cruel and suspicious tyranny is made responsible for these accusations,
for the suits which followed, and for the cruel condemnations in which
they ended. It is said that every free mind which still remembered
ancient Roman liberty gave him umbrage and caused him distress, and
that he could suffer to have about him only slaves and hired assassins.
But how far this is from the truth! How poorly the superficial
judgment of posterity has understood the terrible tragedy of the reign,
of Tiberius! We always forget that Tiberius was the next Roman emperor
after Augustus; the first, that is, who had to bear the weight of the
immense charge created by its founder, but without the immense prestige
and respect which Augustus had derived from the extraordinary good
fortune of his life, from the critical moment in which he had taken
over the government, from the general opinion that he had ended the
civil wars, brought peace back to an empire in travail, and saved Rome
from the imminent ruin with which Egypt and Cleopatra had threatened
it. For these reasons, while Augustus lived, the envy, jealousy,
rivalry, and hatred of the new authority were held in check in his
presence; but they were ever smoldering in the Roman aristocracy, which
considered itself robbed of a part of its privileges, and always felt
itself humiliated by this same authority, even when it was necessary to
submit to it in cases of supreme political necessity. But all this
envy, all these jealousies, all these rivalries,--I have said it
before, but it is well to repeat it, since the point is of capital
importance for the understanding of the whole history of the first
empire,--were unleashed when Tiberius was exalted to the imperial
dignity.
What in reality was the situation of Tiberius after the death of
Germanicus? We must grasp it well if we wish to understand not only
the cruelty of the accusations brought under the law of high treason,
but also the whole family policy followed by the second emperor. It
was he who had to bear the burden of the whole state, of the finances,
of the supplies, of the army, of the home and foreign policies; his was
the will that propelled, and the mind that regulated, all. To him
every portion of the empire and every social class had recourse, and it
was to him that they looked for redress for every wrong or
inconvenience or danger. It was to him that the legions looked for
their regular stipend, the common people of Rome for abundant grain,
the senate for the preservation of boundaries and of the internal
order; the provinces looked to him for justice, and the sovereign
allies or vassals for the solution of all internal difficulties in
which they became involved. These responsibilities were so numerous
and so great that Tiberius, like Augustus, attempted to induce the
senate to aid him by assuming its share, according to the ancient
constitution; but it was in vain, for the senate sought to shield
itself, and always left to him the heavier portion.
[Illustration: Types of head-dresses worn in the time of the women of
the Caesars.]
Is it conceivable that a man could have discharged so many
responsibilities in times when the traditions of the government were
only beginning to take form if he had not possessed a commanding
personal authority, if he had not been the object of profound and
general respect? Augustus would not have been able to govern so great
an empire for more than forty years with such slight means had it not
been for the fact, fortunate alike for himself and for the state, that
he did enjoy this profound, sincere, and general admiration. Tiberius,
on the other hand, who was already decidedly unpopular when he came
into power, had seen this unpopularity increase during the first six
years of his rule, despite all the efforts he had put forth to govern
well. His solicitude about maintaining a certain order within the
state was described as haughtiness and harshness, his preoccupation
lest the precarious resources of the government be dissipated in
useless expenditures was dubbed avarice, and the prudence which had
impelled him to restrain the rash policy of expansion and aggression
which Germanicus had tried to initiate beyond the Rhine was construed
as envy and surly malignity. Against all considerations of justice,
logic, or good sense, this accusation was repeated, and now that
destiny had cut down Germanicus, he was accused _sotto voce_ of being
responsible for his death by many of the great families of Rome and
even in senatorial circles. They treated it as most natural that
through jealousy he should poison his own nephew, his adopted son, the
popular descendant of Drusus, the son of that virtuous Antonia who was
his best and most faithful friend! But if, after having been accepted
as true by the great families of Rome who sent it on its rounds, such a
report had been allowed to circulate through the empire, how much
authority would have been left to an emperor who was suspected of so
terrible a crime? How could he have maintained discipline in the army,
of which he was the head, and order among the people of Rome, of whom,
as tribune, he was the great protector? How could he have directed,
urged on, or restrained the senate, of which he was, in the language of
to-day, the president? The various Italian peoples from whom the army
was drawn did not yet consider the head of the state a being so
superior to the laws that it would be permissible for him to commit
crimes which were branded as disgustingly repulsive to ordinary human
nature.
