140 WIVES OF THE C.E3AKS. 



of Agrippa, who was discovered lying by a cavern on the shore. The 

 emperor beheld before him his only male descendant extant, the issue 

 of his only child, the son of that intrepid warrior and faithful coun- 

 sellor and friend, to whose ability in arms, and wisdom in advice, he 

 owed his early triumphs and the eventual strength of his authority. 

 He had been sacrificed by arts, too late detected ; and Agrippa offered 

 to his sight a reproachful instance of injustice and unnatural desertion. 

 The feelings of Augustus were embittered by the affectionate re- 

 ception of his grandson ; the tears of the unconscious youth were 

 shed upon the hand that dealt his injuries j their interview was short 

 and poignant. Augustus had beheld enough, and formed his reso- 

 lution: and taking an abrupt departure, with Agrippa ever present 

 to his eyes, aud overwhelmed with shame and sadness by a crowd of 

 irrepressible reflections, the emperor regained the Palatine, as he 

 imagined, after a concealed and unsuspected journey. He had, 

 however, on his arrival, the mortification to find that Livia was mis- 

 tress of his secret. Maximus, the only person who was privy to his 

 journey, and to whom perhaps he had imparted its momentous ob - 

 jects, had disclosed the emperor's intentions to his wife ; who had 

 again revealed them to the vigilant and jealous empress. The in- 

 discreet loquacity of Maximus, the error of a weak capacity, was 

 possibly the cause of Caesar's fate. The aged emperor, with sufficient 

 feeling to deplore, and even to repair the wrongs of Posthumus 

 Agrippa, if free from Livia's influence, needed but the time to bring 

 him safely to the capital. When there, the equitable dispositions of 

 his atonement, might possibly have triumphed over Livia's inter- 

 ference and devices ; for the Roman people would have hailed the 

 restoration of a youth combining the beloved remembrance of Au- 

 gustus and Agrippa. But the unfortunate disclosure of Maximus 

 proved fatal to whatever plan the justice or affection of the emperor 

 had formed. Livia was equally indignant and alarmed when she 

 discovered that Augustus had a secret project. Her apprehensive 

 mind too readily perceived the nature of a plan, in which the exiled 

 Posthumus was destined to sustain a part ; her violent reproaches, 

 mingled still with all the simulated suffering of wronged affection, 

 effectually restrained the progress of Augustus in his scheme ; and 

 Livia, now mistrustful of the emperor's intentions, in the fullness of 

 her power and the maturity of all her plans, was shortly placed by his 

 decease beyond the influence of his suspected reformations. And 

 here again the arts of Livia are by some supposed to have secured, 

 by Caesar's death, the object of her complicated crimes. The ob- 

 jection raised by an intelligent and elegant historian,* that Caesar's 



* " Cependant la sante (TAuguste de"pe'rissait, et quelques uns soup9onnaient 

 que le crime de sa femme y avail part ; comnie si un vieillard dans sa soixante 

 et seizieme annee, d'une complexion naturellement tres faible, avait besoin de 

 poison pour mourir." Cremer Hist, des Emperews. Aug. 1. 3. It must always 

 be remembered that M . Crevier was liable to the charge of inconsistency. 

 Who would have supposed that, after the enumeration of other excellence, he 

 calls Augustus " bon et fidele ami ; pere tendre, mais malheureux, bon frere, 

 bon mari ;" and that, in speaking of the peace of his last moments, he should 

 add, " bonheur de peu de consequence, puisqu'il devait finir, et etre remplace 

 par une eternite de supplices ! /" Ibid. 



