in tracing the further career of livia we enter upon the opening acts of the tragedy of the c?sars, and we have to consider carefully if there be any truth in the charge that livia herself initiated the long series of murders that now make a trail of blood over the annals of rome. with the coming of the empire we more rarely find legion pitted against legion in the horrors of civil war, but we have nerveless ambition stooping to the despicable aid of the poisoner, autocracy paralysing the best of the nobility with its murderous suspicions, and folly growing more foolish with the increasing splendour of the imperial house. we already know that the germs of this disease were found in the quiet home of livia and octavian on the palatine. scribonia had received her letter of divorce a few days after the birth of her daughter julia. as livia bore no direct heir to the emperor, while julia became the mother of many children, we have at once the promise of a dramatic struggle for the succession. when we further learn that the strain of imperial blood, which takes its rise in julia, is thickly tainted with disease, we are prepared for a bloody and unscrupulous conflict. and when we reflect that on this unstable pivot the vast empire will turn for many generations, we begin to understand the larger tragedy of the fall of rome.
let us first glance at the interior of the modest household on the palatine. besides livia and octavian, with24 whom we are now familiar, there is octavia, sister of the emperor and divorced wife of mark antony, a gentle lady with the matronly virtues of the time when a roman could slay his wife or daughter for irregular conduct. with her were her children, marcellus and marcella, of whom we shall hear much. then there were livia’s two sons—the elder, tiberius, a tall, silent, moody youth, with little care to please; the younger, drusus, a handsome, buoyant, fair-headed boy, threatening the elder’s birthright. octavian closely watched the education of the boys. he taught them to write on the wax-faced tablets in the fine script on which he prided himself, kept them beside him at table, and drove them in his chariot about public business.
but the most interesting and fateful figure in the group was julia. octavian had removed her at an early age from the care of scribonia, and adopted her in the palace. she learned to spin and weave, and helped to make the garments of the family, under the severe eyes of livia and octavia. the emperor was charmed with the pretty and lively girl, and would make a second livia of her. knowing well, if only from his own youth, the vice and folly that abounded in those mansions on the hills of rome, and roared in its dimly-lighted valleys by night, he kept her apart. none of the young fops who drove their chariots madly out by the flaminian gate, and sipped their wine after supper to the prurient jokes of mimes, were suffered to approach her. and, not for the first or last time in history, the veiling of the young eyes had an effect quite contrary to that intended. a roman girl became a woman at fourteen, a mother at fifteen. at that early age, in the year 25 b.c., julia was married to her cousin marcellus, who was then seventeen. marcellus was so clearly a possible successor to the throne that courtiers hung about him, and taught him the art of princely living. the doors of the hidden world were opened, and the tender eyes of julia were dazed.
the authorities are careless in chronology, and we25 may decline to believe that julia at once entered on the riotous ways which led her to the abyss. her marriage concerns us in a very different respect. all the writers who adopt the view that livia was a hard and unscrupulous woman—a view that tacitus must have taken from the memoirs of her rival’s granddaughter, the empress agrippina, which were made public in his time—consider that this marriage of julia and marcellus marks the beginning of her career of crime. she is supposed to have been alarmed at the marriage of two direct descendants of c?sar, seeing that she herself had no child by octavian. most certainly she was ambitious for her elder son. the boy whom she had clasped to her breast, when she fled along the roads of campania and through the burning forests of greece, was now a clever and studious youth, and she wished octavian to adopt him. unfortunately, tiberius was of a moody and solitary nature, and was easily displaced in octavian’s affection by the handsome and popular marcellus and the beautiful and witty julia.
the first cloud appeared in the year 23 b.c. octavian fell seriously ill, and livia’s hope of securing the succession for her son was troubled by two formidable competitors. one was marcellus, the other was octavian’s friend and ablest general, m. v. agrippa. he was of poor origin, but of commanding ability and character, and was suspected of entertaining a design to restore the republic. he was married to marcella, and had some contempt for the spoiled boy, her brother marcellus—a contempt which marcellus repaid with petulance and rancour. octavian recovered, sent agrippa on an important errand to the east, and made marcellus ?dile of the city. marcellus was winning, the eager observers thought, when suddenly he fell seriously ill and died. the death was so opportune for tiberius that we cannot wonder that a faint whisper of poison went through rome when his ashes were laid in the lofty marble tower that octavian had built in the meadows by the tiber. but we need not linger over this first charge against livia.26 even dio, who is no sceptic in regard to rumours which defame empresses, hesitates to press on us so airy and improbable a myth. it was a hot and pestilential summer, and marcellus seems to have contracted fever by remaining too long at his post, before going to bai? on the coast.
