ul.

In brief, here was the hope of using against Tiberius at once the
maternal pride and affection of Julia, the tenderness of Augustus, and
the popularity of the name of Caesar, which Caius carried. The people
had never greatly loved the name of the Claudii, a haughty line of
invincible aristocrats, always hard and overbearing with the poor,
always opposed to the democratic party. The party against Tiberius
hoped that when to a Claudius there should be opposed a Caesar, the
public spirit would revert to the dazzling splendour of the name.

Now we understand why Augustus had at first objected. The privileges
that he had caused to be conceded to Marcellus, to Drusus, to
Tiberius, were all of less consequence than those demanded for
Caius and had all been justified either by urgent needs of State, or
services already rendered; but how could it be tolerated that without
any reason, without the slightest necessity, there should be made
consul a lad of fourteen, of whom it would be difficult to predict
even whether he would become a man of common sense? Moreover Augustus
could not so easily bring himself to offend Tiberius, who would not
admit that the chief of the Republic should help his enemies offer him
so great an affront. How could it be, that while he, amid fatigues
and perils in cold and savage regions, was fighting the Germans and
holding in subjection the European provinces, that _jeunesse doree_
of good-for-nothings, cynics, idlers, poets, which infested the new
generation, was conniving with his wife to set against him a child
of fourteen?--to gain, as it were, sanction from a law that the State
would not be safe till by the side of this Claudius should be placed a
Caesar, beardless and inexpert, as if the name of the latter outweighed
the genius and experience of the former? And Augustus, the head of the
Republic, would he have tolerated such an outrage? Tiberius not only
resisted the law but exacted the open disapproval of Augustus; in
fact, at the beginning, Augustus stood out against it as Tiberius
wished; but difficulties grew by the way and became grave.

Julia and her friends knew how to dispose public opinion ably in
their own favour, to intrigue in the Senate, to exploit the increasing
unpopularity of the social laws, of the spreading aversion to Tiberius
and the admiration for other members of Augustus's family. The
proposal to make Caius consul became in a short time so popular
for one or another o