued to sit in his court. Then the senate threatened to close it by force. Caesar yielded immediately, and retired to his house in the Via Sacra. But the mob, full of ex- asperation, rolled through the Forum roaring for him to come forth. Their voices, their threats, reached the senate sitting hard by, and their hearts quailed. Cato ran out and screamed to the people that an additional largess of corn would be given them. They disregarded the proffered bribe, and continued to clamour for Caesar. Then the panic- stricken senate sent to reinstate him in his praetorship, and to thank him for not having come out of his house at the call of the people. 'We hardly know,' says Mr. George Long, 'which to admire most, the precipitate haste with which the senate illegally removed Caesar froin his praetorship, or the eagerness with which they seized the oppor- tunity of undoing what they had done.' The oligarchical party were alarmed at the manner in which they had, by their own stupidity, thrown Caesar and Pompeius together, and they now sought to sow estrangement between them by truly characteristic means. Before his return to Italy, Pompeius had sent letters of divorce to his wife, Mucia, whom he had married on the death of Aemilia. He assigned no reason for this. ' But the rea:son,' says Plutarch, ' is men- tioned in Cicero's letters.' We do not discover it in any that are extant. The senatorial party now spread scandalous reports relative to Caesar and Mucia, but the purpose to be served by the circulation is so obvious that we cannot doubt it was a calumny. If Mucia had been unfaithful, she would hardly have been sought in marriage, immediately after her divorce, by M. Aemilius Scaurus, brother to Pompeius's first wife. Men of position and respectability do not lightly take to C. JULIUS CAESAR 57 them wanton wives. It seems inconceivable that Pompeius should have believed what was brought diligently to his ears, for he almost immediately sought a close alliance with Caesar by marrying his daughter Julia. The close of Caesar's year as praetor was marked by a scandal in his own house. It was customary in Rome for a festival to be observed some time about the beginning of December in honour of the Good Goddess, and it was a festival specially for women. The Bona Dea was the same as Maia, who has given her name to the most beautiful nionth of the year. She was regarded in Rome as the goddess of virginal purity and of matronly virtue. In December a sacrifice with prayer for the welfare of the Roman people was performed by women only in the house of the highest public functionary. The rites were enveloped in the profoundest secrecy, and consequently excited the curiosity of the idle and inquisitive. In the December that closed the year of Caesar's office as praetor, the festival of the Good Goddess was performed in his house, under the auspices of his mother, Aurelia ; and Caesar, as well as all the men of the household, left the place free to the women, and betook themselves elsewhere. Now it happened that one Publius Clodius, a notoriously dis- solute fellow, and a demagogue, but of patrician rank, had fallen in love with Pompeia, Caesar's wife, or was thought to have done so. Aurelia, however, kept so strict a watch that Clodius was unable to communicate with her. He determined to attempt an interview during the celebration of the rites of the Bona Dea, and assuming the dress of a female lute- player went to the house, and was admitted by a female slave named Abra, whom he had bribed to act as go-between. Abra thrust him into her room and ran off to tell her mistress. Whilst she was absent, another girl entered the chamber, and seeing the minstrel there addressed her, and asked what she wanted. Clodius said he was waiting for Abra. His voice betrayed his sex; the girl ran off, screaming that there was a man in the house. Aurelia at once stopped the religious ceremony, veiled the mysteries of the goddess, and at the head of a troop of maid- servants hustled Clodius out into the street. The incident produced much talk in Rome. The story was told as it has been given above, but there is an element of improbability about it, which makes us doubt whether we have the true version of the incident. That Clodius did penetrate into Caesar's house is certain, but his object was most probably inquisitiveness, and the act was a foolish frolic. It is unlikely that a lover would seek a meeting with his mistress when the house was full" of women and given over to festivity. Clodius was peculiarly obnoxious to the nobility, and they saw in this freak an opportunity of ruining him. Political capital could be made out of his act, and the matter of the profanation of the mysteries was referred to the pontifical college of which Caesar was S8 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS head. The college gave its opinion that an offence against religion had been committed, which was actionable. Clodius was accordingly put on his trial, and Caesar divorced Pompeia. IV.— CAESAR AND POMPEIUS. After five years' absence from Italy — years of great military success and renown, — Pompeius had landed at Brundusium with the main body of his army, which he had so often led to victory. A general B.c.'ei. ' fear thrilled through all hearts : he would pursue the same ^^'- 4^- course as Sulla, march with his legions to Rome, and establish himself as dictator. Crassus, the wealthy, who bore Pompeius a grudge, which he supposed the conqueror of the East returned, withdrew from the capital with his children and all his moveable property. The senators quaked, conscious that they had offended the great man, and the mob were not particularly desirous to have their lawlessness con- trolled by the hand of a soldier who would enforce obedience and order. But Pompeius adopted a course which surprised everybody. He disbanded his soldiers and travelled to Rome attended by a small escort only, such as might have accompanied any private gentleman. His conduct was prompted by his inordinate vanity. Puffed up with pride at his successes — and he had been successful everywhere — he thought he could take his place in Rome as the controlling power, before whom all conditions would bend, without a force of armed men at his back. He wished to show himself a greater man than Sulla, who owed his dictatorship to his veterans, and to the terror caused by massacre and proscription. He did not desire to be dictator, for he sought ease after his campaigns, but he certainly expected to be the predominating power in the State, and had no clear idea as to the direction in which he would turn his energies. The year had opened under very unpleasant auspices to Caesar. A cause celebre was about to come off, in which the privacy of his house would be laid bare to the prying eyes of the prurient, and to all his political adversaries. After the college of pontiffs had pronounced their judgment, the senate resolved that the consuls should propose a bill in the assembly of the people to bring Clodius to justice, and to authorise a departure from the ordinai-y form of trial. The bill enacted that instead of the jurymen being chosen by lot, which would give Clodius a chance ot escape, as the jurymen might be accessible to bribes, the praetor should select a certain number of men for whose character he would be responsible. This led to violent opposition. It was understood that the trial was a political contest. The senatorial party sought the destruction of Clodius, and to effect this sought means to pack the jury. Of the two consuls, Piso took the part of Clodius, and did his utmost to get the bill rejected. The other consul, Messala, C. JULIUS CAESAR 59 on the contrary, strongly pressed for it. Caesar took no active part on either side. The senate stood firm, and finally a compromise was reached that satisfied neither party. The trial came on, and Caesar was summoned by the prosecutor as witness. He said, and said truly, that he knew nothing about the matter. He had left the house before the beginning of the ceremony. 'If you know nothing of the matter,' Fig. 9.— C. JULIUS CAESAR. Bust in the Campo Santo, Pisa. ' Caesar's retorted the prosecutor, 'why did you divorce Pompeia?' virife must be above suspicion,' was the haughty answer. The great trial ended in the acquittal of Clodius. It was said, and no doubt truly, that vast sums had been spent in bribery of the jury, fifty-six in number, but political feeling unquestionably entered largely into the determination of the votes. M. Licinius Crassus, the richest man in Rome, was pointed out as he who had furnished the money to corrupt the judges. At this point we may consider the charges of immorality brought 60 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS against Caesar, who is said to have entered into intimate relations with some of the noblest dames of Rome : with Mucia, the wife of Pompeius ; with Tertulla, the wife of Crassus ; with Lollia, the wife of Gabinius ; with Postumia, the wife of Servius Sulpicius ; and especially with Servilia, sister of Cato and wife of D. Junius Silanus. It is remarkable that the intrigues with which he is credited were with the wives of those very men whose friendship and co-operation it was his interest to secure. A man situated as he was, full of personal ambition, as he is supposed to have been, consummate in craft, would, one might think, be wiser than to commit the incredible folly of seeking his mistresses among the wives of the most powerful men in Rome, whom it was his interest to conciliate. But it is quite certain that it was to the interest of the senatorial party to sow seeds of discord between Caesar and Pompeius, and Crassus, and Scaurus, and Gabinius, and no more effective means of so doing could be found than by spreading reports that Caesar had dishonoured their wives, and broken the sanctity of their homes. We may almost certainly conclude that the tale of Caesar's relations with Mucia are false. She was a middle- aged lady, the mother of three children ; and that Pompeius did not believe the slander is made probable by the fact that his relations to Caesar became more cordial and intimate after the divorce of Mucia. Tertulla, the wife of Crassus, did not bear a very high character ; her eldest son was so like in face to the senator Axius, that the story circulated that she had been unfaithful to her husband. But Crassus came forward, when Caesar was in difficulties, and unable to leave Rome for his propraetorship because of his debts, and advanced him the money he wanted, which was an enormous sum, and we can hardly suppose he would have done this to the man who had trifled with his wife's honour. Lollia, wife of Gabinius, is perhaps the person of whom Cicero writes (Ad Famil. ix. 22), as a woman of abandoned character. Gabinius himself was a fop and a profligate, and a man of such bad character is not unlikely to have driven his wife into vicious ways. But whatever his private character was, he was a man of considerable pohtical foresight and influence, and some of the laws he carried — such as that regulating the loans made by the Roman money-lenders to the provincials— show that he was possessed of a sense of justice. He was praetor in 61, and consul in 58. He was a power in Rome, and politically a power for good, and it was not in Caesar's interest to do anything which might estrange him from himself The case of the connection of Caesar with Servilia is more easy of investigation, for we know more about her. She was the daughter of Livia, sister of the tribune M. Livius Drusus, who had died as a veritable martyr to the cause of justice and freedom. Servilia was married first to M. Junius Brutus, by whom she became the mother of Caesar's murderer. On the death of her husband in B.C. 77, she was left with a son and two C. JULIUS CAESAR 6i daughters. She married next D. Junius Silanus, by whom she had two daughters, both named Junia, and perhaps a son.^ That a close friendship existed between Julius Caesar and this lady need not be denied. There was much to draw them together. She was undoubtedly considerably the elder of the two, and was a woman of ability and intelligence. She was the niece of Livius Drusus, a man of remarkably enlightened mind and liberal views, with whose efforts to carry a reform Caesar must have been in complete accord. Towards young Brutus, Caesar, for his mother's sake rather than his own, showed a kindly interest. The husband of Servilia was rich, was a gifted orator, and a man open to reason, as was manifested upon the occasion of the debate on the Catiline conspirators, when, although considerably Caesar's senior, he yielded to his arguments after having expressed an opinion different from that of Caesar. On this unpleasant topic it is pleasant to be able to quote Mr. Froude : ' Caesar was as much admired in the world of fashion as he was detested in the Curia. He had no taste for the brutal entertainments, and the more brutal vices of male patrician society. He preferred the com- panionship of cultivated women, and the noble lords had the fresh provocation of finding their hated antagonist an object of adoration to their wives and daughters. Here, at any rate, scandal had the field to itself . . . Charges of this kind have the peculiar advantage that, even when disproved, or shown to be manifestly absurd, they leave a stain behind them. Careless equally of probability and decency, the leaders of the senate sacrificed without scruple the reputation of their own relatives, if only they could make Caesar odious. Two points may be remarked about these legends : first, that on no single occasion does Caesar appear to have been involved in any trouble or quarrel on account of his love affairs ; secondly, that, with the exception of Brutus and of Cleopatra's Caesarion, whose claims to be Caesar's son were denied and disproved ; there is no record of any illegitimate children as the result of these amours^a strange thing if Caesar was as liberal of his favours as popular scandal pretended.^ It would be idle to affect a belief that Caesar was particularly virtuous. He was a man of the world, living in an age as corrupt as has ever been known. It would be equally idle to assume that all the ink-blots thrown upon him were certainly deserved, because we find them in books which we call classical. Proof deserving to be called proof there is none ; the only real evidence is the town-talk of a society which hated and feared 1 It is uncertain whether M. Silanus, who was consul in 729, was the son of D. Junius Silanus, or of Marcus Silanus his brother. Two daughters are known, one who married M. Lepidus the triumvir, and another who married C. Cassius ; the latter was called Junia Tertia, so that we may suppose there was again, another Junia, concerning whom history is silent, unless her cousin was Junia Prima. 2 To thesrf may perhaps be added 'Julius Sabinus,' the Lingonian, who pretended a descent from Julius Caesar ; but Tacitus rejects this as absurd. Hist. iv. 55. 62 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS Caesar, and was glad of every pretext to injure him when alive, or to discredit him after his death. Similar stories have been spread, are spread, and will be spread of every man who raises himself a few inches above the' level of his fellows. We know how it is with our contem- poraries. A single seed of fact will produce in a season or two a harvest of calumnies, and sensible men pass such things by, and pay no attention to them. With history we are less careful or less charitable. An accusation of immorality is accepted without examination when brought against eminent persons who can no longer defend themselves, and to raise a doubt of its truth passes as a sign of a weak under- standing.' There are other reasons for withholding faith from these stories, and one of the main reasons is this — the perfect justness of Caesar's char- acter. When we think of the patience, the forbearance, the gentleness he showed to others — patience, forbearance, and gentleness that spring in no heart save out of self-knowledge most searching and honest — it seems impossible to believe that Caesar would have divorced Pompeia for infidelity, knowing himself to be false to her. That lofty pride with which he spoke, when he said that Caesar's wife must be above suspicion of stain, showed that he valued purity, not in his wife only, but in himself. And, again, as Mr. Froude points out, a Roman wife had always at hand the means of proclaiming her sense of wrong done her by a husband who was untrue. She could have a divorce with the greatest ease ; but not one of Caesar's wives made any attempt to break the tie that bound her to him. No story is told of his having had any mistress accompanying him in his Gallic and Spanish campaigns ; it was only in the close and morally .malarious atmosphere of Rome that these foul stories sprung up like toad- stools. Caesar, by all accounts, was a man of extraordinary self- restraint. He drank and ate with extreme moderation. If he felt anger, it was completely under control. Such a man, holding the mastery over his passions, is master over all, not of five only out of the six. He was simple in speech, simple in his literary style, simple in his diet, and it is incredible that he should have been dissolute and coarse in his relations to the other sex. Livius Drusus, the uncle of Servilia, when a house was being built for him, and the architect had complained of the site as one that was overlooked, had answered, ' Why not ? I do not heed that my whole life should be visible to all the world,'— and Caesar may have thought much the same ; but if so, he was mistaken. The malice of little minds stops at nothing if only it can find dirt with which to besmirch the honour of the great and noble. Caesar's praetorship being ended, he was granted Further Spain as his province ; but he could not leave Rome till the trial of Clodius was over, and he was moreover detained by his debts. His creditors no doubt were content that he should now enter on the government of a C. JULIUS CAESAR 63 province, whence he could crop a harvest of gains with which to pay them back their capital advanced, and the extortionate interest charged But Caesar clearly preferred to have to do with one creditor than a number. Some one asked him the amount he owed. 'I want two hundred and fifty millions of sesterces to be worth nothing,' was his laughing answer. He went to Crassus in his difficulty— the man whose wife he was said to have debauched— and Crassus readily advanced him 830 talents (;^2oo,ooo). Then, at once, he departed. Tongues were J'iG. 10.— C. JULIUS CAESAR. Head of the Statue in the Palace of the Conservator!, Rome. set a-wagging. Some said he fled from a prosecution, but on what charge none could say. It occurred to no one that he had a duty to perform in his province, and that now he had the means to leave Rome he was anxious to discharge it, or that Roman society must be at the time eminently distasteful to him, with the talk in every saloon and in all the baths and porticoes about Clodius and Pompeia. In Spain Caesar set to work first of all to reduce to obedience certain refractory tribes, and then to redress a great grievance. 64 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS The farmers of the revenue exacted of the provincials their dues with severity. But as the money-lenders with whom they were in league were ready to accommodate the natives with usurious loans on the security of their homesteads and lands, they seized this means of relieving immediate calls, and became hopelessly involved in the toils of these usurers, who came down on them, sold their persons and families as slaves, and confiscated their estates. This produced much misery and disaffection. Gabinius introduced a law to rectify the evil. By his law if more than twelve per cent, were agreed to be paid, it could not be recovered. We do not know the exact date of the passing of this law, but it is probable that it was the result of an exchange of views between Caesar and Gabinius on the subject. They were friends and worked together. Caesar took the matter of the loans in hand in his province, and effected an adjustment whereby the debts were Hquidated by instal- ments, so as to content all parties. Whilst he was in Spain reducing the. Lusitaniafe, north of the Douro, taking Brigantium, and being saluted 'Imperator' by the soldiers, affairs in Rome fell into the worst confusion. Clodius was one of those men who seem born into the world to set their fellows by the ears. Having exhausted his patrimony, he set up to be a mob-leader, and with his good looks, his insolence, unscrupulousness, and fluent clap- trap, became in a short time the darling of the people. He sur- rounded himself with a body-guard of hired ruffians, and made himself the terror of the aristocracy. 'Nothing,' says Napoleon, 'now arrested the march of events. The party that called itself Conservative hurried them forward more rapidly than any other. It was evident that the State was rolling down to revolution ; and a revolution is like a river which overflows and inundates. Caesar aimed at digging a bed for it. Pompeius, seated proudly at the helm, thought he could command the waves that were sweeping him along. Cicero, always irresolute, at one moment allowed himself to drift with the stream, at another thought himself able to stem it with a fragile bark. Cato, immoveable as a rock, flattered himself that he alone could oppose the irresistible torrent that was sweeping away the old order of Roman society.' Caesar's authority as propraetor of Spain expired in January 60 ; he A.u.c. 694. ^^^ ^^'^^ ^" ■^'^^y ^" June; he asked for a triumph and the B.C. 60. consulship. But he could not obtain both owing to some ^'- 4^' technical difficulties, and, constrained to elect between the empty pageant and real power, like a wise man he chose the latter. The candidature of Caesar was naturally opposed by the aristocratic party, who brought all the power of their influence and of their purses to bear on the contest, but they could not defeat him ; all they could do was to saddle him with a colleague of their party, the same Bibulus C. JULIUS CAESAR 65 who had been aedile with Caesar Lefore, and they achieved one triumph, which they knew would cause Caesar annoyance, both as a slight and as hindering him from filling his empty coffers. It was usual to appoint beforehand the province to which the consul was to retire as governor' at the expiration of his consulship. They refused Caesar a province, and destined for him instead the surveyorship of the roads and of the woods. Caesar saw that political life in the capital was reduced to empty quarrels, based on no principles, through the rivalries and jealousies of the rich and powerful. He did not seek to make him- self a dominant power by inciting the faction leaders to further quarrel, but used his utmost endeavours to reconcile those who were estranged from one another through private pique or political antagonism, so that the dissensions which tore the vitals of the Republic, being appeased, Rome might have the proper energy and strength to hold the provinces in control, and repel the barbarians from her frontiers. He made advances to Cicero, overtures to Bibulus. He did not rest till he had patched up a reconciliation between Pompeius and Crassus, and with them had formed the first Triumvirate, a compromise, postponing the inevitable struggle. Caesar exercised a salutary control over , „ _ g Clodius. He acknowledged at once that Pompeius had been b.c. 59. treated without generosity and confidence, and he proposed ^^^' ''3' an agrarian law that might satisfy the demands of Pompeius, for his veterans, without injuring anybody. The main provisions were these: — ^That the State domain that was unlet and unoccupied should be portioned out, and that the soldiers of Pompeius, and such of the overspill of the Roman populace as could boast of having three sons in a family, should be planted in colonies on this land. Acquired rights were to be respected. If sufficient soil was not thus attainable, then the money in the treasury sent home by Pompeius was to be expended in the purchase of additional land. It was but reasonable, he con- tended, that the money gained by the veterans should be spent in founding peaceful homes for them in their old age. It was calculated that twenty thousand poor families would thus be given the means of earning an honest livelihood. None were to have more than two acres, for the Capuan soil was so fertile that it yielded four harvests in the year. By this plan Rome would be relieved of a hundred thousand indigent persons, at the same time that great colonies of free men were planted on land hitherto tilled by small proprietors. The measure would undoubtedly diminish the revenue derived from the rent of these lands, but, on the other hand, it would relieve it of a burdensome charge — the free distribution of corn to this great multitude. Caesar approached Bibulus, protested his good intentions, and offered to subject to him and to the senate all his measures in the public interest ; but he was received with coldness and suspicion. The senate objected to his bill without explaining their reasons. Then he appealed E 66 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS to the people assembled in their comitia. Of the ten tribunes he could count on seven. The other three were in the pay of the senate to oppose their veto to any bill to which they objected. The irritation among the people was great. Caesar in the rostra turned to Bibulus, his colleague, and solemnly adjured him to assist in carrying a measure calculated to give honourable employment and homes to a multitude of poor families, and to recompense the soldiers who had fought in the East. Bibulus was sulky and refused. Then Caesar addressed the people and urged them to use their best endea- vours to persuade Bibulus. But this man, who prided himself on his stubbornness, shouted, as sole response, that as long as he remained consul the law should never be carried. Caesar, always master of himself, then turned to Pompeius, and asked his opinion. ' If the law be opposed with the sword,' said Pom- peius, 'to defend it I will take sword and buckler.' Crassus also gave his opinion in favour of the measure. Then Bibulus cried out that he would oppose the re-assembling of the comitia. He would declare each day of his consulate a holy day on which no assembly could be held. If held in spite of his protestation, he was augur, and he would find some signs in the heavens that would annul any decision arrived at by the comitia of the people. He could hardly have done more to expose his own folly and to raise to white heat the passions of the populace. The assembly was adjourned to the morrow; Bibulus arrived surrounded by senators, and followed by the tribunes in the pay of the senate. The crowd separated, and allowed him to reach the temple of Castor, and held its breath to hear what he had to say. He reiterated his protestations, and declared that three tribunes having pronounced their veto, the bill could no longer be proceeded with. This provoked a great shout of rage, and the rabble were in commotion. It swept up the temple steps, rushed upon the consul, broke the rods of his lictors, and Bibulus, covered with mud, tumbled head over heels from the platform into the surging crowd below. He was on his feet again in a moment, howling out his defiance, and screaming to the people to kill him, that his blood might fall on the head of Caesar. Cato had done his best to prevent the passage of the bill when presented in the senate, by talking against time, a base and unworthy trick, that so exasperated Caesar that he ordered him to prison, but immediately released him, finding that he had committed an error in policy. Cato then elbowed his way to the same raised place, where stood the popular consul, and shouted out that Caesar was acting illegally, as the senate had not sanctioned the measure. ' But,' says Cicero, ' as no- body listened to him, he did not address himself further to the assembly, but turned to abuse Caesar in the coarsest terms, till he was ejected.' C. JULIUS CAESAR 67 The bill was carried by acclamation by the tribute comitia, and then Caesar endeavoured to impose it on the candidates, by requiring them to take oath that they accepted it as having the force of law. And this he succeeded in doing. The whole proceeding, however, was violent, and only to be justified by the dead-lock to which legislation had been brought by the folly of the senate. Caesar saw that if Pompeius were driven to desperation by resistance to his just demands, he might be forced to appeal to his old soldiers, and then he would assume the dictatorship Fig. 1 1 . — C. JULIUS CAESAR. Profile of the Head of the Statue in tlie Palace of the Conservatori, Rome. and carry his measures with a high hand. And if such an event were to happen, Pompeius was not a man averse from shedding blood ; once more there would be butchery and confiscation. Caesar went further : he carried a bill for the confirmation of the acts of Pompeius in the provinces, a measure which ought to have been passed before, and one for which Pompeius had pleaded in vain. 68 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS After this defeat, sulky and humbled, Bibulus retired to his house, and would not again show his face through the rest of his term of office. 'By which conduct,' says Velleius Paterculus, 'whilst desiring to heighten the odium against his colleague, he was, in reality, only aug- menting the power of the latter.' Skulking at home in this undignified manner, he peered at the skies, and no sooner had Caesar announced a measure he disliked than Bibulus declared that his observation of the heavens presented some obstacle to its passage. When this augural contemplation failed in its effects, he amused his leisure and gratified his spleen by the composition of obscene pasquinades levelled against his fellow-consul, and having these placarded about the town. Caesar, having carried his law relative to the apportionment of the land, and saddled it with a codicil requiring every senator to swear to observe it, went to the senate to present it there. He found that the members had deserted their benches and hurried home. An old man, named Considius, was there. Caesar, surprised to see the empty benches, asked the old senator the reason. ' They have run from your soldiers ! ' answered Considius. The nobility had made a display of their courage by effacing themselves. But when they found they could not help it, they came sneaking back and took the required oath, with the resolve to break it when the occasion offered. By such unworthy means as these did the aristocracy, reconstituted by Sulla, oppose a man of genius, determination, and true patriotism. The consulship of Caesar was marked by the passing of several salutary laws ; some of which were directed towards the relief of the provinces. One provided a guarantee to the inhabitants of a province against the violence and rapacity of the proconsuls and propraetors set over them. Another placed the free states under their native codes of law, and suffered them to elect their own magistrates. Caesar carried r a law that obliged every governor on going out of office to produce an account of his expenditure and receipts. He gained the goodwill of the knights by passing a measure of relief they had vainly sought of the senate. The taxes of Asia had been leased to some of them at a price so high that, owing to the impoverishment of Asia through con- tinuous wars, they were unable to raise the money, and they asked for a reduction of the terms of their lease. Cato had animated the senate to refuse this reasonable concession ; but Caesar, fully aware of its justice, carried the point in the teeth of their opposition. In return for what he had done for them, P. Vatinius, no doubt with the support of Pompeius and Crassus, obtained for Caesar, at the expira- tion of his consulship, the government of Cisalpine Gaul (Lombardy, and the regions south of the Po to the Apennines),— in place of the surveyor- ship of the roads that the senate had slightingly designed for him. Bibulus engaged certain of the tribunes to obstruct the passage of this measure C. JULIUS CAESAR 69 through the comitia, and when this device failed, he had recourse to the superstitious fears of the people, by declaring that the auguries forbade the continuation of the debate. This expedient also failed. The govern- ment of Cisalpine Gaul was conferred on Caesar, but the senate, by a treacherous display of liberality, invested him also with Transalpine Gaul, blind to their own interests in this as in everything else they did. Their motive was not far to seek. Rome had but just recovered from a panic. Information had reached the capital that the Germans had broken into Gaul and defeated the Gaulish allies of Rome, that the Helvetii were in motion and were surging west. Fears were entertained of a fresh in- vasion of the Cimbri and Teutones. The first alarm abated, but the senate knew that there must be a conflict waged before long with the barbarians. They were prepared to send Caesar to fall before them, as Carbo and Junius Silanus had been defeated by the Cimbri, and Cassius Longinus by the Helvetii, and Mallius and Caepio by the Cimbri and Ambrones. What would be the loss of a few legions if tliey were rid of Caesar? Should danger roll over the Alps into the plains of the Po, they had the invincible Pompeius to fall back upon, and he would crush the invaders. Caesar was raw and inexperienced ; he had humbled a petty tribe or two in Spain, but that was no evidence that he possessed military talent. So they sent him, as David sent Uriah, to fall by the swords of the Germans. The wise and excellent laws passed during the consulship of Caesar went by the name of the Julian laws. The historian Dion gives us a characteristic touch that enables us to estimate the quality of Cato's mind, when he tells us how that he, in his praetorship, when called on to put in force the laws Caesar had passed, did this indeed, but would never speak of them by the name of their author. v.— CAESAR IN GAUL. Caesar had asked for Cisalpine Gaul, a splendid recruiting-ground ; in their jealousy and fear, the senate gave him into the bargain what he had not asked for, Transalpine Gaul as exercising-ground, where he might expend his levies in curbing the barbarians. Who then dreamed that this man of forty-three, without much military experience, nearly all of whose life had been spent in the toss and foam of mean party struggles in the capital, would prove to be the greatest general the world had seen ? But it was the remarkable feature in this marvellous man, that in whatever direction he turned he achieved great things, whatsoever he put his hand to, he did better-than any other man. • With the proconsulships of Illyricum and Cisalpine Gaul, Caesar had been granted two legions ; with Gaul beyond the Alps he was re- luctantly accorded a third. One stipulation he insisted on— that his term of government should be extended to five years. The Allobroges were 70 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS in revolt, the Germans were pouring over the Rhine, the Helvetii rushing hke an Alpine torrent out of the gorges of the Rhone. He must be given time to do more than begin the work of quelling the invaders, he must be assured against the risk of being treated as had been Lucullus and Crassus. In the meantime, some matrimonial alliances had been effected that roused the angry comment of Cato. Pompeius, as already mentioned, had taken to wife Julia, Caesar's only child, and Caesar married Fig. i2._C. JULIUS CAESAR. Bust in the Museum Chiaramonti, No. 107. Calpurnia, the daughter of L. Calpurnius Piso, who was consul for the ensuing year j and who would, therefore, look after the interests of his son-in-law during his absence. The other consul was Gabinius, also .in his interest — and a friend. The turbulent Clodius now resolved on becoming a tribune of the people, but to obtain this office he must descend from his patrician C. JULIUS CAESAR 71 estate to a plebeian one ; and this was effected in spite of the resistance of Cicero. In December Clodius entered upon his tribuneship. Caesar did not set out for his province before the end of March in the next year. During these three months he was actively employed in guarding against attack from his enemies in rear, and against the undoing of those measures for the public good that he '^B.c.'si. ' had carried whilst consul. He saw that Cicero was menaced ^^^ ^'*- by the hatred of Clodius, and he did what he could to save him. He offered him a place on the commission to determine the partition of the public property in Campania among the soldiers of Pompeius; this would have removed him from Rome, and Clodius might not have cared to attack him when absent. Cicero refused the offer. Then Caesar urged him to come with him into Gaul, and offered him a lieutenancy under him. Again Cicero refused. He could not be brought to believe that he was in real danger. He trusted to the gratitude of the Roman people for having saved them from Catilina, and he confided in the friendship of Pompeius. Then, when every effort failed, Caesar left him to his fate. Clodius soon after brought in a bill levelled against Cicero for his conduct in strangling the conspirators without a trial; and Pompeius did not lift a finger to save him. The Roman populace had begun to disbelieve in the magnitude of the deliverance they owed to Cicero, and did not stir, — Cicero had to fly into voluntary banishment in the East. Cato was sent to Cyprus to annex the island to the Roman Empire ; and for a while Clodius and his gang were masters of Rome. Caesar was in Gaul, and neither Pompeius nor Crassus showed a disposition to interfere. And now a new chapter in the life of Caesar opens. Whilst the fac- tions were squabbling in Rome, building up to-day what was to be pulled down to-morrow, Caesar, perhaps alone, saw how serious was the danger that menaced Rome from the North, alone recognised that a crisis in her destiny was reached, similar to that from which Marius had rescued her, thus giving her another spell of life and domination. Every one else was seeking now to hurt his fellow at home, none thought, save with a sudden start in fevered dream, that the barbarians were at the door gathered in dense masses, pressed on by advancing hordes of bar- barians still more barbarous, and were about to burst in to trample civilisation under foot. ' It is more than a blunder,' says Mommsen, 'it is a sin against the holy Spirit in history to look on Gaul as the exercising-ground only on which Caesar practised with his legions for the civil war that was in prospect. If the subjection of the West was to Caesar a means to an end, so far that it helped to found his future might, yet it is precisely the feature of statesmanlike genius to make ends of the means em- ployed. Caesar required military power for his party purposes, but 72 THE tRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS Caesar did not subjugate Gaul as a party man. It was for Rome a political necessity to meet, and plant a dam against, the perpetually threatening invasion of the Germans, so as to assure peace to the Roman world. But even this important object was not the highest, nor the last, at which Caesar aimed in his conquests. When the old home on the Seven Hills was too cramped for the Roman population, the pohcy of conquest in Italy, engaged in by the senate, saved it from ruin. Now the Italian home was too narrow, and again the State was sick of the same malady, with all the social complications in their acutest form. That was a flash of genius, a hope full of grandeur, that carried Caesar beyond the Alps— the thought of winning for his fellow-citizens a bound- less new home, and a hope thereby of regenerating the State by plant- ing it on a new and broader basis.' The military history of Caesar must here be passed over almost with- out a word. We cannot follow him through the oak-forests of Gaul, nor across the straits to Britain. We cannot watch him bridge the Rhine, nor hold the lines of Alesia. We must keep our eyes fixed on Rome, for we shall never understand the final action of Caesar, his crossing of the Rubicon and elevation to the dictatorship, unless we properly estimate the paralysis of Rome itself, the heart of the world, and see how that the force of events impelled Caesar irresistibly into his position. Suffice it then, very briefly, to say that in the year 58, by the time Caesar had disciplined his levies, he was called into action ; for tidings reached him that the Helvetii, thrust from their ancient seats by the advancing tide of Germans, had broken into Gaul. The traveller who descends the Rhone valley knows how that between Brieg and Sierre he passes at Pfynn {ad fines) from the German into the French language. To that point the Teutonic wave had rolled over the passes at the head of the Rhone, and before it the Helvetii, a Celtic race, swarmed down, treading on one another's heels, and found the basin of Lake Leman too densely peopled to hold them all. Therefore they rushed out through the gaps of the Jura. But not only so. All Switzerland north of the Bernese Oberland was occupied by the same Celtic people, and they as well were displaced by the Germans who have occupied their lands to the present day as far as the Saane, where, as at Swiss Freiburg, the demarcation of tongues is again noticeable. The Helvetii therefore, dispossessed, sought new fields beyond the Jura. Caesar not only defeated and drove back the Helvetii, but he also attacked the Germains and repressed their ardour of invasion. In April of the following year he met Pompeius and Crassus at Lucca, AUG 698 ^^^ formed with them a league for their mutual protection B.C. 56. amidst the thousand petty jealousies and animosities that Aet. 46. actuated the senatorial party against them, and sought the humiliation and destruction of one by the aid of the other. It is Fig. 13.— C. JULIUS CAESAR. Bust in the Louvre. 74 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS supposed that it was then decided that Pompeius and Crassus should be together consuls for the year 55, and that ended, that Pompeius should hold Spain as his proconsulate, and Crassus Syria, each for the term of five years, and that the government of the two Gauls and lUyricum should remain in Caesar's hands for a further term of five years, that is, till March in 49, and that, in view of the desperate struggle of the Gauls and Germans against the arms of Rome, in this quarter, those legions which Caesar had raised himself, unauthorised by the senate, should be maintained at the public cost. This agreement having been reached, Caesar hurried back into Gaul, where the remainder of the year was consumed in campaigns. In the meantime a strange condition of affairs existed in Rome, that lasted without intermission for four years. The city was torn by fac- tions ; the heads of these factions surrounded themselves with bands of armed men. Every election, and elections were annual, le:d to riot and bloodshed. Consuls could not be elected. Tribunes, bought by the senate, put their veto on whatever was proposed by the popular party, and whatsoever was brought forward by the senate was vetoed by the tribunes of the populares. Government was at an end. Violence reigned supreme. Pompeius had not gone near his province, but sat at ease looking on, and hoping that he would be nominated dictator, though shrinking from proposing the nomination himself. The nobility, becoming alarmed and jealous of the growing fame of Caesar, did their utmost to rouse the envy of Pompeius. About B.C. 54, Julia, Caesar's daughter, and the wife of Pompeius, died, and thus the tie of family affection which had bound the two men together was broken. The senatorial party at once began to court the favour of Pompeius and attach him to their side by assiduous flattery. Crassus was dead ; he had fallen in war against the Parthians, and with him a Roman army had been annihilated. Yet, so engrossed were the Roman people over their domestic squabbles that this grave disaster hardly attracted their attention. The senate drew a long breath, and rejoiced to be free from one of the triumvirate. They hoped, by pitting Pompeius against Caesar, to weaken both, and possibly in the end obtain the destruction of both. The former was ever inclined to begrudge the fame of any man, which might eclipse his own transcendent glory, and he had for some time been nursing envy in his heart at the successes of his father- in-law, a man his junior by a few years, successes before which his former achievements in the east might seem to pale. When the senate offered him the sole consulship— an illegal act, but, as Scipio said, anything was better than anarchy,— he gladly accepted it, and set himself to Avork to reduce to order the confusion that reigned in the capital. C. JULIUS CAESAR 75 VI.— THE ATTEMPT TO DESTROY CAESAR. As a pledge of his conversion to the oligarchical side, Pom- peius married the daughter of Metellus Scipio. And now that the nobility thought they had secured Pompeius the Great, the mighty man of war, they held up their heads and hastened to challenge Caesar. Inconceivably base was their conduct when they sent offers to the German chieftain, Ariovistus, to promise that if he could by assassi- nation obtain the death of Caesar, they would regard him as the friend of Rome for ever. The brave German showed the letters to his foe, and Caesar was warned that the oligarchical party in Rome would stop at nothing in their resolve to undo and destroy him. Pompeius had been made proconsul of Spain, when Caesar had obtained the two Gauls, but, unlike Caesar, he had not gone near his province. He now asked for and obtained a prolongation of his government of the pro- vince for another five years. The ten years of Caesar's proconsulship would come to an end in B.C. 49. Then he would sink into the posi- tion of a private citizen, to be attacked and harried with prosecutions before a court made up of his deadly opponents, who, if they did not remove him by assassination, would certainly confiscate his estates and banish him. If, however, he could obtain the consulship on his return to Rome, he would be safe for one year at least, during which he could take measures to secure his future. But the senatorial party was resolved to ruin Caesar, and, to do them justice, they played their game with all their cards exposed. For the year B.C. 51, they brought forward as candidates for the consulship Cato and M. Claudius Marcellus, two of Caesar's most determined ■ adversaries. But the candidature of Cato was abandoned, and in his room Ser. Sulpicius Rufus was chosen, who was thought to favour Caesar. No sooner was Marcellus invested with the consulship than he pro- posed a measure for depriving Caesar of his proconsulship, and ap- pointing a successor to carry on the Gallic war. But this \^^ was such a dash of the gauntlet in the face of Caesar, that e.g. 51. the timid shrank from supporting it, and adjourned the vote ^^'- ^^■ on it till the beginning of June. When the day approached, Marcellus proceeded to a wanton act of insolence, calculated, he trusted, to rouse the lukewarm to enthusiasm. In Cisalpine Gaul, Caesar had enfran- chised Comum, the modern Como. A citizen of that town, a senator, was in Rome. Marcellus had him publicly flogged, and then bade him go, show to Caesar his bleeding back, and let all the world know what the senate thought of Caesar's plaided and breeched citizens. The folly of this act was on a level with its barbarity. In two years Caesar would be back in Rome. He had an army devoted to him, and the insult offered was not to the general only, but to every soldier raised to fill his legions ^6 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS in the district north of the Po. It knit the hearts of the provincials as that of one man to Caesar, and roused them to fury against Mar- cellus and his backing of noble senators. Then the consular elections for 50 were held, and C. Claudius Mar- cellus, cousin of this fellow with the cat-o'-nine-tails, and L. Aemilius Paullus were chosen, both hostile to Caesar. Then the motion of the elder Marcellus came on. Again timidity palsied the action of the senate. They desired to deprive Caesar, but considered it would be safer first to reduce his power. So, instead of at once depriving him of the command, they required him to surrender two of his legions, under pretext that the Parthians were troublesome on the eastern frontier. The demand was made at a moment critical to Caesar in Gaul, as the senate had been advised ; he had met with reverses. Nevertheless, he at once complied. The two legions were returned, and were not sent to the East ; they were detained by Pompeius in Italy, to serve, if need be, against Caesar. The term of Caesar's tenure of the proconsulship would conclude with the last day of December, B.C. 49. If he were elected by the people consul for 48, he would enter on the consulship on January i. The senate resolved to insist on his resignation of the command of the army and of his government on March i, B.C. 49, so as to leave ten months free during which he might be prosecuted, condemned, and sent into exile. That, as far as we can gather, was their plan. But in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird. Julius Caesar was kept well informed by his friends as to what were the intentions of his enemies. Pompeius had deserted him, and passed over to become the tool of the opposite faction, and his destruction was resolved on. When the year b.c. 50 opened, the result of the anarchy at the seat of government had made itself manifest on the frontiers. The Parthians menaced the eastern provinces, and Cicero, now governor of B.C. 50. Cilicia, was short of troops ; he asked for them in vain. Aet. 52- They were detained in Italy. Bibulus was proconsul of Syria, unable to venture beyond his camp without putting the Euphrates between himself and the enemy. Only on the northern frontiers was there security, a security established by the strong arm of Caesar. Again, in March, the old jiroposal, twice made by Marcellus, for the dismissal of Caesar, was submitted to the senate, and Pompeius gave it his support. Then Curio, the tribune bought by Caesar, rose, to pro- pose an amendment, to the effect that both Pompeius and Caesar should be required simultaneously to resign their commands. 'It is but reasonable,' said he, ' that this should be so. Whilst Pompeius is here, at the head of a military force, the will of the senate and people of Rome is not free ; both the debates of the senate and the votes of the people are overawed.' This unexpected demand roused Pompeius to fury. He denounced C. JULIUS CAESAR 77 Curio as a firebrand wlio souglit the destruction of Rome, — a strange accusation to come from such lips, and provoked a crushing retort. But the proposal of Curio was a just one and reasonable, and as such it commended itself to the people, who greeted him with cheers, and strewed flowers in his path. The senate was confounded, and broke up, unable to come to any decision. It was well understood that Curio had made, on the part of Caesar, an offer to submit himself to the will of the senate, if Pompeius would disband and resign simultaneously. However much the senate would like to accept the offer, it was very confident that Pompeius would not consent to efface himself. ' Cnaeus Pompeius,' says Mommsen, ' was not a bad and incapable man, but he was radically a commonplace man, formed by nature to make a good corporal, but forced by circumstances to be a general and a statesman. He was a sensible, brave, and experienced soldier, without a spark of higher faculties. His education was average. His honesty was that of the rich man who manages very well on the income he has inherited and what he has earned. He did not despise making money in the usual senatorial fashion, but he was too cold and too comfortably off to risk his credit by entering into any j.jarticularly nefarious transaction. Considering the boundless dissoluteness of the age, he may be counted as a virtuous man, that is to say, relatively so. His " honourable face " was proverbial ; even after his death he was reckoned as a worthy and moral man ; and in fact he was a good neighbour, who did not seek to buy up all little landholders round him, as did his fellows ; also, he showed considerable affection towards wife and children. But when it suited his purpose he was ready to shake off his wife. He was not cruel, but, what was worse, cold, and passionless in good as in bad In the field he looked his enemy in the face ; in the forum he blushed like a girl. When he spoke in public it was with awkwardness. He was stiff, angular, and without ease in society. With all his show of independence, he was a mere tool in the hands of those who understood how to manage him, especially his freedmen and clients, whom he did not suspect of the wish to rule him. For nothing was he less fitted than to be a statesman. Uncertain in aim, inexperienced in the choice of means, short-sighted in little as in great matters, undecided, he thought to conceal his indecision under dignified silence, and when he supposed he was deceiving others, he befooled himself most of all. Almost without his seeking it, an im- portant party ranged itself about him, a party at the head of which he might have achieved great things ; but Pompeius was in every capacity incapable of leading a party, or of holding one together. Weak-pated as he was, thrust to a height of fame which he never deserved to reach, he was taken with giddiness. As if to provoke contempt, he sought a parallel to his dry prosaic nature in the most poetic of all the heroic forms of old. He compared himself with Alexander the Great, and Fig. 14.— CN. POMPEIUS MAGNUS. Bust at Naples, found at Pompeii. C. JULIUS CAESAR 79 regarded himself as one who towered far above the five hundred Roman Councillors. In fact, no man was better calculated to form one of an aristocratic ruling body than himself. His dignified exterior, his stately punctiliousness, his personal courage, his respectable private life, his lack of all initiative, made him just the man who, had he been born two hundred years earlier, might have taken an honourable place beside Quintus Maximus and Publius Decius. There was, however, in his own time, a fit place that he might have occupied, clearly defined and honourable, but he was never content to take what offered, and thus he was ever placed in the situation of aiming at a position apart from the senate, yet, when such a position was accessible, he could not make up his mind to take it. He was angry and embittered if persons and laws did not give way before him, and yet, with affected modesty, he pretended to be on a level with the rest, and shuddered at the thought of attempting anything illegal.' 1 And now, when the senate was defying Caesar, and threatening him because it trusted to its great Pompeius, he quietly retired from Rome, pretended he was afraid of his life, and sought refuge in Campania. Caesar was a man of other clay. He knew his own mind. He asked for the consulship. The senatorial party was aware that he was sure of it. Hitherto the elections had been managed by bribery the most shameless, by an organised body of electioneering agents, and if the nobles liked to pay enough, they could secure a return of their men. But Caesar had taught the people of Rome, and all invested with the franchise, that something better could be done with a vote than to sell it to the highest bidder. He had shown them that the future of the commonwealth was at stake, and that, unless Rome was to cease to be the mistress of the world, all men good and true must stand shoulder to shoulder, and fight for righteousness and justice, not for themselves only, but for all the nations under them. Before the domination of this great thought the oligarchy was powerless. Its con- trol of the elections was taken from it. The enfranchised Italians would swarm into Rome from every country town, to vote for Caesar, and the very rabble of the capital, not for the first time, would rise above the miserable inducements of corruption. The returning soldiers would vote to a man for their general. 'The senate knew him. They knew what he had done. They knew what he would do now, and for this reason they feared and hated him. Caesar was a reformer. He had long seen that the Roman Constitution was too narrow for the functions which had fallen to it. 1 Bernoulli is disposed to regard a fine bust of the period of the fall of the Republic, in the Chiaramonti Gallery (No. 561) as Pompeius. This is a psychological impossibility. The man whose portrait this is, was endowed with dogged determination, and, though not a man of great ability, was a man of clear views and great resolution in carrying them out. If the face tells any story, it tells this. 8o THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS and that it was degenerating into an instrument of tyranny and injustice. The courts of law were corrupt; the elections were corrupt; the administration of the provinces was a scandal and a curse. The soil of Italy had become a monopoly of capitalists, and the inhabitants of it a population of slaves. He had exerted himself to stay the mischief at its fountain, to punish bribery, to punish the rapacity of proconsuls and propraetors, to purify the courts, to maintain respect for the law. He had endeavoured to extend the franchise, to raise the position of the liberated slaves, to replace upon the land a free race of Roman citizens. In the families of the veteran legionaries, spread in farms over Italy and the provinces, the national spirit might recover; and, with a due share of political power conceded to them,, an enlarged and purified constituency might control the votes of the venal populace of the city. These were Caesar's designs, so far as could be gathered from his earlier actions.' ^ The year was drawing to an end, and the proposal of M. Marcellus was still unvoted on, postponed and postponed, till it was almost too late. But the consul C. Marcellus again brought it forward. He asked, in full senate. Was a successor to be given to Caesar ? Thereupon a majority voted that there was. Then he asked, Was Pompeius to be called on to resign, according to the proposal of Curio? The answer was a negative. Then up rose young Curio, and put his motion to the vote— that both generals, both Caesar and Pompeius, should be required to resign simultaneously. To the astonishment of Marcellus three hundred and forty voted for Curio's amendment, against twenty-two. The senate had plucked up courage to express its real wishes. Thereat Marcellus, exasperated, left the curia, exclaiming, ' You are determined to give yourselves a master — you shall have one.' The party bent on drawing the sword against Caesar, to which belonged the two Marcelli, Lentulus the consul, and Cato — a party that had succeeded at last in convincing the self-esteem of Pompeius that it was necessary to deal with the great nephew of Marius as Marius had been dealt with, and that Pompeius was the second Sulla, to accomplish this — were in a painful predicament. The pliable, feeble senate had broken in their hands. The consul C. Marcellus endeavoured to recover ground by announcing in the senate, what was false, that Caesar had brought four legions out of Gaul, and was at their head marching upon Rome. He therefore demanded that Pompeius should be em- powered by the senate to advance, at the head of what troops could be collected, against him ; but when Curio denied the truth of the state- ment, the senate rejected the proposal of Marcellus. 'Well then,' said the consul, ' since I can do nothing here with the consent of all, I alone will take charge of the public welfare on my own responsibility.' ^ Eroude, Caesar, p. 379. C. JULIUS CAESAR 8i He hurried off, called to him the two consuls-elect for the ensuing year, and these three individuals unauthorised by the senate — contrary indeed to the senatorial vote — visited Pompeius in his quarters outside Rome, and extending to him a sword, bade him ' take command of the troops then at Capua, raise others, and adopt such measures as were necessary for the safety of the republic' The answer of Pompeius was characteristic of the man : ' I will do so, if there be nothing better to be done.' The proceeding was outrageous and utterly illegal. But it sufficed Pompeius, who was now impatient to assert himself. Had he accepted the decision of the senate, and resigned his command, Caesar was ready to do so likewise. Civil war would have been averted, at all events for the time. But this was what Pompeius would not hear of. This happened towards the end of December. Caesar had come to winter in Cisalpine Gaul, and was at Ravenna. Instead of having with him four legions, as Marcellus asserted, he had but one, comprising 5000 men and 300 cavalry. Nearly his whole army, consisting of eight legions, he had placed in winter quarters in Belgium and Gaul. After the meet- ing of the senate, and the action of the consul Marcellus with the two consuls-elect. Curio left Rome and hastened to Ravenna for instructions. His tribuneship expired on the last day of December. He ^ ^ ^ urged Caesar to summon the other legions to cross the Alps, b.c. 49. and to march upon Rome. But Caesar would not listen to ^^'' ^^' these proposals. He' said that he was ready to enter into such a com- promise as would satisfy the moderate men, such as Cicero. He was ready to abandon his command in Transalpine Gaul and the eight legions, if he might remain in command of two in Cisalpine Gaul and lUyricum till his consulship began. He even modified this offer, and asked merely to be given one legion and lUyricum. All he desired was not to be exposed defenceless to his enemies for a few months. ' He made the greatest efforts to maintain peace,' says Velleius Paterculus, ' but the friends of Pompeius rejected all conciliatory proposals.' 'The appearance of justice,' says Plutarch, 'was on the side of Caesar.' He couched his proposal in a letter which he delivered to Curio, who returned with it to Rome, and arrived there on the first of January, the day on which the new consuls entered on their office. Knowing their bitter antagonism, and fearing lest they should suppress the letter, Curio did not deliver it to them, but asked leave to read it to the senate. This the consuls opposed, but two of the tribunes insisted with so much energy, that they were constrained to withdraw their opposition. Caesar in his letter repeated his offer to disband and resign his proconsular functions if Pompeius would do the same. It could not be required of him, he said, to deliver himself up defenceless into the hands of his mortal enemies, armed to the teeth. If the senate demanded F 82 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS submission— and it had passed an order requiring both Pompeius and himself to resign— then let submission be required of the former as well. The letter concluded with a menace, that showed that the forbearance of Caesar was wellnigh exhausted. If, said he, justice were not done him, he would know how, by revenging himself, to revenge his country also. When this was read, the loudest exclamations of wrath broke out among the senators. ' It is war he declares ! ' they shouted, and separated in great excitement, without deliberating on the offer of Caesar. Next day the senate reassembled. The new consul, Lentulus, in a violent oration, engaged the senate to rally to the side of daring, to clothe itself with courage, and adopt an attitude of decision. ' If you mean to spare Caesar and to conciliate his good graces, then farewell to all your authority. I shall not trouble the senate with my presence any further, but follow my own devices.' Scipio assured the timid that his son-in-law Pompeius would not fail the Republic, if the senate stood firm. But if they showed weakness, then he would have nothing more to say to it. M. Marcellus advised that the senate should assemble troops before it came to any decision. M. Calidius inquired why Pom- peius hung about Rome, and moved that he should be required to retire to his province, Spain, which he had not as yet visited. Caesar, he said, had been badly used. Two legions had been taken from him on a false pretext, and these were now marshalled against him. M. Rufus gave his opinion in almost the same terms. Lentulus at once burst into furious reproaches, and refused to put the motion of Calidius to the vote. At last, carried away by rash confidence in Pompeius, who was outside the gates at the head of the troops he had collected, and convinced that he would never yield to the proposal of Caesar, the senate reluctantly, on the motion of Scipio, decreed that ' if Caesar did not disband his army by a day prescribed, he should be declared an enemy of the Republic' Marcus Antonius and Q. Cassius, two tribunes of the people, pronounced their veto, thus quashing the proceedings. Then Pompeius summoned the senators to his gardens, and by threats and promises confirmed them in the attitude they had assumed. The city was thrown into the wildest agitation. The censor Piso and the quaestor Roscius offered to go to Caesar, and begged that no precipitate measures against him might be taken for six days. Their request was refused. Curio demanded that the assembly of the people should be convoked, and the question submitted to them. This also was refused. The consuls proposed to disregard the veto of the tribunes. The tribunes declared that the power to veto a bill had not been with- drawn, and that they exercised their legitimate right in pronouncing it. The consul Lentulus, boiling with fury, interrupted Marcus Antonius as he spoke, and threatened him unless he at once left the curia. Antonius C. JULIUS CAESAR 85 called on the gods to witness that the sacred privileges of the tribune's power were violated in his person. ' We are insulted,' he exclaimed ; ' we are treated as murderers. You want proscriptions, massacres, and fire.' Then he left the senate along with his fellow-tribune, just in time to escape the soldiers of Pompeius, who were folding round the senate- house. The tribunes, together with Curio and another, escaped during the night of the 6th January in the disguise of slaves, and fled to Caesar's quarters. The senate continued to deliberate, not now in the curia, but in the gardens of Pompeius. They were alarmed at the consequences of their action, into which they had been driven by a few violent men. Pom- peius reassured them. He had four legions in Italy, he said, and six in Spain. He had but to stamp his foot, and hosts would spring up everywhere. The aristocracy had vast confidence in their great man, Pompeius ; they had also a well-founded confidence in their money-bags, and mes- sengers were sent with lavish promises to corrupt the fidelity of Caesar's soldiers. Labienus, one of Caesar's most trusted officers, was thus bought. Caesar was informed that Labienus had been tampered with, but with that generosity which was natural to him, he refused to believe it, and appointed him to be his lieutenant-governor. But the traitor stole away and went to Pompeius, leaving his effects behind him. Caesar sent them after him. Vir.— CIVIL WAR. There was but a single legion with Caesar at the time when the senate declared war against him, in defiance of law, in defiance of their own better judgment. He now addressed his veterans and told them what was his situation. They placed themselves unreservedly in his hands. Then he advanced to Ariminum. There he was met by a kinsman, Lucius Caesar, with a message from Pompeius — not sincere on the face of it ; designed merely to gain time whilst the senate discussed, and he called together troops. Caesar replied : Let Pompeius retire to his province, and carry his troops with him. It was a reasonable offer. He did not ask that his adversary should resign the proconsul- ship, only that he should leave Italy with his soldiers. Caesar solemnly protested that he did not seek war, but he must protect himself against the destruction with which he was menaced. Let Pom- peius meet him at any place and time that suited him, and he was con- fident that they would speedily come to an understanding. Lucius Caesar returned to Rome with the letter, and the announcement that Caesar had already crossed the Rubicon, and was no longer in his pro- vince. No more was Pompeius ; he had not even looked at his. Caesar was at the head of a legion j Pompeius also was at the head of armed Fig. is.— C. JULIUS CAESAR. Bust in the British Museum. C. JULIUS CAESAR 85 forces. But now a panic fell on the braggarts who had boasted that only a bold face was needed to overawe Caesar ; and away they scuttled, some in litters, some afoot; some on horseback, leaving their pictures and statues, their wives and children, and dancers and slaves, behind, and never halted till they reached Capua, whither Pompeius had gone to raise troops. There Caesar's letter was delivered to him on January 25th. The consuls were with him, and so were a number of the senators; they piped now in a minor key. Pompeius had stamped, but no armed men sprang up. Labienus had deserted Caesar, but his soldiers stood firm. An answer was drawn up and despatched to Caesar. No interview was appointed, vague promises of disbanding were made, and at the same time, fresh levies were ordered. Pompeius, the senate, Cicero, all had lost their heads, and talked of flying from Italy. ' The consuls are helpless,' wrote Cicero to his friend Atticus, ' there has been no levy. With Caesar pressing forward, and our general doing nothing, the men will not come to be enrolled. Pompeius is prostrate, without courage, without purpose, without force, without energy.' In the meantime L. Domitius Ahenobarbus (the Brazenbeard) had collected a force and occupied Corfiniym, a strongly fortified position in the Apennines, with the intention of arresting Caesar's progress. Time had been allowed to slip. Pompeius had loitered with his two legions, when Caesar had but one, and now a second had come to Caesar from the other side of the Alps. Domitius wrote to Pompeius that he would hold the aggressor in check till he could hurry up with succour. But Pompeius left him to his fate — not a cruel one, for his troops deserted, and Domitius and all his noble volunteers fell into the hands of Caesar without striking a blow. Caesar allowed them all to depart, and to carry with them the money which they had brought into Corfinium. He did not even exact from them a promise to take no further part in the war. Caesar at once hastened through Apulia in pursuit of Pompeius, and reached Brundusium as the invincible conqueror of the East cut his cable, and started for the Greek coast in a fleet with all his soldiers and the host of noble refugees. Then Caesar turned ; he was master of Italy, as well as of Gaul. He entered Rome, where he was received by the tribune Marcus Antonius. But in Rome he did not remain. With a promptitude that marked all his actions and assured their success, he at once departed for Spain, which had been subject to Pompey's rule for the last five years, and where there was a veteran army, which it was advisable to disperse. The veterans were under two Pompeian leaders, Afranius and Petreius. But however devoted these commanders might be to their proconsular chief, the soldiers were ready to desert to Caesar, and Afranius and Petreius surrendered, unable to control their troops. 86 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS Before autumn closed, all Spain was at the feet of Caesar, and, secured from danger in the West, he at once returned to Rome. We have, in Cicero's letters to Atticus, an interesting picture of the vacillation of the mind of the writer, but more than that, a full and clear intimation of the designs of the party against which Caesar in self- defence had drawn the sword. Cicero had a great regard for Pompeius, he loved him personally, and yet was unable to disguise from himself that the triumph of Pompeius would be fatal to the commonwealth. He distincriy says that the object of Pompeius now was to be a second Sulla. He had found out his former error in disbanding his forces and trusting to his name alone for commanding the factions in Rome, and he would not repeat his mistake. The words, Cicero tells us, were constantly on his lips, 'What Sulla did, why cannot I?' He says, moreover, that the plan of Pompeius was to seize the naval stations, where ships were collected, and use them to intercept the corn fleets that supplied Italy with provisions. He hoped by this means to starve Rome and Italy into revolt against Caesar. Besides this, he intended, when he landed there on his triumphant return, to lay the country waste with fire and sword, and to confiscate the property, not only of the adherents of Caesar, but also, like Sulla, of all who had remained neutral. The nobles in the camp had already drawn up their lists of all who were to be put to death, and all whose estates were to be confiscated, and in that list was tlie name of Atticus, the friend of Cicero, who kept aloof from all political strife. At the very moment of leaving Rome, these lordly rufiSans had, at the instigation of Domitius Ahenobarbus, determined to drive the waverers and indifferent into the Pompeian camp by terror, by announcing that every citizen who remained behind at Rome should be deemed a Caesarian. The desertion of the great capital was thought to signify that Pompeius and his parcel of nobles did it purposely so as to involve the city in Caesar's cause, and furnish them with an excuse for a bloody sack and a general pillage. Pompeius was now the head of a party that hated him, and which he viewed with suspicion, driven to this position by mere envy of the superior abilities and the glorious achievements of Caesar, which, he conceived, threw his own into the shade. He had neither the political sagacity to see what the Commonwealth needed to save it from dis- solution, nor had he the patriotism to care to save it. He was at the head of an army composed of men who, he knew, should they succeed in crushing Caesar, would seek his own life with the dagger or with poison. He had in his camp the consuls ; these were a rival authority, and his title of Imperator would not weigh against their superior claims on the soldiers' allegiance. Caesar had made himself master of Italy in sixty days. Then he had left Italy for Spain, having first confided the government of Rome to M. Aemilius Lepidus, an hereditary opponent of the oligarchy, and C. JULIUS CAESAR 87 appointed Marcus Antonius to watch over his interests in Italy. In Rome, the members of the nobiUty who remained were either devoted to Caesar's cause, or were rendered neutral by the threat of massacre on the return of Pompeius. The middle class of citizens was generally favourable to him, and it was only the licentious and Versatile rabble that could cause any anxiety to the praefect of Italy. During the absence of Caesar in Spain, at the recommendation of Lepidus, Caesar was declared dictator. The consuls had, fled from Italy; no elections for the ensuing year could be made in Rome, and none legally out of Rome. It was necessary that some officer should be appointed who could summon the consular assemblies, and this was the only feasible course consistent with precedent. Caesar was resolved to hold the consulship the next year, and this was the sole expedient by which the elections could be rendered legal in the absence of the consuls. Caesar returned to Rome for the elections, and was chosen consul, along with P. Servilius Isauricus, son of an honourable father, who had done good service to his country. Caesar spent but eleven days in Rome, but in that brief time passed measures of utility. He found that, owing to the political confusion of the times, there was prevalent a general difficulty about the recovery of debts. The impression had prevailed that a general scramble for property was coming. Creditors were harsh in exacting their dues, and loans were raised at exorbitant interest.. Every one who could turn his effects into money was doing so tha.t he might escape from an anticipated proscription, and hide his property. Caesar passed financial measures to revive confidence, as far as might be, and restore the abundance of the circulating medium. Then he granted an amnesty to all the victims of civil war. At the same time Caesar accomplished an act, the policy and justice of which he had long recognised and contended for, but hitherto in vain. He conferred the Roman franchise upon the Gauls north of the Po. The concession had been opposed with dogged hostility by the Optimates, who resented all broadening of the base of government to any beyond the rabble whom they could buy or terrorise. The time had now arrived when this obstruction did not stand in the way, and henceforward the freedom of the city was bounded only by the Alps. Caesar resigned the dictatorship to assume in the new year his consulship in conjunction with Servilius, and then at once hastened to Brundusium, whither he had summoned his veterans to attend him.; and now every eye was turned on the two hosts ranged one against the other, each under the command of a general esteemed the greatest of his time. 'The judgment and ability which Caesar manifested throughout his proceedings must raise his estimation as a statesman to the highest pitch. He who had crossed the Rubicon at the beginning of the year. 88 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS in defiance of law and authority, had now completely turned against his opponents the current of public feeling. The moral victory he had , gained over them was more complete than the triumph of A.U.C. 706. ° , r 1 ui- 1 • ■ 1 B.a 48. hxs arms. He was now consul of the republic, legitimately Aet. S4- elected and duly invested with full powers. Throughout the empire there were vast numbers of citizens who would bow implicitly to the wielder of this formal authority. There were many cities which would shut their gates against any party which opposed him, without asking a question as to the substantial justice of its cause. On the other hand, the Pompeians acknowledged by their own conduct that they had ceased to retain the government of Rome. In Epirus, though there were two hundred senators in their camp, they dared not enact a law or hold an election, or confer the imperium. The representative of the people had become the guardian of precedent and order ; while the champion of the aristocracy derived his unauthorised prerogatives from the suffrage or the passions of a turbulent camp. The position of the rivals was thus exactly reversed, and with it, in the eyes of a nation of formalists, the right seemed to be reversed also.' ^ Cicero had been urged by Caesar, always his friend, and striving to save him against himself, to remain neutral. He wrote to him and sought an interview. Balbus and Oppius, two confidential friends of Caesar, also used their persuasion. They told him that Caesar felt that he could not ask him to bear arms against Pompeius, to whom Caesar knew that he supposed himself to be under an obligation, and that he would be abundantly satisfied if the great orator took no part in the war, or did not side with his enemies. Caesar professed himself anxious to be reconciled with Pompeius, to whom he also bore a personal regard, as having been the husband of his dearly loved child, Julia, and he sought to dissipate the fears of Cicero, and others of the same timorous and vacillating frame of mind, by the assurance that he would take no cruel advantage of his successes, but would, on the other hand, strive to soothe and heal the wounds of his country. ' Let me thus,' said he, ' endeavour, if I can, to win back the hearts of all, and enjoy a lasting victory ; for other conquerors have by their severities been unable to escape odium and long maintain success, with the single exception of Sulla, whom I do not intend to imitate.' These were no empty words ; the subsequent conduct of Caesar showed that he was sincere; and this he wrote whilst Pompeius his rival was muttering, 'Why cannot I be Sulla?' and was calculating on the blood and plunder with which he would glut his vengeance should victory attend his arms. The conduct of the brief struggle in Epirus showed the difference in the character of the two opponents. When, in stormy weather, some of Caesar's transports crossed from Italy, they were given chase by the squadron of Pompeius. One of Caesar's ' Merivale, History of the Romans, ii. 237. C. JULIUS CAESAR 89 vessels, with two hundred and twenty young recruits on board, ran by mistake into the wrong harbour, and was surrounded. The Pompeians offered them their life if they would surrender. The young soldiers were sea-sick and frightened : they trusted to the promise, and were immediately put to the sword. Sixteen of the Pompeian vessels ran upon the rocks in pursuit of Caesar's transports, and Caesar spared the lives of every man who fell into his hands. In June Caesar met with a reverse. A weak spot in his lines had been betrayed, and Pompeius flung himself suddenly and unexpectedly upon it. Nearly a thousand men fell, and many hundreds were taken. In the camp of Pompeius was Labienus, Caesar's old lieutenant, who had been won by the gold of the oligarchy. He begged to have the prisoners — his old fellow-soldiers — who had fought under him in Gaul, committed to him, then, mockingly calling them old comrades, he had them butchered before him to the last man. But on August 9, Caesar retrieved this defeat in the great battle of Pharsalia. Pompeius and his Lords of Misrule were routed and fled in confusion, and Caesar was master of the camp of his enemies, having lost only two hundred of his own men, whilst fifteen thousand of the Pompeians had been cut down in the wild turmoil of panic and flight. ' They would have it so,' said Caesar sadly as he went over the field, littered with the corpses of his enemies. ' After all that I had done for my country, I should have been condemned by them as a criminal, had I not appealed to my army.' The anecdote comes to us on good authority, on that of Asinius Pollio, who was present at the battle. Some of the worst enemies of Caesar succeeded in making their escape, but twenty-four thousand surrendered. The life of every man was spared. In the tent of Pompeius was found his secret corre- spondence, involving the names of many who had treacherously feigned friendship for Caesar, whilst betraying what they could learn of his plans. Caesar knew this, but was too magnanimous to take advantage of the opportunity of unmasking them. He threw all the letters into the fire, unread. Pompeius, flying to Egypt, was there murdered by orders of the young king, Ptolemaeus Dionysus, a boy of thirteen, who, with his sister Cleopatra, occupied the throne of Ptolemaeus the Fluteplayer. The murder was committed on the shore, within sight of the wife of Pompeius on board the ship from which the luckless general had been enticed. Such was the end of a man whose career is well described by Tacitus in few words : ' Cn. Pompeius, in his third consulship, was chosen to correct lapsed morals. His remedies were worse than the maladies. He was the maker and violator of his own laws. What he gained by his arms, with arms he lost.' The sons of Pompeius had the command of the fleet, and maintained the conflict. Caesar had hoped that the war would end at Pharsalia. 90 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS He was disappointed ; it continued in Africa and in Spain. But much work had to be done at Rome, and Caesar hastened thither. Among those who had been in the camp of the Optimates was M. Junius Brutus. He had escaped from the battle, but finding that all was lost, he volun- tarily tendered his submission, and, to curry favour with the conqueror, betrayed the direction of the flight of Pompeius. Caesar readily extended his confidence to the son of his friend Servilia, and Brutus exerted his influence to conciliate him towards his friend and brother-in-law C. Cassius. Brutus was a vehement man, narrow-minded, mean to base- ness, but engaging by his impulsiveness. 'I know not,' said Caesar, ' what this young fellow wishes, but whatever he wishes, that he wishes with all his might ' {quidquid vult, valde vult). Fig. i6.— M. JUNIUS BRUTUS. Gold Medal, enlarged. We have extant a good many statuary portraits of Brutus, and none of them are attractive. He combed his hair down over his low forehead, and cut it straight across above the brows. The cheek-bones are high, there is no breadth and no indication of genius in the brow, and the head is round and devoid of the imaginative faculty. The pouting peevish mouth is above a small protruding chin. Indeed, the lower portion of the face is pinched. All the portraits that exist give to his countenance the expression of a cantankerous, pettifogging character.^ From his coins, Bernoulli thus summarises the character of the face of Brutus : ' An angular, oblong skull, rather flattened at the top, and projecting. Abundant smooth hair, and a scarcely perceptible beard, merely covering the jaw. The profile not remarkably noble, with pro- jecting mouth and chin. A straight, low brow, and a straight stump 1 Portraits of M. Junius Brutus : — 1. A medal (gold) with L. Brutus on reverse, from whom he pretended to be descended. M. Brutus wears the civic wreath. 2. A medal (gold) with M. Brutus on obv., on rev. the head of P. Servilius Casca. 3. Two silver coins, interesting, as being described by Dio Cassius. They bear the legend: EiD. Mart. 4. A fine bronze, of which two examples alone exist, one at Paris, the other at Berlin ; bears no inscription, but is' thought to represent M. Junius Brutus. 5. Bust in Capitoline Museum, Hall of Dying Gaul, No. 16 ; end of nose restored, and C. JULIUS CAESAR 91 nose at a sharp angle with the brow. Finally, a thinness that comes out mainly in the hard outlines of the under jaw and in the meagre neck.' The beard Brutus wore from the beginning of the civil war, B.C. 49, as a token of grief. He probably shaved after Pharsalia. He could hardly have accepted Caesar's pardon and favour, and maintained the outward symbol of regret for the change. The ' lean and hungry look ' that, according to Plutarch, Caesar saw in both Brutus and Cassius, may have provoked his mistrust of the latter, but he had confidence in the former, notwithstanding his hollow cheeks and thin neck. Brutus had lost his father at the early age of eight years, but his education had been carefully conducted by his mother, Servilia, assisted by her two brothers, and he acquired a relish for literary pursuits, which he preserved to the end of his life. In 59, Brutus was prosecuted on the charge of being an accomplice in a conspiracy against the life of Pompeius, but Caesar, who was then consul, put a stop to the prosecu- tion, as it was well known that Brutus was innocent. In 58, when Cato was sent to Cyprus, Brutus accompanied him. In S3 he went to Cilicia with his father-in-law, Appius Claudius, and took advantage of the opportunity to lend out money to the provincials at an extortionate and illegal rate of interest. Afterwards, when Cicero was proconsul of Cilicia, Brutus engaged him to recover the money, and although Cicero knew, and represented to him that the usury was monstrous and illegal — yet as a matter of private favour he obtained it for him. The whole transaction was about as dirty as any of the dirty tricks that the correspondence of Cicero exposes to us. When the tidings of the death of Pompeius, at first received with incredulity, were believed in Rome, and when the defeated nobility found to their unbounded surprise that they need fear no A. U. C. 707. bloody reprisals, the whole aspect of affairs changed. There b.c.'47. " had been many men, like Cicero, not indeed halting between ^^'' ^^" two opinions, but endeavouring to ingratiate themselves with both leaders. But with the death of Pompeius all doubt ceased, and every scruple about paying court to the victor disappeared. Decrees were issued by the senate investing him with unbounded authority over the two insertions in brow. This fine bust in Greek marble belongs to the last days of the Republic. 6. Bust in the National Museum, Naples ; found at Pompeii in 1869 ; very fine and characteristic. 7. Bust in the Torlonia Gallery ; young, about twenty-one ; of Greek marble ; without the usual surly expression, but hard. 8. Bust in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, No. 204, from the Campana Collection, and therefore to be mistrusted. 9. Statue in the Villa Albani ; a caricature, and poor as a work of art. 10. Bust of him as a boy, Vatican, Hall of Busts, No. 305. Probable, but not certain. 11. Life-sized bust, Vatican, Chiaramonti, No. A, 343. 12. Statue in the Louvre, No. 2170 ; doubtful. 13. Bust in the British Museum, nose broken. • r r r r r ' 92 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS lives and fortunes of those who had not made submission. Such as had fought with Pompeius, and had received pardon, strove to efface the remembrance of the past by the most abject servility. Caesar was created dictator for- the period of a year, from October 48, to October 47 ; but the breaking out of war in Africa and Egypt called him away from Italy. Among the aristocracy, says Dio Cassius, ' every one now sought to outdo the other in adulation, by giving him their votes in the comitia, by their actions and acclamations protesting the love they had long borne him, just as though Caesar had been present before them; for they thought that by this apparently spontaneous enthusiasm some would win for themselves civil or religious offices, others money.' During the absence of Caesar, faction again troubled the city. He was engaged in the East by the war in Egypt and an expedition against Pharnaces. Rumour spread that he had been defeated and slain. Of the two tribunes, Dolabella, the son-in-law of Cicero, ' that manikin tied to a long sword,' as Cicero called him, promised the people the abolition of debts; the other, Trebellius, pretended to maintain the authority of the senate. Bloodshed ensued. Rome was given up to contending parties hewing each other down remorselessly. Antonius, Caesar's master of the horse, entered the city with the troops under his command, and quelled the riot by indiscriminate slaughter of those engaged in cutting each other's throats. But faction, long allowed to run riot in Rome, was not to be subdued at once, and fresh outbreaks continued from time to time to disturb the tranquillity of the city, and were only lulled by the periodic rumours of Caesar's approach. We may here pause for a moment to ask whether there is any justifica- tion for the course Caesar had pursued in plunging the commonwealth into civil war. But, in fact, it was the conduct of the infatuated oligarchy and of Pompeius that provoked the war. Caesar had to defend himself. The power to enforce the laws it enacted was gone from the senate, and was lodged in the army; it was gone before Caesar crossed the Rubicon. The old condition of affairs was past, beyond possibility of recall. Military domination was already established when Caesar com- bined with Pompeius and Crassus in the first triumvirate. Crassus was dead; Pompeius had gone over to the enemy and sought with them the destruction of his former comrade. Caesar had to deal with facts. It was a fact that the centre of gravity of government was transferred to the army. The old constitution had completely failed under the new condi- tions. The aristocracy sought nothing higher than to secure its own privi- leges, and the senate set the example of violating the laws. The power of the people was gone. Their officers were venal; they themselves were without convictions, without ambition, without sincerity. All the foundations of the Roman constitution were out of course; and what was needed was a great creative genius to re-establish the constitution on new foundations, to give it a new form, and breathe into it a new life. C. JULIUS CAESAR 93 The great curse to Rome was its annual elections, that nurtured rivalries and promoted idleness. Conceive what the condition of Great Britain would be were parliamentary elections annual, and the ministry changed every year. Another great obstacle to the natural adaptation of the commonwealth to the burdens placed on it, was the power of veto given to the tribunes. Any single tribune of the ten could block the course of any law, stultify all proceedings in senate and comitia, and was not required to give any reason for his conduct. When, moreover, among the ten tribunes there was always to be found one open to stop a law, on taking a bribe, put into his hand by the minority who had failed to defeat it in the Assembly, then the possibility of governing Rome, let alone the world, was at an end. The condition of affairs was such that Rome was a prey to every Sulla who could command an army, to every Crassus who could draw the strings of the purses of all men in Rome, to every Clodius who could stir up tlie rabble, and hire cut-throats to do his bidding. The republic was staggering to dissolution, incapable of coping with her internal difficulties ; she was certain to fall to pieces under the re- sentment and greed of the provincials and the barbarians beyond her frontiers. By no possibility could she maintain her hold on the world save by a centralisation of authority in one man, not subject to be annually upset, one who could pursue a liberal and consistent policy abroad, and repress the turbulent factions at home. Caesar had been in the East, he had been in Spain, he had spent long years in Gaul. He knew what were the sufferings of the provinces. He understood that an imperial Rome must have a head, that there must be continuity in its policy, and that this policy must be generous and just. He saw that the rabble of Rome must be curbed, and that the aristocracy of Rome must be held down ; that the thoughts of the citizens must be turned from interminable electioneering contests to considerations more wholesome and profitable, VIII.