spread reports (eagerly amplified by Velleius) of an affectionate interview and a lingering farewell.
Tiberius ascended the throne at the age of fifty-six. What struck his contemporaries most was his absolute impenetrability. All his feelings, desires, passions and ambitions were locked behind an impassable barrier, and had to be interpreted by the very uncertain light of his external acts. It is recorded of him that only once did he as commander take counsel with his officers concerning military operations, and that was when the destruction of Varus's legions had made it imperatively necessary not lightly to risk the loss of a single soldier. The penalty of his inscrutability was widespread dislike and suspicion. But behind his defences there lay an intellect of high power, cold, clear and penetrating all disguises. Few have ever possessed such mental vision, and he was probably never deceived either about the weaknesses of others or about his own. For the littleness and servility of public life in regions below the court he entertained a strong contempt. It is a question whether he ever liked or was liked by a single being; but he did his duty by those with whom he was connected after a thorough though stern and unlovable fashion. As a general he commanded the full confidence of his soldiers, though he was a severe disciplinarian; yet the men of his own legions greeted his accession to the throne with a mutiny. Tiberius proved himself capable in every department of the state more by virtue of industry and application than by genius. His mind moved so slowly and he was accustomed to deliberate so long that men sometimes made the mistake of deeming him a waverer. He was in reality one of the most tenacious of men. When he had once formed an aim he could wait patiently for years till the favourable moment enabled him to achieve it, and if compelled to yield ground he never failed to recover it in the end. The key to much of his character lies in the observation that he had in early life set before himself a certain ideal of what a Roman in high position ought to be, and to this ideal he rigidly adhered. He practised sternness, silence, simplicity of life and frugality as he deemed that they had been practised by the Fabricii, the Curii and the Fabii. That Tiberius's character was stained by vice before he became emperor, no one who fairly weighs the records can believe. The persuasion entertained by many at the end of his life that he had been always a monster of wickedness, but had succeeded in concealing the fact till he became emperor, has slightly discoloured the narratives we possess of his earlier years. The change which came over him in the last years of his life seems to have been due to a kind of constitutional clouding of the spirits, which made him what the elder Pliny calls him, “ the gloomiest of mankind, ” and disposed him to brood over mysteries and superstitions. As this gloom deepened his will grew weaker, his power tended to fall into the hands of unworthy instruments, terrors closed in around his mind, and his naturally clear vision was perturbed.
The change of masters had been anticipated by the Roman world with apprehension, but it was smoothly accomplished. Tiberius was already invested with the necessary powers, and it may even be that the senate was not permitted the satisfaction of giving a formal sanction to his accession. Agrippa Postumus was put to death, but Livia may be reasonably regarded as the instigator of this crime. Livia indeed expected to share the imperial authority with her son. At first Tiberius allowed some recognition to the claim; but he soon shook himself free, and later became estranged from his mother and held no communication with her for years before her death. The history of Tiberius's relations with other members of his family is hardly less miserable. Perhaps with any other commander than Germanicus the dangerous mutiny of the troops on the Rhine which broke out soon after Tiberius's accession would have ended in a march of the discontented legions upon the capital. The perilous episode of Arminius caused the recall of Germanicus and his despatch to the East on an honourable but comparatively inactive mission. The pride and passion of Agrippina, the granddaughter of Augustus and wife of Germanicus, tended to open a breach between the husband and the emperor. In his Eastern command Germanicus found himself perpetually watched and even violently opposed by Piso, the governor of Syria, who was suspected to have received secret orders from Tiberius. When Germanicus died at Antioch in A.D. 19, the populace of Rome combined with Agrippina in demanding vengeance upon Piso; and the emperor was forced to disown him. The insinuation, conveyed by Tacitus, that Piso poisoned Germanicus on orders from Tiberius, will not stand criticism. The death of Germanicus was followed four years later by that of the emperor's son Drusus. These two princes had been firm friends, and Livilla, the wife of Drusus, was sister to Germanicus. Years afterwards it was found that Drusus had fallen a victim to the treachery of his wife Livilla, who had joined her ambition to that of the emperor's minister of State Sejanus. When Drusus died, Tiberius nominated two of Agrippina's sons as his heirs. But Sejanus had grown strong by nursing the emperor's suspicions and dislike for the household of Germanicus, and the mother and the princes were imprisoned on a charge of crime. In his memoirs of his own life Tiberius declared that he killed Sejanus because he had discovered that he entertained a mad rage against the sons of Germanicus. But the destruction of Sejanus did not save Agrippina and her two children. The third son Gaius Caesar (Caligula), lived to become emperor when Tiberius died in 37.
Throughout his reign Tiberius strove earnestly to do his duty to the empire at large; his guiding principle was to maintain with an almost superstitious reverence the constitutional forms which had been constructed by Augustus. Only two changes of moment were introduced. The imperial guard, hitherto only seen near the city in small detachments, was by the advice of Sejanus encamped permanently in full force close to the walls. By this measure the turbulence of the populace was kept in check. The officer in command of the guard became at once the most important of the emperor's lieutenants. The other change was the practically complete abolition of the old comitia, But the senate was treated with an almost hypocritical deference, and a pedantically precise compliance with the old republican forms was observed towards the senatorial magistrates. The care expended by Tiberius on the provinces was unremitting. His favourite maxim was that a good shepherd should shear the flock and not flay it. When he died he left the subject peoples of the empire in a condition of prosperity such as they had never known before and never knew again. Soldiers, governors and officials of all kinds were kept in wholesome dread of vengeance if they oppressed those beneath them or encouraged irregularity of any kind. Strict economy permitted light taxation and enabled the emperor to show generosity in periods of exceptional distress. Public security both in Italy and abroad was maintained by a strong hand, and commerce was stimulated by the improvement of communications. Jurisdiction both within and without the capital was on the whole exercised with steadiness and equity, and the laws of the empire were at many points improved. The social and moral reforms of Augustus were upheld and carried further. Such risings against the emperor's authority as occurred within the Roman domain were put down with no great difficulty. The foreign or rather the frontier policy was a policy of peace, and it was pursued with considerable success. With few exceptions the duties of the Roman forces on the borders were confined to watching the peoples on the other side while they destroyed each other. On the Rhine, at least, masterly inactivity achieved tranquillity which lasted for a long period.
The disrepute which attaches to the reign of Tiberius has come mainly from three or four sources-from the lamentable story of the imperial household, from the tales of hideous debauchery practised in deep retirement at Capreae during the last eleven years of the emperor's life, from the tyranny which Sejanus was permitted to wield in his master's name, and from the political prosecutions and executions which Tiberius encouraged, more by silent compliance than by open incitement. The stories of immorality are recorded chiefly by Suetonius, who has evidently used a poisoned source, possibly the memoirs of the younger Agrippina, the mother of Nero. Tiberius loved to
