liar features in her ancient existence, but the human type is the same everywhere and always.

When the amusements of the Romans began to be their most serious business, the people who had once ruled the world were becoming slaves to their own indulgence and to luxury. Augustus tried to stop this degeneracy of habit, and promised his favour to every revival of the gallant customs of antiquity, and, therefore, to gratify the emperor, the Roman youth still frequented the scene of these antique games of javelin-throwing, riding, running, and swimming; but they no longer plunged into the Tiber, to refresh and invigorate themselves after the contest: their refined taste led them rather to the warm and vapour-bath, and to the use of perfumes and cosmetics. In luxury they were growing into coarse imitators of the Greeks; the Romans sought to vie in the cost, rather than the elegance of their banquets. The sons of speculators and contractors, with the unbounded wealth amassed by their sires, and on that account occupying prominent places, knew not how to dispense becomingly their riches. The austere rules of the emperor did not suit these coarse revellers. Augustus himself ate but little, and his bread was of the second quality, a few small fishes, curds, or cheese, figs and dates, taken at any hour, satisfied his daily needs.

At the cœna, or supper, the Roman reclined on stuffed and cushioned sofas, leaning on his left elbow, the neck and right arm bare, and his sandals removed. His slaves carved for him, filled his cup, and supplied him with such fragmentary viands as he could raise to his mouth with his fingers only, and poured water on his hands at every remove. The Romans were

not a reading people, though they had a method of taking off copies of a drawing or painting, and, had they cared, might have discovered the means of printing, of which they seemed on the verge of arriving. Recitation was to them a genuine delight, and to this taste we owe nearly all the glorious epics of the ancient poets, the legends, national ballads, and rhythmical histories of that age. The history of Livy, glowing in all the colours of imagination, is about as faithful to truth as the historical plays of our own Shakespere. He took the dry chroni

cles, drew forth from them the poetic life of half-forgotten traditions, and clothed the whole in ideal yet living pictures, and the Greek historian, Herodotus, wrote the deeds of his ancestors, to recite before the assembled nations at Olympia.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

TIBERIUS.

TIBERIUS was fifty-six years old when he succeeded his stepfather Augustus in his rule over the Roman empire. Even when a boy, he had displayed such a sinister, unfeeling, and cruel disposition, that one of his teachers had named him a lump of clay kneeded with blood. He united to this savage spirit a rare power of dissimulation and hypocrisy, so that he managed to deceive even his nearest belongings as to his real character. Even when he had become emperor, as long as his nephew Germanicus lived, he concealed his inclinations, because he feared to be supplanted by this excellent young man, who possessed the love of the whole Roman people. Some years later, Germanicus died, probably poisoned by the order of Tiberius, and then the savage, inhuman disposition of the emperor showed itself without a veil. Every person who uttered a word of blame respecting himself or his government, was accused of the crime of injured majesty (læsa majestas), and punished either with death or the confiscation of his property. Informers were rewarded with riches and posts of honour, and accordingly their numbers increased so greatly that people did not even dare to hold relations with their most intimate

friends, because it was impossible to know if a traitor was not amongst them, who would take advantage of every thoughtless expression to ruin them. Tiberius also employed this pretence of the crime of lasa majestas to get rid of influential men whom he feared, or to grasp the property of wealthy families. Thus, every one lived in a constant state of anxiety and care; while Tiberius, to escape the reproaches of his evil conscience, gave himself up to the most disgraceful excesses, though these have been, perhaps, exaggerated by his enemies.

In order to escape from Rome, where he was very unpopular, and to practise his vices in safety, he retired, in the twelfth year of his reign, to the romantic island of Capri, at the entrance of the Bay of Naples, in the most enchanting scenery and delightful climate in the world, a place of difficult access for vessels

even now.

In his absence from the capital, the emperor's favourite, Seja

nus, conducted the government, equalling his lord and master in cruelty and bloodthirstiness, and conspicuous for his imperious and ambitious temper. To pave his way to the throne, Sejanus caused the only son of Tiberius to be poisoned, and he banished from Rome the sons of Germanicus, who were the nearest claimants to the throne. These crimes opened the eyes of Tiberius, who caused his favourite to be arrested, and to be executed with his entire family and all those who were supposed to be his accomplices, tortures being added to their execution.

After the fall of Sejanus, no limits were placed to the sanguinary excesses of Tiberius. Not a day passed without executions, and it is reported that he often caused his victims to be brought to Capri, that he might enjoy the spectacle of their execution or their tortures. Indeed, a spot is still pointed out, near Anacapri, which tradition assigns as the scene of many of these tragedies, where the unhappy victims were brought to the edge of the beetling limestone cliffs, and after a last gaze at the ineffable glories of that sunny and most azure of skies, were cast down the awful precipice of above one thousand feet into the deep blue depths of the Mediterranean beneath.

