The Empire. R O 
tifex Maximus; an office which was filled by all his suc¬ 
cessors ; and in this new capacity he improved the calendar, 
and burned 2000 pontifical books, reserving only those of 
the Sybilline oracles. 
Agrippa, who, since the elevation of Augustus, had 
held the important situation of governor of Rome, died of 
a violent fever in Campania, and was succeeded in the 
government of Rome by Tiberius. Augustus, however, 
commanded him to divorce his wife Agrippina, and to 
marry Julia, the wife of Agrippa, and the daughter of the 
emperor, whose abandoned conduct had been kept a secret 
only from her father. 
Although Agrippa had subdued the Pannonians, yet the 
news of his death had inclined them to shake off the 
Roman yoke, and Tiberius and Drusus were sent to subdue 
them. After having achieved several brilliant victories in 
Germany, Drusus was carried off by a violent fever; and 
Tiberius, after reducing the Pannonians, succeeded to the 
chief command in Germany, where he obtained several 
victories which restored the general tranquillity. On his 
return to Rome, Tiberius received the honour of a triumph, 
and was appointed to the tribuneship for five years; but 
disgusted probably by the debaucheries of his wife Julia, or 
offended at the honours and titles which Augustus had con¬ 
ferred on his grand-children, he asked leave to quit Rome, 
and retired to Rhodes. Notwithstanding the remonstrance 
of his mother Livia, and the positive refusal of Augustus to 
comply with his request, Tiberius persisted in his resolution, 
and, confining himself to his apartment, he refused for 
whole days to take any food. Augustus finding it without 
avail to resist so implacable a temper, permitted him to re¬ 
tire to Rhodes. Tiberius, however, soon repented of the 
rashness of this scheme, and requested leaye to return to 
Rome; but Augustus compelled him to remain at Rhodes 
for seven years; and though Livia obtained for him the 
appointment of the emperor’s lieutenant in these countries, 
yet Tiberius during the whole of his stay at Rhodes appeared 
only in the character of a private individual. 
A peace, profound in its character, and universal in its 
extent, now reigned throughout the .known world. The 
temple of Janus itself was shut, the signal of peace and 
tranquillity, with the sight of which Rome had never once 
been blessed since the days of Numa Pompilius. At this 
moment of general happiness, the Saviour of the world 
was born in Judea, 753 years after the foundation of Rome. 
About three years after this event Tiberius was permitted to re¬ 
turn to Rome, but was not allowed to hold any public situation. 
The death, however, of Lucius and Caius Caesar, the two 
grandsons of Augustus, on whom he had conferred, the 
title of princes of the Roman youth, opened to Tiberius 
the prospect of being one day the sovereign of Rome. Al¬ 
though it was suspected that Livia had carried them off by 
poison, yet Tiberius had shown such unaffected sorrow at 
their death, that Augustus adopted him as his son. 
A second irruption of the barbarous hordes of the north 
again disturbed the empire. Three legions and six cohorts, 
under Quintilius Varus, were almost entirely cut to pieces 
in Germany by Arminius, a brave but crafty general; and, 
when Varus saw that every thing was lost, he and several 
of his officers put themselves to death. His head was 
afterwards sent by the insurgent general to Augustus, who 
was almost driven frantic by the defeat. He allowed his 
hair and his beard to grow for many months ; he tore his 
garments, and in fits of distraction, he beat his head against 
the wall, exclaiming. Oh! Varus, restore me my legions. 
To retrieve this disaster, Tiberius was sent into Germany, 
where he performed many brilliant exploits; upon which 
he was honoured with a triumph by the Romans, and by 
Augustus with his friendship. Tiberius was now assumed 
by Augustus as his colleague, and having sent Germanicus 
against the northern hordes, Augustus accompanied Tiberius 
during a part of his journey ; but having been taken ill at 
Pola in Campania, he died in the 7Gth year of his age, 
and 56th of his power, having held the sovereign authority 
for 44 years. 
M E. The Empire. 263 
We have seen that the downfall of the Roman republic 
was effected by the attacks of those commanders who ruled 
with fearful sway a lawless and mercenary soldiery. The 
same disastrous genius infested nearly every period of the 
duration of the empire. The authority of the senate and 
the people being annihilated, and the regal succession not 
being settled on the plain and evident, though absurd 
qualification of birth, the army continually intruded their 
rude and ignorant favourites into the palace, and supported 
and deserted them by turns as their whimsical caprices, or 
sordid interests, dictated. _ Hence the major part of the 
history of the Roman empire is a detail of almost incredible 
vices. We can, however, scarcely attach entire faith to all 
that is recorded of the Roman emperors. We must rather 
consider the useless crimes of which they are accused as the 
productions of popular rumours, gladly seized on by partial 
historians who had, in a country where all free discussion 
was denied, no opportunity of gaining any other, or cor- 
recter, evidence. 
Tiberius Caesar ascended the vacant throne of Augus¬ 
tus. The latter had nominated him his successor, and left 
him a large part of his fortune. It has been suspected that 
he was on the point of retracting these legacies in favour of 
his grandson, but some poisoned figs administered by the 
hand of Livia secured Tiberius from this destruction of his 
hopes. 
Tiberius began his reign by acts of cruelty and deceit. 
After causing Agrippa Posthumius to be murdered by a 
military tribune, he affected to hesitate about the ac- 
ceptance of the supreme power. The two consuls, however, 
having first reluctantly taken the oath of fidelity to him as 
emperor, administered it to the senate, the people, and the 
soldiers; yet notwithstanding all this eagerness in his service, 
Tiberius declared that he would only hold the empire till the 
conscript fathers should, in their great wisdom, think proper 
to give repose to his old age. 
The festivities and consequent relaxation of discipline in 
which the Roman armies were permitted to indulge on the 
accession of Tiberius, gave rise to two revolts of a most 
alarming nature. Percennius, a common soldier, and known 
in Rome as the ringleader of hissing parties in the theatre, 
had excited his fellow soldiers by inflammatory speeches. 
Tiberius himself wrote to the insurgents; but finding his 
remonstrances unavailing, he sent his son Drusus to try the 
influence of persuasion and of force. The insurgents, how¬ 
ever, massacred several of their officers; and it was only by 
the effect of an eclipse of the moon on their superstitious 
feelings that they were brought to submission. Drusus availed 
himself of this favourable incident, and having condemned 
and executed some of the ringleaders, the mutiny was 
completely subdued with the timely aid of some violent 
storms which had alarmed their fears. 
The revolt which took place in Germany almost at the 
same time, and from the same causes, assumed a more in¬ 
veterate character. When the insurgents had gone so far 
as to drown several of the centurions in the Rhine, Germani¬ 
cus hastened from Gaul to restore subordination. Unable, 
however, to effect any change, he thought it prudent to send 
home his wife Agrippina, who was then pregnant, along with 
her infant son Claudius. 
No sooner was Agrippina seen, with her infant in her 
arms, preparing to seek for refuge from the treachery of 
Roman soldiers, than an impression was made on the feelings 
of the insurgents which no arguments could have produced. 
Some of them now ran to prevent her from quitting the army, 
while others went to Germanicus and entreated him to recal 
his wife. Having seized and massacred their own ringleaders, 
all the legions except two returned to their allegiance. Caecina, 
who commanded these two legions, having misunderstood a 
message from Germanicus, called out those who had not 
joined the insurgents, and led them to the massacre, of the 
disaffected. Germanicus was distressed at this piece of cruelty, 
and endeavoured to obviate its effects by performing every 
mark of respect to the dead bodies. 
Having thus brought his army to a proper sense of their 
duty, 