the death of marcellus, far from promoting the cause of tiberius, brought a more formidable obstacle in his way. octavian sent for agrippa, and directed him to divorce marcella and wed julia. the general, who was in his forty-second year, thought it immaterial which of the two young princesses shared his bed, and octavia consented to the divorce of her daughter—as some conjecture, to thwart livia’s design. to the delight of octavian the union of robust manhood and amorous young womanhood was fruitful. during the ten years of their marriage julia gave birth to three sons and two daughters. happily unconscious of the tragedies which were to close the careers of these children in his own lifetime, octavian welcomed them with great enthusiasm. during his whole reign he was engaged in a futile effort to induce or compel the better families of rome to take a larger share in the peopling of the empire. when he penalized celibacy, they defeated him by contracting marriages with the intention of seeking an immediate divorce. when he made adultery a public crime, there were noblewomen—few in number, it is true; the facts are often exaggerated—who enrolled themselves on the list of shame, and noblemen who took on the degrading rank of gladiators, in order to escape the penalties. he created a guild of honour for the mothers of at least three children; but the distinction seemed to the ladies of rome to be an inadequate reward for so onerous an accomplishment, and they scoffed when livia was enrolled in the guild, though the only child she had conceived of octavian had never seen the light.
far greater, however, was the amusement of rome when octavian held up julia as a model of maternity,27 and ostentatiously fondled her babies in public. a coarse and witty reply that she is said to have made, when some one asked her how it was that all her children so closely resembled her husband, was then circulated in roman society, and is preserved in macrobius.4 beautiful, lively, and cultivated, the young girl had exchanged with delight the dull homeliness of her father’s mansion for the rose-crowned banquets of her new world. her marriage with agrippa restrained her gaiety for a time, but her husband was often summoned to distant provinces, and she was left to her dissolute friends. octavian was curiously blind to her conduct, but when agrippa was compelled to undertake a lengthy mission in the east, he ordered julia to accompany him. the journey would not improbably foster her vicious tendencies. there is truth in the old adage that all light came to europe from the east, but it is hardly less true that darkness came to rome from the east. julia would not be ignorant how the ancient roman puritanism had been corrupted by the introduction of eastern habits and types—the poisoner, the chald?an astrologer, the syrian dancer, the eunuch, the cultivated greek slave, the priests of orgiastic eastern cults. a mind like hers would seek to penetrate the depths from which these types had emerged. in greece she would find the remains of its perfumed vices lingering at the foot of its decaying monuments. in antioch there would not be wanting freedwomen to gratify her curiosity in regard to its unnatural excesses and the world-famed license of its groves. in jud?a she was long and splendidly entertained at the court of herod, a monarch with ten wives and concubines innumerable.
they returned to rome in the year 13, and in the following year agrippa died of gout, and julia was free. one of the most surprising features of her wild career—one that would make us hesitate to admit the charges against her, if hesitation were possible—is that livia was either ignorant of her more serious28 misdeeds, or unable to convince octavian of them. livia would hardly spare her, as julia was inflaming octavian’s dislike for tiberius. refined, sensitive, and studious, the young man avoided the boisterous amusements in which other young patricians spent their ample leisure, and his cold melancholy made him distasteful to them. one of the roman writers would have us believe that julia made love to him during the life of agrippa, and that she incited octavian against him in revenge for his rejection of her advances. the story is improbable. we need only suppose that julia, in speaking of tiberius, used the disdainful language which was common to her friends. neither livia nor tiberius seems to have attempted to open the emperor’s eyes to julia’s conduct. octavian disliked her luxurious ways, but was blind to her vices, though the names of her lovers were on the lips of all. one day octavian scolded her for having a crowd of fast young nobles about her, and commended to her the staid example of livia. she disarmed him with the laughing reply that, when she was old, her companions would be as old as those of the empress. one writer says that octavian compelled her to give up a too sumptuous palace which she occupied. one is more disposed to believe the story that, when he remonstrated with her for her luxurious ways, she replied “my father may forget that he is c?sar, but i cannot forget that i am c?sar’s daughter.”
