n Syria. Agrippina, after being subjected to countless cruel
insults, was banished in the extremest poverty to the island of
Pandataria. Two of the elder brothers, Nero and Drusus Germanicus, were
proclaimed public enemies: Nero was banished to the island Pontia, and
there put to death; Drusus was kept a close prisoner in a secret prison
of the palace. Caius, the youngest, who is better known by the name
Caligula, was summoned by Tiberius to his wicked retirement at Capreae,
and there only saved his life by the most abject flattery and the most
adroit submission.

Capreae is a little island of surpassing loveliness, forming one
extremity of the Bay of Naples. Its soil is rich, its sea bright and
limpid, its breezes cool and healthful. Isolated by its position, it is
yet within easy reach of Rome. At that time, before Vesuvius had
rekindled those wasteful fires which first shook down, and then deluged
under lava and scoriae, the little cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii,
the scene which it commanded was even more pre-eminently beautiful than
now. Vineyards and olive-groves clothed the sides of that matchless bay,
down to the very line where the bright blue waters seem to kiss with
their ripples the many-coloured pebbles of the beach. Over all, with its
sides dotted with picturesque villas and happy villages, towered the
giant cone of the volcano which for centuries had appeared to be
extinct, and which was clothed up to the very crater with luxurious
vegetation. Such was the delicious home which Tiberius disgraced for
ever by the seclusion of his old age. Here he abandoned himself to every
refinement of wickedness, and from hence, being by common consent the
most miserable of men, he wrote to the Senate that memorable letter in
which he confesses his daily and unutterable misery under the stings of
a guilty conscience, which neither solitude nor power enabled him
to escape.

Never did a fairer scene undergo a worse degradation; and here, in one
or other of the twelve villas which Tiberius had built, and among the
azure grottoes which he caused to be constructed, the youthful Caius[23]
grew up to manhood. It would have been a terrible school even for a
noble nature; for a nature corrupt and bloodthirsty like that of Caius
it was complete and total ruin. But, though he was so obsequious to the
Emperor as to originate the jest that never had there been a worse
master and never a more cringing slave,--though he suppressed ev