— CAESAR AS DICTATOR. It was not till after the battle of Munda in Spain, fought on the 17th March, B.C. 45, that the supremacy of Caesar was finally established. Now his time had come, when he might turn from ^ ^ ^ trampling out the embers of civil war to the reformation b.c. 45. and reconstruction of the state. His undisputed tenure of *'" ^^' power lasted hardly more than one year and a half, including an interval of ten months' absence from Rome. It was not therefore possible for him to complete the work on which he had set his heart. A body of laws exists bearing his name, but unfortunately we do not 94 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS know the date at which each was passed. But one thing we do know, that they were all framed with the one object of bettering a situation of affairs that had become intolerable. The laws — confused and disjointed as they come to us — point decisively to the existence in the mind of their author of a distinct and clearly-thought-out plan for the recon- struction of the national policy. 'The general principle,' says Dean Merivale, ' that pervades them is the elevation of a middle class of citizens to constitute the ultimate source of all political authority. The ostensible ruler of the state is to be, in fact, the creation of this body, its favourite, its patron, its legislator and its captain. He is to watch over the maintenance of an equilibrium of popular forces, checking with the same firm hand the discontent of the depressed nobility, and the encroachments of the aspiring rabble. The eternal principles of rule and order he is to assert as sacred and immutable ; but he is to be himself responsible for their application at his own discretion to the varying wants of society. This idea of government was perfectly new to the ancient world.' Caesar was the first among those who obtained a predominating position in the Roman state who extended his view beyond the politics of the city, and took a really imperial survey of the vast dominions subject to her sway. He extended the franchise, as already said, to the citizens of Gaul beyond the Po, and he gave the same privilege to many communities in Gaul beyond the Alps, and in Spain. He designed to confer the lower form of privilege, called Latin, on the Sicilians, no doubt as a step towards a still further extension of the franchise. He conferred the coveted prize of Roman citizenship on the Gaulish soldiers who formed the legion called Alauda, from the lark that was the emblem on their arms ; more significant even than this was his enrolment of certain Gallic nobles among the senators. The old citizens looked on aghast. ' In pity,' they sneered, ' let him also furnish them with a guide to show them the way to the senate-house.' ' Off with their breeches and on with the toga,' mocked others ; ' these fellows, who trotted after Caesar's triumphal car, are now foisted into the senate, and must be dressed for their new parts.' Caesar planted very few of his veterans in Italy. Most of the public land had been already granted and occupied, and he did not propose to buy out proprietors so as to acquire land to give away. He settled the soldiers in the provinces, and sought by their means to revive Corinth and Carthage to something of their ancient splendour and renown. He endeavoured to restore the wasted population of Italy by more peaceful methods than military settlements. The marriage tie had become lax in loose times, and he appealed to the vanity of women as a means of bracing it. He suffered the worthy matron to wear pearls and a purple robe. A married man with three children born in wed- C. JULIUS CAESAR 95 lock at Rome, with four born in Italy, with five born in the provinces, was exempted from certain charges and duties. The great abuse of slave-labour was difficult to correct. Caesar issued an ordinance forbidding a citizen between twenty and forty years of age being absent from Italy for more than three years. Moreover, he revived an ancient enactment that one-third of the labourers on all estates should be free men. Fig. 17.— C. JULIUS CAESAR. Bust in Green Basalt, Berlin. Caesar meditated the drainage of the Pontine marshes, the com- plete survey and mapping of the empire; he opened a free public library, the first established in Rome ; he designed the codification ot the laws. Of all his reforms, that by which his name is best remembered is the regulation of the calendar. This had fallen out of gear, so that the civil year did not correspond with the solar year by as much as sixty-seven days, and the ist of January of the year B.C. 45 was reckoned as the 2 2d of October. Consequently two intercalary months were 96 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS inserted between the last day of November and the ist of December, and so the past error was corrected. To prevent future errors, the year — which had previously been reckoned as consisting of 355 days — was extended to 365 days; each month was lengthened, with the exception of February : and one day was added every four years. Such was the famous Julian Calendar, which, with a slight alteration, has served the world to the present day. On his return from Spain, Caesar had been named Dictator and Imperator for life. The senate took an oath to guai-d his person, and his head was placed on the money of the republic. They went so far in their adulation as to declare that he was Divus, something more than human. Caesar could not refuse these flatteries without seeming to treat the senate with disregard, but he well knew the worthlessness of their professions. Their words, as he was aware, were smoother than butter, but war was in their hearts. He knew that they desired to see him murdered, but he had not shrunk from death in the battle-field, and he did not shrink from it in the forum, where equally he felt he was doing his duty. Life, he did not particularly value. He was a sad man, as are all great men inspired with noble and pure aims, in the midst of a perverse and self-seeking generation. But he had some thoughts to console him for the falsehood and dissimulation that surrounded him, and to stay his heart against the fear of dangers that menaced him. Gaul was be- coming a civilised and orderly country, no longer torn by tribal wars. The frontiers of the state were no longer menaced by hordes of bar- barians. The franchise had been largely extended and would be extended further. Representatives of conquered people sat in the senate of Rome. What he had done for Gaul would be done — not, perhaps, by him, but by others succeeding him — for Spain, for Africa, and for the East. He had come, at one time, to the forum, passing through the streets of Rome, attended by a guard. But the senate had solemnly sworn to protect his life. He took them at their word, and dismissed his guard. Conscious that he had relaid the foundations of the commonwealth, he felt that the work he had begun could not be accomplished in the few years of life that remained to him, even if unshortened by violence, and that the permanency of his institutions could only be secured by the establishment of a permanent head to the state. It may have been this conviction which induced him to allow Antonius, his colleague in the consulship, to offer him the diadem in public on the festival of the A.U.C.710. Lupercalia; but seeing that the proposition was not favour- ac. 44. ■ ably received by the people, he resolved to decline it for *'■ S^- the present. Royal power he possessed, and, could that be rendered hereditary instead of elective, the state would be saved from furious rivalries and intestinal war. Were not a monarchy established, C. JULIUS CAESAR 97 tVien the condition into which the republic would fall back must be one of confusion. Since the banishment of the kings, the constitution of Rome had been without its keystone. Caesar was sufficiently acquainted with the history of the institutions of Rome to know what the king was in theory, and he doubtless wished to take up the thread of ancient tradition, and, with the citizenship extended to embrace the engrafted states, to try again the old institution on this more extended base. He was proud to be a lineal descendant of one of the best and most liberal-minded of kings. But in the minds of the people, the idea of kingship was connected with abuse of power, and the object of the institution was forgotten. They had forgotten that the king was the representative of the people, the one in whom rested the executive, and that if he acted as a tyrant he violated the constitution. The term King had to the ignorant completely lost its proper signification ; and it was, perhaps, impossible for Caesar to sink to the abyss of stupidity and ignorance, and see through the dull eyes and think with the contracted brain of the vulgar. He made a mistake : but he saw it at once, and attempted to retrace his steps. IX.— THE MURDER. The offer of the crown to Caesar precipitated the end. A con- spiracy against his life had been formed among men who had re- ceived numerous kindnesses from him, who had sworn to respect his life and regard as sacrilege an attempt upon it, and who wilfully shut their eyes to the prospect of plunging their country into civil war. They affected zeal for the republic, impatience of despotism, but the majority were actuated by the meanest party jealousy. They were angry because the supreme power had been taken from the hands of an oligarchy which had in every way shown its incapacity to govern. As open warfare had not succeeded, they had recourse to secret assas- sination. More than sixty persons were privy to the conspiracy. L. Pontius Aquila was tribune of the people, sullen and envious of Caesar ; as the dictator passed his chair in the senate he was the only man who would not rise. But Caesar was above punishing such a slight. Afterwards, with his kindly smile, pitiful also of the bad manners of the man, when some one solicited of him a favour, he turned towards the tribune, and said, ' I grant it if Pontius Aquila will give me leave.' Another conspirator was L. Minucius Basilus, who had served under Caesar in the Gallic war, and did not suppose that his services had met with sufficient recognition. He was praetor in 45, but Caesar for some reason refused him a province, and instead gave him a handsome sum of money. P. Servilius Casca was another : he was tribune of the people that year ; his brother Caius was an intimate friend of Caesar, yet both G Tig. iS.—C. JULIUS CAESAR. Profile of the Bust in the British Museum. 372 . e. j;1jLIUS CAESAR 99 Cascas were in the conspiracy, 'a.-\d Toblius aivied the first blow. Again, another was L; Tillius 'Ciriiber, who had been one of Caesar's warmest supporters, and 'li-^d been rewarded with' the province of Bithynia. His brother, f\ci;\vT;ver, was in exile, ' but' ie must have known the leniency of Caesar's 'nature, and h^vfr been sure that he had but to ask and his broth'er'w-olild be ■■estofca.'^He was fond of good living and wine, and Seneca qfloteS- a 'JoSing question of his : ' What, shall I support a candidate who cannot support overmuch wine?' Q. Ligarius, an old officer of Pompeius, who had been pardoned and received into favour by Caesar, was another. He was sick and in bed. Brutus visited him. ' It is sad for Ligarius at such a moment as this to be disabled,' said Brutus. The sick man raised himself on his elbow. ' If any project worthy of Brutus be in the wind, I am well,' he answered, and started from his couch to join the conspirators. The reason why so many of Caesar's old officers and friends were in the plot is that envy which is often found in small minds, among those who have known and assisted a great man in his rise, and who are insatiable in their demands from him when risen, attributing that rise, not to his merits, but to their own petty assistance which they over-estimate. Of the original Pompeian party several have been mentioned. M. Brutus, who had married Porcia, daughter of his uncle Cato, and -brother-in-law of C. Cassius, has already been spoken of. Caesar had given strict orders at Pharsalia that his life should be spared, had freely pardoned him, and had loaded him with favours. A merciless money- lender and extortioner he is proved to have been by Cicero's letters. ' Perhaps Brutus,' says Mr. Long, ' was a philosophical fanatic, who could reconcile contradictories, like those men whose profession of piety does not secure them against excessive love of money and other vices.' M. Brutus was not above soliciting the province of Macedonia and a consulship from Caesar, and he considered it by no means contrary to his republican principles to accept favours and offices from him. Decimus Brutus was only a distant connection. Decimus was not one of the first members of the plot, but the first conspirators drew him in, because he had in readiness a number of gladiators who might be use- ful. Both Marcus and Decimus Brutus were doubtless engaged by the other conspirators in the plot because their name recalled to the people the great Brutus who had expelled the kings from Rome. Some persons put by night papers on the desk of M. Brutus, on which were written, 'You are asleep, Brutus!' and 'You are no true Brutus.' Against the statue of the great Brutus was found one morning a placard, ' Would you were now alive ! ' and under that of Caesar, ' Brutus was made a consul for casting out the kings. This man has cast out the consuls to become a king.' M. Junius Brutus pretended to descend from the great king-expeller. loo /f Jl'E TRAGEDY OF THE'cAESARS , " . ., , , '•••' but there were serious (jSific^i'|ti'e^ irtklRe way of proving descent. The Junii alhed to the Tarquihs were ckAa.i'A\y patricians. But the' true ancestor of Caesar's, murderer was a plebeiaSi, M. Junius Brutus, one of the first tribunVpftl^e people in a.u.c. ^6X'Ib.c. 494). M. Brutus proMBly; lived with .hi^ motRer and his wife on the Aventine, where wa|*lh^'Servjljjan.'h&nse. • Porcia, his wife, saw that something was on his Inind ; eL'^ asked him what it was, but he refused to answer. She then wound'ed h'erself, and without wincing showed him the wound — 'You see: I can suffer and hold my tongue,' said she; ' learn that the daughter of Cato and wife of Brutus can die if need be. Tell me all' The confederates discussed the place where the murder was to be committed. Some desired that it should be the Campus Martius, and the time, when Caesar as consul presided at the convocation of the people.^ Another proposal was that Caesar should be fallen upon in the Via Sacra, as he left his house. Another was that he should be attacked in the theatre of Pompeius. It was finally decided to murder him in the senate, for the senate, with the exception of those members he had introduced into it, was hostile to him. The curia had been burnt down in a riot, and had not been rebuilt. The senate, accordingly assembled, first in one place, then in another, usually in a temple. To shed blood in a temple w^ould be profanation. It was determined that the deed should be done on the iSth March, the Ides, the feast of Anna Perenna, when there would be an exhibition of gladiatorial combats in the theatre of Pompeius. The senate met in a semicircular portico adjoining the theatre. Pompeius had built it, and set there his statue, little thinking that he had prepared it as the place of sacrifice for his rival. Anna Perenna was an old Latin divinity, who was said to have carried cakes to the plebeians when they retired to the Mons Sacer. On that day the son of Cassius assumed the toga as having attained manhood. From the Capitol to which he ascended with the boy for this rite, he could watch the door of Caesar's house. Brutus occupied his chair as praetor in the portico of Pompeius. There was almost certainly a general suspicion in the city that a conspiracy was formed against the dictator, but none knew, save those in it, when and where the blow would fall. Caesar himself was not free from presentiment of evil. He was supping with Lepidus the evening before the Ides, and the conversation had turned on what kind of death was most to be desired. 'The unexpected,' was the verdict of Caesar. 1 The point of this proposal may possibly have lain in this : In remote times, so the legend went, the Romans were accustomed to throw their aged parents over the Pons Sublicius inlo the Tiber. Then the expression ' To throw over the bridge ' came to be employed of the withdrawing from a man his right to vote, and if Caesar were actually thrown over the wooden bridge that led to the voting-booths, it would signify that his political life was closed. C. JULIUS CAESAR loi Decimus Brutus was there when he said it, for Caesar had taken him along with him, as a friend, to the supper. Caesar used to say that his hfe was of more value to his country than to himself; and that it was better to endure all that treachery could do than to be constantly on the watch against enemies. There were strange presages. Caesar's horses refused their food. The shields in the temple of Vesta that adjoined his house, clashed in the night as they had on the eve of the irruption of the Cimbri. As Caesar slept near his wife Calpurnia, suddenly the window was dashed open, and the moonlight flooded the room. Caesar started up, and looked at his sleeping wife. Sighs and murmurs escaped her lips. She was dreaming that in her arms lay her dead husband. At break of day, Calpurnia entreated Caesar not to leave the house till he had consulted an augur. Caesar sent for one or two, and they told him that the signs were unfavourable. Accordingly, he despatched a message to Antonius to adjourn the assembly of the senate to another day. Brutus and Cassius, who were now together in the portico of the theatre awaiting his arrival, were iilled with consternation, and their fears were augmented by a singular incident. A senator, addressing Casca with a significant smile, said : ' You have concealed your secret from me, but Brutus has taken me into his confidence.' In another moment Casca would have pressed his hand and dropped significant words, but the other went on to allude to his meditated competition for the aedileship, and Casca breathed freely, seeing that he had escaped the peril of inadvertently divulging his secret. Almost at the same moment, Popillius Laenas whispered to Brutus, ' What you have on hand, despatch speedily,' and dived back among the crowd. It was never known to what he referred, but the conscious assassins were dis- concerted, and Decimus was sent to the house of Caesar to ascertain the cause of his non-arrival. Decimus had been with him at supper the night before in the house of Lepidus. Caesar had the utmost con- fidence in him, and the wretch used this confidence now to combat his doubts, to persuade him to defy the auguries and disregard his wife's entreaties.. To stay at home and to adjourn the senate, he represented, was to offer it a slight. Caesar had lately offended this touchy body by not rising before it— according to one account, his dress was held down by Cornelius Balbus; probably by inadvertence, certainly not as a matter of studied discourtesy, for Caesar was the most courteous of men. Now he remembered this offence, and rather than again touch the susceptibilities of the senators he yielded to Brutus and left the house with him. Hardly had the sound of his steps died away ere a slave besought an audience of Calpurnia, and declared to her that; there was some design in agitation against her husband's life. But it was now too late to stay him. 102 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS One can follow exactly the course taken by Caesar that day. From the Regia, the pontifical house he occupied on the Via Sacra, he passed under the arch of Fabius into the forum. Turning to the left, by the Tuscan street, he reached the southern height of the Capitol. ' A strange coincidence,' says M. Ampere; 'this was the triumphal course reversed. Caesar had gone precisely this way in his chariot, but in a contrary direction.' On his left was the temple of Good Fortune, before which on his day of triumph a wheel of his chariot had been broken. Then he passed through the Porta Carmentalis into the Field of Mars. Fig. 19.— M. JUNIUS BRUTUS. Bust in the Naticnal Museum, Naples. On his way, more than one person pressed towards him to warn him of his danger. But the conspirators to whom that part of the business was assigned crowded closely about him, and the press of his attendants was almost too great to allow of the approach of a stranger. There is a story oft repeated, that an augur, Spurinna, had warned Caesar to beware of the Ides of March, and that Caesar, on his way, seeing the C. JULIUS CAESAR ,03 man, said to him smilingly, 'The Ides of March are here.' To which Spurinna answered, 'Yes, but they are not yet over.' Artemidorus, a Cmdian Greek and a friend of Caesar, brought a small roll that contained information which he desired to communicate ; but as he observed that Caesar gave each roll as he received it to the attendants, he drew very near, and said : ' This, Caesar, you alone must read, and read it at once, for it concerns you mightily.' Caesar took the roll, but was prevented from reading it by the pressure of the multitude, and he entered the senate holding the epistle in his hand. Fig. 20.— M. JUNIUS BRUTUS. Bust in the Capitoline Museum, Rome. At that moment, Popillius Laerias, whose mysterious words had set the conspirators in a flutter, was seen to emerge from the throng, and hold Caesar in close conversation. The assassins now felt certain thai Laenas was informing him of the plot, and they half-drew their daggers tc plunge them into their own hearts. But Brutus observed that the gestures of Laenas were those of a man suing for a favour, and he reassured his confederates. Laenas kissed Caesar's right hand, and withdrew. I04 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS In the meantime, Marcus Antonius, the consul, was designedly detained by Trebonius outside the portico, where he could neither see nor hear what took place. The conspirators feared Antonius, who was young, possessed of great readiness, and attached to Caesar. At the moment of Caesar's entry, all the senate rose. He had not been expected, and his gilded chair had been removed. This was brought back, and Caesar seated himself. At once Cimber, one of the confederates, approached him to ask the favour of the restoration of his brother who was exiled. Caesar hesitated. Then Cimber seized his toga, and dragged it in such a manner as to expose his throat. This was the preconcerted signal, and he cried out in Greek, ' Why do you delay ? ' Then he caught Caesar's hands and kissed them — the kiss of Judas. Instantly P. Casca, who had placed himself behind the chair, aimed a blow at the dictator's throat, but missed his aim, and the blade wounded his breast. Caesar, shaking his hands free from Cimber, started up and grasped the dagger, as he exclaimed : ' What are you doing, villain ? ' Casca called to his brother for help. Then the whole murderous pack fell upon their noble victim. In the struggle, his side was exposed, and he was wounded there. Cassius stabbed him in the face, and he returned the blow with his stylus, and wounded him. Then M. Brutus dealt him a blow in the groin. When Caesar received this, and saw who had struck him, he exclaimed in Greek, ' And thou — too, my son ? ' Then, he no longer attempted to defend himself, and folding his head and feet in his toga, sank at the foot of the statue of Pompeius, drenched in his blood, pierced with thirty-five wounds, full of dignity in the supreme moment. X.— THE CHARACTER OF CAESAR. There, over this prostrate body, we may pause to speak of the man as he was known — not to the general public, but to his inner circle of friends. Of that kindly and gracious courtesy that marked his relations to all men, something has already been said. That it won the hearts of the women was not marvellous, and his detractors took advantage of the fact to besmirch his memory with slander. I will quote here Mommsen's estimate of his abilities and character. ' From earliest youth, Caesar was a statesman in the truest sense of the word, and his aim was the highest to which it is accorded man to strive after ;— the political, military, intellectual, and moral regeneration of his deeply depraved nation, and of that Hellenistic people most intimately related to his own, but one still more depraved. The hard school of thirty years' experiences altered his views as to the means how to attain to this end, but not as to the end itself— that remained ever before him, in times of hopeless depression and of unbounded success, Fig. 21.— C. JULIUS CAESAR. Bust in the Vatican, Museum Chiaramonti, No. 107. io6 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS in times when taking his dark course as demagogue and conspirator, and when as part possessor of supreme power, and when as sole monarch he could execute his work in the full blaze of sunlight before all eyes. All his measures that have lasted, passed at various epochs, fit together into a consistent and purposeful whole. Of isolated attempts of Caesar we need not speak, for Caesar created nothing that was isolated. With justice is Caesar praised as a speaker, on account of his manly eloquence ; setting at naught all the rules of rhetoric, it was like a clear flame that lightened and warmed at once. With justice is Caesar admired for his literary skill, because of the inapproachable simplicity of his composition, Fig. 22.— C. JULIUS CAESAK. Profile of the Green Basalt Bust at Berlin. the unique purity and beauty of his language. With justice has Caesar been lauded as the greatest general of all times, for, untrammelled by routine and tradition, he— like no other— always hit upon that way in which to carry out a war wherein, under certain conditions, the enemy must be defeated, a way therefore which, under these conditions, was the right one ; who, with the surety of divination, found the right means for doing whatever he undertook ; who, after a defeat, was ever like William of Orange (the taciturn) prompt to recover, and with a victory finish the campaign. But all this was subsidiary matter in Caesar. He was a great speaker, writer, general, but he was each of these because he was Frr. 23.— C. JULIUS CAESAR. Bust in the Vatican, Hall of Busts, No. 272. io8 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS a perfect statesman. The soldier in him plays but a passing part ; and this is what distinguishes him from Alexander, Hannibal, and Napoleon, that in him it is not the character of the officer but the leader of the people that governs all his political activity. His original plan was to attain his end, like Pericles and Caius Gracchus, without having recourse to arms, and for eighteen years he acted as leader of the popular party engaged exclusively in political plans and intrigues, till reluctantly convinced of the necessity of having military force at his back, at the age of forty he put himself at the head of an army. It is explicable, therefore, that afterwards there remained in him rather the statesman than the general — like Cromwell, who also rose from being leader of the opposition to be a military chief and democratic king ; whom, in his career, as in his objects, Caesar more resembled than any other personage in history. ' All his undertakings were directed towards one goal, on which he kept his eye and from which he never swerved. Although a master of the art of war, yet with statesmanly consideration he did his utmost to avoid civil war ; and when it was forced on him, he strove to keep his laurels unstained with blood. Although the founder of the military monarchy, yet with an energy unexampled in history, he checked every- thing like a praetorian domination. The most remarkable feature of his statesmanly work is its perfect harmony. And for this, the most difficult of human operations, all the conditions were united in Caesar. A thorough realist, he never suffered himself to be confused by sentimental adhesion to the past and to tradition ; and in politics he looked to the living present and to common sense. A born ruler of men, he governed the dispositions of men as the wind governs the clouds, and he brought under his influence and control the most divergent natures, the smug citizen, and the blunt sergeant, the noble ladies of Rome and the beauti- ful princesses of Egypt and Mauritania, the swashbuckler cavalry officer and the calculating banker. His power of organisation is marvellous ; never did any other statesman or general bring together and direct to one object, the many and perverse elements with which he had to deal, whether they were civil or military; never did a ruler judge and appreciate his tools with more justice, and set each to accomplish its most suitable task. ' He was monarch, but never played the part of king. As sovereign lord of Rome, he remained tractable and obliging, agreeable and courteous in conversation, and accessible to all. He seemed to wish to be the first only among his equals. Never did he commit the error of carrying the tone of command from the army into the Senate ; he never ' had recourse to a brutality like the i8th Brumaire. He was monarch, but his head was not turned. Perhaps he is the only one among the Lord's mighty ones, who in great as in little never acted on whim or pre- judice, but always, without exception, in accordance with his duty ; and, C. JULIUS CAESAR 109 when looking back on his past life, though he may have regretted many a false estimate, he could not a single fault committed through passion. He is finally, perhaps, the only one of these same mighty ones who, with statesmanlike tact, limited his efforts to achieve the possible, and did not, as is the case with so many, when lifted to such a pinnacle, attempt that which he could not carry through. He never neglected to do the best possible by straining after an impossible excellence, and never sought to soothe, where he could not cure, intractable evils. When he knew that the voice of Fate spoke he bowed at once. Such was this unique man, whom to describe seems so easy, and yet is so vastly difficult. His whole nature is of transparent purity. Such a personality may be de- scribed with deeper or more shallow insight, but in its main features it is unmistakeable, and yet no one yet has succeeded in thoroughly reproduc- ing it. And the secret lies in its perfection. Humanly and historically, Caesar stood at the point of equation of the great contradictions of Fortune. Of vigorous creative genius, and of the clearest intelligence, not a youth, and not an old man, full of the highest desire, and capable of the highest accomplishment, full of republican ideas and yet born to be a king, a Roman to the smallest fibre and yet called on to conciliate in himself and in society the Hellenic and the Roman cultures, Caesar proved himself to be a man in full integrity and perfection of being ; when, therefore, once in a thousand years absolute perfection is pre- sented to the historian, he throws up his task, and keeps silence.' It is somewhat remarkable that Caesar should be represented to us as a man who was a professed atheist, and yet no face, among all the busts that have come to us from the classic epoch, is so completely that of the highest and purest ecclesiastical type as that of Caesar. Put on a biretta, and the face is that of an Itahan saintly confessor. The lofty arched crown of the head is that of an idealist, it is full of reverence ; and that wonderful, far-looking, up-raised eye, that we see in all the best busts, is that of a man looking away from the world into a region of abstractions, with a strange mixture of longing and of sadness. The raised eye is so exceptional, so unique among Roman busts, that it must have been a characteristic of Caesar. It was said that Caesar was an unbeliever in God. In the gods many and demigods many that peopled the Roman and Greek pantheon he was certainly no believer ; but he always showed his conviction in a ' Genius ' or a Providence above him. A sneer has been cast at him for ascending the steps of the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol at his triumph upon his knees, as a piece of grovelUng superstition ; but of superstition there was no trace in Caesar's mind. It is far more pro- bable that in the day of his highest glory he felt that all he had, and all he had done were due to the protection of the All-Father, that mysterious, undefined, unrevealed, yet acknowledged Providence, which a man of his genius and earnestness of mind could hardly fail to believe in, and no I'HE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS that he desired to testify this by this outward act. He can hardly have denied what was clear to such as Horace — Reges in ipsos imperium est Jovis. Suetonius says that he pillaged the temples in Gaul, forgetful of the fact that there were no temples there, and that in Gaul the Druids were his best friends. Indeed, of temples he was scrupulously careful. Varro had robbed that of Hercules at Gades, but Caesar restored to it the gold. When Metellus Scipio threatened to despoil the temple of Diana at Ephesus, Caesar protected it. It may be a strange thing to say, and yet, with his history before us, it seems to me that Caesar was one of the most lovable arid admirable characters of whom we have record. .;:•.', ' '■ A few anecdotes have been preserved — unhappily only a few^hat serve to show how courteous and kindly a man he was in private life. One evening he was supping at the table of an acquaintance. The oil was rancid. The guests left their viands unconsumed, turning up their noses, and looking at each other. Not so Caesar : to spare the feelings of his host, he ate what was set before him, and continued to speak as though he did not observe the unpleasant taste of the condi- ment. On a journey with Oppius he came to a small hut, in which was a single bed. Oppius was feverish, unwell. Caesar insisted on his having the bed, and he flung himself on the ground to Sleep. He was always ready to give praise to his officers and soldiers when they deserved it, and to palliate their mistakes when not due to negligence. His influence with them was great, with his soldiers permanent. They cheerfully underwent extremity of hardships when he required it of them. The loth legion was mutinous, disappointed that it had not received as much prize-money as was expected. He brought it to submission by a word — ' Quirites — citizens ! ' Once when panic had seized his troops, apd the standard-bearer was preparing to fly, Caesar took him by the shoulders, turned him round, and said, ' Friend, you have mistaken your way.' The threatened rout was converted into a victory. Caesar paid a visit to Cicero, with whom he had had a literary passage-of-arms over the character of Cato, and we have a curious account of this interview from the pen of Cicero. Caesar walked on the sea-shore for a while, and then came to his host's house, and took a bath. While thus refreshing himself, an attendant recited to him a scurrilous epigram made against him by the fashionable poet Catullus.i Caesar listened without showing any emotion. He was accustomed to this foul abuse. It wounded him, but he would not revenge it. Catullus afterwards apologised for this lampoon, and was frankly » There are two by Catullus, xxix. and Ivii. It is not known which it was that was read «o Caesar. It is on stuff such as this that Suetonius relies for his scandalous accusations. C. JULIUS CAESAR iii pardoned, and invited to sup with Caesar. One may question whether a Christian prince would have been so forbearing. It is perhaps well here to mention a scandalous story, relative to Caesar, that is repeated by historians, without much scruple or investigation of the grounds on which it rests. It is possible enough, though not certain, that Caesar fell under the fascinations of the beautiful queen of Egypt, whilst he was in Alexandria. Cleopatra had a son in B.C. 47, and out of compliment to Caesar called him Caesarion. That was sufficient for the malevolent in Rome to declare that the child owed its paternity to Caesar when he was in Egypt. But this was not enough. They declared, so as to excite the prejudices of the Roman populace, that Caesar meditated the divorce of Calpurnia, that he might marry the Egyptian queen, and legitimatise his son so as to leave to him the empire over the Roman world. So far malicious gossip, the purpose of which is obvious enough. Historians have gone further. They tell us that Caesar actually ihvited Cleopatra to Rome, for this purpose, and gave up to her his gardens and villa on the Janiculum, beyond the Tiber. Now the story of Caesar's fatherhood of Caesarion was denied em- phatically by Oppius, the most intimate friend of the dictator, when Antonius somewhat later asserted it for the sake of annoying Octavius. As to the invitation to Cleopatra to come to Rome, and accepted by her, it rests on no better evidence than two vague allusions in the letters of Cicero to the presence of a queen in Rome at the time of the murder of Caesar. He says that on hearing the tidings she fled. Now, as it happens, we do know that Caesar had sent Berenice, sister of Cleopatra, to Rome, and it is not at all unlikely that this is the person to whom Cicero refers. But had there been any amour carried on by Caesar with Cleo- patra, there almost certainly would be a trace of such a report in the letters of Cicero to Atticus, for he picked up and detailed to his friend all the gossip of the city, but there is none. Suetonius says, indeed, that Caesar invited Cleopatra to Rome, and sent her back laden with presents. That is possible ; but, if so, then she was not the queen who fled when she heard of his murder. The story of Suetonius does not agree with the allusion in Cicero. Had Caesarion been the child of the great dictator, we may be sure Caesar would have mentioned him in his will, and left him to the protection of the Roman people. But he did not allude to him by a word, and it was regarded as a singular and pointed slight for a Roman not to leave something to every friend and kinsman. This was felt by Pompeius when Sulla passed him over in his testament. As Suetonius admits, Caesar at the time of his murder was in failing health and weary of life. That was one reason why he cared not to surround himself with guards. An odd time for an old man to be intriguing with a young foreign woman. 112 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS Every kind of malevolent report that could prejudice Caesar with the multitude was diligently spread. It was said that he was going to abandon Rome and rebuild Troy, and make that the capital of the world, because the sacred Julian race was supposed to come from thence. We shall notice presently another abominable rumour that was circulated concerning him. XI.— PORTRAITS OF JULIUS CAESAR. The head of Caesar in profile is found on numerous coins and on medals of the great families. The first coin struck in his honour with his bust on it was in B.C. 44, only two months before his murder — struck by the master of the mint, Flaminius Chilo ; others were struck by M. Mettius, L. Aemilius Buca, and C. Cossutius Maridianus. These were the only coins struck during his life, and the type of face on all these varies considerably ; on those struck later there is also a considerable variation. A gold coin of Agrippa of the year b.c. 38 gives a youthful portrait. Yet though there are great differences in the way in which Caesar is represented, there is a certain likeness running through them all. Statues and Busts. 1. A statue of Julius Caesar, nude, and about 28, in the Louvre, a magnificent specimen of Greek sculpture. This statue was for long supposed to represent Germanicus. In my opinion it is indubitably a youthful Julius Caesar. See Figs. 6 and 7. It seems to me not improbable that this statue suggested to Horace his second Ode, in which he invokes Augustus, under the form of the youthful Mercury, to be the avenger of the death of Juhus Caesanll Why Horace should associate this idea of Hermes with the avenging of the death of the great dictator has never appeared very obvious. But if this statue of Julius Caesar as Hermes was well known to him, the chain of ideas is clear at once. Octavius, at the same age, or at all events, in youth, succeeds to the divine attributes of his adoptive father, and avenges him. In the ode there are two points needing explanation, first, why Octavius is represented with the attributes of Mercury ; and secondly, why he, as Mercury, is sent against the mur- derers of Julius Caesar. With the statue before us we understand both points. 2. The statue in the Palace of the Conservatori, in armour with chlamys. It was found in the forum of Caesar. Only the point of the nose and some patching of the cheeks are new. Of the genuineness of this there can be no question. It is a work above the average, but the face is somewhat characterless. Figs. 10 and 11. fiQ 24. C. JULIUS CAESAR, as Pontifex Maximus in the Museum Chiaramonti, No. 133. H 114 THE TRAGEDY OE THE CAESARS 3, 4. Statue in the Berlin gallery, in toga, holding a roll in the left hand, the right extended. The head is that of Caesar, but did not originally belong to this statue. It came from the Polignac collection, whereas the trunk was found in 1825 at Colonna, near Rome. The head is admirable, and is almost identical with that in the Hall of Busts, in the Vatican, No. 272. The expression is kindly. In the Vatican bust -the nose has been restored. Fig. 23. 5. Bust in the Chiaramonti Museum, No. 107; resembles the profile on the coins of the Flaminian family ; perhaps one of the best in Rome after that already mentioned. Figs. 12 and 21. 6. Bust of Caesar, aged, veiled as Pontifex Maximus. Vatican, Mus. Chiaramonti, No. 135 ; Bernoulli doubts this, as the apparent age is 70. But hard warfare and many cares had aged Caesar beyond his years. Fig. 24. 7. Bust in the Villa Borghese, veiled ; resembles the last. 8. Bust in the Campo Santo at Pisa ; a very interesting bust, but with nose and chin restored, and too much hair on the top of the head ; anyhow, intended for Caesar. Fig. 9. 9. Bust at Turin, resembling somewhat that of the Berlin statue (3). 10. Bust at Parma, about one-third life-size; admirable. • 11. Colossal bust at Mantua, of the same type. 12. Bust at Catajo, also of the same type. 13. Basalt or diorite bust at Berlin ; the eyes of which are paste. This is a very characteristic head ; but the form of the skull is quite different from other representations, and it is possible that it may have been given this shape - through some exigency of the stone. The same thing was done in intaglios occasionally. The hair is merely scratched in. This was a favourite bust with Frederick the Great, who purchased it from the Julienne collection. There are wonderful strength and energy in the head, mingled with gentleness and kindliness. Figs. 17 and 22. 14. Bust at Florence, draped, aged, and consequently mistrusted as a portrait by Bernoulli. It is not characteristic, nor is another in the same gallery purporting to be a head of Caesar. 15. Bust in the British Museum, of coarse white marble. Figs. 15 and 1 8. This splendid bust is full of character, especially observable in the profile. There is a wondrous expression of kindliness, sincerity, and patient forbearance with the weaknesses of mankind in the face, also a little weariness of the strain of life. The eye is raised, looking far beyond the horizon. This admirable head, in the opinion of Mr. Conrad Dressier, the sculptor, was no/ done from the life ; there are errors in the anatomical structure that show this. The cheek-bone is a plane, not a ridge ; the width of the skull above the ears would be impossible in fact. But though this portrait was not done from the life, it was done by a man who knew Julius Caesar well, who had seen him over and over again, and had been so deeply impressed by his personality that he has C. JULIUS CAESAR 115 given us a better portrait of the man than if he had done it from Ufe. He has caught, and has exaggerated, the peculiarities that struck him — such as the width of the skull, the mass of common sense balancing and controlling the imagination — he knew nothing of phrenology, but he was struck and amazed at the massiveness of the lower portions of the skull. Again, from intimate acquaintance with his model, he caught and reproduced those peculiarities of his expression which Caesar's face had when in repose, the sweet, sad, patient smile, the reserve of power in the lips, and that far-off look into the heavens, as of one searching the unseen, and trusting in the Providence that reigned there. I was in Mr. Dressler's studio at the time when the controversy was raging relative to Mr. Stanley's rear-guard. Curiously enough, this accomplished sculptor had completed a bust of the African explorer modelled from life, and he had in his studio a cast from the British Museum bust of Caesar, so that I could look from one to another and compare these heads. Was it wonderful that there came into my mind the thought of how differently the two men had dealt with their subalterns ? Julius Caesar had an unsatisfactory lieutenant, Curio, who in Africa by mismanagement lost two legions intrusted to him. And how did Caesar treat his lieutenant, who perished with his men ? In his memoirs he mentions the disaster, but deals with the memory of the dead man with the utmost tenderness. ' The young man's youth had much to do with the disaster,' he wrote : ' his former success moreover, and his faith in his own good fortune ' : not a word of reproach escapes him, and one has but to look at the delicately formed lower portion of the face, to see that in Caesar there was not only the highest refinement of culture, but also a patience, a forbearance, a charity that would be sublime even in a Christian. Mr. Dressier placed for me beside the bust of Caesar, one certainly taken from life, of the Renaissance period, representing a Florentine. In this latter face every anatomical particular was correct; but looking at it, one could read naught of the soul that had been lodged within. It suggested nothing. It was a bust studied from a man about whom the sculptor knew nothing and cared less. It reproduced, accordingly, every pimple and every wrinkle, but let one into none of the mysteries of the soul of the model. On the other hand that of Caesar, inaccurate anatomically, gives us a lively picture of the intellectual, moral, spiritual man, rather than of his flesh and muscles and bones. The artist forgot the scar — he forgot the baldness, in the radiancy of the soul that shone out of that impressive, beautiful face. In this does the British Museum bust differ from that other bust, in its way hardly inferior, in the Louvre. This latter (16) is perfectly true to life ; it is taken from Caesar in action by a man who had watched and studied Caesar in his wars, and he gives us an anatomically correct Caesar as a soldier. The sculptor of the ii6 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS British Museum bust gives us a spiritually correct Caesar as a man of peace. 1 6. Bust in the Louvre, — a truly marvellous portrait, though it lacks the repose of the two former. It gives the face of Caesar in battle, his intellect concentrated, resolution formed, watchful, determined. It is of a somewhat younger Caesar than the two already mentioned. A band or fillet is around the head. Fig. 13. 1 7. Colossal bust at Naples. This Bernoulli puts first in his list. Mr. Dressier cast it out as hardly deserving consideration, as devoid of artistic value, in this confirming my own judgment of it as all but worthless as a piece of portraiture. It is a mere stock bit of sculpture to represent Julius Caesar, but not from life, not by any one who had seen the living man. It is idealised from other busts, and is absolutely soulless. In some of the busts there appear traces of a scar on the left cheek. There are many other busts, intended for Julius Caesar, but of inferior value, none that I know beside these mentioned that can "be regarded as life studies. To my mind the most admirable, as representing the man, as he lived, as he looked, and clearly the work of men who had studied him alive, are the British Museum bust, the Louvre bust, the diorite bust at Berlin, the marble statue bust at Berlin, and that which closely resembles it in the Vatican ; and, lastly, those It Pisa and Parma. Of gems representing Caesar there are many; a list is given by Bernoulli. I may draw attention to the two fine full-face engraved gems in the British Museum (engraved in the Official Catalogue). Of these, one, No. 1557, is the finest. Both are copies of the same original. MARCUS ANTONIUS I.— AFTER THE MURDER. Caesar lay dead at the feet of the statue of Pompeius that had been cast down by the people, but which he had set up. The senate, mastered by terror, fled in disorder. A U C 710 M. Brutus attempted a harangue, but no one remained to "e.'c' 44. ' listen. IS March. Hard by was the circus of Pompeius, into which the populace had crowded for a show of gladiators. The tidings of the murder reached them on their benches ; the buzz of voices ceased, and in silence all rose and left by the wide vomitories, and dispersed through the town, giving the alarm on their way. On all sides were heard cries of ' Save your- selves ! close your doors ! ' and bolts were thrust and windows barred. Surprised at their isolation, the conspirators withdrew from the curia. They had intended to cast Caesar's corpse into the Tiber, but now, frightened at the effect of the general dismay produced by their act, they thought only of themselves, and, escorted by the gladiators of Decimus, flourishing their bloody daggers in mock heroics, and^ wrapping their togas about their left arms in real dread of attack, they ; proceeded to the forum, where they hoisted a cap of liberty on a spear. But this neither roused enthusiasm nor encountered resistance. The con- spirators were cowed. They had calculated on an outburst of applause, and expected to have been carried on the shoulders of the people in i triumph to the capitol. Disappointed and frightened, they ascended to i the temple of Jupiter, under pretence of offering their vows there, and, these heights occupied, the gladiators of Decimus were in position to resist an attack from below. The retreat saved them from colUsion with a body of troops hastily marched into the forum by Lepidus. The body of Caesar lay for some hours where it had fallen, but finally three of his skves summoned courage to place it in the litter in i which he had arrived at the curia, and carried it to the house where Cal- purnia awaited it wifh tears. Owing to there being but three bearers, the litter lurched on one side, so that one arm of the dead man hung out. As the shades of evening fell, one by one the timid nobles ascended to the capitol to congratulate the conspirators on their achievement, Fig. 25.— M. ANTONIUS. Bust in the Vatican, Braccio Nuovo, No. 97A. [Said to have been found at the Tor Sapienza, Rome, along with two others, Augustus and Lepidus.] MARCUS ANTONIUS 119 and to offer their undigested and contradictory advice. Among these new-comers were Lentulus Spinther, a man of wealth and birth, who had fought along with his father against Caesar, but had been freely par- doned; M. Favonius, a poor, empty, pompous creature, affecting the simplicity and sternness of Cato;i Cicero, blustering his applause, and rating the conspirators for not having given him the opportunity to drive a dagger into the man who had spared him over and over again when he deserved punishment, who had eaten recently at his table, and had laden him with courtesies and acts of kindnesses. The real and would-be conspirators sat in feverish debate, irresolute, not knowing the temper of the people, without having in the least fore- seen those consequences of their act which were patent enough to the shrewd sense of the vulgar. The people knew what the murder of Caesar involved— civil war, long possibly, disastrous and bloody certainly. Below, in the forum, the people had begun to gather, and with confused cries to demand the presence of the magistrates. Two only appeared, Cinna and Dolabella. Cinna was Caesar's brother-in-law. He owed everything to Caesar, who had obtained his recall from exile and had restored to him his estates confiscated by Sulla. But he had married a daughter of Pompeius, and was sulky because Caesar did not give him enough, and was perhaps worked upon by his wife. He , mounted the tribune, and threw off him the ensigns of his office of praetor that he owed to the favour of the dictator, and denounced the murdered man as a tyrant who had deserved his fate. The people would hear no more, they hooted him as a traitor and ^n apostate. Undeterred by his ill success, up leaped Dolabella, a very small man and inordinately conceited, a disreputable little wretch as well, a pro- fligate and a spendthrift. Caesar had been most patronising to him, and had promised him the consulship for B.C. 44. He now ventured to usurp the insignia, and to pour forth invectives against his benefac- tor who had recently relieved him from pecuniary embarrassment. Later he had the ferocity to get hold of certain persons who went to the overturned altar of Caesar to offer there their sacrifices, and have them crucified or thrown over the Tarpeian rock. The people listened to him with ill-disguised contempt. Then M. Brutus and C. Cassius spoke, and exhorted the people to recover their liberties, and to recall Sextus, the only surviving son of Pompeius. This was a conjuring up of something more than the phantom of civil war. The multitude remained silent and ominously cold. The disappointed liberators made the best of their way back to the capitol, where the deliberations were still going on: — and were still fruitless. The conspirators had agreed to kill the dictator, but had formed no plan as to what was to be done 1 Described along with L. Postumiis as 'quasi magnae navis supervacua onera,' by the pseudo-Sallust. He was known also as • Gate's ape.' 120 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS after that ; and now that they had executed their deed, they looked each other in the face and asked what step was next to be taken. Cicero urged the convocation of the senate, but the senators were too timorous to appear when summoned. As for the people — it was clear from the ill success of Brutus, Dolabella, and Cinna that they were antagonistic. In spite of the protest of the great orator, it was resolved to negotiate with Antonius and Lepidus ; in other words — with the army. The conspirators had struck, in Caesar, the darling of the soldiers, the head and crown of the military power, and in their fright they thought that they must now make an attempt to win over the favour of that power. Two circumstances combined to help them. Antonius was in command of no forces ; Lepidus had troops under him. But Antonius was jealous of Lepidus, and Antonius was consul. If Lepidus took a decided course against the murderers, then, as Antonius saw clearly enough, he would become the darling of the army and the champion of the people. He therefore persuaded Lepidus, a weak man, to listen to the overtures of the liberators, and temporise. The night was agitated. The friends of the conspirators ran about the town, hammering at the doors of the conscript fathers, urging them to assemble next day in the curia, and ratify the act that had been com- mitted. But the delegates of the legions were also in Rome. Caesar had promised the grant of certain domains to them, and now they feared lest, with the death of the dictator, this understanding should not be fulfilled. They therefore also clamoured at the doors of the senators, to remind them that the soldiers must not be forgotten in their deliberations. Day dawned, and the bewildered conscript-fathers took their way to the curia. Among them was Cinna, who had reconsidered his re- signation of the praetorship, and had resumed the insignia. March. He was received by the rabble and the soldiers with howls of rage, with stones and mud. He fled into a house. It was surrounded, and would have been burnt, had not Lepidus arrived with his soldiers and quelled the riot. In the senate, Cicero rose to propose a general amnesty, and his proposition was carried, but with the proviso insisted on by Antonius, that none of the acts of Caesar should be questioned or cancelled. This was to absolve and condemn, in one breath, the murderers of Caesar. Fear and interest combined to eftect its adoption, and a hollow peace was concluded. That evening Antonius received Cassius at his table, and Lepidus invited Brutus to his. Caesar was still lying unburied, with Calpurnia weeping over his wounds. Already a frater- nisation was going on between his friends and his murderers. At this point we will turn to consider the earlier history and the character of Marcus Antonius. Marcus Antonius was the eldest son of a father of the same name. MARCUS ANTONIUS 121 He was born in the year 83, and was therefore nineteen years younger than Caesar. His family was ancient, though plebeian. Being unable to claim a patrician origin they pretended to be descended from the god Hercules. But in spite of divine origin and protection, the house had become poor. Marcus Antonius the elder had been an unsuccessful man ; he had been given command of a fleet in order to clear of pirates the coasts of the Mediterranean, and had been attacked by them, in place of attacking them, when in harbour at Crete, and had escaped from destruction by concluding with them an ignominious treaty. In derision he was called Antonius Creticus j and he did not venture after that to show his face in Rome. He had married Julia, daughter of Lucius Julius Caesar, consul in B.C. 90. After the death of Antonius, Julia married Lentulus, who was strangled for his complicity in the Catiline conspiracy. Lentu- lus had been turned out of the senate for his infamous life and manners. It was said of him that there was nothing too bad for him to say or do, and it was under such a stepfather that Antony's boyhood was passed.^ The gentle mother was too weak to control the self-willed lad, and the example of and association with the dissolute youths of the capital, as well as his own vigorous and passionate nature, caused him to spend a wild and profligate adolescence. It was a long stride from a disorderly and impoverished early manhood to the position he was to attain, of lord of half the world, engaged in contest with the heirs of Caesar for the other half; and that he took this stride is evidence that there was more in him than was surmised by those who saw his wantonness and wastefulness in youth. His first political association was with Clodius, and what broke up this association was an intrigue Antonius had with Fulvia, the wife of the demagogue, whom later, to his misfortune, he married. Surrounded by, pestered by his creditors, he slipped away from Rome, and went to Greece. His education had been neglected, and he took advantage of this exile to remedy his deficiencies. But the stress of circumstances did not allow him for long to sit at the feet of the philosophers and rhetoricians of Athens. He was summoned to Syria by the proconsul Gabinius, and was appointed captain of his horse. As such he made the campaign in Egypt, which provided so much com- ment in Rome and led to the fall of Gabinius. In this campaign Antonius gave token of courage and military abilities, also of humanity and gentleness. He, however, soon saw that Gabinius was not the man under whom he could gain either laurels or wealth, and he left him, to return to Rome, where he was, literally, without a house to cover his head ; and where, moreover, his old creditors awoke to persecute him again. His just instinct led him to Caesar, the first among all first- 1 The name under the form of Marc Antony has been so familiarised with English people by Shakespeare, that it seems pedantic to employ the name m the Latm form. i may be excused if I use it in the future in the familiar form. 122 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS rate men, as Antony was the first among all second-rate men. Caesar was then in Gaul. Antony was twenty-nine, when he put himself un- reservedly into the hands of the ablest man of the time ; and it was due to the unbounded influence that Caesar exercised over him, that the headstrong, debauched youth developed powers and abilities that won him afterwards so great a place in the making of the destinies of the Roman world. With that clear insight into character that is possessed by born rulers, Caesar perceived in this youth something ■ that deserved to be cultivated, and something that would make of Antony the most suitable man for carrying out his plans. Caesar was disappointed in many of his other lieutenants, but not in Antony. The others served him in their own interest, overawed by his abilities ; but Antony loved Caesar with the whole strength of his impulsive nature. He possessed two good qualities not corrupted by early disorders, enthusiasm for what was great, and readiness to submit to the man he respected and loved, and whose immeasurable superiority he frankly acknowledged. In a very short while Caesar found that he was able to rely on Antony with complete confidence. In 53 he was elected quaestor, and as quaestor returned to Gaul and served under Caesar for the next two years. His energy and intrepidity pointed him out to Caesar as eminently calculated to uphold his interests in the capital against the aristocratic party bent on obtaining his recall. He was accordingly sent back to Rome, and was chosen one of the tribunes of the people. When, on the ist January 49, the senate passed a decree depriving Caesar of his command, Antony and his colleague, Q. Cassius, inter- posed their veto, and as the senate set this at naught, and threatened their lives, they fled in disguise to Caesar. Antony remained behind in Italy, whilst Caesar crushed the Pompeians in Spain. All that while he governed for Caesar with great prudence. After the battle of Pharsalia, in which he commanded the left wing, Antony was again intrusted with the command of Italy, whilst Caesar was in Africa. Then his natural love of display and pleasure was given full rein. He divorced his wife Antonia, his first cousin, and lived publicly with an actress named Cytharis, and, boasting of his descent from Hercules, drove about in a car to which lions were harnessed. When Pompeius' estate was put up to auction, Antony bought it, and supposed that Caesar, in recognition of his services, would not require him to pay the purchase-money. But Caesar was just as well as gener- ous, and he insisted on payment. This offended Antony, and he was further annoyed when Caesar, on entering on his third dictatorship, appointed Lepidus to be his master of horse. Caesar was, actually, provoked at the dissoluteness and extravagance of Antony, and passed him over on that account. When Caesar was forced again to return to Spain and Africa to MARCUS ANTONIUS 123 tread out the rekindled sparks of civil war, Antony remained behind at Rome like a sulky boy. But he loved and admired his master too sincerely to abide in this fit of bad humour, and after a year he over- came his annoyance, and himself held out his hand in reconciliation to Caesar — he, the younger by nineteen years, to the elder, the scholar to his teacher — and Caesar received him back with open arms. Thence- forth he remained firm in his adhesion to the new master of Rome. When the conspirators formed their plan of murdering the dictator, they resolved to assassinate Antony also, and it was only at the urgency of Brutus that they abandoned the project. As it was, they appointed one of their number to intercept Antony from entering the curia, by engaging him in conversation, whilst the blow was struck. They dreaded his herculean strength, as they were assured of his devotion. And now, when the deed was done, Antony invited one of the murderers to sup with him. Had he forgotten his master ? Did he not know that the pierced body lay unburied and unavenged on its pallet in the regia ? He had neither forgotten nor forgiven the act ; but was without material force behind him, and he must dissemble till he had taken his measures. Of that supper in the house of Antony, one curious incident is recorded. The consul knew that the guest and all the conspirators hated him, and hardly scrupled to kill him. Therefore, under his toga he wore a breastplate. During the meal he turned suddenly on Cassius and said, ' Well, have you a concealed dagger for me also ? ' ' Yes,' answered the murderer, rising on his elbow, ' one long enough to slay you too, if you venture to be a tyrant.' There is a bust, supposed to be that of Antony, in the Vatican Museum. It is of admirable workmanship. Unhappily the evidence in favour of it is not all that could be desired. It is said to have been found in a cave concealed along with two others, Octavius and Lepidus.^ It belongs to the period, and certainly has all the characteristics in the face that we should suppose. It is emphatically that of a man fond of his pleasures, kindly, not cruel, delighting in a joke, ready to laugh. There is no shiftiness, no low cunning in the face ; on the contrary, there is great frankness ; there is resolution, but not iron, rather a nature of iron mingled with clay. Of his medals there are plenty, and they tell much the same tale. It is a little surprising to see Antony so disguising his feelings as to receive the murderer at his table. Had Cassius looked into his face as he ate and drank and laughed, he would have seen water in the eyes, the lips quivering; and he would have noticed that the hand with 1 The evidence that a bust of Octavius was found with the two now in the Vatican is far from satisfactory. If they were found with Octavius, it is possible that they represent the other triumvirs, but only possible. We do not, however, really know for certain that they were so found. 124 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS which he raised his cup spilt the drops. There was no help for it. If Caesar's blood was to be avenged, then Antony knew there was no other man but himself to do it : he must exercise self-control till the occasion came, when he could let his heart reveal that it bled for his friend and master. The whole after-life of Antony shows what an intensely affectionate nature his was. We think of him as a sensualist, but it was not sensual passion that held him to Cleopatra, and through her brought about his ruin and death ; it was enthusiastic love of one who was far his superior in intellect and culture. He followed Cleopatra as he followed Caesar, with entire self-devotion. His was the nature that must cling to, and stay itself on one higher, stronger than himself. In spite of his round head, he was an idealist; and his character very attractive, because so full of generosity. Antony knew well his danger. The men who had murdered Caesar had wished to murder him also. But he was consul ; he had a brother, Caius, praetor; another, Lucius, tribune of the people. As consul he could unlock the doors of the public treasury, and at the requisite moment could lay his hands on the gold there accumulated by Caesar, and use it against Caesar's enemies. Yet so completely did he control himself at this time, that a few days later Cicero wrote to his friend Atticus, 'Antonius, I imagine, thinks only of good dinners, and not in the least of doing harm.' So little could he read that heart ; but then Cicero was himself a man without heart Antony never for a moment hesitated. With an energy and readi- ness that must excite our surprise and admiration, he had formed his resolution, whilst the irresolute murderers and their admirers were wavering from one course to another. And not his resolution only, but how it was to be carried out. What he aimed at was the empty chair of Caesar — that was the object of his personal ambition ; but stronger, deeper than that was his determination to visit the murder of his master on every one of those who had had a hand in it. A wrong done to himself he might forgive— if not in the first fury of resent- ment—but such a wrong done against the man whom he had held to, and who had helped him against his baser self, that he never could forgive. On the night after the murder he secured the papers of Caesar, which Calpurnia unreservedly placed in his hands ; a few hours after that he had his hand on the gold in the temple of Ops. Now he had that by means of which Rome could be won— Rome, where all was venal, as Jugurtha had said with a laugh, as he turned and left it. He knew what the stupid murderers wanted, though they themselves did not know, or could not agree how to attain it, and he was resolved to frustrate all their efforts to reach what they desired. His shrewd- ness, his courage, his determination with which he laid hold of the MARCUS ANTONIUS 125 rudder of the drifting, pilotless vessel of the state before the republican conspirators had come to any understanding what to do, is most re- markable. Meanwhile these conspirators, who had armed for liberty, were arranging among themselves the division of the plunder. M. Brutus claimed and was allowed the government of Macedonia, Gassius was to have Syria, Trebonius was to pillage Asia Minor, Cimber to take Bithynia, and Decimus Brutus arrogated to himself Cisalpine Gaul. This distribution of provinces had been made by. Caesar, who had been given power to appoint provincial governors. This it was which in- duced the conspirators to allow the acts of Caesar to be ratified. In the senate, Piso, Caesar's father-in-law, asked for a public funeral. The request sent a shock of fear through the conspirators. Atticus, sitting by Cicero, whispered to him, 'Permit this — and all is lost.' Cassius vehemently opposed the proposal, but M. Brutus, still con- vinced, in spite of evidence to the contrary, that the general opinion of the populace favoured their deed, exerted his ascendancy over his colleagues to induce them to yield. They put into the hand of Antony the very lever he desired to effect their overthrow. On a cold and windy day of March, the very day on which the funeral of Caesar took place, I went to the forum, and seated myself on the steps of the Julian Basilica, over against the place where the body of Caesar was burnt, looking at the platform whence Antony spoke to the people, and read Dean Merivale's account of the funeral. It is associated in my mind with that day, that scene ; it is inimitable for the skill with which all notices of that event are gathered up and woven together, and I venture to quote it, almost in its entirety, as it would be presumptuous in me to attempt it again. But I differ from him in his view of the character and the feelings of Antony at the time. What he regards as consummate acting I believe to have been the outburst of genuine feeling; and I believe that it was the genuineness of the emotion of Antony that caused the great explosion of feeling among the people. 'The heralds proclaimed throughout the city the appointed place and hour of the obsequies. A funeral pyre was constructed in the Field of Mars, close to the spot where lay the ashes of Julia ; for the laws forbade cremation within the walls. But the funeral oration was to be pronounced in the forum, and a temporary chapel, open on every side, modelled, it is said, after the temple of Venus the Ancestress, was erected before the rostra, and gorgeously gilded, for the reception of the body. The bier was a couch inlaid with ivory and strewn with vestments of gold and purple. At its head was suspended, in the fashion of a warrior's trophy, the toga in which the dictator had been slain, pierced through and through by the assassin's daggers. Cal- purnius Piso walked at the head of the procession as chief mourner ; the body was borne by the highest magistrates and most dignified 126 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS personages in the state ; the people were invited to make oblations for the pyre, of garments, arms, trinkets, and spices. So great was the Goncourse of the offerers, that the order ip which they were appointed to present themselves could not be preserved, but every one was allowed to approach the spot by whatever route he chose from every quarter of the city.' The spot was in front of the temple of Castor and Pollux — about which Bibulus, Caesar's old adversary, had made his joke ; divided from it by the Sacred Way, just below where the Tuscan street entered and crossed it. The little temple of Vesta was hard by, in which flickered the perennial fire, and the Puteal, the spot sacred to Jupiter, where once lightning had fallen. The house of the Vestal virgins was near the temple where the fire was maintained ; and near this also was the house that Caesar had occupied, the regia, the ofificial residence of the chief pontiff, from which the body had been borne. There was at that time a great square in front of the temples of the Dioscuri and of Vesta, and it was in this square, paved with basaltic cobblestones, that the shrine was erected in which lay Caesar's body, and before which was raised a rostrum from which the consul was to pronounce his panegyric on the dead. Immediately behind the temples, and the house of the Vestals abruptly rose the Palatine, crowned with the palaces and the gardens of the nobles, then as now thick with clusters of sombre ilexes, and with here and there, rising above them, a funereal cypress and an umbrella pine. But the volcanic rock at that time of the year, on the steep slopes, was vivid with fennel growing rank, and the lilac anemone starred every slip of grass. So dense does the fennel grow there, that the piazza behind the temple of the Dioscuri is called after it. ' Dramatic shows formed, as usual, part of the ceremony. The murder of Agamemnon, and the requital of Ajax, who complained that in saving the Greeks he had saved his own assassins, furnished pungent allusions to the circumstances of the time, and moved the sensibilities of an inflammable populace. 'While the feelings of the citizens were thus melting with com-, passion, or glowing with resentment, Antonius came forward, as the first magistrate of the republic, to deliver the funeral eulogy to the mighty dead. Historians and poets have felt the intense interest of the position he at that moment occupied, and have vied with each other in delineating with the nicest touches the adroitness he displayed in guiding the passions of his audience. Suetonius asserts that he added few words of his own to the bare recital of the decrees of the senate, by which every honour had been heaped upon Caesar, and of the oath by which his destined assassins had bound themselves to his defence. But Cicero tells a different story. He speaks with bitter indignation of the praises, the commiseration, and the inflammatory appeals, which MARCUS ANTONIUS 127 Antony interwove with his address. With such contemporary authority before us we may believe that the speech reported by Appian is no rhetorical fiction, but a fair representation both of the manner and substance of the actual harangue. The most exquisite scene in the truest of all Shakespeare's historical delineations adds but little except the charm of verse and the vividness of dramatic action to the graphic painting of the original record.' It seems to me that we lose the key to the whole story if we suppose that ' the famous speech was a consummate piece of dramatic art.' Had it been merely that, the people would hardly have been swept away into wild enthusiasm. It was the transparent sincerity of Antony, the genuineness of his grief, the crushing truth of his charges delivered with- boiling indignation against the murderers, that stirred the people to their heart's core. Consider what Caesar had been to Antony — to Antony, deprived of a father at an early age, and left to a wild and undisciplined youth, without a real friend and without an adviser and guide. In Caesar's strong, calm, and earnest character he found that support which he had needed. He owed every- thing that was good in him to Caesar, who had fostered these germs. To Caesar he owed all his power, position, and wealth. He had been with Caesar, trusted by Caesar as had been no other man, since his twenty-ninth year. It was in the nature of Antony to love intensely, sincerely, and to idealise the object of his devotion. He had been forced by his position to curb his feelings, to swallow his grief — and now — at the funeral, when he had before him the people whom Caesar had loved, and struggled for, and who were sad at heart and frightened because their friend was struck down, the genuine emotions broke out in a lava burst of passionate eloquence ; and as a lava torrent from a heart of fire, and not as a fictitious and theatrical exhibition, it proved irresistible. The face of Antony is not the face of an actor, it is that of a man of strong and honest feelings. In the battle of Actium his intense, self-forgetting passion for another whom he ideaUsed carried him away also — that time to his destruction. ' The eloquence of Antony was less moving than the gestures which enforced it, and the accessory circumstances which he enlisted to plead on his behalf. He addressed himself to the eyes, no less than to the ears of his audience. He disclaimed the position of a funeral panegy- rist: his friendship with the deceased might render his testimony suspected. He was indeed unworthy to praise Caesar; the voice of the people alone could pronounce his befitting eulogy. He produced the acts of the senate, and of the factions by whose hands Caesar had fallen, as the ground of his appeal, and the vouchers of his assertions. These he recited with a voice tremulous with grief, and a countenance struggling with emotions. 'He read the decrees which had within a twelvemonth heaped 128 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS honours on Caesar, and which declared his person inviolate, his authority supreme, and himself the chief and father of his country. Were these honours excessive or dangerous to the state ? the senate had bestowed them : did they trench upon the attributes of the gods ? the pontiffs had sanctioned them. And when he came to the words " consecrated, inviolable, father of his country " the orator pointed with irony to the bleeding and lifeless corpse, which neither laws nor oaths had shielded from outrage.' He appealed, it may be observed, to the moral sense of his hearers. He showed them the senators cowardly, mean, cringing, taking the most solemn oaths and breaking them, claiming Caesar as their father and involving themselves therefore in the guilt of parricide, as they did of sacrilege, for they had proclaimed him divine. 'He passed on to recite the solemn oath by which the senate, the nobles, and among them the conspirators themselves, had devoted their hearts and hands to their hero's defence ; and thereupon turning with glowing emotion towards the temple of Jupiter, conspicuous on the Capitol, he exclaimed : " And I, for my part, am prepared to maintain my vow to avenge the victim I could not save. " The senators scowled and murmured. Antonius pretended to check his impetuosity, and address himself to soothing their alarm. After all, he said, " Let us bow to the stroke as mortal men. Let us bury the past in oblivion. Let us bear away these venerable remains to the abodes of the blessed, with due lamentations and deserved eulogies." ' With these words the consummate actor girt his robes closely around him, and, striding to the bier, with his head inclined before it, muttered a hymn to the body, as to the image of a god. In rapid verse or solemn modulated prose he chaunted the mighty deeds and glories of the deceased, the trophies he had won, the triumphs he had led, the riches he had poured into the treasury. "Thou, Caesar, alone wast never worsted in battle ; thou alone hast avenged our defeats and wiped away our disgraces. By thee the insults of three hundred years stand requited. Before thee has fallen the hereditary foe who burnt the city of our fathers." The groans of men and the shrieks of women drowned the plaintive accents of the speaker. Suddenly, Antonius raised the mangled garment which hung over the body, and, waving it before the people, disclosed the rents of the murderers' daggers. The excitement of the populace now became uncontrollable. Religious enthusiasm fanned the flame of personal sympathy. They forbade the body to be carried to the Field of Mars for cremation. Chairs, benches, and tables were snatched from the adjacent buildings, a heap of fuel was raised before the door of the pontifical rnansion in the forum, and the body, snatched by tumultuary hands, was cast upon it in a frenzy of excitement. Two young men, girt with swords and javelin in hand, were seen to apply the torch. Castor and Pollux, it was believed, had MARCUS ANTONIUS 129 descended more than once in human form to save the republic' Their temple overlooked the whole scene. ' A divine sanction was thus given to the deed : every scruple was overruled ; and it was resolved to con- sume the hero's remains in the heart of his own city. The people continued to pile up branches and brushwood ; the musicians and players added their costly garments to the heap ; the veterans their arms, the matrons their ornaments; even the trinkets which adorned the children's frocks were torn off, and offered in the blazing conflagra- tion. Caesar was beloved by the Romans ; he was not less dear to the foreigners, who owed so much to his ascendancy, and had anticipated so much more. Gauls, Iberians, Africans, and Orientals, crowded in successive groups around the pyre, and gave vent to the sense of their common misfortune. Among these the Jews were eminently con- spicuous. Caesar was the only Roman who had respected their feelings, and assured them of his sympathy. ' So violent a demonstration of grief could not stop here. Brands snatched from the flaming pile suggested the most obvious vengeance, and offered the readiest weapons. The crowds streamed away from the forum through the streets : the houses of Brutus and Cassius were the first objects of attack. The liberators had indeed fled, and the rioters were repulsed ; for in Rome every noble mansion formed a domestic fortress, and was proof against a sudden attack.' Helvius Cinna, who had flattered and fawned on the dictator, but had since his murder been diligently spreading a detestable slander, that Caesar had meditated a law whereby every woman in Rome was to be placed at his disposal, was fallen on by the enraged people and torn to pieces. It was said that he was mistaken for the equally despicable praetor Cornelius Cinna, against whom, as a turncoat, the people were specially exasperated ; as it was, they summarily executed a man who as richly deserved lynching, and it is quite probable that they knew what they were about, and punished him for the lie he was spreading, and which they knew to be a lie. Caius Casca affixed to his house-door a paper to notify that he was not the man who had murdered Caesar. The house of Bellienus, a freedman, notorious for his hostility to the dead dictator, was burnt to the ground. No further violence was committed, but the liberators had been shown in an unmistakable manner that they had nursed themselves in a fool's paradise, when they had supposed their act would be approved by the people of Rome. Brutus and Cassius fled to Lanuvium, and there remained, afraid to venture their persons in the streets of the capital. Antony, who, it must be remembered, was but imperfectly educated, and had never cultivated the art of oratory, had been carried away by his feelings, and by the conviction which his words had stirred among the people. He felt he had gone too far, and sought to disarm the terrors of the senate. 130 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS A certain number of the knights, old pubhcans, bankers, and speculators, formed the idea of associating to furnish a fund, out of which the murderers of Caesar might enlist an army ; but when Atticus, Cicero's correspondent and friend, refused to accept the presidency, the scheme fell to the ground ; and Brutus and Cassius were left unsupported to learn the truth that a nation is not to be regenerated by assassination. Meantime Antony was not idle, though disguising his ulterior pur- pose. The helpless senate was grateful that he sought its advice and obeyed it, whilst actually he dominated its councils. Cicero regarded him with hatred, because jealous of him. This distinguished orator fondly hoped that, now the dictator was removed, the old rotten and fallen constitution could be set up again, and galvanised into life by the power of his tongue. He saw in Antony a man who could sway the hearts of the people with unvarnished words, shaped by no oratorical rule, and accompanied by no studied postures and conventional flourishes of the arm. At this crisis Cicero thought that he himself ought to be the man in the state to whom all should look for guidance. He found, to his disgust, that Antony had risen to be arbiter of the fate of the republic. This he could not forget and forgive. For some months Antony continued to strengthen his position and prepare for the great stroke he meditated, without over-alarming the senate. But the inherent inability of Antony to pursue his end vigor- ously till it was reached brought him to the edge of destruction. The appearance of Octavius, the adopted son and heir of Caesar, upon the stage led to the strangest combinations and entanglements. Antony, hitherto the head of the Caesarian party, stood triumphant in opposition to the aristocracy, with sword drawn to sweep them aside so as to reach the murderers of Caesar, when the arrival of Octavius altered everything. The party at the head of which stood Cicero at once turned to this ' boy,' with the object of using him as their tool against Antony, by divid- ing the Caesarian party. The young Octavius listened to their solicita- tion, seemed to yield, and not to perceive that this utterly unscrupulous party sought in him merely a weapon against Antony, with the intention of snapping and casting him away when they had done with him. Octavius mistrusted Antony : he saw plainly enough that he aimed at the dictatorship, and would brush him aside if he stood in his way. He had a difficult game to play ; but he played it skilfully and successfully. Instead of taking part with Antony, whose honesty of purpose he wrong- fully mistrusted, he coalesced with that party that applauded the murder of his kinsman and adopted father, and screened his murderers. But he united with it only so far as served his purpose to impress on Antony his importance as a factor in the great game. No sooner was Antony defeated by Decimus Brutus before Mutina (Modena) than he abruptly changed face, entered into confederacy with Antony, who had fallen MARCUS ANTONIUS 131 back on Lepidus with his legions, and the amazed and frightened sena- torial party saw themselves confronted by three resolute men at tlie head of a large force, animated by one determination, to execute judg- ment on the murderers of Caesar, but otherwise without agreement. Lepidus had no ulterior views, but Antony and Octavius each aimed at supreme power. The new Triumvirate differed from the first, in that it was based on a statute that gave them almost absolute constitutional power over the whole Roman world for five years. The old republican constitution was thus practically swept away. The senate might, and did, legislate, but over its head were waved the swords of those who commanded the legions. The legislative body was, and had been since the days of Sulla and Marius, incapable of opposing the will of those to whom, out of their own body, they had given provinces, and with the provinces the command of the soldiery. Inevitably the men at the head of the legions would either combine to control the senate, or fight each other for the mastery, and for the sole power of ruling the legislative body. The new Triumvirate was, like the first, a compromise that merely deferred the inevitable contest for supremacy between Octavius and Antony. Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus, entered Rome, and held there their bloody tribunal. C. Julius Caesar had exercised clemency towards all his enemies, covert and proclaimed, and they had taken advantage of that clemency to drive their daggers into his un- protected body. Now judgment visited them, and visited them in pitiless fashion. What they had sown, that they reaped. They had taught their masters that no singleness of purpose, no sincere love of country, no redress of abuses, were valued by them a straw beside their own ambition to have a grasp on the provinces and the flush treasury ; they had taught them that no gentleness and forbearance and generosity could touch these souls, steeped in the grossest sensuality and the meanest greed. If Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus chastised them with scorpions, they deserved it. Some pity is possibly provoked for Cicero, because he was an able man, and had grey hairs. But Cicero had ensured on himself the fate which met him, by his Philippics against Antony, in which he had transgressed every rule of decency, justice, and good taste. Such brutal insults could only be wiped out with blood. He had pursued and calumniated Antony in a manner unparalleled since the world began. Antony would have been a man of superhuman virtue to have spared him. Antony was in a fever of resentment against the party that had put forward Octavius against him, and stung to mad- ness by the invectives heaped upon him. The proscription was due mainly to him. Seneca indeed says that Octavius ' dictated the names of the proscribed whilst at table.' But against this we may set the authority of Dio Cassius, who exonerates Octavius of having had an active part in the proscription. 132 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS The murderers and the heads of the Republican army had fled. They had secured the support of Sextus Pompeius, whose fleet ruled the sea, and was now in the East. To Antony fell the obligation to pursue and chastise them. The great and fatal defect in the character of Antony was his in- ability to maintain the high level of achievement which he reached by spasmodic eff'orts. This was due in a large measure to faults in education. He had never been taught self-control ; and the laxity of his youth pursued him through life and robbed him of the fruit of his successes. Caesar trusted him and used him, and, sustained by his love and veneration for Caesar, Antony did well, and deserved the confidence reposed in him. But when the eye of Caesar was off him, and he was left in sole command in Italy, he lapsed into self-indulgence and follies worthy only of a loose boy. Caesar let him understand his displeasure, and Antony accepted the reproof. On Caesar's death, in a position of unparalleled difficulty, Antony developed a remarkable political ability, quite unexpected in him, used self-constraint, tact, and shrewdness, that were deserving of praise; but no sooner had he got the keys of the position in his hands than he became reckless, and allowed a mere boy of eighteen to snatch them from him. It was the same when in Egypt. Governor of Asia, he was in a position of extraordinary power, and yet he wantonly threw away his chances, caring only for dalliance with Cleopatra. If he assumed a mask, he was impatient to throw it off. If he exerted himself during one hour, he asked for two in which to forget his troubles and relax his nerves ; a man of fits and starts, of good and evil ; a man whose career was ruined by his early self-indulgence and lack of steady discipline. He had a kindly heart and some generosity, but no knowledge of himself, no prudence, no moderation ; great abilities, but not the perseverance which could give him the fruits of what he won with his abilities, military and political. Beside Antony we have Lepidus. Drumann has drawn his picture with extravagant touches ; he sketches Lepidus as a rogue and a fool. He was neither : he was a man of the second class of abilities, and low down in that class. He had no great ambition. He loved his country and was willing, nay, eager, to do his utmost, at the sacrifice of his own chances, to spare Rome unnecessary bloodshed. After the death of Caesar he alone was present in the neighbourhood, at the head of troops, and he might at once have invested himself with dictatorial power, and proceeded to revenge the murder. The senate feared him, Antony saw the danger, and both approached him. Lepidus listened to their words, and desisted from taking any steps to provoke civil war. Indeed, he withdrew with his legions into Transalpine Gaul, and when the sword was drawn in Italy he declined to take part with either Antony or Decimus Brutus and Octavius — whose position of fraternisation with the party that had upheld the assassins, he could not understand. But when MARCUS ANTONIUS '33 Antony and Octavius united and declared their resolve to bring the murderers to account, then all hesitation in Lepidus ceased, and he joined with them. He was present at the conference in which the proscription lists were drawn up, and it is recorded against him that he delivered over his own brother to the murderers. This is inaccurate. His brother Paullus was one of the aristocratic party, and had joined in declaring hirri an enemy of the State, and therefore to be put to death, openly or by assassination. Lepidus did have his brother's name inscribed among those on the proscription list, but when he sent soldiers after his brother it was with orders to let him escape, and Paullus did escape to Miletus, and speedily received his full pardon. Fig. 26.— M. AEMILIUS LEPIDUS. Musidian gens, enlarged. Gold Medal of the In the division of the provinces among the triumvirs, Lepidus obtained Spain and Narbonese Gaul, and he surrendered seven out of his ten legions to Antony and Octavius without complaint. His colleagues gave him but a secondary part to play, and he was content. He had no ambition for anything higher. In r,.c. 42, Lepidus was consul. His colleagues had no further need for him, he was too poor a creature to match with them, and after the battle of Philippi, at the close of this year, under pretext that he was in treasonable correspon- dence with Sextus Pompeius, they deprived him of his provinces. It was, however, arranged that should the charge prove unfounded, he should be given Africa. The triumvirs were unable to establish any- thing against Lepidus, and in B.C. 40 he was allowed to take possession of the province of Africa, which he retained for six years, and allowed himself to drop out of all influence and power in Rome. It was only when he saw that it was the resolve of Octavius to deprive him of every shred of power that he took up arms and attempted to make himself master of Sicily. The beautiful bust in the Vatican, which is said to have been found along with one of Octavius and another supposed to be Antony, is catalogued as Lepidus. It may be so. It does not, however, well agree with the gems and coins. It represents a man, gentlemanlike, and the 134 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS Lepidi were gentlemen of the bluest blood, without strength of character, easily swayed, and without a tinge of cruelty. If he did a cruel thing it was in self-protection. There is a little dulness about the brow and eyes, as though he were a man who did not see his way clearly before him, but strove to do what was right as far as he saw his way.i The brow is remarkably narrow, and the mouth weak, the lower lip and chin drawn back. In the bust he is bearded. He does not so appear on either of the gems bearing his head. II.— ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. It is not my purpose to write of the events of Roman history that ensued on the setting up of the Triumvirate to the fall of Antony ; to tell how Brutus and Cassius were defeated and slain in the battle of Philippi, nor of the progress of the infatuation of Antony for Cleopatra. Fig. 27.— CLEOPATRA. Bronze Medal of Alexandria, enlarged. Antony, to his misfortune, had taken to wife Fulvia, the widow of Clodius, a masculine, resentful, strong-willed woman, 'in whom,' says Velleius Paterculus, 'there was nothing feminine but her body.' Antony was warmly attached to his two sons, born to him by her, but he could not love the mother, who surpassed him in passion and ambition, and her savage cruelty and persistent vindictiveness were the reverse of his disposition. Her stronger intellect and will dominated his, which was weak in those points where hers was strong. They stood to each other much in the relation of Macbeth to Lady Macbeth. She hated and feared the ' boy ' Octavius, and would have driven her husband on to a death-grapple with him, before he had 1 Portraits of Lepidus :^ 1. Coin of Antonian gens, struck at Ephesus ; Bronze ; Moretti, Thesaur. Ifum, Famil. Roman, p. 20, No. 7. 2. The coins, gold and silver, with his head along with those of Augustus or Antonius, are ill struck. That of the Musidian gens engraved above, 3. Gem, black jasper ; King's Gems, Plate ii. 18. 4. Gem, King, PI. xlviii. 6. 5. Bust in Vatican, found at the Tor Sapienza, Br. Nuovo, No. io5 ; doubtful. 6. Bust in Torlonia Gallery, found at Civitavecchia ; Greek marble, wears chlamys , No. 5ro, doubtful. MARCUS ANTONIUS 135 grown strong. Antony sought in vain to soften her rugged nature; and Plutarch has preserved to us one incident, 'out of many others of like nature,' of their relation to each other, and of the contrast of their characters. Once Antony disguised himself as a slave, and thus brought her a written bulletin recording his death. Without opening the letter, she cried out passionately, 'Does Antony live?' whereupon he caught her in his arms. She did love him, in her tigerish fashion ; she had no appreciation of his fun and jokes, still less of his forbearance and amiability, which she scorned as weaknesses. Indeed, all his better qualities, which she ought, as a wife, to have fostered, she trampled under foot with contempt. ' Her whole aim was,' says Plutarch, ' to rule a ruler, and be commandress of a commander.' Her rancour and cruelty knew no bounds, and many of the bloody deeds done in the time of the proscription were due to her instigation and furtherance, Antony being too weak to oppose her. The story is well knowij how when Cicero was slain, she had the head brought to her and drove her bodkin through the tongue that had maligned hei and her husband. 'It was to Fulvia,' says Plutarch, 'that Cleopatra owed her triumph, for the former had educated Antony into submission to female authority. He had gone through such a schooling to her as made him perfectly tractable when he came into the hands of the Egyptian queen.' M. Antonius= The Orator, b. 6ii (B.C. I43)» Cos. 655 (b.c. 99), +667 (B.C. 87). 2d W. JULIA = M. AnTONIUS CRETICUS:=lSt w. NOMITORIA da. L. JuliuR Caesar. praet. 679 (b.c. 75), +circ. 681 (b.c. 73). d. s.p. C. Antonios Hybeida= . . . Cos. 691 (b.c. 63), -fcirc. 712 (b.c. 42). 1st w. Fadia=M. ANTONIUSr: the Triumvir, 4th w. OcTAViA= b. 671 (b.c. 83), m. 714 (b.c. 40), X' Ahenobar- b. 718 sj/ brother (B.C. 40). BUS, Cos. 738 (B.C. 36). (B.C. 16). da Octavia and C. Marcellus. of Tiberius. :2d w. Antonia, div. 707 (B.C. 47). 3d w. Fulvia, | m. 7o8(b.c. 46), Antonia=M. Aemilius +714 (B.C. 40). w. 718 Lepidus, ^ (B.C. 36), +724. +circ. 720, (B.C. 30). (B.C. 34). =5th w. Cleo- patra, i.685(B.c.69), W.722(B.C.32), +724 (B.C. 30). I I M. AnTONIUS J. ANTONIDSr Antyllus, Cos. 744, +724 (b.C. 30). (B.C. 10), +752 (B.C. aV Alexander, Cleopatra =Juba Ptolemaeus h, 714 (B.C. 40). h. 714 (B.C. 4o),vJ/K. Numidia. Philadelphuj. twin with Alexander. Antony was the idol of soldiers ; his frankness, his good-nature, his readiness to share all hardships with them, endeared him to them. 136 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS His soldiers remained faithful to him after the defeat at Mutina, and through his terrible flight over the Alps, where he did drink ' The stale of horses, and the gilded puddle Which beasts would cough at,' and ate the bark of trees and the roots of plants. Later, in the Parthian war, when through his own fault his army was brought, after terrible losses, to the verge of destruction, he was able to reduce the despairing and mutinous wreck of a host to submission by a brief speech. Then the soldiers shouted out their readiness to submit to any punishment he chose to inflict on them — decimation, if he willed it ; Antony, overcome by emotion, raised his hands to heaven, and prayed the gods, if they sought Fig. 28.— M. ANTONIUS. Silver Medal of Alexandria, enlarged. to mete out to him misfortune after the good fortune which they had given him in former times, to let all their punishment fall on his head, but to spare his host, and carry them to victory. It was like the prayer of David before the destroying angel. Misfortune always brought out the best qualities of Antony. ' In necessity and adversity,' says Plutarch, and all witnesses of antiquity agree with him, 'he surpassed himself, and was nearest to perfection.' He had sincere pity for his wounded soldiers. ' He visited all,' says Plutarch, ' and consoled them with tears of real grief and affection. The wounded soldiers, embracing the hand of their general, entreated him not to attend to their sufferings, but to his own health and repose. " Whilst our general is safe," they said, " all is well." There was not a man in the army, from the first officer to the meanest soldier, who would not have preferred the favour of Antony to his own life and safety.' But when all went smooth with Antony he degenerated into an idler, neglectful of his duties, forgetful of his dignity. ' Whilst Caesar (Octavius) was harassed with seditions at Rome, Antony in Greece abandoned himself once more to all the dissipations of his former life. Harpers, pipers, dancers, the whole corps of the Asiatic drama, who MARCUS ANTONIUS 137 far outdid in buffoonery the poor wretches of Italy, — these were the people of the court, the folk who carried all before them. Antony deprived many noble families (in Greece) of their fortunes, and bestowed them on sycophants and parasites. He gave to his minions the estates of persons he was told were dead, but who were actually alive. He gave his cook the property of a Magnesian citizen for having cooked one supper to his taste : but when he laid a double impost upon Asia, and the agent for the people represented to him that if he doubled the taxes he ought also to double the seasons, and supply the people with two summers and two winters, — he was sensibly touched. He was ignorant of many things transacted under his authority ; not that he was indolent, but that he was unsuspecting. He had simplicity in his nature, and was void of penetration. When he found that wrongs had been done, he expressed the utmost concern. He was prodigal in his rewards and vigorous in his punishments ; but exceeded in the former rather than in the latter. The rude raillery of his talk carried its own remedy with it, for he was perfectly ready to take as much as he gave, all in good humour. But this had a bad effect on his affairs. He fancied that those with whom he was on familiar terms in conversation could not be insincere in business transactions ; not understanding that his flatterers used their freedom as a sort of poignant sauce, and that by taking liberties with him at table, they thought to make him suppose, when they attended to his requirements in matters of business, it arose not out of complaisance, but out of deference to his superior judgment.' Seneca is hardly right when he says, lamenting Antony's love of drink and passion for Cleopatra, that he was a great man of high order of intellect, and then exclaims, ' O what he might have won had he willed it ! ' Antony's connection with Caesar shows that he was capable of noble things, and had Caesar lived he would have done better. He was calculated to play a second part only under a strong head. His worst enemy, Cicero, could not accuse him of avarice; he said, 'I cannot possibly admit that you have been bribed, for never have I seen in you a trace of sordid greed or baseness.' One anecdote of his indifference to money is told of him by Plutarch ; the same however is told of Nero by Dio Cassius. He had once ordered his treasurer to pay out a million sesterces as a present to a friend. The treasurer, to show him what a great sum this was, spread the gold pieces upon the table. ' Is that all ? ' said Antony ; ' double the amount.' When he came to Egypt he fell at once into the power of Cleopatra. That was in B.C. 41, when Cleopatra was aged twenty-eight, and to her he maintained his devotion to the end, to B.C. 30, when she was thirty- nine years old. Now it seems to me impossible to attribute this fascina- tion to mere passion in Antony for the beauty of the great queen. A woman of thirty under an African sun is a hag. Her beauty is gone after she is twenty ; and the medals struck by Antony with his portrait on 138 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS them along with that of Cleopatra, do not represent her as other than an old woman, of marked features, by no means beautiful. With Cleopatra there were other and more enduring charms than personal beauty of feature. Plutarch tells us that 'her beauty was neither astonishing nor unique; but it derived a force from her wit, and the fascination of her manner, which was absolutely irresistible. Her voice was delightfully melodious, and had the same variety of modulation that has an instrument of many strings. She spoke many languages, and there were but few of the foreign ambassadors whom she answered by an interpreter.' That she was a far-seeing woman, who had formed a well-defined plan, beneficial to her country, there can be no doubt. She sought first by means of Caesar, and then of Antony, to save Egypt from sinking into the position of a province to be sucked dry by rapacious proconsuls, and to elevate Alexandria, if possible, to be the rival of Rome. The Roman people saw her plan, feared and hated her accordingly, and what we know of Cleopatra is almost entirely due to the pens steeped in venom of her deadly enemies.^ Cleopatra saw, or thought she saw, that Rome could not hold the vast empire together, disorganised and torn to pieces at the centre by contending factions, and her plan was either that Alexandria should be the seat of an empire under personal government, or, if this was impossible, that Alexandria should be the capital of the East, and Rome of the West, — Antony as sovereign over the Orient, and Octavius over the West. She foresaw, in fact, what was the eventual solution of a great difficulty, when it was too late to recover lost ground, and make of each empire a strongly concentrated and vigorous entity. The Egyptian queen humoured Antony's boyish love of frolic, which he preserved till he was over fifty, but she did not, like Antony, allow amusement to cloud her mind and obscure her true purpose. ■ ' Whether Antony were gay or grave,' says Plutarch, ' Cleopatra was always with him. She gamed, drank, hunted, reviewed the troops with him. In his night rambles, when he was reconnoitring the doors and 1 See for the rehabilitation of this remarkable woman, A. Stahr, Cleopatra ; Berlin, 2nd ed. 1879. Dean Merivale also does some justice to her abilities. Portraits of Cleopatra ; — 1. Medals. A four- drachma piece struck in Asia Minor about B.C. 33; on one side the profile of Cleopatra, on the other that of Antony. 2. Two copper coins of circ. 40. 3. An engraved sardius, Antony and Cleopatra : Gorii Tkesaur. i. 172. 4. A representation of Cleopatra and Caesarion in the temple of Denderah, erected by her to Hathor. Rossellini, Monumente dell Egitto ; Pisa, 1833, Parte Prima, T. ii. Plate xxii. fig. 82. 5. Another in the same : do., Plate xxiii. figs. 26 and 27. 6. Again another in same : do., Plate xxiii. fig. 83. 7. Again another, colossal, at Thebes : do. i. 4, p. 370-1. None of the statues of Cleopatra were destroyed at Alexandria, whereas those of Antony were overthrown. Octavius spared them for a thousand talents, offered him by Archibius, a friend of the unfortunate queen. MARCUS ANTONIUS 139 windows of the citizens, and cutting jokes with them, she attended him dressed as a servant. From these expeditions he often returned some- what battered m person and character. Some of the Alexandrians were huffed at these whimsical pranks, others enjoyed them, and said that Antony played his comic parts in Alexandria and reserved his tragic parts for Rome, — which was well.' Fig. 29.— CLEOPATRA. Silver Medal of Alexandria, enlarged. Then Plutarch tells the characteristic story of his fishing in the Nile. He was wont to go out fishing with a line, and take Cleopatra with him, but as he caught nothing for several days, he was put out of countenance and got a slave to dive and fasten a fish on to his hook. Cleopatra was deceived at first, but presently detected the trick, and sent a slave of her own under water to fasten a pickled sardine to Antony's hook. When he fished this up in triumph, he was greeted with a burst of laughter. ' There, go now, general,' said the queen, 'and take with you the lesson to leave fishing to the petty Nile princes. Your game is higher, — cities, kings, and provinces.' Fulvia died in B.C. 40, and then Octavius made an effort to reclaim Antony and attach him to himself, by furthering a marriage between him and his sister Octavia. It was thought that if any woman could frustrate the wiles of Cleopatra, and withdraw the infatuated Antony from the sphere of her fascination, it would be the modest and discreet Octavia. But, unfortunately, Octavia was not beautiful, nor, perhaps, very clever. We have what is, probably, an authentic bust of her in the Louvre that agrees in profile with the medal on which she is represented with Antony. It is of porphyry, and is in perfect preservation, retaining its polish. The face is that of a good, sensible, homespun woman, heavy in feature and no doubt dull of eye. The beauty of the family was concentrated in Octavius. The marriage was universally desired, and this Antony was made to understand, and with his usual good humour, though not without a struggle, he yielded to the general demand. Sextus Pompeius, only remaining son of the great Pompeius, had been living as a freebooter, sweeping the seas with his fleet, and ravaging 140 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS the shores of the Mediterranean. He had secured Sicily, B.C. 43 ; and an attempt was now made to come to terms with him, as he had shown kindness to the mother and the wife of Antony, when they were forced to fiy from Rome. Conditions having been agreed upon, it was arranged that the marriage of Antony to Octavia should be the pledge of a general shaking of hands and sheathing of swords. A meeting was to take place with Pompeius at Misenum in B.C. 39, and there Pompeius arrived with his fleet, whilst Antony and Octavius came to the spot by land. Festivities were arranged, and each party invited the other to supper. When it fell to the lot of Pompeius to give the first entertain- ment, Antony asked him where they were to sup. ' There,' said Sextus, pointing to his admiral's galley, ' that is the only mansion left to Pompeius,' — a reminder to Antony that when the estates of Pompeius Magnus had been sequestrated, he had bought his house on the Palatine. During the banquet many sharp things were said about Antony's intimacy with Cleopatra ; but Antony, though he may have winced, was able to retort on his host. During supper, Menas, the captain of the galley, came behind Pompeius and whispered in his ear a request that he might cut the cable, when Sextus would be made master of the persons of Octavius and Antony, and could put them to death and become master of the Roman empire. But Pompeius, after a moment's deliberation, declined the offer, as against his oath and an abuse of hospitality. The entertainment was returned, and after supper the new allies amused themselves with games of chance, and with cock and quail fights. Antony lost in all games of dice, and his cock and quail were defeated by the birds of Octavius. He was dis- turbed at this, and consulted an Egyptian soothsayer, who warned him, ' Your genius is afraid of the genius of that young man, and before him shrinks away.' Antony went to Greece with his new wife, who was in all points the reverse of Fulvia, for she was amiable, gentle, and forbearing. Antony was the man to appreciate, and be won by good qualities in a woman, and for a while he was certainly attached to her. The writers of antiquity are unanimous in their praise of this woman.^ As a wife, she was true to her husband, she was an admirable mother, forgiving readily the most cruel wrongs, and repaying them with devotion and good deeds ; compassionate to those in trouble, and always ready with her assistance. She had lived in happy marriage with her first husband, C. Marcellus, and it was shortly after his death that for political reasons she was united with the very unsuitable partner, Antony. Octavia stands out against the dark background of these evil days as a figure of light. She was one of the few women of the high nobility of that time who always kept in eye the welfare of her country, and sacri- ficed to it her own interests and ambitions ; and, in the midst of civil 1 XP?/"* Bavfidaibv 7U)/aiK6s, Plut. Ant. 31. MARCUS ANTONIUS 141 war, was ever prepared to put forth her hand to effect a reconciliation of the parties opposed. At the time of the Proscription she did everything in her power to stay her brother Octavius from extending the list, and in numerous cases intervened between the victims and their murderers to save them. When, in the cause of peace, Octavius desired that she should marry Antony, only a few months after the death of Marcellus, and whilst she was expecting her confinement, she yielded her private feelings to the public necessity; for the welfare of her fatherland, and peace in the empire, were to her the highest objects for which she could strive. Soon after her marriage with Antony she bore a daughter, who, although not his child, was called Antonia. Between two and three years later she bore Antony a daughter, who was given the same name, a woman whom we shall meet again as the mother of Germanicus and of Claudius.^ She remained a year with her husband in, Greece till the spring of 36, and then he undertook his disastrous campaign against the Pafthians. Hardly had he parted with Octavia than he sent a messenger to Cleo- patra to meet him in Lycaonia, and the Egyptian queen, who had chafed at her separation, and at the bonds in which Antony was held by his worthy but somewhat commonplace wife, readily joined him. The old fascination fell on him, and he was mastered for the rest of his life. Now it was that the nobility of the admirable woman Octavia shone out with its purest lustre. Cruelly wronged and neglected though she was, she condoned Antony's intrigue with Cleopatra, and when he was in distress, after the disasters in Armenia, brought him treasures and troops, collected mainly by her exertions, or accorded him by Octavius at her entreaty. And not only was she a good wife, but she was a good stepmother. She cared for, tenderly and conscientiously, those children of Antony by Fulvia, whom he had forgotten and neglected, as he forgot and neglected her. For eight years after the marriage of Antony and Octavia the Triumvirate was formally maintained, the masters of military power dividing the empire between them. But Antony and Octavius had no community of interest or purpose, and Antony by his own folly alienated the affections of the Roman people, and lost his hold over the military. He wantonly threw all supremacy at the seat of govern- ment into the hands of Octavius. He was falling more and more com- pletely into the toils of the able and ambitious queen, whose object was, 1 Portraits of Octavia : — 1. Medal of the date A.D. 21, witli on one side tlie head of Tiberius, on the other those of Augustus and Octavia, facing each other : Mongez, Icon. Rom. PI. xix. 9. 2. Several medals of M. Antonius : Cohen, i. p. 52. 3. A Sicilian bronze : Cohen, i. p. 52, 4. A gold medal of B.C. 36 : Cohen, i. p. 52. 5. A very fine gold medal recently discovered : Bernoulli, Taf. xxxii. p. 14. 142 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS with his assistance, to split up the empire and make of Alexandria the capital of a great Eastern Empire, independent of Rome. It became obvious that Rome must either relinquish her hold on the east, or fight for it. x>^^ffi^H V'*?3hI ^^^^HHH^^I^^KL^ Q * " ^iM^^^ tsn^^^^l ^^^^^HM^SHBnt'fekjP^^^^HHJ^^^^ W^^^^^W ^B^M. 1 **^Khj^^ i^^^B^H^^T^ SSH^^r '^f^fi^BBoS ^^m^^piL 9^^^ ^^^^^s^jB WKp ^pHHpiil ^Ev "^H^^^^ ■Bfe^jL^Ov jKcT/^t '-t" * L ^E' / < ^< R^ ' -f -^^^ Mam^^L * ^ Bp^ Fig. 30 OCTAVIA. Porphyry Bust in the Louvre. In 32 war broke out between Octavius and Antony, and when it was proclaimed by the former, Antony retaliated by repudiating Octavia, whom he had not seen for four years. The rest of the story must be told shortly. Early in the season of 31 Antony repaired to Epirus to collect an army and a fleet, wherewith to cross into Italy. At first he showed some tokens of his old military vigour and resolution; this animated his soldiers with the enthusiasm for their general which he never failed to inspire. But his chief officers, won by the money of Octavius, or disgusted at his surrender to Cleopatra, mistrusting his purposes, more- over, which had been divulged at Rome by a treacherous exposure of his will, that showed that his ambition was to die at Alexandria, not at MARCUS ANTONIUS 143 Rome— these officers deserted him in such numbers that he knew not whom to trust, and his resolution broke down under disappointment All his old soldierly qualities failed him ; and finally, in council with Cleopatra and her Egyptian advisers, he resolved to abandon his army and escape with the fleet to Alexandria. But contrary winds set in and contmued blowing for four days. Neither could Antony escape, nor could Octavius put to sea against him. However, on September 2d the wind fell, and at once the light Liburnian galleys of Octavius rushed over the blue waters against the clumsy vessels of Antony's fleet, half- manned with field-labourers, muleteers, and travellers pressed into the service. These unwieldy hulks formed a half-moon, behind which lay the light Egyptian navy, fifty or sixty vessels in all. The place where the navy of Antony had been gathering was that little inland sea, the Ambracian Gulf, now the Gulf of Arta. Just within the channel that communicates with the sea is a bay, to the south, and in this lay Antony's fleet. Opposite him was a low tongue of land, on which Octavius Caesar had his camp, and whence he had watched him for some days. When the Caesarian galleys approached, stones were hurled against them from the great vessels of the enemy, and beams were thrust forth from their sides to repel their assault. 'But the Caesarian galleys came to the attack with agile and dexterous manoeuvres. Their well-trained rowers bore up and backed alternately, or swept away the banks of the enemy's oars under cover of a shower of arrows. They scudded round and round the unwieldy masses in parties of three to four each, distracting the attention of the defenders, and protecting each other in turns from grappling and board- ing. The combat was animated, but indecisive ; the Liburnians, the light cavalry of the seas, crippled but could not destroy the steadfast phalanxes of Antonius. But while his unmanageable barges rolled lazily on the water, incapable of attacking, and scarcely repelling the desultory attacks of their pigmy assailants, suddenly the wind shifted. The breeze was favourable for flight. Cleopatra, whose galley was anchored in the seas, hoisted the purple sails on her gilded deck, and threaded rapidly the maze of combatants, followed by the Egyptian squadron of sixty barks. This movement, unexpected to the last by either party, was ascribed to a woman's cowardice ; but from what had passed in council, there can be no doubt that it was previously concerted. When Antonius himself, observing the appointed signal, leaped into a five oared galley, and followed swiftly in her wake, the rage and shame of his adherents filled them with desperation. Many tore down the turrets from the decks and threw them into the sea, to lighten their vessels for flight. Others only nerved themselves for a more furious struggle; while the Caesarians, exulting in the prospect of a speedy triumph, rashly attempted to board, and met many severe repulses. Shattered 144 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS and disabled as these floating masses were, it was impossible to sink or disarm them until fire was resorted to. Octavius sent to the camp for the requisite materials ; torches and burning javelins were hurled into them from a distance, piles of combustibles were drifted against them ; one by one they took fire, and from want of implements at hand it was impossible to extinguish the rising conflagration. One by one they burnt down to the water's edge and sank slowly into the abyss ; the Caesarians attempted in vain to save them, not so much from humanity, as for the hope of booty ; but men and treasures went together to the bottom, and all the fleets of Asia were buried in the wilderness of waters.' ^ A few days after, when the shameful flight of Antony was made known to his army, all his legions went over to the conqueror. Such was the battle of Actium. When the sun set on that 2d of September in the glittering Western sea, its rays kindled smoking wrecks and floating corpses. Octavius was thenceforth sole master of the world, and 'history reckons the beginning of the restored monarchy of his uncle from this evening. For eleven months after this battle Antony and Cleopatra were in Egypt, unmolested. Octavius returned to Italy for the winter, and there remained till the midsummer of B.C. 30, before he set forth to reap the fruits of his great victory. During these months Antony, full of shame and despair, remained shut up in the isle of Pharos, whilst Cleopatra formed wild and impossible schemes of resistance or flight. In July, Octavius arrived, and Cleopatra, believing that resistance was hopeless, resolved to give up her fleet to the conqueror. The historians combine to represent the conduct of Cleopatra in the most odious light, as though she were meditat- ing to save herself by abandoning Antony. But it is not neces- sary to believe this. Resistance was hopeless; more blood might flow, but no success would be gained. Cleopatra saw this, and acted on it. By abandoning the attempt to resist, she hoped to obtain mild terms for herself and her people, and for Antony. But the latter was reckless now when resistance was useless, as he had been timorous when it was possible. He insisted on fighting Octavius ; and for the purpose led his infantry out of Alexandria and posted them on rising ground, whence he could see the Egyptian fleet advance towards the enemy. But no sooner did the fleets meet than they hailed each other with their oars in friendly fashion, and the fleet of Cleopatra, uniting with that of Octavius, proceeded with it towards the city. At the same time Antony's cavalry deserted in a body and surrendered to the enemy. His infantry gave way at the first shock, and Antony fled back to Alexandria, exclaiming bitterly that Cleopatra had betrayed him to those with whom he was fighting for her sake. All hope was now gone. Cleopatra fled to a mausoleum that she had constructed to receive her 1 Merivale, History oj the Romans, iii. pp. 323-4. MARCUS ANTONIUS 145 body after death, which was not approachable by a door, but reached by a window, and sent messengers to ask the mercy of the victor. So also did Antony; he desired nothing save life and a private station. Octavius refused his request. That night, in the universal stillness that reigned throughout the city, a silence deepened by the awful thought of what would ensue on the morrow, a sudden sound of wild and mys- terious music was heard to pass through the streets, and go out at the gate which led to the enemy's camp. Some said it was the god Dionysos, whom Antony had sought to imitate, and whose votary he had been, leaving the luckless man. News — the gossip of the town — reached Antony next day that Cleopatra had died by her own hand. ' I am not sorry,; said he, ' that thou art gone before ; I shall soon be with thee.' Then he caught up a sword and mortally wounded himself Just then, Cleopatra's secretary arrived with a request from her that he would come to her to the mausoleum. This revived him, and he bade his servants bear him thither in their arms. From a window above, the queen and her women let down a rope, to which he caused his litter to be attached, and he was thus conveyed into the upper chamber. His strength just sufificed for this final interview, and in a few moments he expired in the arms of the woman 'for whom he had sacrificed his fame, his fortunes, and his life.' The rest of the story is soon told — how Cleopatra, when she found that Octavius was reserving her to grace his triumph, perished also by her own hand, though how is not known. Popular report said by the poison of an asp, which she vexed with the point of a golden spindle till it darted at her and bit her arm. Another report was that she had taken a virulent poison concealed in a bodkin in her hair. When the doors of the mausoleum were broken open Cleopatra was found lying on her golden bed in royal apparel, dead ; and of her two women servants, one was expiring at her feet. The other, Charmion, was failing, and endeavouring to set right the crown on the head of her mistress. ' What is this we see ? ' exclaimed one of those who burst in. ' Is this well done ? ' 'Right well,' answered Charmion, 'and worthily of the descendant of kings.' Then she also sank on the ground and died. A word or two must be added on the personal appearance of Antony. Plutarch says : ' Along with his brilliant gifts, Antony had nobility of race and dignity of carriage. The well-grown beard, the broad brow, the hawk-nose, combined to give him what we so admire in the busts of Hercules, as represented by painters and sculptors.' This vigorous and well-developed physique (XafiirpoTrj^ tjJs &pas) must have been lost through indulgence, and he became fat and coarse. Caesar had already noticed this when he contrasted the 'fat and sleek' Antony and 146 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS Dolabella with the ' lean and hungry ' Brutus and Cassius. Dio puts into Cicero's mouth a rebuke of Antony for exhibiting his bloated and coarse figure in the public squares. In the second Philippic Cicero refers to the gigantic size of Antony. ^ ' Portraits of Marcus Antonius : — Numerous coins, the first of the date B.C. 43, by the Master of the Mint, SepuUius Macer, who also struck medals with the bust of Caesar. On this Antony is represented as augur and bearded, a tolcen of sorrow for the death of Caesar. Another medal of the same year represents him as still bearded. After that always shaven. Busts :— 1. That in the Vatican, Braccio nuovo. No. 96A. BernoiiUi throws some doubt on the account that it was found along with those of Octavius and Lepidus in a grotto at the Tor Sapienza about 1830. 2. Bust attributed to Antony in the UfEzi Gallery, Florence : nose and chin restored. The brow too lofty for M. Antonius, nor is the hair as full as on the medals, nor thd face as full of flesh. 3. Bust from the Campana collection at St. Petersburg. A Campana forgery in all probability. 4. Bust at Munich, possibly Antony. The same may be said for j, one in the Torlonia Gallery. Gems : — 1. A Cornelian in the British Museum. 2. A gem at Vienna. 3. Another at Florence. (See Bernoulli.) AUGUSTUS I.-EARLY YEARS. Julius Caesar by his will had constituted his great-nephew and adopted son C. Octavius as his heir. Caesar's tenderly loved sister Julia had been married to M. Atius Balbus, of Aricia, a man of plebeian stock, but flattering himself that his family descended from Atys, a Latin chieftain, father of Capys, and son of Alba Silvius, one of the mythical kings of Alba. Balbus was praetor in B.C. 62, and obtained the government of Sardinia, when a medal was struck in profile, and it is possible to trace the family resemblance between Octavius and his grandfather through this coin. By Julia Atlus Balbus had a daughter, Atia, who was married to Caius Octavius. This Octavius was a man^ of means, of equestrian rank, of Veletrce. Roman gossip said that his father was a rope-maker of Thurii, and his grandfather an usurer.. Indeed Marc Antony taunted Octavius with this ignoble origin. That the family of the Octavii was one of money-lenders, and possibly had C. Julius Caesar=Aurelia +670 I (b.c. 84). JuLiA^ffi. Atius Balbus, +702 (B.C. 52). C. JULIUS CAESAR. Dictator, 3. 652 (b.c. 102). I. C. Octavius -1-695^ (B.C. 59). =Atia=2. L. Marcius Philippus, -t-cir. 711 O.c. 4;) I. Clodia=C. OCTAVIANUS. »//.7ii(b.c.43): CAESAR, Emp. rf/z'.7l3(B.C.4 3. LiVIA Drusilla, *.697(b4:. 57J; »i. 7i5(b.c. 39); +782(a.d. 29). b. 691 (b.c. 63) ; +767 (a.d. 14). 2. ScRiBONiA, 2. M. Antonius= Octavia = I. C. Marcellus, :2. ScRIBONlA, 2. M. ANTONIU >«. 7I4(b.C. 40); -1-724(8.030). rfl». 715(3.0.39). m, 1st, 704 (b.c. so) ; m. 2d, 714 (B.C. 40); +743 (B.C. It). Antonia {minor). = Nero CI. Drusus. -^714(B.C. 40). I 2. M. Vipsa- = Julia =i. M. Marcellus Nius Agrippa, , I , *. 71S *• 7" (b-<^- 43) ; h. 691 (B.C. 63) ; ^^ (B.C. 39) ; -1-731 (B.C. 23). -f742 (B.C. 12). m. ist, 729 (b.c. 25); in. 2d, 73r (b.c. 23); +767 (A.D. 14). Marcella, ma. AiiTONiP>.»tajor, Marcella, mi. d. 714 (B.c. 40). ^M. Vipsanius Agrippa. 1-17 Fig. 31.— The young OCTAVIUS. Bust in the British Museum. AUGUSTUS 149 had a rope-factory, is not unlikely. Caius Octavius certainly was a man of means ; some said he was one of the manipulators of elections, and that a good deal of the money destined for the voters stuck to his palms when put into them by the candidates. Suetonius doubts this. He says that Caius Octavius ' attained to honourable posts, and discharged the duties of them with much distinction.' He was praetor in b.c. 61, and Velleius Paterculus characterises him as ' a grave, holy, innocent, and rich ' man, and that it was owing to the high estimation in which he was held that he was given to wife Atia, the daughter of Julia, Caesar's sister. In B.C. 60 he was governor of Macedonia, with the title of proconsul, and he administered the affairs of the province with the business exactness of a man accustomed to commercial transactions, and with strict integrity. Cicero recommended his example to his brother Quintus as one deserving to be copied. He was engaged in some small military operations that gained him the title of Imperator, and he returned to Italy at the latter end of b.c. 59, fully expecting to be elected consul, but he died suddenly at Nola in Campania, in a house that belonged to him, and where — in the very same room — seventy-two years later, his son, the great Augustus, died. He was twice married; first to Ancharia, by whom he had one daughter, and secondly to Atia, who became by him the mother of Caius Octavius, the future prince, and of Octavia, married first to C. Marcellus and then to Marc Antony. The young Octavius lost his father when he was but four years old. He was born on September 23d, B.C. 63, in the year when Caesar became Pontifex Maximus. After his father's death his mother married L. Marcius a.u.c. 691. Philippus, a worthy, quietly disposed man, who, notwith- =c- 63- standing his close connection with Caesar's family, remained neutral in the civil wars. Philippus was in Rome when the senate took the field against Caesar, but he abstained from exercising his influence one way or the other, and Caesar gave him, at his request, permission to take no part in the struggle. He therefore remained impassive, watching for the result. Caesar with his usual magnanimity did not resent this lukewarmness in his cause, and when in power lavished on him many marks of esteem and friendship. The young Octavius spent his childhood with his grandmother Julia, and she seems to have taken pains with his education, and to have encouraged in him a love of simplicity and of diligence. On her death in b.c. 5 2 he delivered a panegyric at the funeral. He then went to live with his mother and stepfather, and his education was supervised by them with the ^ ^^^ ^^^ same care. He was delicate in constitution, but clever and b.c. 52- singularly beautiful, which, perhaps, his great-uncle attributed to the sacred ichor of Venus flowing in his veins. And yet he bore no family resemblance to the old dictator; his face may be seen, by ISO THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS comparison with that of his grandfather Atius, to derive from the plebeian Atian and not from the patrician Juhan race. JuHus Caesar having no male issue, watched over his education with as much interest as did his mother and stepfather. When Octavius was eighteen the youth asked his uncle to promote A U.C. 709. o •' 1 ^-, J !_• B.C. 45. him to be his master of horse, but Caesar repressed his ^*'' '^' ambition, and refused his request. At the desire of the dictator the senate elevated the Octavian house from the plebeian to the patrician order. Caesar now directed that his grand-nephew should complete his studies away from Rome, where the flattery of noble friends was likely to turn his head and make him aspire to offices before his training was complete. He sent him to Apollonia in lllyricum to be placed under accomplished teachers, and moreovei to familiarise him there with the life and discipline of a camp. We have a well-known bust of Octavius at this period of his life, found by Mr. Fagan at Ostia, and it is now one of the treasures of the Vatican gallery. Probably no other bust has been so frequently copied since its discovery in an almost perfect condition, in 1805. . I will quote a few estimates of this portrait. Viktor Rydberg says : ' The young Octavius is handsome, it might almost be said beautiful. In contemplating the formation of the features, in which forehead and nose lie nearly in the same line, and are more Hellenic than many Greek portrait busts we now possess, you are reminded that the Octavian race took its rise in Thurii, an Athenian Sybaritic colony in Lower Italy. Suetonius, the biographer, gives us the colours of these forms. The lightly waving hair was of a golden hue, the eyes had a mild and kindly glance, the complexion was between tawny and white.'i Ampfere says : ' In the Vatican is a young Augustus which is admir- able. The features are of the firmest and finest quality, almost delicate. But already there is somewhat of gloom in the look, and menace on that smooth brow.'^ Dean Merivale observes of the face of Octavius : ' Conspicuous for the graceful beauty of his mouth and chin, the expression of which was of almost feminine delicacy, and not less for the breadth of his com- manding brow and the expressive lustre of his eyes, the person of the young Octavius was well calculated to engage the favour of the legions, and to become the darling of the most devoted Caesareans.'^ The critique of M. Mayor* is more detailed and scientific : — ' The head is that of a young man, full of reflection, pensive and beautiful. 1 Viktor Rydberg, Days in Rome. Rydberg is a Swede ; his essays have been trans- lated into German and English — the latter translation published in America. 2 Ampere (J. J.), L empire Romain a Rome ; Paris, 1881. 3 Merivale (C), History of the Romans under the Empire ; London, and ed., 1875. •I Mayor (E.), Notes Fragmentaires four servir d Tine Iconographii des Cisars au point devue Anthropologique; Rome, 1886. AUGUSTUS 151 The approximate age is seventeen. The ears are slightly protruding, the nose straight, pointed (but this is a restoration), the mouth normal, well formed, raised at the corners, not as though breaking into a smile, but suggestive of clenched teeth (and these with Augustus were small), an indication of resolution and obstinacy. The eyebrows are prominent, giving the physiognomy an expression of concentration, even of hard- ness, wheii seen full face ; but of melancholy when seen in profile. The jaw is powerful.' To my mind, this young face is very instructive. The first impression produced is that of the abnormal development of the upper portion of Fig. 32.-The young O C T A V I U S. Bust found at Ostia in 1805. Mus. Vatic. Hall of Busts, No. 273- the head, either the result of disease or of a great amount of brain. This remained through life, and marks Caesar Augustus out as a man of very exceptional well-balanced intellectual power, but destitute of imagination. The face is cold ; it is self-controlled. The mouth as not sensitive, and there is not the trace of a smile on it. Julius Caesar 152 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS was self-controlled, but his control was over deep feelings and passions that had swept through his soul, and had been grappled with and subdued. There are no deep feelings, no tempestuous passions in Octavius. The face is not insincere, but it is not frank.^ Octavius was at Apollonia when he received news of the murder of Caesar in March. The troops in Illyricum at once offered him their AUG 710 services if he would lead them into Italy to avenge his uncle's B.C. 44. death. But the young Octavius was probably uncertain as to Aet. 19. ^j^g general feeling in Rome, and he resolved to go there as a private person, taking with him only M. Vipsanius Agrippa, a young man of about his own age, but different in character and of ignoble origin, with whom hfe had contracted a sincere attachment that was to last through life. Little did the young Agrippa then suppose that his adhesion to his noble friend, though it would advance himself, would result in misery untold, would envelop his family to its last scion in violence and crime, and lead to its complete extinction. In the beginning of April Octavius landed near Brundusium, and there heard that his great-uncle had constituted him his heir, and had adopted him into' the Julian family. Henceforth, consequent on this adoption, as soon as ratified in the senate, his name would be C. Julius Caesar Octavianus. He at once hastened to his mother and stepfather, who were residing in a country seat near Naples, and they strongly dissuaded him from attempting to claim the inheritance bequeathed to him. They foresaw that his appearance in the passion-tossed arena would lead to fresh broils and complications. But he persisted in his resolution, and shortly after, to cut short their urgency, started for the capital. On his road he was met by the veterans of Caesar, who left their ploughs and pruning-knives, in crowds, entreating that he would put himself at their head and lead them against the murderers. He declined their offers for the time. Octavius entered Rome quietly and unnoticed, and at once visited his friends and asked them to appear next day in the forum', well attended. He came forward at the time he had appointed, and, advanc- ing to the tribune, where sat as praetor the brother of Antony, he announced that he accepted his adoption by Caesar. Then he went to see Marc Antony in the palace he had bought, that had once belonged to Pompeius. The consul did not come to him at once, but made ' the boy ' wait his leisure in the vestibule. When Octavius was finally admitted, after the preliminary salutations and compliments, Octavius addressed him in a tone of firmness that probably surprised Antony. He thanked him for having opposed the grant by the senate 1 Mr. Conrad Dressier remarks on the two busts of the young Octavius— that in the Vatican, and that in the British Museum,—' I have copied both, and Itnow both very well The finest, in my opinion, is that in the British Museum.' AUGUSTUS 153 of recompenses to the assassins ; he told Antony that he could excuse the lukewarmness with which he had acted at the outset, as due to caution that was perhaps necessary, and then asked the consul why, when the voice of the people of Rome had made itself heard on the day of the funeral, he had not at once seized the opportunity and acted upon it Instead of proceeding at once against the murderers, he had temporised, and allowed them to escape out of Italy into the provinces. ' Perhaps,' added Octavius, ' my age and the respect due to your office ought to prevent my addressing you in this tone, yet I cannot regret it, for I speak as the friend of Caesar, and as the one whom he has raised to the highest degree of honour and power.' Then he adroitly added, ' I myself am perhaps unworthy, and I know very well whom my uncle wished to have adopted, and would have adopted, had he not been absolutely certain that Marc Antony would decline to exchange the hdnour of descent from Hercules for that from Aeneas.' Octavius pushed his advantage. He invited the consul to assist him in the pursuit and punishment of the murderers. It will be remembered that immediately after the murder Antony had seized the papers and accumulated treasure of Caesar. The latter he had dispersed among the senators, large sums he had given to the worthless Dolabella, and to Cinna, to buy their neutrality, if he could not purchase their assistance. Octavius now approached the delicate topic of calling the consul to account for thus dealing with the effects of his adopted father. ' You must know,' said he, ' that by the will of Caesar a sum of money has been bequeathed to each citizen of Rome ; and it is my desire at once to discharge this bequest. Otherwise I shall be reproached as ungrateful to his memory. You carried away into your own house, as a place of greater security, all my father's treasure. I desire that you should retain the jewels and objects of artistic value ; these I cheerfully abandon to you. But that I may pay the legacy made to the people of Rome, I must ask you to restore to me all the money my father had accumulated, and that I shall divide, according to his last wishes, among the three hundred thousand citizens. And if that will not suffice for the discharge of the debt, I shall ask you to lend me the requisite sum, or stand guarantee for me if I borrow it from the public treasury.' Antony listened with amazement at this bold address from a beardless boy. He answered in a bantering tone : ' My lad, you are mistaken in supposing that the empire of Caesar passed to you with his name and his inheritance. If it had, then possibly you would have been justified in calHng me to account. But it is not so. I owe you nothing. It is quite true that I stood in the way of pensions and rewards being decreed to the murderers, — and you ought to thank me for that. But for my intervention, Caesar would have been declared a tyrant, all his acts reversed, and where would you have been then with your fine inheritance? You talk rank nonsense when you speak of 154 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS borrowing from the treasury. The treasury is exhausted. As for Caesar's private moneys, you magnify the amount beyond all reason. What there was I did convey to my house, and I spent it in the purchase of votes to obtain a decree favourable to the memory of Caesar. If aught remains to you, take my advice, boy, and don't play ducks and drakes with it among the people, but prudehtly spend it in buying to yourself friends among the senate, now ill-disposed to your pretensions. You have been reading the Greek authors — surely out of them you have picked this lesson, that the populace is inconstant as the sea. What it throws up one day it swallows the next.' We get the account of this meeting from Appian, a late writer, but it bears on the face of it evidence of truth, though the speeches have no doubt been put into the mouths of the speakers by the writer. It explains the position of Octavius thereafter. When he left the palace of Antony, he felt that he and the consul could not work together. As for Antony, he put down this address to him by the heir of Caesar as the impudence of youth, and made merry over it at table that night. Octavius, however, was, as a boy, what he afterwards was as a man, — of dogged resolution, and he would not suffer himself to be thus defeated. As yet, though he had made his claim to be adopted into the Julian family, and to be the son of Caesar, this claim had not been ratified, and to become legal it must be ratified by the senate and the assembly of the people. Antony, through his brother, the tribune, threw impediments in his way, postponing the business from day to day, thus manifesting an animus against the youth, that served still deeper to root in him the conviction of the impossibility of working along with the consul for the end he had in view. Octavius at once caused the effects of the deceased to be sold; he borrowed from his relatives, his mother, his stepfather, from his personal friends, such a sum as he needed. He sold all his own estates, and with the proceeds defrayed the bequest of Caesar to the people, which learning how matters stood, that Antony had taken all the money of Caesar and thrown it by handfuls into senatorial laps, murmured at the injustice done to the heir, and lost confidence in the consul. The opposition of Antony was manifested soon after in a manner so marked, that it alienated from him a good number of Caesarians. Some public games were to be given, and Octavius demanded that the golden throne and jewelled crown that the senate had decreed to his father should be shown. The tribunes, at the instigation of Antony, refused to sanction this mark of honour. Soon after, the heir of Caesar himself gave games, and again the permission was refused. Octavius mounted the rostrum and spoke against Antony, who sent men to pluck him down from the tribune, and threaten him with prison. AUGUSTUS 155 The two now pitted against each other were as different in character as could well be conceived. On the one side was Antony, a man of experience, years, and position, on the other a boy who had his future to make. Antony with all his abilities and knowledge of the world was no match for the lad, raw and untried, for Octavius had that tenacity of purpose which was lacking in the other. ' Caesar (Octavius) and Antony were opposed at every point,' says Dio Cassius. ' There was no open breach, but however much they had disguised their antagonism, their conduct towards each other was hostile. The result was that all men in Rome were in uncertainty and be- wilderment. Peace existed, but war was in prospect ; under the thin veil of freedom, despotism raised her head. Antony seemed to have the advantage, because he was consul, but the people turned to Caesar, from the regard it bore to the memory of Julius, his father by adoption, and from the hopes it entertained, but especially because of the hate it bore to the powerful Antony, and the thought it entertained that Octavius was the weaker. Neither was loved, but what the people desired was novelty, and the pleasure of upsetting those in power and setting up the feebler, and in the general confusion of helping them- selves to what they coveted. They sought to humble Antony by using Caesar against him, with the object afterwards of throwing their tool aside. Oppressed by every man in power, they upset each by the aid of some other man, with the intention of destroying this latter also. So it came about that one after. another became an object of their jealousy, and that they showed now regard, then hate, and him whom they exalted to-day, they trampled on upon the morrow.' Such was the condition of affairs. Octavius knew the temper of the optimates, and all who were of wealth and rank in Rome, knew that no trust was to be placed in them, knew that not in Rome but in the camp he must form to himself a party on which he could rely, and forge a weapon that would not cut his hand when using it. Antony had had all the cards in his own hands; but he had turned his attention from the game, and they had fallen from him to be picked up and used against him by his young but watchful adversary. Among the nobility, Antony was hated implacably, because they feared him. The populace were angry because they thought he was not dealing generously with Caesar's heir, and was slack in avenging Caesar's death. The young Octavius quietly, watchfully, advanced his cause, step by step. He won the populace by his engaging exterior and pleasant manner. He disarmed the suspicions of the nobles. All the while, a number of his uncle's veterans began to gather about him. A series of ignoble quarrels ensued, with uproar in the streets and in the forum. Antony treated Octavius as an insolent boy, and the latter denounced the rapacity and dishonesty of the consul. They hated each other cordially ; but the hatred of Antony was tempered by con- 156 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS tempt. Both were aiming at the same object, and each sought to prevent the other from attaining it. Then both departed for Campania to rouse the veterans of Caesar, who had been planted there on state lands ; and each returned at the head of his levies. Octavius mustered ten thousand men ; Antony had hurried to Brundusium to secure four legions from Epirus that had been summoned home. But the largess he offered them was only a hundred denarii a man, and the soldiers laughed in his face. Enraged at their conduct, Antony seized the ringleaders and decimated them. This severity was unavailing, and on the first opportunity two of the legions deserted to his rival, and Antony had great difficulty in securing the other two. Rome was in consternation. Cicero, with his usual shortsighted policy, endeavoured to gain the nephew of Caesar to the side of the oligarchy. The actual murderers had fled, and the senate could represent itself as innocent of the bloodshed. It had ratified the acts of Caesar, and had not decreed honours to his murderers. It was therefore, it fondly thought, not compromised in the crime; it could use Octavius as its tool against Antony, and then, as Cicero confided to his friend Atticus, ' remove ' him, as it had removed Caesar. The year of Antony's consulship drew to an end. He had arrogated to himself the province of Cisalpine Gaul, and having collected AUG 711 ^'^ ^^^ troops he could muster at Ariminium, which, notwith- B.c. 43. standing desertions, formed a large and formidable force, he ^^'- ^°- marched into his province, to drive thence Decimus Brutus, who had been promised the province by Caesar, and had hurried thither, when he found Rome too hot to hold him, and had placed himself there at the head of the legions. The situation became now complicated and confused to the last degree. Decimus claimed the province as granted to him by Caesar, and Caesar's acts had been ratified by the senate after his murder. Antony, however, was resolved on the destruction of the assassin ot Caesar, and he moved against him. The new consuls were Hirtius and Pansa, old officers of Caesar; and they were commissioned by the senate to proceed in conjunction with Octavius to the relief of Decimus, who was shut into Mutina by Antony. Octavius was in an embarrassing position, moving to the succour of the man whom he was bound by all sense of honour and gratitude to punish, and against the man who was threatening the murderer. But in the general entanglement it is difficult to see what else Octavius could have done. He was resolved, as far as we can judge, not to lend an active hand in the reUef of Decimus Brutus. At the same time it was obvious that Antony was not aiming only at the punishment of Caesar's murderers, but also at his own advancement ; and he had proved himself capricious, unscrupulous, and untrustworthy. Two battles ensued : Antony was deteated, but one consul was slain AUGUSTUS 157 and the other mortally wounded. Then, with all his energy and abilities fully excited, Antony withdrew his shattered troops beyond the Alps to effect a junction with Lepidus. Hitherto the army had been under the command of the consuls, now the troops were completely under the control of Octavius. He refused to pursue Antony, and he refused also to unite with the murderer Decimus. The senatorial party were at once filled with alarm. Cicero, who, with his usual conceit, had supposed that he had manipulated Octavius, and had moulded the ' boy ' into his own creature, was silenced, held his breath, and looked on in astonishment and apprehension. Octavius did not, indeed, at once attack Decimus Brutus within the lines of Mutina ; he waited his time, sent messengers to Antony and Lepidus with overtures of reconciliation and union against the common foe, and turned and marched back to Rome. At once Cicero and the senators decamped. They had discovered their mistake, and they loudly cried 'Treason !' and charged Octavius with having murdered the consuls. Octavius was, however, received by the populace with enthusiasm, and, though only twenty, was invested with the consulship, and given as his colleague Q. Pedius, his first cousin twice removed. And now, and not till now, did he obtain what he had hitherto demanded in vain, his adoption, according to the will of Caesar, into the Julian family as the son of the dictator. Thenceforth he became legally entitled to the name which he had already assumed, and by which we shall henceforth designate him. Three legions had been left by the senators to defend the walls and gate that commanded the Flaminian Way, along which Octavian had advanced, whilst they scampered out of the gates in all directions at the further extremity of Rome. These legions offered no resistance, but passed over to the service of Octavian. The first act done by the heir of Caesar in Rome when consul was to obtain the passing of a law condemning to death the murderers of his uncle. They were summoned by herald to appear, and when they did not answer to their names were sentenced as contumacious. Thus Octavian had proclaimed the object for which he had crossed into Italy ; he had succeeded in establishing his sonship to Caesar, and had collected the army now under his command. The opportunity had been Antony's ; but Antony, with his wonted imprudence and love of pleasure, after having put his hand to the good work of justice, had halted and relaxed his efforts. . Therefore the legitimate heir and representative of Caesar took from him the task, and solemnly charged himself with the execution. It is usually said that Octavian was a profound dissembler, that as a boy he wore the mask, subtle and keen of intellect, he maintained a face impenetrable, and deceived both Cicero and all the oligarchical party, and by this means got them to trust him, to their own overthrow. iS8 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS But surely no boy of nineteen or twenty was ever such a master in dissimulation ! The position in which the youth found himself was of incomparable difficulty. The man to whom he would have looked naturally as his helper and friend failed him utterly : had robbed him of his uncle's treasure, and endeavoured in every way to thwart him in his attempt to carry out the wishes of the deceased. It was the great party of blockheads, with the clever but not astute Cicero, who forced him into a false position, deceiving themselves in their overweening self- conceit in supposing that they could use a boy like Octavian as an unintelligent tool. He marched with the consuls Pansa and Hirtius, because he could not help himself, and Hirtius and Pansa he knew had loved Caesar and abhorred his assassins ; in them he had trusted to find assistance. They died, and he was left alone at the head of an army. When Octavian had made himself master of Rome he waited the arrival of Antony and Lepidus. Antony had now discovered the mis- take he had made in underrating the boy Octavian; and he accepted the overtures of Octavian for reconciliation, not only because he was given a chance of chastising his enemies, but also because he was ever ready to acknowledge his mistake and patch up a quarrel. II.— THE TRIUMVIRATE. In the Recio, near Bologna (Bononia), was a rubbly isle, and on this isle of boulders met Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus to form a triumvirate and divide the world between them, after they should have executed the one solemn task that bound them together, — the chastisement of the murderers. But there was another and a troublesome consideration to be taken in hand and dealt with. The legions which had assisted Octavian had to be rewarded. The treasury was empty : Octavian had sold all his own possessions so as to pay Caesar's bequest to the citizens of Rome. There was available but a single source whence the demands of the soldiers could be supplied, — the property of the proscribed. Thus Sulla had rewarded his veterans. Caesar had planted the soldiers of Pompeius and his own on the pubhc lands, which were now in their occupation and unavailable for distribution. Octavian must reward his legions, and he could reward them only by laying his hands on confiscated goods. The liberators had brought this on Italy, and Italy was now to undergo the miseries of a country taken by foreign invaders; farmers and land- owners to be turned out of their estates, which were to be given to needy and insolent soldiers. Octavian yielded to the necessity; he added to the proscription list the names of many whom he would willingly have spared had he not desired their acres. p,c. 3,._0CTAVIANUS. Bust iathe Uffizi Gallsry, Florence. i6o THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS We have two valuable busts of Octavian at this period of his career ; they represent him about the age of 20-25 > one is in the Berlin Museum, and came from Cairo. This is mutilated : the original polish remains on portions of the stone.^ There is the same cold resolution in this as in the younger portrait (Fig. 32), but more of humanity in it. A trace of distress is observable. Augustus has been plunged into the great whirlpool of life, and is battling for existence. But, for all that, there is a certain repose — the repose of a mind made up and resolved on accomplishing an end — not the repose of a mind at rest after accomplishment. The second is of Octavian a year or two later, a colossal head found at Veil in 18 11 (Fig. 34).^ It represents him after the proscription. The expression of pain is intensified. The mouth has become more resolute, and the jaws more set. His course is adopted, nothing will divert him from it, and those who oppose him must go under his feet. There is a third bust of him at a still more advanced age, when about 28, at Florence in the Uffizi Palace (Fig. 33). Of this M. Mayor says : ' A splendid bust, of historic verity and physiognomical vraisem- blance. This is Octavian in struggle. The look is searching, piercing, far-seeing., The eyes seem to be drawn together by concentration of thought The lips are compressed, narrowed by the effect of a resolution cold and cruel.' As a work of art, however, Mr. Dressier does not highly regard it. But the nose is a restoration. Cold Augustus was, hardly cruel for cruelty's sake. The legions had to be paid : they must be paid at the expense of some persons, and those persons were, of course, Caesar's enemies. Declared enemies first of all, and when their gold and acres did not suffice, suspected enemies were included in the proscription to make up the complement. It is said that the number included in the roll was 300 senators and 2000 knights. A large number of the latter had fatally compromised them- selves by forming a confederation bound to support the assassins with money so as to enable them to raise an army. But, although many of those proscribed fell victims, yet a good many were suffered to escape, their possessions rather than their lives being sought. Thus it was with Lucius Caesar, the uncle of Antony on his mother's side, and with Paullus Aemilius, brother of Lepidus ; they were proscribed, but allowed to escape from Italy unhurt in person. Cicero might have escaped had he possessed sufficient resolution ; his name was in the first list, and a month was allowed to elapse between the notification of his danger and his actual death. Sextus Pompeius sent his vessels to cruise off the coast to receive such as made their way to the shore ; and of those who were taken not all were put to death. Lepidus and' Antony were accessible to bribes, and ready to listen to entreaties. Octavian seems to have desired to show his conduct to advantage as lenient in 1 Royal Gallery, No. 344. 2 Qal. Chiaramonti. in Vatican, No. 401. AUGUSTUS i6i contrast with the ferocity of Antony. Behind Antony stood the remorseless Fulvia, and he himself had real wrongs and bitter msults to avenge. He was an impulsive man, with hot blood and certainly did not scruple to inscribe on the fatal lists the names of all who had treated him with contumely, or had obstructed him when consul in Rome ; but his anger did not last long. Fig. 34.— OCTA VIANUS. Bust in Museum Chiaramonti, No. 401. It is deserving of notice that Dio, a writer never willing to allow a good quality to one of the Caesars, and to put their conduct in other than an unfavourable light, exonerates Octavian from having had any share in the murders of the proscribed. He says : ' This was brought about mainly by I^epidus and Antonius, who, having been long in honour under Julius Caesar, and having held many offices in state and army, had acquired many enemies. But as Caesar (Octavian) was associated with them in power, an appearance of complicity attached to him. But he was not cruel by nature, and he had no occasion for i62 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS putting many to death; moreover, he had resolved to imitate the example of his adoptive father. Added to this, he was young, was just entering on his career, and sought rather to gain hearts than alienate them. No sooner was he in sole power than he showed no signs of severity, and at that time he caused the death of very few, and saved very many. He proceeded with the utmost severity against such as betrayed their masters or friends, but was most favourable to such as helped the proscribed to escape.' Dio would never have said this of Octavian unless he had good authority for the statement. The sale of the goods of the victims and exiles met with little success. Buyers were afraid to invest. Money was still needed. In order to obtain it, the triumvirs required 1300 of the richest ladies of Rome to produce a schedule of their property, and pay from it a con- tribution towards the expenses of the war. The ladies deputed some of their number to plead their cause with the women of the families of the triumvirs. The mother, Antonia, and the virtuous Octavia, received them with kindness ; but Fulvia, the rancorous wife of Antony, refused to see them. Then, all united, these 1300 ladies marched to the forum, where sat the triumvirs. The soldiers and the people made way for them, and one of them, Hortensia, spoke in the name of all. Their boldness disconcerted the triumvirs, and orders were issued that they should be sent back. But the populace was excited and touched, and with loud cries pleaded with Antony that he should withdraw his order that their goods should be taxed. After the battle of Philippi, in which the liberators were defeated and Brutus and Cassius slain, Antony went into Asia, and Octavian returned to Rome, still suffering from a malady that had prevented him from taking part himself in the battle of Philippi. ' The patriot leaders,' says Dean Merivale, ' sufficiently proved by their own example, since Caesar's death, that the continuance of legitimate government was impossible. The authority they held in the provinces they had seized in direct defiance of legitimate authority; their only plea being the appointment of the very tyrant whom they had murdered, and whose acts they had denounced. Cassius rebuked Brutus for controlling the profligate corruption of one of their adherents, L. Bella; and Brutus before his last battle promised his soldiers the plunder of Thessalonica and Lacedaemon.' On his return to Rome, Octavian had to supervise the distribution of lands among his soldiers. There were certain towns marked out as colonies, and their public lands were taken from them. These towns complained. If their domains were to be taken, let them receive compensation. If no compensation were forthcoming from an empty exchequer, then let not the burden fall on them only, but be spread over all Italy. Troops of old men, lads, women with their children, peasants from the farms to be confiscated poured into Rome, crowded AUGUSTUS 163 the. steps of the temples where they wept and prayed, and in every street exhibited their distress and complained of the wrong done them. The populace of Rome was touched, and now saw when too late, that the supremacy had passed from the electoral booths to the soldiers - and the camp, and that every change in the government involved devastation at their own doors. The exasperated citizens attacked the soldiers; there were street fights, and blood flowed — but the military remained masters. Octavian, distressed, perplexed, unwilling to do a wrong and yet unable to prevent it, finding the citizens and people of Italy incensed, and the soldiers clamorous, tried, but tried in vain, to mitigate the severity of the measures necessity had forced him to adopt. Placed between the dis- satisfaction of the spoilers and the murmurs of the spoiled, he had recourse to the treasures collected in the temples of the gods ; he . robbed them, pretending to take a loan, and made fresh largesses to the military. 'As for those who were despoiled,' says Appian, 'they called down judgment on him for their woes ; but he was forced to endure their wrath so as to hold his own with the army.' In the theatre one day, a soldier looking out for a seat and finding none vacant among the people took one among the knights. Octavian ordered him to quit the place. As the soldiers did not see him ac- commodated with another, they made a riot in the theatre, and Octavian was obliged to produce the man and put him where he could see the play. On the day on which the allotments of land were to be read out to the military in the field of Mars, Octavian did not arrive to the minute. The insolent soldiers became uproarious, and were called to order by a centurion. He told them that the triumvir was in bad health, and that this occasioned the delay. The soldiers howled out that this was no excuse, and pelted their officer with stones. He withdrew and was pursued. To escape those who were after him, he leaped into the Tiber. He was fished out and his throat cut, and the soldiers cast his body down across the street by which Octavian was to arrive. The triumvir turned aside from the corpse, and on reaching the Campus Martins rebuked the assassins in mild terms for their insubordination, and hastily made the required grants to their satisfaction. He had not the power to control and chastise their turbulence, and was glad to dismiss them from the capital to their newly acquired estates. The soldiers had received the lands, but the citizens, swollen in numbers by the destitute peasants turned out of their farms, were starving. Sextus Pompeius, master of the sea, intercepted the convoys of grain. Riots ensued. Shops were shut and business brought to a standstill. The mob drove away the magistrates with cries that they would h^ve no magistrates in a town given up to violence and to famine. Such was the state of affairs with which a young man not long out of his teens was called on to cope. 164 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS It seems to me tliat we can see much of all this in the three busts of Octavian last described. There is a cloud on his brow, a cloud that deepens. It is almost certainly caused by inner distress, the distress of a conscience driven to acts of violence and wrong which he could not justify on any other plea than necessity. In the later portraits of Augustus there is none of this cloud, it has cleared completely away, and left an aspect of inner serenity. Julius Caesar's face begins without an expression of sadness^ inspired rather with confidence in his destiny, Fig. 35.— OCTAVIANUS AUGUSTUS. Sardonyx in the British Museum.l but his last portraits show him with traces of pain in the lines of his face, not caused by failure of health, but by loss of trust in mankind — in his friends. But in the case of Augustus the reverse is the case — all the pain and trouble are in the young face, and vanish from that of Augustus in plenitude and security of power. I do not think that we have reason for supposing that Octavian started on the career which brought him to absolute monarchy, with any 1 The band round the head is a renaissance addition. AUGUSTUS 1 6s clear view of what he was to reach. He had plenty of abilities, but none of that political and statesmanly knowledge of the requirements ■ of the commonwealth that Julius Caesar had. Caesar aimed at the regeneration of the state, and in so aiming reached absolutism. Octavian had no definite political aim before him. He desired to seize on a position of power and, above all, security for himself. He was forced into his throne as lord of the world by circumstance, he did not win it by perseverance in seeking it. As long as Antony was of any use he used him. He did his utmost to associate him with himself in power. Only when the voice of the western half of the Roman world demanded war with Egypt did he draw his sword against Antony. Egypt was the granary of Italy, and the Romans saw with alarm that Antony, completely controlled by the genius of Cleopatra, was about to make Egypt independent; and Egypt independent could starve Rome into subjection. It was in order to attach Antony to him, through his masculine-minded wife, Fulvia, that Octavian, in B.C. 43, betrothed himself to Clodia, her youngest daughter, by her former husband the demagogue. But she was a child, and at the ^ ^ j, outbreak of the Perusian war with Lucius Antonius, in b.c. b.c.'4i. 41, he divorced her and sent her back to her mother Fulvia, ^^^' ''' and never allowed that she had been his wife in reality. Later, in the desperate hope of breaking the chains that attached Antony to Cleo- patra, he gave him his dearly loved sister Octavia. All which points to Octavian having had no wish to break with his colleague, so as to estab- lish his own supremacy. III.— LIVIA. In B.C. 40, when Octavian was aged twenty-three, he married Scribonia for political ends. Her brother, Lucius Scribonius Libo, was one of the most important adherents of the great Pompeius; and after the death of Pompeius Magnus he remained faithful to the cause which he represented. Libo gave his daughter to Sextus, the present head of the Pompeian party. His object was- to unite the triumvir Antony with Sextus Pompeius against Octavian, to enable them thus combined to crush the Caesarian. But Octavian saw his danger, and to escape it negotiated through Maecenas his friend to obtain the hand of the sister of Scribonius. Scribonius, influenced by the prospect of reconciliation among rivals in the civil broils, gave his consent. Scribonia was a good many years older than her husband. She had already been twice married and twice made a widow. By one of her former husbands, Cornelius Scipio, she had a son, P. Cornelius Scipio, and a daughter, Cornelia. It is probable that her age at her union with Octavian was not under thirty; probably it was five-and-thirty. Of love 1 66 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS and inclination in this purely political alliance there was none, at all events on the side of Octavian. But Scribonia was not without ambi- tion. A marriage with the powerful triumvir-^the adopted son and heir of the great Caesar — Hattered her pride, and the extraordinary- beauty of her young husband certainly must have won her affection. She enjoyed her position as his wife, however, but a very short while. Octavian had sought her so as to disarm the opposition of Sextus Pompeius, who commanded the seas and cut off the supplies of corn from the citizens of Rome. When the political purpose of the union was accomplished, or rather, when the continued hostility of Sextus showed him that his attempt to patch up the quarrel with a marriage was un- a\»ailing, he divorced Scribonia. She was a woman of old-fashioned dignity,^ of fading charms, and — Octavian had fallen in love with Livia, the wife of Tiberius Nero. . „ „ Scribonia received from him her letter of divorce only a few B.C. 40. days after she had borne him the only child he ever had, that ^'' ^^' daughter Julia, who was to continue the race of Octavian till it was quenched in the blood of Nero. As reason for the separation, Octavian alleged 'perversity of char- acter ' in Scribonia, and incompatibility of temper. He had given her occasion for offence, and cause to exasperate the temper of all but a saint, by his infatuation for Livia. This divorce was disastrous to Octavian and fateful to his whole race. The heartless and cruel repudiation of a blameless wife, done, moreover, at a time when she had just given him his first-born babe, was visited on Augustus and his whole house ; it occasioned him the bitterest sorrows of his life, and provoked the extinction which came on the issue of that Livia, for whose sake Scribonia was deserted. 'By this act,' says Adolf Stahr,^ 'Octavian himself strewed the seeds of discord which were to disturb fatally the concord of the im- perial family, not during his own life only, but far beyond it. Scribonia would have been no woman not to have felt deadly hatred towards that woman in whom she saw the robber of her honour, the wrecker of her happiness, the overthrower of her ambition, and by means of whom a new family forced its way into that place which should have been hers, and usurped her claims and her hopes. As the mother of Julia, the only daughter of the sovereign, as the ancestress of Julia's children and grand- children, she remained, in spite of the separation, the head of the Julian race, the dynasty called to sovereignty. No wonder then that hence- forth she stood in hostile opposition to the Claiidian Livia and her two children. This deadly animosity between the two family branches of the imperial house was reflected more than two generations later in the memoirs of the great-grandchild of Scribonia, the second Agrippina, wife of the Emperor Claudius, and mother of Nero, the source whence, 1 ' Gravis femina, '-Seneca, Ep. 70. 2 Kaiser-Frauen, 1880 (2d ed.), p. 6, AUGUSTUS 167 poisoned as It was with fiercest hate towards Livia and her son, the Emperor Tiberius, Tacitus drew the colours with which he painted both one and the other in his Annals.' Scribonia lived till after a.d. 2, when she accompanied her daughter Julia into exile. How long after we do not know; she must have died between her seventieth and eightieth year. Fig. 36. — LIVIA. Sardonyx m the Hague Museum, enlarged. Livia Drusilla, who succeeded Scribonia, not in the affections of Octavian, for such Scribonia had never enjoyed, but in her position as wife, was descended from the great Claudian family, one of the bluest blooded of aristocratic Rome. The Claudii were both patrician and plebeian, but the patrician Claudii were of Sabine origin, and came to Rome in B.C. 504 ; their earliest known ancestor was Appius Claudius of Regillum, who had advocated peace between the Sabines and fhe Romans when hostilities broke out betwixt the two nations soon after the foundation of the commonwealth. He had been received into the rank of patricians, and granted lands beyond the Anio, on which his clients settled who were thenceforth enrolled in the Claudian tribe. From this man Livia was fourteenth in descent. Haughty, insolent in their aristo- cratic pride, remarkable for their high-born beauty, they incurred the in- tense hatred of the commonalty, which in their pride they would not con- descend to mitigate. 'That house,' says Niebuhr, 'during the course of centuries produced several very eminent, few great, men ; hardly a single noble-minded one. In all ages it distinguished itself alike by a spirit i68 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS of haughty defiance, by disdain for the laws, and iron hardness of heart.' It was remarked of this stately family that it, almost alone among the Roman gentes, would not stoop to recruit its ranks by adoption. To this family belonged the infamous Appius Claudius, with whom the name of the unhappy Virginia is associated ; but also the spotless Vestal Claudia, who, when charged with incontinency, boldly called on the goddess Cybele to vindicate her innocence, and stepping to the banks of the Tiber, where lay stranded a vessel containing the image of the goddess, took hold of the rope and drew the vessel up stream after her. One ancestor of Livia was that Publius Claudius Pulcher, who, at the time of the Punic wars, having been saluted with clamours for the appointment of a dictator to save Rome from her imminent peril,' after the loss of a battle at sea, was said scornfully to have offered the Roman people the son of one of his freedmen as a fit person for them to elect to the highest position in the republic. The father of Livia was Claudius Pulcher, who had been adopted by Livius Drusus, and thenceforth he bore the name of Livius Drusus Claudianus. Cicero mentions him as an avaricious man of lax morals.' He joined the cause of the Liberators, and fought against Octavian and Antony in the battle of Philippi. On the defeat of his side, he com.mitted suicide. Livia was born on September 28th of the year B.C. 57, and was therefore sixteen when her father died. She had already been married to a man of the Claudian family, Tiberius Claudius Nero, a man much older than herself, for we know that in the year 50, when Livia was hardly seven years old, he proposed for the hand of Tullia, the daughter of Cicero, but failed in obtaining it. Livia's youth had not been a happy one. A few months after the bloody death of her father she bore her husband a son, born on the i6th November, and afterwards known as the Emperor Tiberius; she was almost immediately after enveloped in the commotions of the civil war. Claudius Nero, her husband, had been quaestor under Julius Caesar, and had distinguished himself as admiral of Caesar's fleet in the Alexandrian war. In reward for his services, the dictator had given him the priesthood, and appointed him to superintend the colonies that were to be founded in Gaul — Aries and Narbonne. But he was one of the many who returned the kindnesses of the great man with ingratitude; for, after Caesar's murder, he went over to the side of the Liberators, and he it was who proposed in the senate that a public reward should be given to the assassins. In the Perusian outbreak under Lucius Antonius he took part against Octavian ; on the defeat of Antonius, he fled to Praeneste, and thence to Naples, where he endeavoured to rouse the inhabitants of Campania against Octavian. As he failed in doing 1 It is not, however, quite certain that the Drusus of Cicero's letters is the same man as the father of Livia, AUGUSTUS 169 this, he fled to Sextus Pompeius in Sicily, where his pride was offended by some petty slight, and he left Sicily and joined Marc Antony. After the compact of Brundusium he received pardon, and returned to Rome. In all his flights and journeys the young Livia and her child Tiberius accompanied him, sharing his dangers and hardships. In their escape from Naples, which took place with great precipitation, she carried the child in her own arms, and twice, when in concealment, was all but betrayed by the crying of the babe. She followed her husband to Sicily and Greece ; in Lacedaemon she was again in peril of her life, for, during a flight by night, the forest through which she was escaping was on fire, and she had both her hair and her garments scorched by the Fig. 37.