The Reign of Tiberius | Page 4

dark; of his broad shoulders, his
martial bearing, and the fine proportion of his limbs: he describes, too,
the unusual strength of his hands and fingers, especially of the left hand.
His health was good; because, from his thirtieth year, he was his own
physician. "Valetudine prosperrima usus est, tempore quidem
principatus paene toto prope illesa; quamvis a trigesimo aetatis anno
arbitratu eam suo rexerit, sine adjutamento consiliove medicorum." The
Emperor Julian describes him "severe and grim; with a statesman's care,
and a soldier's frankness, curiously mingled:" this was in his old age.
_Down the pale cheek, long lines of shadow slope; Which years, and
curious thought, and suffering give._
At Rome, is a sculpture of Tiberius; he is represented young, seated,
crowned with rays, exceedingly handsome and majestic: if the figure
were not known to be a Caesar, the beholder would say it was a God.
There is another personage in "The Annals," whose history there is
mutilated, and perhaps dissembled; of whose character my readers may
like to know something more, than Tacitus has told them: I mean
Sejanus, a man always to be remembered; because whatever judgment
we may form about his political career, and on this question the
authorities are divided, yet it is admitted by them all, that he introduced
those reforms among the Praetorian Cohorts, which made them for a
long time, proprietors of the throne, and the disposers of the Imperial
office. To this minister, Paterculus attributes as many virtues as he has
bestowed upon Tiberius: "a man grave and courteous," he says, "with 'a
fine old-fashioned grace'; leisurely in his ways, retiring, modest;
appearing to be careless, and therefore gaining all his ends; outwardly
polite and quiet, but an eager soul, wary, inscrutable, and vigilant."
Whatever he may have been in reality, he was at one time valued by
Tiberius. "The whole Senate," Bacon says, "dedicated an altar to
Friendship as to a Goddess, in respect of the great Dearness of
Friendship between them two:" and in the Essay "Of Friendship,"
Bacon has many deep sentences about the favourites of Kings, their
"Participes Curarum." I would summon out of "The Annals," that
episode of Tiberius imprisoned within the falling cave, and shielded by
Sejanus from the descending roof. "Coelo Musa beat:" Sejanus has
propitiated no Muse; and although something more, than the "invida
taciturnitas" of the poet, lies heavy upon his reputation, he shall find no

apologist in me. But over against the hard words of Tacitus, it is only
fair to place the commendations of Paterculus, and even Tacitus
remarks, that after the fall of Sejanus, Tiberius became worse; like
Henry VIII., after the fall of Wolsey. Livia and Sejanus are said by
Tacitus, to have restrained the worst passions of the Emperor. The two
best authorities contradict one another; they differ, as much as our
political organs differ, about the characters of living statesmen: and
who are we, to decide absolutely, from a distance of two thousand
years, at our mere caprice, and generally without sufficient evidence,
that one ancient writer is correct; and another, dishonest or mistaken?
This is only less absurd, than to prefer the groping style and thoughts of
a modern pedant, usually a German as well, to the clear words of an old
writer, who may be the sole remaining authority for the statements we
presume to question; or for those very facts, upon which our reasonings
depend. And how easy it is to misunderstand what we read in ancient
histories, to be deceived by the plainest records, or to put a sinister
interpretation upon events, which in their own time were passed over in
silence or officially explained as harmless! Let me take an illustration,
of what I mean, from something recent. Every one must remember the
last hours of the Emperor Frederick: the avenues to his palace infested
by armed men; the gloom and secrecy within; without, an impatient
heir, and the posting to and fro of messengers. We must own, that the
ceremonials of the Prussian Court departed in a certain measure from
the ordinary mild usage of humanity; but we attributed this to nothing
more, than the excitement of a youthful Emperor, or the irrepressible
agitation of German officials. But if these events should find a place in
history, or if the annals of the Kings of Prussia should be judged worth
reading by a distant Age; who could blame an historian for saying, that
these precautions were not required for the peaceful and innocent
devolution of the crown from a father to his son. Would not our
historian be justified, if he referred to the tumults and intrigues of a
Praetorian election; if he compared these events to the darkest pages in
Suetonius, or reminded his readers of the most criminal narratives