as a man with literary and scientific tastes would naturally select;
his old friend and companion Thrasyllus the “mathematician” was one;
there were also professors of literature; for the purposes of public
business a small staff of Equestrians and freedmen. The few Senators
who were invited to attend were private friends, a fact which caused
displeasure in high circles at Rome, where it was not understood, or if
understood was resented, that one object of the Emperor’s retirement
was to avoid the distractions of an official court and the trammels of
etiquette.
We may dismiss once and for all as unfounded, and indeed absurd, the
stories of unmentionable obscenities and hideous cruelties practised
by the Emperor upon his lonely island. No man after reaching the age
of sixty-eight could suddenly fling himself into such an orgy of lust
as is described by Suetonius, and then live for nine years, the thing
is a physical impossibility. Again, Tiberius, though always stern, had
never been cruel. Instances of his humanity are not wanting during his
residence at Capreæ; he again gave lavish assistance to the sufferers
from a fire on the Aventine, and was at considerable pains to relieve
the distress of poor debtors, though the measures which he adopted were
not such as would commend themselves to rigid political economists.
Again, as has been observed in an earlier portion of this narrative,
up to the time of the retirement to Capreæ Tiberius is known to us
only as an absolutely chaste man, as chaste as Agrippina herself.
There is no record, no insinuation even, of the presence of sensual
favourites in his camp or at his Court; he is not even accused of that
politic amorousness which is ascribed to the sainted Augustus, or of
the warmer amours which invest the life of the great Julius Cæsar
with an atmosphere of romance. That a man close on seventy should
suddenly change his habits is incredible, unless we are to assume the
existence of a hideous form of senile dementia, whose victim is to be
pitied rather than condemned. There are such cases, but the patients
are most commonly those who have continuously led impure lives, not
those who have been distinguished by self-restraint. We may be asked,
how then did such stories originate? It is impossible to track these
falsehoods back to their source; a reason for one of them may, however,
be suggested. Among the scandals of Capreæ was said to be the presence
of a large number of young people of both sexes who were sacrificed
to the Emperor’s lusts; they were of the noblest blood of Rome, a fact
which was supposed to have constituted their chief attraction. Now the
two grandchildren of Tiberius were quite young when the Emperor went
to Capreæ. Owing to his position he was guardian to many other such
children, and it would have been entirely in accordance with Roman
practice to educate all these young children together. We know that the
suite which accompanied the Emperor contained professional teachers.
For the sinister interpretation put upon the arrangement we have only
to recall the ineffable prurience of the Italian imagination in ancient
times. There are works of art, there are fragments of literature, there
are household ornaments dating from this period, and earlier periods
and later periods, which are simply indescribable in modern language.
The mystery of the Emperor’s seclusion was in itself enough to set
the foul tongues wagging and to stimulate the impure inventiveness of
the brothel-keepers in the capital; and there were men of rank, and
possibly women, only too glad to note down in their diaries evidence
collected from the mouths of slaves and other dependents. Similarly
with the stories of cruelty. The disturbed condition of political life
after the fall of Sejanus created an atmosphere of terror. Tiberius
had always been dreaded, and the sensation-mongers could find ready
credence for tales of atrocities, for which there was no such obvious
contradiction as would have existed had Tiberius been spending his days
in the full sight of his countrymen. These tales were believed because
everybody wished to believe them, and because there was no evidence to
the contrary. Because nothing was seen, anything was imagined.
Similarly in the sensational narrative of judicial murders and
vexatious prosecutions with which Tacitus adorns his account of the
last seven years of Tiberius, the record is so imperfect, the animus
is so clear, that we may excusably suspend our judgment. In none of
these cases are we given the full evidence against the prisoner; in
all everything is told us that can be urged against the judge. It
was further the practice of the historians of the time to attribute
to Tiberius himself acts which were done by his agents even when
he had certainly not ordered the act in question. Suetonius, for
instance, states that Tiberius knocked out the eye of the obstreperous
Agrippina--he has the grace to add “by the agency of a centurion,” but
the story is told in such a way that the odium rests upon the Emperor,
and not upon the participants in an undignified scuffle. Similarly
there is a ghastly tale of the death of Drusus, the son of Agrippina,
by starvation, a process which is said to have lasted for two or three
years, during which every word uttered by the prisoner, every groan,
was faithfully reported to Tiberius; it is even represented that the
miserable man in the extremity of his anguish devoured his cushions.
That an official report was forwarded to Tiberius at regular intervals
of the conduct of this prisoner of State is what we should naturally
expect, nor is it impossible that an overzealous gaoler abounded in
details, nor again is it impossible that Agrippina the younger,
the sister of the prisoner, left an exceedingly harrowing, though
improbable, story in her memoirs.
