firm; so when a short illness reduced his strength alarmingly, he made up his mind that death was near. Summoning all his friends around his bed, dressed with his usual care, and every lock of his hair in its place, he turned to the bystanders, and asked, in the words of a Greek play, 'Have I acted my part well? If so, give me your applause.' Scarcely had the words escaped his lips, than he expired in the arms of the Empress.

man.

Of all the series of medals of the Cæsars, the aspect of Augustus bespeaks most perfectly the very character of the The ample forehead, the deep-set eye and contracted brow, the firmly-compressed thin lips and high aquiline nose, all reveal him as he was in life-cool, shrewd, subtle-one who had never suffered either interest or vanity to warp his judgment; a close calculator of means, whose intellect grew with his fortunes; who, when the world was at his feet, understood the real grandeur of his position, and laid the foundation of his imperial throne so deep in Rome, that the storms of many centuries were needful for its overthrow.

(See Histories of Rome, Niebuhr, i. 83-127; ii. 103, 228, 488, 547; iii. 701. Arnold, i. 25-50, 150, 253, 288; ii. 81, 113, 372, 294. Merivale, i-iv., passim. Liddell, i. 187, 457, 469; ii. 544. Gibbon's Decline and Fall, iii. 407 (Milman's ed.). Neander, Gen. Church His. tory, E. T. i. 38, 97 (Clark's Lib.). Mrs. Gray, Etruria).

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CHAPTER II.

'Who seldom smiled, and smiled in such a sort
As if he mocked himself, and scorned his spirit
That could be moved to smile at anything.'

-SHAKSPEARE.

TIBERIUS-CAIUS-CLAUDIUS.

TIBERIUS had been adopted by Augustus, and associated with him in the government during the last three years; had reached the mature age of fifty-six; and exhibited such remarkable activity and ability in the field and cabinet, that his accession to the vacant throne seemed certain. But the Empress Livia took the precaution of concealing her husband's death till the prætorian cohorts had taken the oath fo allegiance to her son, and the last surviving son of Julia, by her first husband, had been assassinated, so that no rival remained to dispute the succession. Tiberius was all along privy to Livia's nefarious plots for his promotion, and was such a deep dissembler, that, even with the lynx-eyed Augustus, he cloaked his ambition, craft, and abominable vices under the guise of a plain, blunt, honourable soldier. At his arrival in Rome, he affected intense grief for the loss of his benefactor, and celebrated his funeral with great pomp in the Field of Mars When the Senate passed a decree enrolling Augustus amongst the gods, commanding temples to be raise to him, sacrifices offered, and a holyday held in his ho

the voice of Tiberius was the first and the loudest in worship of the new deity. His stormy grief and passionate devotion were lulled by the Senate's offer of the empire; but the accomplished dissembler declined the honour-the prize to grasp which he had waded through so much of blood-until he was besought to accept it for the good of his country.'

Both the Empress Mother and himself were thoroughly conversant with the able policy of Augustus, who, with farseeing sagacity, bequeathed in his last will, which was publicly read in the Senate as a valuable legacy to his successors, his advice for the management of the Empire, and for confining it within those limits which nature seemed to have placed as its permanent boundaries-on the West the Atlantic Ocean; the Rhine and Danube on the North; the Euphrates on the East; and towards the South, the sandy deserts of Arabia and Africa. Then his task was made lighter by the singular aptitude of the Romans for practically carrying out the art of government, their tenacity of their institutions, and the signal success in material prosperity which attended the mild despotism of Augustus, and earned him the title of 'Father of his Country.' So we cease to wonder at the stability of the imperial system of administration, though the difficulty was enormous of keeping on the mask for ever-of giving the fair semblance of truth to a monstrous and transparent imposture-of disguising an iron despotism perpetually under the forms of a republic. But Tiberius, and all the wisest of his successors, understood their critical situation almost as well as its astute contriver; surrounded their throne with darkness; concealed their irresistible strength; and humbly professed themselves the accountable ministers of the Senate, whose supreme decrees they dictated and obeyed. Henceforth this great people, willingly or heedlessly bartering their liberty for largesses and luxuries, and all the pleasures

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TIBERIUS.

35

of indolence, insensibly lose the noble sense of free individuality which had so long thrilled in the breast of each Roman, and made him feel and act as a ruler of the nations; and their annals consist of little more than the biographies of their successive sovereigns. Their lives however are fraught with high tragic interest, and lessons of deep wisdom infinitely beyond that supplied by the history of the herd of kings.'

But the deceitful are always suspicious; and full of guile himself, the dark-hearted Emperor doubted the sincerity of every human being. He was painfully conscious that he could neither kindle the imagination of the soldiers like Julius, nor of the citizens like Augustus; and the memory of the murder of the former ever haunted his waking and sleeping hours. He saw an assassin in every stranger; and he who had known no fear on a stricken field, actually trembled and grew pale at any sudden movement in the brilliant circle of courtiers, who kept up around him one ceaseless chorus of compliment and homage. Indeed, he sat upon his blood-stained throne as uneasily as if in constant expectation of a crash, which he expected to overwhelm him sooner or later. A sword like that of Damocles seemed ever suspended over his head, and he scanned with angry perturbation the countenance of all who entered his presence, to discover whether they, too, saw the spectre which was never long absent from his own imagination. It is no shame to Tiberius, if his nerves were overcome by the hourly danger of assassination, a danger which appalled even the iron courage of Cromwell.

The first object of his suspicions was his adopted son Germanicus, whose generosity and gallantry had made him as much adored by the army on the Rhine, as the gloomy misanthropy of Tiberius had made him detested. Indeed, as soon as the troops heard of the death of Augustus, they tumultu

ously saluted Germanicus as Emperor; but he generously refused the offered crown, reduced the legions to obedience, and marched them off to the morasses and the forests of Germany, where he gained several brilliant victories over the hardy barbarians who, by the slaughter of the army of Varus, had regained their independence; and reminded Augustus of the vicissitudes of life, causing him to exclaim in anguish, 'Varus! Varus! give me back my legions!' He found the remains of his countrymen exposed on the battle-field where they had fallen, buried them, and raised hard by a Roman trophy to vindicate their wounded honour. But these victories of Germanicus, and his great popularity in the army, were intolerable to the suspicious Tiberius, who recalled him to Rome, ostensibly for the enjoyment of a triumph. When the jealous tyrant observed the enthusiastic reception given to the conqueror, he trembled for his throne, and dispatched him on a forlorn hope to the far East, at the same time sending out Piso, his personal enemy, as governor of Syria, with secret instructions to countermine and cut him off.

Perhaps the grandest historic pictures of Tacitus are those in which he sketches off the generous self-devotion of Germanicus to his country, though but too well aware of the vile conspiracy against his life and honour; his exploits in Armenia. and Cappadocia, and his visit to the wondrous country of Egypt, accompanied by that last of noble Roman matrons, his wife Agrippina, who, studiously insulted as she often was by Piso's wife, never ceased to share her gallant husband's toils and dangers, and cheer his path with the sunshine of her smile, till his assassination at Antioch. Piso was accused of the murder; but the investigation was stopped by his sudden death, caused, it was said, by Tiberius, who dreaded the disclosures that might be made of his own complicity. He craftily quieted the grief of the Romans for their hero's loss,