in spite of their mutual aversion octavian now ordered tiberius to marry her. he was already married to vipsania, the virtuous and affectionate daughter of agrippa, and this enforced separation from one whom he loved with an ardour that was fading from roman marriage, and union with one who contrasted with vipsania as the wild flaming poppy contrasts with the lily, further soured and embittered him. we may dismiss in a very few words his relations with the woman who ought to have been the second empress of rome. after a few years spent, as a rule, in distant frontier wars, he returned to29 rome in the year 6 b.c., to find that his wife had passed the last bounds of decency and octavian was as blind as ever. in intense disgust, and in spite of his mother’s entreaties, he begged the emperor’s permission to spend some years in literary and scientific studies at rhodes. not daring to open the eyes of octavian to the true character of his daughter, he had to bow to his anger and disdain, and seek consolation in the calm mysteries of the planets and the fine sentiments of greek tragedians.
julia
bust in the museum chiaramonti
julia now cast aside the last traces of restraint. a half-dozen of the young nobles of rome are associated with her in the chronicles, and, gossipy and unreliable as the records are, in this case the issue of the story disposes us to believe the charges. round such a repute as hers legends were bound to grow, and the conscientious biographer must be reserved in giving details. dio tells us, for instance, that she expected her lovers to put crowns, for each success she permitted them to attain, at the foot of the statue of marsyas—a public statue, at the feet of which roman lawyers were wont to place a crown when they had won a case. however that may be, it is certain that in the nightly dissipation of rome, when plebeian offenders sought the darkness of the milvian bridge, or wantoned in the taverns and brothels of the subura, julia’s party was one of the boldest and most conspicuous. not content with the riotous supper, which it was now the fashion to prolong by lamp-light, in perfumed chambers, until late hours of the night, julia and her friends went out into the streets, and caroused in the very tribunal in the forum—the rostra, a platform decorated with the prows of captured vessels—from which her father made known his imperial decisions.5
30 the thunder of the imperial anger scattered this licentious band some time in the second year before christ. in the earlier part of the year octavian had entertained rome with one of the thrilling spectacles which he often provided. to celebrate the dedication of a new temple of mars, which he had built, he had the flaminian circus flooded, gave the people a mock naval battle, and had thirteen crocodiles slain by the gladiators. julia had hoodwinked the emperor so long that she and her friends seem to have abandoned all restraint, and their adventures came to the knowledge of the emperor.
the charges against julia must have been beyond cavil, since octavian, who loved her deeply, at once yielded her to the course of justice. a charge of conspiracy was made out against her companions. one of the young nobles killed himself, and the rest were banished. julia was convicted of adultery—the evil that her father had fought for ten years—and from the glitter of rome she was roughly conducted to the barren rock-island of pandateria (ponza), in the gulf of g?ta. in that narrow and depressing jail, with no female attendants, no wine and no finery, accompanied only by her unhappy mother, the fascinating young princess spent five years, looking with anguish over the blue water toward the faint outline of the hills of italy, or southward toward those rose-strewn waters of bai?, where she had dreamed away so many brilliant summers. rome, touched with pity for the stricken woman, implored octavian to forgive her; and when he swore that fire and water should meet before he pardoned her, the people naively flung burning torches into the tiber. hearing, after a few years, that there was a plot to release her, octavian had her removed to a more secure prison in calabria. there she dragged out her miserable life until her father died, and tiberius came to the throne. when he in turn refused to release her, she sank slowly into the peace of death.
there is no charge against livia in connexion with this tragic fate of julia, but another possible rival of31 tiberius had disappeared during these years, and there is the usual vague accusation that the empress assisted the action of nature. drusus, her younger son, died in the year 9 b.c., and livia is charged with sacrificing him to her affection for her elder son. the charge is preposterous. drusus had, it is true, been much more popular than tiberius at rome. his genial and engaging manner gave him a great advantage over the retiring and almost sullen tiberius. but the brothers loved each other deeply, and when tiberius, who was making a tour in the north of gaul, heard that drusus was dangerously ill in germany, he at once rode four hundred miles on horseback, and held drusus in his arms in his last hour. livia was at ticinum, in the north of italy, with octavian when the news reached them. that either livia or tiberius—for both are accused—should have in any way promoted the death of drusus is a frivolous suggestion. the epitomist of livy, tacitus, and suetonius, describe the death as natural. drusus was thrown and injured by a frantic horse. the libel that his death was in some mysterious way accelerated may have been set afoot by his partisans. it was generally believed that he favoured a restoration of the republic, and the corrupt officials who, at his death, lost their faint hope of returning to the days of peculation and bribery, may have begun the charge. no evidence is offered for it. livia and octavian accompanied the remains to rome with great sorrow. seneca says that the empress was so distressed that she summoned one of the stoic philosophers to console her.
