No More Learning

And how easy it is to
misunderstand what we read in ancient histories, to be deceived by the
plainest records, or to put a sinister interpretation upon events, which
in their own time were passed over in silence or officially explained
as harmless! Let me take an illustration, of what I mean, from something
recent. Every one must remember the last hours of the Emperor Frederick:
the avenues to his palace infested by armed men; the gloom and secrecy
within; without, an impatient heir, and the posting to and fro of
messengers. We must own, that the ceremonials of the Prussian Court
departed in a certain measure from the ordinary mild usage of humanity;
but we attributed this to nothing more, than the excitement of a
youthful Emperor, or the irrepressible agitation of German officials.
But if these events should find a place in history, or if the annals of
the Kings of Prussia should be judged worth reading by a distant Age;
who could blame an historian for saying, that these precautions were not
required for the peaceful and innocent devolution of the crown from a
father to his son. Would not our historian be justified, if he referred
to the tumults and intrigues of a Praetorian election; if he compared
these events to the darkest pages in Suetonius, or reminded his
readers of the most criminal narratives in the authors of the "Augustan
History"? From Sejanus and the Emperor William, I return once more to
Tiberius; from the present _Kaiser_, to a genuine Caesar.

It is not my purpose here to abridge Tacitus, to mangle his translator,
nor to try and say what is better said in the body of the volume: but
when my readers have made themselves acquainted with Tiberius, they may
be glad to find some discussion about him, as he is presented to us in
"The Annals"; and among all the personages of history, I doubt if there
be a more various or more debated character. Mr. Matthew Arnold thus
describes him:

_Cruel, but composed and bland,
Dumb, inscrutable and grand;
So Tiberius might have sat,
Had Tiberius been a cat. _

And these verses express the popular belief, with great felicity: I
must leave my readers, to make their own final judgment for themselves.
Whether Tacitus will have helped them to a decision, I cannot guess: he
seems to me, to deepen the mystery of Tiberius. At a first reading, and
upon the surface, he is hostile to the Emperor; there is no doubt, that
he himself remained hostile, and that he wished his readers to take away
a very bad impression: but, as we become familiar with his pages, as
we ponder his words and compare his utterances, we begin to suspect our
previous judgment; another impression steals upon us, and a second, and
a third, until there grows imperceptibly within us a vision of something
different. Out of these dim and floating visions, a clearer image is
gradually formed, with lineaments and features; and, at length, a
new Tiberius is created within our minds: just as we may have seen
a portrait emerge under the artist's hand, from the intricate and
scattered lines upon an easel. Then it dawns upon us, that, after all,
Tacitus was not really an intimate at Capri; that he never received the
secret confidences of Tiberius, nor attended upon his diversions.
And at
last it is borne in upon us, as we read, that, if we put aside rumours
and uncertain gossip, whatever Tiberius does and says is unusually fine:
but that Tacitus is not satisfied with recording words and actions;
that he supplies motives to them, and then passes judgment upon his
own assumptions: that the evidence for the murder of Germanicus, for
instance, would hardly be accepted in a court of law; and that if Piso
were there found guilty, the Emperor could not be touched. At any rate,
we find it stated in "The Annals," that "Tiberius by the temptations of
money was incorruptible;" and he refused the legacies of strangers,
or of those who had natural heirs. "He wished to restore the people to
severer manners," like many sovereigns; unlike the most of them, "in his
own household, he observed the ancient parsimony. " Besides the "severa
paupertas" of Camillus and Fabricius, he had something of their
primitive integrity; and he declined, with scorn, to be an accomplice in
the proposed assassination of Arminius: "non fraude neque occultis, sed
palam et armatum, Populum Romanum hostes suos ulcisci. " He protected
magistrates and poor suitors, against the nobles. He refused to add to
the public burdens, by pensioning needy Senators: but he was
charitable to poor debtors; and lavish to the people, whether Romans or
Provincials, in times of calamity and want. Not least admirable was his
quiet dignity, in periods of disturbance and of panic: he refused to
hurry to the mutinous legions, or to a mean rebellion in Gaul; and he
condescended to reason excellently about his behaviour, when his
people were sane enough to listen. He was both sensible and modest: he
restrained the worship of Augustus, "lest through being too common
it should be turned into an idle ceremony;" he refused the worship of
himself, except in one temple dedicated equally to the Senate and to
the Emperor. Tiberius could be pathetic, too: "I bewail my son, and ever
shall bewail him," he says of Germanicus; and again, "Eloquence is not
measured by fortune, and it is a sufficient honour, if he be ranked
among the ancient orators. " "Princes are mortal;" he says again, "the
Commonwealth, eternal. " Then his wit, how fine it was; how quick his
humour: when he answered the tardy condolences from Troy, by lamenting
the death of Hector: when he advised an eager candidate, "not to
embarrass his eloquence by impetuosity;" when he said of another, a
low, conceited person, "he gives himself the airs of a dozen ancestors,"
"videtur mihi ex se natus:" when he muttered in the Senate, "O homines
ad servitutem paratos:" when he refused to become a persecutor; "It
would be much better, if the Gods were allowed to manage their own
affairs," "Deorum injurias Dis curae. " In all this; in his leisured
ways, in his dislike of parade and ceremonial, in his mockery of
flatterers and venal "patriots"; how like to Charles II. , "the last
King of England who was a man of parts. " And no one will deny "parts"
to Tiberius; he was equal to the burden of Imperial cares: the latest
researches have discovered, that his provincial administration was
most excellent; and even Tacitus admits, that his choice of magistrates
"could not have been better. " He says, in another passage, "The
Emperor's domains throughout Italy, were thin; the behaviour of his
slaves modest; the freed-men, who managed his house, few; and, in his
disputes with particulars, the courts were open and the law equal. " This
resembles the account of Antoninus Pius, by Marcus Aurelius; and it is
for this modesty, this careful separation between private and public
affairs, that Tacitus has praised Agricola.