— L I V I a. Sardonyx in the UfSzi Palace, Florence, enlarged.1 flames. All these circumstances served to intensify the love with which she always held to her first-born child. Livia was eighteen when she returned to Rome with her husband, where speedily the story of her romantic adventures reached the ears of Octavian, and her wonderful beauty arrested his eyes and enchained his heart. So impetuous and intense was the passion he had conceived for Livia, that he divorced Scribonia, as we have seen, and insisted ^ „ c. 716. on c'l. Nero separating from his young wife in order that he b^c. |8. might marry her, although she was in expectation of shortly becoming a mother again. It gives us a curious insight into the cool- ness and callousness with which these unions were formed and broken in Rome, when we read that at the marriage of Livia with Octavian 1 In both Figs. 36 and 37 the portions below the dotted lines are a restoration. 170 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS her former husband, Drusus, gave her away in place of her father, who was dead. At the wedding feast a little incident occurred that set all Rome a-ringing. Livia had a small page, and when the little fellow saw Livia enter and seat herself at table with Octavian, whereas Tiberius Drusus was placed at another table, ' Mistress, mistress ! ' shouted the boy, 'you've got into the wrong place. There is your husband — yonder.' No doubt he; had his ears boxed for the uncalled-for correction. Three months later, Livia became mother again, of a second boy, who was named Drusus Nero. Octavian took the babe up in his arms and sent him to his father; then he entered in his journal, 'To-day my wife, Livia, bore me a boy, whom I, Caesar, have ordered to be sent to his father, Nero.' The father, however, died soon after, and by his last request Octavian was constituted guardian of his two sons. The slanderous tongues of Rome naturally said that Drusus was in fact the son of Octavian, and the child of adultery. There is no reason for so Judging from the authentic portraits of Drusus, which all bear a resem- blance to his elder brother, and not a trace in them of the features of Augustus. Livia's portrait is difficult to identify. She was the first Roman lady whose profile appeared on a medal. There are a good many coins that bear her name, but in almost every case it is impossible to regard the heads on these as portraits. They represent Livia idealised as a goddess, with formal Greek features. One only differs from these, and that is the best, of Livia in old age represented along with Augustus. The rest give us Livia as Pietas Augusta, or Salus Augusta, or Justitia, or as Diana. But fortunately there are some gems on which more reliance can be placed. One of these is the famous cameo of the S. Chapelle at Paris. Another — but that shows her when aged — is an engraved gem in the Uffizi Palace, Florence {Frontispiece). Also the Blacas onyx of Livia as Ceres. An exquisite red jasper of the Praun collection is a cinque-cento copy of an antique. That it is Livia is doubtful. Both the latter are given by King (xxxii. 3, xlix. 10). Of statues and busts there are a good many that pass for Livia, all more or less idealised.^ The best known is the beautiful statue in the Vatican as Piety, with arms extended as in prayer. This was found at Otricoli. The face is to the last degree characterless. Another Livia is the idealised seated figure in the Torlonia Gallery, No. 64. It is of Greek sculpture, and was found in the Villa of the Gordiani on the Via Labicana. A small crown surrounds the head.^ It is a copy 1 Porlraits of Livia may generally be recognised by the very short upper lip. She had, I fancy, fine lustrous eyes, and in the cameos and intaglios this is represented by making the pupils unnaturally large— in fact, out of proportion. The slightly arched Roman nose made itself remarked only as she advanced in life. 2 One would fain have information on this statue, and be assured that the head is ancient. The Torlonia stalues have been sadly touched up. Fro. 38 —LI VI A as Ceres. Statue in the Louvre. 172 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS of a magnificent statue of a seated ideal figure of purest Greek work of the fourth century B.C. that adorned the Circus of Maxentius, and was found in 1824 by Duke Giovanni Torlonia, but which was without a head. This statue, No. 77 in the Torlonia Gallery, probably originated most of the seated figures of ladies that have been found at Rome. Of almost certain authenticity is the statue of Livia in the Louvre as Ceres. In that the resemblance to her son Tiberius is unmistakable ; but it represents Livia when over thirty. We have no portrait-statue that we can trust as giving us the wife of Augustus in her youthful loveliness. For fifty-two years Livia remained at the side of Octavian as his faithful and attached wife. Tacitus has given us in his pages the estimate of her character as formed by her rival and enemies. We shall see with what justice he has so treated her. Of her domestic and feminine virtues as wife and mother there never was any question. In the midst of a corrupt society she maintained her womanly honour immaculate from the smallest stain; that she exercised a gentle and kindly influence over Augustus is not denied ; nor that her household was one of quiet sobriety and simplicity, and -that her manner was courteous and gracious; nor that her husband loved her to the end of his life— as his pathetic address to her on his deathbed shows. This is the unanimous testimony of all the writers of the life of Augustus. But when we come to consider her relations towards the rival party— her action in deciding the succession to the empire — then we are shown the picture of another sort of woman altogether. This is how Dean Merivale sums up the features of her character as represented by the historians : ' In her second home she directed all her arts to securing her position, and became, perhaps, in no long course of time, as consummate a dissembler and intriguer as Octavius himself. While, indeed, she seconded him in his efforts to cajole the Roman people, she was engaged, not less successfully, in cajoling him. Her elegant manners, in which she was reputed to exceed the narrow limits allowed by fashion and opinion to the Roman matrons, proved no less fascinating to him than her beauty. Her intellect was undoubtedly of a high order, and when her personal charms failed to enchain his roving inclinations she was content with the influence she still continued to exercise over his understanding. The sway she acquired over him in the first transports of courtship she retained without change or interruption to the day of his death.' This is a hard judgment, and unfair. As far as we can estimate her character from her portraits — and I would take that in the Louvre as decisive, — it represents her with well-formed features and with the impress of her mind and heart on it at a ripe age. Livia was a woman without much intellect ; a good woman, inclined to nervous fears, narrow and petulant, not at all a dissembler ; there is nothing fixed and artificial about the mouth ; it is flexible and disposed to pout. That she loved AUGUSTUS J73 her son Tiberius, and did all in her power to advance him as successor to Augustus, may be admitted. She had a mother's pride in him ; but that she committed crimes to remove those who stood in his' way requires better evidence than Roman tittle-tattle and the purposeful slander of her enemies. We shall find her coming forward again and again to do acts of kindness ; and when closely looked into, every charge laid to her door, of attempted or accomplished crime, 'breaks down completely. The authority for the tradition- al estimate of Livia is, of course, Tacitus. Inthesequelwe shall see what his accusations are worth. ^ Livia bore to Augustus no chil- dren. This was to him a grievous disappointment, as he had but one child, his daughter, Julia, by his insulted and mortally offended wife, Scribonia. This was quite as great a disappointment to Livia as it was to her husband. It was no small matter for her, who had supplanted Scribonia, to know that the child of Scribonia would continue the line of the Caesars and fill the throne, and not any of her own. No thought entered her head — at all events for many years— of her son by her first husband occupying the place of Octavian. The blood of the Caesars, of divine origin, of the founder of the dynasty, was not to be set aside. As she bore him no children, she was obliged to submit to the continuance of the sacred Julian race through Julia ; and Julia, when aged fourteen, was married to the young Marcellus, aged seventeen, son of the sister of Octavian. They were married in b.c. 25, when Augustus was aged thirty-eight. He moreover adopted Marcellus as his own son. The sister of Marcellus, Marcella, was given in marriage Fig. 39.— L I V I a. Profile of the Head of the Statue in the Louvre. 1 The writer in Smith's Dictionary of Roman and Greek Biography follows the usual estimate: 'She was a consummate actress, excelled in dissimulation and intrigue.' ' According to the common opinion, she did not scruple to employ foul means to remove out of the way the family of her husband. ' Quite so — ' common opinion, ' and of what value was that, when the people had the suggestion of evil given them by the adherents of Scribonia? 174 T|JE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS to his attached friend, M. Vipsanius Agrippa. But this marriage of Marcellus and Juha was of short continuance, and was unproductive. The young husband was of dehcate health, and died at the baths of Baiae, before he reached his twentieth year (b.c. 23). His youth and his amiable qualities, derived not only from his mother, but also from a worthy father, greatly esteemed in Rome, caused the sorrow for his death to be general and heartfelt.^ The cause of his decease was probably decline, hastened by the cold-water cure, a panacea of his surgeon, Antonius Musa, who had shortly before tried its effects on Octavian with great success. The disappointment to Scribonia and her party caused by this death occasioned the' circulation of a whisper that Livia had made away with him. But there is one historian only who records this, Dio Cassius, and he designates it as groundless. ' It was reported,' he says, ' that Livia was guilty of the death of Marcellus because he was preferred to her own sons. But this suspicion is ill founded, as the year in which he died, as well as that which preceded it, were both of them years full of sickness, in which great numbers of men died.'^ It may be added that had Livia desired to further the cause of Tiberius, and prevent Augustus being succeeded by a male line of his own blood, she could not have done better than let the feeble Marcellus live on, and Julia remain married to him, her first cousin and without children. By the death of Marcellus the young widow was at liberty to be married to a more robust husband. This was done in the same year, for Julia was at once married to Agrippa, a man much older than herself, but of strong and hearty constitution; and to him she gave in rapid succession five children, of whom three were boys, Caiiis Julius Caesar, Lucius Julius Caesar, and Agrippa born after his father's death. The daughters were Julia and Agrippina. The intensity of the grief and disappointment of Octavia at the loss of her son on whom she had not only set her heart, but also her ambition, was, if not greater than that of Augustus, at all events more demonstrative and less measured. Seneca, the tutor of Nero, who must certainly have had grounds for his statement, expressly tells us that in her grief and despair Octavia ' turned to hate all mothers, and the angry passion of her sorrow was directed principally against Livia, because that now the hope and prospects that had belonged to her own son were transferred to the son of Livia.' It was but a short step from frantic 1 He was delicate from his sixteenth year. Servius ad Virg. Aen. vi. - Portraits of young Marcellus : — All doubtful. 1. A bust, now broken, found in the theatre along with one of Augustus at Aries. In the Museum there. 2. An admirable bust in the Capitoline Museum. Of Greek workmanship ; there is really no ground for supposing this to represent Marcellus. " 3. Bust, from the Laval collection, St. Petersburg, No. 251. Much restored. AUGUSTUS '75 grief and disappointed rage, to make accusation against the guiltless Livia of having contrived the death of Marcellus. If, the reader will look back at the face of Octavia, he will see that under all the heaviness of expression there lurks an ugly unreasoning temper. We shall consider in due order the other charges brought against the wife of Augustus. We must now say a word or two about Julia and her new husband Agrippa. IV.— JULIA. Concerning the daughter of Scribonia and Augustus, the testimony of antiquity is unanimous and unfavourable. The only child of the lord of the world, educated by him with the most anxious care for her high position, she was for a long time the darling of her father through her geniality and wit ; on her all his ambition rested. Then, all at once, everything was changed ; she became the cause of the most inextin- guishable pain and humiliation, and was cast from the summit of fortune, as the first wonlan of the Roman world, through her own fault and incredible folly, into the abyss of misery and misfortune, and ended her days in a prison, after having seen her three sons die, and after having survived the last hope of escape from her wretchedness. ' We are enabled,' says Stahr, ' almost to see into the heart of this woman, who, like no other about her, mirrors to us the mingled good and bad, the beauty and the hideousness, that characterised this epoch, and shows us the moral condition of the ladies of the higher Roman aristocracy.' Julia was taken from her mother at an early age that she might be brought up under the eye of her father. This education was more homely than one might have supposed. But Augustus was a great stickler for simplicity and domestic activity. The daughter of an emperor was taught to spin and weave, and was obliged to assist her stepmother and her aunt Octavia in making the ordinary clothes for Octavian, for he made a point of wearing home-spun and home-woven clothes only. The purpose of Augustus was to bring up his child, the representative of the divine Julius, to set before the eyes of the Roman' people the ideal of ancient Roman uprightness, honour, and industry. He had continually in his mouth the exhortation, ' Never say or do anything which you would not have known to all the world, and written in the daily journal' ^ He was very particular, probably oecause of the hateful tittle-tattle of Roman society, that there should be no visits of young men to his house, at all events that they should 1 That is to say, in his own diaiy. Fig. 40.-JULIA, Bust in the Museum Chiaramomi, No. 418. AUGUSTUS 177 • not be admitted to the company of the ladies. Once when the imperial family were at Baiae, enjoying the sea-baths, a young nobleman called. Augustus heard of it, and wrote to reprimand him, ' You have not behaved with proper respect,' said he, 'in paying a visit to my daughter at Baiae.' It is not a little instructive to see the manner in which Augustus endeavoured to rehabilitate pure morals in the body of Roman society, and to enforce them in his own family. In religion there could be found no authoritative divine sanction for a moral life. He cast about for some other basis on which to rear it, and the only one he could discover was antiquarian sentiment. He appealed to that : Be virtuous, because virtue was a distinguishing feature of ancient Roman society — a feeble, yielding basis, of no strength whatever where the antiquarian faculty did not exist. But he had no other ; the Divine Lawgiver who was to found morality on the only solid base was then about to be born in Judaea. To return to Julia: Unfortunately the strict supervision at home ceased when Julia, then quite a child, married Marcellus, a mere boy ; she enjoyed her liberty, and not knowing where to stop, in time was in every mouth, the subject of scandal throughout Rome, and her conduct known to every one except her father, whom no one ventured to enlighten on her vagaries. After the death of Marcellus, Julia had been given to M. Vipsanius Agrippa, a worthy man — a devoted adherent of her father. It was true that Agrippa was already married to Marcella, daughter of Octavia, and niece of Augustus, but Octavia herself urged the advisability of giving Julia to Agrippa ; and in order to make the marriage possible, Marcella was divorced, and shortly after united to Antonius, the son of the triumvir. This marriage with Agrippa was political. He was aged forty-two, she eighteen ; but it was advisable to attach one so powerful as Agrippa to the throne ; and very probably Octavia and Scribonia saw that the giddy young creature required a strong hand over her, and Agrippa was not the man to stand nonsense in a wife. A good, a just, and an honourable man, he was strict as a disciplinarian, and scrupulous that his household should be orderly. Agrippa belonged to the Vipsanian family, of which the haughty nobles of Rome declared they had never heard. But humble though his origin was, his abilities were brilliant. He was a consummate general, which Octavian was not, and he was able with his military, skill to restore the affairs of his friend when the latter by his ill address ' in war had brought them into jeopardy. The young Marcellus had been pert, and had offended Agrippa, who thought himself set aside for this consumptive lad. Maecenas said to Augustus : ' Take care ; you have put this man so high that you must make him your son-in-law or Cast him down.' This thought, and perhaps sincere love and gratitude for the rough, generous, simple-minded soldier, had moved Octavian to M Fig. 41— M. VIPSANIUS AGRIPPA. Bust in the Louvre ; found at Gabii, 1792. AUGUSTUS 179 take him into his family by uniting him to his niece, and now to bind him still closer by giving him his daughter. Few, if any, Romans were as liberal as was Agrippa with his money, and it has been a singular freak of fortune that the only public edifice of the period, or even of the later empire, that has survived to the present day undilapidated at Rome is the Pantheon, erected by Agrippa.^ Julia's second marriage lasted ten years, and this was the brightest time of her life. The wealth of her husband was great ; she was courted and admired by the society of Rome; for her husband's sake, as well as her own, was popular with the lower classes. She was, if not regularly beautiful, full of animation and charm of manner that made up for lack of regularity of feature. She had humour, cleverness, love of literature and of art, and unflagging buoyancy of spirits. Even her giddiness and indifference to what the world said of her proceedings somewhat conduced to heighten the popularity she enjoyed. She made ' up now for the straitness and monotony of the life to which she had been condemned in childhood. Her father, who loved his only child almost to idolatry, did not attempt to control her, never doubting that this joyousness of her nature was held in check by a sound moral sense. He delighted in her freshness ; he was grateful to her for giving him the long-desired heirs of Julian blood, and, no doubt, he felt that she had been required by him to make some sacrifice to political exigencies and his wishes, when she took an old soldier as her husband, old enough to be her father. There can be little question that, apart from disparity in years, Agrippa *as not the sort of husband that suited the temperament of this lively young widow. The sternness (torvitas) of his character is marked on his features. He was not an unkind man ; he was indeed a man of a large and generous heart, and of the most tender affection, as was shown by his devotion to -Octavian ; but his life in the camp and with the fleet had given him a curt and imperious manner, and his restless energy was in ill accord with the dolce far niente of Julia. Moreover, he was obliged to be absent from his wife's side for long 1 Portraits of Agrippa : — 1. A fine gem in the De la Tourbie collection, Bordeaux. King, xlviii. 10. This is the youngest representation of him we have. 3. Several fine medals. 3. Statue at Venice representing him nude, with a dolphin at his side ; Palazzo Grimani. This was found at the Pantheon in the court. 4. A splendid characteristic bust in the Louvre ; the finest that exists (Fig. 41). 5. A bust in the Campo Santo, Pisa. 6. Fine bust of Luna marble, found in the Villa of the Gordiani, in the Torlonia Gallery, No. 516. Closely resembles the Louvre bust. 7. Bust, Uffizi Pal., Florence, No. 48. Also like the Louvre bust. 8. Engraved onyx, Vienna. Certainly Agrippa, though questioned by Bernoulli. 9. Cameo ; obv. Agrippa with rostral crown, rev. Julia. Bib. Nat. Paris, No. 200. i8o THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS periods. Only for the first year of their married life was he resident in Rome, where, as prefect of the city, he had to occupy himself in keep- ing order and tranquillity during the consular elections of B.C. 21, when there was such agitation of men's minds that an insurrection was feared. Next year, when Julia bore him his first son, Caius, he was obliged to depart for Gaul to encounter the Germans, who were again threatening invasion. Hardly was this task accomplished when he was summoned to Spain by a rising of the Cantabri, in the Basque range of the Pyrenees. In B.C. 19 he was back in Rome, and rather over a year later Julia pre- sented him with her second son, Lucius. But in the summer of B.C. 1 7 he was ordered off to the east, where he was detained for three years. But in this case Augustus ordered Julia to follow him. She and Agrippa visited Judaea together, and were received with great splendour by Herod in Jerusalem. After that they spent some time in Asia Minor. Almost immediately on their return to Rome, Agrippa was summoned to Parthia in the depth of winter. But the old warrior was now getting past duty ; he suffered from gout, and with his gout, undoubtedly his temper was not of the most amiable description. At the advice of his doctors he dipped his legs in vinegar, as hot as he could endure it ; but all remedies failed, and he sickened to his death. The news of his dangerous condition reached Octavian just as he was giving some gladiatorial games to the people in the middle of March B.C. 12, in honour of his grandsons Caius and Lucius, the sons of Agrippa and Julia. He at once went into Campania, to the deathbed of his truest and best of friends, who had held to him from boyhood ; but he arrived too late, the gout had reached the old soldier's stomach and had killed him. Augustus grieved for him with sincerest and most poignant sorrow. He himself pronounced over him the funeral oration in the forum, and he had his ashes laid, not in the tomb Agrippa had erected for himself, but in the family mausoleum of the Julii, which already contained the urn of the first husband of Julia, and where he himself designed to rest when life's fever was over with himself But the haughty nobility of Rome, proud of their real or fictitious ancestry, showed signs of contempt, and prepared to refuse to attend the funeral of the great hero, who had risen from the ranks, and had no pedigree to boast of Augustus heard their murmurs and threats, and gave a significant order that their attendance was expected, and this they did not venture to disobey.^ Julia, now in her twenty-eighth year, was again a widow ; and a few months after the death of her husband she bore her third son, who was called Agrippa, after his father, and Postumus, as indicative of the period of his birth. Augustus heard rumours of his daughter having coquetted with some 1 For an admirable life of this soldier see Frandsen, Agrippa, Altona, 1836. Also Moltke, Agrippa, Gent, 1872. AUGUSTUS i8i of the fine gentlemen of Rome, and he knew that a lively person of her character must not be left in widowhood over long. But he hesitated for a while to whom to give her. He thought of C. Proculeius, a wealthy knight, as a husband for her ; then of Coteso, a king of the Getae ; but his choice fell finally on Tiberius Nero, eldest son of his wife Livia. There is but a single bust that can be regarded as a genuine portrait of Julia.i It is a bold, impudent face, full of good nature, but coarse. The hair is beautiful and wavy, worn in a fashion intermediate between that of Octavia (Fig. 30), and that of the Agrippinas. Psychologi- cally the story of Julia can be read in this bold, merry face. It is the face of a woman who would pick up all the slang of the fashionables of Rome, and bandy coarse jokes with them — we know that Julia actually did make exceedingly- coarse ones. One preserved, relative to herself, must be looked for in Macrobius. But, though this shall not be quoted, another incident showing the readiness of her tongue, given by the same writer, will bear reproduction. One day she came to see her father, and sup with him, in such a lavish and splendid toilette, that he was disconcerted and offended. He said nothing ; but she could see by his manner that he was put out. Next day she came to him again, but dressed soberly. Augustus could not now control his satisfaction, and said, ' How much more suitable it is that my daughter should appear in her present dress than in that which she wore yesterday.' ' Possibly,' answered Julia, with a laugh. ' But remember, to-day I am dressed to please my father, yesterday so as to please my husband.' Another time Augustus was vexed to see, at a public exhibition of gladiatorial games, that his daughter's box was full of young exquisites, with whom she was bandying words and glances. On reaching home, Augustus wrote her a note of remonstrance, and bade her observe the difference between her own surroundings and those of Livia, about whom 'grave and reverend signiors' had congregated. Julia scribbled an answer and sent it back to her father : ' These young men will be- come old fogies also by the time I am an old woman.' 1 Portraits of Julia : — 1. A medal, Greek, with the head of Julia on the obverse, on the reverse that of Pallas. 2. Denarius of Augustus, of date 737, the year when he adopted the two sons ol Agrippa and Julia. On one side head of Augustus, on the other that of Julia between those of her sons. But this is too small for identification of features. 3. Bronze medal struck at Smyrna, the head of Julia on the obverse, with legend lOTAIAN A*POAITHN. On reverse, head of Livia ; both heads much idealised. 4. Gem, Waterton Collection. Julia's head between those of her sons. King, xlix. S. 5. Bust in Vatican, Chiaramonti, No. 418, found at Ostia in 1855 (Fig. 41). There are holes in the lobes of the ears for gold earrings. 6. Bust at Florence, eyes crooked ; this bust is of an entirely different character ; a sullen face. The only reason for assigning this to Julia is asymmetry of the eyes, as among the Julian family something of the sort is observable. 7. Cameo, Agrippa on one side, on the other Julia. Bibl. Nat. Paris, No. 200. t82 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS One day Augustus came into her room while her toilette was in progress— this was when she was getting into years. Her servant had been removing her grey hairs; but, surprised by the entry of the emperor, left some of the plucked-out hairs on Julia's dressing-gown. Augustus pretended not to notice this, and talked of various matters. Then suddenly, ' Julia ! ' said he, ' which would you rather be— grey or bald?' 'O father, bald, of course.' 'You little rogue,' answered Augustus. ' Look here ! ' and he held up some of the grey hairs that had been pulled out of her head. Once when reproached because of the luxury of her table as con- trasted with the simplicity of her father's, she answered haughtily, ' My father may forget that he is Caesar, but I never that I am Caesar's daughter.' The marriage of Julia with Tiberius was an unhappy one. In the first place, in order to marry her, Tiberius was compelled by Augustus to separate from his dearly loved wife, Vipsania, a daughter born to Agrippa by his first wife ; in the second place, his character was as ill disposed to agree with that of Julia as had been that of Agrippa. Moreover he knew, what was not known to Augustus, that JuHa was worse than a giddy coquette. He had already had advances made to him by her, during the life of her soldier husband, which he had repelled with some disgust. This slight she never forgave, and the fact that she was capable of such conduct he never forgot. She, for her part, felt her vanity mortified, and her pride wounded, and she harboured the remembrance that he was the son of I^ivia, who had supplanted her own mother Scribonia, and she hated him accordingly. However, at first they lived together in seeming love, and she bore her third husband a boy, who, however, soon died. After this, mutual antipathy drove them apart. We have in the Vatican three charming. busts from the Aventine, where they were found in admirable preservation near the Church of Sta. Sabina. They represent the three sons of Julia by Agrippa, as children. To my eye there is a family likeness between the two elder and their mother, if we take the Vatican bust to be her portrait. The heart of Augustus seemed now to have acquired all it could desire. He was undisturbed head of the world-empire of Rome. No plots were formed against him. His daughter had given him three grandsons, and there seemed to be every prospect of the Julian dynasty taking firm root. Augustus adopted the two elder boys, Caius and Lucius, and they were thus indicated as his heirs and successors. The emperor gave rich presents in gold to the soldiers in the name of Caius, who was sent along with Tiberius, when only twelve years old, in a cam- paign against the Sigambri, in order that he might become acquainted with mihtary exercise. Augustus not only supervised the education of the boys, but he taught them himself, and even endeavoured to get them i84 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS exactly to reproduce his own style of penmanship. The flattery to which the lads were early exposed turned their heads, and they impor- tuned their grandfather to bestow upon them public marks of honour. He yielded so far as to allow them to be declared consuls-elect and ' princes of the youth ' before they had begun ' relinquere nuces,' ' to put away childish things.' Caius was nominated in B.C. 5, but was not to enter on the consulship till five years later. He assumed the toga vi'rilis in the same year, and his brother three years later.^ ■ j At table, the two boys always sat with Augustus, one on each hand ; and when he went a journey, he took them in the chariot with him. When Tiberius returned from his last campaign in Germany, he very soon perceived that these boys were made milch more of by Augustus than he could expect to be. And when Octavidn rewarded his services with the tribunician power for five years, this token of the emperor's favour served merely to delay the rupture. Tiberius was aged thirty-six. he was an experienced general, and had been "the wise governor ctf provinces. He returned to Rome to find himself coolly received by the people, and his place in the regard of Augustus occupied by two pert urchins, who made no disguise of their contempt for the son of Livia. His wife's good name was branded by common talk, and, mortally hurt, he withdrew from Rome to Rhodes. TuHa had formed an attachment for one Sempronius Gracchus, a handsome and polished man, of noble birth and attractive manners. This intrigue had begun whilst Julia was married to Agrippa, and was continued after her marriage with Tiberius. Sempronius Gracchus, as 1 Portraits of Caius and Lucius Caesar : — 1. Medals, several. , One witli head of Augustus on one side, and that of Caius on the other. The Gonzaga medal. 2. Busts in the Vatican. Chiararaonti, Nos. 417-419; found near St. Sabina on the Aventine. They belong to this period, at which no portrait statues and busts were allow- able except of persons distinguished by high ofBce, so that children's heads are excep- tional, and these almost certainly must belong to the Augustan house. There is, it seems to me, a certain family lilsieness in them to the Octavian r.ice, and certainly they are brothers (Figs. 42, 43). 3. Busts at Wilton House. These are not a pair. One has the iris marked, the other has not. That called Caius turns to. the right ; the ears are set singularly far- bade in the head. The shape of the head is very much that of Tiberius, very broad, and narrowing rapidly to the chin ; but this is probably due to lack of development in childhood. The ears protrude ; the mouth is small. In this bust the iris of the eye is not marked. The Lucius turns somewhat to the left, and there is the asymmetry in the eyes that is often seen in the portraits of the Caesars of the Julian and Claudian houses. I have examined these carefully on the spot. 4. Two busts in the Berlin Gallery, of about the age of 12 and 14, Nos. 414 and 415 ■ evidently brothers ; both turned to the right. Bernoulli thirtks they are later, and have not a marked Julian character. 5. Two busts at Madrid, very like Augustus ; these I have not seen, nor have I seen photographs of them. 6. Two other busts at Madrid, with a Julian character. ' 7. A beautiful naked statue in the Villa Albani, No. 120. 'I'his is conjectured to be a Caius, but it is uncertain, though probable. AUGUSTUS iSS Tacitus tells us, left no effort untried to set her against Tiberius : ' he inspired her with disrespect and hatred towards her husband ; and when she wrote letters to her father full of asperity towards Tiberius, it was believed that they had been dictated to her by Gracchus.' The old emperor was annoyed at the departure of his son-in-law; he could not understand it, and his daughter fanned his annoyance into anger. Not only whilst Julia was a child in his own house, but also after she was married, he had regarded her as a model of womanly virtue. So much so, that when the worthy Cornelia, daughter of his former wife Sempronia by her first husband, died, he thought he could not do her greater honour than by saying ' she was worthy through her blameless life to rank with his own Julia.' Those who heard him laughed in their sleeve and did not undeceive him ; afterwards some slight glimmerings of the truth reached him, during the long absence of Agrippa, and made him uneasy. He said on one occasion to a circle of intimate friends : ' I have two daughters to look after, and a delicate matter it is with both ; and I have to suffer anxiety for both : the one daughter is the Republic, the other, Julia.' Tiberius had been in voluntary banishment four years, and Julia had reached her thirty-eighth year, an age at which, as Macrobius says, ' had she possessed common-sense, she would have remembered that she was on the threshold of old age,' when the aspect of affairs changed. Unfortunately her self-will and wantonness had been too long uncontrolled to be subdued by the approach of age, and sense of security had made her reckless. On a day in February of the year B.C. 2, Augustus reached what was the culminating point of his fame and of his domestic happiness. He was aged sixty-one. The proud title of 'Father of his Country' had been decreed to him by the Senate, the knights, and the people ; and this title was inscribed over his palace gates, and at the foot of the statue of himself seated in a four-horse chariot, erected in the forum by the senate. A year previous, Caius, the eldest of Julia's sons, had assumed the toga of manhood. Both princes, ' princes of the youth ' of Rome, clad in silver harness, led the procession of the young men into the Field of Mars, as Caesar Augustus came to dedicate the temple of Mars the Avenger, just completed. With tender pride the aged emperor looked at his daughter, from whose fruitful womb had issued the heirs of his blood and of his dynasty. He knew that a good deal of unpleasant rumour relative to her had been circulating in the town, but he refused to believe that there was real ground for it. Julia in spite of her grey hairs was giddy, but not guilty. ' Just like her I am sure that Claudia must have looked,' said he, ' of whom our forefathers told that she was slandered. But she proved her innocence.' ^ And there was some excuse for his blindness. Her good-humour, her jovial impudence of countenance — excuse the word, her portrait 1 Macrob. Sa/. ii. 5. 1 86 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS suggests it— seemed to speak of lack of consideration for the proprieties of etiquette, not of moral turpitude. Caius was to depart for the Parthian war, and the proud grandfather, in dedicating the splendid temple to the god of wars, hoped that he was assuring the protection of the god for his loved heir to the throne. Just then came the crash. How we do not exactly know ; but the eyes of Octavian were opened, and he realised at once, to his unspeakable shame and grief, the utter infamy of his own flesh and blood. Sem- pronius Gracchus was not the qnly young man involved in the scandal. It is probable that Ovid the poet owed his banishment to the same cause. But there were more than two or three whose names were brought before the bowed-down emperor. He did not care to sound the depths of degradation into which he looked. As Suetonius tells us, he could bear to hear of the death of his children, but not of their disgrace. He felt that the dishonour of his daughter stained the whole house, polluted the purity of the sacred Julian blood, on which the security of the dynasty rested. But this matter could not be hushed up. He recognised the fact at once, and sent all the evidence of Julia's guilt to the senate, bidding them go into the matter thoroughly ; for himself, he could not pluck up heart to appear before them. That terrible trial was the most revolting revelation that had yet taken place of the moral turpitude eating like a cancer into the heart of Roman society. The lovers of Julia belonged for the most part to the proudest families of Rome ; in the course of the inquiry such a number of scandals came to light, in which the names of great ladies were mixed up, that finally the emperor had to intervene, and request that some limits should be put to the inquiry. He would hear of no excuses for his daughter, listen to no pleading for pardon. Hiding in his humiliation in the inner chambers of his house, ashamed to let even the slaves see his face, he absolutely refused the visits of friends who would pour comfort into his wounded heart. Some one told him that Julia's freedwoman and confidante had hung herself. Caesar raised his grey head and said : ' Would God I were Phoebe's father ! ' But the daughter of Augustus had not the courage — or sense of shame— that Phoebe had. She thought to brazen it out ; she reckoned on her father's love, on her own position. But further discoveries came to light. Behind ^all this wantonness was something even worse ; — an intrigue bet\*een Julia and her lovers to destroy her own father, whose length of life rendered her impatient of delay, desiring to reign supreme, and rule in the name of her son Caius. Among the most deeply involved of these conspirators was lulus Antonius, second son of Marc Antony and Fulvia — a man whose life Augustus had spared, and whom he had raised to the very highest honours, and had married to his niece Marcella, daughter of Octavia. Antonius was sentenced to execution, and the rest to banishment. AUGUSTUS 187 It would seem probable that the conspirators did not really draw Julia into their plot, but that they used her as their tool. Bad though she was, it is inconceivable that she should have sunk to such a depth of wickedness as to desire the assassination of her own father. It is, however, quite explicable that those in league against him should take advantage of Julia's frivolity to pay court to her for the purpose of extracting from her what information they required. The broken-hearted father, as he wandered about his house, was heard to sigh, ' O ! if my old friends Maecenas and Agrippa had been alive, this would never have happened ! ' and then to blame himself for having put the sifting of the wretched story into the hands of the Senate, and so given it publicity in all its odious and shame-bringing details. He refused again to see the face of his child, and bade that she should be conveyed to the volcanic islet of Pandateria in the Bay of Naples, and there be strictly guarded. He never forgave her. After his death it was discovered that her name had been scratched out from his will. v.— AUGUSTUS, EMPEROR. We must now return for a while to Augustus and Livia in earlier and happier days. It has been a problem set before historians, whether Octavius aimed at absolutism and worked for that end from the outstart of his career, or whether the greatness was thrust upon him. Most men have chosen the easier solution, which explained everything readily : Octavius aimed at sovereignty ; and his conduct in refusing certain powers offered him, his patient continuance in partnership with Antony and I^epidus, were all due to dissimulation of his real purpose, till it suited his grown powers to declare himself ready to accept everything and to crush every one who aspired to share the sovereignty. But it appears to me that this is a very mistaken view of Augustus, and that Dean Merivale is much nearer the truth when he says : ' The young Octavius commenced his career as a narrow-minded aspirant for material power. But his intellect expanded with his fortunes, and his soul grew with his intellect. With the world at his feet, he began to conceive the real grandeur of his position; he learnt to coiriprehend the manifold variety of the interests subjected to him; he rose to a sense of the awful mission imposed upon him.' He groped his way. At first he sought to secure the property of his great uncle, and some position of dignity and safety. He aspired to a consulship and the command of legions in a province. 'I'he world was wide, so he and Antony and Lepidus divided it between them. Lepidus soon proved his incapacity ; and when, jealous of the great name and place his fellow-triumvirs had won, he seized on Sicily, there was no help for it — Octavian was forced to put his foot on his Fig. 44-— A U G U S T U S. Statue at Berlin (Royal Museum, No. 343). AUGUSTUS 189 neck. But he showed no desire to quarrel with Antony. At the very last, when he was in Alexandria, he produced the correspondence that had passed between him and his rival to show how anxious he had been, by concession, to retain the good-will of Antony, and by advice to draw him from his suicidal conduct in allowing Cleopatra to mould a policy that was distinctly anti-patriotic. When the civil war was concluded, Octavian looked about him and found himself alone: There was ho man of distinction to raise his hand to oppose him. With the overthrow of Sextus, the Pompeian faction was extinguished ; the death of Antony had left his party — if any party remained — dispirited. Lepidus was but a shadow, devoid of substance. The victorious party acknowledged no divided interests. The nobility were depressed and decimated; the people had lost independence. Rome, Italy, the whole world, longed for — cried out for — peace, and forced the survivor of the civil tumults to take the place of prince of the commonwealth. The city was weary of bloodshed, Italy of confis- cation and consignment of lands to soldiers. The provinces, tortured under the old rule of the senate and people, trusted that one man, gathering into his hands supreme authority, would check the rapacity of local governors. Thus Octavian found power, position, empire, thrust on him from every side. Dio Cassius tells us of a debate between Octavian and his con- fidential friends, Agrippa and Maecenas. The elaborate harangues put into the mouths of the debaters are due, in the form presented to us, to the embroidery of the historian's fancy ; but certainly he embroidered on a substratum of fact. And, indeed, this disbussion is in complete accord with what I venture to think was the condition of the mind of Octavian at the time. He was virtually master of the commonwealth, but the fate of his uncle made him shrink from the assumption of supreme power. The old republican, or rather oligarchical, constitution was dead — past possibility of being revived. What was to be done ? The result of the conference was that Octavian undertook, with the help of his friends, to reorganise the constitution on clearly defined and practical lines. One cannot see what else could be done. If Octavian had not taken the lead, the people, determined on having a chief ruler, whom they regarded as the pledge of public tranquillity, would have forced the place on Agrippa. Offices were heaped upon Augustus, to be held for long years. The people were ashamed of the annual elections, that had led to bribery of the worst and most widespread character, and had given them officers selling themselves so as to recoup their outlay in buying the votes that raised them to their offices. The downright good sense of the masses spoke out. They resigned the advantages of yearly bribery for the sake of having one master who would rule for the public interest and not for party ends. 190 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS In B.C. 27, when aged thirty-six, Augustus offered to resign the extraordinary powers he had held as triumvir, and which were irregular and extra-constitutional, so that his authority might be re-established on a legal basis, if the commonwealth would have it so ; otherwise let the old constitution be restored. Every public enemy had been subdued, every province secured, every ally satisfied, and every citizen contented. He therefore intimated his readiness to resign his trust into the hands of the commonwealth. This has been generally regarded as the enacting of a solemn farce. But why so? Sulla had resigned his dictatorship. Octavian had very simple tastes; the burden of government was great ; power would not be lost to him if he did give up the conspicuous position that had been forced on him. But the Romans would not hear of this; they had enjoyed tranquillity unparalleled for many years, the factions had sunk into silence, order was restored in the streets, decorum in the senate. A new spirit of honour in the discharge of ofifice was making itself manifest. Were Octavian to withdraw his hand from the rudder, the ship of the state would be tossed in every direction, and be cast on the breakers. Civil war would ensue, and end in some adventurous general conquering Rome for himself, and then subdividing Italian soil once more among his soldiers, and cutting off the men of means, knights and nobles alike, so as to get hold of their lands, their palaces, and their money-bags. With one voice the senate, terrified at the pro- spect opened before their eyes — each man fearing for his own throat and his own coffer — entreated Octavian to retain the powers with which they had invested him for their benefit. And the people were as loud in their insistence. On his part there had been real weariness of the tension of govern- ment, real desire for rest; possibly transitory, but real at the time. Before the loudly expressed conviction of the people and senate that the work he had begun must be accomplished by him, he bowed, and resumed the task. It was then that he assumed the title of Augustus — 13th January B.C. 27. He at once started for a survey of the provinces, to understand their needs, and to take measures for the equitable administration of these provinces. The constitution of the Principate dates from this time. Augustus claimed to have restored to the Republic the powers he had previously usurped.1 He did this, but only to receive them back again in more formal and legal and unassailable fashion. The house first occupied by Augustus was that in which he first saw the light, on the Palatine, that had belonged to his father Octavius. Thence he removed later to the larger dwelling that had belonged to the orator Hortensius, on the same hill, and there abode till it was 1 ' Rempublicam ex mea potestate in senat(us populique Romani a)rbitrium transtuli." — Man. Ancyr. vi. 13. Fig. 45.— AUGUSTUS. Bust in the British Museum. 192 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS destroyed by fire in B.C. 6. He was then aged fifty-seven. The house was rebuilt on a larger scale by the citizens. A subscription was got up for it, and so eager were the citizens to subscribe, and so numerous were the contributors, that Augustus refused to allow any of the subscribers to give more than one denarius. The site is now covered by the gardens of the Villa Mills with its magnificent cypresses, and all that can be seen of it are the substructures. But although the palace of Augustus was built by the public in grateful acknowledgment of the benefits they had acquired under his rule, it was by no means a sumptuous building. When his daughter Julia erected a palace of too extravagant magnificence, he was offended and ordered it to be demolished. The columns that formed the peristyle of his house were not of .marble, nor even of travertine, but of the coarse, common peperino. The house commanded the circus, and had a southern aspect, as Augustus suffered from the cold winters in Rome, but did not like to leave it. The entrance was on the north, where was the colonnade and a fountain. Over the modest door hung, rustling in the wind, an old withered civic crown of oak-leaves, of which he was vastly proud, for this civic crown was decreed to such as had saved the lives of Roman citizens. The fact of his cherishing this decoration goes far to show that Octavius was guiltless of the blood that was shed in the proscription, or had done his utmost to restrain his colleagues from taking lives as well as estates. On each side of his doorway grew a laurel, which was the decora- tion of the Regia, or high priest's house in the forum. On the top of the house was a snuggery, into which he retired when he wanted to be entirely alone, and this he called his Syracuse, or workshop. For forty years he occupied one small bedroom, in summer always sleeping with his door open. His furniture was of the plainest description : ' hardly fit for a gentleman's house nowadays,' says Suetonius, writing under the Flavian emperors. He had a good library, in which were the busts and statues of illustrious men ; amongst others, in good taste, that of Hortensius, whose house this had been. It happens that, though the house of Augustus, now buried under the gardens of a convent, has not been explored, we can see two houses that were inhabited by Livia. One is that which belonged to her first husband, Tiberius Claudius Nero, to which she retired in her old age and widowhood. The other is her summer villa, about four miles from Rome, at Torre de Prima Porta. Both have been exhumed, and exhibit not only the construction of a Roman house of the period, but also give us some insight into the private life of Livia. Both houses are of the most modest proportions. That on the Palatine consists of an atrium, sunk some steps below the level of the ground, for the sake of coolness, out of which open, opposite the entrance, three little sitting- rooms, the central tablinum and two subsidiary rooms, divided from AUGUSTUS 193 the atrium by a step, opening out of it by arches closed at will by curtains. To the right of the atrium a door gives access to a little dining-room, over the door of which is painted a glass containing flowers — roses, tulips, and anemones. The tablinum and side alcoves are also adorned with frescoes, very charming, representing mytho- logical scenes; that on the right has an exquisite border, painted with the delicacy of a miniature, of scenes of country and village life. Behind these state apartments are the slaves' rooms and their court, the kitchens, store-chambers, and offices. The whole is on a wonderfully small scale ; the decorations delicate, refined, and impressing one with the idea that the lady of the house was distinctly a lady in mind and in tastes. It is even more so at Torre de Prima Porta. On the top of a hill that dominates the Tiber and the Campagna, and commands a glorious view of the Alban and Sabine hills, the summer residence of Livia has been unearthed. The little atrium, the hall, the centre of the life of the house, measures sixteen paces long by eight wide. This also is sunk twenty-five feet below the surface, and received light from above. It probably had a vaulted roof open at the ends. Nothing can be imagined more quaintly charming than the fresco decoration of this little hall. The walls are painted to look like a shrubbery, and the hall itself is supposed to be a parterre in the midst of a grove. To carry out this delusion, round the base of the wall is drawn a little light railing. Beyond this is painted the sward, and then a wall of open tile-work. But this wall forms bays at each side and at each end, and in every bay is planted a young fir-tree; and in the sward, all round the room, are flowers of various sorts — a cactus, roses, anemones, etc. Behind the wall is a perspective of trees, a forest glade of silvery olives and glossy-leaved pomegranates, with here and there a poplar shooting aloft. The pomegranates are in fruit. There are arbutus bushes with yellow berries leaning over the wall, white roses straggling, here and there a tall scarlet anemone thrusting its head into sight above the breasting of the wall. Among the trees birds are flying. They are playing with each other ; they are picking at the fruit ; they are perched on the extreme leading shoots of poplars, singing* Nothing can be imagined more graceful, more fresh and innocent The colouring, the atmospheric effect of the more distant trees, the delicacy of drawing, the pleasant fancy displayed, and the passionate admiration of nature shown in this beautiful little hall, are a revelation; One knew that the Romans admired sculpture, and loved to paint human figures ; but this is landscape of the simplest description, and it is most admirable in execution. Nothing better could be done to-day. In this villa was found the statue of Octavian, now in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican (Fig. 46) ;— one of the best portraits of Augustus that we have ; and it has this special interest attaching to it, that it was N Fig. 46.— AUGUSTUS.- Statue found in Livia's Villa at Prima Porta Vatican Museum, Nuovo Br.Tccio, No. 14. AUGUSTUS 19s the likeness which Livia thought best, and kept to look at every day in her own little country-house. On this statue M. Mayor remarks : ' It is very fine, whether looked at from an artistic or an anthropological point of view. Observe how softened is the physiognomy. The contest is over. Octavian is triumphant. Remark also the raised corners of the mouth, forming a rictus that is found again in Caligula. Approxi- mate age, 36 years.' A few years younger is the statue at BerUn in Pentelic marble, which came from the Richelieu collection, and thence passed to the Pourtalfes. The head is not of the same marble as the trunk. The right arm and right leg and left foot are restorations.^ In this latter the brows are still knit with thought and care; in the former there is repose — that repose which came over the face of Augustus as he began to see that a superior Power was shaping his destiny and was protecting him. No man was perhaps more surprised and perplexed than himself at the manner in which every opponent had given way before him, every obstruction in his way to supreme power had been removed ; in which senate and people had clung to his toga and' implored him to accept the supremacy they offered him as their sole guarantee against civil war, murder, and spoliation. He knew that he was no general. He had in the field met with humiliating disaster that had been retrieved only by the address of Agrippa. The fact that his position, his despotic power, had been forced on him, filled him with the belief in some- thing like a Providence watching over him. Perhaps he thought that the divinity of Rome was his own divinity also. The nations proclaimed him a deity, and he accepted the adulation, because he thought there was some truth in it : not that he, personally, was superhuman, but that he was the organ of divinity saving Rome from rottenness and ruin, and bringing peace and prosperity to a weary and bleeding world. He honoured the gods with genuine devotion, refusing to accept the sums which it was the fashion to subscribe for the erection of statues of him- self, and directing that they should be applied instead to the glory of the national divinities. One singular practice he adopted in or about B.C. 9, when he was aged '54 years. He seated himself one day in each year, in the guise of a mendicant, at his own palace gate, and accepted the petty coins cast him by passers-by. The reason for this self-abasement is not given, but we are probably not wrong in ascribing it to a similar feeling to that which prompted Julius Caesar to ascend the steps to the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus on his knees — voluntary humiliation to deprecate the wrath of the gods, who might strike him down were he not to acknowledge their supremacy. I The green basalt bust in the Berlin Museum is not a genuine antique, and it is characterless. 196 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS VI.— THE GRANDCHILDREN. It may have been some relief to the mind of Augustus that the boys Caius and Lucius had been removed early to his modest house on the Palatine, away from the splendour and laxity of their mother's mansion ; and he may have hoped, and doubtless did hope, that under his watchful care they would grow up to be honourable and patriotic men. In B.C. i Caius was aged twenty, and was designated for the consulship for the ensuing year. Augustus placed him under M. Lollius, an old and prudent ofiScer, of experience, and sent him against the Armenians and Parthians, who were in revolt. On his way to the East, Caius touched at Samos, and thither came Tiberius from Rhodes, where he was in banishment, voluntary at firsts then rendered compulsory, to salute the son of his unworthy and dis- graced wife. Tiberius had gone to Rhodes originally because he could not endure to be in Rome with his wife Julia, whose conduct was not concealed from him, though he dared not disclose it to her father ; and also because he was hurt by the insolence of the two boys, who inherited all the Julian and Scribonian animosity against the Claudian interloper. When he was self-banished, Julia had worked on the mind of her father to prejudice him against Tiberius, and the banishment, at first voluntary, had been made finally compulsory. Tiberius thought that, now the real cause of his departure from Rome was understood, he might be recalled, and he hoped to induce Caius to speak a word for him, but was dis- appointed. A little later, Lucius, the younger brother by two years, was sent by Augustus to Spain, but on reaching Massilia (Marseilles) he fell sick and died, Aug. 20, a.d. 2. This was a great blow to the old emperor, who was warmly attached to both boys. But worse was to follow. When Caius reached Syria, his year of consulship began. He now found that his tutor Lollius, though a brave man, was also avaricious, C. Octavius=Atia +696. I +711. ScEiBONiA=C. OCTAVIUS,=LiviaDrusilla=TibeeiusCl. Nero. Octavia=M. Antonius m. 714 ; div, 715. Augustus b. 697 Caesar; m. 715; b. 691 ; +767. -1-782. +743- +7=4- M. Vipsanius=Julia=TIBERIUS CI. Nero. Nero CI. DRUSUS = Antohia Agrippa, 691 ; +742- '*-7i5; *--7i2; i. 716; H-767. -H790- -H74S. +790. Caius Lucius Agrippa Julia Agrippina=Germanicus Tib. Claudius Livilla *-734; *-737; POSTUMUS *. 741; *. 740; I *. 739; * 744- -^7S7• +755- *. 742 ; ^4 767- +781. +786. /I\ +t,^. +807' AUGUSTUS 197 and intent on exacting all he could from the provincials. The charge of avarice had been brought against him previously in Gaul. Now, screened by the presence of the emperor's grandson and heir to his throne, LoUius is said to have carried on his exactions with unblushing effrontery. It was pretended that he had even betrayed the plans of the Romans to their enemies, the Parthians. But as these accusations were brought against him by those who fawned on and flattered the young prince, who was himself impatient of the restraint imposed on him by his tutor, it is quite possible that they may have been trumped up in order to destroy him. Lollius died — he is said to have poisoned himself; and then the young Caius was left to the machinations of the sycophants about him, without a warning voice to restrain him and moderate his pride. In A.D. 3, Caius received a wound, dealt treacherously after capitula- tion, under the walls of Artagera, and from the effects of this injury his constitution, never perhaps very strong, was impaired. He became inert, indifferent to his duties, and weary of office. He wrote to his grandfather to entreat him not to recall him to Rome, but to suffer him to remain in Syria, and during his illness to be exempted from all official responsibilities and cares. Augustus was disappointed and vexed. However, he yielded, and the sickly youth retired to Limyra, in Lycia, where his mind appears to have become affected, and finally he succumbed, just eighteen months after the death of his brother at Marseilles. The removal of these grandsons of Augustus opened the way for the sons of Livia too obviously for the disappointed and dismayed Scribonian faction not at once to spread rumours that the youths had been removed by poison. The historian Velleius Paterculus was in Asia in the campaign of Caius, and his account of the sickness leaves us in little doubt that it was due to the wound he had received from the Armenian, that had injured some vital organ. The charge against Livia of having obtained the death of the two brothers comes to us from Dio as a piece of gossip. He says : ' Livia was suspected of having occasioned both these deaths, because about this time Tiberius was recalled from Rhodes.' Another writer who allows a suspicion to rest on these deaths as not in the course of nature is Pliny — some seventy years after the affair : he, however, merely says that among the sorrows that oppressed the heart of Augustus were the ' suspicious deaths of his children, which caused him not only grief at his loss, but also occasioned other sorrows.' Tacitus speaks twice of the decease of the two young princes. In the first place he says : ' After the decease of Agrippa, these princes were cut off, either by a death premature but natural, or by the arts of their stepmother Livia; Lucius, on his journey to the armies in Spain, Caius on his return from Armenia, ill of a wound.' In the second passage Tacitus does not admit the doubt. He is writing about the death ,98 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS of Julia, who in her decline of life was kindly assisted by Livia, 'who, says he, 'having by secret devices overthrown her stepchildren m their prosperity, made an open show of compassion towards them m their adversity.' Suetonius makes no allusion to suspicion of murder. Florus says : 'Both died early, with this difference, that one, Lucius, died without having acquifed • any fame, at Massilia, of a sick- ness, whereas Caius died in Syria of the results of a wound he had received in the reconquest of Armenia.' Surely it would be monstrous to consider Livia as guilty of these two deaths. The boys had been with her in the house from infancy, and when there were cared for, and were well. They go abroad ; and when far away from her care one falls sick and dies ; the other receives a wound from which he never properly recovers, and gradually wastes away. There is absolutely no evidence for incriminating her. Fortunately we have preserved for us one of the letters that Augustus wrote to Caius, and it gives us a pleasant peep into the family life of the imperial household. The letter was written on the sixty-fourth birthday of Augustus, to Caius after he had left Rome for the East. It runs thus : ' Salutations to thee, my dearest Caius, the apple of my eye, whom I sincerely and continuously desire when you are absent from me, but chiefly on such a day as this do my eyes wander in search of my own Caius. But be you where you may on this day, 1 hope you have cheerfully and heartily celebrated my sixty-fourth birth- day. For, as you see, I have passed over that treacherous period for old folk, the sixty-third year. Now I pray the gods to grant me so to pass the rest of my life, that I may have you preserved to me, and the State may remain in the same prosperous condition as heretofore ; and that, growing in capacity and ability, you may be prepared in course of time to take my place.' There remained now to Augustus but a single grandson, Agrippa Postumus, a different sort of boy from his brothers, and one who had given his grandfather much trouble. The old emperor had adopted him, as he had already adopted Livia's eldest son, Tiberius, now returned from Rhodes, where he had spent seven years. This adoption of Tiberius and Agrippa took place on June 27, a.d. 4. In the following year Agrippa assumed the toga virilis. Livia was now at the culminating point of her power. The three women who had formed a party against her were removed. Octavia, sister of Augustus, was dead, his daughter Julia was in banishment, and Julia's mother Scribonia went voluntarily with her daughter into that banishment. Before very long the same fate that had befallen Julia befell her daughter, who had inherited her mother's laxity of principle as well as her name. Livia saw her son adopted by the emperor and virtually designated as his successor ; and she saw how the excellent and business-like qualities of Tiberius were winning for him the respect if not the love of Augustus. Her own future was assured in that of her son. The aged emperor , A-FQlteTUS '•■ : ■, ■ , 199 bowed down by so maoy blcjws of fortune in his .'6\yji family, found happiness in the love of Liyia and in the dutiful atten^iqii of Tiberius. And he needed this all the more; beiia^sepf the, uneasiiiess' caused him by the conduct of Agqppa PQ^t.ujniis', jhe «iily; survaving male represen- tative of his blood. ' ■ ■ , , - This ill-disposed bayl .was ' a thorough Lazzarar^e; in' the style of King Ferdinand i., the ., Laiz^rone king of N^jilqsj'? , His favourite pursuit was fishing, and he assiirri,ed , the, attributes "Qf Neptune. His unusual strength, -aod the,Wld e^xplosibus of insensate fury into which he burst at Xh,t Jeast contra- diction, served only to heighten the brutality of his con- duct. ' He plunged into profligacy with extraordinary depravity of mind and feeling,' says Velleius Paterculus, ' and thus alienated the affections of his grandfather, and fig. 47. father by adoption.' 'Agrippa,' says Suetonius, 'was pqstumus intractable. His folly increased from day to day.' Medal struck at Upon any mention of him and of the two Julias, the Corinth, old emperor would sigh deeply, and quote a line from the Iliad, ' Would I were wifeless, or had childless died ! ' He would speak of them as the three cancers in his family. Every attempt failed to bring Agrippa into taking a share in the conduct of the State. He would not enter on any office; he broke forth into the rudest and coarsest abuse of his grandfather and of Livia. His presence in Rome brought discredit on the Caesarian house, and Augustus obtained from the senate a decree banishing him to the islet of Planasia, near Elba. About the same time, Julia, his granddaughter, as already said, gave him trouble. She had been married to L. Aemilius PauUus, by whom she became the mother of M. Aemilius Lepidus, and of Aemilia, the first wife of Claudius, afterwards emperor. She had entered into criminal intercourse with Decimus Silanus. She was banished accord- ingly to the little island of Trimerus (a.d. 9). VII.— THE SONS OF LIVIA. There was now no one left between Tiberius and the throne, and Livia might hope to see herself the mother as well as the wife of an emperor, and to see the Claudian house supplant that of Julius. Her life with Augustus had been happy. He had been first won by 1 Portraits of Agrippa Postumus : — 1. Bronze medal of Corinth (Fig. 47). 2. Another bronze medal of Corinth (Fig. 57). 3 Bust in Vatican Museum, Chiaramonti No. 423, found along with those of Cams and Lucius Caesar on the Aventine, near the church of Sa. Sabina. I do not under- stand what Bernoulli means when he speaks of the head as having a downy beard. It has, though representing a child, a truculent look, and something of the frown m the brow of Agrippa. The head is that of a child of three years old. 2 Stahr, Tiierius, p. 51. 200 THE, TRAGEDY 'QF'.TPE, CAfiSARS her singular tlfough>somewhat childish be^ut^; but her domestic virtues, her amiable cbarafter, her cleverness, and }he Aact with which she dealt with him, overlooking' hi? w,e?ikne3se3-, lencjhained" him to her long after her beauty Jiad faded./' -Tacitus-: Speaks. i:of her^ 'easy and indulgent nature, well -adaptgd to the fastidious and. complex character of her husband.' WheiT,an intimate friend oncfi'^sked her the secret of her power — so gossip, s'aki {ut ferunt) — sh^ tep'lie^,' ' For my part I always remained within .the bounds of , iqbdffration and honour; I always cheerfully did whaiever;-he de^H-ed;-., !■ never meddled in any of his affairs, even in those of thfe Jieart, ' which neither made me show jealousy nor give token that I perceived cause for it.' This is reported by Dio Cassius about two hundred years later, and must be accepted for what it is worth. It is probably a reason given by others for the hold maintained by Livia over the affections of Augustus, and to give it more point it has been put into her mouth. Tacitus, in giving a summary of Livia's character after her death, says : ' In her domestic conduct she was formed after the model of primitive sanctity ; but she showed more affability than was suffered to the matrons of early times.' Ovid calls her 'The Vesta of chaste matrons.' One day as she went abroad she was met by a train of men, naked, perhaps gladiators in training. When Augustus heard of this he was very indignant and threatened the men with death, but Livia excused them, saying, ' To the eyes of honest women, what are they but a row of statues ! ' The power she exerted over Augustus was often for good, serving to mitigate his anger and blunt the severity of his justice. An instance was the case of Cnaeus Cornelius Cinna, when he had formed a plot for the assassination of Augustus, a plot disclosed to the emperor. Cinna was a son of Faustus Sulla by a daughter of the great Pompeius, and so may be said to have borne an hereditary grudge against the Julian house. ' Proud of his descent, and oblivious of the favours he had received at the hands of Augustus, who had made his descent no bar to his advancement, he was , ,„. "^^''^ enough to imagine that he could himself wield Fig. 48.— LI VI <^ .1 r 1 • Sardonyx at the powcrs of the empire, and that the old nobility _ St- Petersburg. y^QxA.^ acquiesce in his supremacy. One of his accom- pUces, however, disclosed to the emperor his design to surprise him in the act of sacrificing, and slay him at the foot of the altar. Time was when Augustus would have rushed impetuously to punish such an attempt in a paroxysm of fear or anger. But these passions had now cooled down; he could reason calmly with himself; he could take deliberate counsel with his advisers how best to baffle designs which neither the certainty nor the severity of punishment had hitherto MCU-STUS ' ■ . 20 1 availed to repress. Tlje .^clmans ascribed to Livja the merit of persuading him that mercy ;was also policy. A Veig^fkable scene followed, when the chief cyminjl- v?a6 ,y,et ; as^conscious that his plot was detected. Augustusi^^i^njijacsii^^' hiia'-infep his cabinet, and ordered a chair to be set foi; him by the side of hi§ own.; and then, desiring not to be interrupted,, :proceeded to deliver a. discourse, which, according to his custom ip niattejrs of importance, be. had already pre- pared, and perhaps committed ,10, Wjr.'tjjrig.\ .He ^reaiiftded his uneasy auditor of the grace he had besto,«^ed;„apon'ljimp' though a political enemy and the son of an enemy; hehjid grtinted him life, he had enriched and distinguished him. He had raised him to the honour of the priesthood, over more than one competitor from the ranks of the Caesarians themselves. 'After all these favours,' he continued, 'how could you plot to take away my life ?' Cinna could keep silence no longer; he vehemently disclaimed the horrid imputation. 'You promised not to interrupt me,' rejoined Augustus, and proceeded calmly with his harangue, unfolding all the details of the conspiracy, and finally asking what end the traitor could have proposed to himself. 'Be assured,' he added, ' it is not myself alone who stands in your way, if such be your ambition : neither the Paulli, nor the Cossi, the Fabii nor the S'ervilii, would suffer you to assume dominion over them.' Thus did he continue for more than two hours to pour forth his premeditated argument before he arrived at the unexpected conclusion, in which he assured the culprit, not of forgiveness only, but of renewed favour. ' Let this,' he said, ' be the commencement of friendship and confidence between us.' Shortly afterwards he conferred on him the consulship, and found him ever afterwards a grateful and sincere adherent.'^ Ampfere disputes the story as mere fable, though we have it on double authority. But it bears on its front the characteristics of truth. There are small details in the speech of Augustus, as an allusion to a trial between Cinna and a freedman, recently concluded adversely to Cinna, that could hardly have crept in had the speech been the inven- tion of Seneca. Augustus would bear to have his anger allayed by others besides Livia. Once when greatly incensed, and disposed to severe measures, Maecenas scribbled on his tablets : ' Gird for your work, butcher !' and sent it to the emperor, who at once submitted to the reprimand. This is not an unsuitable place for a few words relative to this tried and loved friend of Augustus. Unlike Agrippa, he was sprung from noble ancestors. Indeed, the Cilnii, his paternal ancestors, were of the 1 Almost certainly so. ' In his intercourse with individuals, even with his wife Livia, upon subjects of importance, he wrote on tablets all he wished to express, lest, if he spoke ex tempore, he should say more or less than was proper. ' — (Suetonius. ) This accounts for the preservation of the details. Moreover, a daily journal was kept by Augustus of all transactions, public and domestic. 2 Merivale, Hist. Horn. iv. 292. 202 THF; TRAGEDY -^E-'TIIK CAESARS the royal house-oX Arretium ; they, as wfeJU'as'jthe Maecenates, being of Etruscan OKigjisV; Maecenas was a good deai older than Octavian, and it is possible thattheif £r^ aetfu^tetancfe origifiated through Octavian being placed undeY lir'iii ,4s''papi'K, ; JVei: know.his birthday (the iSth April), but unfortunately neither the year jior the place when and where he saw the ' light.- :^ He flattered himself that 'he was descended from Porsenna, and'the-^tory told in the. farnily'was that the Cilnii were expelled from theif naiiye Jtowp. obiecafee ^they had become so wealthy and powerful as to excife the|ealous.y of their fellow-citizens. No ancient writer hac giveo us'a' biography of this great patron of letters and arts, and his life can be gleaned only from scattered notices. So great was the reliance placed on him by Augustus, that at one time he was empowered along with Agrippa to open all the letters addressed by Augustus to the senate, and to alter their contents so far as in their judgment the posture of affairs required. At one time an estrangement occurred between him and his illustrious patron, the cause of which is not clearly known. Dio Cassius says that it was due to an intrigue carried on by Augustus with Terentia, the wife of Maecenas, and the same historian also states that Augustus went into Gaul, b.c. i6, so as to be able to enjoy the society of Terentia there, unmolested by the lampoons to which his liking for her gave rise in Rome. But the authority of so late a historian when it relates to scandal is of little value. Maecenas possessed magnificent gardens on the Esquiline Hill, on a site that had been an old burial-place for slaves and poor folk ; and in this residence he spent the greater part of his time, and there received the learned and literary men of Rome. In the society he entertained he was not very select, and it was probably on this account that Augustus spoke somewhat disparagingly of his suppers as those of parasites. But he was a man of a reserved disposition, and knew perfectly how to draw a line between intimate friends and literary acquaintances. His domes- tic relations were not harmonious ; he was a man terribly henpecked, by that same Terentia who was supposed to have had an amour with Augustus. He and Terentia were for ever quarrelling, separating, and patching up their differences. Popular gossip said of Maecenas that he was married a thousand times, but always to the same woman. Augustus was once vexed at her having wormed a state secret out of the uxorious minister, and called him sharply to order as a chatterbox.^ 1 Portraits of Maecenas : — 1. A gem, amethyst, Bibl. Nation. Paris, No. 2057. 2. A gem, red jasper, Bibl. Nation. Paris, No. 2058. 3. A gem, cornelian, Naples. 4. The bust in the Capitol, commonly called Cicero, most certainly is not Cicero ; it has been with much reason supposed by Visconti to be Maecenas. Stanza de Fjlosofi, No. 75. 5. A bust, Torlonia Gallery, No. 515 ; found at Caffarella in 1878. 6. Colossal bust in Capitoline Museum. Found on the Via Flaminia, near Narni. AUGUSTUS 203 To return to the domestic life of Augustus and Livia. As already said, he made a point of wearing as his ordinary apparel garments spun, woven and fashioned by Livia and his household. He was delicate, and suffered from colds in his head and loss of voice, and Livia took care of his health. She accompanied him wherever he went, sat at his side when he visited the circus and theatre, and was with him on his travels. When separated from each other, they kept up constant com- munication with one another by letter or verbal messages. We possess fragments of some of these letters relative to the young Claudius, her grandson, the child of her second son Drusus, that shall be quoted later when we come to this emperor. Caligula, the grandson of Julia, who had no love for Livia, but had learned to respect her, was wont to call her ' Ulysses in petticoats,' an indirect acknowledgment of her calm judgment and prudence. And judgment and prudence were needed in that family, torn by rivalries, in order that she might meet or circumvent all the intrigues entered into against her and her sons during half a century. But she possessed for this task two qualities, the like of those with which Octavian himself was endowed — great self-control and moderation. She had her sorrows to bear as well as her husband, and a bitter blow to her was the death of Drusus, her younger son and her darling. Nero Claudius Drusus was born shortly after the marriage of Livia with Octavian. His maternal grandfather having been adopted by a Livius Drusus, he became legally one of the representatives of the Drusian family of the Livian gens, although none of its blood flowed in his veins. 1 Among the portraits of the elder Drusus that remain, all bear a family likeness to Tiberius and to Livia. The face reappears in the younger Drusus, who was extraordinarily like his uncle, and in his own son Claudius. It is a pleasant face, frank, intelligent, and firm ; with far more strength in it than that of Tiberius, without his refinement 1 Portraits of the elder Drusus : — 1. Silver medal ; head crowned with laurels. 2. Large bronze ; head uncrowned. Rev. A man among arms. 3. Large bronze ; head uncrowned. Rev. Spes. 4. Restored medal by Claudius, heads of Drusus and Antonia. 5. Statue, Naples, from Pompeii, half nude. Very fine (Fig. 49). 6. Bust, belt and chlamys over shoulder. Torlonia Gallery, No. 52° (called in cata- logue erroneously Drusus Minor), found at Anzeo (Fig. 50). 7. Draped bust, Florence ; nose and upper lip and chin repaired. 8. Bust, Lateran Museum, No. 438. Good. 9. Bust, Capitoline Museum, Stanza degli Imperatori, No. 6. Nose and ear repaired. Older than in the other busts, the resemblance of the lines of face about mouth to Claudius is striking. But this is probably Claudius and not Drusus. 10. Engraved gem at Turin, Bernoulli xxvi. 11. 11. Bronze statue found at Herculaneum, Naples Museum. 12. Sandstone bust found at Vaison, in Avignon Museum ; nose broken. Doubtful. 13. Bust at Schloss Erbach. F.G. 49.-DRUSUS MAJOR. Statue in the Maseo Na.ionale. NapL. Found at Pompeii in 1821. AUGUSTUS 205 and delicacy of feature, and also without his nervous sensitiveness. With the people of Rome he was more popular than the reserved Tiberius. In all his conduct he showed his high breeding by a courtesy of manner and modesty exceptional in the Claudian family. He possessed in a high degree the charm of manner that springs out of a kindly heart, and great evenness of temper, so that his friends never complained of variations in his attachment or behaviour to them. It was not to be wondered at that he was not only the darling of his mother, but that Octavian himself entertained for him a very warm and fatherly regard. Partly on this account, and partly on account of the precipitancy of the marriage of Augustus with Livia three months prior to his birth, it was supposed that Augustus was more to him than step- father. There is, however, as already remarked, nothing in his face, and there is nothing either in those of his two sons, that suggests the features of Octavian. It was supposed that he was inclined to favour the restoration of the old constitution, and those who regretted the opportunities of doing wrong, of plundering, and taking bribes, opportunities that the old con- stitution had favoured, as a dung-heap favours the growth of toadstools, looked to Drusus as a champion of what they were pleased to call their liberties. Suetonius says that he wrote a letter to Tiberius relative to the re-establishment of the republic, and that Tiberius showed it to Augustus. In the domestic relations of life the conduct of Drusus was irreproach- able. He had married Antonia,i the daughter of Marc Antony, the triumvir. Marc Antony had two daughters of the same name ; in all probability the wife of Drusus was the daughter of the triumvir by Octavia. Their mutual attachment was unusually fond and enduring, 1 Portraits of Antonia : — 1. Statue in Louvre. Very fine (Fig. 51). 2. Bust, Florence, about 25 years old. 3. Bust, Vatican, Chiaramonti, No. 701, aged about 36 (Fig. 84). 4. Statue, Naples, from the Farnese collection, aged about 45. 5. Statue, Vatican, Nuovo Braccio, No. 77 ; in somewhat the same attitude ; a ring on the ring finger. 6. Bust, Vatican, Chiaramonti, No. 575. 7. Bust, Vatican, Chiaramonti, 653A. A very fine bust, ' One of the best of her,' says Arap4re. 8. Statue in Louvre, aged 45 (Fig. 91). 9. Medal, crowned with corn, in gold and in silver. 10. Another, veiled, 2nd Brass. 11. Another, veiled ; on the reverse, the head of Caligula, 12. Another, on reverse two cornucopias. • 13. Another, Cohen, i. 136. 6 ; on obverse, head uncovered and unadorned ; inscription, Antonia Augusta. 14. Bust, still retaining its polish, Greek marble, Capitoline Museum. Sata delle Colombe, No. 21. 15. Bust, crowned with flowers, Greek marble, Capitoline Museum*. Stanzaudegli Jmperatori, No. 8. 16. Onyx, engraved, full face, Bibl. Nat. Paris, No. 206. ■ 17. ' Bust, Wilton House ; a good head, almost certainly correctly named. 2o6 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS and the unsullied fidelity of Drusus was never doubted. It is finely referred to by Pedo Albinovanus, Ovid's friend, in his elegy addressed to Livia on her son's deaths ' O honest love, In him alone and lasting ! O blessed rest, to him with labour weary !' By Antonia he had three children that lived — Germanicus, Claudius and Livilla. It was not in those times allowed a prince to kick his heels in Rome He was sent to the stern discipline of the camp to learn to endure hardship, and the not less difficult acquirement, the art to rule. Tiberius and Drusus had to win their spurs under the burning suns of Syria and on the snowy fields of Germany. The hardy and independent mountaineers of the Alps, along its entire range from the Pennine to the Julian peaks, were then, as now, unable to sustain their swelling populations on their periodically devastated tillage lands in the valleys, and the avalanche-swept alps on the heights. Then, as now, the population burst forth from its gorges when over-numerous, like the torrents at the melting of the snows. In the middle ages the overspill of the men became mercenaries to foreign courts ; now they are the pastry-cooks, waiters, masons, to half Europe, and their daughters and sweethearts are nurses and waitresses. But in the classic period the mountaineers had no idea of the peaceful arts, and thought to conquer themselves new homes in the plain, and expel or enslave the pacific population they there found settled. Thus the Alpine peoples were a constant menace and annoyance to Cisalpine Gaul, and also to Gaul beyond the Alps. Tiberius and Drusus were commissioned by Augustus to finally put an end to this danger. Accordingly, Tiberius, after a successful campaign in Germany, turned south against the mountaineers, and Drusus attacked them in like manner from the south. There is to this day in the range that divides the Montafun from the Rhine Valley, a snowy gap that goes by the name of the Gate of Drusus, through which he is believed rapidly to have passed from one watershed to the other, and suddenly to have fallen on the Rhaetian highlanders of Basque race, after having crushed and all but exterminated the mountaineers of the Upper Rhine, who were of Helvetian blood. Drusus commanded the legions in Germany when his elder brother was summoned to Pannonia. The tenderest and most enduring affec- tion united these brothers, whose characters were so dissimilar, that the one formed the complement to the other. It was a common saying in Rome that they were as inseparable as the Dioscuri. Tiberius had concluded the Pannonian War, and was accompanying his mother and her imperial husband on a journey of inspection in Hither Gaul, and had reached Ticinum, the modern Pavia, when the AUGUSTUS 207 news reached them that Drusus had fallen from his horse, and was lying dangerously ill in Germany. Tiberius, at the command of Augustus, sped at once over the Alps and the Rhine to where his brother lay dying. With a single attendant, a guide named Ambavagius, he traversed four hundred English miles without halting for rest, at full speed, and reached his dying brother, who gathered up his declining strength to give orders to the legions to receive Tiberius with all military honours, and to have his brother's tent erected close to his own. Fig. 50.— DRUSUS MAJOR. Bust in the Torlonia Museum. A few hours later Drusus breathed his last in the arms of his loved brother, aged hardly thirty years, B.C. 9, thus fulfilling the prophecy of the witch who had met him in the forests of the Cherusci, and waved him back with the warning that he would never see the Rhine again. Tiberius, grieved to the heart, had some difiSculty in pacifying the soldiers, who resented his attempt to move the body to Rome, in accordance with the instructions of Augustus. They desired to bury it where he died, and there erect a monumental tumulus. But Tiberius 2o8 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS restrained their intemperate and inconsiderate ardour, and advised them instead to construct an altar on the spot, and devote the site of his accident and death to eternal desolation. Tiberius escorted the corpse of his brother with great pomp to Rome, making the whole journey on foot in token of his sorrow. At Ticinum the heart-broken mother, and the hardly less grieved Octavian, met the funeral procession and joined it for the remainder of the journey. Thenceforth it formed a ' mournful triumph,' as Seneca calls it. The country-folk, the people of the towns, turned out to honour the deceased, who was sincerely loved, and to express their sympathy with the bereaved parents. Finally, the ashes were laid in the mauso- leum of the Julian house, in the Campus Martius. Augustus set himself to work to compose a little memoir of the deceased, whilst Tiberius stood by his mother's side, as a devoted son, to comfort her in her desolation. Such was the malice of Roman society, that this fatal blow falling on the house of Livia was tortured into an accusation of crime ; and the death of Drusus was attributed to the jealousy of Tiberius and the sus- picion of Augustus. Suetonius says, in one place, of Tiberius : ' He first manifested hatred towards his own relations in the case of his brother Drusus, betraying him by the production of a letter to himself, in which Drusus proposed that Augustus should be forced to restore public liberty' {Tib. 50). In another place {Claud, i.) he says : ' After his praetorship, Drusus, returning into Germany, died of disease in the summer camp.' Then, a little further, he adds : ' He often declared that he would, some time or other, if possible, restore the ancient government. On this account, I suppose, some have ventured to affirm that Augustus was jealous of him, and recalled him ; and because he made no haste to comply with the order, took him off by poison. This I mention,' says Suetonius, ' that I may not appear to omit anything, not that I think it either true or probable, since Augustus loved him so sincerely when alive that he always, in his wills, made him joint heir with his sons ; and on his decease, extolled him in a speech to the people, declaring that his prayer to the gods was that Caius and Lucius, his grandsons, might grow up like Drusus, and die the same honourable deaths.' Now it happens that we know from the epitomes of Livy, whose last books — now lost — contained a full account of the campaign of Drusus, that the cause of the death of Drusus was that his horse threw him and fell or trod on his leg, and that he died of the fracture on the thirtieth day after the accident. It is possible enough, it is even probable, that Augustus had sent orders to Drusus not to proceed further into the heart of Germany, thinking it unwise that he should exasperate into hostility the inoffensive tribes beyond the Elbe ; and it is also quite possible that he may have sent this injunction, in accord- ance with the advice of Tiberius, v/ho thoroughly knew the situation of AUGUSTUS 209 affairs in Germany, and later showed the same unwillingness to allow the son of Drusus to squander the strength of Roman armies on profitless invasions of barbarian marches. But it is a long stride from this to contriving the murder of Drusus. Suetonius should have told us a little more — the amount of the prize offered by Augustus to corrupt the horse that threw Drusus. We should have liked to have known whether it were the offer of a consulship or of a double feed of oats. This bit of Roman ' on dits ' is instructive. It shows us what ' society ' had to say on every casualty that happened in the imperial household, and we can estimate accordingly many of the charges and insinuations that we find in Suetonius and Tacitus, relative to later deaths. Antonia, the widow of Drusus, a paragon of feminine virtues ac- cording to the united testimony of the old writers, declined all offers of marriage after the death of Drusus, and remained in the house of Augustus and Livia, employed in the careful education of her children, and in simple domestic employments. She was left a widow at the age of twenty-six. The arch which Augustus raised on the Appian Way to the memory of Drusus remains, though defaced by the plunder of its marbles, and disfigured by an aqueduct carried along the summit. The monument raised by the legions to him in their winter camp at Moguntiacum also remains ; it is the shapeless ruin of the Eigelstein at Mainz. In his old age it was some compensation to Augustus for the loss of his grandsons, Caius and Lucius, that he had about him the children of Germanicus and Agrippina. Germanicus was the son of Drusus, born B.C. 15, and married when very young. He was adopted by Tiberius at the command of Augustus, was taken into the Julian family, and in- vested early with honours and commands. By Agrippina, Germanicus was the father of nine children. A pretty story is preserved relative to Augustus and these great-grandchildren of his. For long there had been among the Romans, at all events of the upper orders, a disinclination for marriage, and an impatience of being burdened with large families. Various attempts were made to combat this disinclination, which was disastrous to the welfare of the State. Married women who had over two or three children were allowed to wear more sumptuous dresses and recline in richer litters than others. In the Vatican may be seen two trees crowned with rooks' nests out of which a number of little children are peeping. These were set up as a token of honour before the doors of matrons with large families. But nothing prevailed against the growing selfishness and wantonness. In the year B.C. 121, the censor, Metellus Macedonicus, complained before the senate of the increasing tendency to avoid the constraint and inconveniences of marriage. ' Could we exist without wives at all,' he began, 'doubtless we should rid ourselves of the plague they are to us; since, however, nature has decreed that we cannot o Fig. 51.