the next charge against livia requires a more careful examination. by the beginning of the present era, when the poor health of octavian gave occasion for many speculations as to the succession, there were only two rivals to the chances of tiberius. these were the elder sons of julia, and livia must have reflected gloomily on their fortune. while tiberius remained in retirement at rhodes the young princes were idolized by octavian and by the people. tiberius had proposed to return to rome after the banishment32 of julia, but octavian peevishly told him to remain in greece. every astrologer in rome must have read in the planets that either caius or lucius was born to the purple. they were spoiled by octavian, enriched with premature honours, and, glittering in silver trappings, appeared in the spectacles as “princes of the youth of rome.” let those youths be removed from the scene by any accident, and so prurient a city as rome will be bound to discover some insidious action on the part of livia; and later writers, brooding over a chronicle in which ambition leads freely to the most brutal murders, will be disposed to believe her guilty.
it is somewhat surprising to find more recent writers caught by the fallacy. we are not puzzled when the scandal-loving serviez opens his chapter on livia with a glowing enumeration of her virtues, adopts nearly every libel against her as he proceeds, and closes with a very dark estimate of her character; but we are entitled to expect more discrimination in merivale. even mr. tarver, in his recent “tiberius the tyrant” (1902), does much injustice to the mother in vindicating the son. he speaks of her as “hard, avaricious, and a lover of power,” and, without the least evidence—indeed, against all probability—suggests that it was livia who urged octavian to keep tiberius in retirement at rhodes. he makes livia hostile to tiberius in favour of julia’s sons, on the ground that she would find them more pliant than tiberius. every other writer suggests precisely the contrary. they make her murder julia’s sons in the interest of tiberius.
the death of the younger son, lucius, is obscure. he was sent on a mission to spain in the year 2 a.d., and died at marseilles on the way. since the only ground for the rumour that he was poisoned is the indubitable fact that he died, we need not delay in considering it. octavian then sent the elder brother caius on a mission into syria under the care of his old tutor lollius. his counsellor unhappily died in the east, and the young prince was left to the vicious companions who regarded him as the future dispenser of33 imperial favours. he fell into oriental ways, and was at length (a.d. 3) treacherously wounded by a syrian patriot. instead of returning to rome, he remained in the unhealthy atmosphere of the east, indulged in its habits of languor and vice, and died eighteen months after the death of his brother. there is no obscurity about his death. it is beyond question that he was severely wounded by a syrian. but the deaths of the two brothers happened so opportunely for tiberius that one cannot wonder at the suspicion, in certain minds, that livia had had the youths poisoned. nothing more than this vague rumour is given us by tacitus, dio, suetonius, or pliny; and it is from a sheer pruriency of romance that later writers, like serviez, have accepted and emphasized the suspicion recorded in the roman historians. not on such slender grounds can we be asked to sacrifice the conception of livia’s character which is forced on us by the plainer facts of her career. the youths were delicate; caius, at least, had undermined his frail constitution by luxury, if not by vice; and the roman world harboured death in a hundred forms.
if we still hesitate to choose between the artifice of livia and the unaided action of natural causes in this removal of the obstacles to the advancement of tiberius, we have only to glance at the fate of the rest of julia’s children. the third son, agrippa, was as robust in body as his brothers were weak, but he was defective in mind and devoid of moral control. his boorish conduct as a boy gave great pain to livia and octavia, and his great physical strength broke out in uncontrollable gusts of passion. in his adolescence he readily adopted the worst vices that rome could teach him, and octavian was obliged to condemn him to imprisonment and exile. there remained the two daughters, julia and agrippina. the younger, the sanest of julia’s children, lived to intrigue for power, and greatly to embarrass livia’s later years; though we shall find the same tragic fate befalling her after the death of the empress, who protected her. the elder, julia, was banished34 (a.d. 9) for incest, and, like her mother, lacking the courage or virtue to end her shame as the nobler romans did, she protracted her miserable life for twenty years, her hard lot only alleviated by the charity of livia.
fate had removed every possible competitor to the succession of tiberius. he returned to rome, and his judicious and sedulous activity removed the last traces of the emperor’s resentment. peace returned, after many years of storm, to the mansion on the palatine. but octavian had suffered profoundly from those terrible and persistent storms. the rome of his manhood was gone. all his friends and counsellors had disappeared, and the future of his people filled him with apprehension. the patrician stock was decaying from luxury and vice; the ordinary citizens clamoured for free food and free entertainment with a blind disregard of the laws of national health. he shrank from the public gaze, and leaned affectionately on livia and tiberius.