No historian who understands the affairs of the world in general, and
the story of the first century of the empire in particular, will
attribute to ferocity or to the tyrannical spirit of Tiberius the
increasingly harsh application of the _Lex de majestate_ which followed
the death of Germanicus and the trial of Piso. This harshness was the
natural reaction against the delirium of atrocious calumnies against
Tiberius which raged in the aristocracy of that time and especially in
the house of Agrippina. For she, in spite of the undeniably virtuous
character of her private life, was influenced by friends who, for
motives of political advancement took advantage of her passions and
inexperience.
Too credulous of Tacitus, many writers have severely characterized the
facility and the severity with which the senate condemned those accused
under the _Lex de majestate_: they consider it an indication of ignoble
servility toward the emperor. Yet we know very well that the Roman
senate at that time was not composed merely of adulators and hirelings;
it still included many men of intelligence and character. We can
explain this severity only by admitting that there were many persons in
the senate who judged that the emperor could not be left defenseless
against the wild slanders of the great families, since these
extravagant and insidious calumnies compromised not only the prestige
and the fame of the ruler, but also the tranquillity, the power, and
the integrity of the empire. Undoubtedly the _Lex de majestate_ did
give rise in time to false accusations, to private reprisals, and to
unjust sentences of condemnation. Although it had been devised to
defend the prestige of the state in the person of the magistrates who
represented it, the law was frequently invoked by senators who wished
to vent their fiercest personal hatreds. Nor can it be denied that
cupidity was the cause of many iniquitous calumnies directed against
wealthy persons whose fortunes were coveted by their accusers. Yet we
must go slow in accusing Tiberius of these excesses. Tacitus himself,
who was averse to the emperor, recounts several incidents which show
him in the act of intervening in trials of high treason for the benefit
of the accused precisely for the purpose of hindering these excesses of
private vengeance. The accounts which we have of many other trials are
so brief and so biased that it is not fair for us to hazard a judgment.
We do know, however, that after the death of Germanicus there was
formed at Rome, in the imperial family and the senate, a party of
Agrippina, which began an implacable war upon Tiberius, and that
Tiberius, the so-called tyrant, was at the beginning very weak,
undecided, and vacillating in his resistance to this new opposition.
His opponents did not spare his person; they did their best to spread
the belief that the emperor was a poisoner, and persecuted him
relentlessly with this calumny; they were already pushing forward Nero,
the first-born son of Germanicus, though in 21 A.D. he was only
fourteen years old, in order that he might in time be made the rival of
Tiberius. The latter, indeed, tried at first to moderate the charges
of high treason, his supreme defense; he feigned that he did not know
or did not see many things, and instead of resisting, he began to make
long sojourns away from Rome, thus turning over the capital, in which
the pretorian guard remained, to the calumnies of his enemies. Of all
these enemies the most terrible was Agrippina, who, passionate,
vehement, without judgment, abused in good faith both the relationship
which protected her and the pity which her misfortune had aroused. She
allowed no occasion for taunting Tiberius with his pretended crime to
escape her, using to this end not only words, but scenes and actions,
which impressed the public even more strongly than open accusations
could have done. A supper to which Tiberius had invited her became
famous at Rome, for at it she refused obstinately and ostentatiously to
touch any food or drink whatever, to the astonishment of the guests,
who understood perfectly what her gestures meant. And such calumnies
and such affronts Tiberius answered only with a weary and disdainful
inertia; at most, when his patience was exhausted, some bitter and
concise reproof would escape him.
