The only saying attributed to him, marks, if genuine, the great spring of his actions, and the bent of his character. "By union," he used to say, "small things become great; by division the greatest fall to pieces." 1 Such was indeed the maxim of his life; such the motto which might fitly be inscribed upon his tomb. His whole career was devoted to consolidate the empire of Augustus; and the small beginnings of the two youthful adventurers waxed, through his self-control as much as by his energy, into the widest development of all human history. To this he sacrificed the objects which a more selfish man would alone have regarded. The only token of personal feeling he exhibited was his vexation at being apparently postponed to Marcellus. He resented being made the third person in the empire, but he was satisfied to continue always the second. He gained his reward in the well-earned honours of his life, and the unanimous award of posterity in his favour3; nor less perhaps in the maturity of his death, which removed him at the age of fifty-one years from the perils of the second place, and the risk of succeeding to the first.4 1 Seneca, Epist. 94. M. Agrippa, vir ingentis animi, qui solus ex bis quos civilia bella claros potentesque fecerunt, felix in publicum fuit, dicere solebat, multum se huic sententiæ debere: nam concordia res parvæ crescunt, discordia maximæ dilabuntur. 2 Vell. ii. 79.: Parendi, sed uni, scientissimus, aliis imperandi cupidus. ii. 88. Nec minora consequi potuit, sed non tam concupivit. 3 Seneca, I. c. Dion, liv. 29. : ἄριστος τῶν καθ' ἑαυτὸν διαφανῶς γενό μενος. 4 Pliny (Hist. Nat. vii. 6.) supposes him to have been unhappy, and connects his sufferings with the inauspicious phenomenon of his birth: In pedes procedere nascentem contra naturam est; quo argumento eos CHAP. XXXV. CHAP. XXXV. appellavere Agrippas, ut ægre partos: qualiter M. Agrippam ferunt genitum, unico prope felicitatis exemplo in omnibus ad hunc modum genitis. Quamquam is quoque adversa pedum valetudine, misera juventa, exercito ævo inter arma mortesque, ad noxia successu, infelici terris stirpe omni, sed per utrasque Agrippinas maxime, quæ Caium et Domitium Neronem principes genuere, totidem faces generis humani: præterea brevitate ævi, quinquagesimo uno raptus anno, in tormentis adulteriorum conjugis, socerique prægravi servitio, luisse augurium præposteri natalis existimatus. The passage of course is only important from the deep consciousness it evinces of the misery attendant upon the highest human fortune. CHAP. XXXVI. THE CHILDREN OF AGRIPPA. CHARACTER OF THE CLAUDII: CHAP. XXXVI. of Agrippa. AGRIPPA left behind him two sons, Caius and Lucius, who have been already mentioned, of the age of eight and five years respectively, and more than The family one daughter.1 A third son was born to him some months after his decease, to whom Augustus gave the name of Agrippa Postumus. The favour with which the emperor had distinguished his daughter's offspring, and which he promised to extend to the yet unborn infant, was their natural right as scions of his own race; the claims of the children of Livia upon his affections, though educated under his guardianship, could not really come in competition with theirs. But while the idea of a family succession was assuming consistency in the minds both 1 The daughters of Agrippa were Vipsania, the child of his first marriage, when yet a private citizen, with a daughter of Atticus; and by his Cæsarean princess, a Julia and an Agrippina. Of these two, more will be said hereafter. Vipsania soon recedes from the view of public history; but it is remarked of her, that she alone, of all the children of Agrippa, died a natural death, without even a suspicion of violence. Tac. Ann. iii. 19. CHAP. XXXVI. Tiberius betrothed to B. C. 12. of Augustus and his subjects, the weight of empire Suet. Tib. 7. Non sine magno angore animi, quum et Agrippinæ (Vipsaniæ) consuetudine teneretur, et Juliæ mores improbaret. 2 Vell. ii. 96.: Mors deinde Agrippæ. . . admovit propius Neronem The elder of the emperor's stepsons is destined to occupy a large space on our canvass, and it will be well to take this opportunity of presenting our selves with a sketch of his figure and character, as they appeared to his countrymen in the earlier stages of his career. If we may trust the testimony of a noble sitting statue, above the natural size, discovered in modern times at Piperno, the ancient Privernum, near Terracina, and now lodged in the gallery of the Vatican', which has been pronounced to be a genuine representation of Tiberius, we must believe that both in face and figure he was eminently handsome, his body and limbs developed in the most admirable proportions, and his countenance regular, animated, and expressive. In accordance with this description the biographer of the Cæsars assures us that he was tall and big of bone, with ample chest and shoulders; it is added that he was left-handed, and such was the firmness of his joints. that he could drive, it is said, his extended finger through a sound apple, and draw blood from a slave's head with a fillip. He was fair in complexion, and the abundance of hair at the back of Cæsari; quippe filia ejus Julia, quæ fuerat Agrippa nupta, Neroni nupsit. Subinde bellum Pannonicum, &c. Comp. Dion, liv. 31., who speaks of the emperor's reluctance: Tißipiov kai åkwv πρoσeiλeto. The campaign of Tiberius took place in the summer of this year (A. U. 742.). 1 Bunsen's Rom., ii. 2. 69. (account of the Museo Chiaramonti in the Vatican): 492. Sitzende statue des Tiberius, von Kolossaler Grösse, gefunden zu Piperno im Jahre 1796. Neu ist der rechte Arm, die linke Hand, der rechte Fuss und der vordere Theil des linken. I have described it myself, I fear imperfectly, from personal recollection. There is another well-known statue of Tiberius in the Louvre. CHAP. XXXVI. Figure and Tiberius in early life. character of |