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Rh as if he had been a simple citizen to the courts and the law.

Tiberius, when the death of Augustus was publicly announced—he had not arrived in time from the Dalmatian coast to be present at the last moments of the dying Cæsar—entered at once upon his important duties as commander of the army, governor-general of the provinces, and tribune of the people; and thus had virtually in his hands all the essentials of imperial power. Secure of these, he awaited, until after the funeral of Augustus, his nomination as Prince of the Senate. And at this point, in the view taken of him by Tacitus, began that system of dissimulation which he followed through a long reign. It might have been more honest to demand, but it was perhaps more politic, as well as decent, to court the suffrages of the senate. The account of the Cæsar's hesitation in accepting, of the senators' eager servility, in imploring him to consent to accept, the only dignity that was not his already, is among the historian's masterpieces of description. Tacitus says that Tiberius never faltered, except in the presence of the conscript-fathers. One motive for his hesitation was a dread that in his nephew Germanicus he might find a formidable rival, and there was not time to assure himself of the loyalty and honorable feelings of that darling of the Roman people. Another but less obvious cause for delay, was his repugnance to be regarded as the nominee of his mother Livia, who not only at the moment had secured her son's quiet accession, but also had obtained for him from the reluctant Augustus every office comprised in the imperium—except that of Prince of the Senate. Moreover, there were members on the senatorial