coursed idly on the blessings of liberty; many dreaded war; some longed for it. But the greater number pulled to pieces the characters of their future masters with comments such as these:Agrippa, they said, was a savage, exasperated by contumelious treatment; he had neither the years nor the experience to bear the weight of empire. Tiberius Nero was of ripe age, and a tried warrior: but he had all the old pride of the Claudii in his blood; and, however carefully suppressed, many indications of a cruel temper had escaped him. He had been brought up from infancy in a reigning house; Consulships and Triumphs had been heaped upon him in his youth: even during the years of exile which he had spent in Rhodes, under pretence of retreat, he had done nothing but brood over his resentments, or practise hypocrisy and solitary debauch. And then there was his mother, with all the ungovernable passions of her sex: they would have to serve a woman, and two striplings into the bargain, who would begin by oppressing the commonwealth, and end by rending it in sunder.

Amid speculations such as these, the health of Augustus began to fail. Some suspected foul play on the part of his wife. For a rumour had got abroad that Augustus, some months before, with the privity of a few special friends, and with Fabius Maximus as sole companion, had journeyed to Planasia to see Agrippa. It was said that many tears had been shed, many signs of affection exchanged, between the two; and hopes were raised that the young man might be restored to his grandfather's home. The secret of this visit, it was reported, had been betrayed by Maximus to his wife Marcia, and by her to Livia. This had come to the ears of Augustus; and when Maximus died not long after (whether by his own hand or not was a matter of doubt), Marcia had been overheard lamenting

at his funeral, and blaming herself for her husband's death.

Be that as it may, Tiberius had scarcely reached Illyricum when he was recalled in haste by message from his mother. Whether on arriving at Nola he found Augustus still alive, or already dead, was never known. For Livia had placed a strict guard upon the palace and its approaches; favourable bulletins were issued from time to time; until, when every necessary precaution had been taken, it was announced in one and the same breath that Augustus was dead, and that Tiberius was in possession of the government.

The opening crime of the new reign was the murder of Agrippa Postumus. He was taken by surprise, and was unarmed; yet the centurion, though a determined man, had some difficulty in despatching him. Tiberius made no communication on the subject to the Senate. His father, he pretended, had left orders with the officer in charge to put Agrippa to death as soon as he himself should breathe his last. Now Augustus, no doubt, had said many harsh things about the young man's character, and had caused the Senate to decree his banishment; but he never hardened himself so far as to put any of his own family to death, nor is it credible that he should have slain his grandson to secure a stepson's safety. It is more probable that this hurried murder of a youth detested equally by Tiberius and by Livia, was the work of both; the former moved by fear, the latter by her hatred as a stepmother.

When the centurion reported, according to military custom, that he had executed the order, Tiberius replied that he had never given any such order; and that the man would have to answer to the Senate for his conduct. When this was known to Sallustius Crispus, who was in the secret-it was he who had sent the written instructions to the

Tribune he was afraid the charge would be shifted on to his own shoulders, in which case, whether he should tell the truth or not, he would be in equal peril. He therefore warned Livia that the secrets of the palace, the private advice of friends, and the services of the soldiery, were things not to be published abroad: -Tiberius must not weaken the powers of the Principate by referring everything to the Senate. The condition of Imperial rule was this: that every one should be accountable to one man, and to one only. Meanwhile all at Rome-Consuls, Senators, and Knights-were plunging into servitude. Men bearing the most illustrious names were the foremost with false professions; composing their features so as not to show too much pleasure at the death of the one prince, or too little at the accession of the other; blending tears with their smiles, and flattery with their lamentations. The Consuls, Sextus Pompeius and Sextus Appuleius, were the first to take the oath of allegiance, which they in turn administered. to Seius Strabo and Gaius Turraniusthe former Commandant of the Prætorian Cohorts, the latter, Superintendent of the corn-market. Then came the Senate, the soldiers, and the people. For Tiberius left all initiative with the Consuls, as though the old Republic were still standing, and as if he himself had not made up his mind to assume the Empire: even the edict by which he summoned the Senate he only put forth in virtue of the Tribunitian authority conferred on him in the lifetime of Augustus. The edict itself was short, and moderate in tone: He desired to take their advice as to the honours to be paid his father; he himself would not leave the body, nor undertake any other public duty. And yet, no sooner was Augustus dead, than he had given the password to the Prætorians as their commander; he had surrounded himself with guards and sentinels and all the paraphernalia of a

court; he was escorted by soldiers to the Forum and to the Senate-house, and he had issued a proclamation to the army as though he were already Emperor: nowhere did he show hesitation save in his language to the Senate.

His chief reason for this attitude was his fear of Germanicus. That prince had many legions under his command, and a vast force of allies; he was the darling of the people; and it might be that he would prefer possession to expectation. Tiberius had regard also to public opinion. He wanted men to believe that he had been chosen and called to power by his countrymen, rather than that he had crept into it through the intrigues of a wife, or as the adopted son of a dotard. It transpired afterward that this air of hesitation was assumed deliberately, for the purpose of fathoming the feelings of the leading men; for Tiberius would distort a word or a look into an offence, and treasure it up in his memory.