Tiberius was equally cruel to his own family; as an instance, the unhappy widow of Germanicus was forced to die of hunger, with one of her sons, in prison.

The government of Tiberius was, in some points, a contrast to his conduct as an individual in private life. It was marked throughout by a certain firmness coupled with good sense. Strict discipline was maintained in the army, even among the prætorians. The licence of the people was rigorously repressed, and when the Aventine was laid waste by a fire, he showed himself very liberal, giving ten million sesterces. Tiberius was very economical in the finances, kept down the price of corn for the people without injury to the merchants, refused the offer of temples and statues, and showed respect for the constituted authorities.

In the provinces, he carried out the policy of Augustus, and, without seeking to extend the frontiers of the empire, he caused his enemies to respect him by his vigorous measures. Germanicus almost avenged the disasters of Varus by his successes over the Germans; but he was so beloved by the soldiers that he was recalled, and eventually poisoned, after he had been sent against the Parthians, and had quieted the East. On the Rhine, he was succeeded by Drusus, who defeated the Marcomanni, and captured their chief, Marbod. The end of his reign was rendered

equally illustrious by the victories of Vitellius, who defeated Artabanes, the king of the Parthians. But the event of his reign. was the death on the Cross of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in the sixteenth year from his accession (A.D. 30).

When Tiberius was in his seventy-eighth year, at his countryhouse of Misenum, he became ill, and soon lost consciousness. His courtiers hoped the terrible old man was dead, when suddenly he came to himself again. Thereupon, an officer of his guard conceived the idea of finishing him; he caused pillows and bolsters to be thrown on the sick man, who was speedily suffocated.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

CALIGULA (A.D. 37-41).

THE hope of the Roman people, that with the death of Tiberius better days would begin, and the terrible tyranny reach an end, was not fulfilled. His successor Caius, a son of the beloved Germanicus, commonly known as Caligula, from the soldier's boots which he had worn as a boy, showed himself, indeed, at the outset gentle and just. Unfortunately, he was shortly attacked by a malady which robbed him of his intellect, and henceforth his reign was an uninterrupted succession of mad pranks and cruelties. On account of mere trifling offences, he caused thousands of men to be tortured and executed, and he not unfrequently caused condemned persons to be exposed to wild beasts, that he might enjoy the sight of their sufferings.

He declared himself to be a god, and according as he appeared attired like Bacchus or Hercules, Venus or Diana, he required. the sacrifices appropriate for these divinities. To show his power to the people, he caused machines to be constructed, imitating thunder and lightning, but he was so alarmed at real storms that he used to creep under his bed when he heard them. To complete his folly, he had his horse made pontiff, or consul, built a palace for him, and let him eat at his own table.

His extravagance was so great that he squandered in a single year the treasure of £25,000,000 that Tiberius had left him. To get fresh money for his follies, he caused rich men to be executed, in order to seize their property, after he had got himself appointed their heir, while the poor people were frightfully ground by new taxes. At length the thought occurred to him

to obtain warlike fame. Under the pretext of wishing to subdue the Germans, he assembled a large army, marched to the Rhine, and caused a number of Germans who were in his bodyguard to cross the river, and hide themselves. Then he followed them with a division of his army, took the Germans prisoners in appearance, and returned with them to Gaul. In the following year he acted as if he wished to subdue Britain; as soon as he had reached the coast with his army of 200,000 men, he halted, ordered his soldiers to assemble mussel-shells on the shore, and consecrated them to Jupiter, as prey snatched from the ocean.

The only enduring monument of the extravagance of Caligula was a breakwater he threw across the sea between Baiæ and Puteoli (Pozzuoli), whose ruins the traveller may still descry, as he sails on the blue waters of the Mediterranean.

The empire was rid of this madman by one of the imperial guards, who killed Caligula at a meeting with his friends, when he had just completed his twenty-ninth year. But this did not improve the miserable condition of the empire, for the succcessor of Caligula, Claudius, a brother of Germanicus, was a plaything in the hands of his execrable wives, first Messalina, and afterwards Agrippina, who went to work after the fashion of Tiberius, putting to death all who opposed them, till Agrippina at length poisoned the emperor, in order to obtain the government for her son Nero.

The only bright side in the reign of Claudius was the permanent subdual of Great Britain by Plautius, who advanced (A.D. 43) as far as the Thames and the Severn, and, under Ostorius Scapula, the conquest was carried north to the Brigantes, and west to the Ordovices. Claudius was present himself in the camp with Plautius.

Corbulo, the greatest general of the time, kept the Germans

back on the Rhine, and subdued Friesland. At home, Claudius passed some useful acts, and abrogated the insane decrees of Caligula. Thrace, Lycia, and Judæa were reduced

to provinces in this reign, and the only religion persecuted by Claudius was that of the Druids.