The Historians' History of the World 06 [The Early Roman Empire]

[1 B.C.-9 A.D.]

With the banishment of Julia commenced that series of misfortunes which ended by leaving the house of Augustus desolate and inflicted deep wounds upon his paternal heart. In that same year her eldest son, the eighteen-year-old Caius Cæsar, undertook a campaign in Asia at the head of a considerable army, in order to reduce to submission the Armenians—who had revolted from the dominion of Rome by the help of the Parthians—and to chastise the refractory Arab tribes. Armed with authority of the proconsular imperium over all the provinces of the east, so that absolute power in matters military and civil rested in his hands and all local governors were subject to his commands, the youthful commander-in-chief crossed to Egypt by way of Samos, accompanied by M. Lollius and other experienced and learned men whom Augustus had placed about him as counsellors. Tiberius, who visited his stepson during his stay on the island, was able to draw from the coolness of his reception the conclusion that his own star was on the decline and that Caius Cæsar was universally recognised and honoured as the heir to the empire. From Egypt the expedition passed through Palestine to Syria. All men bowed before the imperial youth who seemed destined to inherit the empire of the world, and vied with one another in proffering homage, courting favour, and bringing gifts. Access to the youthful imperator was purchased of Lollius at a high price.

The enemies of Rome were struck with awe at this display of might and majesty. The Nabatæans of Petra voluntarily returned to their previous position of dependence, and in a personal interview with the Roman commander-in-chief on an island in the Euphrates, Phraates, king of Parthia, concluded a peace on terms dictated by this mighty ruler and evacuated Armenia, which was then quickly conquered by the legions after a faint resistance, and was again numbered among Roman dependencies.

Caius Cæsar then made ready to return home. Feeble of body and greatly distressed by a wound received at the siege of the town of Artagera on the Euphrates, he had no desire for more of the hardships and perils of war; he longed for enjoyment and tranquillity rather than for honour and military reputation. Both were denied him. Death overtook him at Lycia on his homeward way. Before he died he received the mournful tidings that his younger brother Lucius Cæsar had suddenly fallen a victim to sickness eighteen months earlier, at Massilia, on an expedition into Spain.

With the death of the two Cæsars the hopes of Tiberius blossomed anew. Hence it is not improbable that they died of poison, administered at the criminal instigations of Livia. Even contemporaries nourished this suspicion. The passionate nature of the empress, who shrank from no crime however heinous, was well known, as was also the revengeful and spiteful temper of her eldest son, who had returned to Rome shortly before the death of Caius, and now did all he could to step into the vacant place. The mother’s intrigues and the son’s flattering arts of dissimulation did actually succeed to some extent in overcoming the emperor’s aversion to his stepson. He received him into favour and graciously acceded to Livia’s proud hopes and desires by adopting him and admitting him into the Julian family. Julia, the granddaughter of Augustus, who resembled her mother in beauty, in wit, as well as in levity and voluptuousness, and the younger Agrippa (styled Postumus, because Julia had brought him into the world after the death of her husband), a turbulent youth of haughty and intractable disposition, rude manners, and violent passions, were no formidable rivals to the artful Livia and her malevolent son.

When Agrippa’s outbreaks of fury were carried so far that neither the emperor nor the empress were spared by them, the latter contrived that the thoughtless and ungovernable youth, though adopted by Augustus at the same time as Tiberius, should be kept under military supervision in the little island of Planasia; where Tiberius had put him out of the way in the first year of his reign by assassins despatched for the purpose, alleging instruction left by the deceased emperor as his excuse. The younger Julia was banished on the pretext of an illicit amour with Decius Silanus, to a desolate island in the neighbourhood of Apulia, and compelled to pass the rest of her days—twenty long years—in exile.