nuptials with Livia. There
ensued from this marriage no issue, though much desired by both parties;
but Livia retained, without interruption, an unbounded ascendancy over
the emperor, whose confidence she abused, while the uxorious husband
little suspected that he was cherishing in his bosom a viper who was to
prove the destruction of his house. She appears to have entertained a
predominant ambition of giving an heir to the Roman empire; and since it
could not be done by any fruit of her marriage with Augustus, she
resolved on accomplishing that end in the person of Tiberius, the eldest
son by her former husband. The plan which she devised for this purpose,
was to exterminate all the male offspring of Augustus by his daughter
Julia, who was married to Agrippa; a stratagem which, when executed,
would procure for Tiberius, through the means of adoption, the eventual
succession to the empire. The cool yet sanguinary policy, and the
patient perseverance of resolution, with which she prosecuted her design,
have seldom been equalled. While the sons of Julia were yet young, and
while there was still a possibility that she herself might have issue by
Augustus, she suspended her project, in the hope, perhaps, that accident
or disease might operate in its favour; but when the natural term of her
constitution had put a period to her hopes of progeny, and when the
grandsons of the emperor were risen to the years of manhood, and had been
adopted by him, she began to carry into execution what she long had
meditated. The first object devoted to destruction was C. Caesar
Agrippa, the eldest of Augustus's grandsons. This promising youth was
sent to Armenia, upon an expedition against the Persians; and Lollius,
who had been his governor, either accompanied him thither from Rome, or
met him in the East, where he had obtained some appointment. From the
hand of this traitor, perhaps under the pretext of exercising the
authority of a preceptor, but in reality instigated by Livia, the young
prince received a fatal blow, of which he died some time after.

The manner of Caius's death seems to have been carefully kept from the
knowledge of Augustus, who promoted Lollius to the consulship, and made
him governor of a province; but, by his rapacity in this station, he
afterwards incurred the emperor's displeasure. The true character of
this person had escaped the keen discernment of Horace, as well as the
sagacity of the emperor; for in tw