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[9-14 A.D.] the neighbourhood of Apulia, and compelled to pass the rest of her daystwenty long years-in exile.

Fortune, which had stood by Augustus faithfully throughout his public career and had led him by many thorny paths to the summit of earthly glory, deserted him in his private life and in his domestic circle. Hatred and envy, fanned by female passions, ranged his court in two hostile factions, which employed against each other all the weapons of intrigue and all the arts of treachery and dissimulation, and scared peace and harmony away from the apartments of the imperial palace.

Livia's ambitious and passionate temper was so notorious that she was actually suspected of having cut her husband's days short by poison, lest he should restore his grandson Agrippa, to whom he had been reconciled in his island exile a little while before with tears and passionate embraces, to his rights and honours. She was alone with the emperor when death overcook him on a journey, at Nola in Lower Italy, in the seventy-sixth year of his age; and by carefully guarding the house and spreading false reports she concealed the fact of his decease until her son, who for several years had been associated with his adoptive father as coadjutor in the empire, could be summoned from Illyricum. Then the world was startled by the double announcement that Augustus was dead and that Tiberius had assumed the reins of power.

The gorgeous obsequies of his predecessor were the new emperor's first business. Escorted by the whole body of knights and senators, and accompanied by women, bodyguards, and an innumerable multitude, the corpse was borne to the Field of Mars and there committed to the flames. When the ashes had been collected and interred in the imperial vault the deceased was exalted to a place among the gods by a decree of the senate, and a temple and ritual were assigned to him. Livia, known as Julia Livia since her adoption into the Julian family, was to preside as high priestess over the new college of priests devoted to the deified monarch. She died in the year 29 A.D., at the advanced age of 86.6

It is extremely difficult to estimate the character of this celebrated woman. Expression has been given above to various intimations which if justified reveal her in the worst possible light. But it must not be forgotten that evil-minded gossips were very busy in the early days of the empire, and that intrigues and sinister motives of a doubtful character darken the pages of Tacitus, our chief authority. Indeed it is no exaggeration to say that Tacitus excels in the invention or the partisan use of bad motives, and his great dramatic and satirical powers give peculiar force to this unfair weapon. Tacitus can be relied on for facts which were publicly known or recorded at the time, but he is far from impartial. It may be, then, that an impartial estimate might soften somewhat the harsh judgment which, thanks to Tacitus, most writers have not hesitated to pass upon Livia. With this qualified estimate let us turn from Livia to consider the character of her famous husband. a

THE PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF AUGUSTUS

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We are indebted to C. Suetonius Tranquillus, who lived at Rome about the close of the first century A.D., for most that we know of the personal characteristics of Augustus, and of his immediate successors. Thanks to him, we are enabled to gain a personal acquaintance, as it were, with the Cæsars;

which is very unusual with the great characters of antiquity in general. The biographies of Plutarch and of Cornelius Nepos are about the only other extensive repositories of information concerning the character of celebrities as men rather than as mere historical personalities. We turn now to Suetonius' estimate of Augustus:

Augustus was slow in forming friendships, but when once they were contracted, he maintained them with great constancy; not only rewarding very handsomely the virtues and good services of his friends, but bearing likewise with their faults and vices, provided that they were of a venial kind. For amongst all his friends, we scarcely find any who fell into disgrace with him, except Salvidienus Rufus, whom he raised to the consulship, and Cornelius Gallus whom he made governor of Egypt, both of them men of the lowest extraction. One of these, being engaged in a design to excite a rebellion, he delivered up to the senate, that he might be condemned; and the other, on account of his ungrateful and malicious temper, he dismissed from his family and the provinces under his government. But when Gallus, by the threats of his accusers, and the votes of the senate against him, was driven to the desperate extremity of laying violent hands upon himself, he commended indeed the attachment of the senate, that had expressed so much indignation on his account; but he shed tears, and lamented his unhappy condition, "that I alone," said he, "cannot be permitted to be angry with my friends to such a degree as I think proper." The rest of his friends continued during their whole lives to make a distinguished figure in their several orders, both in power and estate, notwithstanding some occasional incidents of a disagreeable nature. For to say nothing of others, he would sometimes complain of impatience in Agrippa, and of loquacity in Mæcenas: the former, from a suspicion of a coolness in Augustus towards him, and because Marcellus received greater marks of favour, having withdrawn himself from all concern in the government, and retired to Mytilene; and the latter having confidentially imparted to his wife Terentia the discovery of Murena's conspiracy. He likewise expected from his friends, both living and dying, a mutual proof of their benevolence. For though he was far from coveting their estates (as he never would accept of any legacy left him by a stranger), yet he examined. their last sentiments of him, expressed in their wills, with an anxious attention; not being able to conceal his chagrin, if they made but a slight, or no very honourable mention of him, nor his joy on the other hand, if they expressed a grateful sense of his favours and a hearty affection for him. And what was left him by such as had children, he used to restore to the latter, either immediately, or if they were under age, upon the day of their assuming the manly habit, or of their marriage, with interest.

