Part 17

Tiberius was the eldest son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and of Livia Drusilla: his father was quæstor with Cæsar, but afterwards joined the republicans, to whom he seems to have been staunch and true; after the battle of Philippi, he declared for L. Antonius and Fulvia, 711, as he had to expect no mercy from Augustus. (Tiberius was born in the year 710 according to Cato.) On the unfortunate issue of the Perusian war, Claudius fled with his family to Naples, and from thence to Sextus Pompey in Sicily; Tiberius was then in his second year, and his life was in the greatest danger. The father did not stay with Pompey, who offended him, but fled to Antony in Greece: he got his pardon at the peace of Brundusium, and returned to Italy. Livia Drusilla was daughter of one Livius Drusus, who, however, was not directly descended from the consul and tribune of that house: his real name was Appius Claudius Pulcher, and he was adopted by Livius; so that both by father and mother’s side, Tiberius came from the race of the Claudii, all the terrible qualities of which he had inherited. Soon afterwards, Augustus compelled Nero to give up to him his wife, who was with child at the time, and brought forth Drusus in the Palace. Tiberius, being the step-son of the Emperor, was brought up as a child of the very highest rank; yet no one ever thought of the possibility of the dominion of the world passing over to him. Augustus had hoped for some time to have children by Livia; and when this expectation was not fulfilled, he built his hopes on the children of Julia, his daughter by Scribonia, and especially on her husband M. Marcellus, and her children by Agrippa. Tiberius, who had a Greek philological education, displayed extraordinary talents which he helped besides by industry. Being at an early age employed in business, he had the _quæstura Ostiensis_, and then he was sent to Armenia. In everything that he did, he showed himself very able, and public attention was aroused to his eminent qualities: he was as much distinguished as a general, as he was as a civil governor. But people very soon remarked in him a great want of openness, with a leaning towards vice, which he practised in secret, and hid from the eyes of the world. Reserved and moody, he had no friend, nor did he trust a soul but his mother: he was especially on his guard against all those who stood between him and Augustus, and from Agrippa and Marcellus he stood aloof. This mistrust, for which as much cause may have been given to him as he himself gave to others, had the most injurious effects on his character; very like those which were seen in the Emperor Paul. Tiberius, and also his brother Drusus, and his nephew Germanicus, were first-rate generals. Nature had done very much for him: he had great judgment, wit, and industry; indestructible health; a very happily and beautifully organized body; a tall majestic figure; a fine head: his statue and that of Augustus are the finest among those of the emperors. He also spoke extraordinarily well. After the death of Agrippa, who was his avowed enemy, his mother Livia and Augustus, the latter of whom placed his reliance more and more upon him—conceived the plan of marrying him to Julia, a most profligate and abandoned woman: Tiberius was very loth to make up his mind to this match, although it brought him nearer to Augustus. Caius and Lucius Cæsar, her two sons adopted by Augustus, were then still living, who indeed stood between him and the lordship of the earth. The conduct of his wife lowered him in the eyes of the world in a way which he could not bear, and made him the laughing-stock of the Romans: he therefore wanted to go to Rhodes, as he did not think that he could do anything against Julia. There were at that time plots in the family of Augustus like those in the houses of Cosmo of Medicis and of Philip the Second: its members hatching conspiracies and intrigues against each other. Augustus would not hear of his going away; but Tiberius insisted upon it, which Augustus took exceedingly ill. Before this, Tiberius had distinguished himself in Rhætia, Vindelicia and the first Pannonian war. Seven years passed away, ere Livia, after the death of C. and L. Cæsar, could manage to get the consent of Augustus to his return: for he so hated him, that many thought to please the Emperor by treating Tiberius with contempt. In the meanwhile, Julia was condemned and banished by her father himself: yet even this did not change anything in the position of Tiberius; Livia’s rule only became unbounded by degrees. Drusus was likewise dead. When Tiberius at length came back, he was adopted with Agrippa Postumus; the latter, however, was soon banished for his brutal ways. Tiberius now obtained the tribunician power, and was regularly made known to the world as the one who was next to the throne: he sat on public occasions by the side of Augustus, though indeed it was not openly proclaimed that he was to be his successor. All this time, he was of great service to the Roman state: the danger threatening from Marbod arose, and then the insurrection of the Pannonians and Illyrians. These last Tiberius overpowered with great difficulty; and he was likewise successful against the Germans, whose hopes he baffled after the death of Varus. In the year 765 (14 after Christ), Augustus died at Nola, and Tiberius, who was on his way to Illyricum, was in all haste called back by a messenger from his mother. In the will, Tiberius was left heir of two-thirds; with regard to the commonwealth, however, Augustus had not said a word, as if he had no decision to make on this point. Yet every possible precaution was adopted to preserve the power for Tiberius; the prætorian cohorts, as soon as ever Augustus was dead, took the oaths to him. As Tiberius held the tribunician power, which was the symbol of supreme authority, he was able to call the senate together whenever he liked, and to put a stop to anything that was hostile to him. When the corpse of Augustus had been brought to Rome, and his ashes entombed in the Mausoleum, the funeral orations having been spoken by Tiberius and his son Drusus; the step was still to be taken by which Tiberius had to put himself in the possession of the supreme power. He now showed at once a remarkable duplicity: he was not a coward on the field of battle; yet he was uncommonly afraid of attempts upon his life. He had carried his dissimulation to a pitch of refinement, being one of those persons who can never make up their minds to speak out, but must be guessed; like Cromwell, to whom he otherwise has no resemblance: such men are not seldom met with in every-day life, and they are quite unbearable. Tiberius wished to have before the world the appearance of a moral man, and yet to give himself quietly up to all sorts of excesses: he never uttered what he really thought, for fear of saying something too much. With this character, he played the farce with which the work of Tacitus most painfully begins. There it is told at some length how he refused to take the reins of government, and made the senate urge him to do it for the sake of the common good. When he saw that he tired the people, he yielded so far as to compel them to force him.