— ANTONIA. Statue in the Louvre. AUGUSTUS 211 dispense with the infliction, it is best to bear it manfully, and rather look to the permanent conservation of the state than to our own passing comfort.' A hundred years later Augustus endeavoured, as had Julius Caesar, by legislation to check the growing evil. In b.c. 29 he turned his energies in this direction, only to meet with disappointment. Upon this point the master of Rome could niake no impression on his demoralised subjects. Doggedly resolved against moral restraint, they despised rewards and defied penalties. Eleven years later, Augustus caused the senate to pass a new law of increased stringency, by which the marriage of citizens of a competent age was positively required. When, on the further enforcement of the law, the people loudly and angrily clamoured in the theatre, Augustus rose, and with emotion pointed to the noble form of Germanicus with his faithful Agrippina beside him, and the rich crown of children that encircled the parents. The cries of the people died away at this silent reproof of their vices, and this example of the blessings of honest marriage. Agrippina was married in the year a.d. 5, to Germanicus, when she was aged eighteen, and he was a year her senior. During the fourteen years of their union she bore him, as already said, nine children; of these, two died as babes, and one, who was the favourite of the imperial couple, as he was growing into boyhood. He was a boy of great beauty, brightness, and amiability, called Caius, and was born, A.D. 10, at Tibur. His death was felt deeply by his great-grandparerits. Livia had his portrait sculptured with the attributes of Cupid, and dedicated it to the temple of Venus on the CapitoL A copy of it stood in the bedroom of the Emperor Augustus, who used to kiss it every time he went into the chamber. The remaining children lived. There were three daughters— Agrippina, Drusilla, and Livilla, — and three sons — Nero, Drusus, and Caius, — all older than their sisters. VIII.— DOMESTIC LIFE OF AUGUSTUS. Of the domestic life and private amusements of Augustus in the midst of his family a few notices remain. He was fond of games of •chance, playing for small sums with the boys, or with his friends. Letters have been preserved in which he recounts to Tiberius his blood- less contests at the supper-table with Vinicius and Silius ; how they had played, for pastime and not for gain, risking a single denarius on each die, and how he had swept the modest stakes into his pile by the lucky throw of the Venus. ' I supped, my dear Tiberius, with the same com- pany. We gamed at supper like old fellows, both yesterday and to-day, and as every one threw upon the tali aces or sixes, for every talus a F.c. 52.— AUGUSTUS. Statue in the Vatican Gallery of Statues, No. 232. Found at Otricoli. AUGUSTUS 213 denarius was staked, all which was gained by him who threw the Venus.' In another letter : ' We had, my dear Tiberius, a fine time of it during the festival of Minerva ; for we gambled every day, and kept the board warm. Your brother uttered many exclamations at the desperateness of ill-luck that set against him ; but, recovering by degrees, and unex- pectedly, he did not come off so badly in the end. I lost twenty thousand sesterces for my part ; biit then I was profusely generous in my play, as I usually am ; for had I insisted on taking all my winnings, and retained all I gave away, I should have gained fifty thousand. But I prefer to be liberal, it raised to the skies my credit for generosity.' To Julia he wrote: 'I have sent you 250 denarii, the sum I gave to each of my guests to play at dice with at supper, or, if they pleased, at odd and even.' In his house, as already said, he was modest, and avoided all luxury and splendour. At his table he was moderate. 'He liked to eat coarse bread,' says Suetonius, ' small fish, and new cream-cheese, and for fruit, green figs. He did not wait for supper, but took something to eat when he wanted it, and anywhere.' Then Suetonius on this subject quotes some of his letters : 'I ate a little bread and some small dates, whilst in my carriage.' Again : ' In returning home in my litter from the palace, I ate an ounce of bread and a few raisins.' Again : ' No Jew, my dear Tiberius, ever keeps so strict a fast on the Sabbath as I did to-day; for whilst in my bath I ate only a couple of biscuits.' So also with wine, of that he made but a sparing use. He never took more than a pint ; during the day no wine at all ; instead of drinking he sopped a bit of bread in cold water, or took a slice of cucumber, an apple that was green and acid, or a leaf of lettuce. ' After supper he usually withdrew to his study, a small closet, where he sat late, posting up his diary, entering any little matter he had omitted to note at the time it had happened. After that he went to bed, but he never slept more than seven hours, and that not uninter- ruptedly, for he was liable to wake up three or four times in the night. If he could not fall asleep again, he called for some one to read to him and tell him stories till he became drowsy. He never liked to lie awake in the dark without some one to sit beside him.' He could not endure to be exposed to the full blaze of the sun even in winter, and accordingly, when he went out, wore a broad-brimmed hat, such as one may see on the head of an old boatman, in a delightful piece of sculpture in the Torlonia Museum. ^ His health being always delicate, he avoided the too free use of the bath, and of heated air, and preferred to employ tepid water, or to sit beside a fire when chilled. When he was ordered sea-bathing, he found himself unequal to the shock of a plunge, and contented himself with 1 This head might serve for a Brixham or a Brighton trawler of the present day. Sea- going habits seem to mark a face with the same characteristics at all times. 214 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS having a wooden tub filled with, salt water, and plunging his arms and legs into it. • i «■ j He had no love for popular clamour, and was always a little affected with shyness. Accordingly, he rarely entered any town, or left it, with ceremony, but slipped in or out, without notice after dark. Several instances of his moderation with regard to the honours lavished on him have been recorded. When he heard that a number of statues of solid silver had been erected in his honour, he was annoyed and ordered Fig. 53.— AUGUSTUS. Bust in the Vatican Museum, Hall of Busts, No. 274. them to be melted up and made into tripods for the temple of Apollo on the Palatine. He could not bear to be entitled ' My lord.' Once, at a play at which he was present, the words occurred, ' O just and gracious lord ! ' whereat the audience looking towards him began to cheer ; Augustus at once arrested this exhibition of indecent flattery by waving his hand and frowning. He never would allow himself to be so addressed even by his own children and grandchildren, in jest or in earnest. He usually walked about Rome on foot, or rode in a close AUGUSTUS 215 carriage to avoid receiving and returning salutations. Once when a man offered him a petition with nervous clumsiness, ' My good friend,' said Augustus, ' one would suppose you were offering a ha'penny to an elephant !' Augustus was more disposed to behave with leniency in his old age, than when he was young. His friend and adviser, Athenodorus, did not scruple to tell him his mind. When the Greek came to him to bid farewell before departing to his home, he said in the ear of Augustus : ' Never, O Caesar, pronounce sentence against any man till thou hast recited to thyself the four-and-twenty letters of the alphabet.' Augustus sighed, and laying hold of his monitor, said : ' Stay with me ; I need you still' He never molested any one for the exercise of freedom of speech, although it was often carried to a pitch of insolence. Moreover, the detestable libels relative to Augustus, in which the Roman fine ladies and gentlemen delighted, were freely circulated, and even thrust into the hands of the senators in the senate-house. Augustus bore this with equanimity. He was wise enough to know that he would be powerless to stop the circulation, and he attempted neither to refute the calumnies nor to search out and punish the authors. It is probable that some of the scandalous stories relative to Augustus — his amours with married women — that Suetonius is delighted to record, are due to these libels. Tiberius, who was peculiarly sensitive to calumny, once spoke to Augustus about some scurrilous libels that were circulating relative to him, and urged that the authors should be sought out and punished. ' No, my dear Tiberius,' answered Augustus, ' do not give way to the ardour of your youth in this matter, nor be indignant that any one should malign me. It is enough for us if we can prevent folk from doing us real mischief.' On one occasion Athenodorus was carried into the presence of the prince in a closed litter, such as was employed by ladies, and then leaped out on him with a drawn sword in his hand, exclaiming : ' See to what dangers you expose yourself! Any one might come thus and take your life.' ^ His good-nature was sometimes taken advantage of. Cn. Domitius Calvinus rebuilt the regia on the Sacred Way, that had been burnt down, and for the dedication asked Augustus to lend him a number of his best statues. The prince readily consented. After the dedication he required Calvinus to return them ; but received the answer that he, the 1 So stood the story originally. Zonaras has worked it up into one that does little credit to Augustus. He says that the prince sent for those wives of senators, who took his fancy. The husband of one thus sent for complained to Athenodorus, who then got into the litter in place of the lady. The hand of the anecdote-maker is visible here, giving piquancy and completeness to the story as it reached him. 2i6 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS borrower, had not a sufficiency of servants to transport them back again, and that if Augustus wanted them he must fetch them himself, but that it would be a sacrilege to do so, as the building in which they were had been dedicated to the gods. Augustus was obliged to leave them where they were. He might have recalled a similar trick played by Lucius Mummius on Lucullus, at the dedication of the Temple of Fortune.^ Augustus was careful to keep his word even to those who were unworthy. In Spain, a bandit, Concotta, gave so much trouble that a price was put on his head; two hundred and fifty denarii Augustus undertook to give to the man who delivered up the robber alive. Concotta appeared before Augustus. The prince not only spared his life, but handed over to him the covenanted sum. Old friends and adherents were not forgotten by him. When on one occasion a companion-in-arms asked Augustus to assist him in court, where he was impeached, the prince declined on the plea of business, but promised to send him a friend who was a skilful advocate. Then said the old soldier, ' When formerly you wanted my arm, I gave you my own, and did not send a friend instead.' Augustus at once went with him into court. Augustus could and did say smart things occasionally, but most of his jokes, if we may judge by those collected by Macrobius, are rather plays on words, and therefore lose all point when translated. Puns are the mere mummery of wit. But these are better : Speaking of striving after things not worth having, he said, ' Don't fish for minnows with a golden hook.' Once he wrote a tragedy on the story of Ajax, but, becoming dissatisfied with the style, he blotted it out. Some one asked him, ' How is Ajax getting along ? ' ' Poorly,' answered Augustus, ' he fell on his sponge.' ^ We know that men are ready enough to damn the sins they are themselves not inclined to, but it is exceptional, though not unknown, that a man should condemn those errors of which he is guilty himself. Now Augustus showed himself strenuous in his efforts to restore the morals of the higher classes of Rome to their primitive purity. He disliked extravagance in living, and he set the example of simplicity himself. He was averse to intemperance, and he was himself studiously sober. He forbade luxury at the table, and his own meals were of the most homely description. His effort was directed by example as well as by law to regenerate the Roman people on the lines of primitive honesty and frugality as they were exhibited in the best days of the republic. It is, of course, possible that he may have occasionally trans- gressed and fallen short of the models he set before himself, but it is 1 Dio Cass. Fragm. 206, a That is to say, as Ajax fell on his sword, so had the dramatic Ajax committed suicide on a wet sponge. AUGUSTUS 217 hardly likely that he was as gross a sensualist as Suetonius represents him. 'Whenever he attended at the election of magistrates,' says this author, ' he went round the tribes, with the candidates of his nomination, and begged the votes of the people in the usual manner. He likewise voted in his proper place in his tribe as one of the people. He suffered himself to be summoned as a witness upon trials, and not only to be questioned, but to be cross-examined, with the utmost patience. In building the forum, he restricted himself in the site, not presuming to force the owners of the houses abutting on it to give up their property. He never recommended his sons to the people without adding the words, ' If they deserve it.' And upon the audience rising on their entering the theatre, when they were minors, he made it a matter of complaint.' In his speech and writing he was careful to be plain and to the point, and detested all affectation, such as the use of obsolete words, and the involution of sentences. He was wont to rally Maecenas on his 'spiced' speech, and imitated it in joke to break him of the habit. Nor did he spare Tiberius, who was pedantic in style. Marc Antony he rebuked for extravagance in his expressions, and in a letter to his granddaughter Agrippina on the formation of style, he wrote, ' You must be particularly careful, both in writing and in speaking, to avoid all affectation.' ' In person,' says Suetonius, ' he was delicately formed and graceful, through every period of his life. But he was negligent in his dress ; and so careless about dressing his hair, that he usually had it done in a scramble, by several barbers at once. His beard he sometimes clipped, and sometimes shaved, and either read or wrote during the operation. His countenance, either when in discourse or silent, was so calm and serene that a Gaul once declared among his friends, that on his passage over the Alps he drew near Augustus with* the deliberate purpose of throwing him over a precipice, but -he was so softened by the serenity of the prince's face that he desisted from so doing. The eyes of Augustus were bright and piercing; and he was willing it should be supposed there was some divine vigour in them. He was likewise not a httle pleased when he saw people lower their eyes when he looked fixedly on them, as though dazzled by the light from his own eyes ; but in his old age, he saw very imperfectly with his left eye. His teeth, set far apart, were small and scaly ; his hair naturally curled a little, and was of a colour inclining to yellow. His eye- brows met, his ears were small, and he had an aquiline nose. His complexion was between brown and fair ; his stature but low, though his freedman, Julius Marathus, declares he was five feet nine inches high. He had a weakness of the left hip, thigh, and leg, that caused him to halt somewhat. He likewise sometimes found the forefinger of his right hand so weak that, when it was benumbed with cold, he was forced »i8 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS to have recourse to a circular piece of horn to enable him to write.' Many little acts of kindness are recorded of him. One day when out hunting, he was attacked by a wild boar, and his attendant ran away and left him unprotected ; but he would not punish the man, because he said he was convinced the fellow fled out of fear for his own Ufe, and not out of lack of affection to his master. He heard of an old senator who had gone blind, and was so distressed at his privation that he had resolved to starve himself to death. Augustus paid him a visit, sat by him, talked to him cheerfully, and encouraged him to bear his loss as a man, and desist from his project. After an airing in his litter, if he saw boys playing with marbles or nuts, he would have a game with them, and thoroughly enjoy their childish sports. At one time he would play ball, and ride in the Campus Martius, or saunter along the banks of the Tiber fishing. He was curious about natural curiosities, and made a collection of fossil bones and shells, and it was thought he was more interested in accumulating these than in gathering together statues and pictures. The story is told of him, which was told later of many Catholic saints, that being incommoded by the quacking of frogs he ordered them to be silent, and the frogs obeyed. Towards the end of his days there were threatenings of trouble. A plot was discovered for the liberation of Julia and Agrippa Postumus from their respective prisons, and there can be no doubt that the Scribonian faction was at the bottom of this, jealous of the growing regard of Augustus for his stepson Tiberius. Augustus, shortly after, was believed to have paid a private visit to the unfortunate Agrippa, to ascertain by his own observation the condition of mind in which he was, and whether it would be possible for him to recall him to Rome and associate him with Tiberius in the imperial inheritance. Some writers mention this visit as a rumour, others state it as a fact. If the visit ever did occur, Augustus made it very privately ; he adopted every precau- tion to baffle observation, and was attended by a single confidant, and very few servants. The interview was marked by emotion and tears on both sides; so Maximus, the confidant, told his wife, and his wife told Livia. When, shortly afterwards, Maximus was found dead, it was at once said that he had been put to death by Augustus for betraying his visit. Probably he satisfied himself that the condition of the unfortunate youth was hopeless, and nothing came of this visit, if ever made, whilst Augustus lived. We shall see later on that it had its fatal result after his death.i As old age and weakness crept on, Augustus appeared less frequently 1 Pliny mentions a suspicion that Agrippa was not the son of Julia by her husband, and that the knowledge of this had something to do with the conduct of Augustus towards him. AUGUSTUS 219 in public. Failing in strength and spirits, he desired his kind friends, the senators and knights of Rome, no longer to incommode him with their salutations as he was borne through the streets, and asked them not to take it as an offence if he declined their invitations to table, which he no longer had the ability to accept. IX.— THE END. In the year a.d. 14, when Augustus was reaching the completion of his seventy-sixth year, he felt that his end was approaching. His health, which in youth had required constant care and unusual pre- caution, had certainly become better as he advanced in years, but now with the weight of old age it began once more to give way. He was wont in summer to retire from Rome, where he felt the great heats, to one of his villas near the sea. He was detained, however, on this last occasion till midsummer, later than usual, and was impatient to be off. A good deal of fresh business was brought before him, but he would not attend to it then, as he was weakly and longing for the sea- breezes, — ' No,' said he, ' not all the business in the world will detain me in Rome one moment longer.' Tiberius was now returning to his troops in Illyricum, and was to sail from Brundusium. The old emperor made his adopted son accompany him on his journey, and they went leisurely together, Livia being, as usual, in constant attendance on her husband, as far as Astura, where Augustus was attacked by dysentery, brought on, it was supposed, by incautious exposure to the night air. However, as he felt better after a day or two, they took ship and sailed along the delightful coast of Campania among the islets, and halted for four days at Capreae, which Augustus had acquired some years before, when, on the occasion of a visit there, a withered ilex, that had been supposed to be dying, put forth fresh buds. Augustus was pleased at the good omen, and bought the island. As he was sailing past the Gulf of Pozzuoli, a merchant ship of Alex- andria passed, and the sailors, recognising the imperial galley, clothed themselves in white, placed wreaths on their heads, burnt incense, and shouted their salutations. This gratified the old man, and he gave those about him forty pieces of gold apiece, with express orders that they should go to this vessel, and spend the money on the purchase of some of the commodities in it. During the four days he was at Capreae he diverted himself in his kindly, cheerful manner. He gave Roman togas and Greek mantles to his whole court, and bade the Greeks therein assume the toga and the Romans wear the mantle. He attended the amusements of the young peasants in the island, and begged them not to desist because of his being a looker-on. After his dinner, he set the boys scrambling for the dessert from his table. 2 20 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS From Capreae he went to Naples, still feeling indisposed. He was, however, desirous to appear at the Quinquennial games there, as an act of courtesy to the people, who had instituted these games in his honour, and though ill at ease, and weak with his malady, he remained to the conclusion. Then he continued his journey with Tiberius as far as Beneventum, where they parted, and Augustus turned back towards the coast. Fic. 54.— A U G U S T U S, as Pontifex Maximus. Bust in the Louvre. At Nola his exhaustion became so great that he was obliged to take to his bed. Here he was in the family house of the Octavian race, and he was placed in the very room in which his father had died. ' The closing scene of this illustrious life,' says Dean Merivale, ' has been portrayed for us with considerable minuteness. It is the first natural dissolution of a great man we have been called upon to witness, and it will be long, I may add, before we shall assist at another.' The old emperor did not deceive himself with hopes of recovery ; he was short of his seventy-sixth birthday by only a little over a month. AUGUSTUS 221 On the last day of his life, after inquiring whether his condition had aroused commotions in Rome, which he feared, knowing the hostility of the rival parties there, and being satisfied that there was tranquillity, he asked for a looking-glass, and had his hair put straight, and something done to his cheeks that they might not appear as hollow as the dysentery had made them. Then, calling in his friends, and making them surround his bed, he asked whether, they thought he had played his part well in the drama of life. He immediateh' added, in a Fig. 55.— a U G U S T U S. Busl in Mus. Pio Clementino, Vatican, No. 275. Greek verse with which Roman plays usually concluded: 'Let all applaud, and clap their hands with joy.' After that he dismissed them, and inquired of Livia, who remained at his side, whether any tidings had been heard of Livilla, the daughter of Drusus, who was out of health. Then suddenly he threw his arms round the neck of livia, and kissing her, said, 'Livia! live mindful of oui union; and now farewell!' Then he gently expired without pain, and without a struggle. Augustus died on the 19th August a.d. 14. 222 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS Directly that Livia saw that death was steaHng on, she sent couriers after Tiberius, and caught him on his disembarkation in Illyricum. He returned without delay, and it is probable that he arrived in time to receive the parting injunction of his father-in-law, as he certainly was to discharge towards him the last offices of filial piety. The malignant hatred of the adherents of Julia and the enemies of the Claudian house, at once circulated the report that Livia had removed her husband by poison administered in figs. We know that Augustus was fond of green figs ; it is possible he may have eaten some, and that in the beginning of August they were not ripe, and disagreed with him. 'To exculpate Livia or Tiberius,' says Dean Merivale, 'from such a crime may be hardly worth the endeavour; but it is important to mark the weakness of the grounds upon which historians of high character could venture to insinuate it against them.' X.— PORTRAITS OF AUGUSTUS. Bernoulli gives ninety-five busts and statues of Augustus. The following alone need enumeration, which are the best : — 1. Youthful bust, found at Ostia; Vatican, Hall of Busts, No. 273 (see above. Fig. 32). 2. Youthful bust in the Chiaramonti Gallery, No. 600. 3. Bust in same Gallery, No. 628, Augustus as a young man. 4. Naked statue, wrongly called Caligula, in Vatican, Gallery of Statues, No. 262. A somewhat sinister expression; the age about 28. It was found in the Julian basilica of Otricoli (Fig. 52). 5. Half-naked youthful statue in the Vatican, Hall of the Greek Cross ; age about 28, No. 559. The head was never separated from the body. It came from the Verospi Palace. 6. Colossal bust, Chiaramonti Gallery, No. 401 ; found at Veii in 181 1 (Fig. 34). 7. Colossal bust, found with the above ; in the Lateran, No. 423. 8. Bust, Florence (Fig. 33). 9. Bust, in black marble, Chiaramonti Gallery, No. 65. 10. Statue, found in the villa of Livia, at Prima Porta; Vatican Nuovo Braccio, No. 17 (Fig. 46). 11. Statue in toga; Vatican, from Otricoli, No. 597. Young, as Pontifex Maximus, with stern expression, and frown. 12. Bronze head in the Vatican Library, age about 34; good. 13. Bust, very fine, with wreath; Capitoline Museum, No. i bis Stanza degli Imperatori. 14. Bust, draped, Greek marble, Capitoline Mus. ; ibid. No. 2. 15. Statue, nude, raising the left arm; in the right a globe ; somewhat conventional; ibid. Salone, No. 10. AUGUSTUS 223 16. Statue, seated, nude, save for chlamys, left hand resting on sceptre, in the right the globe. Found at Bovillae, where was the sac- rarium of the Julian family ; Torlonia Gallery, No. 164. 17. Bust, with chlamys, from Albani Villa; Torlonia Gallery, No. 305. 18. Bust, with cuirass, in Luna marble; ibid. No. 306. 19. Bust, in cuirass; ibid. No. 513. 20. Bust, crowned with ears of corn, as Frater Arvalis ; Vatican, Hall of Busts, No. 274. Found on the Caelian Hill (Fig. 53). 21. Bust representing the emperor at an advanced age; Vatican, Hall of Busts, No. 275 (Fig. 55). 22. Colossal head from Cervetri, in the Lateran. 23. Statue in armour ; Villa Albani, No. 87. 24. Bronze bust from Herculaneum ; Mus. National., Naples, No. 2. 25. Bronze statue from Herculaneum, on the signet-ring is a liiuus; Naples, No. 3. 26. Veiled bust in the Louvre ; although it comes from the Campana collection, is probably genuine ; nose restored (Fig. 54). 27. Toga-clothed statue in the Louvre, the hand in the breast. The head does not belong to the statue. 28. Another statue in toga, with folded papers in the hand; in the Louvre. The very fine head of Augustus does not belong to the statue. 29. Bronze bust in the Louvre; found along with a Livia, names on the pedestals, at Neuilly-le-Real ; of little value as portraits. 30. Youthful bust in the collection Despaig, in Majorca. Found at Ariccia at the end of last century. 31. Youthful bust in the British Museum, from the Castellani collection, No. 3 ; a very characteristic and fine head (Fig. 31). 32. Head, larger than life, in British Museum, No. 4; like the Prima Porta face. 33. Another youthful bust in the British Museum. 34. A bust recently acquired in Rome for the British Museum. 35. A fine bust; Warwick Castle. 36. Bust, with crown of oak leaves, at Munich; of little value for portraiture. 37. Another at Munich, without wreath, and with more character. 38. A youthful statue in armour at Berlin, No. 343, from the Pourtalfes collection. The head is of different marble from the body (Fig. 44). 39. Youthful head at Vienna; in the Belvedere, No. 107. 40. Another head, resembling the Prima Porta face ; ibid. No. 60. 41. Alabaster head ; fine; ibid. There are numerous gems — some in the British Museum. The finest is the sardonyx cameo from the Strozzi-Blacas collection (see Fig. 2>'s)- The diadem was added at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Another is a sardonyx, broken, from the same collection. In 224 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, is a cameo of Augustus crowned with laurel, and an intaglio with civic crown ; also a fine youthful Augustus. I must refer the reader for the catalogue of engraved stones to Bernoulli ; and for the medals to Cohen. XI.— PORTRAITS OF LIVIA. 1. Cameo from the S. Chapelle, Paris ; idealised. 2. Intaglio, sardonyx; Vienna. Livia enthroned and crowned, holding corn ears and poppy-heads in one hand, in the other a bust of Augustus. The hands are exaggerated in size by the artist. There can be no question either as to who is meant or as to the resemblance to other intaglios and cameos. 3. Sardonyx at Florence, as Cybele, with a wreath of corn and poppies (Fig. 37). 4. The same face, somewhat younger, in an intaglio at the Hague. The hair is worn as in the porphyry bust of Octavia. If this face be compared with that of Tiberius and Livia — the latter aged, in the Florentine collection — it is hardly possible to doubt that the Hague stone represents the same person in her youth and loveliness.. The same short upper lip, the same peculiar treatment of the eye (Fig. 36). 5. A sardonyx at St. Petersburg, with laurel wreath. This is un- mistakably Livia grown a little old and stout (Fig. 48). 6. Among medals most are untrustworthy, as Livia was the first woman to have her head on coins ; she is represented ideally as Pietas, ■ Justitia, Salus Augusta. However, one with her as Justice, of the year B.C. 22, one as Piety of the year 23, and another as 'Salus Augusta,' show a certain attempt at portraiture in them. 7. The paste cameo of Tiberius and Livia when aged, at Florence, is admirable. The likeness between mother and son is very striking (Frontispiece). 8. Statue of Livia from Otricoli, as Pietas ; Vatican, Hall of Busts, No. 56. Very little character in the face. 9. Seated statue in the Torlonia Gallery. Not to be relied on as a portrait ; not a little uncertain to what an extent restored. 10. Statue of Livia as Ceres, in the Louvre ; the likeness to Tiberius, whose bust stands close by, can hardly fail to strike an observer (Figs. 38 and 39). The statue of a young priestess found at Pompeii in 182 1, though near it is said to have been found an inscription, ' Augustae Juliae Drusi Fil. Divi. Augusti, D.D.,' cannot be regarded as a portrait of Livia. There is absolutely no element in the face to connect it with any of the heads on the gems, nor is there a trace of resemblance in this face to be found to Tiberius or Drusus. The mouth is large, fleshy, and with a double curvature in it, which is so peculiar that it would AUGUSTUS 225 inevitably have been reprbduced on the gems. The formation of the jaw is different, so also that of the chin. There is no remarkable characterisation of the eyes; nor is the hair worn in the fashion of the time of Livia's youth. Engraved by Bernoulli. li. The very interesting bronze head, inscribed with the name of Livia, found at Neuilly-le-Rdal, along with its companion bust of Augustus, in 1816. It is poor as a work of art and as a piece of por- traiture, nevertheless the resemblance to the profile of the Livia-Ceres statue in the Louvre is worthy of remark. In this, as in the cameos, there is an attempt made to exaggerate the eyes, so as to give the idea of great lustre in them. 12. A seated colossal figure found at Paestum, together with one of Tiberius ; both are now at Madrid. It represents Livia as an old lady, and agrees admirably with the St. Petersburg sardonyx (Fig. 74). Fig. 56.-TIBERIUS. Bust in the Lateran. TIBERIUS I.— THE DEATH OF POSTUMUS. The death of Augustus was immediately succeeded by a tragedy of a peculiarly dark and mysterious nature in his own family. The news of the critical condition in which Augustus lay at Nola had reached Rome, and had revived the hopes and sharpened the ambitions of all the partisans of the Julian branch of the reigning -dynasty, and it encouraged the renewal of the attempts that had been frustrated, of releasing Agrippa, the last surviving prince of the Julian house, from his confinement in the island of Planasia, and of setting him on the throne. A confidential agent, who had formerly been his chamberlain, Clemens by name, was the prime mover in this plot. He proposed to deliver the prince and convey him to the German legions, in the hopes that at their head he might assert, and, if need be, make good his right to the vacant throne. The plan was a bold one, and we may be sure that it was not, as Tacitus intimates, a private venture. Others were in the plot. ScRiBONiA=C. OCTAVIUS=LiviA Drusilla: (CAESAR i. 697 (B.C. 57) ; AUGUSTUS), +782 (A.D. 29). ^.691(6.063); +767 (A. D. 14). Tib. Claudius Nero, +720 (B.C. 34). M. ViPSANIUS = Agrippa, 6. 691 (B.C 63) ; +742 (B.C. 12). Julia = TIBERIUS. i. 71S (b.c. 39) ; i.jii (b.c. 42); +767 (A.D. 14). +790 (a.D. 37). C. Caesar, Lucius Caesar, i. 734 (b.c. 20) ; i. 737 (b.c. 17) ; +757 (A.D. 4). +755 (a.D. 2). L. Aemilius^ Julia. Paullus. Drusus — Antonia, i. 7i6(b.C38); +745 (B.C. 9). ^. 718 (b.c. 36); +790 (a.d. 37). Agrii-pina i. circ. 740 (b.c. 14) : 7«. circ. 758 (a.d. 5); +785 (a.d. 33). Germanicus, Agrippa Postumus, i. 739 (B.C. 15); i. 742 (b.c. 12) ; +772 (A.D. 19). +767 (a.D. 14). Julia = da. Drusus fni. +7g6(A.D. 43). Nero Caesar, ^.759 (A.D. 6); +784, (A.S.3I). Drusus Caesar, &. circ 760 (a.d. 7); +787, (a.d. 34). Caius Caesar Agrippina, — •• • • i. 768 (a.d. 15); (Caligula), .'. 765( +794 ( d. 765(a.d. 12). ((A.D. 41). +812 (A.D. 59). Drusilla, d. 770 (A.D. 17); +791 (a.d. 38). JUIIA, LiVlLLA, i. 771 (A.D. 18); +794 (a.d. 41). 228 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS No sooner did the tidings arrive at the capital that Augustus was no more, than Clemens at once started in a vessel for Plahasia. But as he made his way thither with full sail, the imperial galley swept past, and reached the island before the ship on which was Clemens, When this latter arrived, it was to discover that Agrippa Postumus was no more. A centurion had been sent from Nola, and, after a desperate struggle with the frantic young man, had killed him. Who commanded this murder ? Let us see what we really know about Agrippa before we decide. This young prince, as Tacitus tells us, ' was a person destitute of liberal accom- plishments, of clownish brutality, and great bodily strength.' The opinions circulating in Rome relative to him, he says, were that 'he was by .^„,„^. nature gloomy and savage, and was exasperated Fig. 57.— agrippa a j o j , i j POSTUMUS. by opposition.' Suetonius, as we have already Mtdai struck at Corinth. ggg„^ speaks of him as quite intractable, and becoming daily more deranged. Scurrilous and abusive pamphlets were circulated in Rome, purport- ing to have been written by Agrippa against his grandfather, and one man was fined for putting them in circulation. There can be little doubt that they emanated from the party of Julia, the remnant of the old oligarchical faction, who sought to pit Agrippa against Tiberius. Considering the intense desire Augustus manifested to make his throne hereditary, the love and pride he had in his grandsons Caius and Lucius, we may be certain that the reason of his passing over Agrippa was that he was well aware that the young man was insane, and absolutely incapable of succeeding him. He knew, however, that there was a party in Rome, the party of his daughter Julia — or, rather, a selfish, ambitious party of nobles — who hoped to fish for themselves in troubled waters, and recover some of their old privileges under an in- capable head. They would therefore desire to set this poor wretch in his place, in opposition to Tiberius, the only man mentally and morally equal to the task of succeeding to power. Augustus knew that civil war must break out after his death were Agrippa suffered to live. He had already nipped in the bud a plot to elevate this madman in his place. He took his measures. He had passed through the horrors of civil war himself, and desired to spare Rome a renewal of this terrible misery. He had accordingly given orders to the tribune intrusted with the oversight of Agrippa to put him to death directly the tidings of his own decease reached him. This command was executed. The tribune commissioned a centurion to kill Agrippa; but so great was the strength of the young man, and so desperate a struggle did he make for his life, that although he was unprovided with weapons, he taxed the full powers of his executioner. TIBERIUS 229 To all appearance, Tiberius had no share in this murder; indeed, knew nothing about it till it was committed. When the centurion brought him the report tha,t 'his command was executed,' Tiberius answered that he had given no such command, and that the centurion must appear before the senate and be made to answer for what he had done. Tiberius actually purposed to have the case sifted in public, and it required the earnest representations of Livia and those involved in the matter, to induce him to abstain from so doing, and to send a message to the senate that Agrippa had been put to death by command of Augustus. Tacitus says that this was a bit of dissimulation, and adds that it was impossible to suppose that Augustus, with his warm attachment for his grandchildren, could have given the command, merely to secure the succession to a son of Livia. Suetonius says : ' Agrippa was slain by a tribune who commanded the guard set over him, upon reading a written order for that purpose : respecting which order it remained doubtful whether Augustus left it at his last moments, in order to prevent any public disturbances after his death, or whether Livia issued it in the name of Augustus, and whether it was issued with or without the knowledge of Tiberius.' When Tiberius threatened to have the matter investigated before the senate, Crispus Sallustius, a confidant of the deceased emperor, had an interview with Livia. The cabinet order for the execution had passed through his hands to the tribune. He represented ' that palace secrets, friendly counsels, and ministerial acts should not be divulged ; and that Tiberius would only enfeeble the force of princely authority by referring all things to the senate.' Livia saw that a great scandal would ensue were the matter gone further into, and she persuaded her son to send the curt message to the senate mentioned already, containing what in all likelihood was a true statement of the circumstances. We have, curiously enough, a specimen of the way in which reports circulated in Rome, and got altered in form, in the accounts that come to us relative to the fate of the companion of Augustus on his visit to Agrippa shortly before his own death. Tacitus tells the story as it reached him : ' A rumour got abroad that Augustus, having singled out a few to whom he communicated his purpose, had taken Fabius Maximus for his only companion,^ and had sailed over to the island of Planasia to visit Agrippa ; that many tears were shed on both sides, many tokens of mutual tenderness shown ; that Maximus had disclosed all this to his wife Marcia, and she told 1 Paullus Fabius Maximus was a friend of Ovid, who addressed epistles to him and deplored his death. From the Acta Arvalia it would seem that he was alive on May 14, in the year that Augustus died. It is altogether improbable that the aged and failing prince could have slipped away, unlmown to his watchful wife, and made a sea journey to Planasia. Marcia, the wife of Fabius Maximus, was the daughter of the aunt of Augustus (Atia minor) by her husband L. Marcius Philippu';. 230 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS Livia ; that the emperor was informed of this, and that, Maximus dying soon after (it is uncertain whether naturally or by means sought for the purpose) Marcia was observed in her lamentations at his funeral to upbraid herself as the cause of her husband's destruction.' Plutarch lived at the same time that Tacitus wrote, and he also tells the story ; but, observe, Tacitus tells it all as a rumour — a bit of popular chatter, based on a few exclamations made by a lady at her husband's funeral. Plutarch tells the story very differently : ' Fulvius,' he says — to begin with, he has the name wrong, — 'a friend of the emperor Augustus, heard him once in his old age lamenting his domestic solitude, bereaved of his two grandsons (Caius and Lucius) by death, and of Postumus, who had been banished on account of a slanderous accusation, so that the emperor was left with no other choice for a successor but his stepson, although he regretted his grandson, and desired to restore him from banishment. ' Fulvius repeated what he had heard to his wife, and she confided it to Livia, who at once overwhelmed the emperor with reproaches, and complained that he should think of reinstating his grandson and exposing her to his hatred and resentment. When, shortly after this, Fulvius one morning came before Augustus and gave him his usual salutation, the emperor replied, 'I wish you more common sense. Farewell.' Fulvius understood the hint at once, and hastened home, and told his wife : " The emperor knows that I have revealed the secret I overheard, and so I will commit suicide." "You meet with your desert," answered his wife ; " we have been married all these years, and have you not discovered till now that I am a chatterbox ! You should have been cautious not to let me know what is not to be divulged. I also will die— and die first." Thereupon she seized a dagger, and stabbed herself to death before he died.' Now this furnishes a very extraordinary discrepancy in almost every particular except the death of Fabius, and shows us how this sort of court scandal varied in the forms it assumed. Pliny alludes to it when he enumerates the troubles that beset Augustus ; one of these, he says, was the chattering of Fabius. He has the name right, but gives us no particulars. 'The degradation {abdicatio) of Postumus Agrippa after he had adopted him, the longing he had to have him back again after he had been banished, then {inde) the suspicion he entertamed relative to Fabius, of having betrayed his secrets; hence {hmc) the schemes {cogitationes) of his wife and Tiberius :— these were his last anxieties.' We shall never get nearer the truth concerning the death of Agrippa , and all that can be said with any confidence is that the balance of probabilities is that the execution was due to the order of Augustus, to save Rome from civil war. If so, he was successful, though not as completely as he desired. For, no sooner did Clemens find that TIBERIUS 231 Agrippa was dead than a bold plan flashed through his brain. He bore a certain resemblance to the murdered prince, and he resolved to take advantage of this to revenge the murder and gratify the hatred of his prompters. He returned to the mainland and remained in conceal- ment till his beard was grown, so as to heighten his likeness to the deceased prince. The heads of the party in whose interest he acted agreed to the deception, and by their means the rumour was spread that Agrippa was still alive and prepared to substantiate his claims to the inheritance and throne of his grandfather. The rumour was received with avidity, and occasioned a great stir. Wherever the pretender appeared, in Gaul and in upper Italy, he was received with enthusiasm. When he landed at Ostia, crowds poured out to meet and welcome him. In Rome, organised bands of armed men were in readiness to assert his claims with their swords. Tiberius behaved with prudence and promptitude. The time was critical. Tidings had reached him that mutiny had broken out in the legions in the provinces. That the man was an impostor he knew well enough, through Sallustius Crispus, who had seen to the accomplishment of the secret orders for the death of Postumus. Instead of sending troops against him, Tiberius obtained his arrest through treachery, at night, and he was brought in chains to the imperial palace in Rome. There he was tortured, but maintained his story. It was said among the enemies of Livia and Tiberius, that when the latter asked him : ' How he had become Agrippa?' the fellow boldly answered: 'Just in the same way as you became Caesar.' He was removed and put to death. Though numerous members of the imperial house, many senators and many knights, were in the plot, Tiberius refused to have any examination made into the ramifications of the conspiracy, and the matter was prudently allowed to drop into oblivion. II.— THE EARLY LIFE OF TIBERIUS. We will now turn back to the early years of Tiberius, and briefly follow his history during these years ; for it was by the trials, slights, disappointments of this period that his character was moulded. SCRIB0NIA=0CTAV10S = LlVIA = TlB. Cl. NeRO. M. Viys. AGKippA=JuuA=TIBEltIUS=VipSANiA. Drusus=Antonia. I Drusus mi. Agrippina = Germanicus 232 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS In the museums of Rome the statues and busts of Tiberius at all periods of his life a;re plentiful. There is no mistaking them. The delicacy, the feminine beauty of the features, the broad brow, the nervous mouth, and sensitive, weak chin, the large sad eyes, become familiar to every student in these galleries. To me, standing before them, observing them in every light, from every side, they presented a psychological enigma. Again and again have I come before them, Tacitus and Suetonius in hand, and have striven to read into them the characteristics of the man as sketched by Tacitus and stippled by Suetonius. It was impossible. Either the sculptors had combined to falsify his face, or the historians had misinterpreted his nature. And when I came to read these two writers with the view of finding out whether there were not something very different in Tiberius from what they supposed, it seemed to me that the clue to the interpretation of his character and conduct lay on the surface. Take that clue in hand, and the entire story of Tiberius is seen in a new light, and the real man is disclosed who perfectly accords with the representations of him left by the sculptors' chisel. Tiberius, or to give him his name in full, Tiberius Claudius Nero, was born on the i6th November B.C. 42, in his father's house on the Palatine, possibly the very house now completely disin- *BC 42'^ terred, showing all its chambers and courts; if so, then a modest house indeed. His father, of the same name, had been greatly favoured by Julius Caesar, and rewarded all the favour shown him by going over to the party of the Liberators after the death of Caesar. In the Perusian war he took the side of the consul Lucius Antonius, brother of the triumvir, and after his defeat fled, as already related, to Naples, and thence to Sicily and to Greece. The young child Tiberius was hurried in his mother's arms from place to place, hushed lest his crying should betray the place of concealment of his parents, and sucking in with his mother's milk nervous alarm from her fluttering breast. She herself was but a child aged fifteen when she bore him. In Sicily the refugees had been kindly received by Pompeia, daughter of the great Pompeius ; and this lady gave the child a little cloak, and a brooch and amulet, which were long afterwards preserved and shown in the villa of Tiberius at Baiae. Livia was but nineteen and her child four when she returned to Rome, and took up her quarters in the little house on the Palatine. A.U.C. 716. '^'^'^ ^^^ ^^^ ^ bow-shot distant from the house of Octavian ; B.C. 38. accordingly the young Octavian had frequent opportunities ^^'- 4- of seeing her. As already told, he insisted on her husband divorcing Livia, whereupon he married her, though she was expecting her confinement. The childhood of Tiberius was not happy. The separa- tion of his parents; the early death of his father, at whose funeral he, though still a child, had to make an oration ; the dislike entertained TIBERIUS 233 for him by his stepfather, who preferred to him his younger brother Drusus, and later the children of Julia ; his own uncertain and dubious position in the imperial family j— all conduced to cloud his young days. Moreover, the rivalries of the two parties, the purposed slights to which he Was exposed, the suspicion and jealousy that watched his every step, the malice that perverted his every word, and bore it in its perverted form to the ear of Augustus, left a deep and enduring stamp on his spirit at the age when characters are formed. Naturally sensitive, he became shy and reserved. From boyhood he received the nickname of 'The old fellow ' (c5 Trpea-^vrrji) from his precocious gravity. : We know almost nothing of his youth till he reached his eighteenth ^ year, except such superficial matter as— on what horse of the car he rode in the Attic triumph of Octavian, in what place he sat at the triumphal banquet, and how he marshalled the boys in the game of Troy. And almost nothing at all, is told us of his education, though it cannot be doubted that Octavian, who laid great stress on the thoroughness and goodness of the teaching of the boys in his house, would see that the education of his stepson was not neglected. We are told that Messala Corvinus was his tutor, a man of the highest character. Not a hint is given that the young Tiberius was guilty of excesses of any kind during his youth. Indeed, Tacitus says of this period, as of that later, till his succession to the throne, that it was exemplary. Marcellus, the son of Octavia, who had been adopted by Augustus and married to his own daughter, died, and the prince was obliged to look to Tiberius as his assistant in carrying on the affairs of government, and as a buttress to his dynasty. He obtained a decree from - A.U.C. 7^1. the senate that permitted Tiberius to assume the several 'b.c.'23. ' offices in the state some years before the legal age. Ac- ^^^' 'S' cordingly he was invested with the quaestorship when nineteen. Augustus somewhat later confided to him other duties, and those of importance, viz., the charge of the provisioning of Rome, and that of supervision of all the slave establishments in Italy, as murmurs were heard that the great dealers in human cattle did not content themselves with the purchase of prisoners made in war, but kidnapped promising young Italians. To this period belongs a bust in the Capitoline Museum (Fig. 58), as does also one in the Lateran at a slightly younger age. Both represent him with much the same character as do those of him later in life. The hair is worn down the back of the neck. There is refine- ment in the face, great sensitiveness, and not a little sadness. Let it be compared with that of the young Octavius, and it will be seen to differ from it at all points. The young Octavius had a determined mouth, and that of the young Tiberius is nervous and tremulous. There is in Octavius a wonderful balance of all the parts. This is lacking in Tiberius. He has a finely developed brain, but the face draws rapidly 234 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS to a point at the chin, .indicative of weakness. The face of Octavius is cold and hard, that of Tiberius is full of feeling and gentleness; there is in the distressed eye and brow an appeal to one's compassion. There is in it the look of a boy who has suffered. That of Octavius has the eagle glance of the youth who believes in his own powers ; but there are diffidence and a desire to be hid from all eyes, a doubt of his ability, in Tiberius. His is the face of one with a clinging, loving nature, afraid of hurting others as of being hurt himself. Gregorovius, steeped in the traditional view of Tiberius as a monster, writes : ' His head is full of intellect, and is nobly formed. The mouth infinitely refined and beautiful ; one can never forget that head (the Chiaramonti bust) after having once seen it. One expected some- thing so different, — the face of a devil, — and is startled to see the delicacy of feature of a woman, which might suit a Sardanapalus. Only Fig. 58.— T I B E R I us. Bust in the Capitoline lluseum. when aged does a deep, sharp expression of scorn and scepticism trace itself about the mouth, and this expression assumes something repellent in its stiffness, its hard-hearted reserve, its vulgarity even ! Thus does the colossal head at Naples reveal him ; so also his busts in the Capitol. In youth, his features are Dionysian, and the form of his body is full and feminine.' As military tribune Tiberius was sent into Spain to suppress a revolt of the turbulent Cantabri, and this was the opening of his career as an A.U.C.733. f^^^ ^"*^ brilliant general. Immediately after the sub- Ae't2i' ^^S^^^°^ °^ ^^^ Cantabri he was hurried into Armenia, where he recovered the eagles lost by Crassus thirty-three or thirty-four years before, and laid them at the feet of his step- father. ^ This created great enthusiasm in Rome. Medals were struck to commemorate the achievement, and the poets composed verses in Fig. 59.— T I B E R I U S. Bust in British Museum 236 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS celebration of the wiping away of the disgrace that had stained the arms of Rome. It has been conjectured that the embossed figures on the armour of the beautiful statue of Augustus found in Livia's villa at Prima Porta (Fig. 46) represent the subjection of the Parthians by her dearly loved son. As Tiberius returned from this war he passed over the battle-field of Philippi, and was greeted by mysterious omens, strange sounds in the air, as of the clash of arms, and the springing up of a flame on the altar erected by Antony on the battle-field. These omens, we are informed, profoundly moved the soul of Tiberius. He was not suffered to remain long in Rome on his return, but was ordered to depart for Transalpine Gaul, and he had hardly entered on his charge there before he was called away to chastise the Rhaetians and Vindelicians of the Alps, those mountaineers who, at intervals driven by necessity to migrate, sought to win for themselves habitations on the plains at the foot of their mountains. They inhabited the chain from the Engadine through the Dolomites to the source of the Drau. The resolve of Augustus was thoroughly to exterminate these menacing barbarians, and the campaign against them was organised and executed in a very thorough manner ; whilst Tiberius attacked the enemy from the north, his brother Drusus was required to scale their fastnesses from the south. The defeat of the mountaineers was complete, and was followed by the merci- A.U.C. 739. r- ; j B.C. 15. less slaughter of all who could be captured, as the only means Aet. 27. whereby Italy could be relieved from constant aggression. The successes of the brothers are sung in two odes of Horace. Whilst this was going on in the Alps, Augustus was in Gaul, and he remained there also the following year. Tiberius turned his arms against the Taurisci of the Upper Danube, and then returned to Rome for his consulship. Tiberius had a wife, Vipsania, the daughter of Agrippa, the lifelong friend of Augustus, by his first wife, the daughter of Pomponius Atticus, A.u.c 741. Cicero's constant friend and correspondent. He had been B.C. 13. betrothed to her at an early age, by the desire of Augustus, Aet. 29. ^j^g sought as far as possible to unite the supporter of his throne with his family. Tiberius had married Vipsania as soon as she had reached a fitting age, and he was warmly attached to her. Indeed, as Suetonius tells us, she suited him admirably. In the year 11 B.C.' Vipsania gave Tiberius a son, who was named Drusus, and she was expecting to become a mother again when a great misfortune fell on the young couple. Agrippa, Vipsania's father and husband of Julia, died in 12 B.C., and Augustus and Livia resolved that in his place A.u.c. 743. Tiberius should be the husband of Julia. For this he was B.C. II. unprepared. Not only was he deeply attached to Vipsania, ^'' 3'- but he knew the character of Julia. Augustus and his mother pressed him to separate from his wife. Tiberius had not the TIBERIUS 237 force of character of Caesar, who risked hfe and possessions rather than part with the woman he loved. After long struggle, Tiberius yielded, ' not without great anguish of mind,' says Suetonius, and married the young and dashing widow. But his affection for Vipsania endured. One day he happened to encounter her in the street, and by his intent look and filling eye it was seen that he was not reconciled to his loss, Augustus immediately had Vipsania married to Asinius Gallus, a Fig. 60.— T I B E R I U S. Bust at Berlin, No. 345. Acquired at Naples in 1842. personal enemy of Tiberius, a pushing and self-satisfied man, of whom Augustus said that he was puffed with desire to be the first man in the ' senate, but lacked the wits to be what he desired. If anything had been wanted to deepen the sadness that must have weighed on the mind of Tiberius at this time it was the whisper that Vipsania had been false to him, and that Drusus was not in reality his son, but the son of Asinius Gallus, to whom she was married after the (separation. This latter insinuation we can, through the testimony 238 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS of the portrait busts, reject unhesitatingly. Drusus is unmistakably the son of Tiberius. Did the unfortunate man believe this story — set afloat, may be, so as to make him less dissatisfied with his new wife ? We can- not tell. Whether he believed it or not, the seed of doubt in the fidelity of the woman he had loved and trusted remained to embitter his heart and breed in him mistrust of others. The marriage of Tiberius with Julia was the most unhappy of that time. The pride, the frivolity, the wantonness of Julia, of which he knew, though it was concealed from her father, combined to set him against the wife forced on him. And yet he made an attempt to fulfil his duty towards her, and for a little while their union was outwardly harmonious. Julia ' treated him with contempt, as one beneath her in rank,' says Tacitus. She could not forget that, when she had made advances towards him some years previously, he had repelled her with disgust ; nor could she forgive the manifest reluctance with which he had consented to take her hand. She bore him a son on a journey undertaken together through Upper Italy to Aquileia, but the child died early, and with his death the semblance of harmony vanished. Julia would not abandon her dis- solute life, and a separation ensued. For five years Tiberius and Julia remained linked together outwardly, alienated, hating each other at heart. Meantime the sons of Julia were winning their way with the emperor, the court, and the people of Rome. Bright, handsome boys, with intelligence and good spirits, they accompanied Augustus every- where, and he looked on them with undisguised pride. One day, it is said, he caught Caius, the elder, reading a work of Cicero's, and when the boy would have concealed it, Augustus encouraged him to continue the perusal, saying, with a pensive smile, ' He was a great man, and truly loved his country.' Brief as the career of these youths was destined to be, there is reason to think that they were moved neither by the token of mag- nanimity shown them by their grandfather, nor by the patriotism of the author they surreptitiously devoured. Lucius, the younger, intoxicated by the acclamations which greeted him on his casual appearance in the theatre, urged the emperor to elevate his brother to the consulship before he had yet assumed the garb of manhood, and asserted as precedent the case of Augustus himself, who had been invested with the office before the legal age. But the prince replied : ' May the gods grant that no such emergency shall again occur as that which compelled me to become • consul before I was twenty years old.' 'A magistracy,' he added, 'should be given to such only as have learned in the school of life to control their own passions and those of the people.' Drusus had been engaged on more or less successful, but always unprofitable, campaigns in Germany, and Tiberius had been in Pannonia, guarding the frontiers against the incursions of the Dacians. Then TIBERIUS 239 Drusus died from the effects of a fall from his horse, and Tiberius was forced to take the command of the legions on the Rhine. In B.C. 8 he had crossed that river and chastised the Sigambri, but, acting in accordance with the wishes of Augustus, abstained from advancing the frontier beyond it. This effected, he returned to Rome, to be at once involved in domestic troubles and court intrigue. Reck- less and daring by nature, the princess Julia, exulting in the splendour of her position, freed from the irksome presence of her grave and reserved husband, overflowing with animal spirits, had given full rein to her caprices whilst Tiberius was in Germany. On his arrival in Rome, Tiberius found his wife the subject of gibe and lampoon, and his own position with Augustus undermined. He resolved to depart from the scene of his domestic dishonour to the solitude of Rhodes. Augustus invested him in B.C. 6 with the tribunician power, but this mark of honour shown him . ^ ' A.U.C. 748. hastened his departure, for it roused the jealousy of the two e.g. 6. princes and their mother. Tiberius, now in his thirty-seventh ^^^- ^^■ year, an approved general in the field, a wise governor of provinces, felt himself slighted in the court, subjected to the impertinences of the princes of Julian blood, and coolly received by the people. Augustus himself, who had fallen more completely than ever under the influence of his daughter, was irritated against him by Julia's insinuations or complaints, for she represented the domestic disagreement as due wholly to the aversion towards herself felt by the stubborn Tiberius. The party of Julia, and those uncertain adherents who veered with the wind, seeing this estrangement of the prince from his stepson, treated Tiberius with cutting discourtesy ; and Roman society laughed over the 'easy-going' husband who allowed his wife full swing to follow her dissolute fancies. Among the charges against Tiberius whispered into the ear of Augustus by Julia, was one that her husband was ambitious, and sought to displace her sons by Agrippa, whom he viewed with a malevolent eye. Augustus called his son-in-law to task for this. It was in vain for Tiberius to protest his innocence. At last he sent to the Vestal Virgins for his will, that had been consigned to their custody, tore it open before the emperor, and showed him that he had made generous and kindly mention of these pririces in his testament. But this was unavailing to completely dispel the mistrust sown by Julia. The elevation of Tiberius to the tribunician power, conferred on him for five years as a reward for his services in Germany, was regarded as technically equivalent to association in authority with Augustus, and this aroused the furious jealousy of the young princes who arrogated all favours to themselves. The same scenes ensued as had been enacted previously when the young Marcellus was envious of the advancement of Agrippa. The 240 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS prudent Maecenas, the only man who would have been able to mediate between the rival parties, was, unfortunately, no longer present. He, had died shortly before the return of Tiberius to Rome, and Julia had a free hand for her intrigues against her detested husband. She did her utmost with her father, who nad never liked Tiberius, whose character he neither understood nor appreciated. It was, therefore, easy to induce the emperor to dismiss the disturber of domestic tran- quillity from Rome, on some plea or other. Accordingly, hardly had Tiberius been invested by Augustus with the tribunician power than he received orders to depart for. Armenia, which had been invaded by the Parthians. Tiberius felt himself hurt by this commission, the purport of which he well understood. Had he spoken out to Augustus, told him plainly what his feelings were, opened his eyes to the conduct of Julia, Augustus in all probability would have had the sound sense to have curbed the insolence of his daughter, and taken measures to put restraint on her conduct. But Tiberius was not the man to act thus ; he harboured his grievances in his own bosom, and said nothing. He had behaved towards the prince with unfailing deference, he had sacrificed his domestic happiness to his wishes, he had maintained the credit of Rome by his achievements in the field, and had never asked to have his services recognised, never pushed his claims to notice ; he had been submissive to the wishes of Augustus, and doubtless now the emperor, reckoned on his unmurmuring obedience. For once, however, he had miscalculated. Tiberius was not the man to loudly proclaim his wrongs; that was not in his nature; he did not dare act as had Agrippa in the same position, — accept the mission and remain in or near Italy, whilst dis- charging the mission confided to him through his agents. He was no Agrippa — he knew that well enough; Augustus owed everything to Agrippa, and the latter might venture on such a course, but not he. Weighed down with disappointment, disgust at the gossip' of the capital, wretched in his domestic relations, cut to the quick by the insolence of the youths, and disappointed at the coldness of Augustus, whom he loved with filial devotion, he suddenly resolved to retire wholly from political life, and take rest in an island where he might pursue his literary and scientific hobbies. To the amazement of all the world, and of Augustus above every one, Tiberius declined the mission to Armenia, protested that his health demanded retirement and tranquillity, and solicited permission- to depart to Rhodes. No representations of his mother, not even the earnest entreaties of the emperor, who complained in the senate that his stepson was deserting him, could induce Tiberius to alter his purpose. With that toughness of resolve and wilfulness that constituted an element of his nature, and was, in fact, a token of weakness of TIBERIUS 241 character, which is slow to form a resolution, clinging desperately to a resolution when formed, he attempted to starve himself to death, when Augustus refused his consent. The emperor gave way only when he found that his son-in-law had been already four days without food. To this period of his life belongs the bust of Tiberius at Berlin, brought in 1842 from Naples. Some hesitation has been felt as to whether it is genuine, and not a Renaissance sculpture. Also the bust in the Louvre, of whose genuineness no doubt has been entertained.^ There is in both an expression of unhappiness, which disappears in later busts and statues. The surprise and dismay caused by the step of Tiberius were general. Hitherto every praiseworthy action of his had been mis- represented and repaid with scurrility, his kindness translated as want of strength, his magnanimity as fear, his care for justice to the poor as popularity-hunting ; but now that he threatened to leave the field wholly open to the boys Caius and Lucius, senate and people alike felt that one great and main prop of the state was taken away. People could not understand the step and explain it. It was not prompted by ambi- tion, that was self-evident, and no one felt how seriously this act would jeopardise his future so fully as his own mother. The old historians enter into conjectures to account for the withdrawal of Tiberius. ' In the prime of life and in robust health,' says Suetonius, ' he suddenly formed the resolution of withdrawing to a great distance from Rome. It is uncertain whether this was the result of disgust for his wife, whom he durst neither denounce nor divorce, and the connection with whom became daily more intolerable, or to prevent that indifference towards him, which his constant residence in the city might produce, or in the hope of supporting and improving by absence his authority in the state, if the public should have occasion for his services. Some were of opinion that, as the sons of Augustus were now come to maturity, he voluntarily relinquished his place as second in the government, as Agrippa had done before him. This is the reason Tiberius himself alleged later for his retirement ; but his pretext at the time was that he was satiated with honours.' Tacitus says that 'no motive was so cogent with him ' as the conduct of Julia. ' He was,' says Tacitus (vi. 51), 'put in a dilemma from which he did not know how to free himself. If he remained in Rome, he seemed to connive at his wife's misconduct, and he had not the courage to draw the veil from the eyes of Augustus and divorce Julia for her misconduct.' That Tiberius was too proud and too considerate to tell his father-in- law the real cause of his desire to depart, is not a reason why we should . blame hiin. Augustus felt that a slur was cast on his daughter when Tiberius declined to allow her to accompany him to Rhodes ; he resented this as an ' insult ' (contumelid) offered to himself. 1 Berlin, No. 345 ; Louvre, No. 2430. Q Fig. 6I.-TIBERIUS. Bust in the Louvre. TIBERIUS ^ 243 Tiberius departed; he said farewell to his most intimate friends alone, and he took with him but a small retinue. His loved child Drusus he was constrained to leave in Rome as some mitigation of the slight cast on Julia. Among his closest associates were three men, Vescularius Flaccus, Julius Marinus, and above all the senator Lucilius Longus, a self-made man, to whom perhaps alone did the reserved Tiberius open his whole mind. These three accompanied him to Rhodes. Of Flaccus, who was a member of the equestrian order, we know almost nothing. The same may be said of Marinus ; but we are told a little more of I.ongus, ' who held faithfully to Tiberius in good and bad days,' says Tacitus. When, many years later, this old friend died, Tiberius bewailed his loss as one of the greatest sorrows of his life, and gave him a censor's public funeral. It is remarkable to find the Claudian, this scion of a patrician and haughty family, taking his most intimate associates out of an inferior, though equally cultured class. Tiberius had no sooner arrived at Ostia, and was preparing to embark, than news reached him that Augustus was ill, and he sailed slowly along the Campanian coast, calling at intervals on his way for tidings of the health of his stepfather. But even this was turned to his disadvantage, for it was reported in Rome that he was delaying his voyage in hopes of hearing of the death of Augustus. When Tiberius was told of this he at once spread sail and left Italy and its malignant gossip in his wake. As he anchored in Paros, he obtained possession of a beautiful statue of Vesta, the goddess of the domestic hearth, and sent it to Rome to be erected in the temple of Concord; a significant incident, that gives us a glimpse into that wounded and solitary heart flying from a dishonoured home and from the malignity of the rival members of the same household.^ From his thirty-sixth to his forty-third year Tiberius remained in retreat at Rhodes. He had halted in this island on his way back to Italy from his Armenian expedition, and had probably then been attracted by its situation. For eighteen years he had been engaged in campaigns in the remotest regions of the empire ; sorrow and humilia- tion had been his share in his domestic life; he had lost his only brother, to whom he was devotedly attached, and he was wearied out with struggle against the factions, the elements of opposition in the imperial household, headed by his own wife. His powers of resistance were gone, his ambition was disappointed, a listless discouragement had come over his heart, and all he sought was rest in solitude. Through- out his life this passion to be away from the stir of life, and to be alone with his own thoughts and with his books, manifested itself spas- modically. In Rhodes Tiberius occupied a modest house in the city, and had a villa in the country, sufficient to accommodate him and his little com- 1 Pliny, N. H. vii. 48 244 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS pany of associates, mostly men of learning and literature. He walked quietly without retinue about the streets of Rhodes, visited acquaint- ances there, and attended the schools. Once only did he show him- self to be invested with magisterial authority, and that was when, in the schools one day, one of the disputants grossly insulted him, while attempting to reconcile a quarrel. Tiberius withdrew without a word, but summoned the insolent Greek to appear before his tribunal, and sent him to prison. Another anecdote relative to his stay in the island is more favourable. He happened one day-to say to his attendants that he was going to see the sick in Rhodes, probably meaning some sick friends or servants. But his attendants misunderstood him, and com- municated with the authorities in the town, who, with officious prompti- tude, sent to the houses and brought out all the sick people into a public portico and ranged them there in their beds, classified according to their maladies. When Tiberius arrived, he was greatly disconcerted, and for some moments remained uncertain what to do ; but, rallying, he went from one to another of the patients, ' even to the meanest,' and inquired into their condition, and ' apologised for the mistake that had been made.' Amongst his acquaintances at Rhodes was Theodoras of Gadara, who had taught him elocution in Rome, and who was now retired in his old age to the island. Tiberius ever had an inclination for letters, and Horace addresses him as one of a little company of students {Ep. i. 3)- Years passed, and Tiberius wearied at length of his exile. The main cause of his retirement was taken away. Julia had been indicted, dis- graced, and banished, and with her Sempronius Gracchus, A.U.C. 7151. o ' ' ^ ' B.C. 3. his deadly enemy. But if the eyes of Augustus had been ^^'' ^^' opened to the wrong-doing of his daughter, and to the motives that had induced his son-in-law to retire from Rome, his irrita- tion against him was not abated. He had humbled himself before Tiberius in entreating him to remain in the public service, and had been refused. He resented the silence of Tiberius in not confessing to him his real motives for withdrawal to Rhodes, and thus enabling him to check the evil before it had reached a head. Tiberius, on hearing of the terrible disclosures that had taken place, and of the wrath of the emperor, had written to him, as himself the most injured of the two, and as the one most responsible for his wife, to urge some mitigation in the sentence on the wretched creature, and to insist on her being allowed the enjoyment of all the estates and the annuity he had given her in former days. ' He thought it incumbent on him,' says Suetonius, ' in point of decency to interpose in her behalf by frequent letters to Augustus.' Even this interference is misrepre- sented as an act of hypocrisy. It did not occur to the historian as possible that so grievously wronged a man could feel pity for the woman TIBERIUS 245 who was fallen, and who had embittered his life. Tiberius now pro- posed to return to Rome, but to his surprise and consternation was informed by Augustus that his voluntary exile was now converted into one involuntary. He must remain in Rhodes, and ' need hot concern himself about his friends, whom he professed to be so desirous of seeing again.' This blow was crushing. Now only did Tiberius recognise what a political blunder he had made five years before in leaving the coast clear for the machinations of his adversaries. His tribunician power expired, and it was with difficulty that Livia was able to obtain for her son only the title and dignity of a legate, so that his position at Rhodes might be in some measure raised above that of a private individual, and some decent disguise might be thrown over the fact that he was in exile and in disgrace. Tiberius was made to feel that he was out of favour. The princes of Asia Minor were forbidden to visit him. He was sur- rounded by spies. He therefore withdrew to his villa in the country, and lived there in the utmost seclusion. To avoid every occasion of offence, he did not receive any of the governors of provinces, or even private Roman travellers who landed at Rhodes. On hearing, however, that Caius, the eldest grandson of Augustus, was at Samos, on his way to the East, he visited him. The experienced soldier of forty-one was constrained to stoop before his own stepson, aged nineteen, to ask his intercession with the emperor. He was but coldly received, for Marcus Lollius, the tutor of Caius, was a dihgent fomenter of rivalry between the two houses, and he had prejudiced his pupil against Tiberius. Then Tiberius learned that malicious representations had been made to Augustus that he had been intriguing with the old legions he had commanded in Germany. Tiberius at once wrote to Augustus to request that the prince would send any trusty man he pleased to be with him as his keeper, who could report to his master every act and word of his life. The two remaining years of his banishment were sad enough. Brooding over the injustice done him, feeling himself unable to meet and refute the malignant inventions of his enemies, grieving at his separation from Augustus, whom, through all discouragement, he loved sincerely, Tiberius withdrew into deeper solitude and silence. ^ He gave up his wonted amusements — riding, shooting, fencing, abandoned even his stately Roman habit and assumed the lighter garb of the Greek, and was told by letters from Rome that ' society ' sneered at him for his weak-spirited resignation of all his claims. In the Roman colony of Nemausus, the modern Nimes, the capital of the province in which he 1 The conduct of Tiberius is intelligible enough. Tacitus, however, says of it : ' et Rhodi secrete vitare coetus, recondere voluptates insuerat.' — Ann. iv. 57. At that licentious period did it need retirement and secrecy to be dissolute ? 246 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS had formerly commanded, the people , threw down his statues. A favourite of Prince Caius at a banquet one evening turned to the young man and said, ' Say the word, and I will start for Rhodes and bring you back his head.' An accident proved favourable to Tiberius. LoUius, who had been tutor to Caius in the East, had made himself obnoxious to his piipilj probably by his strictness : he was accused of extortion, and, ' a'.d. 2?^' to escape a trial, committed suicide. He was succeeded by Aet. 43. Quirinius, who was friendly to Tiberius.^ On his way to the East he made a visit to the exile, probably by order of Augustus, and, on proceeding to Caius in Syria, induced him to withdraw his opposition to the return of his stepfather. Livia, also, used her best endeavours to obtain the recall of Tiberius. Tiberius knew that a final effort on his behalf was being made, and he walked daily to a headland to look out over the blue Cretan sea for the sail that would bring him tidings of his release, or confirm his exile. One day an eagle perched on his roof, a sign he hoped that better times were coming. One morning the electric sparks flashed as he assumed his clothes, and that also he supposed was a sure token of good. He was attended constantly by the philosopher and astrologer Thrasyllus, who professed to read men's fortunes in the stars, and who had buoyed up his master with hopes. On the last day of his exile, Tiberius was standing with this man on the edge of a cliff, as usual looking wistfully westward, and listening to the words of Thrasyllus, when, so it was said,^ a sudden impatience came over Tiberius, and an inclination to throw the prophet of good things over the cliffs ; but at that moment a sail glittered in the sun on the horizon. It brought to Tiberius the wished-for recall, but under the condition that he should exer- cise no public functions in Rome, living there merely as a private individual. Before Tiberius had left Rome, seven years previously, he had proved his value to the state, given evidence of his brilliant abihties, and perhaps he may have since proved that his absence caused no sensible inconvenience. ' But it is the way of the world, that no sooner does one man step out of the fore-front than another steps into his place, and the man who has stepped out is forgotten,' says Stahr. This Tiberius found to be true on his reappearance in Rome. He was without rank and influence, pointedly excluded from participation in public affairs. One only satisfaction he had on his return — to find his house purified from the stain that had rested on it. The condition of affairs in Rome rapidly altered after the return of Tiberius, and he was forced once more into notice. Augustus had lost 1 P. Sulpicius Quirinius, the ' Cyrenius ' of St. Lulte ii. 2. 2 Suetonius and Tacitus have a wonderful faculty for seeing into the minds of men, and they tell with confidence what were their purposes and pUns. TIBERIUS 247 his old friends and advisers Agrippa and Maecenas, his sister's son Marcellus, and his favourite stepson Drusus. Julia, his only daughter, was in banishment, and two of his grandchildren, the crazy Agrippa Postumus, and the dissolute Julia, who was treading in her mother's steps, caused him great concern. Then ensued the death of Lucius at Marseilles, a.d. 2, coinciding almost immediately with the arrival of Tiberius in Rome, and eighteen months later, Caius died in Lycia (Feb. 2 1, A.D. 4). It is hardly to be wondered at that the deaths A.U.C. 757. of these princes following so rapidly on each other, and a!d'. 4. synchronising with the recall of Tiberius, stunning as they ^'^^' *^' were to the Julian faction, should set their tongues running, and that they should accuse Livia and Tiberius of having contrived these deaths. Augustus, now aged sixty-seven, was deeply distressed by this loss, which destroyed his hopes of building up a dynasty in his family. No other course was now left open to him than that of withdrawing Tiberius from obscurity and associating him along with himself in the drudgery of government. He adopted him and Agrippa Postumus, on the same day, June 27, in a full assembly of the senate, and he accompanied the adoption of his stepson with the solemn asseveration that ' he did this in the interest of the state.' To make the bond more complete, he required Tiberius to likewise adopt Germanicus, then aged eighteen, his nephew, the son of his deceased brother Drusus. It is deserving of notice that on the death of Lucius, Augustus had at once offered to adopt Tiberius in his place, but that Tiberius had declined the honour, thinking it might annoy Caius, to whose consent he owed his return.^ But when Caius was also dead, every reason for refusal was removed. Although Tiberius had been thus taken into the Julian family and accepted as a son by Augustus, he took no advantage of his position. He maintained the utmost reserve, behaved with singular difiSdence, and passed his adoption over, as though it were a form void of political significance. The insanity of Agrippa, though suspected, had not as yet become acknowledged and confirmed. Augustus needed his help. He was uneasy about the German frontier. Since the last campaign conducted by Tiberius in this quarter, the Romans had acquired substantial advantages beyond the Rhine. The ambition of every commander at the head of the legions at Mogun- tiacum was to make of the Elbe the frontier stream of the empire in place of the Rhine. Augustus was but half satisfied with the proposed enlargement of the realm in that direction, and he desired that Tiberius should in person investigate the advisability of such an extension. Accordingly, immediately on his adoption, Tiberius was despatched to the Rhine, and in a rapid and brilliant campaign he subjugated all those tribes that occupied the forests between the Lower Rhine and the Weser, 1 Veil. Paterc. ii. 103. 248 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS He fixed his winter camp near the sources of the Lippe in the great Teutoburger Forest, and then returned over the Alps to report progress to Augustus. Early in the spring of the following year, he was again with his legions, and he organised a combined expedition by sea and land, by means of a flotilla, long since prepared on the Rhine, now *a!d. 5^^' sent along the shores of the Northern Ocean, to enter and ^^'- 4^- ascend the Elbe. He proposed to dismay the enemy by taking them in rear whilst he advanced against them through the woods and over the sandy downs, till he could reach hands to those despatched with the fleet. This remarkable combination was carried into execution according to his directions. The terrified natives were unable to pluck up courage to resist, and fled to the further bank of the Elbe. Thence an aged chief put forth in a canoe, and on reaching the middle of the sluggish river asked leave to be led before the Roman general. Con- ducted to the tent of Tiberius, he surveyed him for a while with silent admiration, and then exclaimed, ' Madness is it for us to contend against the invisible divinities of the Romans, and not to make submission at once. By the grace ot Caesam I have this day been suffered to see a god, a privilege I never before attained, or hoped to attain.' Thus saying, he asked permission to touch the hand of the figure before him radiant in glittering armour, and with a countenance of a beauty unknown in his savage cabins. Flattery there no doubt was in this act, but there was also homage to the genius of the great general, and to his personal appearance. Having reached the Elbe, Tiberius retired content with his bloodless achievement, and satisfied in his own mind that it would be, as his adopted father would say, ' fishing for minnows with a golden hook,' if he sought to annex the unproductive wastes of Lower Germany. He accordingly exchanged his post on the Rhine for the command of the legions on the Danube, where the frontier was menaced by the AUG 7tN^'^^^^^^^^H \^^B ^SJIH Fig. 70.— DRUSUS MINOR. Bust in Museum Torlonia. and the very contrast of their characters tended to give him great, and in time unbounded influence over his master. Tiberius was timid and self-distrusting; Sejanus assured and resolute, and his self-confidence imposed on the diffident and hesitating emperor. He was given the command over the praetorian cohorts, and this charge placed him in a position of strict intimacy with the emperor, over whose personal safety it was his duty to watch. 'Tiberius required a staff to lean upon, and Sejanus was strong enough and bold enough to supply one TIBERIUS 295 Anxious as the new emperor was, from his first accession, to know everything, and to do everything himself; impatient as he was of leaving affairs to take their course under a wise but distant superin- tendence, and jealous of all interference with his own control; yet, finding day by day that the concerns of his vast administration were slipping away beyond the sphere of his personal guidance, from the inability of any single mind to embrace them altogether, he was reduced to the necessity of falling back on extraneous assistance, and he pre- ferred, from the character of his mind, to draw irregular aid from a favourite domestic, rather than throw irresponsible power into the hands of his remote vicegerents.'^ The conclusion of the great trial of Piso had not allayed the ferment in men's minds. The protection extended to Plancina had inflamed to the fiercest fury the glowing passion for revenge in the heart of Agrippina. She and her adherents made it an article of faith that Germanicus had been poisoned, and a sacred duty to revenge that murder. ' All the best people,' says Tacitus — he counts the oligarchical party (pptimi) alone as good folks — 'all these,' says he, 'broke out into secret complaints with augmented vehemence.' The honour shown to Vitellius and Veranius, accusers of Piso, could not pacify the fierce hatred, which never fiagged in intriguing against the emperor and his mother, and which could be allayed by no kindnesses, no for- bearance. Tiberius at once took steps to open the way to honours for the sons of Germanicus. He introduced the eldest of the orphans, Nero, aged seventeen, to the senate, and asked that he might be permitted to enter on the quaestorship five years before the legitimate age. He conferred on him the priestly office, and betrothed him to Julia, daughter of his own son Drusus, and gave presents to all the Roman people on the day that the young prince assumed the manly toga. The same favour he showed to Drusus, the second son of Germanicus, when three years later he obtained his recognition as of man's estate. To the great satisfaction of Tiberius, moreover, his son Drusus assumed a fatherly attitude towards the orphan boys, and treated them with much affection. Even his enemies were forced grudgingly to admit that, ' however difficult it might be for power and unanimity to subsist between equals, Drusus was kind, and certainly not ill-disposed towards these youths.' The year a.d. 23 was fatal to Tiberius. Hitherto his government had been admirable, and on the whole had been, but for the loss of Germanicus, prosperous. Peace and order reigned in the ^^^ ^^g_ empire; the Roman arms were victorious in the field, and a.d. 23. the routine of government was carried on with equity and ^'' '^' system. Discipline was restored among the troops, and never had the 1 Merivale, v. p. 226. 