the procession reached Rome, and his funeral was conducted with great pomp. Augustus delivered an oration, in which he entreated the gods "to grant him a death as glorious as that of Drusus, and make the grandchildren whom they had given him, to tread in their father's steps." Had he lived, probably the army and people would have raised him to the first place in the empire. But in consequence of his republican principles, or more probably the influence of his mother, he was less honoured by Augustus than his brother, whom the emperor, as well as all who knew him, rather feared than loved. Before the death of Drusus, Tiberius had been, at the death of Agrippa, appointed governor of Rome, and next in dignity to the emperor.

The probability is strong that the empress Livia, had long taught her favourite son Tiberius to aspire to the sovereignty of the empire; and urged him to engage in such noble enterprises as should show that he was worthy of this most splendid object of human ambition. His military skill and bravery were frequently displayed; and he acquired renown in defending the empire from the inroads of barbarians, particularly in Thrace. But his personal aspect and character procured him few friends. For many years his conduct was not very exceptionable; but he was suspected to indulge the darkest and most malignant passions, and to be as capable of dissimulation and cruelty as his mother, in whom these destructive qualities predominated through a long life. Her partiality for him, and her power to do evil, were universally known, and the most atrocious crime, or most melancholy event, which tended to place him nearer the throne, was very generally conjectured or believed to have originated with her.

Marcellus, the interesting son of Octavia, was married to Julia, his aunt, who was the only daughter of Augustus. In a season of much sickness, he fell a victim to fever, in his nineteenth year. This fatal event was supposed by many to be produced by Antonius Musa, the physician, celebrated for having cured Augustus of a similar complaint. Antonius was believed to have, to please the empress, added poison to the remedies, which were considered, from their effect on the emperor, infallible.

The young widow was given to Agrippa, by whom she had three sons, Caius, Lucius, and Agrippa Posthumus. The two former were exceedingly beloved by their royal grandfather, and respected by the people, but they were too young at their father's death to enter on public life. The conse

quence was, that his rank and influence at court were transferred to Tiberius; and to secure his fidelity, Augustus compelled him to dismiss his wife Vespania, a daughter of Agrippa, by his first wife, and marry Julia, who, notwithstanding of her previous marriages, was one of the most infamous females of Rome. He was, at the same time, required, although he had a son of his own, to adopt Drusus Germanicus, the eldest son of his deceased brother Drusus. The sons of Agrippa were adopted into the imperial family, and intrusted with offices in the state before the legal age. They were soon discovered to be proud of their rank, and roused the jealousy of Tiberius and the hatred of Livia, his mother. Though he, therefore, had risen high in fame as a warrior, and was rewarded by great honour, yet he avowed his determination to retire from public life. His mother opposed this with tears, and Augustus would not consent till he found it impossible to change the mind of Tiberius, who, in sullen grief, had shut himself up, and abstained from food four successive days. He withdrew to Rhodes, under pretence of spending his time in study: and so provoked the emperor, that all his own or his friends' efforts failed for seven years to procure him liberty to return to Rome. To deprive the emperor of the society of his grandsons, Caius and Lucius, and, perhaps, secretly to destroy them, Livia prevailed on him to give them foreign appointments. Caius was made governor of Syria, and Lucius of Spain. The latter died suddenly at Marseilles, from poison administered by the emissaries of Livia; this, at least, is the report of some Roman writers. His body was carried in state to Rome, and magnificently interred in Augustus' own mausoleum. His brother was wounded in battle, in Armenia; and though the wound was not fatal, yet he never recovered health. He died in Lycia, it was imagined from the diabolical arts of Livia. The loss of these youths within eighteen months overwhelmed the spirit of the emperor; but Livia and Tiberius were unwearied in their services to administer to him consolation.

From this time Tiberius rapidly rose to dignity and authority in the state, and at the head of great armies made the power of Rome to be felt in Germany, from the Rhine to the Elbe, and in the regions of Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Illyricum. In the wars in these countries, his adopted son, Drusus Germanicus, acquired still more celebrity. The triumphant return of both generals diffused gladness and ex

ultation among all ranks. Soon after the suppression of the most alarming revolt of the Germans, conducted by the famous Arminius, who almost cut off all the Roman legions, Augustus requested the senate to pass and proclaim the decree, which constituted Tiberius his equal. It run thus: "At the request of the people of Rome, we grant Caius Julius Cesar Tiberius the same authority over the provinces, and all the armies of the Roman state, which Augustus has held, which he still retains, and which we pray the gods he may long enjoy." The emperor scarcely survived this decree two years; and, as we have formerly noticed, his life was believed to be shortened by Livia, lest he should change his mind, and leave the crown to Agrippa Posthumus, in preference to Tiberius, whose ascent to the throne, in his fifty-sixth year, gave pleasure to no class of the community.

