The Reign of Tiberius, Out of the First Six Annals of Tacitus. Cornelius Tacitus
and another, dishonest or mistaken? This is only less absurd, than to prefer the groping style and thoughts of a modern pedant, usually a German as well, to the clear words of an old writer, who may be the sole remaining authority for the statements we presume to question; or for those very facts, upon which our reasonings depend. And how easy it is to misunderstand what we read in ancient histories, to be deceived by the plainest records, or to put a sinister interpretation upon events, which in their own time were passed over in silence or officially explained as harmless! Let me take an illustration, of what I mean, from something recent. Every one must remember the last hours of the Emperor Frederick: the avenues to his palace infested by armed men; the gloom and secrecy within; without, an impatient heir, and the posting to and fro of messengers. We must own, that the ceremonials of the Prussian Court departed in a certain measure from the ordinary mild usage of humanity; but we attributed this to nothing more, than the excitement of a youthful Emperor, or the irrepressible agitation of German officials. But if these events should find a place in history, or if the annals of the Kings of Prussia should be judged worth reading by a distant Age; who could blame an historian for saying, that these precautions were not required for the peaceful and innocent devolution of the crown from a father to his son. Would not our historian be justified, if he referred to the tumults and intrigues of a Praetorian election; if he compared these events to the darkest pages in Suetonius, or reminded his readers of the most criminal narratives in the authors of the "Augustan History"? From Sejanus and the Emperor William, I return once more to Tiberius; from the present Kaiser, to a genuine Caesar.
It is not my purpose here to abridge Tacitus, to mangle his translator, nor to try and say what is better said in the body of the volume: but when my readers have made themselves acquainted with Tiberius, they may be glad to find some discussion about him, as he is presented to us in "The Annals"; and among all the personages of history, I doubt if there be a more various or more debated character. Mr. Matthew Arnold thus describes him:
Cruel, but composed and bland, Dumb, inscrutable and grand; So Tiberius might have sat, Had Tiberius been a cat.
And these verses express the popular belief, with great felicity: I must leave my readers, to make their own final judgment for themselves. Whether Tacitus will have helped them to a decision, I cannot guess: he seems to me, to deepen the mystery of Tiberius. At a first reading, and upon the surface, he is hostile to the Emperor; there is no doubt, that he himself remained hostile, and that he wished his readers to take away a very bad impression: but, as we become familiar with his pages, as we ponder his words and compare his utterances, we begin to suspect our previous judgment; another impression steals upon us, and a second, and a third, until there grows imperceptibly within us a vision of something different. Out of these dim and floating visions, a clearer image is gradually formed, with lineaments and features; and, at length, a new Tiberius is created within our minds: just as we may have seen a portrait emerge under the artist's hand, from the intricate and scattered lines upon an easel. Then it dawns upon us, that, after all, Tacitus was not really an intimate at Capri; that he never received the secret confidences of Tiberius, nor attended upon his diversions. And at last it is borne in upon us, as we read, that, if we put aside rumours and uncertain gossip, whatever Tiberius does and says is unusually fine: but that Tacitus is not satisfied with recording words and actions; that he supplies motives to them, and then passes judgment upon his own assumptions: that the evidence for the murder of Germanicus, for instance, would hardly be accepted in a court of law; and that if Piso were there found guilty, the Emperor could not be touched. At any rate, we find it stated in "The Annals," that "Tiberius by the temptations of money was incorruptible;" and he refused the legacies of strangers, or of those who had natural heirs. "He wished to restore the people to severer manners," like many sovereigns; unlike the most of them, "in his own household, he observed the ancient parsimony." Besides the "severa paupertas" of Camillus and Fabricius, he had something of their primitive integrity; and he declined, with scorn, to be an accomplice in the proposed assassination of Arminius: "non fraude neque occultis, sed palam et armatum, Populum Romanum hostes suos ulcisci." He protected magistrates and poor suitors, against the nobles. He refused to add to the public