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Page 17
[Illustration: Mark Antony.]
The exile of Julia marks the moment when the fortunes of Tiberius and
Livia, which had been steadily losing ground for four years, began to
revive, though not so rapidly as Livia and Tiberius had probably
expected. Julia preserved, even in her misfortune, many faithful
friends and a great popularity. For a long time popular demonstrations
were held in her favor at Rome, and many busied themselves tenaciously
to obtain her pardon from Augustus, all of which goes to prove that the
horrible infamies which were spread about her were the inventions of
enemies. Julia had broken the _Lex Julia_,--so much is certain,--but
even if she had been guilty of an unfortunate act, she was not a
monster, as her enemies wished to have it believed. She was a
beautiful woman, as there had been before, as there are now, and as
there will be hereafter, touched with human vices and with human
virtues.
As a matter of fact, her party, after it had recovered from the
terrible shock of the scandal, quickly reorganized. Firm in its
intention of having Julia pardoned, it took up the struggle again, and
tried as far as it could to hinder Tiberius from returning to Rome and
again taking part in political life, knowing well that if the husband
once set foot in Rome, all hope of Julia's return would be lost. Only
one of them could re�nter Rome. It was either Tiberius or Julia; and
more furiously than ever the struggle between the two parties was waged
about Augustus.
Caius and Lucius Caesar, Julia's two youthful sons, of whom Augustus
was very fond, were the principal instruments with which the enemies of
Tiberius fought against the influence of Livia over Augustus. Every
effort was made to sow hatred and distrust between the two youths and
Tiberius, to the end that it might become impossible to have them
collaborate with him in the government of the empire, and that the
presence of Julia's sons should of necessity exclude that of her
husband. A further ally was soon found in the person of another child
of Julia and Agrippa, the daughter who has come down into history under
the name of the Younger Julia. Augustus had conceived as great a love
for her as for the two sons, and there was no doubt that she would aid
with every means in her power the party averse to Tiberius; for her
mother's instincts of liberty, luxury, and pleasure were also inherent
in her. Married to L. Aemilius Paulus, the son of one of the greatest
Roman families, she had early assumed in Rome a position which made
her, like her mother, the antithesis of Livia. She, too, gathered
about her, as the elder Julia had done, a court of elegant youths, men
of letters, and poets,--Ovid was of the number,--and with this group
she hoped to be able to hold the balance of power in the government
against that coterie of aged senators who paid court to Livia. She,
too, took advantage of the good-will of her grandfather, just as her
mother had done, and in the shadow of his protection she displayed an
extravagance which the laws did not permit, but which, on this account,
was all the more admired by the enemies of the old Roman Puritanism.
As though openly to defy the sumptuary law of Augustus, she built
herself a magnificent villa; and, if we dare believe tradition, it was
not long before she, too, had violated the very law which had proved
disastrous to her mother.
Thus, even after the departure of Julia, her three children, Caius,
Lucius, and Julia the Younger, constituted in Rome an alliance which
was sufficiently powerful to contest every inch of ground with the
party of Livia; for they had public opinion in their favor, they
enjoyed the support of the senate, and they played upon the weakness of
Augustus. In the year 2 A.D., after four years of exhaustive efforts
spent in struggle and intrigue, all that Livia had been able to obtain
was the mere permission that Tiberius might return to Rome, under the
conditions, however, that he retire to private life, that he give
himself up to the education of his son, and that he in no wise mingle
in public affairs. The condition of the empire was growing worse on
every side; the finances were disordered, the army was disorganized,
and the frontiers were threatened, for revolt was raising its head in
Gaul, in Pannonia, and especially in Germany. Every day the situation
seemed to demand the hand of Tiberius, who, now in the prime of life,
was recognized as one of the leading administrators and the first
general of the empire. But, for all Livia's insistence, Augustus
refused to call Tiberius back into the government. The Julii were
masters of the state, and held the Claudii at a distance.
[Illustration: Antony and Cleopatra.]
Perhaps Tiberius would never have returned to power in Rome had not
chance aided him in the sudden taking off, in a strange and unforeseen
manner, of Caius and Lucius Caesar. The latter died at Marseilles,
following a brief illness, shortly after the return of Tiberius to
Rome, August 29, in the year 2 A.D. It was a great grief to Augustus,
and, twenty months after, was followed by another still more serious.
In February of the year 4, Caius also died, in Lycia, of a wound
received in a skirmish. These two deaths were so premature, so close
to each other, and so opportune for Tiberius, that posterity has
refused to see in them simply one of the many mischances of life.
Later generations have tried to believe that Livia had a hand in these
fatalities. Yet he who understands life at all knows that it is easier
to imagine and suspect romantic poisonings of this sort than it is to
carry them out. Even leaving the character of Livia out of
consideration, it is difficult to imagine how she would have dared, or
have been able, to poison the two youths at so great a distance from
Rome, one in Asia, the other in Gaul, by means of a long train of
accomplices, and this at a moment when the family of Augustus was
divided by many hatreds and every member was suspected, spied upon, and
watched by a hostile party. Furthermore, it would have been necessary
to carry this out at a time when the example of Julia proved to all
that relationship to Augustus was not a sufficient defense against the
rigors of the law and the severity of public opinion when roused by any
serious crime. Besides, it is a recognized fact that people are always
inclined to suspect a crime whenever a man prominent in the public eye
dies before his time. At Turin, for example, there still lives a
tradition among the people that Cavour was poisoned, some say by the
order of Napoleon III, others by the Jesuits, simply because his life
was suddenly cut off, at the age of fifty-two, at the moment when Italy
had greatest need of him. Indeed, even to-day we are impressed when we
see in the family of Augustus so many premature deaths of young men;
but precisely because these untimely deaths are frequent we come to see
in them the predestined ruin of a worn-out race in history. All
ancient families at a certain moment exhaust themselves. This is the
reason why no aristocracy has been able to endure for long unless
continually renewed, and why all those that have refused to take in new
blood have failed from the face of the earth. There is no serious
reason for attributing so horrible a crime to a woman who was venerated
by the best men of her time; and the fables which the populace, always
faithful to Julia, and therefore hostile to Livia, recounted on this
score, and which the historians of the succeeding age collected, have
no decisive value.
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