d itself master of the field; perhaps
because the opposing party lost with Tiberius its most authoritative
leader; perhaps because Augustus, irritated against Tiberius, inclined
still more toward the contrary party; perhaps because public opinion
judged severely the departure of Tiberius, who, already little
admired, became decidedly unpopular. Julia and her friends triumphed,
and not content with having conquered, wished to domineer; shortly
afterward they obtained the concession of the same privileges as those
granted to Caius for his younger brother Lucius. At the same
time, Augustus prepared to make Caius and Lucius his two future
collaborators in place of Tiberius; Ovid set his hand to a book still
more scandalous and subversive than the _Amores_, the _Ars Amandi_;
public indulgence covered with its protection all those accused on
grounds of the laws of the year 18; and finally, the two boys, Caius
and Lucius, became popular, like great personages, all over
Italy. There have been found in different cities of the peninsula
inscriptions in their honour, one of which, very long and curious, is
at Pisa; it is full of absurd eulogies of the two lads, who had as yet
done nothing, good or bad. Italy must have been tired enough of a too
conservative government, which had lasted twenty-five years, of an
Empire reconquered by traditional ideas, if, in order to protest, it
lionised the two young sons of Agrippa in ways that contradicted every
idea and sentiment of Roman tradition.

In conclusion, the departure of Tiberius, and the severe judgment the
public gave it, still further weakened the conservative party, already
for some years in decline, by a natural transformation of the public
spirit. Perhaps the party of tradition would have been entirely spent,
had not events soon reminded Rome that its spirit was the life of the
military order. The departure of Tiberius, the man who represented
this spirit, rapidly disorganised the army and the external policy
of Rome. Up to that time Augustus had had beside him a powerful
helper--first Agrippa, afterwards Tiberius; but then he found himself
alone at the head of the Empire, a man already well on in years; and
for the first time it appeared that this zealous bureaucrat, this
fastidious administrator, this intellectual idler, who could do an
enormous amount of work on condition that he be not forced to issue
from his study and encounter currents of air too strong for him, was
ins