While Tiberius, with his usual dissimulation, publicly lamented that he was left alone to bear the burden of government, and consoled himself that many illustrious Romans remained to assist him, he instantly assumed the entire power of government, and ordered the murder of the only rival whom he dreaded, Agrippa Posthumus, who had been, from some imprudent acts, placed in a state of confinement. Germanicus would have been a more powerful rival, but his loyalty, integrity, and disinterestedness, were too well known. to the emperor, his uncle and father by adoption, to occasion him, at this time, much uneasiness. He, however, very soon viewed him with suspicion; for he apprehended that he would have yielded to the temptation presented him on discovering the army were solicitous to exalt him to the throne. Besides, no one was more beloved than Germanicus by the Roman people, partly from their grateful recollection of his noble father, and partly on account of his own personal worth, and of the superior rank and excellence of his mother, Agrippina, the admired daughter of Agrippa and Julia, the wretched daughter of Augustus. The large army stationed on the Rhine were commanded by Germanicus, at the period of Augustus's death. They no sooner heard of this event than they invited their leader to assume the sovereignty of the empire. He declined the honour; and when some of the soldiers would have forced him to accept the honour, he hastily withdrew from them, exclaiming, "My duty to the emperor is more precious than my life." Nor was he satisfied in merely retaining his loyal fidelity; he allayed the passions of the soldiers for revolt, and employed them in

spreading the fame of the Roman arms and consolidating the empire in the North. His growing popularity alarmed the tyrant; and he resolved to remove him from his position in Germany to the command of the troops in the East. In compliance with the most flattering invitation of Tiberius, which was the usual indication that he premeditated evil against the object of his flattery, Germanicus left Germany. "On his arrival in Italy, only two cohorts or battalions were sent from Rome to receive him. But every circumstance tended to augment the jealousy of the emperor; the greater part of the prætorian bands, mingled with multitudes of the people of every sex, condition, and age, advanced of their own accord some miles from the city, and received him with uncommon acclamations of joy. Having made his entry, as had been proposed, in triumph, he was, with the emperor himself, put in nomination for the consulate of the following year. The popularity of which Germanicus now appeared to be possessed in the city, was no less mortifying to the emperor, than his power in the army was supposed to be dangerous. His presence, if it did not obscure the lustre of the emperor himself, seemed to place him in a continual state of competition with the other son of Tiberius; and the interests of these two princes, the one by adoption, the other by birth, the sons of the emperor, though supposed to be on the best terms with each other, had divided the court. Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus, inheriting the blood of Augustus, and ever carrying in her haughty looks the pretensions of the Cesarian family, was become to Livia, whom she considered as a stepmother, no less an object of animosity than she was to the emperor himself. Under these circumstances, the resolution to separate Germanicus from the German armies, and to place him in the command of the eastern provinces, a situation apparently honourable, but in which he should be surrounded with persons who might serve as a restraint, or as spies on his conduct, was now carried into execution. He was vested with a commission to restore the tranquillity of Asia, that was disturbed by some disputes which had arisen on the succession to the kingdoms of Cappadocia and Armenia." He left Rome for the East, in the end of the third year of Tiberius. Being placed over several provinces through which he was to pass, from the sea of Ionia to the extremities of Egypt and of Syria, he visited, as chief in command, the cities of Greece, still revered as the principal seminaries of philosophy and literature; and upon

his entry into Asia, proceeded to execute the commission on which he was sent. He reduced Cappadocia and Commagene to the form of Roman provinces, making some abatement of the taxes formerly paid to their own princes, and settled Zeno, son to the king of Pontus, on the throne of Armenia. He afterwards ventured to continue his progress into Egypt, though contrary to an edict of the late emperor, which was still in force. On his return from thence he was taken ill, and died at Antioch in the thirty-fourth year of his age, with some suspicions of having been poisoned by Cn. Piso, the præfect of Syria, not without the connivance or the direction of Tiberius himself.

Whatever occasioned the death of Germanicus, it appears to have had a remarkable influence on the future conduct of Tiberius; for historians assert, that from this time he continued to discover, without disguise, the almost incredible malignancy of his nature. Hitherto, like a wild beast caught in the toils, his circumstances chained his mischievous propensities. The chief object of his future days seemed to be, to experiment on the diabolical power of man to inflict misery on his fellows. His personal appearance, till disfigured by age, debauchery, and disease, was commanding, and his mental capacities strong and somewhat improved by education; but his look and manner had always been repulsive, and he had often acted so as to excite in all ranks, suspicion that he was destitute of humanity, even when he performed the most generous deeds. It was, perhaps, in imitation of the policy of Augustus, that while Germanicus lived, he ostentatiously showed the greatest deference for the republican institutions of Rome. "He declined the extravagant honours which were offered to him; was easy of access; affected to live like a private citizen; returned visits, and accepted invitations to entertainments and feasts; visited the sick, attended funerals, and delivered orations in praise of the dead. He treated the titular magistrates of Rome with the same ceremonious respect that used to be observed in the times of the republic; rose, and stood, in the presence of the consul; took his place in the senate as a private member; was frequently seen in the courts of justice as an assessor, as an advocate, as an evidence, or as a spectator. To a person who saluted him with the title of master, 'Insult me not,' he said, 'with that odious appellation. I am the master of my slaves, general of the army, and no more than prince, or first in the rolls of the senate and people.' He took the title of Augustus only in his correspond