It is worthy of note that the elder Agrippina and her son Nero were
not recalled from their respective islands after the fall of Sejanus.
Seclusion in an island did not of itself involve any serious degree of
suffering, and we have mention of occasions on which Tiberius selected
for his exiles islands which were healthy or otherwise attractive.
The exiles were, in fact, simply removed to places from which they
could no longer disturb the public peace. Though it had transpired
that Agrippina and Nero were to some extent the victims of Drusus and
Sejanus, they had shown themselves inclined to be dangerous, and the
situation with regard to the succession was now such as to demand
exceptional precautions. In his dealings with Agrippina, Tiberius
surprises us by his forbearance rather than by his severity.
As we do not know the exact nature of the conspiracy of Sejanus, so
we do not know the exact degree of guilt of the younger Drusus. Since
he was treated with exceptional rigour we may surmise that he was
implicated in a plot to depose the Emperor and enter at once upon the
coveted succession. After his death Tiberius wrote a letter to the
Senate giving a full account of his misdemeanours, an act which is
represented to have been scandalous, but was probably necessary. It
must be remembered that Sejanus was disgraced because of his practices
against Agrippina and Nero; he was immediately killed by the Senate.
After his death a deeper plot, and indeed a series of plots, was
revealed.
An attempt was made to implicate Caligula in the guilt of these dark
transactions, but unsuccessfully. It was on this occasion that Tiberius
wrote that despairing cry to the Senate in which Tacitus savagely
triumphs--“If I know what I am to write to you, Conscript Fathers, or
how I am to write to you, or what indeed I should not write to you
at such a time, may the gods and goddesses drag me even into greater
depths than those into which I feel that I am sinking day by day.”
In spite of the perplexities that assailed him, Tiberius did not relax
his hold upon Greater Rome. Encouraged by rumours of the Emperor’s
failure, the Parthians began to intrigue to reverse the order
established on the Eastern frontier of the Empire, but they quickly
learned that Tiberius, though aged and beaten upon, had not forgotten
his diplomacy and still knew where to find, and how to choose, an able
officer who could effectually quell any attempt to trifle with the
dignity of the Roman name. The general appointed to settle affairs in
the East was Lucius Vitellius, whose son was one day to enjoy a short
and very inglorious career as Roman Emperor.
During the last three years of the Emperor’s life Caligula rapidly
advanced in his favour. He was formally adopted, and was continually
named as the Emperor’s heir along with the young Tiberius. The adviser
and friend of Caligula at this time was the Jewish prince Agrippa, the
half-brother of Herodias, the incestuous wife of Herod Antipas, and
grandson of Herod the Great. The election of Caligula as successor to
Tiberius is a somewhat puzzling circumstance. Tacitus says that he
always showed signs of insanity, but at the same time credits him with
great astuteness in winning the old man’s favour. It is more probable,
from other accounts, that the madness of Caligula was the result of
an illness to which he fell a victim almost immediately after his
succession, for that he was technically mad is undeniable. We have
a curious picture of him from the pen of Philo the Jew, who arrived
from Alexandria with a deputation of Jews to protest against being
required to worship Caligula exclusively as a god. The envoys found
Caligula superintending the building of one of his palaces at Baiæ.
They were introduced to the half-finished edifice, where the Emperor
was hurrying from one room to another, feverishly running up and down
stairs. He suddenly observed his visitors, and remarking, “So you are
those atheists,” vanished; presently he reappeared, and after saying
“Why don’t you eat pork?” finally disappeared. It is not likely that
Tiberius would have entrusted the fate of the civilized world to a man
whose intellect was so obviously disturbed. If, however, we ask who
had an interest in the succession of Caligula, the answer is, Agrippa,
who, according to Josephus, had found men to finance him in order
that he might push his fortunes at Rome. In this he had been somewhat
imprudent, and an impatient remark he made to Caligula was reported to
Tiberius, who put him under guard for the rest of his reign; on the
death of Tiberius he exchanged captivity for the throne of Herod the
Great. There is a story that Tiberius, being in doubt as to whether he
should nominate his own grandson, the younger Tiberius, or his adopted
son Caligula, consulted his diviners, who told him to appoint the one
of the two children who should first enter the room after both had been
summoned; the Emperor fell in with the suggestion, and the parties
interested then contrived that Caligula should be the first to arrive.