296 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS provinces thriven with such freedom from extortion. The finances were flourishing, and the private virtues of the emperor, and his sincerity in maintaining justice, gained him general respect. His son, a fine and vigorous youth, was springing up at his side to serve as his regent, a man on whom he could rely, who was a favourite with the people, and, though not without faults, was able in head and sound in heart. Tiberius had every reason to look hopefully forward to the future, to his immediate relief from overstrain of work, and ultimately to his place being filled by his own son, and the dynasty securely established. Drusus was united to a sister of Germanicus, and he hoped, therefore, that in him the old partisan hatreds might cool down and expire. Tiberius loved Drusus as he had loved the mother Vipsania, but his love did not suffer him to spoil his son. Drusus had been brought up with great strictness, and inured to hard work. When quite young he had acted with spirit and ability in the field against the Rhaetians, along with his kinsman Germanicus, his senior by two years. In his seventeenth year Augustus had suffered him to assist at the sessions of the senate. On the death of Augustus he was consul-designate. When hardly twenty-four he had subdued the mutiny in Pannoriia with an energy, promptitude, and success that contrasted favourably with the conduct of Germanicus on a like occasion. In war against the peoples on the Danube he had exhibited military ability and political address. Moreover, to the great satisfaction of his father, he kept himself com- pletely aloof from the intrigues and rancours of the rival parties. He loved Germanicus, he was devotedly attached to his wife, the sister of Germanicus, and fond of the orphan children of his brother-in-law. Drusus was a different man from Germanicus in many points ; rough and blunt, he lacked the cultured tastes of the other, could not speak in public without a written page under his eyes, and was not interested in antiquities or in art. He was passionate, and loved a debauch when he came home from the wars. On one occasion he boxed Sejanus on the ears. Once he had a bout with his fists, and knocked over a Roman knight who had offended him, whereupon the people nicknamed him Castor. But he harboured ill-will against no man. He loved gladiatorial shows, which filled his father with disgust ; and his rashness and impetu- osity sometimes cost Tiberius anxiety. The emperor was heard on one occasion to reprimand his son with the words : ' As long as I live I will tolerate no acts of violence ; and I will take care that after I am dead you shall not do them.' But the people loved him. A man who was open as the day, not reserved, who was not squeamish over bloodshed, who drank and roistered, and knocked men about with his fists one day, and next day laughed and shook hands, was a prince after their own heart. In the year 21 Drusus was colleague with his father in the consul- ship; then the old man left Rome early in the year to make a long TIBERIUS 297 stay in Campania, partly because his health was feeble, but chiefly in order that, by his absence, his son might be given an opportunity of exercising all the duties of the consulship unrestrained. He was contemplating the raising of Drusus to be his coadjutor to relieve him- self of the burden of government, which he felt was more than he was able to endure alone. Drusus answered all his expectations by the tact and skill with which he conducted business, and so satisfied his father, that he conferred on him the tribunician authority for the ensuing year, thus, formally proclaiming him regent along with himself. The straightforward and natural manner in which Tiberius addressed the senate on this matter is admitted even by Tacitus, who says : ' In the beginning of his letter he besought the gods " that they would pros- per his counsels in behalf of the republic," and then added a guarded testimony to the qualities of the young prince, without any false exaggerations ; he said that " Drusus had a wife and three children, and was quite as old as he himself was when called to the tribunician office by Augustus ; that Drusus was not now adopted precipitately by him as partner in the toils of government ; but that, having had eight years' proof of his abilities in the suppression of seditions, the conclusion of wars, in the honour of a triumph and in two consulships, he could rely on him." ' As long as Germanicus lived, Tiberius was uncertain which of the two to select as regent with him, but now that Germanicus was dead, he had no choice. The senate, with fulsome adulation, at once granted what was so modestly asked. Only the dependants in the Julian. faction sneered to each other at the simplicity of the tone of the letter, and remarked that Drusus showed princely insolence in not coming personally from Cam- pania to thank the senate for this compliment paid him, but in writing his thanks instead. However, the great mass of men were pleased that the dynasty was secure, and the risk of civil war put away. All now seemed prosperous in the house of Tiberius, when suddenly the bolt fell which ruined all his hopes, at the very moment when the emperor saw open before him the prospect of a tranquil old age, free from cares and overwork. Scarcely was Drusus established in the regency before he, fell ill. Tiberius did not consider his sickness to be serious ; he supposed it was the result of over-eating. A few days after, Drusus was dead. He died at the age of thirty-three. The father, who saw all his hopes and ambi- tions cut down, was deeply pained, but maintained his dignity and self- control. During his son's illness he had taken his accustomed place in court daily, and continued his business, not supposing the case to be serious. But when Drusus was dead, he went direct from the death- bed to the senate-house. Tacitus describes the scene: 'Finding the consuls, in testimony of their grief, seated on the ordinary benches, he admonished them to consider their dignity and resume their proper 298 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS places. The senators burst into tears; but Tiberius, suppressing even a sigh, in a speech uttered without hesitation, thus addressed them. He said 'that he was well aware that he had laid him- self open to censure for having thus, in the first throb of grief, exposed himself to the view of the senate. Most mourners,' he said, ' ill endure the consolations offered by their kinsfolk, scarce look on the face of day, and are not charged with weakness for so doing. He, however, sought more manly solace in throwing himself on the bosom of the commonwealth.' Then he spoke feelingly of ' the extreme old age of his mother and the tender age of his grandson, of his own term of life advancing to its close,' and he desired that the children of Germanicus might be introduced as the great alleviation for the present evil. The consuls thereupon went for them, and with cheering words to the young princes introduced them to the house and placed them before the emperor. He took them by their hands, and said : ' Con- script fathers ! these fatherless youths I committed to their uncle, and I besought him that, though he had issue of his own, he would rear and nourish them just as his own children, and train them up to be worthy of himself and of posterity. Drusus is taken from us : to you I address the same prayers. In the presence of all the gods, in the face of your country, I conjure you, receive them into your protection, take into your custody the grandchildren of Augustus, children sprung of ancestry most glorious in the annals of the state. Towards them, I pray you, fulfil your duty. To you, Nero, and to you, Drusus, I now address myself: regard these senators as your fathers. Remember that such are the circumstances of your birth, that the good or the evil that touches you affects likewise the whole commonwealth.' Tacitus says that so far all was well, but when, after this, Tiberius spoke about the restoration of the republic and the consuls reasserting their authority, it was believed that he was insincere, and he roused mis- trust. But the old man was sincere. He felt his health and powers failing him, and he knew that there was no one now old enough and prudent enough in his own house to assist him. Not till eight years after did Tiberius discover — even suspect — that he had lost his son by poison, and that the man who had taken him off was his own most intimate friend and confidant. It was even so. Sejanus was alarmed at the appointment of Drusus, who disliked him, saw through him, and had warned his father against him. In an altercation that had taken place between the favourite and the son, Drusus had lost his temper and had struck Sejanus in the face. The favourite knew that as soon as ever Tiberius resigned the reins of power into the hands of his son, his overthrow was certain to ensue, sooner or later. His only hope of maintaining his place was through the death of Drusus. But that was not all. Tiberius was now old and in failing health ; he could not expect to live many years. Sejanus resolved to TIBERIVS J99 secure himself a place against the death of Tiberius. He ent-ered fnto negotiations with the party of Agfippina. Being a handsonte-Hian, he paid court to Livilla, the wife of 'Drusus. He divorced has-'pwn wife, Apicata, and proposed to get rid of BmsuS; that-hem^ht marry Livilla.1 ' ,' ' c- It is hard not to suspect that Agrippiha" was privy to this infamous plot. Germanicus had fallen by poison, administered by orders of Tiberius, so she doubtless argued. The course of justice had been hampered, and punishment had not been meted out to the wrong- doers. But judgment should be administered— eye for eye and tooth for tooth — secretly, as it could not be done openly. By the same means as Tiberius had smitten down Germanicus, so, at the same age and in the same manner should his son be smitten down. All that was proved ■ — eight years after — was that a poison had been administered by an eunuch, Lygdus, and the physician, Eudemus, as contrived by Sejanus and Livilla. Who else were engaged in this plot was not allowed to transpire. If Agrippina had any part in it, her daughter was careful not to say so in her Memoirs. The funeral of Drusus was conducted with great pomp, with the stately procession of the figures of the ancestors, beginning with Aeneas, the mythical father of the Julian race, and with Romulus, the no less mythical founder of Rome. Then followed the wax busts of the Sabine nobles, Attus Clausus, and all the illustrious Claudii in long suc- cession, accompanying the son and heir of the first of the Claudian princes to his last resting-place in the mausoleum of Augustus. Drusus had left two sons, twins ; one died soon after his father, and the survivor, Tiberius Gemellus, was a delicate child, on whose life no great confidence could be built. Tiberius himself delivered the funeral oration over his son, and Seneca, then aged twenty, was an eye-witness of the scene, and briefly in a letter describes his reminiscence : ' The Caesar Tiberius kept complete control over himself as he spoke from the rostrum. He stood upright before the body, from which he was removed by a veil, as in the capacity of Pontifex Maximus he might not look on the corpse, and whilst the assembled Roman populace wept, he did not move a muscle. Sejanus (the murderer) stood at his side and seemed to derive from his observation the idea that the emperor bore the loss of his relatives very easily.' After the funeral, which had cost Tiberius an effort, he withdrew to the inner part of the palace and refused to see the friends of his deceased son, amongst whom was the Jewish prince Agrippa. He could not bear to speak with them, so keenly did he feel his loss, and so incapable was he of further maintaining his composure. 1 Tacitus calls her Livia ; Suetonius gives the form Livilla, which I have adopted here to avoid confusion in the mind of the reader. 300 'T-m TMCI^Dt OF tHE CAESARS In the same year that Tiberiug- lost his son and his grandson he was deprived '^f his oldest and trustiegt frteiid, Lucilius Longus. Two years before he-'fiad lost another dear an5 tried friend, Sulpicius Quirinius. And now"ilii3;iinhappy-pEiHp^.was'"left leaning on the shoulder of the very man who.liad eKJurcnv^ 'tjie death of his son, and was profoundly ignorant and unsuspicious' of the treachery of Sejanus. At this very time, moreover, began an estrangement from his mother, for which he was not responsible. For five-and-twenty years Livia had been the wife of the ruler of the world, and had been accustomed to use her influence with her husband, in many ways affecting his policy. She was a clever woman, and her woman's wit and woman's tact often told her what course was best in an emergency, and Augustus listened to her and followed her counsel. When Augustus died, and Tiberius succeeded, Livia supposed that she was to occupy a position of even higher authority with her son than she had with her husband. Tiberius had ever shown her deference. When he was prince she demanded that her voice should be heard. Tacitus tells us that she was exceedingly ambitious of power in her old age, and that she meddled in matters in a manner most irksome and vexatious. We have had a couple of instances of her interference when she screened Plancina and Urgulania. The position of the prince was difficult. Livia was over seventy when Tiberius began his reign, and old age intensifies self-will, encourages caprice, and does not quicken the mental faculties. Caius, who could sometimes say a pointed thing, was wont to speak of her as 'an Ulysses in petticoats.' Tiberius, though shy, was not haughty. ' Among his friends he lived on the footing of a private individual. He backed them up in court, attended their sacrificial feasts, and visited them when sick. He even made the funeral oration over some of them. He wished his mother to behave in like manner, so far as her position suffered her, partly that there might be a similarity in their procedure, but partly also to curb somewhat her pride. In fact she assumed a loftier tone than had any woman before her, expecting to be waited on by the senators and the people — and it was only into the senate-house, the assemblies of the people, and the camp that she did not venture to intrude, otherwise she took on herself to play the autocrat. She had exercised much influence in the lifetime of Augustus, and now, as she pretended that she had made Tiberius prince, she demanded a share in the government, and even precedence over him. Consequently, much was introduced that did not at all agree with ancient customs ; and some proposed to have her entitled the Mother of the country, the Genetrix. Others wanted Tiberius to assume her name; as Greeks take that of their fathers, that so should he take on that of his mother after his own name. Tiberius was not pleased with this, and accepted very few of the honours lavished on him, and insisted on her behaving with more discretion. TIBERIUS 301 Once when she had erected a statue to Augustus at her own cost, she wanted, at the dedication, to invite and banquet all the senate and the knights with their wives ; but Tiberius interfered and forbade it, till she had obtained the consent of the senate, and then allowed her to entertain the women only ; the men he himself feasted.'^ As far as was compatible with reason, Tiberius humoured his mother, Dut it was not possible for him to allow her a free hand, without loss of dignity to himself and confusion in the affairs of state. Though he had to refuse some of her demands, it was always done with deference and delicacy. Livia bitterly resented this unpliability, and scenes ensued which must have been painful to the son. The angry old lady often threw in his teeth that she had made him what he was, that he owed the favour of Augustus and his position at the head of the state to her. Lampoons relative to ' the ungrateful son ' were scattered broadcast, the composition probably of her favourite, Fufius Geminus. Then ensued a final and effectual break between them, the occasion of which is characteristic of both. She had been insisting on the nomination of a most unsuitable person to a judgeship, and had been refused. At length Tiberius yielded to her insistence, with the proviso that in announcing the appointment he should declare that it was done solely to gratify his mother. This roused Livia to exasperation, and she had recourse to a truly feminine retort. She ran to her cabinet, and from a secret drawer produced some old letters, private letters written to her by Augustus, in which were harsh and impatient judgments on the character, and on the manners, and deportment of Tiberius. These, in a towering passion, she read out to her son. Tiberius had ever felt the warmest and most reverential love for Augustus, who had, indeed, at one time misunder- stood him, but had come in the end thoroughly to value and respect him. This cruel blow from a dead man's hand wounded his sensitive heart to the quick. Suetonius says: 'So much was he offended at these letters having been hoarded up so long, and at their production against him, with such asperity, that it is held, this was one principal reason why he retired into seclusion.' He never after saw his mother, save once, and that for a brief interview. With her own hand she had snapped the tie that bound him to her ; he had lost father, brother, wife, and son— and now he had lost his mother. In her fashion, Livia did good. She was liberal with her money, and assisted those in need. She brought up a good number of children, orphans apparently, at her own cost, and gave dowers to needy maidens in honourable families that they might be well married. We have more trustworthy portraits of the Augusta Livia in her old age than when she was young. Especially good is the intaglio at Florence 1 Dio Cass. Ivii. 11, 12. 302 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS that represents her with Tiberius. At Paestum were found, by the Marquis of Salamanca, colossal statues of Tiberius and Livia (Fig. 74); the likeness in that of Livia to the profile on the Florence sardonyx is not to be mistaken (see Fig. 71, Frontispiece). VII.— AGRIPPINA. We have reached that point in the drama when it becomes necessary to consider closely the character of that woman who, by her ambition, her blind hate, and her unbroken resolution, brought ruin on her own house as well as on that of the Claudians. Agrippina, as we know, was the daughter of Vipsanius Agrippa and of Julia, daughter of Octavius. She was born about B.C. 14, and married Germanicus, son of Drusus, the brother of Tiberius, in a.d. 5. On the death of Germanicus she was thirty-two, and had three sons living — Nero, the eldest, born a.d. 6 ; Drusus, the second, born a.d. 7 ; and Caius (Caligula), born a.d. 12. Of daughters she had three — Agrippina, born a.d. 15; Drusilla, born a.d. 17; and Julia Livilla, born A.D. 18. It was true that these children, through their father, inherited the Claudian blood, but that, in the eyes of their mother, was sanctified by the admixture of her own, derived through her mother only from the Julian sacred stock, and that again only by the female side, for the mother of Octavius was sister of C. Julius Caesar. There was, however, already a divine halo surrounding the head of Octavius, and she could flatter herself that she inherited his blood through his only daughter, and transmitted it to her children. She forgave the inferiority of family in her husband because she loved him sincerely, but she was not blind to his intellectual feebleness and lack of ambition. When with Germanicus on the Rhine, she assumed a position of authority unusual for a Roman matron, and one that provoked the comment of Tiberius. ' What ! ' said he, ' a woman pay visits of inspection to the companies, attend the standards, and distribute largesses ! As if she did not court them enough, carrying her child in a soldier's accoutrements about the camp, Deusus=Antonia. ma. Drusus=Livilla. Germanicus= Agrippina 7ni. ma. Julia — Nero. Drusus. Caius Agrippina Drusilla. Julia Livilla. (Caligula). mi. TIBERIUS 303 and desiring that he should be called Caesar Caligula. Already Agrippina is in higher credit with the army than the lieutenant-generals (legati), even than the generals (duces), for she has suppressed a sedition which the princely authority failed to put down.' These complaints were not groundless. Agrippina displayed an energy, a forwardness on the frontier that provokes suspicion that she was endeavouring to make a party in her favour among the soldiers. And Tiberius was aware that she belonged heart and soul to the Julian faction that hated him with a hatred unquenchable save in blood. Whatever Agrippina may have desired, Germanicus did not harbour ambitious views, and resolutely put from him all invitations to rebel against Tiberius. He himself had no claims to the throne : he was the son of I.,ivia's second son. The years spent on the banks of the Rhine were the happiest in the life of Agrippina, years of independence and power. They were the last of happiness in her career. Away from Rome, from her enemies, loved by the army, respected by the Gauls, feared by the Germans, she had formed about her a court, and a small empire in the empire. Tiberius recalled Germanicus, and sent him to the East. Agrippina accompanied her husband, and there Germanicus died in her arms. From that moment a settled, ineradicable conviction took hold of her, the more settled and ineradicable because unreasonable, that her husband had been murdered by order of Tiberius and Livia, and from that moment, accordingly, there was no truce in the conflict waged between them. Tiberius was acquainted with her character, and knigw what she attributed to him. He bore her no resentment, he pitied her, at the same time that she irritated him by her machinations. He took no measures to restrain her, though she iilled Rome and the world with false reports concerning him, and assembled about her in the capital all the discontented and envious. Agrippina was a woman without the power of controlling her feelings, of veiling her eyes, and mastering her tongue. Tacitus has described her in a few words : ' She was some- what too vindictive ; yet through her chastity and love for her husband, this unbending spirit assumed a good direction.' Elsewhere he says : ' Impatient of an unequal lot, and eager to rule, she sacrificed the vices of her sex to masculine ambition.' And in another place, to describe her persistence in resentment, he uses two words full of force : he says she was pervicax irae. On his deathbed, her husband earnestly cautioned her against yielding to her indomitable spirit and resolution to accomplish her ends ; but no words of his availed. Without bit or bridle this ' she- wolf,' as Dean Merivale designates her, pursued her headlong way till she had brought desolation on her own house. There is considerable difficulty in determining what statues and busts represent Agrippina. All those attributed to her have to be brought to the test of resemblance to the medals struck in her honour Fig. 72.— AGRIPPINA MAJOR. Bust in the Museum Chiaramonti, No. 369. TIBERIUS 305 In these, what impresses one chiefly is the beautifully formed head. The features are good, but not very characteristic of a woman of force of will. There are numerous statues and busts that are supposed to represent Agrippina, but they differ so much the one from the other, that it is not possible to admit that all are portraits of the wife of Germanicus. Moreover, in the majority it is quite impossible to read any signs of a domineering and fierce spirit. The exquisite seated lady in the Capitoline Museum, generally regarded as Agrippina, belongs, by the fashion of her hair, to the Flavian period, and cannot possibly be the wife of Germanicus. It is otherwise with a bust in the Vatican (Figs. 72 and 78). (Chiaramonti, No. 369.) This is a glorious portrait. The eager eye, the agitated mouth, the determined jaw, the delicate nose, the look of mingled distress and rage in this wonderful bust, can belong to but one woman of that epoch — Agrippina the elder. Moreover, the brow is that of her father, Agrippa (compare Fig. 41). In the same gallery is a second, but immeasurably inferior (Fig. 68). There is, however, another, very fine, in the Chigi Palace (Fig. 75). In the great trial of Piso and Plancina, Tiberius was led by com- plaisance for his mother to commit a fatal blunder. He threw his protecting mantle over Plancina, because Livia was resolved to save her, and thus afforded Agrippina a handle against him. He had purposed in no way to interfere with the trial, to maintain complete impartiality, but Livia overruled his purpose, and, though his inter- ference was to protect Plancina from a gross injustice, yet Agrippina was able to assert that she was withdrawn from judgment because the emperor and his mother did not dare to suffer the trial to proceed. He made another mistake in obtaining the nomination of Nero, Agrippina's eldest son, to the pontificate five years before he had reached the lawful age. He did it to soothe the harrowed feelings of the widow, but he ought to have known that nothing he could do would appease her anger and turn aside her resentment. The favour was accepted, not as a free gift, but as a meagre acknowledgment of wrong done to the father and mother of the child, was taken as a weak attempt at compensation. Tiberius was brought into close contact with three women in his own family of remarkable character, against whom he had to contend in secret, and who conspired to render his life one of trouble. His wife, Julia, dishonoured him openly, and he was unable to resist her secret machinations against him with her father. His mother, Livia, had held him in bonds, then let him go from under her control, and then again tried to master him. Lastly, Agrippina, his niece, used all her power, her influence, her position, to break down the confidence his subjects had in him, and to alienate their hearts from him. When he had her before him, with her defiant face, her eyes glaring with anger, her brows 3o6 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS knitted, when he heard her deep voice quiver with ill-suppressed ani- mosity, he felt that she was the worst enemy with whom he had to contend. One day Claudia Pulchra, a kinswoman, was brought to trial for adultery and poisoning. Agrippina believed that the blow was levelled against herself. She flew in quest of Tiberius, and found him standing before the statue of Augustus making oblation of incense. Agrippina, ' ever vehement, and now in a flame on account of Claudia,' burst into indecent rebuke. ' What ! ' said she, ' offering victims to the deified Augustus at the same time that you persecute his children ! His divine spirit is not transfused into dumb statues. The true images of Augustus are his living descendants, in whose veins flows his celestial blood. Claudia is one of these — now in danger. But she is set up to be aimed at because she loved me devotedly. She forgot to take warning from the fate of Sosia.'^ Tiberiuis laid hold of Agrippina by the hand and answered in a Greek verse : ' My little woman. No hurt to thee is done that thou dost not reign. ' After this he refused to speak to her. Tacitus tells us where he picked up his account of another scene, next to be related. It was from the memoirs of Agrippina the Younger, daughter of Agrippina the Elder, who was a witness of the incident. The widow of Germanicus was ill, and Tiberius, forgetting the cause of resentment he had against her, paid his niece a visit. Agrippina had found out that, notwithstanding her masculine will and her Julian pride of blood, there must be a man to head her party. She desired to have a second husband, a man of more ambition and energy than Germanicus. She was occupied with this consideration when Tiberius entered her room. She received him in gloomy silence, and then burst into tears. He remained waiting uneasily for the storm that would break ; presently she turned on the emperor with passion, and exclaimed : ' Why do you not relieve my soUtude ? Why do you not give me a husband ? I am young enough for the married state. To virtuous women there is no consolation like that of marriage ; and there are men in Rome who would think it no dishonour to accept the widow of Germanicus and his children.' Tiberius knew very well what her meaning was, and that she was thinking of Asinius Gallus. Startled by the demand, not able at the ^ The case of Sosia, to which Agrippina referred, was an unreasonable one for her to quote against Tiberius. Sosia was the wife of Caius Silius, and Silius was impeached for extortion of the tributaries in Gaul and in Germany, and Tacitus admits that he had been guilty of the charge. His wife Sosia had helped him, as the wives of governors were wont to do, in grinding money out of the provincials. But Sosia was prosecuted, not by Tiberius, or any creature of his, but by Asinius Gallus, the man of all others Tiberius hated, as he had married his Vipsania, and had boasted that he had intrigued with her before the divorce. Not only so, but Asinius Gallus was intimately attached to Agrippina, and if Tiberius would have suffered it, Agrippina would have married him. TIBERIUS 307 moment to frame an answer, Tiberius rose from his seat and left the sick-room without a word. Agrippina had no power over her tongue. To say something bitter and wounding solaced her for the troubles she endured. One day she met Domitius Afer, who had prosecuted her cousin, Claudia Pulchra, and after that Quintilius Varus, the son of Claudia. Afer was a native of Nemausus, the modern Nimes, and one of the most brilliant orators of the age. As Domitius saw Agrippina coming down the street, ■ he turned aside, knowing her violence, but she had caught sight of him and imperiously signed to him to approach. She grasped his wrist, and with flashing eye repeated the Greek line — ' Thou art not cause of my sorrow — but Agamemnon,' referring, of course, to her uncle. One evening she was required to attend a banquet in the palace. Sejanus, it was thought, or some attendant, out of malice, or to play on her suspicions, hinted that she was to be poisoned at the feast. Tiberius placed his mother and his niece next to himself at table. With lowering brow Agrippina passed every dish, and would neither eat nor speak. Then Tiberius took a rosy apple, praised its aroma, and handed it to Agrippina. With brow that darkened to deepest mistrust, and without speaking, Agrippina passed the apple over her shoulder to a servant, and bade him throw it away. Tiberius felt this as an affront, and mora than that, a proclamation before all his guests of her mistrust. He;, however, said nothing in reprimand, but, turning to his mother, observed : ' Is it any wonder if I behave with severity to one who thus publicly brands me as a poisoner ? ' This incident had the result that might have been anticipated. The rumour immediately circulated through Rome that Tiberius had sought the removal of Agrippina by poison, not daring to attack her openly. The death of Drusus, whether Agrippina were privy to it or not, threw open to her a prospect that was likely to content the most ambitious woman. None stood between her sons and the throne, save the aged emperor, their uncle, and he had no thoughts of excluding them from the succession. He went out of his way to show favour to the youths, and let the senate and the people of Rome understand that he proposed to adopt them. Common prudence would have pointed out to Agrippina the advisability of burying her grievances and accept- ing frankly the open hand extended to her. But she had so completely assured herself that he had stained his soul with the murder of her beloved Germanicus, that she cast the counsels of prudence to the winds, and continued to maintain the same stubborn and defiant attitude as before. The extravagant pretensions of Livia had caused a coolness between her son and herself If Agrippina had exercised discretion she would 3o8 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS immediately have taken her place beside her uncle and directed his vacillating mind. In another generation the same situation was repro- duced, and her daughter Agrippina acted in the manner most opposite to her mother. But instead of conciliating the placable old man, she threw down the glove, when she protested her desire to marry, and it was no secret that the man she had selected was that man, of all others, Tiberius most detested. Her refusal to take the place offered her left the ground free for Sejanus. Concerning the conduct of this man we have but partial accounts. The secret history of the last years of Agrippina and of Tiberius was never revealed. We have the fragmentary narrative of Tacitus, and the account given by those who followed him, and who drew, like him, their account from the memoirs of the daughter of Agrippina ; consequently they give but a one-sided view of his character and suppress every circumstance that tells against Agrippina. Not a word was there in the memoirs of the younger Agrippina of the intrigue and plot in which her mother was engaged ; all that the daughter cared to show was intrigue and plot entered into against lier. As far as it is possible to discover, Sejanus, finding that, after the death of Drusus, Agrippina continued to pursue the same suicidal course, took his measures. The old prince had no one in his own family to stand by him, to help and to advise him. Sejanus therefore took possession of his ear and practised on the fears and hesitation of the failing man to serve his own ends. So much is certain. Agrippina by her folly played into his hands. She had ill disguised her joy at the death of Drusus. She was impatient at the continuance of the reign of Tiberius. If she could have mastered her impatience and waited the course of events, then the fruit that the death of Drusus had produced, in the transformation of the position of her family, would have fallen to her of its own accord. But this patient waiting was pre- cisely what she was incapable of enduring. The emperor, true to his habit of seeking consolation or forgetfulness of his troubles in hard work, attended to the affairs of government with more energy than before the death of his son, and took every occasion to show his favour to the young princes. The eldest of these, the heir- presumptive to the throne, Nero, was brought by him into pubUc life more and more. He was appointed in the senate to pronounce thanks to Tiberius for an act of special justice that the emperor had shown in bringing to punishment a governor in Asia who had grossly oppressed the province under him. As in the case of Caius Sihus, Tiberius was resolved to put an end to this cruel plunder of the tributaries of Rome. Prince Nero, in build, in voice, in face, was remarkably like his deceased father, Germanicus. This resemblance, together with a certain modesty of manner, won him the favour of the people, and the members of the aristocracy vied with each other in fiattery to the heir of the throne. , TIBERIUS 309 This led to the first misunderstanding between Tiberius and his great- nephew. The pontifical colleges had inserted the names of Nero and Drusus in their prayers to the gods for the safety of the emperor, without asking the prince's consent. The thing was done out of adulation, as Tacitus admits, not out of real regard for the youths ; and Tiberius was disconcerted by it. He thought it had been done by the interference of Agrippina, and he sent for the heads of the pontifical colleges to ascertain if it were so. They denied this, and he dismissed them with a light reprimand ; but to the senate he spoke his mind plainly, ' that these young lads were not to have their heads turned by presumptuous aspirations and by premature distinctions accorded them.' The sequel proved that he was right. A whole party made a set to en- courage the giddy youths in their pretences, and others, not belonging ostensibly to the party of Agrippina, thought it well to pay their homage to the rising sun. Augustus had acted in precisely the same manner, but what was laudable in him was regarded as blameworthy in Tiberius. This reprimand, which appears to us so sensible and advisable, was, according to Tacitus, merely an exhibition ' of the emperor's rooted animosity towards the house of Germanicus.' Although the authorities followed by Tacitus have done their ut- most to obscure the facts, yet it is unquestionably that, after the death of Drusus, instead of the union of the two parties being effected by a common interest, that of Agrippina held aloof and gathered strength. What Tacitus puts into the mouth of Sejanus was no more than the truth. ' The state is torn into two factions precisely as though it were in a condition of civil war, and one of these factions calls itself the party of Agrippina. It is high time,' urged Sejanus, 'that energetic action should be taken against certain of the heads of this party, so as to abate some of the mischief they are working.' As Nero was heir-presumptive to the throne, he was the centre around whom all intrigue turned. It is quite certain that the party formed around him was impatient that he should hold the rudder of the state, and they resolved to hasten the day when this should take place. This Tacitus admits. He says, ' the freedmen and dependants of Nero, eager to acquire power, goaded him on to show an erect and confident spirit, assuring him that the Roman people desired his succession, as did also the army ; nor, said they, would Sejanus dare to oppose him, though he now trampled equally on the imbecility of an old man and the supineness of a young one.' The prince was of an easy- going, unambitious nature — he was vain, however, and without brains. 'Whilst he listened to these suggestions, and such as these, though he exhibited no tokens of meditating mischief, yet every now and then he let slip intemperate and unadvised expressions, which were caught up by the spies set over him, and charged against him with aggravations.' 310 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS Tiberius began to show coolness towards him, and the court followed suit. Drusus, the younger brother, was of a different temperament. He had much of the moroseness and bursts of violence that had characterised Agrippa Postumus. He was jealous of Nero, as his elder, 'and inflamed with envy because his mother, Agrippina, was fonder of Nero.' Tacitus speaks of his ' ungovernable spirit.' This he had inherited from his mother, and it was this hereditary vehemence which had manifested itself in insanity in Postumus, and was to break out in another form in his brother Caius Caligula. One of the most dramatic and harrowing stories told by Tacitus is that of the fall and death of Titius Sabinus. In the pages of the his- torian, Sabinus is an innocent man, falsely accused, and unjustly brought to destruction. But he does not tell us the truth. He conceals the fact, revealed by Pliny the Elder, that he was engaged in a plot for the elevation of Nero to the throne. In this case, Tiberius acted with un- usual energy; and, notwithstanding the sacred season, he acted with promptitude, and with disregard for the superstitious prejudices that surrounded the new year. The danger was imminent, and he arrested, tried, and condemned Sabinus in the sacred season. In a letter to the senate Tiberius revealed his reason for this prompt action. Sabinus had bribed some of the freedmen about the person of the emperor to assassinate him. In a letter of thanks to the senate after the condem- nation of Sabinus, the prince declared ' that he lived a life of fear and of solicitude, being in constant apprehension of the plots of his adver- saries.' He named no one, but none doubted that he referred to- Agrippina and Nero. Agrippina entirely miscalculated the forces ranged on her side. She was aware that throughout the oligarchical party there was general impatience against imperial rule, and she mistook this for impatience against Tiberius personally. All the discontented in Rome gravitated to her, and she lent a ready ear to their murmurs. It by no means followed that, because a whole class was out of humour, it was prepared to assist her in her ambitious schemes. The nobility sighed for their old independence and freedom from restraint, not for a change of dynasty or of the person who stood at the head of the state. As the horse said in the fable of Phsedrus, ' What odds to me who sits on my back, if bear a saddle I must ? ' The people would doubtless be pleased to have over them as emperor a son of Germanicus, about whom a myth had already formed, but they were not disposed to revolt for the sake of precipitating a change which must come in the order of nature within a very few years. The people, moreover, were never so well off as under Tiberius. The nobility, though they grumbled at Tiberius, were not as a body desirous of exchanging him for Nero, ix weak creature, who would be completely TIBERIUS 311 under the control of Agrippina ; and with Agrippina, another Fulvia, at the head of affairs, there would ensue proscription and slaughter, and none could say where these would stop. There were men ready for a change, men who had grown up since the civil wars, restless spirits, eager for revolution, hoping to pick their own advantage out of it, or men personally offended by Tiberius, and resolved at all price to destroy Sejanus, and thinking the sovereign could be struck only through his vizier. But with such spirits as these no successful conspiracy was ever carried through. In their number are certain to be found traitors. It was so in this case, and Agrippina had but her own shortsightedness and ambition to thank for what ensued. VIII.— SEJANUS. The true motives that actuated the conflicting parties in Rome are not doubtful. One man, Sejanus, and the part he played, are, however, enveloped in mystery. We possess two accounts of Sejanus, one by Velleius Paterculus, who wrote before the fall of this a.d. 27. prime minister, the other by Tacitus, who followed what ^^'' ^^• the nobles had recorded against him, and what Agrippina the Younger had said of him in her memoirs. Velleius states : ' Tiberius Caesar has had, and still has, a most excellent coadjutor in all the toils of government, — a man remarkable for his fidelity in the discharge of his duties, and for ability to endure fatigue, the constitution of his body corresponding with the vigour of his mind ; a man of pleasing gravity and of unaffected cheerfulness, appearing, in the despatch of business, perfectly at his ease; unassuming, but universally honoured, always deeming himself inferior to what others think of him ; calm in looks and conversation, but in mind indefatigably vigilant.' Then Velleius devotes an entire chapter to apologies for Tiberius raising a new man of no birth to a position so much above the old nobility, accustomed to engross to themselves all places of responsi- bility. This apology lets us suspect that a bitter resentment against this man ofthepeople was felt, during the time of his power; a resentment which will explain the unqualified hideousness of the picture painted of him after his fall. ' Sejanus,' says Tacitus, ' was hardy, and equal to enduring any amount of fatigue ; his spirit was daring ; he was expert in disguising his own iniquities, prompt to spy out the failings of others ; he was fawning to some, imperious to others ; he assumed an exterior of modesty, but in his heart he Iqsted with insatiable greed after supreme power, and for the purpose of gaining his ends, he engaged some- times in profusion, luxury, and liberality ; but he more frequently at- tended to business, and to watching others, dangerous faculties in one aiming at the acquisition of empire.' The story of his intrigues, his cruelties, in Tacitus, shows us a man 312 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS of the most repulsive, diabolical selfishness and unscrupulousness. It is impossible to accept this story as told, for it carries with it its own refutation. According to Tacitus, Sejanus was the deadly, remorseless enemy of Agrippina and her house, and Agrippina's energies were directed to protecting herself and her family from his machinations. But alongside this picture we have another. We are told that Sejanus was intimate with the brothers Nero and Drusus, and that he played off one against the other ; he seduced not only Livilla, but also, it was asserted, attempted the seduction of Agrippina herself. It is not con- ceivable that, if he had been regarded as the mortal foe of the house, he would have been admitted to such intimacy with the members. The truth most probably was, that Sejanus, though ambitious, had no fixed plans at first, but formed them to suit each contingency that arose. He had to secure his future, which was menaced, and to this end he directed all his efforts, and seized every chance that presented itself, without scruple, and was ready to sacrifice any and every one who stood in his way. When menaced by Drusus, son of Tiberius, the probable successor to the principate, he plotted with some of the party and family of Agrippina, if not with herself, the removal of the man who was a danger to himself, and who stood between the sons of Germanicus and the succession. Then, by his contrivance, and the connivance of the wife, Drusus was poisoned. Tiberius could not last many years; in the order of nature he must die, and it was of the highest impor- tance to Sejanus to guarantee his own future and that of his children. This he would try to effect by courting the son of Agrippina, who was likely in a few years to be prince, and who would have his fortune in his hands. He knew that he was hated by the nobility, and that without a strong protector at the head of the state, he was lost. But there were two elements of difificulty to embarrass him. Nero, the eldest son of Agrippina, was amiable, inert, and brainless. In the next place, Drusus, the younger brother, was furiously jealous of his brother, and was plotting, on his own be- half, to wrest the succession to himself. To add to the complication, Agrippina was not the woman to keep counsel and act with discretion. The lack of caution in Nero, perhaps the jealousy of Drusus, his brother, caused the intrigues formed for the advancement of the elder to reach the ears of Tiberius. Sejanus threw him over. With the savage, half-crazy Drusus nothing could be effected. Accordingly the vizier was forced in self-defence to aim at the principate for himself. Nothing would serve to advance this scheme better than his union with a daughter of the imperial house, and the removal of the male scions of that house. They, it was true, were doing their utmost to destroy themselves, and Sejanus had but to withdraw his hand from them, and they would plunge into destruction. TIBERIUS 313 ■Livilla, the guilty widow of Drusus, son of Tiberius, and sister of Germanicus, was devoted to him, heart and soul. Livilla's daughter Julia was married to Nero, her first cousin. Sejanus now resolved to obtain the hand of the unhappy woman whom he had seduced and persuaded to poison her husband. He wrote a letter to his master to this effect. Tacitus has preserved for us the characteristic letter of Sejanus, and the not less characteristic reply of Tiberius. Sejanus wrote, ' That he had been so habituated to the kindness of Augustus, and after that to the favour of Tiberius, that he had more confidence in making his petition to the princes than to the gods; that he had never sought for himself honours, but had devoted himself to painful watching and toil, like a common sentinel, guarding the person of his master. He had, it was true, attained an honour un- deserved, alliance with the imperial house (a daughter of his was be- trothed to Drusus, son of Claudius). Hence the foundation of his hopes. Augustus, when he disposed of his daughter, deigned to think of a common Roman knight; he therefore begged that if Tiberius designed to marry Livilla again, he would remember his friend, who sought no higher advantage than this aUiance, for he desired no exemp- tion from duties imposed on him, but held it sufificient that his house was fortified against the rancorous animosity of Agrippina. In seeking this marriage he consulted the security of his children. As for himself, all he cared for was that he might live long enough to serve his master during his life.' In this letter Sejanus allows to escape him evidence of his real anxiety about the future, and his desire to protect himself against those who hated him. This request put Tiberius in a dilemma. He made answer in writing. After having praised the regard Sejanus had ever shown him, and referred slightly to the rewards he had given him for his services, he addressed himself to the main subject. ' Whilst other men,' said he, ' are allowed to consider their own advantage, it is incumbent on princes, in all matters of importance, to weigh well the general opinion of men. Accordingly, he would not resort to that answer readiest given. Let Livilla suit herself, and decide whether after Drusus she cared to marry again, or would bear her adverse fortune as heretofore under her father- in-law's roof, — or let her consult her mother and grandmother, advisers nearer than himself. No, he would act more straightforwardly, and point out to his friend the objections he saw to what was proposed. He must remind him that the wrath of Agrippina would infallibly break out more vehemently than heretofore, were the marriage of Livilla to become another occasion of severance in the imperial family. The rivalry of the women of his house would undermine the fortunes of his children. Sejanus,' he added, 'was deceived if he imagined that he could remain in his present modest rank, as he proposed ; Livilla had 314 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS been wedded to Caius Caesar, and then to Drusus ; she would never endure to end her days as the good woman of a common knight. Could the emperor himself permit it ? Did he think that the Roman people would endure it ?— a people who had witnessed her brother, her father, and their noble ancestors all crowned successively with the highest honours of the state. It was true that .Augustus had for a moment contemplated the union of his daughter with the knight Proculeius, yet to wliom did he actually espouse her? First to the illustrious Agrippa, and then, secondly, to himself, Tiberius,— to the man, in short, whom he had destined to be his successor.' This wise and kindly letter is remarkable, for it shows us that Tiberius had penetration to see to what such a marriage must lead, and yet had not sufficient discernment to detect that it was precisely for that reason that Sejanus sought it. There is something peculiarly sad in reading this letter, and knowing that the man who penned it with such forbearance was betrayed by him to whom he wrote — the murderer of his son. Tiberius sought to restore harmony between the branches of the imperial house. His mother, who, in irritable old age, had fomented the quarrel, was now rapidly failing. With the certainty of the succession for Nero, Agrippina might surely relax her frown, and if she would not be friendly, might remain indifferent. Tiberius saw that the marriage of the widow of his son to his minister would inflame all the old sores, and that the elevation of Sejanus into such alliance with himself must carry Sejanus further than Tiberius believed his minister designed. He would therefore not suffer his friend, whom he trusted and loved, to be placed in a position in which, for his own preservation, he would have to make a party opposed to that of Agrippina and Nero. Sejanus at once saw that he had gone too far. He was disappointed, and mortified, but not disposed to abandon his ambitious designs. The hand of Livilla he was resolved to obtain eventually, to give him some sort of claim to the throne, but he must clear away before him those who stood in his road. The blind hate and impatience of Agrippina pre- cipitated her into a course that furnished Sejanus with what he desired, — material for the accusation of her sons as conspirators against the hfe of their great-uncle. Sejanus replied to the letter of Tiberius by conjuring him ' not to lend an ear to suggestions of suspicion, the pratings of the vulgar, and the assaults of envy.' He knew that his request and rebuff would be the talk of Rome, and that his personal enemies would take advantage of the occasion to strew mistrust between his imperial master and himself. And so it was. His house was at once crowded with visitors to express their regret at his disappointment, and to watch for a word or a sign that might enable them to found an accusation against him. He would gladly have closed his doors against these disguised TIBERIUS 315 enemies, but did not dare to do so. Fortunately for him, at this very time Tiberius resolved to carry out a long meditated design of retirement into Campania. If the emperor were no longer in Rome, but in his country villa, then Sejanus 'saw that many advantages would accrue to himself. Upon him would depend access to the emperor; the letters would be almost wholly under his supervision, as the praetorian soldiers were the carriers, and he was their com- manding officer. In a little while the prince, now declining in years, and enervated by retirement, would gradually transfer to him the whole charge of the imperial government; the animosity felt towards him would abate when he was able to get rid of the crowd of visitors, and shake off the empty parade of power, at the very moment when he laid his grasp on that which was essential. Sejanus, therefore, began to rail at the whirl of business at Rome, the throng of people, the conflux of suitors, applauding "quiet and retirement, which afford the greatest facilities for deliberation on important matters, the mind not being distracted by importunities, and not exposed to annoyance from the dissatisfied." ' A state trial that came before the senate struck the rivet in the resolution of Tiberius. Votienus Montanus was a wit, and belonged to the party of the dissatisfied. He was accused of treason, and Tiberius sat in the senate during the trial. One of the witnesses against Votienus was a soldier, Aemilius, and with soldierly frankness he repeated all the scurrilous words he had heard spoken against Tiberius, without softening them in the least. Many of those present raised a clamour to drown his voice, but Aemilius persisted, and Tiberius writhed in torture. He had suddenly disclosed to him the foul and malignant slander with which 'society' besmirched his character. Unable to endure the shame and agony, he burst forth into a cry that 'he would at once clear himself of such calumnies, and have everything judicially sifted.' His friends and attendants had the utmost difficulty in appeasing his excited mind, and dissuading him from attempting the impossible, the tracking home of a slander. Till the year in which his son Drusus had died, Tiberius had hardly quitted Rome. For two whole years after he became prince he never even set his foot outside the gates ; and after that he allowed himself but short periods of relaxation from work, and never went further than Antium, there to inhale the fresh air from the sea, and he never re- mained there for more than a few days. Yet he felt a craving for country air and rest, and so often spoke of his intention of taking a holiday that the Romans in joke called him a Callipides ' always on the run, but never advancing a step.' Wearied with the burden of government, no longer animated with the thought that he was working to consolidate the empire for his son, knowing that his successor was inspired by the party about him with dislike towards himself, and that 3i6 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS minds were poisoned against him, sick at heart over the revelation of the falsehoods circulated relative to his private Ufe, and looking back with yearning to the restful period in Rhodes, he suddenly turned his back on Rome and went into Campania, on the plea that he must dedicate a couple of temples there, one of which was at Nola, where Augustus had died. Rome was the pandemonium of all passions and crimes, and he hated it. He would be alone with his sorrows, as he had been before, at Rhodes. He longed to be far from the irritations caused by brushes with Agrippina and by the extravagant demands of Livia. In solitude he hoped to be able better to carry on the task of government. He had proposed to himself this retirement from Rome three years before, but with his usual procrastination had put off the decisive move till, through the revelations of the trial of Votienus, the atmosphere became to him infected, and he could no longer endure to breathe it. Moreover, his health was breaking down. ' His tall emaciated form was bent, his head was bald, his face ulcerous, and thickly patched with plasters.' Naturally the rancorous tongues in Rome had it that he ran away to hide the baldness of his head and the sores on his face, because he was vain of his beauty. The Romans could not under- stand the old man's hunger after rest, and shuddering disgust at the taint of the society of the capital. Roman society could not under- stand that any man could hve and find contentment away from ' town.' And when it discovered that mortified vanity at having a blotched face did not suffice to explain the retreat of the emperor, it said that he had gone into Campania to indulge freely in ' cruelty and lust.' Not a single instance of either is recorded against Tiberius during all the years when he lived in the glare of full publicity in Rome, that is to say, during the twelve years he was with Augustus, as his assistant, and during the thirteen years that he had reigned. For twenty-four years — from the age of forty-four till he was sixty-eight — he had lived in the midst of a scandal-loving people, eager to discover a blemish in the life of a ruler, and nothing had been found in him that could furnish a paragraph in the chronique scandaleuse. But now that he was gone, accompanied as before, when he went to Rhodes, by a few learned men, the fervid and foul mind of Rome set to work to invent every loath- some detail that imagination could create, and to circulate it as the record of the doings of the old man in his solitary retreat. Tiberius took few with him : one senator of consular rank, Cocceius Nerva, the greatest lawyer in Rome, as his minister of justice ; of Roman knights and men ol senatorial rank, he took one only beside Sejanus — this was Curtius Atticus, a friend of Ovid, afterwards ruined by Sejanus. All the rest were literary and learned men, mostly Greeks, in whose society Tiberius found relaxation and pleasure. His devoted servant, Lucius Piso, praefect of the city, a man whose excellence even Tacitus admits, TIBERIUS 317 • one who was never the spontaneous author of any servile motion, one ever wise in moderating such when necessity forced his assent,' — this man was left in Rome with secret instructions, and invested with the fullest power as minister of police. Hardly had the prince quitted the capital before the news reached it of an accident that might have cost him his life, and the news filled the Roman public with the most contrary feelings. Tiberius had gone with his retinue to Spelunca, the present Sperlungo, where he had a villa. The weather was hot, and a meal was prepared for him in the cave from which the place takes its name. Then suddenly a mass of stone fell from the vault and buried some of the attendants. In the panic that ensued every one who could scrambled out, but Sejanus promptly threw himself across the body of his master to ward off from him the still falling stones. In this position he was found, and disinterred by the guard, who hastened to the spot to render assistance. '■ Tiberius was touched by this token of devotion in his friend, and his conviction of the sincerity of the attachment of Sejanus and his fidelity was deepened. From Spelunca Tiberius pursued his way through Campania, and visited Capua and Nola for the dedication of the temples there. But the rush of people to see him, to press on him their petitions, the cere- monial, the banquets, were tedious to him. Before he left Rome he had issued an order forbidding his subjects to incommode him with demands for audiences ; but the guards who attended him were unable to restrain the crowds who pressed on him, some out of curiosity, others to obtain favours. At last he was able to escape, and to cross the bay of Naples to the islet where he had resolved to spend the last years of life that remained to him. Capreae was the private property of the imperial house. Augustus had obtained it from the Neapolitans by exchange for Aenaria. It had been in his time barren, overrun by goats. The precipitous cliffs made it unsuitable as an abode for fishermen. Augustus had laid the foundations there of a villa, to be his ' Apragopolis,' — his Sanssouci, but he had never spent there more than a few days. Tiberius had for some time been preparing for his retirement. He had had twelve summer-houses erected on the points commanding the fairest views, and had ordered the villa of Augustus to be enlarged and furnished for his requirements. It stood, in all probability, on the spot now pointed out by the inhabit- ants as the Palazzo del Timberio, where are some ruins. The island was as though constituted by nature to be a resting-place for a lord of the world, with mind clouded by painful experiences, who desired to withdraw from the public eye, and yet had no intention of allowing the reins of government to be taken out of his hands. It is accessible at one point only, easily secured ; everywhere else its lime- stone cliffs start sheer out of the blue sea to a height of a thousand feet. 3i8 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS This gave the old emperor security against attack. Moreover, the station of the fleet was at Misenum, two hours distant, and it was separated from Surrentum, on the Campanian coast, by a channel six miles wide. ' While few other spots could have combined the requisites of solitude and difficult approach with such actual proximity to the seat of government, Tiberius was riot insensible to the charms of its climate, and even the attractions of its scenery ; to the freshness of its evening breeze, the coolness of its summers, and the pleasing mildness of its winters. The villas he erected enjoyed every variety of prospect, commanded every breath of air, and caught the rays of the sun at every point of his diurnal progress. From the heights of Capreae the eye comprehended at one glance the whole range of the Italian coast from the promontory of Circe to the temples of Paestum, clearly visible through the trans- parent atmosphere. The Falemian and Gauran ridges, teeming with the noblest vineyards of Italy, the long ridges of the Samnite Apennines, even to the distant Lucanian mountains, formed the framework of the picture, while Vesuvius reared its then level crest, yet unscarred by lava, directly in the centre. Facing the south, the spectator gazed on the expanse of the Sicilian sea. So wide is the horizon that it is, perhaps, no fiction that at some favourable moments the outlines of the fiery isles of Aeolus, and even of Sicily itself, are within the range of vision. The legends of Circe and Ulysses, of Cimmerian darkness and Phlegraean fires, of the wars of the Giants with Jupiter, and the grace- ful omens which attracted the first settlers to these shores from Greece, had perhaps a strange fascination for the worn-out soldier and politician. Reclining on the slopes of Capreae, and gazing on the glorious landscape before him, Tiberius might dream of a fairyland of the poet's creation, and seek some moments of repose from the hard realities of his eternal task, to perplex his attendants with insoluble questions on the subjects of the sirens' song and the name of Hecuba's mother. . . . The great. Italian volcano had slumbered since the dawn of history. Tokens, indeed, were not wanting on the surface of the fires still seething beneath the plains of Campania; the sulphureous exhalations of Baiae and Puteoli still attested the truth of legends of more violent igneous action on which the local mythology was built. But even these legends pointed to no eruption of Vesuvius ; no cone of ashes rose then as now from its bosom, and cities and villages clustered at its foot or hung upon its flanks, unconscious of the elements of convulsion hushed in grim repose beside them.'^ IX.— THE END OF NERO. Sejanus had. failed in his first move. He had been refused the widow Livilla, and yet Tiberius, with that hesitation that accompanied ' Merivale, v. 347-8. TIBERIUS 319 all he did, held out hopes to his favourite that his opposition might ultimately yield. Peihaps after the incident in the cave his gratitude towards the man who, at the risk of his own life, had sheltered him, induced him to grant what he had previously refused; for we certainly find after this that Sejanus was betrothed to the princess. If up to Fig. 73. — N E R O, son of Germanicus. Profile and Head of the statue in^the Lateran ; found at Cervetri.l this time he had doubted whether he should proceed to thrust the princes Nero and Drusus out of his way, he doubted now no longer. Tiberius had not been many months in Capreae before he heard of the conspiracy of Titius Sabinus to obtain his assassination, in favour of the young prince Nero. In the following year he was informed of 1 The statue in harness in the Lateran, of which Fig. 73 is the profile of the head, was found at Cervetri. It cannot be determined with certainty, but it is certainly a Claudian. Bernoulli is inclined to believe it to be the unfortunate son of Germanicus and Agrippina ; so am I. There is in it a likeness on the one side to the portraits of his father, and in the brow there is a touch of the heaviness of his mother and his grandfather, Agrippa. 320 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS another conspiracy. Sabinus and those in immediate league with him had been punished, but no proceedings had been taken against Agrippina and her sons, in favour of whom all the intrigues '"'a'^'Is^' and plots were formed, even if they were not themselves the ^^'' *'■ main instigators. Possibly there was not in the hands of Tiberius sufficient evidence of their complicity ; probably he desired to caution them, and to avoid taking a decided step against his own blood-relatives, unless absolutely forced to do so. But his forbearance encouraged their audacity, and his absence from Rome gave them hopes that a sudden rising of the people might sweep Nero into the place which Tiberius, by his retirement, seemed to have vacated. Asinius Gallus was the man who had married Vipsania, the divorced wife of Tiberius, and Vipsania was the half-sister of Agrippina. As we have seen, Agrippina, who was aunt of the children of Asinius, desired to be united to him in marriage. After the condemnation of Sabinus, when the prince had by letter complained that his life was menaced by assassins secretly engaged among those nearest him, this man boldly moved ' that the emperor should be desired to explain his fears to the senate, so that they might provide for their removal.' In other words, he challenged Tiberius to name Agrippina and her sons, hoping that by so doing the provocation for a general rising might be given. Tiberius was greatly irritated by this motion, but he made no reply. Hitherto he had shown only kindness to the house of Germanicus. Nero was his acknowledged heir and successor, and neither Agrippina nor the younger brother Drusus had any grounds of complaint against the emperor, who now, in further token of interest in the family, married Agrippina, the eldest daughter, then aged thirteen, to Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, the representative of one of the oldest, wealthiest, and most distinguished families in Rome. Cn. Domitius was the son of Lucius Domitius and Antonia, daughter of Marcus Antonius the triumvir and of Octavia, the sister of Augustus. ' The Fifth Book ' (of Tacitus), says Mr. Furneaux, ' opens with the death of Augusta (Livia), who, after having been charged, by hints more or less explicit, with every death in the house of the Caesars, is now represented no longer as the " terrible stepmother," but as the sole re- maining protection of the family supposed to have been most obnoxious to her. In another place such discrepancies are loosely accommodated by saying that she ostentatiously supported in adversity those whom she had secretly undermined in their prosperity. The verdict of historical criticism has generally acquitted her of these imputations, and regarded her throughout the long and unbroken period of her ascendancy as a softening and moderating influence on the cruel (?) propensities of her husband and her son. And indeed, whatever her personal feeling towards the house of Germanicus, we may suppose her sufiSciently TIBERIUS 321 imbued with the policy of Augustus to see that her son had far more to gam than to lose by surrounding himself with family support, and that It would not be desirable for him, at the age of seventy, to be left with no heir but his grandson Tiberius Gemellus, a boy of ten years old.'i Before taking leave of Livia, a story may be told concerning her, related by Pliny. He says that when engaged to be rqarried to Octayius, one day a white hen flew to her for protection from an eagle, and when she took it to her bosom she found it had a laurel twjg in its beak, on which hung some berries. These berries she planted, and a Fig. 74. — LIVIA. Profile of the Statue found at Paestum, now in Madrid. laurel shrubbery sprang up. It thenceforth became customary for Augustus and the succeeding princes, when celebrating their triumphs, to bear in hand a bough of laurel from this grove of laurels at the villa, thenceforth called 'ad Gallinas.' It became also a custom to plant each bough borne by an emperor at his triumph. In Pliny's time each laurel bush that thus originated was pointed out Suetonius, half a century later, tells the same story, with modifications of his own. Tiberius was not present when Livia died, nor did he return to Rome for her funeral. Livia had been ill six years before, and fears for her life were then entertained. On this occasion Tiberius had at once hastened to her bedside. The senate had expressed its sympathy, and on her recovering had decreed sacrifices. Tiberius, with his sober sense, checked the extravagance of adulation then shown. When the ' Furneaux, Annals of Tacitus, i. p. 127. A.u.c. 782. A.D. 29. Aet. 70. 322 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS ambassadors of Further Spain besought the senate to allow them to erect a temple to the divinity of Tiberius and Livia, ' the prince, always resolute in despising honours,' peremptorily refused the permission solicited. ' I know, conscript fathers,' said he, ' that it was owing to weakness that I yielded lately, when the cities of Asia preferred the same request. I wish now, once for all, to state my views on this matter. The deified Augustus allowed the erection of a temple to himself at Pergamus, and, as I have been accustomed to look to him as an example, I suffered the same thing to be done. But I hope this one instance will be excused. I do not wish the same thing to be done in every province, for such would manifest in me a spirit of vanity and a heart inflated with ambition. If the homage paid to Augustus be made a pattern on which I and others are to be adored, indiscriminately and undeservedly, then the worship of Augustus will fade into forgetfulness. For myself, I am a mere mortal man, and enough for me if I do my duties as such ; I am content if posterity recognises that. I solemnly assure you I desire nothing further than that this homage be rendered to my memory, that I have been worthy of my ancestry, watchful of your interests, unmoved by peril in the pursuit of public welfare, and fearless of my private enemies. This is all the temple I desire to have raised to me — and that in your hearts. These are my best monuments, and such will endure. As for those of stone, if posterity judges ill of the man to whom they were erected, they are despised like sepulchres. I therefore pray the gods to give me an unrufifled spirit to the end of my days, and a discerning mind to distinguish between what appertains to a man and what to a god. And, finally, whenever my death comes, I pray you to celebrate my actions, and what fragrance attaches to my name, with praise and kindly tokens of remembrance.' ' Thenceforth,' says Tacitus, 'he persevered in discouraging on all occasions, and in private con- versation, this worship of himself; a conduct by some attributed to modesty, by many to mistrust of his own merit; by others to degeneracy of spirit.' The shrinking from public exhibitions which Tiberius felt held him. back from attending the funeral of Livia in Rome ; moreover, his health was bad. He prepared for the journey, but postponed it till too late,, unable to resolve from day to day whether to undertake the journey or not. Again the senate broke forth into adulation so gross that Tiberius was obliged once more to interfere. The senate was for canonising Livia ; Tiberius objected : ' let no religious worship be given to her ; she herself did not wish that it should.' Livia had been, according to Tacitus's own account, the mortal enemy of Agrippina and her house. And yet he tells us that the death of Livia removed the only barrier that withheld Tiberius from proceeding to extremities against Agrippina. It is not possible to make all the statements of Tacitus rhyme. If we accept the colours he puts TIBERIUS 323 on his account, we are landed in difficulties; if, however, we give a different interpretation to the facts he records, a consistent story results that puts Tiberius in an altogether different light from that in which he desires to present him. ' Soon after the death of Augusta,' says Tacitus, ' imperial letters reached the senate against Agrippina and Nero, — but people believed these had been despatched long before, but had been suppressed by Livia. They contained expressions of refined barbarity; not imputing acts of armed hostility or designs of treason, but the prince Fig. 75.— agrippina MAJOR. Bust in the Chigi Palace, Rome (after Bernoulli).! charged his grandson with gross dissoluteness, and Agrippina with haughtiness and a turbulent spirit.' It is quite inconceivable that the historian can have believed that the correspondence of Tiberius with the senate passed through the hands of Livia, from whom the emperor was estranged because she attempted to interfere in appointments to offices. Tacitus has told us this ; he has done more : he has accentuated the quarrel, so as to make us believe that Tiberius hated his mother — and yet he suggests that the 1 This Chigi bust differs somewhat in chin and arch of brow from that in the Chiara- monti gallery (Figs. 72 and 79), but agrees better with Fig. 68. However, an outline does not do real justice to the Chigi bust, and the resemblance is much closer to the first of the Chiaramonti busts, that appears in the engraving. 324 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS prince allowed her to use her judgment respecting his letters to the senate, and to suppress those of which she did not approve ! That Sejanus was working on the mind of the old man, rousing his fears, we need not doubt, nor that Agrippina and her sons gave him good cause to be vigilant against their designs. But he was slow to take extreme steps against them, and he issiied this warning to induce them to be cautious. Nero was undermining his health by his debauchery, as well as making his wife unhappy. Undoubtedly Tiberius had remonstrated privately with the young man, and as private remonstrance failed, he trusted that a solemn appeal from the senate would induce him to mend his ways. But the cautiously worded letter implied more than was said. It was intended to let Nero understand that his great- uncle was kept well informed as to what he did. If the prince heard of his dissolute morals, he heard also of the young man's treasonable correspondence. The letter of Tiberius ' produced great consternation in the senate, which remained speechless, and presently a few who had no hopes of pushing their way by favour, moved the previous question. The fore- most in zeal was Cotta Messalinus, who expressed himself in terms of extreme severity ; but the other leading men, and chiefly the magistrates, were greatly embarrassed, for Tiberius, whilst inveighing bitterly against Agrippina and Nero, had left everything very vague.' The reason of this embarrassment was not far to seek. The senators were afraid to take any step against Nero, who might succeed to the throne any day, and would remember against them any action to his disadvantage. It is to be regretted that Tacitus did not give us the text of the letter of Tiberius. Had he done so, we might have better under- stood the incident. But it is plain that Agrippina and her party were prepared for it, and had organised a demonstration. Whilst the senate was consulting, a tumult was heard, and the Curia in which it sat was surrounded by a mob carrying the statues and busts of Agrippina and her children, raising loud shouts, exclaiming that the letter was a forgery, was due to Sejanus, and was sent by him without the knowledge of the emperor, so as to effect the destruction of the house of Germanicus. The senate, already in hesitation how to proceed, was cowed effectually, and reverted to the order of the day. This was a manifest slight put on the emperor. Moreover, the outbreak of popular feeling showed Tiberius that Agrippina and her party were determined to appeal to force against him. It was said that she and Nero were about to fly to the Rhine and place themselves at the head of the legions there quartered. Those in Gaul were likewise supposed to be well affected towards the wife and son of Germanicus. Revolutionary harangues were posted up in the streets ; and, if we may trust the words of Tiberius himself, ' seditious bills were carried through in the • ' TIBERIUS 325 senate, and nothing remained but recourse to arms and the choice of generals and leaders,' At the same time, in order the further to excite the populace, forged speeches of Sejanus against Agrippina and her sons were circulated broadcast among the people. Tiberius wrote again to the senate, complaining of its conduct, and a proclamation was issued to the people rebuking them for the recent exhibition of violence. At this point we are deprived of the guidance of Tacitus. All the chapters in his Annals comprising a period of three years (a.d. 29-30, and the greater part of 31) have been lost, years in which occurred some of the niost important events of the reign of Tiberius ; such as the imprisonment of Agrippina and her two sons, with the death of the elder; the execution of Sejanus, and the death of Livilla, his ac- complice. We are driven, therefore, for the story of this period to other authorities less full, and even less trustworthy. This we know, that the trial of Agrippina and her two sons was removed from the senate to a court over which sat Lucius Piso, a magistrate of the highest integrity, as Tacitus himself allows. The prosecutor was, apparently, Vescularius Flaccus, a man highly esteemed by Tiberius, and one of his councillors. No particulars relative to the trial have come down to us. All we know is the eifect produced on the mind of Tiberius by the revela- tions there made. Velleius says: 'With what violent grief has his mind been tortured during the last three years ! How long has his heart been consumed with affliction, and, saddest of all, with such as he was obliged to disguise, and whilst compelled to grieve, he felt indignation and shame at the conduct of his daughter-in-law (Agrippina) and his grandson (Nero) ; moreover, the sorrows of this period have been aggravated by the loss of his most excellent mother, a woman resembling the gods rather than human beings ; and whose power no man ever felt but in the relief of distress or in the conferring of honour.' The condemnation of Agrippina and Nero took place first; later followed that of Drusus. Nero was sent to one of the Ponza isles, where he starved himself to death, to escape execution by the hand of a common gaoler, which he believed was meditated. Drusus had been brought to Capreae before Tiberius himself, and was sent thence under guard to Rome, where he was confined in the subterranean prisons of the palace. These prisons remain, and are about all that do remain of the palace of Tiberius on the Palatine. They consist of a series of cells, with a gallery communicating with them by doors. They obtained light through the windows in this gallery; some of them were apparently provided with heatirig apparatus. Before the gallery was a platform for exercise, commanding a view of the Aventine and the Janiculan Hills and the Capitol. The prospect was fairly extensive, reaching to where rose then the tower of Maecenas on the Esquiline heights. This 326 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS platform is immediately over the Lupercal and the church of S. Theodore. Here Drusus remained till after the fall of Sejanus. This infamous man, so runs the story of Tacitus, had succeeded in entangling Drusus in his meshes. Tiberius had lately married Drusus to the daughter of Aemilius Lepidus, a worthy man, towards whom the emperor entertained a warm attachment. But Sejanus succeeded in seducing the young wife, and she betrayed her husband's reckless schemes to her seducer. Tiberius wished to spare him, but it was necessary for the ambitious plans of Sejanus that he should perish. Drusus was accused of high treason before the senate, and condemned capitally; but the sentence was commuted by Tiberius into imprisonment. At the same time that Agrippina and Nero were impeached, a charge of high treason was brought against Asinius Gallus, who, there can be little doubt, was involved in whatever plot was ripening to execution. His life also was spared by the emperor, and his sentence reduced to imprisonment. He remained for three years in confinement, and finally starved himself to death. At this point we may be allowed to consider the value of the testimony of Tacitus relative to the character of Tiberius. His testimony has been of late seriously impugned.^ Tacitus was certainly strongly prejudiced against Tiberius. He himself was, in all probability, a novus homo ; his cognomen indicates a servile origin of his family, if not of himself. Like Cicero, having risen to belong to the aristocracy, he threw himself wholly into the feelings and interests of that party, and his Annals are written as history was seen through the eyes of a depressed nobility. Moreover, he was present during the reign of terror in Rome, during the last three years of Domitian, when delatorship reached its height, and he viewed with intense bitterness that emperor under whom delator- ship was thought to have risen to be a means for the decimation of the aristocracy. But for the autocracy of the Caesars, all power would have been in the hands of the nobility. That the class could not forget, and consequently hated the principate. 'With all allowance for the sincerity of his disclaimer,' says Mr. Furneaux, 'special grounds of animosity (in Tacitus) against Tiberius appear discernible. He had seen in his own day " the extremity of slavery, when even the interchange of speech and hearing was destroyed by espionage." He traces back this systematic delation to its source, and, as it were, charges this prince with its full-developed iniquity. . . . It would be natural that the memory of the tyrant under whom the 1 Notably by Sievers, Tacitus und Tiberius, 1851 ; L. Freitag, Tibmus und Tacitus 1870; A. Stahr, Tiberius. 2nd ed. 1872; Professor Beesley, Catiline. Clodius and Tzbenus. 1878. This last I have purposely not read, as we go over the same ground and hold the same opinion with regard to Tiberius. Duruy in his History gives modified praise ; Mr. Furneaux is on the whole unfavourable, but admits the exaggeration of Tacitus. TIBERIUS 327 historian lived should enter into the portrait of that predecessor in whose private memoirs he was said to find his chief mine of political wisdom.' Moreover, Tacitus used the Memoirs of Agrippina the Younger, written with a pen steeped in deadly animosity against the man she had been taught from earliest infancy to regard as the foe of her house. The animus of the historian is conspicuous enough in the manner in which he catches up rumours and asserts them as facts, and insinuates evil where he has not the evidence to prove it.' Tacitus, at the end of his Sixth Book, gives us his judgment on the life and character of Tiberius, and, according to him, it was marked out into five epochs of gradual deterioration. 1. 'His conduct was exemplary, and his reputation high, as long as he was in a private capacity and holding dignities under Augustus ' — i.e. B.C. 41-A.D. 14 ; the first fifty-five years. 2. 'Whilst Germanicus and Drusus were alive, his manners were reserved and mysterious, artfully assuming the merit of virtues to which he had no claim ' — ^a.d. 14-22 ; from 55 years old to the age of 6^. 3. ' While his mother lived his character exhibited a compound of good and of evil.' — a.d. 23-28 ; till the age of 69. 4. ' While he loved or feared Sejanus, though detested for his cruelties, he observed a secrecy and caution in the gratification of his lusts ' — A.D. 29-31 ; till the age of 72. 5. ' At last, when all restraints of shame and fear were removed, and he was left to the uncontrolled bent of his genius, he broke out at once into acts of atrocious villainy and revolting depravity ' — a.d. 31-37 ; till the age of 78. According to this representation, the life of Tiberius up to the age of seventy-two was one of dissimulation, and only in the last six years of his life, when he was, in fact, broken down in health, did the true man appear ! A very few words are needed to point out how preposterous is this estimate. Tiberius was in his fifty-sixth year when he became emperor. Then, in the fulness of sovereign power, at an age when the faculty for enjoy- ment of life is fading away, but in which infirmities begin to manifest then;selves, and the approach of old age warns a man that if he is to drink the cup of pleasure he must quaff it at once, Tiberius masks his passions for another period of sixteen years ! ' I believe,' says Dr. Wiedemeister, 'such a conception of character could only have been hatched out of the head of a schoolmaster ! '^ Tacitus says : ' From his infancy his life was chequered by various vicissitudes and dangers. At first as a child he followed his proscribed father into voluntary banishment ; then, when taken into the family of Augustus, he had to contend with many rivals, whilst Marcellus and ' See Appendix II. Tacitus and Tiberius. ^ Wiedemeister, Caesaren Wahnsinn ; Hannover, 1875. 328 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS Agrippa, and after them Caius Caesar and Lucius, were in favour. His brother Drusus also enjoyed greater popularity with the Romans than nimself. But his greatest embarrassment arose out of his marriage with JuHa, having to decide whether to connive at her prostitution or to repudiate her. Afterwards, on his return from Rhodes, he found the prince's family bereft of heirs, and continued its sole support for twelve years. For nearly four-and-twenty years he ruled the Roman state with absolute sway. His manners also varied with his conditions of fortune.' Then follows the discrimination of his career into the five epochs, as already given. According to Tacitus, Tiberius was a man of dissimulation till he was seventy-two, and then only for six years did his true character, libidinous and savage, break out. For seventy-two years all the tokens of honour, of modesty, of self-control, of rectitude, that were observed in him, conspicuous to all, were a mask assumed to hide the hideous- ness of the true man. ' Verily ! ' exclaims Adolf Stahr, ' such a life is not to be found repeated in the history of mankind. It is not to be found, for such a phenomenon is a psychological impossibility. This far-famed delineation of the character of Tiberius carries its own refutation with it, and fortunately this refutation is supplied by history itself If by this the authority of Tacitus, and blind respect for his impartiality and psychological insight, be somewhat undermined, it is no great misfortune, for they have served long enough to obscure the eyes of mankind and to falsify the character of one of the most unhappy and yet most remarkable of men. '^ Mr. Furneaux says : ' The circumstances (of his early life), acting on such a temperament, produced much such a character as we should expect. We are to think of the man Tiberius as one naturally austere, reserved, and distant ; the best of whose life had been spent in camps or in retirement ; whose position at court had been generally more or less overshadowed by rivals, and whose domestic life had been wrecked for political objects in which he had no primary interest ; while he had been schooled for years in repression. ... He had lived in the coldest shade of neglect as well as in the full sunshine of flattery, and could rate the homage of senate and people at its proper worth. Of all views of his character, none is more amply borne out by facts than that which states that his resolution was as weak as his penetration was keen'^ ; so that the more clearly he could read men's minds, the more he was at a loss to deal with them. It is in this mixture of strength and weakness, as well as in the union of his natural self-distrust, reserve, and austerity, with the souring experiences of a lifetime, that we find the leading traits of character of the future ruler. '^ 1 Stahr, Tiierius, p. 67. 2 This is precisely what his head lells us— broad above, and narrowing to a point in the chin. s Furneaux, Annals of Tacitus, i. p. 117, TIBERIUS 329 X.— THE FALL OF SEJANUS. Sejanus might flatter himself that he had but to put forth his hand to pluck the fruit which he had laboured to gain. The Empress Livia was no more ; the Julian house was desolate. His enemies and opponents — Drusus, the son of the emperor, Agrippina a.d. 31. and her sons Nero and Drusus — were swept aside. The ^®'' 7^- only representative of the Julian house as yet untouched was Caius (Caligula), Agrippina's youngest son, then living under the care of his grandmother, Antonia, and of the Claudian house was Tiberius Gemellus, the grandson of Tiberius, but he was a mere child. The senate lavished honours on the favourite of the emperor ; coins were struck in Spain bearing his effigy beside that of Tiberius. An altar was erected to Friendship, with the representations of Tiberius and Sejanus on it. As neither the emperor nor his minister came to Rome, the senators, the knights, all solicitous of obtaining favours, crowded to Campania to obtain interviews with Sejanus, who was harder of access than his master. This augmented his arrogance. As long as Sejanus remained in the presence of the prince at Capreae, it was impossible for any one to open the eyes of Tiberius to the treachery of his favourite minister, for he controlled every avenue by which access could be had to his master. All the correspondence passed through his hands. But the conditions were altered when Sejanus went to Rome, sent there by Tiberius, but for what reasons, we do not know. A late authority, perhaps for the purpose of drawing a lively picture, describes the parting. 