The first beginning of his reign is marked by a mutiny of the troops in Illyricum and on the Rhine. It was one of the institutions of Augustus, that the legions had permanent camps on the frontiers, in which they were stationed until the men were superannuated: after having served a number of years, these were for some time longer to be kept up as a reserve _sub vexillis_ in the provinces, as Augustus wanted to have as many old soldiers who had seen service as possible; and then at length they were to become quite free, and the whole legion was disbanded, and a military colony established for it. This system was a terrible one for the provinces and for the soldiers; but in a military point of view it was admirably suited for the protection of the empire. Now were new legions first formed and sent out. Yet what had been promised the soldiers, had not been made good to them, and they had had to remain much longer under arms than they ought: in this state of things, the soldier became the terror of every one, being himself frightfully oppressed and plundered by his officers. The detailed account of this outbreak in Tacitus, is excellent. Drusus overcame the danger in Illyricum; Germanicus, on the Rhine. In reality, however, the government had to give way: the ringleaders were punished, but the rest got their relief, and had the advantages of the reserve secured to them.

A very great change which took place at the first beginning of Tiberius’ reign, was the abolition of the popular elections, and the transferring of them to the senate,—a change which after all was so completely a form, and a farce, that Tacitus hardly bestows a word upon it: it had no longer any reality; if it had, it would have been useful. The so-called people which in the days of Augustus held the _comitia_ on the Campus Martius, was the smallest and worst part of the nation; whereas the senate was the choice of it from all countries, particularly from all Italy.—Of much importance was the drawing up of a list, according to which the governments were to be given.

Tiberius’ reign of twenty-three years is anything but rich in events: in the very first years only, Germanicus’ wars in Germany give it some interest. For these, however, I must altogether refer you to Tacitus. The wars were carried on as far as the Weser, with a very large military force: one cannot understand how such masses should have been used against tribes which had no fortified towns whatever, and therefore were utterly unable to offer any resistance; nor yet that they should have produced no effect. The Germans could not stand their ground in the open field; and so they fled into the woods and impassable parts of the country. It is moreover strange that the Romans make here the same mistake over and over again: they try to overawe the enemy by striking a great blow in the interior, and thus they hope to subdue them; then they build some military roads with bridges over the marshes in Overyssel, in Lower Münster, and on the Lippe. The only means would have been slowly to advance; but this perhaps did not seem to them worth the trouble, and they might thus have only got the country as a waste. We (Germans) may, however, thank Heaven that Tiberius from jealousy called back Germanicus after his last brilliant achievements. He seems not to have had much desire to conquer Germany: shrinking from great undertakings, he merely tried to maintain the frontiers. The tactics of the Germans show that it is most absurd to look upon them as having been few in number and uncivilized; for they encountered the Romans in quite regular battles, and carried on the war with much ability. But Tiberius did all for peace, as he could not bear that generals under him should distinguish themselves; he even put up with humiliations: thus, for instance, he shut his eyes to the slight which he had had to suffer in Armenia and Parthia, even the expulsion of the king whom he had himself given to the Parthians. The historical interest of his reign is therefore entirely confined to what happened in his own family, and to affairs at home.

