According
to the last writer, he died like George
II.
II.
Tacitus
" The Latin of
Paterculus is here so elegant and happy, that, for the pleasure of the
learned, I transcribe it: for others, I have already given something
of the sense. "Revocata in forum fides; submota e foro seditio, ambitio
campo, discordia curia: sepultaeque ac situ obsitae, justitia, aequitas,
industria, civitati, redditae; accessit magistratibus auctoritas,
senatui majestas, judiciis gravitas; compressa theatralis seditio;
recte faciendi, omnibus aut incussa voluntas aut imposita necessitas.
Honorantur recta, prava puniuntur. Suspicit potentem humilis, non timet.
Antecedit, non contemnit, humiliorem potens. Quando annona moderatior?
Quando pax laetior? Diffusa in Orientis Occidentisque tractus, quidquid
meridiano aut septentrione finitur, Pax Augusta, per omnes terrarum
orbis angulos metu servat immunes. Fortuita non civium tantummodo, sed
Urbium damna, Principis munificentia vindicat. Restitutae urbes
Asiae: vindictae ab injuriis magistratuum provinciae. Honor dignis
paratissimus: poena in malos sera, sed aliqua. Superatur aequitate
gratia, ambitio virtute: nam facere recte cives suos, Princeps optimus
faciendo docet; cumque sit imperio maximus, exemplo major est. "
Tiberius reigned from the year 14, to the year 37. He died in the villa
of Lucullus, and he was buried in the mausoleum of the Caesars. The
manner of his death is variously related: Tacitus gives one account;
Suetonius, another.
According to the last writer, he died like George
II. , alone, having just risen from his bed; and he was thus found by
his attendants: "Seneca cum scribit subito vocatis ministris, ac nemine
respondente, consurrexisse; nec procul a lectulo, deficientibus viribus,
concidisse. " Tiberius was tall, and beautiful. Suetonius tells us of
his great eyes, which could see in the dark; of his broad shoulders,
his martial bearing, and the fine proportion of his limbs: he describes,
too, the unusual strength of his hands and fingers, especially of the
left hand. His health was good; because, from his thirtieth year, he
was his own physician. "Valetudine prosperrima usus est, tempore quidem
principatus paene toto prope illesa; quamvis a trigesimo aetatis anno
arbitratu eam suo rexerit, sine adjutamento consiliove medicorum. " The
Emperor Julian describes him "severe and grim; with a statesman's care,
and a soldier's frankness, curiously mingled:" this was in his old age.
_Down the pale cheek, long lines of shadow slope;
Which years, and curious thought, and suffering give. _
At Rome, is a sculpture of Tiberius; he is represented young, seated,
crowned with rays, exceedingly handsome and majestic: if the figure were
not known to be a Caesar, the beholder would say it was a God.
There is another personage in "The Annals," whose history there is
mutilated, and perhaps dissembled; of whose character my readers may
like to know something more, than Tacitus has told them: I mean Sejanus,
a man always to be remembered; because whatever judgment we may form
about his political career, and on this question the authorities are
divided, yet it is admitted by them all, that he introduced those
reforms among the Praetorian Cohorts, which made them for a long time,
proprietors of the throne, and the disposers of the Imperial office. To
this minister, Paterculus attributes as many virtues as he has bestowed
upon Tiberius: "a man grave and courteous," he says, "with 'a fine
old-fashioned grace'; leisurely in his ways, retiring, modest; appearing
to be careless, and therefore gaining all his ends; outwardly polite and
quiet, but an eager soul, wary, inscrutable, and vigilant. " Whatever he
may have been in reality, he was at one time valued by Tiberius. "The
whole Senate," Bacon says, "dedicated an altar to Friendship as to a
Goddess, in respect of the great Dearness of Friendship between them
two:" and in the Essay "Of Friendship," Bacon has many deep sentences
about the favourites of Kings, their "Participes Curarum. " I would
summon out of "The Annals," that episode of Tiberius imprisoned within
the falling cave, and shielded by Sejanus from the descending roof.
"Coelo Musa beat:" Sejanus has propitiated no Muse; and although
something more, than the "invida taciturnitas" of the poet, lies heavy
upon his reputation, he shall find no apologist in me. But over against
the hard words of Tacitus, it is only fair to place the commendations
of Paterculus, and even Tacitus remarks, that after the fall of Sejanus,
Tiberius became worse; like Henry VIII.
