No More Learning

The first feat of this new reign was the murder of young Agrippa: the
assassin, a bold and determined Centurion, found him destitute of arms,
and little apprehending such a destiny, yet was scarce able to despatch
him. Of this transaction Tiberius avoided any mention in the Senate: he
would have it pass for done by the commands of Augustus; as if he had
transmitted written orders to the Tribune, who guarded Agrippa, "to slay
him the instant he heard of his grandfather's decease. " It is very true
that Augustus had made many and vehement complaints of the young man's
obstinate and unruly demeanour, and even solicited from the Senate
a decree to authorise his banishment: but he never hardened himself
against the sentiments of nature, nor in any instance dipped his hands
in his own blood; neither is it credible that he would barbarously
sacrifice the life of his grandson for the security and establishment of
his step-son. More probable it is, that this hasty murder was purely the
work of Tiberius and Livia; that the young Prince, hated and dreaded
by both, fell thus untimely, to rid the one of his apprehensions and
a rival, and to satiate in the other the rancorous spirit of a
step-mother. When the Centurion, according to the custom of the army,
acquainted Tiberius, "that his commands were executed;" he answered, "he
had commanded no such execution, and the Centurion must appear before
the Senate, and for it be answerable to them. " This alarmed Sallustius
Crispus, who shared in all his secret counsels, and had sent the
Centurion the warrant: he dreaded that he should be arraigned for the
assassination, and knew it equally perilous either to confess the truth,
and charge the Emperor; or falsely to clear the Emperor, and accuse
himself. Hence he had recourse to Livia, and warned her, "never to
divulge the secrets of the palace, never to expose to public examination
the ministers who advised, nor the soldiers who executed: Tiberius
should beware of relaxing the authority of the Prince, by referring all
things to that of the Senate; since it was the indispensable prerogative
of sovereignty for all men to be accountable only to one. "

Now at Rome, Consuls, Senators, and Roman Knights, were all rushing
with emulation into bondage, and the higher the quality of each the more
false and forward the men; all careful so to frame their faces, as to
reconcile false joy for the accession of Tiberius, with feigned sadness
for the loss of Augustus: hence they intermingled fears with gladness,
wailings with gratulations, and all with servile flattery. Sextus
Pompeius and Sextus Apuleius, at that time Consuls, took first the oath
of fidelity to Tiberius; then administered it to Seius Strabo and
Caius Turranius; the former Captain of the Praetorian Guards, the other
Intendant of the Public Stores. The oath was next given to the Senate,
to the people, and to the soldiery: all by the same Consuls; for
Tiberius affected to derive all public transactions from the legal
ministry of the Consuls, as if the ancient Republic still subsisted, and
he were yet unresolved about embracing the sovereign rule: he even owned
in his edict for summoning the Senate, that he issued it by virtue of
the Tribunitial power, granted him under Augustus. The edict, too,
was short and unexceptionably modest. It imported that, "they were to
consider of the funeral honours proper to be paid his deceased Father:
for himself he would not depart from the corpse; and further than this
edict implied, he claimed no share in the public administration. " Yet
from the moment Augustus was dead, he usurped all the prerogatives of
imperial state, gave the word to the Praetorian Cohorts; had soldiers
about the palace, guards about his person, went guarded in the street,
guarded to the Senate, and bore all the marks of Majesty: nay, he writ
letters to the several armies in the undisguised style of one already
their Prince: nor did he ever hesitate in expression, or speak with
perplexity, but when he spoke to the Senate. The chief cause of his
obscurity there proceeded from his fear of Germanicus: he dreaded that
he, who was master of so many legions, of numberless auxiliaries, and
of all the allies of Rome; he, who was the darling of the people, might
wish rather to possess the Empire, than to wait for it; he likewise, in
this mysterious way of dealing with the Senate, sought false glory, and
would rather seem by the Commonwealth chosen and called to the Empire,
than to have crept darkly into it by the intrigues of a woman, or by
adoption from a superannuated Prince. It was also afterwards found, that
by this abstruseness and counterfeit irresolution he meant to penetrate
into the designs and inclinations of the great men: for his jealous
spirit construed all their words, all their looks, into crimes; and
stored them up in his heart against a day of vengeance.
When he first met the Senate, he would bear no other business to be
transacted but that about the funeral of Augustus. His last will
was brought in by the Vestal Virgins: in it Tiberius and Livia were
appointed his heirs, Livia adopted into the Julian family, and dignified
with the name of Augusta: into the next and second degree of heirship he
adopted his grandchildren and their children; and in the third degree
he named the great men of Rome, most of them hated by him, but out of
vainglory he named them, and for future renown. His legacies were not
beyond the usual bounds; only he left to the Roman people four hundred
thousand great sesterces, [Footnote: £362,500. ] to the populace or
common sort, thirty-five thousand; to every common soldier of the
Praetorian Guards, a thousand small sesterces, [Footnote: £8, 6s. 8d. ]
and to every soldier of the Roman legions three hundred. [Footnote: £2,
10s. ] The funeral honours were next considered. The chief proposed were
these: Asinius Gallus moved that "the funeral should pass through the
Triumphal Gate:" Lucius Arruntius, "that the titles of all the laws
which he had made, and the names of all the nations which he had
conquered, should be carried before the corpse:" Valerius Messala added,
that "the oath of allegiance to Tiberius should be renewed every year;"
and being asked by Tiberius, "whether at his instigation he had made
that motion? " "I spoke it as my opinion," says Messala; "nor will I ever
be determined by any but my own, in things which concern the commonweal;
let who will be provoked by my freedom. " Only this new turn was wanting
to complete the prevailing flattery of the time. The Senators then
concurred in a loud cry, "that upon their own shoulders they must bear
the body to the pile. " But Tiberius declined the offer from an arrogant
show of moderation. Moreover, he cautioned the people by an edict, "not
to disturb the funeral functions with a zeal over-passionate, as they
had those of Julius Caesar; nor to insist that the corpse of Augustus
should be burnt rather in the Forum, than in the field of Mars, which
was the place appointed. " On the funeral day the soldiers under arms
kept guard; a mighty mockery this to those who had either seen, or heard
their fathers describe, the day when Caesar the Dictator was slain:
servitude was then new, its sorrows yet fresh and bitter; and liberty
unsuccessfully retrieved by a deed which, while it seemed impious to
some, was thought altogether glorious by others, and hence tore Rome
into tumults and the violence of parties: they who knew that turbulent
day, and compared it with the quiet exit of Augustus, ridiculed the
foppery of "calling an aid of soldiers to secure a peaceable burial to a
Prince who had grown old in peace and power, and even provided against a
relapse into liberty, by a long train of successors. "

Hence much and various matter of observation concerning Augustus: the
superstitious multitude admired the fortuitous events of his fortune;
"that the last day of his life, and the first of his reign, was the
same; that he died at Nola, in the same village, and in the same house,
and in the same chamber, where his father Octavius died.