Tiberius, at that time, had a son of his own, Drusus, and an adopted son, Germanicus the child of his brother. Drusus must have been a fine young man; but Germanicus was the idolized hero of the Romans, a worthy son of a worthy father,—the hero of the German wars,—a great and noble soul. It may indeed have been a fanciful freak in Drusus, to ask Augustus to restore the republic which would not have been able to hold its ground for one year; but that wish could only have sprung from a lefty and generous mind. Germanicus declined the offer of the legions, who, after the death of Augustus, called upon him to take the government; he remained faithful to his adoptive father, although he certainly could not have loved him. Tiberius, on the other hand, had no faith in virtue and purity of heart; so he removed him from the scene of his triumphs, and recalled him to Rome. But his ill humour was yet increased, when Germanicus, on his return thither, met with an enthusiastic reception from the people. As Tiberius was conscious of the vices and the tyranny which he kept hidden from the world, he hated a man like Germanicus; he shrank from a contrast with his single-minded nephew: yet it may just as well have been fear for the interests of his son, as the pain of seeing by his side one so good as Germanicus, while he himself felt his own utter depravity. Germanicus now had, like Agrippa before him, the commission of superintending the _res Orientis_, the eastern frontiers and provinces; but he died shortly afterwards. Whether he died from poison or from natural causes, is a question with regard to which the ancients themselves were in the dark; yet I rather believe that his death was natural, as the accounts point rather to witchcraft than to poison, and those who chose the former expedient—to which, owing to the superstition then prevailing in Rome, people were very much inclined—would not have been likely to try the other. It is credible enough that Piso had attempted his life; but what is quite unaccountable, is that he could have fancied that conduct like this could be left unpunished by such a prince as Tiberius was. He indeed thought to curry favour with Tiberius by his insolence to Germanicus; yet he could not but have seen, that if ever the matter came to be talked of, Tiberius would sacrifice him: for although the emperor might in his heart have been rejoiced at the deed, he would, notwithstanding, have been obliged, before the world, to avenge it on the very man who had dared to act up to his wishes. Even Tacitus, in his time, had great doubts on this subject, the most contradictory rumours about it were then afloat. Thus, the Dauphiné deemed her husband, the Dauphin, the son of Louis XV., to have been poisoned by the Duc de Choiseul, which nowadays is less credited. The Dauphin, being religious, and even somewhat bigoted, was very hateful to the Duke, who was a very gay man and a freethinker, and who did not wish the expulsion of the Jesuits to be thwarted by the Dauphin, nor his own power to be shaken. There were indeed some motives for the crime; but it does not follow thence that it was really committed, and I certainly doubt it. Piso’s poisoning Germanicus, might have been winked at by Tiberius; but his insulting and publicly reviling him, was an offence against the _majestas_ which he could not have overlooked when his adopted son was in the case: and moreover that Piso, when Germanicus was sent to succeed him, would not give up the province of Syria, but drew together his troops and prepared to march to Rome, is the most puzzling event in Roman history. Piso and his wife Munatia Plancina, a daughter of the orator Munatius Plancus, were condemned, and the secret was buried with them. There were some suspicion that Livia herself had suggested the plan of poisoning Germanicus: she was horrible enough not to spare her grandson, and it may be that she did not care at all about offending Tiberius.

