17β
WAK IN GEBMANY.
as early as the reign of Augustus, and they were the worst
part of the nation; whereas the senate was a select body of
citizens chosen from all Italy and other parts of the empire.
But a more important change introduced by Tiberius was the
drawing up of lists, according to which the provinces were
assigned.
The reign of Tiberius, which lasted for twenty-three years,
that is till A. D. 37, is by no means rich in events; the early
period of it only is celebrated for the wars of Germanicus in
Germany. I cannot enter into the detail of these wars, as our
time is too limited; and I shall therefore pass over them, as
well as every thing else for which I can refer you to Tacitus.
The war of Germanicus was carried into Germany as far as the
river Weser, and it is surprising to see that the Romans
thought it necessary to employ such numerous armies against
tribes which had no fortified towns. When such hosts of
Romans arrived in Germany, the only refuge of the natives
was to withdraw into their forests and the impassable districts.
It is also remarkable that the Romans always committed the
same mistake there, that is, they penetrated too far into the
country, in the hope of making an imposing impression upon
the enemy, and of thus inducing them to submit. They made
military roads with bridges across the marshes in Overysscl,
the lower territory of Mimster and on the river Lippe into the
heart of Germany. A more gradual but steady progress would
have met with surer success; but the Romans do not appear
to have thought it worth their while to conquer the country;
for if they had got it, they would have gained nothing but a
wilderness : the main cause of their not permanently occupying
the country seems to have been that they would not, their
only object being to protect the frontier of the empire. We
may thank Heaven that they gave up the conquest, and that
Tiberius, probably from his jealousy of Germanicus, called
him back after his last brilliant feats. The Germans on the
Weserhad suffered a great defeat, but A. Caecina’s forces were
nearly destroyed. The manner in which the Germans conduc-
ted the war shews that the notions which some persons have
of them are of the most perverse kind : they must have been
sufficiently civilised to know how to form large armies, and
to keep them together ready to fight, when an opportunity
offered itself or necessity required it.
TIBERIUS’ DISLIKE OF GERMANICUS.
177
But Tiberius did everything to maintain peace ; for lie had a
great dislike to giving his generals opportunities of distinguish-
ing themselves, and he therefore gladly connived even at any
blunder they might make: he even shut his eyes to the affront
offered to him in Armenia and Parthia, when the king whom
he had given to the Parthians was expelled. Hence the history
of his reign after the German wars becomes more and more
confined to the interior and to his family. He had an only
son, Drusus, by his first wife Agrippina; and Germanicus, the
son of his brother Drusus, was adopted by him. Drusus must
have been a young man deserving of praise; but Germanicus
was the adored darling of the Roman people, and with justice:
he was the worthy son of a worthy father, the hero of the
German wars. If it is true that Drusus longed to see Augustus
restore the republic, it shews a great and noble soul, although
the scheme itself was very fantastic. The republic could not
have existed for a single year without a thorough reform of
the constitution — a just punishment for the prodigious con-
quests it had made, and for the sins it had committed against
the world. Germanicus had declined the soveιeignty, which
his legions had offered to him after the death of Augustus, and
he remained faithful to his adopted father, although he certainly
could not love him. Tiberius, however, had no faith in virtue,
because he himself was destitute of it; he therefore mistrusted
Germanicus, and removed him from his victorious legions.
His mistrust was increased by the enthusiasm with which
Germanicus was received in his triumph by all classes at Rome.
Tiberius, who was conscious of his own vices and his tyranny,
although he concealed them from the world, could not look
otherwise than with hatred upon a noble character like that of
Germanicus: he dreaded the contrast between himself and the
pure virtue of the other. It may, however, have been as much
anxiety for the good of his son, as the torment arising from
this consciousness of moral inferiority to Germanicus1 which
induced Tiberius to confer upon the latter the commission
which Agrippa had once held, to undertake the administration
of the res Orientis, to superintend the eastern frontiers and
provinces. On his arrival there he was received with the
same enthusiasm as at Rome; but he died very soon afterwards
whether by a natural death or by poison, is a question upon
which the ancients themselves are not agreed. I am, however,
vol. in. N