'The emperor embraced and kissed him, weeping, and exclaimed that he felt as though he were losing a part of himself.' ^ As yet no suspicion that Sejanus could be unfaithful had entered the mind of Tiberius ; if there had, he would not have sent him to Rome, where he commanded the praetorian guard. On reaching the capital, the great vizier was received with abject respect. His busts and portraits were everywhere exhibited side by side with those of the emperor, and like sacrifices were offered before both. Men swore by the ' lucky star of Sejanus,' as they did by that of Tiberius. Two golden seats were placed side by side in the theatre, one for the sovereign, the other for his minister. A decree of the senate invested both with the consulship for five years, and required all future consuls to model their conduct on that of Sejanus. Already, in the society of the nobility, Tiberius was spoken of as ' The King of the Isle,' and Sejanus as his 'Tutor.' Crowds assembled before the palace of the favourite, elbowing themselves into prominence, fearful of not being noticed, or of being noticed too late. It flattered the son of the Vulsinian knight to see the proud nobles cringe before him, and he 1 Dio Cassius, fragm. Vat. 330 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS observed their countenances attentively. Dio Cassius says truly enough : ' Men born to honour do not set such store on outward demonstrations of respect, and do not resent lack of respect towards their persons so keenly as do new men, because the former know well that their worth is properly appreciated by others. He, however, who struts in borrowed plumes lays the greatest stress on outward demonstrations, and holds as a galling slight any carelessness or neglect in the attribution of honour. Consequently people are more on their guard to show honour to new men than to aristocrats by birth, for these latter consider it rather becoming in them to disregard an act of discourtesy, whereas the former consider such as a challenge, to be resented with all their might.'i If the enemies of Sejanus purposed to excite the jealousy of the prince by their exaggerated homage, they gained in part their object. The emperor, who addressed him as his ' companion in the labours of government,' repeated his former order forbidding divine honours to be paid to himself or any other man. But Tiberius did not mistrust the minister, he was vexed at the baseness of the Roman nobility. He had nominated Sejanus as consul for the ensuing year, and had finally yielded to his persuasion, and consented to his betrothal to the princess Julia.^ 'If a god had declared how sudden and complete would be the transformation of affairs at this time,' says Dio Cassius, ' no one would have believed him.' On the last New Year's Day, when all the sycophants in Rome poured to the palace to offer their best wishes and presents to Sejanus, a bench gave way under those seated upon it, and when the great man issued from his doors, a cat ran across his path. When he offered sacrifice on the Capitol, so dense was the mass of people there packed that with a wave of his hand he signed to his attendants to take with his litter the ' Traitors' Way ' and the Gemonian Steps, down which the bodies of criminals recently executed were cast, and the bearers slipped and fell as they bore their master. It was noticed that ravens croaked and fluttered above his head, and perched on the roof of the prison. On reaching home Sejanus cast incense on the altar before an ancient statue of Good Fortune, and — so it was said afterwards — the goddess turned her head from him. Sejanus had made himself too many enemies, and enlisted in his cause too many confederates, for his safety, the moment he ceased to 1 Dio Cassius, lviii.5. 2 Suetonius says merely 'Julia,' without distinguishing which. Dio says 'Julia, the daughter of Dnisus and Livia. ' It is inconceivable that this can have been the daughter of Livilla, for whose hand he had made request. Germanicus, the brother of Livilla, had been adopted into the Julian family, and it is possible she might have a title to bear the name of Julia, having been adopted likewise. We do not, however, know this. As Tacitus makes no allusion to the betrothal to Sejanus when he mentions the marriage of Julia to Rubellius Blandus, it would seem that he must have considered the mother as the one betrothed, and not the daughter. TIBERIUS 331 keep guard in person over the prince. Women had helped him in his crimes, and women brought him to his punishment. After Sejanus had left Capreae Tiberius had sent for his grandson Tiberius Gemellus, and for Caius, the youngest son of Germanicus, to be with him and divert him in his solitude. Antonia, the grandmother of Caius, the daughter of the triumvir, seized the opportunity to despatch a letter to the emperor, confided to the care of her most trusty servant, Pallas; and in this letter she made Tiberius aware of the cruel manner in which Sejanus, whom he had trusted, had betrayed his interests and wrought the dishonour of some of his family. But the letter told something more — that Sejanus had gone to Rome to ripen his deeply-laid schemes for a coup de main, which would subvert Tiberius, and enthrone himself. The scales fell from his eyes, and the old man saw plainly at last how he had been deceived.* Sejanus, from the tenor of a letter now received by the senate from the prince, began to suspect that some forces were working secretly against his interest. Confident in his own powers of cajolery, he resolved to return to Capreae and meet these antagonistic influences and break them. He asked permission to leave Rome and revisit his master, alleging as his reason that he had heard tidings that Julia, his betrothed, was ill. The desired permission was refused ; the prince said in reply that he himself proposed to come to Rome ; which was true. Under the circumstances, Tiberius believed he could trust none but himself. The position of the old emperor was as alarming as it was difficult. He knew that a large party of the most influential families in Rome were hostile to his government, either because they clung to the phantom hope of a restoration of the republic, or were attached to the cause of Agrippina. Others he had reason to suspect were so involved with Sejanus that they must stand by him at all costs. Sejanus was head of the praetorian guard, and he had brought his men together, to the number of ten thousand, and established them in a permanent camp on the most salubrious portion of the heights which radiate into the Esquiline, Viminal, and Pincian hills. To what extent the soldiers were likely to obey their commanding officer against himself, and their oath, that Tiberius could not conjecture. He made out a new com- mission over the praetorians, and gave it to Macro, an officer of his guard, and despatched him at once to Rome. Tiberius wrote to the senate to say that he was very ill, and that he had not long to live, then sent tidings that he was better. This 1 The letter to Tiberius, indited by Antonia, was written by Caenis, her freedwoman. After its despatch Antonia ordered her to destroy the rough copy. ' This would not pro- tect you, mistress," answered Caenis, 'for every word is engraved so deep in luy heart that no time could efface it." Caenis became afterwards the mistress of Vespasian, and amassed a great fortune by the sale of offices, it was said, not without the privity of Vespasian.— Dio Cassius, Ixvi. 14. 332 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS was probably true. He was thoroughly unhinged by the discovery of the treachery of Sejanus, and by his nervous terrors. In one letter he praised Sejanus, and then dropped words of blame; so that the favourite was himself perplexed and did not know what to make of these extraordinary communications. ' His anxiety,' says Dio Cassius, ' did not drive him into open rebellion, nor indeed had he sufficient confidence to stake all on an appeal to arms. Every one in Rome shared his uncertainty, the result of these conflicting tidings. Every one hesitated whether to pay homage to, or to shrink from Sejanus.' It was expected one day that Tiberius would be on his way to Rome, and the next that his death would be announced. Tiberius now dealt a master-stroke. He commended Caius, the youngest son of Agrippina, to the senate -and the people, as his suc- cessor. He reckoned doubtless on the enthusiasm which this an- nouncement would produce among a people who had still the greatest love for the memory of Germanicus. And the people received the decision of the emperor with tumultuous delight. This was a fresh blow dealt Sejanus, who had reckoned on him- self succeeding Tiberius. He felt instinctively that his chance of an appeal to the soldiers and to the people was cut away from him. It was noticed that in the imperial orders, the minister was named Sejanus, without any honourable prefix, contrary to the former habit of Tiberius. But occasionally tokens of favour were shown. Sejanus was nominated along with Caius to be priest in a college of which the emperor was himself a member, and Tiberius allowed the senate to confer on Sejanus, as it had formerly on Germanicus, the pro- consular power. Bewildered by these contradictions in the behaviour of the prince, cast from an extremity of hope to one of despair, uncertain about him- self and those who surrounded him, Sejanus let slip the opportunity of taking that decided and bold step which Tiberius had dreaded. The emperor had played with him as with a fish, till he was ready to land him. This craft was a necessity under the circumstances. But on October 17th, a.d. 31, Naevius Sertorius Macro arrived in Rome', late in the evening with his commission, to supersede Sejanus in the com- mand of the praetorians. Still uncertain as to the result of an appeal to the soldiers, Tiberius had caused to be circulated a report that Sejanus was about to have the tribunician authority granted him, which was equivalent to his appointment to be regent along with himself. All Rome believed the tidings. Sejanus, elated with pride, con- sidered that he had reached the last step but one to sovereignty, His followers were filled with exultation, and those who had lately hesitated to show him honour, crowded about his doors to offer their tardy homage. Macro, on his arrival in Rome, betook himself at once to the TIBERIUS 333 house of the new consul Regulus, known to be hostile to Sejanus, and summoned thither to meet him Graecinus Laco, commander of the seven cohorts who acted as the night police of the capital, and were lodged in barracks in the different quarters of the city. To the consul and the commander of the cohorts Macro communicated the emperor's private orders, and prepared the requisite measures. The decisive blow was to be struck next day. A session of the senate was appointed to meet in the morning at the temple of Apollo, near the imperial palace on the Palatine Hill. As Macro was on his way thither at daybreak he encountered Sejanus, also on his way to the same point, surrounded by a large retinue of servants, clients, and friends. . A suspicion of evil crossed the mind of the minister at the sight of Macro, whom he had supposed to be in Capreae. He asked him eagerly if he had come from the emperor with letters to him, and was answered in the negative. Sejanus changed colour and halted. Macro noticed his alarm, and drawing him aside whispered that he was the bearer of a despatch to the senate relative to the tribunician authority for Sejanus. The minister in great delight hastened to the place of session, with head erect and face beaming with expectation. All present saw in his bearing a confirmation of the rumour that had reached their ears, and starting from their seats pressed round him with their congratulations ; these he received with gracious condescension. Macro had not entered the senate-house. As soon as he had seen the last flicker of the scarlet shoes of Sejanus as he passed within, he announced to the division of the guards sent to keep order, and to the praetorians who had attended the minister, that the command had been transferred to himself. To the latter he promised a gratuity from the emperor, and bade them withdraw to the camp. They obeyed without demur. Then promptly and silently the police under Laco surrounded the place of session. When this measure was complete, Macro entered the temple and delivered the imperial order, then retired before it had been opened, in order to make the best of his way to the praetorian camp and secure the fidelity of the guards. The scene that ensued was probably the most dramatic that had ever occurred in the senate. As soon as the imperial messenger had left the assembly they pro- ceeded to open and consider the letter. It was long and verbose. It began with comments on matters of no vital importance, and then pro- ceeded to blame Sejanus. But the words levelled against the minister were not written consecutively, but were mixed up with remarks on other matters of public business. Then came a whole paragraph devoted to Sejanus, and a categorical demand for his impeachment on several grounds. The letter concluded with requiring the arrest first of two 334 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS senators closely allied to Sejanus and then of the minister himself. Tiberius renewed his declaration that he proposed returning to Rome, and stated that, as he was surrounded by enemies, he required the attendance of one of the consuls for his protection. The letter was written by the emperor in a tumult of nervous terrors, and with his mind unhinged by loss of confidence in the last man to whom he had clung and in whom he had believed. The reading of this letter struck not Sejanus only, but the whole senate as a bolt from heaven. The consternation, the bewilderment were general, and the greater because the senators had but just vied with each other in adulation of the man who was thus struck before their eyes. Those who sat nearest him rose in silence, vacated their seats and placed themselves elsewhere, and the praetors and the tribunes of the people stepped into the empty places to surround the doomed man and prevent his escape. But the suddenness with which he had been hurled from the highest pinnacle into the abyss was too great to alloAv Sejanus to exercise any presence of mind and decide on what was to be done. He sat, looking stonily before him, unmoved. The consul Regulus rose from his seat and ordered him to stand up. Sejanus heard but did not comprehend what was said. ' This was not due to pride,' says Dio, ' but to the fact that he was unaccustomed to obey.' The order was repeated, and repeated a third time by the consul in louder tones and with upraised arm. ' Sejanus ! dost thou hear me ? ' he asked. Then, as though roused from a trance, the unhappy man replied, 'What — do you call me?' He slowly rose, looking round for some one on whose shoulder to rest, but saw Laco, captain of the police, with sword unsheathed before him, and knew he was already a prisoner and a lost man. Now ensued a scene of basest, most cowardly recrimination. From all sides rose hoots, curses, abuse, the wildest expressions of pent- up jealousy, hate, and thirst for revenge ; and loudest of all yelled those who had crouched lowest but half an hour ago to kiss his hand. Those who had been his closest friends made themselves now most conspicuous as his enemies. Nevertheless, the consul did not venture on an accusation of maiestas, as he could not calculate on the strength and determination of the party of Sejanus in, the senate. They might combine in the danger that menaced all through their head. He demanded a formal charge to be made on which he might proceed legally to arrest Sejanus. One senator rose and in a shrill voice above the tumult, impeached the minister, thereupon Regulus at once ordered Laco to remove his prisoner to the TuUianum, the Capitoline prison. The whole proceeding was pre- cipitate, so as not to allow the adherents of the fallen minister time to concert measures of resistance. TIBERIUS 335 Already tidings of what had taken place had spread like wild-fire through the city ; and when Sejanus came out between the guards on the descent of the Via Nova to the forum, he could see that the entire space was filled with an agitated sea of heads. His way led down the slope, the dip in the hill under the Porta Mugionis, past, the temple of Jupiter Stator and the height now crowned with the convent and covered by the gardens of S. Sebastiano. On reaching the bottom of the hill the road turned sharply to the left above the house of the vestals. For a while hope flattered him. A vestal virgin might come out of the doors, meet him, and thereby obtain his reprieve if not his pardon. But none appeared. As the crowd pressed on his guards, spitting, throwing earth, cursing him, Sejanus endeavoured to cover his ghastly face with the folds of his purple-bordered mantle. A rude hand tore it away, another smote him in the face. His ears were deafened with cries, imprecations, jeers at his recent elation, reproaches for the violence, the judicial murders, he had wrought. As he came out above the temple of Castor and Pollux he could see the crowds engaged in tearing down his statues and pounding them to pieces. Then he was led across the forum past the Umbilicus, the supposed centre of the world, and the iron doors of the prison closed on him. Hard by, a few paces off, stood the temple of Concord, with the splendid arcade of the Capitoline Tabularium rising high above it. Hither, a few hours later the trembling senators came, called together by the consul Regulus to decree the death of the shivering man now lying in the ' cold bath of Hercules,' a stone's-throw distant. Not an arm had been lifted, not a voice raised, in defence of the fallen minister ; even the praetorians, on whose fidelity to his person he had reckoned, remained motionless. The people had declared with one voice against him. The senate hurriedly passed the necessary forms, and Sejanus was condemned to death. A few minutes later the door of the TuUianum was opened, and down the Gemonian steps was cast the corpse of the man who a few hours before had been the most dreaded and respected in Rome. Hooks were driven into the still warm flesh, and it was dragged about the city, given up to insult by the people, and not till the third day after the execution was the mangled and disfigured mass cast into the Tiber. Seneca, who, as a man of five-and-thirty, was present in Rome at the time, has given us a short but graphic account of what he then saw. Thus ended Sejanus, a sacrifice to his overweening ambition and to the bitter jealousy of the Roman nobility, says Juvenal, who half a cen- tury later sang the fall of the greatest minister Rome had seen or was destined to see, as a warning against pride and false security. Of him might be said what Voltaire said of Lally, that he was ' one against whom every one had a right to raise his hand, except the executioner.' 336 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS And now as a thing undone disappears the roll of his honours, His statues follow the rope that draws them down from their places. The axe is whirled at the wheels of the chariot where he was seated. And e'en the legs of the horses that little deserve it are broken ; And now mutter the fires before the blast of the bellows, The head adored of the people, the mighty Sejanus is meltinj;. Behold from out of the face, that in this world was the second, They make but pitchers and pots and pans and bowls for the kitchen. Go deck thy house with laurels, and bring to the temple white oxen, Sejanus is drawn by the hook, a sight and a scoff to the people, 'Just look at the lips that did sneer ! the face that once was so haughty ! Believe me, I hated the man, I never, I swear,, was his creature.' ' But what was his crime ? ' I ask, ' and who has been his accuser ? What witnesses — evidence brought ? ' ' O, bless you ! these were not asked for. A great and a verbose letter that came from Capreae did it. ' ' Enough. He is done for, and well, but what thereto say the people ? ' ' The people — they swim with the tide, and damn where Fortiine has damned. If Nursisi the Tuscan had favoured, and Fate had frowned on the old man. The people would now be exclaiming, "Long live Sejanus, our Caesar ! " But in fact all interest is gone, since no one will purchase their suffrage. That people that once gave command, and legions, and honours — ay, all things, At present has but one ambition, — for bread and then for the races.' ' I hear that many have fallen.' ' Of course, the oven is heated. I saw Brutidius pass, all pale on his way to the altar.' ' Come, come, don't let us be. late ; let 's kick the foe of great Caesar, Whilst yet he lies on the bank ! ' ' But mind let the servants observe us, That evidence may be at hand to show how we hated Sejanus.' XL— AFTER THE FALL. The outbreak of popular feeling described by Juvenal continued several days, and filled the city with terror. Lynch law was executed A u c 784 ^^ ^^^ populace on several of the best known and worst A.D. 31. hated of the companions and favourites of Sejanus. The Act 72 ■ •' • praetorians, moreover, angry at their loyalty having being doubted, and at having been passed over in favour of the police, spread through the town firing houses and plundering. The emperor put a stop to these disorders. The senators, one and all, apprehensive of the jealousy of the prince and the populace, hastened to condemn every act of flattery of which they had lately been guilty. They issued a decree to forbid the wearing of mourning for the traitor, and ordered that the anniversary of his death should be a day of rejoicing for all generations. They heaped distinctions on Macro and Laco, and urged Tiberius to accept the title of Father of his country, an assumption he had ever modestly declined, and which he now once again and finally rejected, as well as the proposal that the senate should swear to all his acts. 'Steadfast as I feel myself,' said he, 'in all good and patriotic principles, yet all things human are liable to change. Never, so help TIBERIUS 337 me the gods, will I bind the conscript fathers to indorse all the future acts of one who, even by the failing of his mental faculties, might at any time lapse from virtue.' He named but a very few of the associates of Sejanus as obnoxious to himself, and these he did not desire to see sentenced to death. But the senate that had cringed was cowardly, and sought now to prove its devotion to the prince by the fury with which it devastated the ranks of the adherents of the fallen man. It was the old story again of Fig. 76.— TIBERIUS. Bust from the Farnese Collection, National Museum, Naples. the soldiers of Germanicus on the banks of the Rhine. Conscious of their own treasonable conduct, or of conduct capable of being regarded as treasonable, they outdid each other in the eagerness with which they sought out victims on whose bodies they might establish their own loyalty. A story of infinite sadness is told by Tacitus of the fate of the young children of Sejanus, of the poor little girl who asked what harm she had done, and what was wanted with her, as 338 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS she was hurried to the dungeon to be strangled under circumstances of unutterable horror. 'Those who had previously sought the favour of Sejanus,' says Die, 'were quaking with fear and anxiety for themselves, and those who had been employed by him as delators and witnesses saw themselves now in danger of being charged with having played their parts in his interest and not that of the prince. Only a few kept their composure and were confident, as they had not been involved in any of the recent quarrels.' These latter it was who, as Dio adds, 'laid the blame of all the wrong done upon Sejanus, and attributed little, if any, of it to the prince who, they believed, had known nothing of the things done by him, or had been forced by misrepresentation to act with seeming harshness.' A deputation of nobles and knights was sent to Capreae to congratulate Tiberius on having crushed the haughty upstart. The prince declined to receive it. Regulus, the consul, hastened into Campania : he also was not received. Shut up in solitude, the sick old man brooded for nine months over the past. He had loved this man Sejanus. When his own kinsfolk turned against him, he had found in him a friend. Uncertain himself in determining what to do in difficulties, he had placed the decision in the hands of Sejanus, with confidence in his fidelity and love. Now his last, his only stay was taken from him, and his solitude was absolute. Every one he had trusted had failed him. His first wife he had been told had been unfaithful to him; his second wife he knew had been untrue. His adopted sons had turned against him in revolt His mother had dealt him the cruellest blow conceivable in showing him that Augustus, whom he had reverenced and loved, had disliked and ridiculed him. Drusus, his own son, had caused him anxiety, and then had been snatched from him. The senate, the Roman people, for whom he had lived and laboured, inspired him with contempt and disgust at their servility and changeableness. He had trusted Sejanus, and his friend had proved false — how false he now had revealed to him, unexpectedly, to add to his despair and misery. Apiciata, the divorced wife of Sejanus, frantic at the loss of her children, disclosed to the emperor the whole story of the poisoning of his son Drusus, through the connivance of Livilla, and then committed suicide. This led to an investigation, the examination of the physician who had mixed the poison and the chamberlain who had administered it. The whole of the infamous plot was revealed. All involved in it were put to death, except Livilla, the faithless wife of Drusus. Tiberius gave her her life and delivered her over to her mother, Antonia, who bade her starve herself to death. Suetonius says: 'Tiberius was so entirely occupied with the in- vestigation of this affair, for whole days together, that, upon being informed that the person, in whose house he had lodged at Rhodes, TIBERIUS 339 and whom by a friendly letter he had invited to Rome, was arrived, he ordered him immediately to be tortured, as a party concerned in the inquiry. Upon finding his mistake, he commanded him to be put to death, that he might not proclaim the wrong done to him. The place of execution is still shown at Capreae, where he ordered those who were condemned to die, after long and exquisite tortures, to be thrown, before his eyes, from a precipice into the sea. There a party of soldiers belonging to the fleet waited for them, and broke their bones with poles and oars, lest they should have any life left in them.' That Tiberius had the murderers of his son executed, and that, frantic with wrath and regret, he may have had them tortured cruelly is possible enough ; but we must not trust Suetonius too implicitly for the rest. The discovery the old emperor had made of the treachery with which he had been surrounded must have filled him with despair in humanity, and a bitterness against all men, and at his own fate. In his autobiography he bewailed the fact that through the craft of Sejanus his nephews had been ruined. He wrote a letter to the Senate in which the unhinged condition of his 'mind was portrayed. 'Quite weary of himself,' says Suetonius, ' he acknowledged his extreme misery in a letter to the senate, which began thus : " What to write to you. Conscript Fathers, or how to write, or what not to write at this time, may all the gods and goddesses pour on my head a more dreadful vengeance than that under which I feel myself sinking daily, if I can tell."' Whilst Tiberius was engaged at Capreae in the investigation of the murder of his son, a reign of terror was in progress in Rome, which perhaps the emperor was in no humour to stop. It must be remembered that there was no public prosecutor in the Roman courts ; any man might start up and bring accusations against another. In the old times of the Commonwealth it had become a recognised vexation to which every governor and magistrate was sub- jected, on leaving his office, that some young aspirant after fame or notoriety should impeach him. The grounds were formerly malversation, now maiestas or high treason. The prince had no hand in the impeachment of the real or supposed adherents of Sejanus, except only of such as he named, and they were few in number. But every man who felt himself compromised and thought to recover his credit by an impeachment, hastened to denounce some one else, and the trials were according to law. If the case were proved, the accused was capitally sentenced. The emperor was not above the law, and he could interfere with the judgments of the courts only by the exercise of his tribunician authority of 'provocation,' and to be incessantly interfering with the courts would have been denounced as a monstrous tyranny. 340 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS It was, says Tacitus, after the prince had left Rome and re- tired to Capreae that 'the fury of the informers grew daily more fierce and relentless, and continued its career without hindrance.' Domitius Afer attacked Quintilius Varus, the kinsman of Tiberius, and Publius Dolabella associated himself with him in the suit, regard- less of the ties of blood which linked him to the accused. The senate stopped the process by voting that it should be adjourned till the return of the prince. And Tacitus says that it was by such means alone that any relief was afforded from the overwhelming plague of delatorship {quod unum urgentium malorum suffugium in Umpus erat). We fall into grievous error if we assume that the many victims who perished during the reign of Tiberius were victims to his jealousy, and that he was more than indirectly guilty of their blood. In his time the old and pestilent system of delation reached a head, but that system was a legacy of the Republic, and Tiberius was too pedantic a stickler for law to interfere with a practice which, infamous though it was, was clung to with pertinacity as a privilege inherited from the days of freedom. ' The liberty of the Roman citizen,' says Dean Merivale, ' was maintained by a system of universal terrorism. Every citizen was invited to watch over the conduct of his compatriots, and to menace every deviation from the path of civil virtue with a public accusation. Every young noble was trained in the art of pleading, partly to enable him, when his own turn came, to defend himself, but primarily to furnish him with weapons of offence, and thereby with the means of self-advancement. Rhetoric was an instrument of power, by which he might expect to make himself admired by the people, and feared by competitors of his own class. He fought his way to public honours on the floor of the law-courts, dragging successively from their benches the tribunes, the praetors, and the consuls, before whom he first began his career of eloquence. ' The intrigues and treasons of the men in power did not always suffice to furnish victims for this mania of impeachment: it was necessary to extend the inquisition into the provinces, and summon before the bar of Roman opinion the governors who had sinned, if not against the laws of the Republic, against those at least of humanity and justice. To interest the citizens, to inflame their passions, to bias their judgments on the subject of crimes thus perpetrated on remote provincials, required great exertion of art and eloquence; but the genius and industry of the young advocates and their teachers kept pace with every demand upon them. Feelings of party were appealed to in the place of genuine patriotism. The truth of the accusation became of little importance ; it was the great triumph of the rhetorician, not unfrequently gained, to baffle the interests of a political faction. . TIBERIIJS , 341 without regard to the intrinsic merits of the case. The young orator, who, at the age of nineteen or twenty, could sway the votes of a bench of judges against some veteran proconsul grown grey in the service of the State, was marked as sure to rise to the highest political eminence. Neither shame nor humanity interfered to check this passion for accusation, in which the Romans were to the full as unscrupulous and unfeeling as they were in invading the lands of the foreigner.' This then was a deeply inrooted habit ; it was regarded as an insti- tution especially Roman, and essential for the pushing of the fortunes of the young and ambitious. To abolish the system would be to disturb the foundation of the polity. It was rampant and mischievous before the days of the first Caesar. Every great official had to reckon with it, and he prepared for it by amassing plunder wherewith to bribe his judges. The period of bribery was over; but impeachment be- came, if possible, more vigorous. He who could bring a criminal to punishment received a quarter of his estates and possessions, and not unfrequently a money-grant as well. 'This common act of accusation, the birthright of the Roman citizen, the palladium, so esteemed, of Roman freedom, became the most convenient instrument of despotism. But, however odious such a profession might generally make itself, whatever the infamy to which it would be consigned by posterity, those who practised it reaped the reward they sought in money and celebrity, in influence and authority, in the favour of the prince, and not rarely in the applause of the multitude.' Delation was a private speculation, and the Roman aspirants after honours and fortune were as utterly unscrupulous as to the misery they wrought in families and the wrongs done to individuals as are the floaters of bogus companies in England at the present day. The profits, the gain, if they succeeded, were great ; but they ran risks : for an accuser, if he failed to prove his case, was answerable for having accused falsely. Even under the most despotic emperors such men as failed were punished with exile or death. A public whipping, the stocks, branding, the loss of freedom, sentence to be sold into slavery, deporta- tion to desert islands — such were the punishments allotted to those who delated and were unable to substantiate their charges. The laws of treason were in existence, the institution of delation was in full vigour, before the Caesars became the heads of the state.^ Both were a legacy from the Republic The princes did not attempt a reformation of the whole judicial system of the laws. Julius Caesar might have done it had he been suffered to live, for his was a mind capable of striking out new lines, laying fresh foundations, and the abolition of delatorship meant the total reorganisation of the Roman system for the maintenance of the law. But Augustus, and especially ' Except the lex Jul'a, enacted by Augustus. 342 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS Tiberius, were not capable of evolving a new system, they could but interfere now and then to check abuses under the old system. Tacitus is the only historian who speaks of Tiberius as favouring delators and accusations of treason. Suetonius makes no such charge, and Dio Cassius, on the contrary, tells us that Tiberius interfered to put restraint on the system, forbidding officers in the army appearing as accusers, and that he limited the right to senators and knights. Tacitus tells us that, late on in life, in his seventy-third year, he interfered to oppose a motion in the senate to curtail or abolish the payments given to delators, alleging, ' with a sternness contrary to his usual way,' that this would interfere with the execution of justice. ' So long as the laws stood,' said Tiberius, ' you must have guardians to see that they are not violated.' Which was true enough ; the whole system was bad and should be radically dealt with. As it was, every Roman was a self-constituted vindicator of the law. There were no police to watch that the laws were observed, every Roman was supposed to look to it that the law was not infringed. Tacitus admits that Tiberius took measures to check the insolence of the accusers. He says, for instance, that in a.d. 22, the ninth year of his reign, 'Tiberius gained great credit for his moderation, because he checked the presumption of the informers.' In a.d. 25, his twelfth year: 'This whole year was marked with one uninterrupted series of accusations, so that, even in the Latin festival, when Drusus had ascended the tribunal to be inaugurated praefect of the city, he was accosted by Calpurnius Salvianus, who wanted to impeach Sextus Marius. This Caesar openly resented, and this led to the banishment of Salvianus.' Moreover, Tiberius again and again throughout his reign dealt severely with those who brought false accusations against honourable men ; when the sentences pro- nounced by the senate were harsh, he frequently mitigated their severity. ' The informers,' says Tacitus, ' went beyond the intentions of the law, and they had got Italy, Rome, and the Roman citizens into their clutches. Numbers were stripped of their entire fortunes, and all had the terror of them before their eyes ; when Tiberius chose by lot five men of consular rank, five of praetorian, and ten of senatorial rank, to apply a remedy ; by these most of the legal intricacies were explained, and some alleviation afforded to the pressing mischief. 'i The case of Lutorius exhibits very fairly the condition of affairs owing to the plague of delation, and shows where lay the blame for bloodshed. Lutorius, a Roman knight given to verse-making, had com- posed a poem during the illness of Drusus, which he proposed publish- ing if the sickness proved mortal. Drusus got well, but Lutorius could not refrain from reading his poem to some ladies of quality. Unhappily a wretched informer heard of this, and brought a charge of treason against the poet. Haterius Agrippa, consul-elect, was for his execution, ■' Tacitus, Ann. iii. 28. TIBERIUS 343 but Manius Lepidus rose in the senate and said : ' The clemency of the prince is wgnt to moderate the severity of punishments. There is a difference between vanity and villany, between empty words and nefarious deeds. I have often heard our'prince bewail the event, when, by suicide, a criminal has prevented the exercise of his mercy.' Lepidus voted that the poet should be outlawed, but only one man of consular rank voted with him, all the rest voted with Agrippa. Lutorius was there- upon led away to prison and strangled. Tiberius was absent; on hearing of this execution he was indignant, and complained before the senate of their act, and entreated them, in future, ' not to be so precipitate in punishing for mere words.' The consequence of this was that a decree was passed that not less than ten days should elapse between a condemnation and an execution.^ This shows us that it was the senate which condemned in its cowardice and adulation. When a portion of the confiscated effects of the condemned went to the exchequer, they thought they were con- ferring an obligation on the emperor when at the same time they rid him of one ill affected to him, and poured the wealth of the victim into his lap. They taught a dangerous expedient, which was turned against themselves with sweeping effect in succeeding reigns. In a great many cases Tiberius stepped between the senate and their victim. Towards the end of his reign, when at Capreae, and with all faith in the truth, honesty, and fidelity of men broken down, made irritable by ill health, he interfered less frequently, and is so far guilty of bloodshed that he might have interposed, and did not always do so. Caius Silanus had been proconsul of Asia, and had used extortion and rapacity in his province. He was accused, and no doubts whatever were entertained that he was guilty. This crime of which Silanus was accused was precisely one which Tiberius was resolved to chastise severely. Silanus, feeling it impossible to clear himself, abandoned his defence and appealed to the mercy of the emperor. The court decreed his outlawry, ' that he should be interdicted from fire and water, and banished to the island of Gyarus.' The prince interfered. ' This islet,' said he, ' was inhospitable, devoid of culture,' and he asked that the place of banishment might be changed to Cythera. Dolabella urged that the pains inflicted on him should be heightened, as he was reputed to be a man of profligate life. ' These are mere rumours,' said Tiberius; 'we must not judge according to reports.' Lentulus proposed that not all the estate of Silanus should be confiscated, but only what was his own, that the rich inheritance of his mother should be left untouched, and given to the son. Tiberius at once assented. Tacitus says, ' Tiberius was ever ready to show gentleness where his own personal resentments did not stand in the way.' 1 Tacitus, Aim. iii. 49-51. This decree was carried by Tiberius insisting on it, 'in order that he, even if away travelling, might have time to hear and judge.'— Dio Ivii. 20. 344 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS When Lucius Ennius was impeached of treason ' for converting an efifigy of the prince into the ordinary purposes to which silver is applied, Tiberius would not suffer the case to be proceeded with, whereupon up sprang Ateius Capito to declare that 'the emperor had no right to interfere with the fathers trying a case ; nor ought he to prevent them from punishing an act of such flagrant iniquity ; nor ought so gross an iniquity to be suffered to pass unpunished.' Nevertheless Tiberius remained peremptory in his refusal to allow this trial to take place. Tacitus tells us that Tiberius was usually artificial and cumbrous in his manner, as if he were struggling to give vent to his sentiments; but, 'whenever he spoke as an advocate, he delivered himself with readiness and volubility.' When, in the eleventh year of his reign, Serenus was sentenced to death, Tiberius interposed and suggested banishment. Asinius Gallus then moved that he should be sent to the isle of Gyarus or to Donusa. Again Tiberius interfered, saying these islands were destitute of water, and he was sent to Amorgos. Lucius Sejanus, brother to the fallen minister, had acted with extreme temerity : he had dared to turn the old bald emperor into ridicule. At the feast of the Floralia he had got all the performers to shave their heads, and all the link-boys who lighted the populace on their return from the theati'e were also close shaven, in ludicrous imitation of the condition of the head of Tiberius. But this slight — this piece of insolent vulgarity — was passed over by the emperor, and Lucius Sejanus was not among those who were condemned. Marcus Terentius, a friend of the fallen favourite, when accused before the senate by a delator, frankly admitted that he had been intimate with the late minister. ' Sejanus, the Vulsinian,' said he, ' was not the man I courted, but Sejanus, the son-in-law of Caesar, his colleague in the consulship.' He had loved Sejanus, but so had also Tiberius. ' Let conspiracy against the state,' concluded he, 'let murderous designs against the prince be punished ; but as to the offices of friendship and regard for Sejanus, Caesar and I stand on the same footing.' Terentius was not only discharged, but his accusers were found guilty of false accusation and were banished. Cotta Messalinus was accused of having given Caligula a coarse nickname, and of having spoken dis- respectfully of the late empress-mother, and contemptuously of the prince himself as his 'dear little Tiberius.' The senate were deter- mined to condemn him, but he appealed to the emperor, who at once wrote in his favour, pleading the many good services Cotta had done, and urged 'that words maliciously distorted, and the harmlessness of convivial discourse, should never be wrested into crimes.' A delator accused a senator of having sold a statue of the emperor along with his house. He would have been sentenced to death had not Tiberius been present and given his vote for acquittal. King Archelaus of Cappadocia was summoned to Rome by Tiberius; TIBERIUS 345 he was old, gouty, and sometimes off his head, so that he had governed capriciously and badly. Indeed, Augustus had been forced to appoint a regent at one time when Archelaus had been actually insane. Tiberius bade him appear before the senate, when a witness asserted he had heard the old man declare, ' If once I get home, I '11 make the prince feel the weight of my fist ! ' This provoked such a general burst of laughter, that Tiberius urged his acquittal. A senator, Lentulus, old and of the most amiable character, was accused before the senate of having formed designs against the life of the emperor. Tiberius rose in his place and said, ' I should not be worthy of life if I could have incurred the hatred of Lentulus.' The senate had forbidden the wearing of mourning for Sejanus and those of his adherents who were executed. Tiberius rescinded this order, and insisted that liberty should be allowed to all to bear the outward token of sorrow for those they loved. A fragment of Dio Cassius informs us that Tiberius extended his protection to a number of the friends of Sejanus who admitted their intimacy with him; men like Marcus Terentius, whose outspokenness, Dio says, met with the approval of Tiberius himself, Lentulus Gaetulicus, commander of the German legions, was charged with having betrothed his daughter to the son of Sejanus. He appealed directly to the emperor from the senate, and was at once accorded protection, and his accusers were punished. From the account of the executions that followed the fall of Sejanus, given us by Dio, we see that the accusations were made propria tnoiu by the senators and knights themselves without any urgency from Tiberius. He says : ' They condemned the men for doing exactly what they had previously consented to themselves. . . . Accusers were found mainly among those who had formerly most courted Sejanus. They best knew their likes, and found it no difficult matter to point them out and find evidence against them. Thus some became delators and witnesses to save themselves, or in hopes of receiving offices and rewards. For in the reign of Tiberius all delators obtained a share of the property of the sentenced, and rewards from the treasury, and also offices of honour. Indeed those who were specially ready to bring others into misfortune, or to bring the sentence of death on them, received statues and triumphal insignia, so that many respectable men declined these honours that they might not rank with such unworthy creatures. But these men were deceived in their expectations, for they were in their turn accused by others of the same crimes, and were put to death, partly on this account, partly as having betrayed their friends. All accusations Tiberius referred to the senate, so as to be himself blameless, and let the senate itself condemn to death, and they went to work right lustily capitally sentencing each other. But not only were 346 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS many of the delators brought to account, but also the witnesses were witnessed against by others, and the same judgment they had pro- nounced against others was pronounced on the judges themselves.' When Tiberius was a recluse at Capreae, bowed under his sorrows, and with a heart full of bitterness, he was no longer able to follow the trials that took place in the senate and courts of justice, and to judge how far these were promoted by a genuine desire to maintain the laws and punish wrong, and how far they were due to private resentment, to cupidity, and to adulation. Men like Macro, who rose into influence after the fall of Sejanus, exercised power because the emperor was infirm and failing, and they used this power to destroy their adversaries. Tiberius complained that the business of government was more than he had time and power to attend to. He may well have judged that if the nobles and knights of Rome were not able to protect their own lives and properties, then it was not his place to interfere. It was they who suffered, and it was they who inflicted every blow by which they suffered. And it was they who should defend themselves. No more impartial writer can be found than Philo the Jew; his sympathies were not enlisted on the side of the aristocracy or on that of the emperor. The testimony he gives to the character of Tiberius is valuable for that reason, and also because he was a contemporary. This is what he says of Tiberius — he is not speaking directly of him, but he alludes to him in reference to Caius. Caius, says he, 'suc- ceeded to ' an empire that was well organised, tending everywhere to concord; north and south, east and west brought into friendship; Greeks and barbarians united, soldiers and citizens linked together in the bonds of a happy peace.' He succeeded to a well-filled treasury 'in which was wealth of gold and silver, ingots and coins, cups, and other vessels of worth.' ' Tiberius was endowed with profound penetra- tion, and was the most skilful of all the men about him to read the secrets of men's thoughts.' 'Tiberius hated puerile flattery, and from his childhood showed a tendency towards gravity and severity.' Philo tells us with what equity and gentleness Tiberius treated the Jews. He speaks of the cruelties committed by Caius, the wanton murders and mutilations, as a new thing, as something unknown under Augustus and Tiberius. Early in the year a.d. 32, Tiberius crossed the narrow strait dividing Capreae from the Campanian coast, and proceeded towards A.U.C.78S. ^°^^- Thereupon a certain Togonius Gallus sought to A.D. 32. ingratiate himself with the emperor by proposing that a ^ • 73- body of twenty of the most illustrious senators should be appointed to bear arms and attend on the person of the prince, and defend him, whenever he entered the senate. Tiberius gently, but with irony, refused the honour. 'Who,' asked he, 'would be chosen? Who passed over? Was he always to have TIBERIUS 347 the same men to constitute his body-guard, or was there to be per- petual rotation? Were they to be young men or old, bowed down by years? Were they to be magistrates or otherwise? and then,' continued he, 'what a spectacle it would be to see these men draw their swords in the portico of the senate-house ! Verily, I do not hold my life of such importance that it need be thus protected.' Tiberius leisurely proceeded up the coast in a trireme to Ostia and then ascended the Tiber. Crowds lined the banks, the obsequious nobles and senators poured from the gates to meet him. But the old man, broken by disappointment, sickness, and years, shrank from encountering again the servile horde, and he retired to his gardens and villa on the Janiculan hill whence he could see the mighty city, divided from it by the yellow Tiber. This visit he made more than once, but never again set foot within Rome. That irresolution pro- bably still haunted him which had marred his whole life. He left Capreae intending to return to Rome, and then shrank from the worry, the adulation, the scramble for favours, the strain on his overtaxed powers, and after a short rest in his villa, returned in the trireme once more to the rocks of Capreae. ' This extraordinary proceeding, the effect of fear or disgust, caused no doubt deep mortification among the populace. It was followed by indignant murmurs, and petulantly ascribed to the foulest motives. Such, it was muttered, was the caprice, not of a princeps or an imperator, the child of law and organised government, but of a king ; such a king as ruled with despotic sway over the slaves of Asia ; such a king as, guarded in the citadel of Ctesiphon or Artaxata, despised all human feelings, and trampled on all principles, sporting, for his selfish pleasure, with not the lives only, but the honour of his miserable subjects. ... He slunk, it was asserted, from the sight of the good and pure to the obscurity of his detestable orgies ; he was the patron of panders, the sport of minions ; he was drunk with wine and drunk with blood ; the details which were freely circulated of his cruelty and licentiousness were coloured from the most loathsome scenes of the stews and the slave-market.' — (Merivale.) A word has been already said relative to the stories of the infamies of Capreae, but they must now be considered a little more closely. Tacitus himself allows that the life of Tiberius up to his fifty-seventh year was blameless and pure. As long as he was under the influence of Sejanus ' he observed a secrecy and caution in the gratification of his appetites,' that is to say, till he was in his seventy-third year. After the fall of Sejanus, however, ' he broke out at once into acts of atrocious villainy and revolting depravity.' It is certainly remarkable, relative fo his cruelty, that not a single name is recorded of any one put to death under his eyes at Capreae, except the surgeon and chamberlain who had poisoned his son. It is 348 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS hard to imagine wanton cruelty in an aged man who had always abstained with loathing from gladiatorial shows. The charge of dissolute morals is even worse substantiated. All accounts of the licentious abominations committed by Tiberius are referred to his life from his seventy-fourth to his seventy-ninth year, and to a time when he was suffering from the break-up of his constitu- tion and from continuous ill-health. All the scandalous stories refer to the retreat to Capreae. The Romans could not comprehend how a man should care to live away from Rome. To be away from the capital, its shows, its festivals, its scandal, was to be out of the world — death were preferable. The love of retirement, manifest in Tiberius when he went to Rhodes, that shyness which he was never able to cast off, weariness with the cabals of the capital ever reformed as fast as broken, combined to make Tiberius, as he felt his powers fail, and when troubled with physical disorder, seek a refuge out of the current of Roman life, where, nevertheless, he could control the course of public affairs. But a man of his temperament and reserve was so incomprehensible to the Roman society-man that he was driven to invent reasons satisfactory to himself to explain this voluntary banishment. The depraved imagination of Roman society,, together with personal hatred, combined to form a myth that enveloped the recluse, and completely obscured his true motives and conduct in his place of retreat. Moreover, we know that it was customary to attribute all kinds ol turpitudes to political enemies. As long as Tiberius lived among the Romans, and his entire life was public, it was not possible to blacken his blameless character ; but when he had withdrawn from view he became fair game for the libellers and scandal-mongers. Tiberius heard of some of the disgusting stories circulating concerning himself, and complained to the senate of them, and insisted on an investigation. Thus, much of the floating filth was taken into the public acts, and there Tacitus and Suetonius read these stories, and, finding them there, adopted them into their histories to spice them to the public taste. Dio says: 'As the Caesar searched out whatever had been said against him, he exposed to the public every conceivable kind of abomination, and all this was inscribed in the official protocols. . . . Thus, in punishing others for slanders against his majesty, he brought upon himself a great burden of libel, and made himself an object of general mockery.' In all this he was curiously irresolute and inconsistent : sometimes he scorned to take notice of the infamous tales and scurrilous verses circulating relative to him ; at other times he insisted on their being investigated and the circulators or authors chastised. But there are positive facts which make us doubt these odious stories. Tiberius had brought to Capreae the two boys, Caligula and TIBERIUS 349 Gemellus, to live there under his supervision. Moreover, there resided with him in his villa both Livilla and her daughter Julia ; also, after a.d. 35> the young wife of Caligula. Is it conceivable that the old man should have surrounded himself with his young relatives to witness his debauches? Suetonius himself tells us that when Caligula sought to indulge his disorderly appetites he had to disguise himself in a wig and mufHer, so as to slip out unobserved by the old man. And Philo, a contemporary, and one peculiarly likely to be well informed on the life at Capreae, explains the sickness of Caligula, after he succeeded to the empire, as due to the revulsion of habit, the indulgence in all kinds of licence, after ' the simple and wholesome mode of life ' in Capreae. Dio tells us that in a.d. 21 Tiberius banished the theatrical dancers from Rome because ' they wounded the respect due to women ' by their gestures and words. This implies that he was a man who abhorred grossness, and, in spite of sad experiences, held womankind in honour. The first to throw doubt on these narratives was Voltaire, and his words deserve quotation. 'I have often said to myself, in reading Tacitus and Suetonius : are all these atrocious extravagances attributed to Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero actual facts ? Can I believe, on the testimony of one man, who lived a long time after Tiberius, that the emperor, when nearly eighty years old, who had always lived a life decent to austerity — that this emperor spent his time at Capri in debauches which would have made a young rake blush? Can I be sure that he changed the throne of the world into a common stew in a manner unknown to the most dissolute youths? The abominations related of him are in their nature incredible. An old man, an emperor observed of all who approach him, with the eyes of the whole world fixed searchingly upon him, is he to be accused of such inconceivable infamy without proper evidence ? Where are the proofs produced by Suetonius? There are none. Who has ever seen an old judge, chancellor, archbishop, king, assemble about him a hundred attendants to partake with him in such abominable orgies, to be an object of ridicule, of contempt, to them ? Tiberius was detested ; and I am quite sure, had I been a Roman citizen, I would have hated him and Octavius, because both destroyed my republic. The hard and crafty Tiberius was execrated ; and because in his advanced old age he retired to Capri, it was at once alleged that he had gone there to devote him- self to the most unworthy debauches. But is the fact certain ? I have heard all kinds of horrible stories circulated relative to a great prince (the Duke of Orleans, Regent of France) and to his daughter, but I never beUeved them, and time has justified my incredulity. I can understand that every Roman had a republican soul in his closet, and that he revenged himself sometimes, pen in hand, for the usurpation of the emperor. I presume that the malicious {malin) Tacitus, and that 3SO THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS anecdote-collector Suetonius, tasted supreme satisfaction in decrying their masters at a time when nobody troubled himself to discuss the truth of what was told. Our copyists of all countries and at all times have repeated these baseless tales. They resemble not a little the his- torians of the Middle Ages who followed the dreams of the monks. These latter blasted the reputations of all the princes who did not give them great largesses, and so Tacitus and Suetonius set themselves to render odious the whole family of the oppressor Octavius.'^ XII.— THE DEATHS OF DRUSUS AND AGRIPPINA. We must go back to the trial and condemnation of Agrippina and her sons Nero and Drusus. Unfortunately we know no details of the 8 *"^^ ' ^^'■' '^'^'^'^g'^ ^^ 's probable that Sejanus had drawn on A.D. 29. the princes to their destruction, it is also probable that they Aet. 70. ^jj^ jjjgjj. jjjother had entered into some conspiracy against the life of the emperor with full knowledge of what they were about, Tiberius did not banish and imprison them till they had been brought before him personally, that he might convince himself of the reality of their guilt. Agrippina was conveyed first of all to Herculaneum, where there was an imperial villa, and there she remained under guard for some time. There also she was visited by Tiberius, when a scene of violence ensued ; she pcuring forth the pent-up fury in her heart in reviling the prince. Suetonius says that thereupon he 'caused a centurion to beat out one of her eyes ' — a most improbable story. That she may have been hurt whilst being restrained in her violence is probable, and so also is it probable that this was magnified by popular rumour. It was inserted by Agrippina the Younger in her Memoirs, whence Suetonius drew the story. In after years Caligula had the villa at Herculaneum levelled with the dust, and in the time of Seneca visitors were shown the spot where were strewn the fragments of the house in which the mother of Caligula suffered such indignities.^ From Herculaneum Agrippina was conveyed to Pandateria (Ponza), where she was retained as a state prisoner. Nero was sent to a neighbouring islet, and there died, having starved himself to death. Two years later came the fall of Sejanus, and Agrippina may have A.u.c. 784. entertained hopes that this would be followed by her release. AmIJ' -^"'"^"'■^ circulated among the people of Rome that the emperor was inclined to a reconciliation with her and her sons. But she was too deeply compromised for him to allow her liberty > ■ Le Pyrrhonisme de I'histoire ; ' in CEuvres de Voltaire. Paris. 1792 ; vol xxxvi p. 43 seq. ' Seneca .D« Ira, iii. 272. The author of the tragedy Octavia, a late contemporary of Suetonius alludes to the blows and chains which Agrippina endured, but says nolwng about her having been blinded in one eye. TIBERIUS 35* to return to Rome and begin again to weave the threads of intrigue. Tiberius in his own Memoirs lamented that Sejanus had drawn the young princes to ruin ; but only one was then dead — Nero, the eldest. Drusus was still alive, a prisoner on the Palatine hill- The continued incarceration of Agrippina and Drusus is only explicable on the supposi- tion that they had been too deeply implicated in the attempt on the life Fig. 77— DRUSUS, son of Germanicns !). Bust in the Capitoline Museum.' of the emperor for him to think of releasing them ; and, with respect to Drusus, there are grounds for supposing that he was deranged. The horrible revelation of the poisoning of Drusus, son of Tiberius, had been made ; and even if no evidence had been forthcoming to prove 1 No busts can be attributed with even approximate certainty to Drusus, son of Germanicus and Agrippina. There are, however, certain heads that certainly belong to the family from their likeness to the Claudian features. Among these is one in the Capitoline' Museum, Fig. 77 (Hall of Emperors), and another in the Lateran Museum that have a distinct individuality and resemblance, and a somewhat wild look. Tnese may be Drusus. 352 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS that Agrippina had been privy to this crime, yet the advantage the removal of the heir to the throne was to her and her sons was so obvious that, coupled with the exposure of the plot to rid them of him- self, there were grounds enough for his not releasing the turbulent woman from her place of confinement. Asinius Gallus, her confidant and kinsman, had been arrested at the same time as herself, or shortly after, and had been condemned to death by the senate ; but Tiberius, with his wonted benignity, A.ia. 33. had commuted the sentence into imprisonment, and he died Aet. 74. p£ starvation. ' That he perished by famine is undoubted,' says Tacitus ; ' but whether of his own accord or by constraint, was held to be uncertain.' Dio says that Tiberius, fearing lest he should commit suicide, had him watched by a praetor, ' not to prevent his flight — no, by Zeus ! but to prevent his death.' He says that food was served to him, but not of the most nourishing quality, and that he was denied permission to be visited by his friends and attended by his slaves. On his death Tiberius expressed his dissatisfaction, so that we may suppose he starved himself. The senate, in obsequious meanness, knowing how deep were the wounds this man had dealt Tiberius, were for forbidding him sepulchral rites ; but the prince interfered to suffer him to be buried with the honours due to his abilities and family. Then came the death of Drusus, one of the most tragic in the Annals of Tacitus ; and, if we accepted his story as it stands, it would stamp Tiberius as a monster of inhumanity. ' Soon after the death of Asinius Gallus ' — that is to say, in a.d, 33^ ' the light of Drusus was quenched, after having protracted his existence AUG 86 *° ^^ ninth day, by means of the wretched nutriment A.D. 33. ' afforded by the stuffing of his bed. Some have related that, Aet. 74. jj^ ^^gg SejanUs had attempted force, Macro had instructions to take the young man from his confinement and set him at the head of the people ; afterwards, because a report was circulated that the prince was about to be reconciled with his daughter-in-law and grandson, he chose rather to be accounted cruel than to have changed his purpose. Nay, even after death he pursued Drusus with invectives, charging him with abominable impurity, with a spirit breathing destruction to his family, and with hostility to the republic' A comment on this passage is advisable before proceeding further. It was, it would appear, reported that the emperor commanded the young prince to be placed at the head of the troops, should Sejanus attempt resistance. If so, then this looks very much as though Tiberius still regarded Drusus as heir to the throne. Again, the emperor complains of him— of this there is no doubt — that he had been guilty of vile moral disorders, and it was, in part, because of this abominable life that he had the young man put under restraint. And yet, if we may trust Tacitus and Suetonius, the aged man was at that very time guilty of the TIBERIUS 353 same vices which he condemned in the young man ! He had complained of the same thing in the case of Nero. It is, of course, possible that he may have resented immorality in others whilst immoral himself, but it is far more probable that the vile charges made against him were unfounded. That Drusus had 'a spirit breathing destruction to his own family' is not to be doubted. Tacitus admits as much ; he hated his brother, and conspired against him, and was on bad terms with his mother. After the death of Drusus, Tiberius ordered the minutes of his last days to be read before the senate. ' This,' says Tacitus, ' was thought a proceeding of unparalleled atrocity : that for so many years spies should have attended him, to note down his looks, his groans, his secret mur- murs ; but that his grandfather could hear the tale, read it, and expose it to the public, would hardly be credible, had we not the letters of Attius the centurion, and Didymus the freedman, recording the names of the slaves who struck him as he was' leaving his chamber, or terrified him with menaces. The centurion, moreover, recorded, as matter of special merit, his own language addressed to Drusus — language full of barbarity — and the words of Drusus when sinking under famine ; in which, at first feigning madness, he pronounced, as if in a frenzy, deadly denunciations against Tiberius, and afterwards, when all hopes of life had fled, he poured forth studied and deliberate imprecations, " that as Tiberius had slaughtered his son's wife,i the son of his brother, and his nephews, and filled his whole house with carnage, so might he pay to the uttermost the penalty of his crimes, in justice to his name, to the honour of his ancestors, and to posterity." The senators inter- rupted the reader with exclamations of assumed horror, but their hearts were charged with amazement, that he who had hitherto been so wary, and so careful to draw a dense veil over his iniquities, should have arrived at such a pitch of hardihood as to remove, as it were, the prison walls and reveal to all eyes his own grandson under the lash of a centurion, exposed to the violence of slaves, and in vain imploring the homeliest aliment of life.' Here, again, the narrative of Tacitus calls for comment. Drusus was next heir to the throne after the death of his elder brother. So long as he did not revolt against his great uncle, Tiberius had no reason for treating him with barbarity. The old emperor in this case acted differently from his wont. He gave the most minute and open narrative of all the circumstances attending the imprisonment and death of Drusus. This it is not possible to suppose he would have done had he thought that his conduct towards Drusus would call for animadversion. Tacitus gives us a hint as to what probably explains the incarceration of Drusus and the openness of Tiberius in exhibiting the minutes of his conduct whilst in prison. He says that Drusus 1 Livilla, the wife of Drusus, who had poisoned her husband, was not put to death by Tiberius. The prince sent her to her mother Antonia, who urged her to commit suicide. Z 354 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS feigned himself mad. There was insanity in the family. Agrippa Postumus had been a madman. Madness developed in the head of his own brother Caius. His mother's unreasoning hate and wanton violence are hardly explicable except on the supposition that she was not responsible for her acts. If we suppose that the low and re- pulsive vices to which Drusus was addicted had deranged a mind never sound, then the whole aspect of the story is changed. We can under- stand why, instead of being sent to an island, he was reserved under close supervision in the cells of the basement of the palace ; why a daily journal of his conduct was kept ; and finally why Tiberius did not shrink from having this read in public. The young man in his ravings had denounced him as the murderer of Germanicus, and so certain was Fig. 7O.— T I B E R I U S. Bust in the Mus. CapitoU Tiberius that no rational being shared in this judgment that he suffered this accusation to be detailed before the senate. There was, however, another reason why every particular relative to the death of Drusus should be published,— that no doubt might remain that he was dead. There had appeared recently in the provinces of Achaia and Asia an impostor, pretending to be Drusus, the son of Germanicus, who had escaped from his place of detention and was about to put himself at the head of the legions in Asia. The rumour produced the utmost commotion in the eastern provinces. 'There was,' says Tacitus, 'a likeness in the ages of the two men, and some of the prince's freed- TIBERIUS 355 men, as if they recognised him, attached themselves to him, but it was with the purpose of betraying him. He was attended by a crowd of young men, and eager partisans thronged to him, elated at his success, and full of airy hopes. At this juncture Poppaeus Sabinus was in Macedonia, and he had charge of Greece. To prevent further mischief he at once passed the bays of Torone and Therms, reached Euboea, passed along the coast of Corinth, and entered Nicopolis, a Roman colony. Here he learned that the man, on being shrewdly questioned, had allowed himself to be the son of Marcus Silanus ; and that, many of his followers having deserted, he had embarked as if for Italy. Sabinus sent this account to Tiberius, and further than this we have found nothing as to the origin and issue of the affair.' Tiberius had been troubled at the beginning of his reign by the appearance of a false Agrippa Postumus, and now took means to prevent another attempt at personation of Drusus after the failure of the venture of this Silanus. M. Junius Silanus, whose son the impostor pretended to be, was consul in A.D. 19. In A.D. 33, his daughter Junia Claudilla was given by Tiberius to Caligula as wife. Another daughter was a friend of Agrippina. The conduct of Tiberius towards the two princes, as represented by Tacitus, is capricious and unreasonable ; and Tiberius was not a man who acted on caprice and without consideration. On the death of Germanicus, Tiberius had recommended the boys to his son Drusus, who had shown them warm and sincere affection. When on January 7, a.d. 20, Nero assumed the toga virilis, the emperor distributed the largesses usual on such occasions, and the customary honours were given him — the office of priest, enrolment among the twenty men, and the function of quaestor, five years before the proper time. Then Tiberius married him to Julia, his own grand- daughter, thus paving the way to the succession. No less favour was shown to the younger brother Drusus, when he assumed the manly toga in A.D. 23. Medals were struck with portraits of the young Caesars beside that of Tiberius; and after the death of his only son the emperor commended the two princes to the senate, and be- sought them to consider them as his own sons. Numerous inscriptions in Italy, in Africa, in Spain, in Greece, testify to the general honour in which the princes were held, and to the general opinion that the succession was assured to them. But about A.D. 25 a change in the relations between Tiberius and the princes took place. Tacitus would have us believe that this was wholly due to the machinations of Sejanus, who lured them into rash speeches of treasonable nature, which enabled him to represent them to the emperor as engaged in treasonable practices, and so to effect their ruin. But it is not easy to accept this representation ; for, though it is quite certain that Tiberius did complain to the senate, after the fall of Sejanus, that the minister had caused the destruction of the two Fig. 79.— a G R I P P I N a MAJOR. Bust in the Mus. Chiaramonti, No. 369. TIBERIUS 3S7 princes, yet the incarceration of Drusus and the captivity of Agrippina were not relaxed after the death of Sejanus, which would assuredly have been the case had the emperor been satisfied that they were the innocent victims of a false accusation. The third brother, Caius, remained with him at Capreae, and was unmolested. The explanation of the conduct of Tiberius is far from being in- telligible, as reported by Tacitus ; indeed, it is an exhibition of un- reasonable caprice. If, however, we accept the explanation suggested, it becomes at once intelligible. That had come to pass which the dying Germanicus had feared. Agrippina had disregarded the last warnings and entreaties of her husband. Her wild passions, her unslaked resentment aroused by an imaginary wrong, her uncontrollable ambition, her pride and incapacity to restrain herself, had brought about the results Germanicus had antici- pated. She had plunged not herself only into destruction but also two of her sons and many of her friends. On her barren island she had time to think over the past, to review her own conduct. Her only Uving son was Caius, the ' Little Boots,' whom she had shown to the soldiers on the Rhine, and who had been their darling. This prince was now declared as the next successor to the throne. She was in her forty-sixth year — at that period of life when in women latent insanity is certain to break out. There was epilepsy in the family. Her brother Postumus had been a madman ; so her son Drusus ; and the same disorder threatened her son Caius. It is hard not to see — in the fixed idea of wrong done her by Tiberius, who in everything had sought her good, in her behef in the poisoning of her husband, and that the prince sought to poison her also when he offered her a ripe apple — the evidence of a disordered mind. The outbreaks of ferocity ^ were evidences of wild blood and seething brain. And now at this critical period of her life, when common sense would have told her that her uncle, in his seventy-fifth year, was rapidly failing, and that her own son would succeed him in the absolute sway of the world, she resolved to die. No persuasion would turn her from her purpose, not even force could induce her to swallow the food she had determined not to suffer to pass between her clenched teeth. Tidings of this strange caprice so resolutely pursued were borne to Tiberius, who ordered that she should be made to eat. But the will of the woman was strongest. She could not be made to swallow what was forced into her mouth, and she died, by her own free will. It need hardly be said that this rejection of food is one form in which the suicidal mania among the insane manifests itself. Agrippina died on the same day, October i8th, as that on which 1 The vioiA/erox, however, does not imply quite the same as the English derivate, or rather has not always an evil significance. For instance, in Tacit. Ann. i. 2, the ' ferocissiml ' are ' the boldest spirits.' 3S8 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS Sejanus had perished two years previously. The emperor ordered this fact to be registered in the state archives, probably desiring thereby to in- dicate that she had been guilty of treason as black as his. The day of her birth was by order of the senate decreed to be one of ill omen, on which no sentence of court might be pronounced. In the official record of her death it was entered that she had merited execution, but that by favour of the prince she had been spared this disgrace. Tiberius is said by Tacitus to have been base enough to have charged her with a criminal amour with Asinius Gallus. It is probable that the historian has misinterpreted the words of Tiberius, who accused her of too in- timate association with Gallus in treasonable plots. Gallus was consul B.C. 8, consequently must have been at least in his Both year when arrested, and that supposes him to have entered on his consulship at the earliest period he possibly could by law. He was, in fact, old enough to be the father of Agrippina. That she had intended to marry him, was the meaning of the strange scene in her sick-room described by her daughter Agrippina; but she designed to marry him not out of passion, but because he was calculated to serve her ambition, and because she could not have elected a man more distasteful to Tiberius. The body of Agrippina was burnt on the islet where she died. Five years later her ashes were brought with solemnity to Rome by her son Caligula, and were placed in the imperial mausoleum. In the courtyard of the palace of the conservators on the Capitoline hill is a white marble chest in the shape of a large die. On one side it has been sculptured with the heraldic insignia of some Italian noble ; but on the face remains the inscription — OSSA AGRIPPINAE ■ M. AGRIPPA {E ■ F-) DIVI • AUG • NEPTIS • VXORI (5) GERMANICI ■ CAESARIS MATRIS ■ C. CAESARIS • AVG. GERMANICI • PRINCIPIS. It is the chest that contained the ashes of this wonderful woman. ' With Agrippina expired the last hopes of freedom that had flashed thrice before the eyes of the Romans. The glory of love of freedom which had enhaloed Drusus was spread over Germanicus, and from Germanicus it was reflected over Agrippina, but always in feebler light. With Agrippina it was extinguished. But enslaved souls require dreams, and do not care to look reality too fully in the face. To speak the truth plainly, it was unreasonable to expect the restoration of the Republic from the grandchild of Augustus. To give that, she must have done violence to her blood, her origin, and the genius of her destiny. She attempted to deceive no one, she never enveloped her aims in false pretences, she showed her ambition conspicuously. TIBERIUS 359 Sejanus characterised her in two words : " inhiantem dominationi " — panting after rule.^ Clear-seeing Romans knew this and made no stir in her favour. They reckoned, at all events, on her virtues. But who can say, but that this imperial Cornelia would have proved herself unworthy of respect had she gained power ? Who will assert that her sons would not turn out worse than Tiberius ? Why should Nero and Drusus have become corrupt less readily than Caligula? Finally, Agrippina, be it remembered, was the daughter of one Julia and sister of another, both infamous for their dissolute lives. Had she gained supreme power, there were three dangerous elements in her that would have run riot : impetuosity, pride, and her natural temperament. Her impetuosity was such that it could not be controlled even in the face of danger. Her pride was never subdued. Her temperament was kept within bounds because she was exposed to the pressure of public opinion, and all the power she had she owed to the respect with which her moral purity inspired the citizens. She possessed in her nature those elements which, though under restraint, through the necessity she was in of imposing on the multitude, might, and probably would, have shot up, and bloomed in rankness, in the unwholesome sphere of supreme domination. Agrippina loved too dearly the sweetness of power to be able to resist its allurements and dangers.' ^ XIII.— THE LAST YEARS OF TIBERIUS. With the advance of age and infirmities, away from Rome, the emperor was unable to exercise a restraining hand on the judicial dis- orders in the capital. Perhaps he was unwilling. He had lost all his old and faithful friends ; he had become estranged from, and then lost his mother ; the man whom he had almost associated with himself in the government had dealt him the most deadly of blows ; the intrigues of Agrippina and her sons had alienated him from the remaining members of his house ; his daughter-in-law, who had lived under his roof since the death of Drusus, he had been forced to expel when he discovered that she had been implicated in the murder of her husband ; Caius Caligula, who was his companion, he saw was one unsuited to reign ; and he trembled for the fate of his grandson. Gemellus, when he caught the , malignant glance of the heir to the throne resting on the little boy. His best ministers were dead. Piso, prefect of the city ; Coccejus Nerva, his trusty minister of justice ; the noble-hearted Marcus Lepidus, the counsellor ' wiihout fear and without reproach,' as Tacitus designates him ; the gallant soldier, Poppaeus Sabinus, who for tWenty-four years 1 And Tacitus : ' Aequi impatiens, dominandi avida, virilibus curis feminarum vitia exuerat.' 2 Beuli, Le Sang de Germanicus. Paris, 1869. Fig. 8o.— TIBERIUS. Statue found at Veii, in the Vatican. TIBERIUS 361 had ruled the provinces — all were dead ; and the confidence he had had in selecting able and honourable men was broken. The only member of his family in whom he had any comfort was the aged Antonia, that admirable and blameless woman, the widow of his brother Drusus and mother of Germanicus, whom he visited occasionally in her villa at Tusculum, some fourteen miles from Rome; but the city itself he never re-entered, and when he sought her, or his Janiculan villa, he travelled by bye-roads to avoid the annoyance of being an object of attention and obsequiousness. One object of his visits to Antonia was the arrangement of marriages for her granddaughters. His former policy had been to weave together into one interest the Julian and the Claudian houses ; for that purpose he had married the sister of Germanicus to his only son, Drusus ; and Julia, the only daughter of his son, he had given to Nero, the son of Germanicus and Agrippina. In this he had pursued the policy of Augustus. But it had failed signally, and now he followed another course. To the great indignation of the Roman aristocracy, he gave his granddaughter Julia, the widow of Nero, to Rubellius Blandus,^ ' whose grandfather,' says Tacitus, ' was remembered by many to have been only a Roman knight from Tibur.' Drusilla, second daughter of Agrippina, he gave to L. Cassius Longinus, who had been consul in a.d. 30, a member of a distinguished plebeian family. Julia Livia, the third daughter, he married to Marcus Vinicius, an amiable and worthy man, a native of Gales, in Campania, and of no social or political . importance in Rome. The old emperor seems in the choice of husbands for the three princesses to have looked out for men of good character and ability, in no way mixed up with the factions of the capital. According to Roman law, the wife took the position of her husband and not that which was hers by birth. Consequently, Tiberius hoped by these unions to withdraw the female members of the two families from rivalry with the males, of whom now there were but three in addition to himself — Caius, Claudius, and Tiberius Gemellus. Towards the provinces Tiberius pursued the same admirable policy that he had initiated. The incessant change in the governors had occasioned great suffering to the provincials. He appointed as procon- suls and procurators men who were of tried probity, and maintained them in their places for life. ' It was part of the policy of Tiberius,' says Tacitus, under the date a.d. 15, 'to continue persons in offices, and for the most part to retain them in the same military authority, or in the same civil employments, to the end of their lives; with what view is not agreed.' Then follows a string of malevolent insinuations, 1 Rubellius Blandus was the only man who voted for mercy in the trial of Lutorius, when Lepidus proposed the commutation of his sentence to banishment ; that was in A.D. 21. Tacit. Ann. iii. 51. 362 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS so characteristic of Tacitus. ' Some think that he did it to save himself trouble, so he made a permanent job of what he had done once ; others think that he did it out of malevolence, to prevent many aspirants from reaping the benefits of office. Some also believed that he was irresolute and muddle-headed as he was cunning, and did it because he could not resolve what alteration to make.' That his policy was dictated by humanity to the provincials, and that it was one strongly recommended by the example of the great Caesar, Tacitus does not suggest. Anyhow, this was the system Tiberius never swerved from throughout his reign, and the result was that well-being, order, and tranquillity reigned in all the provinces of the empire. Another feature in the policy of Tiberius deserves notice. He had himself undertaken expeditions in Lower Germany beyond the Rhine, and had learned their arduousness and unprofitableness. Reluctantly he had suffered Germanicus to prosecute the scheme of thrusting the frontier forward from the Rhine to the Elbe ; but when Germanicus had lost two armies, and Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul were drained of men, and the treasury was exhausted, without prospect of compensat- ing advantages, Tiberius bade Germanicus withdraw, and thenceforth resisted every inducement to extend the bounds of the empire. The result was the consolidation of the possessions that Rome then had. The important province of Gaul rose under the rule of Tiberius to a condition of prosperity hitherto impossible. The Roman stations on the Rhine and Danube, no longer starting-points for ravaging parties, became centres of trade throughout Northern Europe, centres whence radiated civilisation. By prudent treatment, under men of integrity, Tiberius succeeded in consolidating the unwieldy mass of the empire and organising its government on equable principles. ' The amount of freedom and security enjoyed by the Jews under a Quirinius and a Pilate shows the general leniency of the Roman government at this period. The warm descriptions of provincial felicity by the Jewish authority Philo may be coloured to suit a purpose. Yet indications are not wanting in the writings of the Evangelists — which contain, abstracted from their religious significance, the most interesting record in existence of the social condition of antiquity, for they alone of all our ancient documents are the productions of men of the people to show that the mass of the population of Judaea was contented and comparatively happy under the rule of the Roman procurator. The Scribe and the Pharisee are held up to odium or contempt, not the minister of police or the instrument of government. The Romans are regarded in them as the protectors of the people against their domestic tyrants. The duty of paying them tribute is urged as the proper price of the tranquillity they maintain ; their fiscal officers are spoken of with forbearance ; the soldiers are cited as examples of thoughtful toleration ; the vice of the provincial ruler is indifference and unbelief rather than TIBERIUS 363 wanton violence ; and the tribunal of the emperor himself is appealed to as the last resort of injured innocence.' ^ It was the same on the Rhine. There Lentulus Gaetulicus was governor of Gaul and Germany, and he won what was difficult— simul- taneously the hearts of the soldiers and of the provincials — by his inflexible justice combined with suavity of manner.^ Inevitably he was attacked by a delator after the fall of Sejanus, for he had designed to marry a son of that great minister to his daughter. He could not return to Rome to answer the charge, and so he wrote to Tiberius. He said : ' I have never violated my allegiance ; I shall continue firm in it, if no plots are formed against me. If a successor be appointed to take my place, I shall regard it as my death-warrant. . Let me retain my pro- vince and the prince enjoy the empire.' They were bold, frank words, and the senate were aghast at the temerity of the honourable man. But this frankness pleased Tiberius, and the impeachment was stopped. In Rome there was a sudden recrudescence of accusations and executions three years after the fall of Sejanus, the reason for which is not given us. Tacitus paints uS a terrible picture of the scenes in Rome, but does not explain what produced them. a.ij. 31. He says that ' Tiberius ordered all who were in prison under ■^^'" '^'^' accusation of attachment to Sejanus to be put to death. There lay the countless mass of slain, of every age and sex, the illustrious and the mean ; some dispersed, others collected in heaps. Nor was it permitted to their friends or kindred to be present, or to shed a tear over them, or any longer even to go and see them ; but guards were placed around, who marked signs of sorrow in each, and attended the putrid bodies till they were dragged to the Tiber ; where, floating on the stream, or driven upon the banks, none dared to burn them, none to touch them.'^ Suetonius tells the same story, without accounting for this outbreak. He says : ' Not a day passed without the punishment of some person or other. Of many who were condemned, their wives and children shared the same fate ; and for those who were condemned to death the rela- tions were forbidden to put on mourning. Considerable rewards were voted to the prosecutors, and sometimes to the witnesses also. The information of any person, without exception, was taken; and all offences were capital, even speaking a few words, though without any ill intention. Some who were thrown into prison were not only denied the solace of study, but debarred all company and conversation. Many persons, when summoned to trial, stabbed themselves at home, to avoid the distress and ignominy of a public condemnation, which they were certain would ensue. Others took poison in the senate-house' (these others, by the way, resolve themselves into one man, whose case Tacitus narrates). ' The wounds were bound up, and all who had not expired were carried, half-dead and panting for life, to prison. Those who were 1 Merivale, v. p. 421. 