Page:EB1911 - Volume 26.djvu/954

Rh which he displayed as emperor it may be inferred that he applied himself with determination to learn the business of government.

But from 22 to 6 and again from  4 to 10 by far the greater part of Tiberius's time was spent in the camp. His first service was as legionary tribune in one of the desperate and arduous wars which led to peace in the Spanish peninsula through the decimation, or rather the extermination, of the rebellious tribes. In 20 Augustus sent Tiberius with an army to seat Tigranes of Armenia on the throne as a Roman vassal. When Tiberius approached the frontier of Armenia, he found its throne vacant through the assassination of the king, and Tigranes stepped into his place without a blow being struck. Tiberius crowned Tigranes king with his own hand. Then the Parthian monarch grew alarmed, and surrendered "the spoils and the standards of three Roman armies." The senate ordered a thanksgiving such as was usually celebrated in honour of a great victory. The following year was passed by Tiberius as governor of Transalpine Gaul. In the next year (15) he was dispatched to aid his brother Drusus in subjugating the Raeti and Vindelici, peoples dwelling in the mountainous region whence the Rhine, Rhone and Danube take their rise. Drusus attacked from the eastern side, while Tiberius operated from the upper waters of the Rhine, and by stern measures the mountaineers were reduced to a state of quietude, and could no longer cut communications between northern Italy and Gaul, nor prosecute their raids in both countries. In 12 Agrippa, the great general of Augustus, died at the age of fifty-one, leaving Julia, the emperor's only child, a widow. Agrippina, daughter of Agrippa by an earlier marriage, was wife of Tiberius, and had borne him a son, Drusus, afterwards father of Germanicus. Livia, with great difficulty, prevailed upon Augustus to replace Agrippa by Tiberius, who was compelled to exchange Agrippina for Julia, to his bitter grief. During the year of mourning for Agrippa, which delayed his new marriage, Tiberius was occupied with a victorious campaign against the Pannonians, followed by successful expeditions in the three succeeding summers. For his victories in the Danube regions, the emperor conferred on him the distinctions which flowed from a military triumph in republican times (now first separated from the actual triumph), and he enjoyed the " ovation " or lesser form of triumphal entry into the capital. On the death of Drusus in the autumn of 9 Tiberius, whose reputation had hitherto been eclipsed by that of his brother, stepped into the position of the first soldier of the empire. The army, if it did not warmly admire Tiberius, entertained a loyal confidence in a leader who, as Velleius (the historian who served under him) tells us, always made the safety of his soldiers his first care. In the campaign of the year after Drusus's death Tiberius traversed all Germany between the Rhine and the Elbe, and met with slight opposition. But it would be too much to believe the statement of Velleius that "he reduced Germany almost to the position of a tributary province." He was rewarded with the full triumph, the military title of "imperator," and his second consulship, though the opposition of the powerful Sugambri had been only broken by an act of treachery, the guilt of which should perhaps be laid at the door of Augustus. In 7 there was another but insignificant campaign in Germany. Next year Augustus bestowed on his stepson the tribunician authority for five years. Tiberius was thus in the most formal manner associated with the emperor in the conduct of the government on the civil side; but Tacitus (Ann. iii. 56) goes too far when he says that this promotion marked him out as the heir to the throne.

Tiberius now suddenly begged permission to retire to Rhodes and devote himself to study. He seems to have declined absolutely at the time to state his reasons for this course, but he obstinately adhered to it, in spite of the tears of Livia and the lamentations of Augustus to the senate that his son had betrayed him. The departure from Italy was as secret as it could be made. Years afterwards, when Tiberius broke silence about his motives, he declared that he had retired in order

to allow the young princes, Gaius and Lucius, sons of Agrippa and Julia, a free course. There was perhaps a portion of the truth wrapped up in this declaration. Like Agrippa, who retired to Mytilene to avoid the young Marcellus, Tiberius had clearly no taste to become the servant of the two children whom Augustus had adopted in their infancy and evidently destined to be joint emperors after his death. But it may well be believed that Tiberius, unlike Agrippa, had no burning ambition to see himself in the place destined for his stepsons; and it may have been in his eyes one of the attractions of exile that it released him from the obligation to aid in carrying out the far-reaching designs which Livia cherished for his sake. But the contemporaries of Tiberius were no doubt right in believing that the scandal of ]ulia's life did more than all else to render his position at Rome intolerable. His conduct to her from first to last gives a strong impression of his dignity and self-respect. When at length the emperor's eyes were opened, and he inflicted severe punishment upon his daughter, her husband, now divorced by the emperor's act, made earnest intercession for her, and did what he could to alleviate her suffering. At Rhodes Tiberius lived simply, passing his time mainly in the company of Greek professors, with whom he associated on pretty equal terms. He acquired considerable proficiency in the studies of the day, among which was astrology. But his attempts at composition, whether in prose or verse, were laboured and obscure. After five years' absence from Rome, he begged for leave to return; but the boon was angrily refused, and Livia with difficulty got her son made nominally a legate of Augustus, so as in some degree to veil his disgrace. The next two years were spent in solitude and gloom. Then, on the intercession of Gaius, Augustus allowed Tiberius to come back to Rome, but on the express understanding that he was to hold aloof from all public functions—an understanding which he thoroughly carried out.

He had scarcely returned before death removed ( 2) Lucius, the younger of the two princes, and a year and a half later Gaius also died. The emperor was thus left with only one male descendant, Agrippa Postumus, youngest son of Julia, and still a boy. Four months after Gaius's death Augustus adopted Agrippa and at the same time Tiberius. The emperor now indicated clearly his expectation that Tiberius would be his principal successor. The two essential ingredients in the imperial authority-the proconsulare imperium and the tribunicia potestas-were conferred on Tiberius, and not on Agrippa, who was too young to receive them. Tiberius' career as a general now began anew. In two or three safe rather than brilliant campaigns he strengthened the Roman hold on Germany, and established the winter camps of the legions in the interior, away from the Rhine.

In 5 it became necessary to attack the formidable confederacy built up by Maroboduus, with its centre in Bohemia. At the most critical moment, when Pannonia and Dalmatia broke out into insurrection, and an unparalleled disaster seemed to be impending, Maroboduus accepted an honourable peace. The four serious campaigns which the war cost displayed Tiberius at his best as a general. When he was about to celebrate his well-won triumphs, the terrible catastrophe to Varus and his legions ( 9) turned the rejoicing into lasting sorrow, and produced a profound change in the Roman policy towards Germany. Although Tiberius with his nephew and adopted son Germanicus made in 9 and 10 two more marches into the interior of Germany, the Romans never again attempted to bound their domain by the Elbe, but clung to the neighbourhood of the Rhine. Tiberius was thus robbed in great part of the fruit of his campaigns; but nothing can deprive him of the credit of being a chief founder of the imperial system in the lands of Europe. From the beginning of 11, when he celebrated a magnificent triumph, to the time of the emperor's death in 14 Tiberius remained almost entirely in Italy, and held rather the position of joint emperor than that of expectant heir. Agrippa Postumus had proved his incapacity beyond hope, and had been banished to a desolate island. In all probability Tiberius was not present when Augustus died, although Livia