I have no doubt that Tiberius had resolved at the beginning to avoid
all harsh measures as far as possible; for unpopular, misunderstood,
and detested as he was, he did not dare to use violence against a large
part of the aristocracy and against his own house. Furthermore,
Agrippina was the least intelligent of the women of the family, and her
senseless opposition could be tolerated as long as Livia and Antonia,
the two really serious ladies of the family, sided with Tiberius. But
it is easy to understand that this situation could not long endure. A
power which defends itself weakly against the attacks of its enemies is
destined to sink rapidly into a decline, and the party of Agrippina
would therefore quickly have gained favor and power had there not
arisen, to sustain the vacillating strength of Tiberius, a man whose
name was to become sadly famous--Sejanus--the commander of the
pretorian guard.
Sejanus belonged to an obscure family of knights--to what we should now
call the _bourgeoisie_. He was not a senator, and he held no great
political position; for his charge as commander of the guard was a
purely military office. In ordinary times he would have remained a
secondary personage, exclusively concerned with the exacting duties of
his command; but the party of Agrippina with its intrigues, and the
weakness and uncertainty of Tiberius, made of him, however, for a
certain time, a formidable power. It is not difficult to see whence
this power arose. The loyalty of the pretorian guard, upon which
depended the security and the safety of the imperial authority, was one
of the things which must seriously have preoccupied Tiberius,
particularly in the face of the persistent and insidious intrigues and
accusations of the party of Agrippina. The guard lived at Rome, in
continual contact with the senate and the imperial house. Everything
which was said in the senatorial circles or in the palaces of the
emperor or of his relatives was quickly repeated among the cohorts, and
the memory of Drusus and Germanicus was deeply venerated by the
pretorians. If the guard could have been persuaded that the emperor
was a poisoner of his kindred, their loyalty would have been exposed to
numberless intrigues and attempts at seduction. In such a condition of
affairs, a commander of the guard who could inspire Tiberius with a
complete and absolute trust might easily acquire a great influence over
him. Sejanus knew how to inspire this trust. This was partly by
reason of his origin, for the equestrian order, on account of its
ancient rivalry with the senatorial nobility, was more favorably
inclined than the latter toward the imperial authority; and partly also
on account of certain reforms which he had succeeded in introducing
into the pretorian guard.
[Illustration: A Roman feast in the time of the Caesars.]
Once he had acquired the emperor's confidence, the ambitious and
intelligent prefect of the pretorians proceeded to render himself
indispensable in all things. The moment was favorable; Tiberius was
becoming more and more wearied of his many affairs, of his many
struggles, of his countless responsibilities; more and more disgusted
with Rome, with its society, with the too frequent contact with the men
whom it was his fate to govern. He was in the earlier stages of that
settled melancholy which grew deeper and deeper in the last ten years
of his life, and which had grown upon him as the result of long
antagonisms, of great bitterness, and of continual terrors and
suspicions; and if it is true that Tiberius was addicted to the vice of
heavy drinking, as we hear from ancient writers, the abuse of wine may
also have had its part in producing it. The tyrant, as historians have
been pleased to call him, did actually seem to weaken in the fight for
those ideals in which he had so long and so ardently believed. He
tried to please the people by advocating no measures that might seem
harsh or excessive to them. He even resisted, in the year 22 A.D., the
pressure that his own party--his own puritan party--brought to bear
upon him to apply with the utmost severity and discipline the laws
against the fast increasing luxury of the men and women of his day.
His reply to such pressure was a letter to the senate in which he
deplored, among other things, the passion that so many women were
showing for jewels and precious stones imported from distant countries.
He maintained that it was the fault of such women that so much gold
left the country and pointed out how much more wisely the money could
be spent in fortifying the boundaries of the empire.