Paterculus is here so elegant and happy, that, for the pleasure of the
learned, I transcribe it: for others, I have already given something
of the sense. "Revocata in forum fides; submota e foro seditio, ambitio
campo, discordia curia: sepultaeque ac situ obsitae, justitia, aequitas,
industria, civitati, redditae; accessit magistratibus auctoritas,
senatui majestas, judiciis gravitas; compressa theatralis seditio;
recte faciendi, omnibus aut incussa voluntas aut imposita necessitas.
Honorantur recta, prava puniuntur. Suspicit potentem humilis, non timet.
Antecedit, non contemnit, humiliorem potens. Quando annona moderatior?
Quando pax laetior? Diffusa in Orientis Occidentisque tractus, quidquid
meridiano aut septentrione finitur, Pax Augusta, per omnes terrarum
orbis angulos metu servat immunes. Fortuita non civium tantummodo, sed
Urbium damna, Principis munificentia vindicat. Restitutae urbes
Asiae: vindictae ab injuriis magistratuum provinciae. Honor dignis
paratissimus: poena in malos sera, sed aliqua. Superatur aequitate
gratia, ambitio virtute: nam facere recte cives suos, Princeps optimus
faciendo docet; cumque sit imperio maximus, exemplo major est. "
Tiberius reigned from the year 14, to the year 37. He died in the villa
of Lucullus, and he was buried in the mausoleum of the Caesars. The
manner of his death is variously related: Tacitus gives one account;
Suetonius, another.
According to the last writer, he died like George
II. , alone, having just risen from his bed; and he was thus found by
his attendants: "Seneca cum scribit subito vocatis ministris, ac nemine
respondente, consurrexisse; nec procul a lectulo, deficientibus viribus,
concidisse. " Tiberius was tall, and beautiful. Suetonius tells us of
his great eyes, which could see in the dark; of his broad shoulders,
his martial bearing, and the fine proportion of his limbs: he describes,
too, the unusual strength of his hands and fingers, especially of the
left hand. His health was good; because, from his thirtieth year, he
was his own physician. "Valetudine prosperrima usus est, tempore quidem
principatus paene toto prope illesa; quamvis a trigesimo aetatis anno
arbitratu eam suo rexerit, sine adjutamento consiliove medicorum. " The
Emperor Julian describes him "severe and grim; with a statesman's care,
and a soldier's frankness, curiously mingled:" this was in his old age.
_Down the pale cheek, long lines of shadow slope;
Which years, and curious thought, and suffering give. _
At Rome, is a sculpture of Tiberius; he is represented young, seated,
crowned with rays, exceedingly handsome and majestic: if the figure were
not known to be a Caesar, the beholder would say it was a God.
There is another personage in "The Annals," whose history there is
mutilated, and perhaps dissembled; of whose character my readers may
like to know something more, than Tacitus has told them: I mean Sejanus,
a man always to be remembered; because whatever judgment we may form
about his political career, and on this question the authorities are
divided, yet it is admitted by them all, that he introduced those
reforms among the Praetorian Cohorts, which made them for a long time,
proprietors of the throne, and the disposers of the Imperial office. To
this minister, Paterculus attributes as many virtues as he has bestowed
upon Tiberius: "a man grave and courteous," he says, "with 'a fine
old-fashioned grace'; leisurely in his ways, retiring, modest; appearing
to be careless, and therefore gaining all his ends; outwardly polite and
quiet, but an eager soul, wary, inscrutable, and vigilant. " Whatever he
may have been in reality, he was at one time valued by Tiberius. "The
whole Senate," Bacon says, "dedicated an altar to Friendship as to a
Goddess, in respect of the great Dearness of Friendship between them
two:" and in the Essay "Of Friendship," Bacon has many deep sentences
about the favourites of Kings, their "Participes Curarum. " I would
summon out of "The Annals," that episode of Tiberius imprisoned within
the falling cave, and shielded by Sejanus from the descending roof.
"Coelo Musa beat:" Sejanus has propitiated no Muse; and although
something more, than the "invida taciturnitas" of the poet, lies heavy
upon his reputation, he shall find no apologist in me. But over against
the hard words of Tacitus, it is only fair to place the commendations
of Paterculus, and even Tacitus remarks, that after the fall of Sejanus,
Tiberius became worse; like Henry VIII.