As a patron and master, his behaviour in general was mild and conciliating; but when occasion required it, he could be severe. He employed many of his freedmen in considerable posts about him, as Licinius, Enceladus, and others. And when his slave Cosmus had reflected bitterly upon him, he resented the injury no further than by putting him in fetters. When his steward Diomedes, as they were walking together, left him exposed to a wild boar, which came suddenly upon them, he chose rather to charge him with cowardice than any ill design, and turned an incident of no small hazard to his person into a jest, because it had proceeded from no treachery. Proculus, who was one of his greatest favourites amongst all his freedmen, he put to death, for maintaining a criminal commerce with other men's wives. broke the legs of his secretary Thallus, for taking a bribe of five hundred denarii to discover the contents of a letter of his. And his son Caius' tutor,

!

and other attendants, upon the occasion of his sickness and death behaving with great insolence, and committing acts of rapaciousness, he tied great weights about their necks and threw them into a river.

In his youth he lay under the infamy of various aspersions. Sextus Pompeius reproached him as an effeminate fellow; and M. Antony, that he had earned his adoption from his uncle by prostitution. L. Antony likewise upbraids him with the same; and that he had, for a gratification of three hundred thousand sesterces, submitted to A. Hirtius in the same way, in Spain; adding, that he used to singe his legs with the flame of nutshells, to make the hair become softer.

That he was guilty of various acts of adultery is not denied even by his friends, but they allege in excuse for it that he engaged in those intrigues not from lewdness but policy, to discover more easily the designs of his enemies by their wives.

With respect to the charge of prostitution, he very easily refuted it by the chastity of his life, at the very time when the imputation was made, as well as ever after. His conduct likewise gave the lie to that of a luxurious extravagance in his furniture, when, upon the taking of Alexandria, he reserved for himself nothing of all the furniture of the palace but a cup of porcelain; and soon after melted down all the golden vessels, even such as were intended for common use. But he never could discountenance the imputation of lewdness with women; being, as they say, in the latter part of his life, much addicted to the deflowering of virgins, who were procured for him from all parts, even by his own wife. To the remarks concerning his gaming he paid not the smallest regard; but played frankly and openly for his diversion, even when he was advanced in years; and not only in the month of December, but at other times, and upon all days, whether festivals This evidently appears from a letter under his own hand, in which he says, "I supped, my dear Tiberius, with the same company. We had besides Vinicius, and Silvius the father. We gamed like old fellows at supper, both yesterday and to-day. And as any one threw upon the tali1 aces or sixes, he put down for every talus a denarius; all which was gained by him who threw a Venus."

or not.

In another letter he says: "We had, my dear Tiberius, a pleasant time of it during the festival of Minerva for we played every day, and kept the gaming board warm. Your brother uttered many exclamations at a desperate run of ill fortune; but recovering by degrees, and unexpectedly, he in the end lost not much. I lost twenty thousand sesterces for my part; but then I was profusely generous in my play, as I commonly am; for had I insisted upon the stakes which I declined, or kept what I gave away, I should have won above fifty thousand. But this I like better; for my generosity will raise me to celestial glory." In a letter to his daughter, he writes thus: "I have sent you 250 denarii, which I gave to every one of my guests; in case they were inclined at supper to divert themselves with the tali, or at the game of even or odd."

In other parts of his life, it is certain that he conducted himself with great discretion, and was free from all suspicion of any vice. He lived at first near the Roman Forum, above the Ringmaker's Stairs, in a house

1 The Romans, at their feasts, during the intervals of drinking, often played at dice, of which there were two kinds, the tessera and tali. The former had six sides, like the modern dice; the latter, four oblong sides, for the two ends were not regarded. In playing, they used three tessera and four tali, which were all put into a box wider below than above, and being shaken, were thrown out upon the gaming board or table.

which had once been occupied by Calvus the orator. He afterwards moved to the Palatine, where he resided in a small house belonging to Hortensius, no way remarkable either in respect of accommodation or ornament; the piazzas being but small, the pillars of Alban stone, and the rooms without anything of marble or fine paving. He continued to use the same bed chamber, both winter and summer, during forty years; for though he was sensible that the city did not agree well with his health, he nevertheless resided constantly in it through the winter.

