.WIVES OF THE C.ESAKS. 141 



body, with the honours of a praetor ; and, moreover, permitted him 

 to ask the consulate, when ten years younger than the age prescribed 

 as indispensable to its enjoyment. Augustus gloried in the popu- 

 larity and promise of so beloved an object, and incessantly renewed 

 to him the marks of his affection. Still, the growing fame of young 

 Marcellus, the voice of public admiration, and the prospect of 

 imperial power, were inadequate to win the heart of Julia. Not only 

 insensible to his perfections, the wanton bride evinced a padpable 

 aversion to his person. The daring freedom of her inclination 

 spurned the laws of conjugal control; her susceptible complexion 

 attracted and repaid the passion of successive suitors ; and, following 

 the solicitation of a restless fancy, the charms of Julia were degraded 

 to promiscuous indulgence. She was incessantly surrounded by a 

 crowd of courtiers, by all that was distinguished as to glory, gal- 

 lantry, and beauty, in the Roman youth ; one engrossing passion 

 animated every hope of her existence, and, if the vague assertions of 

 historians may be credited, her hopes were rarely vain. With all 

 the powers of her acute and cultivated mind, the heart of Julia was 

 incapable of resistance, if ingeniously assailed by flattery and suppli- 

 cation. Many of her suppliants inspired her with an ardent, if not a 

 lasting passion ; and it was precisely at this ungovernable crisis that 

 Tiberius, her future husband, is supposed to have received repeated 

 pledges of her tenderness.* 



The disagreement which had recently arisen between Marcellus 

 and Agrippa, was pacified by the address of Caesar, who, when 

 dangerously ill, had placed his signet in the keeping of the latter. 

 The son-in-law, accustomed to the emperor's implicit confidence, 

 conceived a jealousy on this occasion, which was dissipated by the 

 appointment of Agrippa to. the government of Syria, thereby re- 

 moving him from Rome, and by the investiture of Marcellus at the 

 same time with the dignities of ^Edile and Pontiff. The youthful 

 favourite, while discharging his important duties to the common 

 satisfaction, was assailed by a disease, in its commencement of ap- 

 parent insignificance. The case, as has been mentioned heretofore, 

 was submitted to Antonius Musa, the physician, by whose skill 

 Augustus was recovered from impending danger ; and who employed 

 for the restoration of Marcellus the means which had preserved the 

 emperor. A difference of disease might certainly have needed a 

 difference of treatment, but we have little reason to suspect the skill 

 of Musa; the arts of Livia offer a more fatal cause than the mistake 

 of the physician. Marcellus, at the age of twenty-four, expired, 

 lamented by the court and empire, leaving Julia a widow without 

 issue, in the height of beauty, and scarcely in the flower of her life. 



The death of young Marcellus involved the capital in gloom ; and 

 here, indeed, the lamentation of a people may be fairly credited. He 

 had been educated in the sight of Rome ; his virtues were disclosed in 

 boyhood, and advanced to permanence and practice, accompanied with 

 growing dignity and power, which in no wise warped his natural be- 



- * " Ut quam (Juliam), sensisset sui quoque sub priore marito appetentem, 

 quod sane vulgo etiam existimabatuv." Sueton. in Tiber. 



