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Page 20
If the family of Augustus had undergone grievous vicissitudes during
his life, its situation became even more dangerous after his death.
The historian who sets out with the preconceived notion that Augustus
founded a monarchy, and imagines that his family was destined to enjoy
the privileges which in all monarchies are accorded the sovereign's
house, will never arrive at a complete understanding of the story of
the first empire. His family did, to be sure, always enjoy a
privileged status, if not at law, at least in fact, and through the
very force of circumstances; but it was not for naught that Rome had
been for many centuries an aristocratic republic in which all the
families of the nobility had considered themselves equal, and had been
subject to the same laws. The aristocracy avenged itself upon the
imperial family for the privileges which the lofty dignity of its head
assured it by giving it hatred instead of respect. They suspected and
calumniated all of its members, and with a malicious joy subjected
them, whenever possible, to the common laws and even maltreated with
particular ferocity those who by chance fell under the provisions of
any statute. As a compensation for the privileges which the royal
family enjoyed, they had to assume the risk of receiving the harshest
penalties of the laws. If any of them, therefore, fell under the rigor
of these laws, the senatorial aristocracy especially was ever eager to
enjoy the atrocious satisfaction of seeing one of the favored tortured
as much as or more than the ordinary man. There is no doubt, for
example, that the two Julias were more severely punished and disgraced
than other ladies of the aristocracy guilty of the same crime. And
Augustus was forced to waive his affection for them in order that it
might not be said, particularly in the senate, that his relatives
enjoyed special favors and that Augustus made laws only for others.
[Illustration: Statue of a young Roman woman.]
Yet as long as Augustus lived, he was a sufficient protection for his
relatives. He was, especially in the last twenty years of his life,
the object of an almost religious veneration. The great and stormy
epoch out of which he had risen, the extraordinary fortune which had
assisted him, his long reign, the services both real and imaginary
which he had rendered the empire--all had conferred upon him such an
authority that envy laid aside its most poisonous darts before him.
Out of respect for him even his family was not particularly calumniated
or maltreated, save now and then in moments of great irritation, as
when the two Julias were condemned. But after his death the situation
grew considerably worse; for Tiberius, although he was a man of great
capacity and merit, a sagacious administrator and a valiant general,
did not enjoy the sympathy and respect which had been accorded to
Augustus. Rather was he hated by those who had for a long time sided
with Caius and Lucius Caesar and who formed a considerable portion of
the senate and the aristocracy. It was not the spontaneous admiration
of the senate and of the people, but the exigencies of the situation,
which had made him master of the government when Augustus died. The
empire was at war with the Germans, and the Pannonico-Illyrian
provinces were in revolt, and it was necessary to place at the head of
the empire a man who should strike terror to the hearts of the
barbarians and who on occasion should be able to combat them.
Tiberius, furthermore, was so well aware that the majority of the
senate and the Roman people would submit to his government only through
force, that he had for a long time been in doubt whether to accept the
empire or not, so completely did he understand that with so many
enemies it would be difficult to rule.
Under the government of Tiberius the imperial family was surrounded by
a much more intense and open hatred than under Augustus. One couple
only proved an exception, Germanicus and Agrippina, who were very
sympathetic to the people. But right here began the first serious
difficulties for Tiberius. Germanicus was twenty-nine years old when
Tiberius took over the empire, and about him there began to form a
party which by courting and flattering both him and his wife began to
set him up against Tiberius. In this they were unconsciously aided by
Agrippina. Unlike her sister Julia, she was a lady of blameless life;
faithfully in love with her husband; a true Roman matron, such as
tradition had loved; chaste and fruitful, who at the age of twenty-six
had already borne nine children, of whom, however, six had died. But
Agrippina was to show that in the house of Augustus, in those
tumultuous, strange times, virtue was not less dangerous than vice,
though in another way and for different reasons. She was so proud of
her fidelity to her husband and of the admiration which she aroused at
Rome that all the other defects of her character were exaggerated and
increased by her excessive pride in her virtue. And among these
defects should be counted a great ambition, a kind of harum-scarum and
tumultuous activity, an irreflective impetuosity of passion, and a
dangerous lack of balance and judgment. Agrippina was not evil; she
was ambitious, violent, intriguing, imprudent, and thoughtless, and
therefore could easily adapt her own feelings and interests to what
seemed expedient. She had much influence over her husband, whom she
accompanied upon all his journeys; and out of the great love she bore
him, in which her own ambition had its part, she urged him on to
support that hidden movement which was striving to oppose Germanicus to
the emperor.
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