Soon after the death of Germanicus, began the prosecutions for _crimen majestatis_,—those never to be defined charges against which no man could shield himself; for it was a crime which, as early as the republic, had the most different meanings, and indeed might have been applied to anything: whoever had brought any calamity upon the state, was wont to be thus prosecuted. In the reign of Augustus, by a law which we do not know, an offence against the _imperator_ was made a _crimen majestatis_, as formerly those against the republic had been. All trials for this were conducted before the senate, which in fact was only a condemning machine in the hands of the tyrant; just as the National Convention was under Robespierre. Many things were classed under the head of _crimen majestatis_, which in reality did not belong to it at all; as for instance, amours with princesses. At first, that charge was met with very seldom indeed under Tiberius; but gradually there grew up a herd of informers who made it their business to bring to judgment any one who had given offence to the emperor. Tiberius himself acted a neutral part; but the senate got more and more into the frightful habit of condemning whenever it was at all agreeable to the emperor.—On the whole, however, the state during the first nine years of Tiberius was in a very happy condition: there were very few condemnations indeed; and in several of these cases the persons whom they affected were hardly deserving of sympathy. Tiberius lived in retirement, but with dignity and great outward decorum, treating the first men of the nation with much distinction. Augustus was not a close-fisted manager; at the end of his reign he was even in financial difficulties; but he regularly published the accounts of the year before: this was not kept up by Tiberius, who laid by huge hoards. The indirect taxes in Italy were raised, and some new ones brought in. This state of things lasted as long as old Livia lived; and as yet apprehensions were felt only by those who were sharp-sighted enough to foresee the clouds which would gather when she was once dead. Tiberius stood in fear and dread of his mother to the very end of her days, and all affection between them had now for a great while been no more: she was a terrible woman; and yet her life was a blessing for Rome,—at least for those who had forgotten the old times. After her death, Tiberius had nothing to restrain him: he dropped the virtues which he had formerly displayed owing to his diligence while under the authority of another to whom he had to give account; he allowed his activity to flag, and became quite lost in his hateful and gloomy disposition. The only enjoyment he had in life, was in most infamous lusts; and a man advanced in years, who gives himself up to shameful pleasures, must irretrievably sink into the basest state of worthlessness.

Napoleon is said to have once told a deputation of the Institute that Tiberius had been very hardly dealt with, and that Tacitus had been unjust to him. Napoleon was far from being a learned man, his knowledge was all picked up; but Roman military history he knew very well. He must have said,—“if we form our opinion of Tiberius only from Tacitus, and deem him to have been an infamous, brutal voluptuary, and a tiger of cruelty, then we have not a correct idea of him; for Tiberius was in his youth, and even up, to his fiftieth year, a great general and statesman. None of his _vitia subdola_ came to light before that time; and whilst he kept the energetic and good qualities of his disposition in full play, he behaved as if he were quite another man.” This view is a perfectly true one. Tiberius’ only friend was Ælius Sejanus, the son of Seius Strabo, a Vulsinian, _equestri loco natus_; him he made _præfectus prætorio_. Sejanus’ character has a great likeness to that of his master, and he ought not to be looked upon with contempt: he was an excellent officer, a man of great strength of will, of courage and of much talent; but without any sort of principle. To him alone Tiberius unbosomed himself; and he knew how to make the emperor feel quite comfortable, and to lead him to yield himself up entirely to his own propensities: Tiberius’ mind was at rest while Sejanus gave him security against those whom he was most afraid of, namely, his own family, and the few grandees who still remained. Sejanus increased the prætorian cohorts; and he suggested to Tiberius the plan of concentrating them in the _Castrum Prætorianum_ (a citadel outside the wall of Servius Tullius, but in what is now the very midst of the city); just as the Italian tyrants were wont to do. This is the most momentous event in the history of the emperors. The prætorians now became the real sovereigns, like the janissaries at Algiers; so that they are the pivots on which the Roman history turns, down to the times of Diocletian: by this means, Rome was converted into a military republic, which was generally dormant except when the occupant of the throne was changed. Sejanus aimed at nothing less than supreme power. Drusus was yet alive and had children; Germanicus had left three sons; and a brother of his, who afterwards became the Emperor Claudius, was likewise still living: the whole of this family, Sejanus wished to root out, and so he seduced the wife of Drusus, Livilla, a daughter of the elder Drusus. With her help, he poisoned Drusus; after which he also cruelly made away with the sons of Germanicus, Caius alone excepted, who was still a child, and whom he kept in reserve. He gave Tiberius such confidence, that he withdrew from Rome to Capreæ, there to wallow in his lusts; and in the meanwhile he himself ruled in Rome. Prosecutions now were rife, and here begin the frightful annals of the reign of Tiberius: the lists of those who are condemned to die, are made up of men, who were all of them more or less eminent, although all were not precisely respectable; Tiberius therefore deserves to be called the very pattern of a tyrant. Much must be laid to the charge of Tiberius personally; but much also to that of Sejanus, whose influence increased more and more. The banishment of Agrippina is his work; the last tortures, however, which were inflicted on her, were after his death.