an aristocracy did not recognize the right of
absolute literary freedom which is acknowledged by many modern states,
in which writers and men of letters have acquired a strong political
influence. The theory, held by many countries to-day that any
publication is justifiable, provided it be a work of art, was not
accepted by the Romans in power. On the contrary, they were convinced
that an idea or a sentiment, dangerous in itself, became still more
harmful when artistically expressed. Therefore Rome had always known
the existence of a kind of police supervision of ideas and of literary
forms, exercised through various means by the ruling aristocracy, and
especially in reference to women, who constituted that element of
social life in which virtue and purity of customs are of the greatest
consequence. The Roman ladies of the aristocracy, as we have seen,
received considerable instruction. They read the poets and
philosophers, and precisely for this reason there was always at Rome a
strong aversion to light and immoral literature. If books had
circulated among men only, the poetry of Ovid would perhaps not have
enjoyed the good fortune of a persecution which was to focus upon it
the attention of posterity. The greater liberty conceded to women thus
placed upon society an even greater reserve in the case of its
literature. This Ovid learned to his cost when he was driven into
exile because his books gave too much delight to too many ladies at
Rome. By the order of Augustus these books were removed from the
libraries, which did not hinder their coming down to us entire, while
many a more serious work--like Livy's history, for example--has been
either entirely or in large part lost.

[Illustration: Drusus, the younger brother of Tiberius.]

After the fall of the second Julia up to the time of his death, which
occurred August 23, in the year 14 A.D., Augustus had no further
serious griefs over the ladies of his family. The great misfortune of
the last years of his government was a public misfortune--the defeat of
Varus and the loss of Germany. But with what sadness must he have
looked back in the last weeks of his long life upon the history of his
family! All those whom he had loved were torn from him before their
time by a cruel destiny: Drusus, Caius, and Lucius Caesar by death; the
Julias by the cruelty of the law and by an infamy worse than death.
The unique grandeur to which he had attained had not brought