n of seeing one of the favored tortured
as much as or more than the ordinary man. There is no doubt, for
example, that the two Julias were more severely punished and disgraced
than other ladies of the aristocracy guilty of the same crime. And
Augustus was forced to waive his affection for them in order that it
might not be said, particularly in the senate, that his relatives
enjoyed special favors and that Augustus made laws only for others.

[Illustration: Statue of a young Roman woman.]

Yet as long as Augustus lived, he was a sufficient protection for his
relatives. He was, especially in the last twenty years of his life,
the object of an almost religious veneration. The great and stormy
epoch out of which he had risen, the extraordinary fortune which had
assisted him, his long reign, the services both real and imaginary
which he had rendered the empire--all had conferred upon him such an
authority that envy laid aside its most poisonous darts before him.
Out of respect for him even his family was not particularly calumniated
or maltreated, save now and then in moments of great irritation, as
when the two Julias were condemned. But after his death the situation
grew considerably worse; for Tiberius, although he was a man of great
capacity and merit, a sagacious administrator and a valiant general,
did not enjoy the sympathy and respect which had been accorded to
Augustus. Rather was he hated by those who had for a long time sided
with Caius and Lucius Caesar and who formed a considerable portion of
the senate and the aristocracy. It was not the spontaneous admiration
of the senate and of the people, but the exigencies of the situation,
which had made him master of the government when Augustus died. The
empire was at war with the Germans, and the Pannonico-Illyrian
provinces were in revolt, and it was necessary to place at the head of
the empire a man who should strike terror to the hearts of the
barbarians and who on occasion should be able to combat them.
Tiberius, furthermore, was so well aware that the majority of the
senate and the Roman people would submit to his government only through
force, that he had for a long time been in doubt whether to accept the
empire or not, so completely did he understand that with so many
enemies it would be difficult to rule.

Under the government of Tiberius the imperial family was surrounded by
a much more intense and open hatred than under Augustus. One couple
onl