WIVES OF THE CAESARS. 151 



not awaken the suspicions of her father. Yet the united grace and 

 playfulness and wit of Julia overcame the growing caution of 

 Augustus ; her frank and elegant simplicity of manner inveigled his 

 involuntary confidence ; he continued to regard her outward levity 

 as the result of an unguarded disposition, and was wont to say at the 

 convivial meetings of his friends, that he had two daughters, whom 

 he was obliged to manage with delicacy and indulgence the Common- 

 wealth and Julia. On one occasion, when she visited her father, 

 Julia read in the expression of his eyes his dissatisfaction at the splen- 

 dour of her dress. On the following day her visit was repeated ; but 

 the alteration in her garments, which now conformed to the simplicity 

 of which Augustus was an admirer, betrayed him into the remark 

 which his paternal tenderness had yesterday repressed. When she 

 embraced her father with affectionate decorum,* he exclaimed, " Ah ! 

 how much more does this attire become the daughter of Augustus !" 

 The ready apprehension of the princess pleaded her excuse. " To- 

 day," she said, " I dress to please my father's eyes ; but yesterday, I 

 dressed to please my husband's." In another instance, Livia and 

 Julia, at a show of gladiators, attracted the attention of the spectators. 

 Livia was surrounded by the aged, grave, and stately dignity of 

 Rome. Julia's party, on the other hand, comprised whatever was 

 pre-eminent among its youth for beauty, luxury, and pleasure. 

 Augustust sent his tablets to his daughter ; they directed her atten- 

 tion to the difference between the trains attendant on the " two first 

 women in the empire." Julia wrote beneath, " These, also, will 

 grow old with me." Her reply was equally well turned to the ac- 

 quaintance persuading her to imitate her father's plainness. <f He 

 forgets/' said Julia, " that he is Caesar, but I remember that I am 

 Caesar's daughter." J 



Augustus was at length informed that Julia's life but ill accorded 

 with the splendour of her rank and parentage. But whether inten- 

 sity of occupation, or the distance of the emperor from the scene of 

 her offences, prevented his acquiring ample and precise details upon 

 the subject, he still abstained from interference in her habits, till the 

 testimonies of her vice were placed before him. In the transports of 

 his rage, he first resolved upon her death ; as the paroxysm subsided, 

 his wrath descended to the penalty of banishment. Reflecting on the 

 numerous instances of her prostitution, he beheld the honour of his 

 house degraded by the vices of that very person, from whose connu- 

 bial purity he long had drawn the hope of a direct and glorious pos- 

 terity. He was so intensely agonized by his convictions of her guilt, 

 that he abandoned himself in solitude to the emotions of his anger 



* At ille, qui pridie dolorem suum continuerat, gaudium continere non potuit : 

 et, Quantum hie, ait, in Jilia Augusti probabilior est cultus. Non def uil patrocinio 

 suo Julia his verbis : Hodie enim me patris oculis ornavi, heri vim." Macrob. 

 Saturnal. 1. 2. c. 5. 



t " Admonuit pater scripto, Videret quantum inter duas principes faeminas inter- 

 esset : eleganter ilia rescripsit ; Et hi mecum senes fient." Macrob. Saturnal. 

 1. 2. c. 5. 



" Item cum gravem amicum audisset Julia suadentem melius facturam si 

 se composuisset ad exemplar paternee frugalitatis, ait ; ille obliviscitur Casarum 

 se esse ; ego memini me Ccesaris filiam." Macrob. Saturnal. 1. 2, c. 5. 