in the year 14 he remained at rome in the early heat of the summer, and became seriously ill. livia and tiberius went down with him to the coast, where he rallied, and some pleasant days were spent on the island of capre? (capri), which he had bought. they passed to the mainland, where tiberius left them, but he was soon recalled by a message from his mother that the emperor was sinking. on the last morning of his life octavian dressed with unaccustomed care, and summoned his friends to his bedside. was rome tranquil on receiving the news of his dangerous condition? did they approve of his conduct and accomplishments? they gave him the assurance he desired, and were dismissed. could they have foreseen the line of rulers who were to stain the purple robe with blood, and load it with shame, for so many decades to come, they would have wept. the last moments were for livia. he died kissing her, and murmuring: “be mindful of our marriage, livia. farewell.” so ended, peacefully, a union that had lasted fifty-two years in a city where divorce was as lightly esteemed as marriage. there35 can be little serious doubt about the character of the first empress of rome.
livia probably concealed the death of octavian until tiberius arrived from dalmatia. a report was given out that tiberius arrived in time to receive the last injunctions of the emperor. this may be doubted without any serious reflection on her character; if, indeed, it was she, and not tiberius, who spread the report. there were grave fears—well-founded fears, as we shall see—that a plot, in the interest of corruption, had been framed to prevent the succession of tiberius. in the coolness of the night, so as to avoid the intense heat of august, they bore the remains with great pomp to the capital. there, on a bed of ivory and purple, preceded by wax effigies of octavian and of earlier rulers of rome, the body was carried to the temple of julius, where tiberius read a funeral oration. the cortège went on to the field of mars, by the tiber, through lines of black-draped citizens. the pile was fired, and zealous eyes saw the soul of octavian mount toward heaven in the outward form of an eagle.
livia, on approved custom, remained by the sacred ashes for five days, and then returned to face the new life which opened for her. with the especially wild suggestion that she had accelerated the death of her husband we may disdain to concern ourselves. it was owing to her devoted care that the ailing and delicate octavian had lived to old age. but a second libel in connexion with the death of octavian must be briefly considered.
the apprehension, or the secret information, of the dying emperor was correct. no sooner was his death announced than a servant of the imprisoned son of julia hurried to the coast, and set sail for the island of planasia, with the intention of bringing agrippa to rome as a candidate for the purple. he arrived only to find a bleeding corpse. the centurion in charge had dispatched agrippa as soon as the emperor’s death was made known to him.
who gave the order for this execution? one cannot36 call it murder, for agrippa was unfit to be restored to society, and any attempt to raise him to the throne would have been disastrous to rome. the authorities, as usual, merely give us the rumours that circulated at the time, and leave us to choose between octavian, livia, and tiberius. we can have little difficulty in choosing. it would be so natural for either octavian or tiberius to crush the conspiracy by executing agrippa that the introduction of livia is superfluous. most probably octavian had left directions with agrippa’s custodian. there is a curious story, in several contradictory versions, but credible in substance, that octavian in his later years paid a secret visit to planasia, to see personally what agrippa’s real condition was. quite the most plausible theory is that, after personal verification of his madness, octavian felt it best for rome, and not inhuman to agrippa, to have him put to death as soon as the question of succession was opened.
we come to the last phase of livia’s career. tiberius was now a tall, handsome man, though slightly disfigured, with long fair hair and features strangely delicate for one of his exceptional physical strength. a better soldier than his predecessor, and not an inept statesman, he was well enough fitted to wield the power which octavian had virtually bequeathed to him. but a retiring disposition, an unhappy youth, and long years of study, had made him shrink from the society of any but scholars, and he long hesitated to ascend the throne to which the senate invited him. we have not good ground to regard this reluctance as feigned. at last he consented, and the critics of livia would have it that her ambition now passed such bounds as had been set to it by the ability of octavian. we may freely admit that she looked forward to being closely associated in power with the son whose career she had followed with such devotion and helpfulness. on the other hand, we shall see how advantageous to the state her influence was; the evils that at once begin to darken the life of rome when tiberius rejects her counsels37 will plainly show this. nor is there any evidence that she sought power from any other motive than the good of the state. she might take pride in what she did, and even exaggerate it, but such a pride is not inconsistent with the view that she was ever gentle, humane, and generous.