In view of all this it is not difficult to understand why the man who
for many years had done everything for himself, who had never wished to
have either counselors or confidants about him, now that he was growing
old needed the support of younger energies and of stronger wills. But
in his family he could rely only upon his son Drusus, who had now
become a serious and trustworthy man, and in the year 22 A.D. he asked
the senate that it concede to his son the tribunician power; that is,
that they make him his colleague. But the son did not suffice, and
Sejanus therefore succeeded in making himself, together with Drusus, in
fact, if not in name, the first and most active and influential
collaborator and counselor of Tiberius. He was even more active and
influential than Drusus, for the latter was frequently absent on
distant military missions to the confines of the empire, while Sejanus,
as commander of the pretorian guard, was virtually always at Rome,
where the emperor now appeared less and less frequently.
Such was the origin of the anomalous power of this man, who was not
even a senator--a power which was the result of the weakness of
Tiberius and of the fierce discords which divided the aristocracy; and
it was a power which must of necessity prove disastrous, especially to
the party of Agrippina and Germanicus. Although indications are not
lacking that there was no great harmony or friendship between Sejanus
and Drusus, it is evident that Sejanus, as the energetic representative
of the interests of Tiberius, must have directed all his efforts
against the friends of Agrippina, who was arousing the fiercest
opposition to the emperor. But in the year 23, an unforeseen event
seemed suddenly to change the situation and to render possible a
reconciliation between Tiberius and the party of Agrippina. In this
year, Drusus also, like so many other members of his family, died
prematurely, at the age of thirty-eight, and on this occasion, for the
time being, at least, no one raised the cry of poisoning. This
unexpected misfortune moved Tiberius profoundly, for he dearly loved
his son, and it seemed for a moment to determine the triumph of
Agrippina's party. Now that his son had been taken from him, where, if
not among the sons of Germanicus and Agrippina, could Tiberius look for
a successor? And, as a further proof that Tiberius desired as far as
possible to avoid conflict in the bosom of his family, he did not
hesitate a moment, despite all the annoyances and difficulties which he
had suffered at the hands of Agrippina and her friends. He officially
recognized that in the sons of Germanicus were henceforth placed the
future hopes of his family and of the empire. Of the two elder, Nero
was now sixteen and Drusus was somewhat younger, though we do not know
his exact age. These he summoned to appear before the senate, and he
presented them to the assembly with a noble discourse the substance of
which Tacitus has preserved for us, exhorting the youths and the senate
to fulfil their respective duties for the greatness and the prosperity
of the republic.
[Illustration: Depositing the ashes of a member of the imperial family
in a Roman columbarium.]
After the death of Drusus, therefore, a reconciliation became possible
in the family of the Caesars. The latent rivalry between the families
of Tiberius and Germanicus was extinguished. Indeed, even in the midst
of the tears shed for the early death of Drusus, a gleam of concord
seems to have shone down upon the house desolated by many tragedies,
while Sejanus, whose power depended upon the strife of the factions,
was for a moment set aside and driven back into the shadows. But it
was not to continue long; for soon the flames of discord broke out more
violently than ever. Whom shall we blame, Sejanus or Agrippina?
Tacitus says that it was the fault of Sejanus, whom he accuses of
having tried to destroy the descendants of Germanicus, in order to
usurp their place: but he himself is forced to admit in another passage
(Annals iv., 59) that virtually a little court of freedmen and
dependents gathered about Nero, the leader of the sons of Germanicus,
urging him on against Tiberius and Sejanus, and begging him to act
quickly. "This," they said, "is the will of the people, the desire of
the armies. Nor would Sejanus, who was even then making light of the
patience of the old man and of the dilatoriness of the youth, have
dared to resist him." From such speeches it is only a short step to
plans for rebellion and conspiracy. In all probability the blame for
this later and more bitter dissension must, as usually happens, be
divided between the two factions. The party of Agrippina, emboldened
by its good fortune and by the weakness of Tiberius, was, after the
death of Drusus, conscious of its own supremacy. Its members had only
a single aim; even before it was possible they wished to see Nero, the
first-born son of Germanicus, in the position of Tiberius. They
therefore took up again their struggles and intrigues against Tiberius,
and attempted to incite Nero against the emperor. But this time
Sejanus was blocking their pathway. The death of Drusus had even
further increased the trust and affection which the emperor had for his
assistant, and he was henceforth the only confidant and the only friend
of the emperor; a war without quarter between him and Agrippina, her
sons and the party of Germanicus, was inevitable. And Sejanus opened
the action by attempting to exclude from the magistracy and from office
all the friends of Agrippina and all the members of the opposing
faction. At this time it was difficult to arrive at any of the more
important offices without being recommended to the senate by the
emperor, against whose choice the senate no longer dared to rebel;
since the emperor was held responsible for the conduct of the
government, it was only just that he should be allowed to select his
more important collaborators. Sejanus was therefore able, by using his
influence over Tiberius, to lay a thousand difficulties and obstacles
in the way of even the legitimate ambitions of the most eminent men of
the opposite faction. Nor were these the only weapons employed; others
no less efficacious were called into play, and intrigues, calumnies,
accusations, and trials were set on foot without scruple and with a
ferocity the horror of which Tacitus has painted with indelible colors.