The historians do not allow Tiberius even to die in peace. We are told
that when he became aware that his health was failing, he was nervously
anxious to conceal the fact; he left Capreæ and took up his quarters
in the villa of Lucullus on the mainland opposite the island. Having
discovered that his physician had surreptitiously felt his pulse, he
ordered a better dinner than usual, and ostentatiously enjoyed himself,
but the effort was too much for him; he fainted, and a report was
immediately spread through the household that he was dead. Caligula
was receiving the congratulations of all, and was proceeding to act as
Emperor, when there was a rumour that the old man had recovered. At the
suggestion of Macro, orders were at once given to smother him beneath
a pile of mattresses. The story is finely sensational, but it is to be
hoped that it is not true.
Whatever was the exact nature of his end, Tiberius died in the
seventy-eighth year of his life, and the twenty-third of his reign,
having lived through such vicissitudes of fortune, and such a
continuity of hard work, as have rarely fallen to the lot of any human
being; but far stranger than the events of his life is the horrible
reputation that has attached to the memory of the man who held that in
all things princes were bound to consider their good name.
Even if we accept the sensational stories which have accumulated
round the retirement at Capreæ, we have still to recognize a life of
sixty-eight years unstained by vice or crime, and chiefly spent in
the laborious execution of the highest public duties. As a general,
as a statesman, Tiberius stands, if not in the first rank, then at
the very top of the second, and he deserves this additional credit,
that public life was distasteful to him, power had no attraction for
him, and had he been at liberty to choose for himself he would have
lived in seclusion, a student of literature and natural science. We
see in him, in fact, the best type of Roman, the best example of that
peculiar character by which Rome rose to be mistress of the world. It
was not the cleverness of the Romans, nor their military skill, that
gave them the mastery, the Greeks were far cleverer, and Hannibal was
greater than any Roman general, it was their strong sense of public
duty, their passion for legality, their love of order, their tenacity
in prosecuting large schemes, their self-restraint, their honour, which
enabled them to succeed where Greek and Phœnician had failed before
them, and where Gaul and Teuton were to fail after them. All these
qualities are strongly represented in Tiberius; he is the ideal Roman
Senator, the realization of those legendary types which formed the
imagination of Roman children. It is not Cicero, the fluent orator,
the versatile man of letters and agreeable gentleman, who represents
the true Roman, nor Cato the bigot, nor Cæsar the man of genius: it
is the dogged, dutiful, and just Tiberius, not over enthusiastic, not
brilliant, devoid of personal fascination, awful rather than amiable,
but wise enough and temperate enough and strong enough to do the work
which was set before him.
Why then this perpetual stream of calumny, which has filtered down
practically unchecked for nearly two thousand years? The immediate
causes have been demonstrated in the foregoing pages; the subsequent
causes Tiberius shares with the Roman Empire, of which he was in some
sense an incarnation. It has been the custom of some Christian writers
since the period of the Reformation to oppose Christianity to the
Roman Empire; there is no trace of any such opposition in the earliest
Christian writings. Neither the Gospels nor the Acts of the Apostles,
nor the letters of St. Paul, nor those ascribed to the friends and
contemporaries of Jesus of Nazareth, nor even the writings of the early
Fathers, show the faintest indication of dissatisfaction with the
Empire as such. The evidence, in fact, is in the contrary direction.
But the later expounders of Christianity required a contrast, and it
was an easy feat of rhetoric to collect all that is discreditable from
the mass of Roman records and to compare it disadvantageously with the
pure teaching of the Gospel. Tiberius himself had in this aspect the
misfortune to be the contemporary of the founder of Christianity, and
in the idle tales of Suetonius and the studied malignity of Tacitus
an opportunity was found for starting the contrast from the very
commencement. This particular antithesis is so convenient that the
wickedness of Tiberius has almost assumed the dignity of an “articulus
fidei,” and to dispute it is to tread the perilous path of the
heresiarch.
Let us hope that the prescience of Tiberius as he watched the sun
setting over the Mediterranean from the cliffs of Capreæ did not
enable him to contemplate the long roll of centuries during which
his name would be held in execration by the posterity of those for
whom he had laboured, and on continents far beyond his ken, or to
anticipate that savage howl of “Tiberius to the Tiber” with which the
graceless populace of Rome greeted his funeral, or the still more cruel
repetition of its echo from one generation to another.
The Imperial Family.
There are five chief lines of descent--
From CAIUS JULIUS CÆSAR through his great-nephew and adopted son
Octavianus, known after B.C. 27 as Augustus.
From CAIUS JULIUS CÆSAR through his great-niece Octavia, sister to
Augustus.
From MARCUS ANTONIUS through his children by his second wife, Octavia.
From TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS NERO through his two sons by Livia, the second
wife of Augustus.
From MARCUS VIPSANIUS AGRIPPA through his children by Julia I, the
daughter of Augustus.
CAIUS JULIUS CÆSAR OCTAVIANUS AUGUSTUS
married
I. A daughter of Marcus Antonius and Fulvia, whom he almost
immediately repudiated.
II. Scribonia, related by marriage to the family of Pompeius, issue
one daughter, Julia I.
III. Livia, no issue; but by her previous husband, Tiberius
Claudius Nero, Livia had two sons, Tiberius and Drusus I.
OCTAVIA
married
I. MARCUS MARCELLUS I, issue Marcus Marcellus II, and two
daughters, Marcella I, Marcella II.
Marcus Marcellus II married Julia I, and died without
issue, “tu Marcellus eris.”
Marcella I married first Agrippa, no issue, and then
Julius Antonius, son of Marcus Antonius, by his first
wife, Fulvia.
Marcella II, her marriage is not mentioned.
II. MARCUS ANTONIUS, issue two daughters, Antonia I, Antonia II.
Antonia I married L. Domitius Abenobarbus, and thus became
one of the grandmothers of the Emperor Nero.
Antonia II married Drusus I, issue Germanicus, Claudius,
who succeeded Caligula as Emperor, Livilla. Germanicus
married Agrippina I, Claudius eventually married
Agrippina II. Livilla married Drusus II, the son of
Tiberius.
MARCUS ANTONIUS
His blood ran in the family through his two daughters, Antonia I and
Antonia II; his sons by his first wife, Fulvia, did not marry into the
Julian or Claudian families; one of them was put to death as a paramour
of Julia I.
TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS NERO
married Livia, issue two sons, Tiberius the Emperor and Drusus I.
Tiberius married first Vipsania, daughter of Agrippa by his first
wife, Pomponia, who was daughter of Pomponius Atticus, the
banker, and friend of Cicero, issue one son, Drusus II, married
Livilla, issue one son, Tiberius, murdered by Caligula.
Secondly, Julia I, daughter of Augustus, no issue.
Drusus I married Antonia II, issue Germanicus, Claudius, Livilla.
Germanicus married Agrippina I, daughter of Julia I,
granddaughter of Augustus and M. Vipsanius Agrippa; issue Nero
I, Drusus III, Caius (Caligula) Agrippina II, Drusilla, Julia
Livilla who married M. Vinicius, the friend of Paterculus.
These are the six children whose claims to represent the true
Julian stock were so vehemently asserted by their mother,
Agrippina I. They derived their Julian blood from Octavia,
through their grandmother Antonia II, on the father’s side,
and from Augustus through their grandmother, Julia I, on the
mother’s side.
MARCUS VIPSANIUS AGRIPPA
married
I. Pomponia, issue Vipsania the first wife of Tiberius, she was
thus the mother of Drusus II; after her divorce from Tiberius
she married Caius Asinius Gallus.
II. Marcella I, sister to “tu Marcellus eris,” daughter of Octavia
by her first husband, no issue; after her divorce she married
Julius Antonius.
III. Julia I, daughter of Augustus, and his only child; issue Caius
Cæsar, Lucius Cæsar, Julia II, Agrippina I, Agrippa Postumus;
on the death of Agrippa, Julia I married Tiberius, she was
afterwards divorced and banished on account of misconduct,
which appears to have been political, at least as much as it
was adulterous.
Caius Cæsar died without issue.
Lucius Cæsar died without issue.
(After being regarded as the probable heirs of
Augustus.)
Julia II married an Æmilius Paullus, but was banished like
her mother for similar reasons.
Agrippina I married Germanicus.
Agrippa Postumus, the intractable, was banished by
Augustus, and put out of the way at the accession of
Tiberius; by whose orders is not definitely certain.
Through Agrippina the obscure Agrippa was the grandfather of one
Emperor, Caligula, and the great grandfather of another, Nero.
