WfVES OF THE C\SAUS. 14*7 



While Julia thus continued to dishonour the husband of her father's 

 choice, Agrippa, by his military exploits, added further obligations 

 on the gratitude of Caesar. He reduced the Cantabri to uncondi- 

 tional submission ; but modestly declined the triumph offered him in 

 compensation of his arduous achievements. His mission into Syria 

 was signalized by valour, wisdom and humanity. Josephus has re- 

 corded with the pen of gratitude, his equity and moderation to the 

 Jews. The intimate connexion of Herod and Agrippa was produc- 

 tive of the happiest effects upon the civil and religious rights of the 

 dispersed and persecuted Hebrews. The Greeks of Asia Minor 

 were the mortal enemies of a religious sect, who openly condemned 

 the idle fancies of their wild polytheism ; and their aversion, enter- 

 ing into all the intercourse of common life, was manifested in every 

 shape of insolence and fraudulent extortion. But Agrippa strictly 

 measured out to either party the jurisdiction of the cities where they 

 dwelt, secured to the insulted Jews the peaceful exercise of their 

 devotion, and exempted them on all their festivals from attendance 

 on the Roman judicatory. He insured the transportation of their 

 pious donatives to the holy city; repaired himself to Herod, by whom 

 we was received with marked magnificence, and accompanied by 

 whom, he offered up a solemn sacrifice in the temple of Jerusalem. 

 Agrippa shortly afterwards appeased the troubles of the Cimmerian 

 Bosphorus, and once again declined the honour of a triumph, decreed 

 him by Augustus ; to whom, instead of to the senate, he had mo- 

 destly communicated his success. It may be here remarked that the 

 forbearance of Agrippa became the precedent of future usage. The 

 victorious generals of Rome hereafter were adorned with all the 

 ornaments of triumph the embroidred tunic, the purple robe, the 

 sceptre and the golden crown ; but the pomp of the procession that 

 grand incentive* which sustained the spirit of enthusiasm in the 

 commonwealth was exclusively reserved to the Emperor himself 

 and to the members of his family. On returning from the eastern 

 provinces, Agrippa was honoured with a quinquennial renewal of 

 the Tribunitian power. He was afterwards despatched to quell an 

 insurrection in Pannonia, and having speedily effected the object of 

 his mission, on reaching Italy he fell a victim to a virluent illness, 

 which attacked him in Campania, and deprived Augustus of a wise 

 and valiant servant, and, more than all, of an inestimable friend. 



To the penetrating mind of Julia, Agrippa's qualities and conduct 

 had exemplified the strict conception of a philosophic hero ; but her 

 imagination wantoned in perfections of a nature more responsive to 

 the ardour of her complexion. Agrippa's age, his gravity of man- 

 ners, and the general austerity of his character, had no allurement 

 for a female who reposed her whole felicity in the satisfaction of 

 capricious sensuality. Accordingly, his death, which was beheld by 

 Caesar and the Romans as a calamity of vast importance, was to Julia 



* " Honour, as well as virtue, was the principle of the republic ; the ambi- 

 tious citizens laboured to deserve the solemn glories of a triumph ; and the 

 ardour of the lloman youth was kindled into active emulation, as often as they 

 beheld the domestic images of their ancestors." Gibbon's Decline and Fall. 