the first searching test of her character occurs a few years after the accession of tiberius. as the news of the death of octavian slowly travelled over the empire, there were mutinous movements among the legions in many provinces. in lower germany, especially, the troops considered that their commander, germanicus, the nephew of tiberius, was entitled to the purple, and they asked him to lead them to rome. he was a handsome, engaging young general, of imperial blood, with moderate ability and much conceit, and had won the regard of the soldiers by visiting the sick and wounded, advancing their pay out of his own purse, and other popular acts. he was married to julia’s daughter, agrippina, who lived in camp with him. they dressed their little son caius in soldier’s costume, and his quaint appearance in miniature military boots won for him the pet-name caligula (“little-boots”) by which he is known to history. the legionaries thought that they had with them a model imperial family, and promised to wrest the throne from tiberius. germanicus weakly composed the mutiny—mainly by forging a letter in the name of tiberius and then treacherously executing the leaders—and endeavoured to cover his blunders by vigorous and rather aimless attacks upon the germans. tiberius recalled him to rome to enjoy a “triumph,” and to keep him out of further mischief.
merivale acknowledges that his conquests were “wholly visionary,” but germanicus had inherited the charm and popularity of his father, drusus, and rome was easily won for him. people streamed out from the gates to meet him, and gazed with awe on his gigantic blue-eyed captives and on the large highly-coloured paintings of his victories in germany. it was a new source of concern for38 livia and tiberius, and, to the satisfaction of livia’s critics, the danger ended like all the others.
germanicus and agrippina were sent on a mission to the east. tiberius seems to have had some disdain for his spoiled and conceited nephew, and he was well aware of the interested aims of those who affected to see in him a restorer of the old republican liberty. he chose an older statesman, cn. calpurnius piso, to go out as governor of syria, to watch and prudently direct the movements of germanicus. with piso was his wife plancina, an intimate friend of livia. from these tiberius and livia shortly heard exasperating accounts of the progress of germanicus and agrippina. piso found, on calling at athens, that germanicus had been flattering the greeks for their ancient culture, instead of pressing the dominion of rome. he made free comments on the young general’s conduct, pushed past his galleys, as they dallied in greek waters, and was hard at work in syria when germanicus arrived. the wives conducted the quarrel with more asperity than their husbands.
rome had now its party of germanicus and party of tiberius, and the news from the east was heatedly discussed. germanicus has gone to egypt, without asking the emperor’s permission, and is patronizing the greek and egyptian cults, which tiberius represses, and going about in greek instead of roman dress. piso has had a violent quarrel with germanicus, and left syria. and before they have time to discuss this important intelligence there comes a report that germanicus is dangerously ill; that bones of dead men, half-burnt fragments of sacrificial victims, leaden tablets with the name of germanicus scrawled on them, and other deadly charms, have been found under the floors and between the walls of his house. at length the news comes that germanicus is dead, and that with his last breath he has urged his friends to avenge him. rome goes into mourning. all the shops are closed, and crowds gather everywhere to discuss this fresh tragedy of the imperial house. in the middle of the night a rumour39 spreads that germanicus is not dead, and people fill the streets with the glare of their torches, and break into the temples. but the fatal news is confirmed, and, when at last agrippina comes with the golden urn containing his ashes, such mourning is seen as no living man can remember.
people observed that neither livia nor tiberius appeared at the funeral. livia had no reason to be present, and tiberius knew that the demonstration was due largely to a spirit of hostility to himself. for the rest, it was merely the feeling of a frivolous people for a handsome and unfortunate youth. but livia incurred more serious censure during the trial of piso which followed. the ex-governor of syria defended himself resolutely for a day or two, and then, hearing that his wife had deserted him, committed suicide. the anger of the citizens now turned on the wife, plancina. the empress, with whom she had been in close communication throughout, begged tiberius to save her, and he reluctantly checked the prosecution. livia was, of course, accused of sheltering a murderess. it must be recollected that the accounts of the story are taken in part from the memoirs of agrippina’s daughter, and are coloured with prejudice against tiberius and his mother. one cannot see anything more serious than indiscretion in livia’s conduct. her conviction of the innocence of plancina is intelligible enough, and one can equally understand how she would distrust a trial held at rome in the inflamed state of public feeling. there is no serious reason to suspect, in the death of germanicus, the action of any other poison than the tainted atmosphere of the east.
but the interference of livia annoyed tiberius, and the ten years that follow are full of differences between mother and son. the emperor’s resentment of his mother’s share in public affairs had begun with his reign. livia had proposed to erect a statue to the memory of octavian. tiberius interfered, and referred her to the senate for permission. she then proposed to give a commemoratory banquet to the senators and their wives. tiberius restricted40 her to the wives, and entertained the senators himself. he reduced her escort, frowned on the public honours that were paid to her, and resented her interference in public affairs. on one occasion her friend urgulania was summoned for debt, and, presuming on her intimacy with the empress, treated the process with contempt. livia asked tiberius to quash the proceedings, and he deliberately lingered so much on his way to the forum that the case was allowed to proceed.
