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81 



wished to accelerate the sure course of nature \>j comruitting such au 

 awful crime ? None but the most irrefragable evidence can induce us 

 to give credence to the ridiculous story. 



At any rate Tiberius cannot be implicated in this crime, if crime 

 there vras. In all the long-sjiun intrigues of his mother, during which 

 one obstacle after another was removed between Tiberius and the 

 throne, he seems to have been a passive instrument in lier hand. Not 

 for his sake, but to gratify her own ambition, and to rule the world in 

 the name of her son, the haughty Claudia worked for many long years 

 with the greatest recklessness and perseverance at the one object, 

 which she finally attained. She was too little of a woman to have 

 much maternal love for her son. No wonder Tiberius was wanting in 

 filial affection for his mother. He disliked her, but he could never 

 emancipate himself from fearing her There never was either cordi- 

 ality or intimacy between the two. Piide, if no higher motive, pre- 

 vented Tibei'ius from conspiring with Livia. If crimes were resorted 

 to, to secure the succession to her son, however acceptable they may 

 have been to him in their result, it is not likely that he had a hand in 

 perpetrating them. 



It is possible that we may extend this verdict to a deed which, foul 

 as it was, became the melancholy alternative between which and great 

 public calamities a choice had to be made. The third of the sons of 

 Agrippa and Julia, Agrippa Postumus, was still living, and had been 

 adopted by his grandfather. To this step Augustus was prompted 

 more byhis natural affection for his own family, than by a due con- 

 cern for the happiness or safety of the empire. For it appears that 

 the youth so nobly born, and by the adoption of Augustus exalted to 

 such pre-eminence, was coarse, insolent by nature, and without any 

 education or refinement. Belying like a gladiator on his bodily 

 strength, he exhibited such a ferocity of disposition, that Augustus was 

 compelled to remove him from Rome to the small island of Planasia, 

 where he was under military surveillance. 



Agrippa had clearly by right of blood a better title to the throne 

 than Tiberius. There is no doubt that he would easily have succeeded 

 in collecting a formidable party, and in disputing for a time the supreme 

 power with Tiberius. But it is quite certain that the latter would have 

 finally prevailed, and that the horrors of civil war would have been 

 conjured up in vain. It was therefore fortunate for Rome that 

 Agrippa was put to death immediately. He fell unpitied and unre- 

 venged. Some supposed that Augustus himstOf had given the bloody 



structions ; but it is more probable that I^ivia had her hand in this dark 

 transaction ; nor is it likely tliat Tiberius disapproved of a measure 

 which freed him from a competitor, however contemptible. 