burdens, by pensioning needy Senators: but he was charitable to poor debtors; and lavish to the people, whether Romans or Provincials, in times of calamity and want. Not least admirable was his quiet dignity, in periods of disturbance and of panic: he refused to hurry to the mutinous legions, or to a mean rebellion in Gaul; and he condescended to reason excellently about his behaviour, when his people were sane enough to listen. He was both sensible and modest: he restrained the worship of Augustus, "lest through being too common it should be turned into an idle ceremony;" he refused the worship of himself, except in one temple dedicated equally to the Senate and to the Emperor. Tiberius could be pathetic, too: "I bewail my son, and ever shall bewail him," he says of Germanicus; and again, "Eloquence is not measured by fortune, and it is a sufficient honour, if he be ranked among the ancient orators." "Princes are mortal;" he says again, "the Commonwealth, eternal." Then his wit, how fine it was; how quick his humour: when he answered the tardy condolences from Troy, by lamenting the death of Hector: when he advised an eager candidate, "not to embarrass his eloquence by impetuosity;" when he said of another, a low, conceited person, "he gives himself the airs of a dozen ancestors," "videtur mihi ex se natus:" when he muttered in the Senate, "O homines ad servitutem paratos:" when he refused to become a persecutor; "It would be much better, if the Gods were allowed to manage their own affairs," "Deorum injurias Dis curae." In all this; in his leisured ways, in his dislike of parade and ceremonial, in his mockery of flatterers and venal "patriots"; how like to Charles II., "the last King of England who was a man of parts." And no one will deny "parts" to Tiberius; he was equal to the burden of Imperial cares: the latest researches have discovered, that his provincial administration was most excellent; and even Tacitus admits, that his choice of magistrates "could not have been better." He says, in another passage, "The Emperor's domains throughout Italy, were thin; the behaviour of his slaves modest; the freed-men, who managed his house, few; and, in his disputes with particulars, the courts were open and the law equal." This resembles the account of Antoninus Pius, by Marcus Aurelius; and it is for this modesty, this careful separation between private and public affairs, that Tacitus has praised Agricola. I am well contented, with the virtues of the Antonines; but there are those, who go beyond. I have seen a book entitled "The History of that Inimitable Monarch Tiberius, who in the xiv year of his Reign requested the Senate to permit the worship of Jesus Christ; and who suppressed all Opposition to it." In this learned volume, it is proved out of the Ancients, that Tiberius was the most perfect of all sovereigns; and he is shown to be nothing less than the forerunner of Saint Peter, the first Apostle and the nursing-father of the Christian Church. The author was a Cambridge divine, and one of their Professors of mathematics: "a science," Goldsmith says, "to which the meanest intellects are equal."
Upon the other hand, we have to consider that view of Tiberius, which is thus shown by Milton;
This Emperor hath no son, and now is old; Old and lascivious: and from Rome retired To Capreae, an island small but strong, On the Campanian shore; with purpose there, His horrid lusts in private to enjoy.
This theme is enlarged by Suetonius, and evidently enjoyed: he represents Tiberius, as addicted to every established form of vice; and as the inventor of new names, new modes, and a new convenience, for unheard-of immoralities. These propensities of the Emperor are handled by Tacitus with more discretion, though he does not conceal them. I wish neither to condemn nor to condone Tiberius: I desire, if it be possible, to see him as he is; and whether he be good or bad, he is very interesting. I have drawn attention to what is good in "The Annals," because Tacitus leans with all his weight upon the bad; and either explains away what is favourable, or passes over it with too light a stroke. At the end, I must conclude, as I began, that the character of Tiberius is a mystery. It is a commonplace, that no man is entirely good nor entirely evil; but the histories of Tiberius are too contradictory, to be thus dismissed by a platitude. It is not easy to harmonise Paterculus with Suetonius: it is impossible to reconcile Tacitus with himself; or to combine the strong, benevolent ruler with the Minotaur of Capri. The admirers of an almost perfect prose, must be familiar with a story, which is not the highest effort of that prose: they will remember a certain man with a double nature, like all of us; but, unlike us, able to separate his natures, and to personate at will his good or evil genius. Tiberius