If at any time he wished to be perfectly retired, and secure from interruption, he shut himself up in an apartment in the top of his house, which he called Syracuse, or Texvopvov, or he went to some seat belonging to his freedmen near the city. But when he was indisposed, he commonly took up his residence in Mæcenas' house. Of all the places of retirement from the city, he chiefly frequented those upon the seacoast, and the islands of Campania, or the towns near the city, as Lanuvium, Præneste, and Tibur, where he often used to sit for the administration of justice, in the porticos. of Hercules' temple. He had a particular aversion to large and sumptuous palaces; and some that had been raised at a vast expense by his granddaughter Julia he levelled with the ground. Those of his own, which were far from being spacious, he adorned not so much with statues and pictures as with walks and groves, and things which were curious either for their antiquity or rarity; such as at Capreæ, the huge limbs of sea monsters and wild beasts, which some affect to call the bones of giants and the arms of old heroes.

His frugality in the furniture of his house appears even at this day, from some beds and tables still extant; most of which are scarcely fit for any genteel private family. It is reported that he never lay upon a bed, but such as was low and meanly furnished. He seldom wore any garment but what was made by the hands of his wife, sister, daughter, and granddaughters. His togas were neither scanty nor full; nor the clavus of his tunic either remarkably broad or narrow. His shoes were a little higher than common, to make him appear taller than he was. He had always clothes and shoes, proper to go abroad in, ready by him in his bed chamber, for any sudden. occasion.

At his table, which was always plentiful and elegant, he constantly en-. tertained company; but was very scrupulous in the choice of them. Valerius Messalla informs us that he never admitted any freedman to his table, except Menas, after he had betrayed to him Pompey's fleet, but not until he had promoted him to the state of the freeborn. He writes himself that he invited to his table a person in whose country house he lodged, that had formerly been a spy to him. He often would come late to table, and withdraw soon, so that the company began supper before his coming in and continued at table after his departure. His entertainments consisted of three dishes, or at most only six. But if the expense was moderate, the complaisance with which he treated his company was extraordinary. For such as were silent, or talked low, he excited to bear a part in the common conversation; and ordered in music and stage-players and dancers from the circus, and very often itinerant declaimers, to enliven the company.

Festivals and solemn days of joy he usually celebrated in a very expensive manner, but sometimes only in a jocular manner. In the Saturnalia, or at any other time when the fancy took him, he would distribute to his company clothes, gold, and silver; sometimes coins of all sorts, even of the ancient kings of Rome and of other nations; sometimes nothing but

hair-cloth, sponges, peels, and pincers, and other things of that kind, with obscure and ambiguous inscriptions upon them. He used likewise to sell tickets of things of very unequal value, and pictures with the back sides turned towards the company at table; and so, by the unknown quality of the lot, disappoint or gratify the expectation of the purchasers. This sort of traffic went round the whole company, everyone being obliged to buy something, and to run the chance of loss or gain with the rest.

He was a man of a little stomach (for I must not omit even this article), and commonly used a plain diet. He was particularly fond of coarse bread, small fishes, cheese made of cow's milk, and green figs of that kind that comes twice a year.

ROMAN GENERAL WEARING THE PALUDAMENTUM

He

would eat before supper, at any time, and in any place, when he had an appetite.

He was naturally extremely sparing in the use of wine. Cornelius Nepos says that he used to drink only three times at supper in the camp at Mutina; and when he indulged himself the most, he never exceeded a pint, or if he did, he threw it up again. Of all wines, he gave the preference to the Rhætic, but scarcely ever drank any in the daytime. Instead of drinking, he used to take a piece of bread dipped in cold water, or a slice of cucumber, or some leaves of lettuce, or a green sharp juicy apple.

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After a little food at noon, he used to take a nap with his clothes and shoes on, his feet covered, and his hand held before his eyes. After supper he commonly withdrew to a couch in his study, where he continued late, until he had put down in his diary all or most of the remaining transactions of the day, which he had not before registered. He would then go to bed, but never slept above seven hours at most, and that not without interruption; for he would wake three or four times in that space. If he could not again fall asleep, as sometimes happened, he would call for some person to read or tell stories to him, until sleep supervened, which was usually protracted till after daybreak. He never would lie awake in the dark without somebody to sit by him. Very early rising was apt to disagree with him. On which account, if religious or social duty obliged him to get up early, that he might guard as much as possible against the inconvenience resulting from it, he used to lodge in some apartment belonging to any of his domes

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