103 



that gifted nation. During his residence in Ehodes he had regularly 

 attended the classes of the philosophers and rhetoricians ; and he was 

 always surrounded by some of the most distinguished literary men of 

 his time. Nor was he meanly versed in the literature of his own 

 country. He took a pride in speaking and writing Latin with perfect 

 purity. But he was more especially devoted to the study of astronomy 

 and astrology, and this latter aberration of human ingenuity, which 

 other great men have since shared with him, had considerable influence 

 over his actions, an influence which, from its very nature, can never be 

 sufficiently appreciated. Summing up, therefore, all these considera- 

 tions, his unwearied political activity, his literary tastes and relaxations, 

 his former continence and temperance, and his old age, we shall come 

 to the conclusion that we should be wrong in crediting the foul asper- 

 sions of the disaff'ected aristocracy and the tavern gossip of the vulgar, 

 witliout more trustworthy evidence than the vague reports which have 

 so long satisfied the credulity of ages. 



Chapteb VII. 



Every successive phase in the life of Tiberius was, according to 

 Tacitus, a descent from a higher to a lower level of morality ; his 

 natural tendency was downwards, every step he took was in that one 

 fatal dii'ection ; every friend, real or pretended, that he lost, took away 

 a portion of the artificial buoyancy which had kept him from sinking to 

 tlie lowest slime of the pool of iniquity. His life is like a dismal 

 tragedy marked off into five acts by Tacitus. Up to the death of 

 Augustus he is allowed to have been a man of excellent life and 

 character; as long as Germanicus and his son Drusus lived he assumed 

 at least the appearance of virtue ; during the lifetime of his mother he 

 showed a mixture of good and bad qualities ; the fourth pei'iod of this 

 dismal progress is given as that of the paramount influence of Sejanus, 

 whom Tiberius loved and feared ; it is marked by cnielty, but as yet a 

 decent exterior is thrown over his lusts. When at length that last 

 good genius is removed from the side of the luckless Tiberius, three 

 years before his death, in his 74th year, he is for the first time in his 

 life free from all restraint, from all fear, all shame, all considerations, 

 able at length to satisfy to his heart's content his long restrained appe- 

 tite for blood and the filthiest debauchery. Tac. Annal. II. 51. 



This is the sort of rhetorical tirades that Tacitus delights in. It 

 produces effect, rouses indignation, secures sympathy, and that is a 

 primary object with that tragic historian. We shall attempt to 

 be more cool and prosaic in our goneralisations, and as we have already 