At the first meeting of the Senate, Tiberius permitted no business to be transacted except that relating to the obsequies of Augustus. The testament was carried in by the Vestal Virgins. Tiberius and Livia were appointed heirs. Livia was to be adopted into the Julian house, and to receive the title of "Augusta." His grandsons and great-grandsons came next in the succession; in the third rank were many names of distinction, mostly those of personal enemies, inserted in a spirit of vain-glory, with an eye to the approbation of posterity. The amount bequeathed was not above the scale of a private fortune; but a sum of forty-three and a half million sesterces was left to the people and to the plebs. Each soldier of the Prætorian Cohorts was to receive one thousand sesterces; the soldiers of the Urban Cohorts five hundred; the legionaries, and the members of the Cohorts raised from Roman citizens, three hundred sesterces apiece.

The question of funeral honours was then considered. The most outstanding proposals were that of Gallus Asinius, that the procession should pass through the Triumphal Gate; and that of Lucius Arruntius, that the titles of the laws passed by the deceased, and the names of nations which he had conquered, should be borne before the body. To these Messalla Valerius added that the oath of allegiance to Tiberius should be renewed every year; and when challenged by Tiberius to say whether that motion had been made at his instigation, he replied that no man had prompted him: nor would he follow any counsel but his own in public matters, even though he might give offence thereby. Such was the only form of flattery still left untried!

It was carried by acclamation that the body should be borne to the pyre by Senators; an honour which Tiberius waived, in a tone of arrogant condescension. And to the people he issued a proclamation, praying them not to think of burning the body in the Forum, rather than at its appointed resting-place in the Campus Martius, nor to repeat the disturbances caused by excess of affection at the obsequies of the Immortal Julius.

On the funeral day, the troops were drawn up on guard, amid the derision of those who had themselves beheld or had heard their elders describe the day when Rome, unripe as yet for slavery, had struck that ill-fated blow for freedomthe day when some regarded the assassi nation of Cæsar as a foul crime, others as a most glorious achievement: whereas now an aged emperor, after a long lease of power, and after providing his heirs with resources against the Commonwealth, had need of a guard of soldiers to keep order over his grave!

There followed much talk about Augustus. People idly marvelled that he had died upon the same day as that on which he had first entered on power; in the same house, in the very room, at

Nola, in which his father Octavius had breathed his last. They dwelt upon the number of his consulships, equal to those of Valerius Corvus and Gaius Marius put together; they recounted how the Tribunitian Power had been continued to him for thirty-seven years; how the title of "Imperator" had been conferred upon him one-and twenty times: how other distinctions had been heaped on him, or invented in his honour.

Reflecting men discussed his career in various tones of praise or blame. Some maintained:-That he had been forced into civil war by regard for his father's memory, and by the exigencies of public affairs, which left no room for law: and civil war was a thing which none could bring about or carry on clean-handed. He had made many concessions to Antonius, many also to Lepidus, in order to secure vengeance on his father's murderers; but when the latter became old and lethargic, and the former lost himself in debauch, no resource was left for the distracted country but the rule of one man. Yet even so, Augustus had not set up his government as King or Dictator, but under the name of "Princeps.' Under his rule, the frontiers had been pushed forward to the Ocean or to distant rivers; the provinces, the armies, and the fleets of the Empire had been brought into communication with one another. Justice had been dispensed at home; consideration had been shown to the allies; the city itself had been sumptuously adorned: and, if some few acts of violence had been committed, it had been in order to secure the general tranquillity.

On the other side it was said:-The pleas of filial duty and political necessity were but pretexts. It was lust of power which had prompted Augustus to attract the veterans by bribes, to collect an army while he was still a stripling and without office, to tamper with the troops of the Consul, and to affect sympathy with the

Pompeian party. After that, by virtue of a decree of the Senate, he had usurped the Prætorship, with its military and judicial powers; and when Hirtius and Pansa were slain in battle-whether or no those generals were so slain: or had died, the latter, of a poisoned wound, the former, at the hands of his own soldiers treacherously set on by Octavianus he had assumed command of both armies; he had forced the Senate to make him Consul against its will, and having received an army to oppose Antonius, had turned it against his own. country: the proscriptions, the confiscations, were measures which not even their perpetrators could approve. The deaths of Brutus and Cassius, indeed, might be deemed a tribute of vengeance to his father; though even so it were right for private hatred to give way before the public good. But he had tricked Sextus Pompeius by a pretence of peace, and Lepidus under the guise of friendship; later on, he had entrapped Antonius by the treaties of Tarentum and Brundisium, and by giving him his own sister in marriage a treacherous alliance which Antonius had paid for with his blood. Peace, no doubt, had followed, but it was a peace stained with blood: there had been the disasters of Lollius and Varus abroad; at home, the executions of a Varro, an Egnatius, and a Iulus.