these are a few of the stories which illustrate the want of harmony between them. for this livia was largely to blame. it was not unnatural that she, who had been so often and so profitably consulted by octavian, should expect a larger power under the young emperor, but she failed to take discreet account of the extreme sensitiveness of tiberius. if a story given in suetonius is correct, she so far lost her discretion in one of their quarrels as to produce old letters in which octavian had made bitter reflections on the defects of tiberius. the fault was not wholly on her side, however. tiberius was jealous when he contrasted the honour and respect paid to her with the general feeling of reserve and distrust toward himself, and he pleaded the old-fashioned idea of woman’s sphere as a pretext to restrain her. he grumbled when he one day found her directing the extinction of a fire, as she had done more than once in octavian’s time, and he was seriously angry when he found that she had placed her name before his on a public inscription.
but we may leave these lesser matters and come to the next tragedy in the imperial chronicle, the shadow of which darkened livia’s closing years. she had retired from the palace to the house which she had inherited from her first husband, tiberius nero. here she remained a saddened and helpless spectator of the coming disaster. tiberius, whom she saw only once more before she died, had become a peevish and gloomy old man. his tall spare frame was bent, his head bald, his face, which had always been disfigured with pimples, now hideous with eczema,41 or concealed with bandages. his large melancholy eyes so startled people that they believed he could see in the dark. astrologers and students of the occult gathered about him in the palace he had built on the palatine, and the way lay open for adventurers.
the two chief aspirants for power were agrippina, the widow of germanicus, and sejanus, tiberius’s favourite general. julia’s younger daughter seems to have concentrated in her person all the masculinity of her family. “implacable,” as tacitus says, proud, and ambitious, she added to the gloom that was deepening on the palatine. merivale calls her the “she-wolf.” it seems probable that she sought marriage with the aged tiberius in order to secure power for herself or her son. the only son of the emperor had been poisoned by sejanus, as we shall see presently, and her son had a plausible title to inherit the purple. the authorities tell us that tiberius one day found her in tears, and was entreated, when he asked the reason, to find her a husband. she thought it expedient to forget the supposed share of tiberius in the death of her husband.
her innocent man?uvres were met, however, by the sinister intrigues of sejanus, one of the most unscrupulous characters we have yet encountered. under a cloak of friendliness he was countering her schemes and ruining her house. he had seduced her daughter livilla, the wife of tiberius’s son drusus, and had, with her connivance, poisoned the young prince, and kept the secret from the emperor for many years. it is said that he then made proposals to agrippina to unite their ambitions, and, when these were rejected, he determined to destroy her and secure the supreme power for himself. he put his great ability astutely at the service of the emperor, and once had the good fortune to save his life, by arching his herculean body over tiberius when the roof of a cave fell on them. it is probable that he inflamed the resentment of tiberius against his mother, and then used the estrangement to increase the unpopularity of the emperor.42 scurrilous libels on “the ungrateful son” were current in rome. these are sometimes attributed to writers in the service of livia, but it would be a natural part of the scheme of sejanus to spread them. on one occasion a noble lady, appuleia varilia, was charged by the senate with accusing tiberius and livia of incest. tiberius consulted his mother, and declared to the senate that they wished to treat the libel with contemptuous indifference.
to sejanus also we must, on the authority of tacitus, attribute a plot against agrippina, which other writers assign to tiberius or to livia. at a banquet in the palace it was noticed that agrippina, pale and sullen, passed all the dishes untouched. tiberius at length invited her to eat a fine apple which he chose. under the eyes of all she handed it to a servant to throw away, and tiberius not unnaturally complained of her unjust suspicions. tacitus, who gives the most credible version of the story, says that the agents of sejanus had warned her that she was to be poisoned at the banquet, so that she would act in a way that the emperor would resent.
tiberius, weary of the violent passions of the capital, now lived chiefly in campania. it is not improbable that his disfigurement made him sensitive. rome would not spare the feelings of so unpopular a ruler. it is not at all clear that he shrank from his imperial duties—suetonius expressly says that he thought it possible to rule better from the provinces—or that he wished to indulge in the wild debauches which some attribute to him. probably sejanus, to secure more power for himself, persuaded him that he could best discharge his duties from a provincial seat.
