work in. Meaner and meaner egos would be sneaking
into incarnation; decent gentlemanly souls would be growing ever
more scarce. By 'mean egos' I intend such as are burdened with
ingrate personalities: creatures on whom sensuality has done its
disintegrating work; whose best pleasure is to exempt themselves
from any sense of degradation caused by fawning on the one strong
enough to be their master, by tearing down as they may his work
and reputation, circulating lies about him, tormenting him in
every indirect way they can. Among such as these, and probably
quite lonely among the, the successor of Augustus would lave to
live, fulfilling Heaven's work in spite of them. Where to find a
Soul capable, or who would dare undertake the venture? Well;
since it was to be done, and for the Gods,--no doubt the Gods
would have sent their qualified man into incarnation.

In B.C. 39 Octavian proclaimed a general amnesty; and among
these who profited by it was a certain member of the Claudian
gens,--one of that Nero family to which Rome owed so much--

_Testis Metaurum flumen et Hasdrubal
Devictus_

He had been a friend of Caesar's and an enemy of Octavian's; and
had been spending his time recently in fleeing from place to
place in much peril; as had also his wife, aged eighteen, and
their three-year-old son. On one occasion this lady was hurrying
by night through a forest, and the forest took fire; she
escaped, but not until the heat singed the cloak in which the
baby boy in her arms was wrapped. Now they returned, and
settled in their house on the Palatine not far from the house
of Octavian.

In Rome at that time marriage was not a binding institution. To
judge by the lives of those prominent enough to come into
history, you simply married and divorced a wife whenever
convenient. Octavian some time before had married Scribonia, to
patch up an alliance with her kins-man Sextus Pompey, then
prominent on the high seas in the role--I think the phrase is Mr.
Stobart's--of gentleman-pirate. As she was much older than
himself, and they had nothing in common, it occurred to no one
that, now the utility of the match had passed, he would not
follow the usual custom and divorce her. He met Livia, the wife
of this Tiberius Claudius Nero, and duly did divorce Livia. A
new wedding followed, in which Claudius Nero acted the part of
father to his ex-wife, and gave her away to Octavian. It all
sounds very disgraceful; b