Nor was his private life spared:-He had torn Livia, when pregnant, from her husband, going through the farce of consulting the augurs whether she could rightfully marry without waiting for the child to be born; he had permitted the extravagance of a Quintus Tedius and a Vedius Pollio. And lastly, there was Livia: a very scourge to the Commonwealth as a mother, no less a scourge to the house of the Cæsars as a step-mother. What honours were left for the Gods, when Augustus ordained temples and images to be set up to himself as to a Deity, with Flamens and Priests to wor

ship him? Even in adopting Tiberius as his successor, he had not been moved by affection, or by care for the public good; but having sounded the depths of that proud and cruel nature, he had sought to win glory for himself by contrast with an execrable successor.

For many years before, when Augustus was asking the Senate to confer anew the Tribunitian Power on Tiberius, though he spoke of him in terms of compliment, he had let fall some observations about his bearing, his manners and style of living, which under guise of apology bore all the character of a reproach.

-G. G. RAMSAY.

MUTINY ON THE RHINE

[From the Annals, Book I]

The government of the provinces continued under the Empire to be a serious problem. Such a revolt as that pictured here from the early part of the reign of Tiberius led on more than one occasion to the overthrow of the prince and the seating on the throne of a new emperor chosen by the armies.

About the same time, and from identical causes, disturbances broke out in the armies of the Rhine; and with all the greater violence, in proportion to their greater numbers. They indulged the hope also that Germanicus Cæsar, unable to brook a master over him, would lend himself to the legions: they were strong enough, they thought, to carry all before them. There were two armies on the banks of the Rhine. The Upper army, as it was called, was under the Legate Gaius Silius; Aulus Cæcina had command of the Lower: both alike were under the supreme command of Germanicus, who was at that time occupied in taking the census in the provinces of Gaul.

The army of Silius hesitated, watching the result of the movement elsewhere;

but the Lower army broke out in open mutiny. The movement began with the men of the 21st and 5th legions, who carried along with them the 1st and the 20th; all these four being at that time. encamped together in the territory of the Ubii, with little or no work to occupy them. No sooner had the news of the death of Augustus arrived, than the townbred recruits who had been raised in the city not long before, accustomed to license, and impatient of all labour, filled the simple minds of their comrades with the idea that the time had now come for the veterans to press for an early discharge, the younger soldiers for more pay, for all alike to demand some relief from their irksome duties, and wreak vengeance on the centurions for their brutality. And such talk was not confined to single agitators, like Percennius in the Pannonian army, nor addressed to trembling soldiers, looking anxiously around to armies more powerful than themselves. The spirit of sedition found many tongues and many voices:-The fortunes of Rome were in their own hands; it was by their victories that the Empire was extended, it was from their name that Emperors derived their titles.

Unnerved by the general frenzy, the Legate made no attempt at resistance. In one moment, an infuriated mob rushed with drawn swords upon the centurions— the objects, from time immemorial, of the soldiers' hatred, and the first victims of their violence. The men threw them down and beat them, sixty of them setting upon each centurion, so as to match the number of the centuries; then having belaboured and mangled them, they cast them out, many already dead, upon the entrenchments, or into the river. One of them called Septimius took refuge on the tribunal, and threw himself down before Cæcina's feet; but so determined was the demand made for him, that he was given up to death. One young man of spirit, called Cassius Chærea, who after

wards acquired notoriety as one of the murderers of Gaius Cæsar, cut his way, sword in hand, through the armed mob which blocked his path.

The Tribunes, and the Commandant of the camp, now lost all authority. The men distributed among themselves all sentry and picket duty, and other matters of immediate urgency. To those who best understood the temper of the soldiery, nothing showed more clearly the serious and uncompromising character of the movement than this, that everything was done in concert, nothing at the prompting of a few; all rose to fury, or sunk into silence, like one man: with such uniformity and regularity that it seemed to be at the word of command.

Meantime Germanicus, as we have said, was taking the census in Gaul when he heard of the death of Augustus. He was the son of Drusus, brother of Tiberius; the grandson of Augusta; and his wife Agrippina, by whom he had several children, was the grand-daughter of Augustus. But he was disquieted by the secret hatred which both his uncle and his grandmother bore him: a hatred which was all the more bitter that it sprang from unworthy reasons. For the memory of his father Drusus was much cherished by the Roman people; and it was the popular belief that if he had succeeded to power, he would have restored the Republic. Germanicus had become the object of the same favour, and the same hopes; for his unassuming character, and his rare affability of manner, presented a strong contrast to the haughty looks and dark language of Tiberius. besides all this, feminine rancours were at work. For Livia regarded Agrippina with a true step-mother's hatred; and Agrippina herself was somewhat passionate and imperious in temper, though her faults were all redeemed by her chastity and her devotion to her husband.

And

But the fact that Germanicus stood near to the succession only caused him