at this juncture, in the year 29, saddened by the estrangement from her son, by his helpless surrender to an unscrupulous adventurer, and by the increasing degeneration of rome, livia died. she had, by sober living—pliny adds, by the constant chewing of a sweetmeat containing a certain medicinal root, and by the use of43 pucinian wine—attained the great age of eighty-six. she had seen her husband dispel the long horrors of civil war, refresh the empire, and adorn rome; and she had felt the gloom and chill of a coming tragedy in her later years. few of the empresses have been so differently estimated as livia. merivale regards her as “a memorable example of successful artifice, having obtained in succession, by craft if not by crime, every object she could desire in the career of female ambition.” he adds: “but she had long survived every genuine attachment she may at any time have inspired, nor has a single voice been raised by posterity to supply the want of honest eulogium in her own day.”6
the more concentrated research of the biographer has often to reverse the verdict of the historian, and in this case it must acquit livia of either craft or vice. it is a singular error to say that livia had no “honest eulogium” in her own day. the roman senate is exposed to the disdain of historians for its obsequiousness to the reigning emperor, yet, at the death of livia, it sought to honour her memory in spite of the resentment of tiberius. the emperor had refused to go to rome, either to see her before death or to attend her funeral. he gave to rome an example of silent indifference. yet he had to use his authority to prevent the senate from decreeing divine honours to livia, building an arch to her memory, and declaring her “mother of her country.” dio remarks that the senators were moved to do these things out of sincere gratitude and respect. few of the less wealthy members of the senate had not profited by her generosity. their children had been educated, and their daughters had received dowries, from her purse. her generosity is recognized by all the authorities. her humanity is made plain by the contents of this chapter.
the adverse estimate of livia’s character is chiefly based on the “annals” of tacitus, and it has long been recognized that tacitus drew his account largely from44 the memoirs of the younger agrippina, daughter of the woman who hated livia. yet tacitus adds, when he has recorded the death of livia: “from this moment the government of tiberius became a sheer oppressive despotism. while augusta lived one avenue of escape remained open, for the emperor was habitually deferent toward his mother, and sejanus dared not thwart her parental authority; but when this curb was removed, there was nothing to check their further career.”7
we have seen that livia had used the same restraining influence on the impetuosity of octavian. with her died the attribute, or the wise policy, of imperial clemency, only to be revived by emperors who adopted that stoic creed in which she found consolation after the death of her son. that she was “hard” and “unscrupulous” is entirely at variance with the most authenticated facts of her career. to say that she was “avaricious” is a sheer absurdity. she maintained her sober personal habits to the end, and took money only to bestow it on the indigent and worthy, or expend it in raising public buildings. we may grant that she had some ambition, but may claim that it was well for rome that she had it. she fell into many errors of judgment in her later years, when roman life was confused by such strong undercurrents of intrigue; but these very errors tend to discredit the notion that she employed a consummate art and strong intelligence in the furthering of her own interests. in a word, it is the vices and follies of later empresses that have disposed historians to regard her sober virtues as a mere mask.
45
note
for the guidance of the general reader it is advisable to add a few words on the latin authorities, whom we now constantly quote. tacitus, the chief source of our knowledge down to the year 70 a.d., is not only weakened as an historian by the very strength of his morality, but he has too lightly followed the memoirs in which the later agrippina defamed the rival imperial family. suetonius, who takes us as far as domitian, is no less honest, but he has too genial and indulgent a love of anecdotes to discard any on the mere ground that they are untrue or improbable. dio cassius, who covers the first two centuries, is usually described as malignant; but one may question if he does more than indulge still further the same amiable preference of piquancy to truth. the “historia augusta,” which is our chief authority for the greater part of the empresses and the richest source of scandal, has been much and profitably discussed since gibbon placed such reliance on it. it is now thought by some experts that the original writers of this series of biographical sketches of the roman emperors lived at the beginning of the third century, and had a comparatively sober standard of work. toward the close of the third, or beginning of the fourth, century the work was written afresh by the group of less scrupulous writers whose names, or pseudonyms, actually stand at the head of its chapters. but a still later writer once more recast the work, and lowered its authority. he wrote frankly from the point of view of the piquant anecdotist, omitting much that would interest only the prosy student of exact facts, and filling up the vacant space with such faint legends of imperial vice or folly as still, in his time, lingered without the pale of history, or arose in the field of romance. the question is fully discussed by otto schultz, “leben des kaisers hadrian” (1905), and professor kornemann, “kaiser hadrian” (1906).