2 Tacit. Ann. v. 30. ^ mil, vi. 19. 364 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS put to death were thrown down the Gemonian stairs, and then dragged into the Tiber. In one day twenty were treated in this manner, and amongst them women and boys.' Now, it is remarkable that of this massacre Tacitus speaks vaguely, and gives no names of any of the victims, contrary to his usual practice. We do not know whether the victims were tried in the senate or in the ordinary courts ; we do not know who were their accusers, or what the crimes charged to them, any more than who these victims were. It would seem as though Tacitus were summing up all the executions of a whole year, perhaps of more, into one picturesque passage to produce a startling effect. Suetonius obviously exaggerates, and he does not pretend to do other than group into one chapter the executions spread over several years. In the reign of William and Mary was published an anonymous work entitled The Bloody Assize, which purported to give a true account of the proceedings of Judge Jeffreys in the West, after the rebellion of Monmouth. Lord Macaulay, without much examination, adopted the statements of this work into his popular History, and rouses the indigna- tion of his readers against the barbarous cruelty of the judge and the king with whose permission he acted, and their compassion for the victims, whose number is variously reckoned as between 320 to 700. Recently Mr. Inderwick has published some strictures on both The Bloody Assize and Lord Macaulay's narrative of Judge Jeffreys' conduct; and as the most effectual answer to the accusations made against the judge, he prints the gaol-deliveries of that assize, which should com- pletely reverse the popular estimate of the judge. Now, we cannot altogether control the statements of Tacitus and Suetonius by the production of the gaol-delivery in Rome at this period ; but we can give the record of trials and sentences Tacitus has furnished us with; and though this record shows that a good deal of blood -flowed, yet it by no means proves to us that the amount was, for the times, enormous, nor that Tiberius was responsible for it. Of one thing we may be quite certain, that he has given us every case which could directly or indirectly be attributed to Tiberius.^ The method of Tacitus is this : — He asserts that Tiberius inaugurated an era of atrocious tyranny and a reign of bloodshed. Then he proceeds to give particulars. He collects all the trials for murder, for scandalous abuse of office, for slander, for adultery, and charges the unhappy prince with the suicides, banishments, and executions that were the consequence. In ten out of twelve of these cases there can be little doubt that the accused were guilty, but, because they were nobles, Tacitus thinks they should have been allowed to go scot-free. Moreover, most of the trials were due to private jealousies and spite among the senators, or to the growth of the i See Appendix II., Tacitus and Tiberius. TIBERIUS 36s hateful delatorship which had become a profession. Unless Tiberius interfered to hold the senators from flying at each other's throats, and stopped all delation, Tacitus considers him guilty of the miseries due to the social condition and to the abuse of the delatorial system. Suetonius is less scrupulous than Tacitus, he takes a single case and multiplies it into inany. One singular instance of his method deserves quotation. Seneca tells us to what an extent the wretched scoundrels who lived upon delation carried their audacity. At a banquet, a slave seeing that his master was becoming intoxicated, and observing that one of these professional accusers was at the table, drew from his master's finger his signet-ring on which was engraved the head of the prince. Afterwards, when the man was very drunk, the delator went round among the guests to obtain their written testimony that this tipsy nobleman had treated the portrait of Tiberius with coarse indig- nity. But the slave at this juncture stepped forward, opened his palm, and displayed the ring. There was accordingly no prosecution. Suetonius, however, had heard this story and he worked it up into his biography of Tiberius in this fashion. ' It was a capital crime to carry the prince's head stamped upon the coin or cut in the stone of a ring to a necessary place.' Again Suetonius says, ' He was guilty of many bar- barous acts, under pretence of strictness and reformation of manners.' When we look into the list of trials, we find that those coming in any way under this head were the stopping of the Oscan farces, and banish- ment of the actors, because of gross indecency, and of riots they had provoked in which lives had been lost. The praetors had complained repeatedly and in vain to the senate, till Tiberius interfered to stop the scandal, to the great disgust of the baser sort. To interfere with the gross and demoralising amusements of the people was counted as a ' barbarous act.' He also interfered in a case of adultery, and in cases of ill-treatment of provincials, and of a judge taking bribes, to prevent the guilty getting off too easily. And as the culprits were nobles, his intervention was regarded as ' barbarous.' Suetonius says, ' Not a day passed, not excepting holidays, without punishment of some person or other.' The highest number of trials was in A.D. 32, when there were twenty-four trials, and then there were but five executions. So far from it being true that punishments took place on holidays, we learn that Tiberius was incensed when trials were gone on with on such days. If there were executions on festivals, it was when he was away in Capreae. The one shocking case of the execution of the little daughter of Sejanus, Suetonius magnifies into many. He also charges it as a crime against Tiberius that 'those who were desirous to die were forced to live'— that he ordered food to be thrust into the mouth of Agrippina when she tried to starve herself, and that he sat with his friend Cocceius Nerva, who had resolved on suicide, and entreated him not to prosecute his intention. 366 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS Some years later, when Caius was on the throne, the mood came on him to tell the senate the plain truth about the executions in the preceding reign. He read out the names of all who had fallen, one by one, and told the senate that the guilt of the deaths rested on them, not on Tiberius, for it was they, he said, who had been the accusers, the false witnesses, and the judges who had pronounced seiitence. With ruthless frankness he'read out all the particulars from the official docu- ments. 'You behaved,' said he, 'like madmen. You it was who first puffed up Sejanus by your inordinate flatteries, and then ruined him.' XIV.— THE POLICY OF TIBERIUS. The Roman Constitution, as Mommsen tells us, was an arch in which the king was the ' keystone. The keystone had been knocked out, and the constitution had gone to pieces. Julius Caesar had en- deavoured to reconstruct it. Augustus had succeeded in doing so. The keystone was back in its place. But neither Caesar nor Augustus desired to make of the Roman state a despotic autocracy. No more did Tiberius. He claimed to be prince of the senate. 'Conscript fathers,' said he once to the senate, ' I have often said, both now and at other times, that a good and useful prince, whom you have invested with absolute power, should be the servant of the senate, of the whole body of the people, and often of individuals as well. I am not sorry 1 said it.' His plan, set before himself from the outset, was that of keeping in his hands the reins of the government of the provinces, not, how- ever, independently of the senate, and of relinquishing to the senate the internal management. He loyally held to this course as long as possible, but the people, ' ready for slavery,' would thrust on him work of which he desired to be relieved, and the senate proved incompetent, or unworthy of the trust reposed in it. The times were monarchically inclined. Tiberius refused the title of Imperator in the sense in which it had been borne by Augustus. He refused that of 'Father of his Fatherland,' repeatedly urged on him. He refused to be entitled ' Lord ' (Dominui). ' I am lord,' said he, ' over slaves only, emperor only over soldiers ; I am but first {princefis) among my fellow-citizens.' He would use the name of Augustus, that had legally descended to him, in his letters to foreign potentates only. ' He did not carry himself much above the level of a private person ; and of the many honours offered him he accepted but few, and such as were very moderate. He forbade temples and priests to be appointed for him, as likewise the erection of any statues of himself, without his permission, and such he allowed only on condition that they were used ornamentally, and not placed among the images of the gods. He held TIBERIUS 367 flattery in such aversion that he would never suffer a senator to ap- proach his litter as he traversed the streets, either on business or to pay him a civility. And when a man of consular rank, in begging his pardon for some offence he had given him, attempted to throw himself at his feet, he started back in such haste that he stumbled and fell. If a compliment were paid him in conversation or in a set speech, he would interrupt and reprimand the speaker and bid him alter his ex- pression. Being once called " lord " by some one or other, he desired that he might never more be so affronted. When another, to excite veneration, called his occupations " sacred," and a third had used the ' expression, " By your authority I have waited on the senate," he obliged them to change their phrases, in one of them adopting " persuasion " instead of " authority," in the other " laborious " in place of " sacred." ' If, towards the end of his reign, circumstances compelled Tiberius to act somewhat despotically, it was due to the senate alone, not to any change in his design. ' Such was the pestilential character of the times,' says Tacitus, ' so contaminated by adulation, that not only the chief nobles, but consulars and such as had been praetors, and even many of the inferior senators, strove to surpass each other in the ful- someness and extravagance of their proposals. It is said that Tiberius as often as he left the senate would exclaim, " O men, fitted for slavery" {O homines ad servitutem parati).' That he was in earnest in his endeavours to restore the legislative power to the senate, and to reserve to himself only the position of president of a republic as far as Italy and Rome were concerned, appears from his conduct throughout. Tacitus says of the ninth year of his government : — ' All the public, and even private, business of moment was managed by the senate : to the leading members was allowed liberty of debate ; those who fell into flattery, he himself checked. In conferring preferments he was guided by merit, by ancient nobility, renown in war, and distinguished civil accomplishments, insomuch that it was agreed that none had better claims (than those he advanced to positions of trust). The consuls and praetors retained the usual distinctions of their offices ; inferior magistrates the exercise of their authority ; and the laws, except those for treason, were beneficially administered. The tithes, taxes, all public moneys, were managed by companies of Roman knights ; the management of his own estates he committed only to men of eminent probity, and to some known to him only by their reputation. When once engaged, they were retained in office without any restriction of term ; and most of them grew grey in the same employments. The people were indeed distressed by dearth of pro- visions, but through no fault of the prince : nay, he spared no possible expense and pains to reijiedy the effects of barrenness in the earth or storms at sea. He took care that the provinces should not be oppressed 368 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS with new impositions; and that the existing burdens should not be rendered intolerable by rapacity or severity in the magistrates. Corporal punishments and the confiscation of goods were unknown. Caesar's lands in Italy were small, and thinly scattered; the behaviour of his slaves modest; the freedmen in his house few; his disputes with private individuals determined by the courts and the law.'^ Tacitus pretends that there was a change in his government after this year, not all at once, but gradual. We may ask, in what particulars ? Certainly there was none in his management of foreign affairs. Tacitus means in his relation to the home government. Suetonius says something of the same sort of thing. 'He assumed the sovereignty {principatus) by slow degrees, and exercised it for a long time with great variety of conduct, though generally with a due regard to the public good. At first he only interposed to prevent ill management. Accordingly, he rescinded some decrees of the senate ; ^ and when the magistrates sat for the administration of justice he frequently offered his services as assessor, either taking his place promiscuously among them or seating himself in a corner of the tribunal. Should a rumour reach him that such and such a person under prosecution was likely to be acquitted because he was in favour with himself, he would suddenly appear in court, and from the floor, or from the praetor's bench, remind the judges of the sanctity of the laws and their oaths, and of the nature of the charge brought before them.' ^ The senate consisted of about five hundred members, most of whom had served in some ofl5cial capacity. They were no longer all Romans by birth, but there were many admitted from the most distinguished citizens of municipal towns and colonies. The emperor, the consuls, the praetors, and the tribunes of the people, all exercised the right of convoking the senate. At the ordinary sessions the emperor presided only when he was consul, at the extraordinary meetings the consul or praetor who had summoned it. The senate exercised authority over a wide sphere. It controlled the public treasury, and had assumed the power to try and punish its own members and their retainers. It was therefore a privileged court, as one of peers. It claimed as well to be a judicial court in all cases of treason, and in all charges of maladministration of provinces and misappropriation of funds. The legislative power, formerly possessed by the assemblies of the people, had been practically transferred to the senate, and the appointment of many of the public offices was in its hand. The senate also dealt with all cases relative to public worship. Tacitus gives an instance in which several Greeks were tried before it on a charge of having paid divine honours to their grand- father, who had not been authoritatively canonised. The senate elected 1 Tacit. Ann. iv. 6. '^ Exercising, as he was justified by law, his power of veto. ' Suet. Tiber, 33. TIBERIUS 369 to the colleges of priests, ordered religious festivals, and saw to the building of temples. It ordered triumphs to generals, and even to princes of the imperial house. In all these particulars concerning internal government, Tiberius left the senate free to act, and he even strengthened and enlarged its powers.^ But the senate was constantly endeavouring to shift upon him those duties which were likely to be attended by disfavour. A case in point was a sumptuary law proposed by the aediles. The object was to restrain the luxury of the wealthy, or rather this was the apparent object; it was brought forward very much as a bit of display of zeal for ancient simplicity, to catch the approval of the unreflecting rabble. The senate, instead of passing or rejecting the law, referred it to Tiberius, and fortunately Tacitus has preserved his letter there- on, which exhibits in a strong degree the calm good sense of the emperor, as well as lays bare the manner in which the senate en- deavoured to throw on him the blame of all the stupid things they did. Tiberius began by saying that it would have been more suitable had the law been proposed in regular form in the senate and he had been called on to express his opinion there as one among manyj then he added that before introducing this law, if the aediles had consulted him, he would have advised them to have nothing to do with the attempt to restrain luxury. 'For where is the limit to be fixed?' he asked. 'What is to be prohibited? Extensive country seats ? a multitude of servants drawn from various countries ? pictures, statues, works of art? or vestments worn by men and women? Or where is the line to be drawn in ladies' decoration? in precious stones?' Then he goes on gravely to point out that already many sumptuary laws had been passed and had failed in their object ; then to show that the old simplicity in which the ancient Romans lived was agreeable to the then condition of society, but that now Rome was an empire with commerce over the seas to foreign lands, and that, consequently, foreign articles must find their way into the houses of the Roman citizens. To attend to the encouragement of commerce 'is a duty, conscript fathers, that devolves on the prince. If it be neglected, ruin to the state will ensue.' Then he strikes at once at the true nature of the proposed law : the aediles sought popular applause when introducing their measure, and wished to leave to the emperor the task of seeing that it was carried out. The conclusion of his letter is too fine to be omitted. 'If any magistrate, confident in his own strictness of principle and energy, will undertake to stem the progress of the evil, he has my ready praise, and my acknowledgment that he is relieving me of a good portion of my burden ; but if these men seek merely to declaim against abuses, and, when they have gained applause by so doing, to leave to me the odium of carrying out their measures, then, conscript fathers, I 1 Suet. Tiber. 30. 370 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS beg you will believe my word when I say that I am not fond of giving offence. I am willing to encounter heavy, and for the most part un- merited, hatred, for the good of the commonwealth, but I deprecate saddling myself with such laws as are uncalled for and superfluous, and which can do no possible good to me or to yourselves.' ^ On another occasion, Caecina Severus brought forward a bill to forbid a magistrate taking his wife with him when he entered on the government of his province. He argued, what was true enough, that the wives egged on their husbands to oppress the people, and formed cliques and stirred up quarrels. This brought Drusus, son of Tiberius, to his feet. ' I myself have made a progress to Illyricum. I would not have done so contentedly if I had been torn from my wife, who is most dear to me, and by whom I have so many children.' The matter was referred to the emperor, and at the next session the senate received a letter from him indirectly rebuking it ' for casting upon him all the public cares.' ^ The behaviour of Tiberius towards the senate was prudent and moderate. He did not object to an open and honest expression of opinion contrary to his own, and not infrequently found himself in a minority.^ Investigations into criminal charges, even when the cases were brought before himself, he referred to the senate. Poor and worthy senators, unable by theii loss of means to maintain their position, and ashamed to appear in the senate-house, he assisted with grants of money. If they were in debt, he saw that the money went to satisfy their creditors. Unworthy members of the house, notorious for their scandalous living, he expelled from it. In all outer forms he showed a deference that was almost exag- gerated, and would have been mere hypocrisy unless we take him at his word, that he desired the senate to be his constitutional fellow- helper in the government of the State. ' He never entered the senate- house but- unattended; and being once brought there in a litter, because he was indisposed, he dismissed his attendants at the door. When some decrees were passed contrary to his opinion, he made- no complaint. When he proposed to the senate that the Trebians, who had some money left them by a will to build a new theatre,, might be empowered instead to spend the money in making a road,, he could not prevail on the assembly to set aside the direction of the testator. And when, upon a division of the house, he went over to the minority, nobody followed him. . . It was observed that he would rise in his place when the consuls approached, and give them the way. He reprimanded consulars in command of armies for not writing to the senate an account of their proceedings, and consulting him instead. He attended the corpses of some persons of distinction to the funeral pile. He displayed the same moderation with regard to persons and ' Tacit. Ann. iii. 53, 54. 2 /aa. iU. jx 3 fUd, ii. ^i. TIBERIUS 371 things of inferior positions. To some governors, who advised him to load the provinces with taxes, he answered : " It is the part of a good shepherd to shear, not to flay, his sheep." ' The older Tiberius grew, the more repugnant to him was the adulation of the nobles, never put to the blush by rebuff. He knew that these men who bowed and scraped to him would, if they dared, have torn him with their teeth, to use the expression of Dio. It was inexplicable to the demoralised Roman that he turned with disgust from flattery, and Tacitus thinks it displayed an abject spirit in him that he sternly refused divine honours. He withdrew from the capital and from the senate in despair of both, and if delation and executions and suicides multiplied after he was in Capreae, it was because he was not present to interfere between the victims and their judges. He was almost pedantic in the strictness with which he held to law, and he may have suffered in some cases law to take its course when the result was injustice. But how great a stickler he was for legality appears in his conduct towards Decius Silanus, who had debauched Julia, granddaughter of Augustus, daughter of his own wife, Julia. When the conduct of Julia had come to the ears of Augustus, he had forbidden him his house, and refused him his friendship. Thereupon Silanus retired into exile. Afterwards, in A.D. 20, his brother, Marcus Silanus, pleaded with Tiberius for his recall. The emperor at once replied that Decius was at liberty to return, as he had not been banished by a decree of the senate, nor by any law. Accordingly Decius did return. Tiberius refused to admit the man to his house and friendship, and he remained excluded from all honours, but quite unmolested. The retirement of Tiberius to Capreae was a token of weakness, of abandonment of a design he had formed when in full vigour of manhood ; but it is excusable: he was, as Tacitus says, ' nauseated at the crouching tameness of these slaves ; ' he had met with disappointment in his social and political schemes of regeneration for the Roman people, and in his own household he had encountered naught save sorrow. He was weary of a struggle that led to nothing — the motive for work was gone. He could not look to founding a dynasty, nor to inspiring old institutions with new life. It is hardly in the nature of any man to struggle on without hope of some sort to animate him. He had no confidence in Caligula : he was sure the young tiger would murder his grandchild, the only representative remaining of his race, young Tiberius Gemellus. The tears came into his eyes one day as he caught Caligula looking at his cousin, and he said, ' Thou wilt kill him some day, and another will slay thee.' ^ He knew the character of the man who was to succeed him. ' You will have all the vices of Sulla, and none of his greatness,' said he once. The old man endeavoured to soften and ' Tacit. Ann. vi. 46. 372 THE TRAGEDY OF tHE CAESARS brighten the gloomy and hard nature of the young man by encouraging him to pursue music and dancing, but it was in vain. The picture of Tiberius, as presented to us by Tacitus and by Suetonius, is one full of contradictions. It shows us a man who did the noblest but also the foulest acts. It can be a true picture only if we suppose that he who was a great and good man became deranged, and yet, even that supposition is not to be reconciled with the even and wise manner in which he directed the foreign policy. If we allow that Tacitus and Suetonius have suffered themselves to be misled into attributing to him the crimes committed by the senate, and into per- verting the significance of many of his acts, then we obtain a perfectly intelligible and explicable record of a man of noble aspirations, tender heart, sincere desire to do his duty, pursuing his course in the midst of every discouragement, dogged by slander and misapprehension of his purpose at every step, till he sank under years and infirmity, when all the evil that had festered in the rotten social and political system came to a head, and all the pains and fevers it produced were charged upon him by those who were in reality to blame. That is a consistent picture, the other is not. It is true that there are incongruities in every man's conduct, but surely not such as are represented as having existed in that of Tiberius. We may allow that a man never wholly fulfils his ideal, falls miserably short of it, but such a monster as Tacitus paints for us is an impossibility. The dislike the nobility felt for him was deepened by the dislike with which he turned from them. ' He remained unmoved at all the aspersion, scandalous reports and lampoons that were spread against him and his relations, declaring that in a free state tongue and mind ought to be free. Upon the senate's desiring that some notice should be taken of these offences, a;nd the persons circulating them, "We have not much spare time," said he, " and so need not involve ourselves in additional business. If you meddle with that, every one will be bringing up his private quarrels before you." ' There is also on record another unassuming saying of his in the senate, 'If one speaks ill of me, I shall take good care to behave in such a manner as to be able to give a good account of my words and acts, and so confound him. If he still persists, why then I shall think it is my turn to hate him.' ^ Suetonius quotes some anonymous verses written against the prince. Tiberius had them read to him. He knew who they were who wrote, or, at all events, passed these lines round from hand to hand. 'Let them hate me, so long as they do but approve my conduct ' — Oderint dumprobent, said he sadly, at each fresh exhibition of the rancour with which those ' impatient under the discipline of reformation,' attacked him.^ That these libels pained him Tacitus tells us : 'He was exasperated by the publication of satirical verses written by unknown authors, ex- ^ Suet. Tiber. 28. 2 mg,^ jg^ TIBERIUS 373 posing his cruelty, his pride, his dissensions with his mother,' but he never revenged them. In the tenth year of his reign he pardoned the Roman knight Cominius, who was prosecuted on this charge. Once, as we have already heard, stung to the quick by these insulting and gross attacks on his character, he declared that he would have the truth or falsehood sifted out in public, but he abandoned the intention when he became cool. The consul Fufius, a man of caustic wit, had been ' used to play upon Tiberius with cutting pleasantries,' which he produced before Livia, and which she also circulated after her quarrel with her son ; but Tiberius took no more notice of these than by an allusion in a letter to the senate of the mischief done by old ladies encouraging men to hang about them. As late as A.D. 35, two years before the death of Tiberius, Fulcinius Trio, who had been a creature of Sejanus, having been attacked by a number of informers, committed suicide, but, beforfe doing so, gratified his malignity by inserting in his will a string of abuse of the emperor. The heirs were so alarmed that they would have suppressed the will, but Tiberius, on being informed of the circumstance, bade them not hesitate to publish it. Among other things Trio had written that the emperor ' was reduced to a condition of mental imbecility from old age,' and sneered at his retirement in Capreae as a sort of disgraceful exile. But Tiberius complained of a good many of the scandalous stories circulated, though he never had the authors punished ; and it was by this means as already said, that the libels were preserved in the records, and it was thence that the writers of half a century later drew their ■ material for representing Tiberius in so bad a light. How eagerly and uncritically stories were taken up and believed, if they served to deepen the colours of the painting, may be instanced from Dio. He says that an architect came to Rome who successfully set up- right a public edifice that was leaning. Instead of being rewarded for what he had done, Tiberius banished him. But, unable to accept his banishment, he came to Capreae to plead his case with the emperor, and in the interview held a glass vessel in his hand ; this he purposely let fall, and it was broken. He picked it up, squeezed together the broken edges, and, lo, the glass was made whole as before ! Thereupon Tiberius ordered him to immediate execution ! — a folk-tale told every- where, and at all times. It is told also of Nero, and is true of neither. How this story originated we find from Pliny the Elder, who says that in the reign of Tiberius a sort of flexible glass was invented, but as it was thought that this discovery would injure the trade of the manu- facturers of vessels in bronze and other metals, the workshop of the ductile glass-makers was closed and the manufacture stopped. This was clearly done by order of the senate. The blame of stopping the manu- facture was transferred to the emperor and a cock-and-bull story added. 374 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS If we accept the stories of Suetonius and Tacitus of the dissolute morals of Tiberius in his old age, then we must suppose that he was deranged. That is an easy method of reconciling the contradictions of the historians. But before accepting these stories we may well ask for some better evidence than Roman gossip and lampoon, and there is no other on which the historian and the biographer based their charges. And, before pronouncing Tiberius to have been insane, we must have better grounds to go on than the desire to save the reputation of Tacitus and his jackal. There was derangement in the Juhan, not in the Claudian stock. XV.— THE DEATH OF TIBERIUS. The health of the emperor was failing rapidly, and in Rome the senatorial party were eagerly awaiting the news of his death. Already Macro and others of his attendants were labouring to in- A.D.' 37. ' gratiate themselves with Caligula, and were somewhat Aet. 78. jgj^jgg jjj their attentions to the feeble old man. ' I see,' said he, ' venerating the rising, and turning your backs on the setting sun.' Feeling his end approach, he made an effort to visit once more the aged Antonia at Tusculum ; she was the grandmother of Caligula, and he had doubtless many matters he desired to communicate to her. On his way back to Capreae he fell sick at Astura, not far from Antium, and w£is feverish. Recovering somewhat, he pursued his journey to Circeii. Accustomed to great self-control, on his way he attended festivities inaugurated in his honour, and even flung a dart from his lodge at a boar let loose in the arena. Soon after, however, he was worse, suffered from an attack of colic, and as a bitter March wind was TIBKRIUS,=VipsANlA b. 712, +790. Agrippina, div. 743, +773- Drusus= Antonia b. 716, +745- Tninoff b. 718, +790. Drusus=Livilla, +784. b. 741, +776. Tiberius Gkmellus, *• 772. +790. Nero=Julia: son of +796. Germanicus. *• 759> +784. :RUBELLIUS BlANDUS, mar. 786. KUBELLIUS PlAUTUS, +Sis- TIBERIUS 375 blowing, and he was bathed in a cold perspiration, he was forced to retire and take to his bed. He was able, however, to get as far as Misenum, and refused to alter his ordinary way of life, and even occupied his usual place at table. It was his habit after dinner to stand, and with a courteous speech to say farewell to each of his guests in order. Though very ill, he insisted on doing this as was his wont, 'his dis- simulation not failing him,' is the characteristic sneer of Tacitus. ' He Fia. 8i. — TIBERIUS, as Fontifex Maximus. Bust found at Capri, in the British Museum.^ exhibited the same inflexibility of mind, the same energy in his looks and discourse; and even sometimes by affected vivacity tried to hide his decaying strength, though too manifest for concealment.' ' Charicles, his physician, as if departing to attend to his own affairs, took hold of his hand under pretence of leaving, and in doing this felt his pulse. But Tiberius detected what he was about, and at once 1 The nose of this bust has been badly restored with some yellow material and given an absurd shape. The aquiline form would be accentuated by age. 376 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS returned to table and continued the entertainment ; whether incensed, and endeavouring to conceal his displeasure, is uncertain.' He pro- bably knew what use Charicles would make of his observation. The physician, in fact, rushed off to Macro to inform him that the old man's life was fast ebbing away. The news was spread through the whole court, 'And all was bustle and consultation, and expresses sent flying to the generals and armies.' He retired to his room, feeling weak and exhausted, and bade Evodius, the most confidential of his freedmen, bring his two grand- children to him betimes the next morning, that he might address them before he died. After having given this direction, he prayed the gods to make known to him by some token which of the two they destined to succeed him. For the old man's mind was perplexed, knowing the evil nature and crazed head of the elder of the princes, and knowing also how impossible it would be for the boy Gemellus to maintain himself at the head of affairs. Accordingly he asked that the sign of the will of the gods should be that he who was called to empire should first enter his room. Then, so goes the tale, in his anxiety to control, if possible, the decree of the gods, he bade the tutor of Gemellus make sure and bring his charge to him as early as possible. But the younger boy, dawdling over his meal, was forestalled by Caligula, who first entered the room of the dying man. Tiberius received the token with a sad heart, and said to Caius, ' My son, although Tiberius (Gemellus) is nearer to myself than you are, yet both of my own choice, and in obedience to the gods, I commend the empire of Rome into your hands.' Then he earnestly adjured the truculent lad to love his young and unprotected kinsman, and enforced his words by a solemn warning of the perils of the position to which he was about to be raised, and the punishments which the gods send on the ungrateful.^ It was the desire of the dying man to be carried to his peaceful island home, but unfavourable weather, and his rapid failure of power, rendered this impossible. The day was the i6th of March, and Tiberius was in his seventy-ninth year. After this interview with the boys he fainted, and a whisper ran through the villa in which he was that the emperor had ceased to breathe. The courtiers rushed along the corridors to find and con- gratulate Caligula, who at once issued from his chamber to seize on the ensigns of power. Then came a second report: the sick man had recovered, and was calling to his attendants for nourishment. The con- sternation was universal ; the courtiers scattered like chaff, the expres- sion on their faces altering instantaneously. Caius himself stood for a moment speechless, in expectation of immediate punishment. It was the scene in Henry iv. enacted centuries before. The old emperor ^ Joseph. Ant Jnd. xviii. £-q. TIBERIUS 377 took off his signet-ring and held it for a little while, as if about to present it to Caius, but hesitated, then replaced it on his finger, and lay for a while motionless, with hands clenched, in thought. Then suddenly he called for his attendants, and not receiving an immediate answer, raised himself with a last effort, and fell lifeless on the floor beside his bed. This is the account of Seneca, a contemporary. But, according to Tacitus, on the recovery of the dying man from a fainting fit. Macro whispered to Caius, 'Heap more bedclothes on him and leave him.' Suetonius mentions the report that he was murdered, and adds an additional touch of horror. Caius tried to get the signet off the dying man's hand, but as Tiberius kept his fingers clenched he threw a pillow over his face, and with one hand clutched the old man's throat and held it till he expired. He ordered a freedman, who had seen what he did, to be crucified, i Side by side in the Louvre are two pieces of statuary, the one a bust of Tiberius, the other a statue of Livia as Ceres, and the re- semblance between mother and son must strike the most cursory observer. From her he derived his beauty, and only second to him in this particular, as Valerius says, was his brother Drusus. He was tall and splendidly proportioned, broad-breasted and broad-shouldered. A defect he had, if it be a defect, he was left-handed, and consequently his left hand was a little larger than his right. ' His joints were so strong that he could bore a sound apple through with his finger, and take a piece of flesh off the head of a boy or young man with a fillip. He was of a fair complexion, and wore his hair long behind, so that it covered his neck, which was observed to be a distinguishing mark affected by his family. He had a handsome face, but it was often covered with pimples. His eyes, which were very large, had a remarkable faculty of seeing in the night-time, for a short while only, and immediately on awakening out of sleep ; but they soon grew dim again. He walked with his neck stiff and upright, generally with a frowning countenance, and, for the most part, in silence.' The frown was no doubt caused by his eyes being unable to bear a strong light. ' When he spoke to those around him it was very slowly, and usually accompanied with a slight gesture of the fingers. All which being disagreeable habits and tokens of arrogance' (or supposed to be so) 'were remarked by Augustus, who repeatedly excused them as best he could to the senate and people as natural defects, not proceeding from viciousness of mind.' ^ The elder Pliny also speaks about the peculiarity of the vision of Tiberius. He says, ,' This Caesar alone among all men ha.d the faculty of seeing for a few moments after waking in the night, as clearly as by day, but soon after all grew dark again.' ^ The , Emperor Julian, in his satire on the former emperors, mentions the outward appearance of 1 Suet. CaHg.T.2. = Suet. Tiber. 4,8. 3 mst. Nat. xi. 37. 378 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS Tiberius as that of a man whose face was full of grave dignitys revealing the thinker and the soldier. 'In comparing the portraits of Augustus and Tiberius,' says M. Mayor, 'we observe essential differences. The skull of Tiberius is squarer. The expression is less false, less cunning {fin), but much more powerful. The width between the parietal bones— great in Augustus- is enormous in Tiberius. The nose is larger, stronger in structure, more blunted. The jaw is more powerful, more salient. The ears heavier and more projecting. The chin well marked, with a dent.' There remain over forty statues and busts of Tiberius, and we are able to form a very tolerable conception of the appearance of the emperor when in his prime of vigour and beauty. They all show us a singularly broad brow, lofty, the forehead advancing. The nose is finely moulded and thin, well bridged; the face wide at the cheek-bones, but thence rapidly narrowing to a small chin. The mouth is refined and beautiful, drawn back between the nose and projecting chin. The skull is flat, or with a very low arch, and in this it is as different as possible from the head of Julius Caesar. The flatness of the skull is sometimes disguised by the hair being heaped up on the top, or by a civic crown. The width in the head of Caesar was between the ears ; that in Tiberius is between the temples. The brows are not arched, but straight, except in early youth. There was no attempt made by the artists to Graecise the face of Tiberius, which diverges widely from the Greek type of beauty. He was repre- sented in the fulness of manhood long after he had begun to be old, but no attempt was made to rectify the angles of his face and to straighten his nose into line with the brow. The lower lip retreats, and is small. There is no projection of the upper lip. Indeed, the breadth of brow, the rapid narrowing to the small chin, and the peculiar mouth, are the three characteristics of the head of Tiberius that dis- tinguish it. Looking at the busts, as a physiognomist, one is impressed with the lack in the balance of the parts. The intellectual capacity is very great, but the small mouth and small chin indicate feebleness of purpose and over-sensitiveness. The lower part of the face is moulded like that of a nervous woman. There is in it the same indication of high culture as we saw in that of Julius Caesar. Of coarseness, of sensuality, of cruelty, there is not a trace. The lips are full of the expression of kindliness, but the kindliness is restrained by timidity. ' About the delicate mouth plays a smile of superiority, whilst, perhaps, hard thoughts slumber under the brows,' is the opinion of Bernoulli, which I do not quite share ; but he adds : ' The preponderating expression in the face is one of nobility, far removed from indicating such a character as Tacitus described.' That is true. And what if the Taciteian picture be a monstrous mis- representation ? Then we have a face and head in strict harmony with TIBERIUS 379 the Tiberius that has been described in these pages from the reluctant admissions of his detractors. In his bodily health Tiberius was sound, though in his youth there was a slight delicacy, which made Augustus and Livia anxious about him in his military campaigns. But strict dieting and regularity of life enabled him to overcome this weakness. He placed no confidence in doctors, and he was wont to say, ' Those are poor creatures who, after having passed their thirtieth year, need other advice than their own ex- perience to tell them what is good and what is bad for their own health.' The pride which so many believed they saw in his manner — he showed no pride in his conduct — was due to his natural shyness. How many at the present day are thus harshly and unwarrantably judged ! Timidity and reserve are easily misread. His awkwardness of holding himself and of address was due to the same cause ; in youth he was reprimanded for it, and what must have hurt him greatly, heard his adop- tive father apologise to the senate for it. There can be no question but that his wife Julia cast it insultingly in his teeth. He was at his ease only among students and philosophers, or in a camp. He never associated with ladies after his separation from Vipsania. The only exception to this was his visits of the worthy Antonia, whom he ever loved and respected for her virtues. But these visits were unfrequent. Perhaps he mistrusted women; he had certainly cause to do so. Precisely this want of other companions than men prevented him from acquiring ease. In the house of Augustus he knew that he was watched with suspicion ; even in exile he knew that spies surrounded him. When he became emperor, he knew that all he said and all he did were turned into mockery and cruelly perverted. He was driven to shut up his own thoughts and sorrows in his own heart. But this sense of being ever the observed with intent to take occasion against him increased his awkwardness. The nervousness that characterised him was perhaps due or due in part to the events of his earliest infancy, when as a babe in arms he was hurried from one hiding-place to another, now concealed in a bush, then carried through the flames of a burning forest. Thus he may have sucked in a sense of fear at his mother's breast. The flutter of the heart to which he clung may have permanently thrilled his nerves at an age when the infant is hardly an individuality apart from its mother. It was something of the same in the case of James i. of England, and vi. of Scotland. From Pliny we obtain a number of details about the diet of Tiberius ; how he liked to have a cucumber on his table at every meal, and how his gardener had a sort of glass-covered hot-bed on wheels for the cucumbers, that was rolled into the sun ; how he relished a vegetable which, from the description, must be taken as Brussels-sprouts, and a sort of parsnip from Germany, and a plant like an asparagus. Pliny was fourteen years old when Tiberius died, and it is remarkable 38o THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS that he who tells us so much of the cruelties of Nero says nothing of those of Tiberius. He calls him ' the saddest of men ' {tristissimus ut constat hominum), and an emperor devoid of sociability (tnininte comis). Once does he speak of him as cruel, and that in reference to his old age. ' Novellius Torquatus of Milan,' says he, ' who was advanced to be praetor and proconsul for his worth, was called a ten-bottle man, from his having emptied three congii of wine in the presence of, and to the great astonishment of, the Caesar Tiberius, who in his old age was severe, even cruel (in ,senect& Jam severo, atque saevo alias), but who in his youth was fond of his bottle. And it is supposed that Lucius Piso obtained of him his office of praefect of Rome from having stuck at table two days and two nights with the prince when he had already come to the empire. And it was the talk that Drusus Caesar resembled his father in nothing more than in being a hard drinker.' It will be noticed that Pliny speaks of these things as reports only. Seneca in his eighty- third letter probably gives us the explanation of this story when he says that Tiberius did not withdraw his confidence from worthy states- men, even though they were given to the pleasures of the bottle ; and the men he mentions in connection with this are the same Lucius Piso whom Tacitus speaks highly of for his uprightness, and Cornelius Cossus, the successor of Piso, of whom Seneca testifies so much that he never let slip any private or state secret when he was drinking. The story, however, in itself is a chronological impossibility. It is one of those in which we can bring our authors to book, and convict them of falsehood. Seneca merely mentions that Piso had a habit of drinking. Pliny tells the tale as a bit of gossip. In Suetonius it has become an undoubted fact. Pliny says that Tiberius, when already prince, spent thirty-six hours in a continuous drinking-bout with L. Piso and-Pomponius Flaccus, both of whom he rewarded for their prowess at the table, one with the province of Syria, the other with the praefecture of the city, straight off (confestim). But Piso at his death in a.d. 32 had been, Tacitus tells us, twenty years praefect of the city, so that * he owed his advancement to Augustus, and not to Tiberius. And Flaccus cannot have been appointed to Syria before a.d. 32, which makes the story absurd— that the prince rewarded the man then for a debauch which had taken place fifteen years before. It was in reference to the love of good wine by Tiberius in his youth that the wags called him Biberius Mero ; but he certainly broke himself of a habit that was never allowed to get the mastery over him, and in his old age he drank only Sorrentine wine, which he said was but a better sort of vinegar (generosum acetum), and which Caligula said was good wine turned sour (nobilem vappam). In diet he was frugal, and had food that had not been consumed on one day served up for dinner on the next. Once when half a boai was placed on table, and his guests tittered and looked at each other; TIBERIUS 381 'Why not?' asked Tiberius, 'surely half a boar is as good eating as a whole one.' He read his son D'rusus a lecture because he turned up his nose at a dish of cabbage served at table. A present of an unusually large barbel was given him one day. ' It-is too much of a dainty for me,' said Tiberius, and sent it to the market saying, ' If I am not out in my reckoning, either Apicius or Octavius will have it.' Both gourmands bid for the fish, and the latter secured it for a sum equal to £s° His love of vegetable diet he inherited from his mother. Of grapes he liked best an African kind that was hung up in smoke through the winter. As he was moderate in diet so was he in the decoration of his apartments. He possessed, however, a choice table of citron wood, such as it was a hobby of men to possess at that period, and ladies were wont to joke their husbands with the taunt that what jewels were to the fair sex that citron-wood tables and good furniture were to men. But Nomius, the freedman of the emperor, boasted himself of having a much handsomer table than his master. He took a fancy to the statue of an athlete cleaning his right arm with a scraper, by Lysippus, of which a copy is now in the Vatican, and which stood in the public baths of Agrippa. He removed it to his own palace ; but when the people murmured, and clamoured in the theatre for their beloved Apoxyomenos, he sent it back again. I will close this account with the words of Adolf Stahr, which seem to me as true as they are beautiful : — 'It was in his own family that misfortune first struck him, and afterwards pursued him through life. History shows us no sovereign who was so unhappy in his domestic relations as was Tiberius. Even as a boy he was placed in a difificult position, by the separation of his parents, and by his adoption into the imperial family, where he was regarded as an unwelcome intruder, and was surrounded by the dislike and exposed to the disrespect of the privileged members. His first happy marriage was violently broken, that a woman might be forced on him who brought shame and dishonour on his head. After this marriage was at an end he remained from his thirty-fifth year to the end of his days unmarried and alone. His only brother, whom he tenderly loved, the handsome, heroic Drusus, was taken from him by death. So also his only son, and he had to learn that the wife of this son had been his murderess, and further that the daughter of this son likewise betrayed her husband to Sejanus. His kinsfolk of the Julian branch, Agrippina and her sons, paid him with black ingratitude for all the care he took for them, and the unhappy old man had good cause when considering them, in more than one particular to liken himself to Priam.i The treachery of Sejanus finally filled up the picture of measureless misfortune and sorrow which is revealed to us when we 1 He would often say, ' Happy Priam, who survived all his children.'— Suet Tiier. 62. 382 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS consider this life, and which at moments drew from the restrained heart of the great sufferer a cry of despair, of doubt in gods and men. If the gloomy earnestness of his temper was intensified finally into con- tempt for mankind, the only wonder is that this took place so late. ' And yet one hope remained to him in the midst of the general misapprehension with which he was regarded, and that was — that futurity would judge him aright. " He cared far less," says Tacitus, "to please the generation in which he lived, than to stand well with posterity." Indeed, he spoke his hopes himself. "I would have posterity remember my acts. Posterity will do justice to my memory." His hope remained unfulfilled for eighteen centuries.' In the galleries of Rome, of Naples, Florence, Paris, one sees the beautiful face of Tiberius, with that intellectual brow and sensitive mouth, looking pleadingly at the passer-by, as though seeking for some who would unlock the secret of his story and vindicate his much aspersed memory. XVI.— PORTRAITS OF TIBERIUS. Medals. — i. A large bronze, struck at Lyons, a.d. 10, when Tiberius was aged fifty-one years; he is, however, represented as younger than this, and unshorn, probably in token of grief for the destruction of Varus and his legions the preceding year. 2. and 3. Medium bronzes, struck a.d. 34 and 36. Gems. — i. Paste. The heads of Tiberius and his mother, he with a laurel crown, and Livia crowned with corn and poppy heads. An admirable portrait, No. 158, Florence. (^Frontispiece, Y\g. 71.) 2. Two other gems, both good, of Tiberius, with wreath, Nos. 161 and 162. (Nos. 160 and 163, also Tiberius, are unimportant. All these at Florence.) 3. Good head on a gem, at Naples, No. 206. 4. Fine youthful head, with laurel crown, at Alnwick Castle. Statues.— I. Seated figure, from Veil, in the Vatican (Chiara- monti. No. 400) perfect all but the fingers of the left hand with the sword. The head, crowned with oak leaves, belongs to the trunk. Found in 181 1. (Fig. 80.) 2. Seated figure, from Piperno, found in 1795. Uncrowned; the head never separated from the trunk; nose restored, and chin and underlip patched. (Chiaramonti, No. 494.) 3. Seated colossal figure, from the theatre at Cervetri, now in the Lateran. Head and torso found in the same place. Nose restored. (Fig. 69.) 4. Statue in toga, in the Pal. Colonna. The Dack of the head TIBERIUS 383 restored ; mouth not so drawn in as in most portraits. Nose and brow unmistakable. 5. Colossal statue at Naples, in chlamys, and with sword in the left hand. 6. Statue in toga, in the Louvre, found at Capri ; torso and head were found separate. Tiberius at a ripe age, chin and tip of nose new. 7. Heroic statue in Leyden. Busts. — i. Youthful head in the Capitoline Museum, aged about 20-25, 3- fins bust. (Fig. 58.) 2. Elderly head, 50-55, of red and white alabaster. According to VVinckelmann, one of the best in the collection. (Fig. 78.) 3. Colossal head, from Veii, found in 181 1. Tiberius as a young man. The mouth drawn a little to the left. Wanting in individuality. Chiaramonti, No. 390. 4. Head, larger than life, in the Villa Borghese, No. 10. Youthful; the retreating mouth and projecting chin somewhat exaggerated. 5. Colossal head, representing the emperor at an advanced age, with wrinkled brow ; nose new. Found at Pozzuoli, Naples. 6. Head on bust in armour, age about 35 ; the face calm and dignified. From the Farnese Collection, Naples. (Fig. 76.) 7. Youthful head, labelled the Younger Drusus, in the UfSzi Gallery, Florence. The bust in toga is modern (No. 57). 8. Youthful head resembling 6, in the Louvre, No. 329, on modern bust in armour. 9. Bust from the Villa Albani, in the Louvre, No 309. A very characteristic head, evidently from life. In the opinion of Mr. C. Dressier, one of first-class excellence. (Fig. 61.) 10. Head, larger than life, with oak-leaf crown from Gabii. Only the point of the nose new. Perhaps idealised and exaggerated, but very fine. Clearly not from life, the shape of the back part of the head is wrong. Though not taken from the living man sitting to be modelled, it is by some artist who had seen and been impressed by the character- istic features of the emperor's face, and of his expression when listen- ing. Louvre, No. 682. (Fig. 62.) 11. Bronze head, with silvered eyes, in the Cabinet des Mddailles, Paris, found at Mahon in 1759, youthful. 1 2. Bust in the museum at Madrid, of Tiberius as a young man. 13. Colossal bust, found at Paestum, not particularly good; at the same time was found a head of Livia, in the same collection, Madrid. 14. Youthful head, in the British Museum, wrongly labelled as the Younger Drusus, No. 7. (Fig. 59.) 1 5. A characteristic half-head in the British Museum. 16. Tiberius in extreme old age, with veil as Pontifex Maximus; found at Capri. I have no hesitation whatever in saying it is intended for Tiberius, and X am perplexed and surprised that Bernoulli should 384 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS doubt it. Shape of skull, breadth of brow, mouth, chin, are all certainly those of Tiberius. A very interesting bust. The nose has been abominably ' restored,' and gives a false character to the face. (Fig* 81.) 17. Good bust in Wilton House, resembling that in the Capitoline Museum (No. 4), riot idealised. 18. Good youthful bust in Woburn Abbey. ig. Youthful head of Tiberius, aged 20, at Berlin ; bought in Naples 1842. The bust is modern. The tip of the nose is new. (Fig. 60.) 20. Bust in the Glyptothek, Munich, No. 236. Tiberius in full vigour of manhood, perhaps a little idealised. The mouth not drawn back. 21. Head in the Museum at Stockholm. 22. Head from Lamia, in the Museum at Athens. CAIUS (CALIGULA). I.— EARLY YEARS. The story of Caius is that of a madman. In him that vein of insanity which was noticed in Agrippa Postumus, and in Drusus, the second son of Agrippina, became patent to all the world. He was even conscious of it himself.^ Our materials for a life of Caius are not abundant, nor can we select among them, and distinguish misrepresentation of facts and exaggeration as we can in the case of Tiberius, for, unhappily, the books of the Annals of Tacitus that dealt with the reign of Caius have been lost. Four entire books are lost, from the seventh to the tenth, containing the record of the transactions of less than ten years, a larger space proportionally than had been accorded to the details of the administration of Tiberius. We are thrown accordingly for the history of this period on the dry narrative of Dio, and on the gossip of Suetonius. Caius Caesar, the youngest son of Germanicus and Agrippina, was born 31st August, in the year a.d. 12, apparently at Antium. An elder brother of the same name had died early, and this led to some confusion among historians as to his birthplace, some mistaking the place of nativity of the elder Caius for that of the younger, who alone survived, but Suetonius took pains to arrive at the facts from the public records. He spent his childhood in the camp on the Moselle and the Rhine, TIBERIUS=VIPSANIA. Dhusus= Antonia. Drusus=Livilia. Germanicus= Agrippina. Tiberius Gemellus. CAIUS. Agrippina to. Deusilla. Julia Livilla. 1 Tacitus speaks of his disturbed mind, 'turbata mens,' ' turbidus animi.' So does Seneca, and Suetonius tells us that Caligula was conscious of his own disordered mental condition. 2B 386 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS where he received the nickname of Caligula, or ' Little Boots,' from the soldiers, who were gratified to see the child trot about in military stout sandal, with laces above the ankle. In the year a.d. 17, he accompanied his father and mother on the Syrian expedition. He was seven years old when Germanicus died ; and after that he lived under Fig. 82.-OAIUS. Bust in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. the supervision of his mother, and on her arrest, in the home of the old empress-mother, Livia, and then with his grandmother Antonia. These ladies either did not know how to manage him, or found him too much for them ; he seems to have run wild in their houses, and lived in a CAIUS 387 very disorderly manner. In his twenty-first year he assumed the manly toga and shaved. Tiberius on that occasion did not make the largesses to the people of Rome that he had on the occasion when Nero and Drusus attained their majority. Probably on account of the annoyance he caused his grandmother by his misconduct, but also certainly to withdraw him from proximity to Rome and the chance of cabals being formed about him, Tiberius removed him to Capreae, and there he remained till a.d. 37, when he ascended the throne, when aged not quite 25. His constitution was weakly. In his childhood he had been subject to epileptic fits, and though he outgrew this tendency, he remained liable to sudden faintings. Early indulgence of his every appetite had fatigued and enervated both his physical powers and his brain, so that his condition when not that of absolute insanity was one that hovered on the verge, and occasionally passed into sheer madness. Unhappily for him, at Capreae he had been the companion of the Idumaean, Herod Agrippa, who was twice his age. ' Intelligent and active, and well versed in men and affairs, Herod soon acquired unbounded ascendancy over the young prince, now trembling in the uncertainty of his own fortunes, and oscillating between the brightest hopes of power and the direst apprehensions. To Caius such a friend and mentor as the Jewish chief was invaluable. With Agrippa he passed the hours he could steal from the exacting jealousy of his uncle ; from him he learnt the customs of the East and the simple machinery of Asiatic despotism, and imbibed a contemptuous disgust at the empty forms of the Republic, which served only, as he might in his blind inexperience imagine, to impede the march of ■government, while they contributed nothing to its security.' ^ Caius lacked that education for the throne which had been given to his father, to Tiberius, and to Octavius, They had been trained in the camp to discipline themselves and to command others. They had attended the senate, and had pleaded before it. But Caius was held back from every form of public life, and then suddenly found himself possessed of absolute power. The transition was enough to make an ordinary head turn giddy. There is, in the Torlonia collection at Rome, a very beautiful statue of Caius as a boy, it is of Greek workmanship, the face is fresh and innocent, and without that shadow that stole over it and obscured it, that turn of the neck so characteristic of the twist in the brain that marks all the later portraits. The beautiful Otricoli statue in the Vatican (Pio Clementino, No. 262) is not of Caligula, as determined by Visconti, but of Augustus. But the fact of there being any doubt , as to whether a portrait belongs to Octavius or to Caligula indicates the fact that there was a family resemblance between them. The identi- ' '■ Merivale, /iisi. Kom, vi. 6. 388 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS fication, however, of the portraits of this emperor presents, as we shall see presently, very considerable difiSculties. Philo the Jew tells us that he heard in Rome, on trustworthy authority, that Tiberius, had he lived longer, would have got rid ot Caius, so as to secure the throne to Tiberius Gemellus, as he had reason to suspect the sinister mind of Caligula, 'who was full of evil will towards the whole Claudian family and considered only his mother's, the Julian, stock.' He says that Macro persuaded the old emperor that the character of Caius was not so malicious as he sup- posed, and that more than once Macro acted as the protector of the young prince. The Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, was born in the year that Tiberius died, and he has preserved to us an interesting incident relative to the friendship of Agrippa and Caius. Herod stood high in favour with Antonia, and she often helped him in his pecuniary embarrassments. He lived in Rome, but was frequently at Tusculum, where he contracted a not disinterested friendship with Caligula, whom he believed to be destined for the empire. One day when he and Caius were driving out together, he said to his companion that he hoped it would not be long before 'the old fellow died,' and then Caius would attain the object of his ambition. ' As for Tiberius Gemellus,' said the Jewish prince, ' he is easily got rid of.' This conversation was overheard by the charioteer, and when, some time after, the man was arrested for theft, he begged to be brought before the emperor, as he had a matter of importance to communicate to him. He was accordingly conveyed to Capreae and there kept in chains. Herod Agrippa was uneasy, and once when Tiberius was on a visit at Antonia's villa in Tusculum, he appeared before the prince and urged that the case might be gone into at once. But the ' old procras- tinator ' declined. He said : ' Let Agrippa be at his ease. If his servant tells lies, then his imprisonment serves him right. If he spoke the truth, then the consequence, when established, might be very un- pleasant to Agrippa.' Herod was not content, and urged Antonia to use her influence. Accordingly, one day, after the meal at noon, when Tiberius and the old lady were having a little turn together in a litter, she attacked him on the subject, and would not be satisfied till he promised to investigate the matter at once. He did so, and was so satisfied that the charioteer spoke the truth, that he ordered the arrest of Herod. Agrippa remained under guard till the death of Tiberius, but he was treated with great indulgence, allowed to receive his friends, and enjoy all the amenities of life, as the centurion in charge of him received instructions so to do from Antonia and Macro. One day a trusty servant, the freedman Marsyas, brought the imprisoned prince the desired tidings, just as he was on his way to the CAIUS 389 bath. He whispered into his ear in Hebrew, ' The Lion is dead.' The centurion on guard, who guessed from the haste of the messenger and the beaming face of the prince that the tidings were important, insisted on being informed what had been said. Agrippa told him that Tiberius was dead, and ordered a great supper and wine, and invited his guards to feast with him. But whilst they were seated at table there arrived another message to say that the first news was false. The centurion, frightened to death, at once placed Herod in chains. A day or two later, the decease of the emperor was confirmed, and with it came the announcement of the succession of Caius to the throne. The new emperor's first act was to set his friend at liberty, but he was unable formally to liberate him till after the funeral of Tiberius, as his grandmother told him 'it was against all deceticy to discharge the prisoners of the late emperor before he was laid at rest' To make amends for his imprisonment, Caius conferred the diadem on Herod and nominated him to be king of a portion of Judaea. It is probable that Josephus got this story from Thaumastor, a page of Caligula, who passed into the service of Herod Agrippa, went with him to Judaea, and became his major-domo, an office he retained, after the death of Herod, with his children. The announcement of the emperor's death was communicated to the senate in a letter from Caius, the bearer of which was Macro. At the same time the testament of the late Caesar was presented to them. Caius informed the conscript fathers that he a.d. 37. desired every posthumous honour that had been given to ®'" ^^' Augustus should be likewise and in full measure accorded to Tiberius, but he requested that the dying prince's disposition — the division of his patrimony, of his rights to the throne between Caius and Gemellus — should be annulled as the act of an incapable dotard. The will was accordingly set aside, a public funeral was appointed, and the functions and dignities of empire were heaped on Caius alone. He then set forth from Campania with the body of Tiberius. ' Upon his moving from Misenum, although he was in mourning, and following the corpse, he had to walk amidst altars, victims, and flaming torches, with prodigious crowds of people everywhere attending him, in transports of joy, calling him, in addition to other auspicious names, by such titles as these: "their star," "their chick," "their pretty puppet," and " bantling." ' Immediately after the funeral of Tiberius followed another, to which filial piety called him. He at once started, though in a gale of wind, for the islands where had died his mother and eldest brother, to bring thence their ashes. 'He approached their remains with profound veneration, and deposited them in their urns with his own hands. Having brought them with great solemnity to Ostia, with an ensign flying at the stern of the galley, and thence up the Tiber to Rome, 390 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS they were borne by persons of the first distinction in the equestrian order, on two biers, into the mausoleum (of Augustus) at noon.' The setting aside of the will of Tiberius had been demanded solely in order that the coequal rights of Gemellus might be annulled. Caius fulfilled every other particular of the will scrupulously; he moreover executed all the last bequests of Livia, whose testament Tiberius had set aside. Then, entering the senate-house, he addressed the conscript fathers in terms full of respect and diffidence. He declared himself the ward of the senators, and invited them to assist him and relieve him of the toils of government, and to advise him as to the direction he should take. ' Then, thinking that the setting aside of the young Tiberius might occasion uneasiness, he pointed out that the boy was only in his eighteenth year, and not yet arrived at the legal period which would permit him to enter the senate, and he solemnly assured all who heard him that he would be a careful guardian to the lad. II.— THE FIRST MONTHS. Caius issued a general pardon to all such as were in prison, and recalled those who were banished. He produced a large bundle of papers, which he informed the senate contained the depositions relative to the trial and sentence of his mother and brothers, and burnt them in public, with the solemn assurance that he had not looked into them, and did not know the names of those who had informed, or given evidence against them. As, however, at a later period he pursued all who had been engaged in these prosecutions with relentless severity, it was believed that he had burned other papers, or had provided himself with copies before he destroyed the original transactions. When a paper was presented to him that purported to contain information relative to a plot contrived against himself, Caius refused to receive it, alleging that as he had wronged nobody it was impossible for him to believe that any man had conspired against him. He proscribed the most infamous ministers to the vice that corroded Roman society, and, unless restrained by his advisers, would have put them all to death by drowning. At the beginning of the month of July Caius accepted the consul- ship, and associated with himself his uncle Claudius. The obsequious senate had desired, immediately on his accession, to turn out of office one or both of the existing consuls, Proculus and Nigrinus, and to nominate him to a perpetual consulship, but he declined, and waited for his election till the term of those occupying the office was accom- plished. On the day when Caius assumed the insignia of the consul- ship, he made a speech to the senate, so full of assurances of his liberal CAIUS 391 intentions, and of promise for the future, that they ordered it to be annually recited in public. On August 2 1 St, which was his birthday, he gave magnificent games, inaugurated with the hitherto unheard-of luxury of cushions on the benches for the senators. This was the beginning of a system of con- ferring amusements on the people that became almost continuous throughout the year, and cost the treasury enormous sums, whilst they wearied the people with their over-frequency. Fig. 83.— C a I U S. Basalt Bust, Capitoline Museum. In the first year of his reign, Caius refused to permit any statues to be erected in his honour, especially such as represented him with the attributes of a god. We have no reason to suppose that the unfortunate young prince was playing the part of a conscious hypocrite all the while ; yet this is what probably would have been the representation of Tacitus in the last books of his History, for in that which relates to his residence at 392 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS Capreae with Tiberius he prepares the way by describing him as an arch-dissembler; in boyhood, disguising his feehngs at the death of his mother and brothers, and accommodating his humour to that of the emperor, with a cunning beyond his years. We may believe that the expedition to Pandateria to fetch the ashes of his mother, and the stately funeral of mother and brother, were prompted by genuine piety to their memory, and so also his association of his sisters with himself in honour (he made the senate swear to honour them as they honoured himself) was an extravagant expression of sincere family affection. We may allow that the tears he shed when pronouncing the panegyric over the body of Tiberius were produced by real feehng. He must have felt some regard for the old man who had treated him with such care and kindness, unless we suppose that he was the monster he is represented, destitute of genuine good feeling. His conduct during the first eight months of his reign rather shows us a rise of his better nature, a sincere wish to stand well with all classes, to bury past wrongs in oblivion, and inaugurate a period of happiness. The late emperor had been unpopular, not because of his cruelties, as Tacitus would have us believe, but because he disliked and kept aloof from the bloody scenes in the arena, and the indecent exhibitions in the theatre. He was not a genial man, and the mob was ever ready to excuse faults in their princes if they had bonhomie. This, we are told, was the case with Drusus, son of Tiberius. Sis father reproved him for his love of bloodshed in the amphitheatre, and his excesses at table were well known. Yet the people said : ' Let him employ his days in shows, and his nights in banqueting ; that is better than solitude and seclusion from pleasure.' ^ Caius knew the temper of the people and indulged it ; but as he lacked discretion, he did not know when and where to stop, and he glutted the populace to surfeit with shows. At the end of October the young emperor fell dangerously ill, and as up to this time the Romans had found only happiness under his government, the condition of his health caused lively alarm. Crowds spent the night outside the doors of the palace, expecting tidings of a change in his condition. Some made vows to the gods that they would fight among the gladiators if he recovered, others besought the gods to accept their lives in place of that of their beloved sovereign. At this point it will not be amiss to say something on the mental condition of Caius. He was subject to epileptic fits : epilepsy was in the family. Julius Caesar had it ; he had two fits when engaged in war, but that was all. Many great men have had them occasionally, but when they occur frequently they lead to softening of the brain. There are two forms of epilepsy, the grand mal and the petit mal. In the former there are' 1 Tacit. Ann. iii. 37. CAIUS 393 convulsions, in the latter momentary loss of consciousness without con- vulsive movements. In a bad fit of the former the muscular power is often excessive; the l?ody is bent forwards or drawn backwards with great force ; the eyes roll furiously ; the lips are convulsed, and covered with a frothy saliva. When the attacks are frequent, the distortion of the facial muscles becomes fixed, the patient grinds his teeth, makes grimaces, the lips become puffed, the face flabby, and the look of intelligence disappears from the eyes. The afflicted person becomes subject to the wildest caprices and paroxysms of anger without apparent cause. The final condition is idiotcy. Now, Caius we know suffered both from the worst attack of this disorder, as well as from the less serious; and there can be little question that the sickness mentioned by the historians, but not, unfor- tunately, described by them, was a violent attack of epileptic fits, which, when they passed, left Caius in a measure deranged. Surely this table speaks for itself: — Oct AVI OS. Julia {tnoral paralysis). Agrippa Agrippina (insane). {probably half-insane). I I I Drusus Caius Caligula Agkippina. (insane). (insane). I Nero (insane). On his recovery, the altars smoked with victims, the streets rang with joy, and the Jews shared, we are assured, in the general satisfac- tion. But the satisfaction was destined to be of short duration. What- ever his malady was, the prince rose from it very much changed, if not in disposition, at all events in conduct. If hitherto he had worn a mask, with convalescence he cast it aside; if for a period of a few months he had rejoiced in the favour of the people, and had striven to retain it, he now found a pleasure in striking awe into their hearts, and in dissipating every particle of the affection he had inspired. He began to suffer from want of sleep ; he seldom obtained more than three or four hours' rest in the night, and then could not sleep soundly, as he was disturbed with frightful dreams, fancying that old Ocean conversed with him in roaring tones. Unable to lie quiet when sleep forsook him, he would sit up in bed a prey to wild fancies, schemes, and terrors, or ramble about the porticoes of the palace, looking out for the approach of day. 394 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS III.— THE TYRANT. Almost from the moment that he arose from his sick-bed, Caius behaved in a manner the reverse of his previous conduct. Some of his actions were certainly those of a madman, but he had intervals of sense, though he never again returned to the amiable mood of the first stage ' of his imperial career. To describe in a few words the change that took Fig. 84. — A N T O N 1 A. Bust, Museum Chiaramonti, No. 701. place in him, Suetonius says that at first he acted as a prince, afterwards as a monster. At the time of his sickness he had drawn up his will,, in which he constituted his second sister, Drusilla, to whom he was devotedly attached, heiress of his property and of the empire. He snatched her away from her husband and associated her with himself in a manner that gave rise to scandal. She had been united to Cassias Longinus by Tiberius, but Caius, apparently after his sickness, divorced her from CAIUS 395 Longinus and married her to a creature of his own, M. Lepidus, and then took her from Lepidus and startled even dissolute Rome by the declaration that he proposed marrying her. This relation — even in Rome, not squeamish as to moral scandals — was regarded as one crying out to heaven for vengeance. In the general indignation which found voice, both the person of the prince and the whole imperial house were placed in danger; and, as formerly Octavia and Livia had made their influence felt in all matters concerning the family welfare, so now did the aged Antonia feel herself called on to interfere in the interests of the throne. At the time when Sejanus was meditating a coup de tnain she had sent warning to Tiberius of his danger ; and when her grandson succeeded, she did not forget her duty as a guardian. On this occasion we can- not doubt that she interfered to remonstrate with the young prince. It is to this interference, almost certainly, that certain passages refer in the biography of Caius by Suetonius. When one day she warned her grandson not to think that he had now no superior over him, he answered contemptuously : ' Everything is lawful to me, and I may do as I will to any one.' When she entreated for a private conference, he refused to speak with her except in the presence of Macro, the praefect of the guard. Moreover, he threw into prison the Jew, Alexander Lysimachus, her steward, who had been a tried friend to her son, Ger- manicus, his own father. When, not long after, Antonia died, all signs of honour were dis- carded at the funeral, and Caius contemplated from the window of his dining-hall with indifference the pile on which her body was burnt. It was not surprising that rumours circulated that he had forced his grandmother to commit suicide, or that he had had her poisoned. In all probability the old and virtuous lady's heart was broken by dis- appointment. The Pharaohs of Egypt from a remote past had married their sisters. The divine royal race was too sacred to mate with one that was of a baser origin. The great Jupiter had taken as consort his own sister Juno, — such an union became a heavenly race ; and Caius was inflated with the notion that the Julian family was divine, and must follow the divine precedents. It might condescend to love below its order, but must mate in it. On medals and on cameos, the heads of Caius and Drusilla appeared together ; and it is probable that he would have carried his daring pur- pose into effect, and have openly married her. But his mad purpose, was frustrated. The unhappy girl fell ill, with shame may be, and died. Caius was plunged in a frenzy of despair. He gave orders that a public funeral of extravagant splendour should be decreed to her, and then insisted that she should be deified and worshipped with temple, statues, and 396 THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAESARS sacrifices. But he did not attend the funeral himself, he declared him- self incapable of controlling his feelings and distracted his mind by rush- ing away to Alba, and there devoting himself in his country '^Zo'st' villa to the most trifling amusements. Livius Geminius.a ^^'■■^^- senator, obligingly professed that he had seen Drusilla ascend into heaven, attended by all the gods, whereupon he was re- warded with a million sesterces; and Caius declared that his divme sister should bear thenceforth the name of Panthea (the All-goddess), and be worshipped with like honours to those offered to Venus the Ancestress. The citizens hardly knew how to conduct themselves to suit the fancy of the crazy sovereign. It was impiety to mourn the apotheosis, and it was death not to mourn the dead. Several citizens suffered capitally for entertaining a relative or a guest, or for indulging in a bath, on the days that followed the funeral. Unable to find rest in his Alban villa, the mad prince roved through the cities of Italy and Sicily, and let his hair and beard grow in token of sorrow. He would thenceforth swear by no other oath than 'the divinity of Drusilla.' Drusilla was not much, if at all, over the age of twenty when she died. That numerous statues of the new goddess were erected throughout Italy, there can be no doubt — one of gold was set up in the forum — but it is hard, if not impossible, to identify them among the female busts of that epoch. It is very probable that of the many supposed to represent Agrippina the Younger, her sister, one or two of the most youthful may really be the portraits of this unhappy girl. There is, however, one in the Torlonia Museum supposed, with some probability, to be Drusilla, for it bears on it a decided look of the family, a like- ness to her brother, and yet it certainly is not Agrippina.^ On the day on which the young Tiberius entered on his nineteenth year, Caius adopted him, and he assumed the toga of manhood. Caius gave him the title of Prince of the Roman youths. Philo says that the object of Caius in adopting him was believed to be to take away from him the right, based on his grandfather's will, of being associated with himself in the empire, and to give himself those extensive, all-embracing legal rights over him, extending even to life, which were recognised as belonging to a father over a son. The poor boy was delicate, and suffered from a cough that he was unable to overcome. One day he was at table with Caius, when the latter noticed that his breath had a medicinal savour, caused by Tiberius having taken some remedy for his cough. Caius at once and savagely 1 A statue in the Vatican found at Cervetri most probably does represent the unfor- tunate girl, for with it was found an inscription that fixes it. She is dressed in a stola and palla, and wears a crown above the brow. In one hand is a censer, which has re- ference to the privileges of a vestal virgin with which Caius invested his sister. Unfortun- ately the figure was found without a head, and that now affixed to it did not originally belong to it. .^CAJUS., 397 charged him with haying .'tafcen an antidote^ as' '^ being suspicious ofpoisonat the table, an.d'ldudly mocked him for'fBiaking it possible to take any suitable pfeeakion against him,,, his /ather",by adoption, and his prince. Sooij after iie^s|n|: hwni,''a iteesSag'e by a^ tribune that he must put an end to himselfras' ir'waS 'unlaWul for" any man to shed the sacred blood of 'ti^e Caesars. Tiberius bent =his head for the blow, but the tribune 'di^.'^fet venture to strike,. Sad ^repeated to him the command of the emperor. .J'jberius then t(jtik,''th& sword, but as he had never seen any one lcilled'?,£ei'dai,ni)t'k4o'whow to put an end to himself with it. The tribune in.disatea "^ hir^ Jhe most vital part, and the unfortunate boy then threw hiinseh' Oa "the sword. Fig. 8s.— T IBERIUS GEMELLUS (0. Bust in the Lateran Museum (after Bernoulli 2 Caius gave out that the young prince had committed suicide, being weary of life and hopeless of recovery from his cough. The boy very probably was in a decline. This crime initiated a long series of others. No man had more claims on his gratitude than Macro, who, so it was believed, had repeatedly interfered to save his life when Tiberius, 1 And yet he had been brought up with his grandfather at Capreae. How is this reconcilable with the stories of executions there committed by order of Tiberius tiie elder ? 2 There are two busts that may taken to represent Gemellus, one in the Lateran, No. 153, one in the Chiaramonti Gallery, No. 71;, where it is catalogued as Tiberius. There is a strong look of Tiberius in the face, and also of Drusus Minor ; and yet it is certainly neither, the head being differently shaped. It is possible that these two may represent the unhappy Gemellus. Observe the hair down the nape of the neck. 398. THETR^GFjiDy.qF.'IlHE CAESARS uneasy at the dapger that threatened his ov/n -grandson, and well aware of the crazy cotidl'tiiin of the brain of CaiuSj-ineditated his destruction. But the oblip,ti6W under which Caius had been laid by Macro were too great to be repaid. It wis said that' ffinnia.^ the wife of Macro, had simu- lated a passion for the ybUng prince, before the death of Tiberius, in the hopes of c obtaining over the future eijiperor the ascendancy of a mistress. He'hid'/gromised to make hero^is, empress, and now was perhaps somewhatlpVcimciously remjn,ded by Ennia of his promise, and by Macro of his obJiga'ciqn'S. \ -, ^/ „'•_ '-'; '-, ' According to PKito,! Macro; was ' entirely ignorant of the intrigue carried on between his wife and Cams, and he had not only saved the life of the prince when the suspicions of Tiberius were roused, but after Caius had come to the throne, he used his best endeavours to restrain him from unseemly exhibitions of levity. He was ever at his side, and by a touch of his elbow woke him when he nodded at table, or checked him when he roared with laughter at the jokes of the mimes, or bade him observe decorum when he cut fantastic capers to the playing of the flutists. All this annoyed the vain boy. ' I am a boy no more,' said Caius to his courtiers. ' Look at that man, he conducts himself as though still my tutor. I, who was born a prince nursed by emperors, cradled in a cabinet of state, must, for- sooth, bow before an audacious upstart, a novice affecting the airs of a hierophant.' The doom of Macro was sealed, but as a favour he was permitted to be his own executioner, and Ennia to perish with him. After which all their children were put to death, that there might remain on earth no further reminder to Caius of his indebtedness to the family. Having rid himself of his greatest benefactor, Caius proceeded to disencumber himself of his most prudent adviser. This was his father- in-law, M. Junius Silanus, a man who belonged to a noble and ancient family, who had been highly regarded by Tiberius, and had grown old in the discharge of responsible offices. Silanus was proconsul of Africa at the beginning of the reign of Caius, and was in command of the legion that was stationed in the province. Caius resented the advice the old man sent him, that he should control his caprices, and correct the faults in his character. He re- called him from his command because he had thus presumed. Shortly after the young emperor put to sea and ordered his father- in-law to attend him. The weather was rough, and the old man a bad sailor, and he put back to shore, or delayed his departure awaiting a smoother sea. Caius charged him with wilful disobedience and with intent to plot against him, and sent orders to an honourable and eloquent senator, Julius Graecinus, to impeach him. Graecinus refused to sully his reputation by such an act, and Caius in revenge had him put to death. Then Caius sent a message to the old man ' to take his com- pliments to the spirits , of thgi dead ' — meaning the dficeased daughter of Silanus, his own giriisli wife, Junia Claudilla, .y'ho had died two years before. There wab but one interpretation 0/ this jnessage, and Silanus, in order to , save the '■ oogfiECation of "his good^, committed suicide by cutting his throat With a razoi:.' - 'Whether Caius acted the most infamous parj:" 'in .entering on his marriages, or in repudial?iig , his wives, or in .r^ajnihg them,' says Suetonius, ' it would be hard tq^^ay.' He had bieen married in Capreae to Junia Claudilla, but she diedj an.dTn the firs^t year of his reign being invited to the wedding of Caius Piso; with Li via Orestilla, he took a fancy to the bride and carried her off, but tired of her very soon, divorced her after a few days, and two years later banished her. Then he happened to hear that Lollia Paulina, wife of a Memmius Regulus, in command of Macedonia, was very like her grandmother, who was a noted beauty. Lollia was the granddaughter of M. Lollius, whom Augustus had appointed tutor to Caius Caesar in the east, and there he had amassed a vast fortune. Lollia possessed the most magnificent sets of jewels of any Roman lady. It is of her that Ben Jonson happily says: — ' She came in like star-light, hid with jewels, That were the spoil of provinces.' — {TAe Fox, Act iii. Sc. 6. But in beauty she outshone her gems. Caius ordered her to come to Rome, and being satisfied with her appearance, married her, but speedily tired of her also. But he loved with an unbounded and constant affection a woman named Caesonia, the mother of three daughters by another man, who was neither young nor beautiful. He married this woman. Caius was himself surprised at the strength of his attachment, and declared that he would some day put her on the rack to discover whether she had given him a love philtre or not. Sometimes he would touch her neck and laugh, and say, 'When I give the word, this beautiful throat will be hacked through.' But indeed this grim remark was made to others also. At a banquet to which he had invited the consuls, he suddenly burst into an unseemly fit of laughter, and when asked by the consuls what the joke was that had tickled his august fancy, ' Nothing,' he replied, ' but that at a single nod of mine you would both have your throats cut.' Caesonia knew how to humotir his capricious fancy. ' She would assume a military cloak and a glittering helmet, sling a shield on her arm, and ride by him when he reviewed the troops. Very shortly after their marriage she gave birth to a daughter, whom Caius acknowledged as his own child, and he gave it the name of Julia Drusilla, thereby taking it into the Julian family. When he saw the little creature bite and claw at its nurse, or fly at another child and try to tear out its eyes, Caius applauded and declared that after such exhibitions he could never •doubt that the child was his own. 400 THje, TKiAGpnt. OF^T-HK CAESARS One day he/our-ij the roads muddj',« "wliereupon he ordered the officer in cha'rg&'ijf them to be brought tefore' him, and his mantle to be laden with roa'cj-scrapmgs. That_ manV «anie was Vespasian, and when, many "years affei°,"ihis'ofS