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evil spirit was at work to blast the hopes of the Julian family. Livia 

 had determined to raise her own sons to the throne, and, like a true 

 Claudian, she shrank from no measure to accomplish this object, and 

 she never despaired of success. Agrippa died, and to approach one 

 step nearer to the throne, Tiberius was compelled to divorce a wife he 

 loved, and to marry the profligate Julia whom he detested. Now began 

 a period of humiliation for Tiberius, calculated to turn the lightest 

 heart to sullen misanthropy. Augustus had never loved him ; his 

 licentious '\4'ife scorned him, and hated him as an upstart and an 

 intruder ; her sons, by Agrippa, petted and pointedly marked out and 

 distinguished by Augustus as the heirs next to the throne, slighted and 

 openly offended him, their stepfather ; his mother, Livia, for ever 

 plotting and conspiring, used him merely as a tool, by which she hoped 

 to govern the empire after Augustus' death. He left Rome in dis- 

 gust to live in retirement in the island of Rhodes, vvhere literature, 

 philosophy, and especially his favourite astrology, formed his exclusive 

 occupation. He was almost forgotten in the capital ; slighted by all, 

 offended with impunity, he found himself sinking by degrees into 

 obscurity and neglect ; his voluntary absence fi'om Rome became com- 

 pulsory. He was now anxious to return, but met with the stern refusal 

 of Augustus. At length, after the lapse of seven years, the emperor 

 yielded to the entreaties of Livia, and permitted Tiberius to return to 

 Rome. Now his prospects brighten : his two eldest stepsons die in rapid 

 succession ; his wife had, during his absence, so openly disgraced the 

 imperial house by her notorious licentiousness, that Augustus, with a 

 bleeding heart, was compelled to banish her, his only child, from the 

 capital. 



Tiberius was now in the prime of manhood : Augustus, deprived of 

 the friends of his youth, bereaved of all those of his own family to whom 

 he had looked for support in his declining years, was compelled to lean 

 on his stepson, whose courage, tact, and skill had been tested on many 

 occasions. Tiberius was adopted by Augustus, and invested with such 

 powers as left no doubt that he was destined to be the successor to the 

 imperial purple.* And so efficacious were the means taken to secure 

 this end, that no hereditary king ever stepped more noiselessly and 

 securely iuto the throne vacated by his predecessor, than Tiberius did 

 at the death of Augustus. 



He had now reached the mature age of fifty-six, the exact period in 

 which the eventful career of the first Ca3sar was cut short by the daggers 

 of the rejiublican conspirators. Had he also died at this ago it miglit 

 indeed have been as great a misfortune for the Roman world, as the 



♦Tacit, .\nniil 1 :t. 



