The Reign of Tiberius | Page 5

in
the authors of the "Augustan History"? From Sejanus and the Emperor
William, I return once more to Tiberius; from the present _Kaiser_, to a
genuine Caesar.
It is not my purpose here to abridge Tacitus, to mangle his translator,

nor to try and say what is better said in the body of the volume: but
when my readers have made themselves acquainted with Tiberius, they
may be glad to find some discussion about him, as he is presented to us
in "The Annals"; and among all the personages of history, I doubt if
there be a more various or more debated character. Mr. Matthew
Arnold thus describes him:
_Cruel, but composed and bland, Dumb, inscrutable and grand; So
Tiberius might have sat, Had Tiberius been a cat._
And these verses express the popular belief, with great felicity: I must
leave my readers, to make their own final judgment for themselves.
Whether Tacitus will have helped them to a decision, I cannot guess: he
seems to me, to deepen the mystery of Tiberius. At a first reading, and
upon the surface, he is hostile to the Emperor; there is no doubt, that he
himself remained hostile, and that he wished his readers to take away a
very bad impression: but, as we become familiar with his pages, as we
ponder his words and compare his utterances, we begin to suspect our
previous judgment; another impression steals upon us, and a second,
and a third, until there grows imperceptibly within us a vision of
something different. Out of these dim and floating visions, a clearer
image is gradually formed, with lineaments and features; and, at length,
a new Tiberius is created within our minds: just as we may have seen a
portrait emerge under the artist's hand, from the intricate and scattered
lines upon an easel. Then it dawns upon us, that, after all, Tacitus was
not really an intimate at Capri; that he never received the secret
confidences of Tiberius, nor attended upon his diversions. And at last it
is borne in upon us, as we read, that, if we put aside rumours and
uncertain gossip, whatever Tiberius does and says is unusually fine: but
that Tacitus is not satisfied with recording words and actions; that he
supplies motives to them, and then passes judgment upon his own
assumptions: that the evidence for the murder of Germanicus, for
instance, would hardly be accepted in a court of law; and that if Piso
were there found guilty, the Emperor could not be touched. At any rate,
we find it stated in "The Annals," that "Tiberius by the temptations of
money was incorruptible;" and he refused the legacies of strangers, or
of those who had natural heirs. "He wished to restore the people to
severer manners," like many sovereigns; unlike the most of them, "in
his own household, he observed the ancient parsimony." Besides the

"severa paupertas" of Camillus and Fabricius, he had something of their
primitive integrity; and he declined, with scorn, to be an accomplice in
the proposed assassination of Arminius: "non fraude neque occultis, sed
palam et armatum, Populum Romanum hostes suos ulcisci." He
protected magistrates and poor suitors, against the nobles. He refused to
add to the public burdens, by pensioning needy Senators: but he was
charitable to poor debtors; and lavish to the people, whether Romans or
Provincials, in times of calamity and want. Not least admirable was his
quiet dignity, in periods of disturbance and of panic: he refused to
hurry to the mutinous legions, or to a mean rebellion in Gaul; and he
condescended to reason excellently about his behaviour, when his
people were sane enough to listen. He was both sensible and modest:
he restrained the worship of Augustus, "lest through being too common
it should be turned into an idle ceremony;" he refused the worship of
himself, except in one temple dedicated equally to the Senate and to the
Emperor. Tiberius could be pathetic, too: "I bewail my son, and ever
shall bewail him," he says of Germanicus; and again, "Eloquence is not
measured by fortune, and it is a sufficient honour, if he be ranked
among the ancient orators." "Princes are mortal;" he says again, "the
Commonwealth, eternal." Then his wit, how fine it was; how quick his
humour: when he answered the tardy condolences from Troy, by
lamenting the death of Hector: when he advised an eager candidate,
"not to embarrass his eloquence by impetuosity;" when he said of
another, a low, conceited person, "he gives himself the airs of a dozen
ancestors," "videtur mihi ex se natus:" when he muttered in the Senate,
"O homines ad servitutem paratos:" when he refused to become a
persecutor; "It would be much better, if the Gods were allowed to
manage their own affairs," "Deorum injurias