Among these intrigues two matrimonial projects must be mentioned. In
the year 25 Sejanus attempted a bold stroke; he repudiated his wife
Apicata, and asked Tiberius for the hand of Livilla (Livia), the widow
of Drusus. Sejanus had frequented the political aristocracy of the
empire, and, despite his equestrian origin, was quick to adopt not only
their ambitions and their manners, but also their ideas on marriage.
He, too, considered it as simply a political instrument, a means of
acquiring and consolidating power. He had therefore disrupted his
first family in order to contract this marriage, which would have
redoubled his power and his influence and have introduced him into the
imperial household. But his bold stroke failed, because Tiberius
refused; and he refused, Tacitus tells us, above all because he was
afraid that this marriage would still further irritate Agrippina. The
emperor is supposed to have told Sejanus that too many feminine
quarrels were already disturbing and agitating the house of the
Caesars, to the serious detriment of his nephew's sons. And what would
happen, he asked, if this marriage should still further foment existing
hatreds? _Quid si intendatur certamen tali conjugio_? The reply is
significant, because it proves to us that Tiberius, who is accused of
harboring a fierce hate against the sons of Germanicus and Agrippina,
was still seeking, two years after the death of Drusus, to appease both
factions, attempting not to irritate his adversaries and to preserve a
reasonable equanimity in the midst of these animosities and these
struggles.
[Illustration: The starving Livilla refusing food.]
In any case, Sejanus was refused, and this refusal was a slight success
for the party of Agrippina, which, a year later, in 26, attempted on
its own account an analogous move. Agrippina asked Tiberius for
permission to remarry. If we are to believe Tacitus, Agrippina made
this request on her own initiative, impelled by one of those numerous
and more or less reasonable caprices which were continually shooting
through her head. But are we to suppose that suddenly, after a long
widowhood, Agrippina put forth so strange a proposal without any
_arrière-pensée_ whatever? Furthermore, if this proposal had been
merely the momentary caprice of a whimsical woman, would it have been
so seriously debated in the imperial household, and would the daughter
of Agrippina have recounted the episode in her memoirs? It is more
probable that this marriage, too, had a political aim. By giving a
husband to Agrippina, they were also seeking to give a leader to the
anti-Tiberian party. The sons of Germanicus were too young, and
Agrippina was too violent and tactless, to be able alone to cope
successfully with Sejanus, supported as he was by Tiberius, by Livia,
and by Antonia. We can thus explain why Tiberius opposed and prevented
the marriage: Agrippina, unassisted, had caused him sufficient trouble;
it would have been entirely superfluous for him to sanction her taking
to herself an official counselor in the guise of a husband.
This time Sejanus triumphed over the ill success of his rivals, and the
struggle continued in this manner between the two parties, but with an
increasing advantage to Sejanus. Beginning with the year 26, we see
numerous indications that the party of Agrippina and Germanicus was no
longer able to resist the blows and machinations of Sejanus, who
detached from it, one after another, all the men of any importance. He
either won them over to himself through his favors and his promises, or
he frightened them with his threats; and those who resisted most
tenaciously, he destroyed with his suits.