INDEX
A
Achaia demands to be transferred to Imperial provinces, 313, 336, 357
Actium, battle of, 107, 122
Actors in Rome, 359
Banished, 361
Ædiles and sumptuary laws, 362, 366, 367
Africa a Senatorial province, 357
Agrippa:
As general, 217
Campaign in Illyria, 225
Death, 173
In Octavian’s household, 145, 168, 169, 172
Minister for war, 153
Sketch of career, 116
Agrippa, Fonteius, 326
Agrippa, grandson of Herod, friend of Caligula, 426
Agrippa Postumus, 249
Banished, 249, 256
Put to death, 257
Agrippina the younger, Memoirs, 266, 292, 329, 333, 398, 402, 425
Agrippina, wife of Germanicus, 211, 249, 269, 332, 338
Conduct after her husband’s death, 341, 343, 345, 350, 400
Banished, 409
Character, 288
Recalled, 425
Starts for Trêves, 284
Alexander:
Combines city state with Imperial organization, 7
Effects of his conquests, 5
Fragments of empire, 7
Policy, 8
Alexandria:
Antonius’ triumph at, 121
Insurrection in, 87
Jews in, 372
Aliso, Drusus fortifies camp at, 226, 239
Alpine tribes defeated, 225
Antonia, wife of Drusus, 152, 172, 176, 198, 335
In charge of Caligula and his sisters, 410
Antonian family, 168
Antonius, Julius, commits suicide, 190
Antonius, Lucius:
At Præneste, 88
Character, 99
Joins Constitutional party, 98
Perusine war, 58
Antonius, Marcus:
Alliance with Cleopatra, 120
At Mutina, 97
Character, 119, 126
Conduct after Cæsar’s death, 93, 111, 142
Expeditions against Parthians, 155
Extravagance, 58
Goes to East, 98, 115, 120
Power wielded by, 215
Share of empire, 118,119
Snatch at supreme power, 301
Tyrant of conventional type, 8
Antony (_see_ Antonius Marcus)
Apicata, wife of Sejanus, 400, 413
Apicius the Epicure, 385
Apion the Greek, nickname, 373
Apollonia, Octavian at, 94
Appian Aqueduct, 85
Appian Way, 85
Apuleius:
Accused of magic, 194
Object of travels, 132
Aretas of Arabia, 154
Ariovistus, advance of, 89
Aristogiton, principles of, 8
Armenia:
Dynastic troubles in, 336
Rulers of, 154
Arminius adopts Roman military system, 220
Rising of, 239
Arpinum, privileges of Roman citizenship, 37
Arruntius, L., suicide, 262
Asia Minor:
Commercial cities of, 98
Roman citizens massacred in, 13
Asprenas, Lucius, decision of, 239
Astronomy and astrology, 193
Atellan farce, 361
Athenian Constitution and Rome, 56
Athens:
As place of residence, 192
Constitution provided by Cleisthenes, 16
Politics of, 8
Atticus, Pomponius, 169
Augsburg, Roman military colony at, 235
Augur, functions of, 48
Augustus (_see_ Octavian)
Augustales, 135
B
Bacchus, worship of, 368
Bassus, Ventidius, 155
Career, 273
Bato, Pannonian chief, 238
Bithynia, a Senatorial province, 308, 336
Blæsus, Junius, 391
Arrests ringleaders of mutiny, 277
Brundisium, Octavian lands at, 94, 96
Brutus, Decimus, besieged at Mutina, 97
Brutus’ suicide, difference between Cato’s and, 55
Bull fights, 74
C
Cæcina, Aulus, commander of Lower Army on Rhine, 281, 285
Cæpio, conspiracy of, 246
Cæsar, Agrippa, 200
Cæsar, Caius, 172, 174, 198
Attitude towards Tiberius, 207
Death, 209
Training, 200
Cæsar, Julius:
Adopts Octavian, 94
Assassination, 91
Attitude towards Senate, 45, 55, 90, 127
Duration of absolute power, 108
Party supporting, 58
Portrait in British Museum, 141
Power wielded by, 215
Reliance on army, 123
Sketch of career, 88 _seqq._
State of empire after his death, 106
Cæsar, Lucius, 172, 198, 208
Death, 209
Training, 200
Cæsars and Equestrian Order, 22
Caligula (Caius), 249
Adopted by Tiberius, 426
Ashamed of his descent, 387
Burns private notes of Tiberius, 211
Extravagancies only felt in Rome, 384, 415
Jealous of other divinities, 135
Meaning of nickname, 250
Pet of soldiers, 285, 287
Calpurnia, wife of Julius Cæsar, 337
Cappadocia, an Imperial province, 336, 357
Capreæ, Tiberius in, 396, 420 _seqq._
Capua, territory confiscated by Rome, 99
Carthage:
Destruction of, 10
Her dominion in Mediterranean, 6
Cassius plunders cities of Asia Minor, 98
Cato’s suicide:
Attitude of contemporaries towards, 52
Difference between suicide of Brutus and, 55
Catullus, native of Cis-Alpine Gaul, 119
Catus, Firmius, 324, 326
Celer, Propertius, desires to retire from Senatorial Order, 311
Celsus, Horace’s letter to, 157