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Page 30
This denunciation, however,--we know this from the pages of ancient
writers,--was one of the most terrible griefs of Tiberius's old age.
He had loved his son tenderly, and the idea of leaving so horrible a
crime unpunished, in case the accusation was true, drove him to
desperation. Yet, on the other hand, Livilla, the presumptive
criminal, was the daughter of his faithful friend, of that Antonia who
had saved him from the treacheries of Sejanus. As for the public, ever
ready to believe all the infamies which were reported of the imperial
house, it was firmly convinced that Livilla was an abominable poisoner.
A great trial was set on foot; many suspects were put to torture, which
is evidence that they were arriving at no definite conclusions, and
this was probably because they were seeking for the proofs of an
imaginary crime. Livilla, however, did not survive the scandal, the
accusations, the suspicions of Tiberius, and the distrust of those
about her. Because she was the daughter of Drusus and the
daughter-in-law of Tiberius, because she belonged to the family which
fortune had placed at the head of the immense empire of Rome, she would
not be able to persuade any one that she was innocent. The obscure
woman, without ancestry, who was accusing her from the grave, would be
taken at her word by every one; she would convince posterity and
history; against all reason she would prevail over the greatness of
Livilla! So Livilla took refuge in her mother's house and starved
herself to death, for she was unable to outlive an accusation which it
was impossible to refute.
Tiberius's reign continued for six years after this terrible tragedy,
but it was only a species of slow death-agony. The year 33 saw still
another tragic event--the suicide of Agrippina and her son Drusus. Of
the race of Germanicus there remained alive only one son, Caius (the
later Emperor Caligula), and three daughters, of whom the eldest,
Agrippina, the mother of Nero, had been married a few years before to
the descendant of one of the greatest houses of Rome, Cnaeus Domitius
Enobarbus. Tiberius still remained as the last relic of a bygone time
to represent ideas and aspirations which were henceforth lost causes,
amid the ruins and the tombs of his friends. Posterity, following in
the footsteps of Tacitus, has held him and his dark nature alone
responsible for this ruin. We ought to believe instead that he was a
man born to a loftier and more fortunate destiny, but that he had to
pay the penalty for the unique eminence to which fortune had exalted
him. Like the members of his family who had been driven into exile,
who had died before their time, who had been driven to suicide in
despair, he, too, was the victim of a tragic situation full of
insoluble contradictions; and precisely because he was destined to
live, he was perhaps the most unfortunate victim of them all.
[1] There was in the Roman legal system no public prosecutor and
virtually no police. Every Roman citizen was supposed to watch over
the laws and see that they were not infringed. On his retirement from
office, any governor or magistrate ran the risk of being impeached by
some young aspirant to political honors, and not infrequently oratory,
an art much cultivated by the Romans, triumphed over righteousness. In
the earlier period the ground on which charges were usually brought was
malversation; in the time of the empire they were also frequently
brought under the above-mentioned law _de majestate_. It has been said
that this common act of accusation, the birthright of the Roman
citizen, the greatly esteemed palladium of Roman freedom, became the
most convenient instrument of despotism. Since he who could bring a
criminal to justice received a fourth of his possessions and estates,
and since it brought the accuser into prominence, delation was
recklessly indulged in by the unscrupulous, both for the sake of gain
and as a means of venting personal spite. The vice lay at the very
heart of the Roman system, and was not the invention of Tiberius. He
could hardly have done away with it without overthrowing the whole
Roman procedure.
V
THE SISTERS OF CALIGULA AND THE MARRIAGE OF MESSALINA
After the death of Tiberius (37 A.D.), the problem of the succession
presented to the senate was not an easy one. In his will, Tiberius had
adopted, and thereby designated to the senate as his successors, Caius
Caligula, the son of Germanicus, and Tiberius, the son of his own son
Drusus. The latter was only seventeen, and too young for such a
responsibility. Caligula was twenty-seven, and therefore still very
young, although by straining a point he might be emperor; yet he did
not enjoy a good reputation. If we except him, there was no other
member of the family old enough to govern except Tiberius Claudius
Nero, the brother of Germanicus and the only surviving son of Drusus
and Antonia. He was generally considered a fool, was the
laughing-stock of freedmen and women, and such a gawk and clown that it
had been impossible to put him into the magistracy. Indeed, he was not
even a senator when Tiberius died.
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