Page:Tacitus; (IA tacituswilliam00donnrich).pdf/73

Rh than once reduced the Roman general to straits which, but for the discipline of the legions, would a second time have lost Rome a general and an army. In 16 Germanicus was recalled from the Rhine. He was accorded a magnificent triumph, of which to Roman spectators the most attractive feature was the presence of the hero and his five children riding in the same chariot. Yet this portion of the spectacle excited not merely sentiments of pride and hope, but also gloomy anticipations of the future. The people called to mind, "that popular favour had proved calamitous to his father Drusus; that his uncle Marcellus was snatched in his youth from the ardent affections of the populace; and that ever short-lived and unfortunate were the favorites of the Roman people." The prediction, not uttered with bated breath, doubtless reached the ears of Tiberius, and bore baneful fruit in later years, when his "fears stuck deep" in Agrippina and her sons.

The presence of Germanicus, now consul, was urgently needed in the Eastern provinces, where the death of Augustus had given rise to disturbances on the Armenian and Parthian frontiers, and where, also, the civil government appears to have required the presence of a vice-emperor. The removal of the young and successful general is ascribed by Tacitus to the fear or jealousy of Tiberius, but there is no reason to impute such motives to him. Had Tacitus lived in the reign of Tiberius, we should perhaps have been told by him, that the Claudian Cæsar had seen much service in the Rhenish and Danubian districts, and knew better than Germanicus how to deal with barbarians. So long as the legions were burning their