berius, the one capable general of the
time, which gradually disorganised even the western armies, the best
in the Empire.

This dissolution of the State naturally fed in the traditionalist
party the hope of reconquering. Tiberius had sincere friends and
admirers, especially among the nobility, less numerous than those of
Julia, but more serious, because his merits were real. Many people
among the higher classes--even though, like Augustus, they considered
the obduracy of Tiberius excessive--thought that Rome no more
possessed so many examples of illustrious men as to be able to retire
its best general at thirty-seven. Very soon there arose in the circles
about Augustus, in the Senate, in the comitia, a bitter contention
between Tiberius's friends and his enemies; this was really a struggle
between the traditionalist party, which busied itself conserving,
together with the traditions of the old Romanism, the military and
political power of Rome, and the party of the young nobility, which,
without heeding the external dangers, wished to impel habits, ideas,
the public spirit, toward the freer, broader forms of the Oriental
civilisation, even at the risk of dissolving the State and the army.
Julia and Tiberius personify the two parties; between them stands
Augustus, who ought to decide, and is more uncertain than ever.
Theoretically Augustus always inclined more toward Tiberius, but from
disgust at his departure, from solicitude for domestic peace, from
his little sympathy with his step-son, he was driven to the opposite
party.

In this duel, what was the behaviour and the part of Livia, the mother
of Tiberius? The ancient historians tell us nothing; it is, at all
events, hardly probable that Livia remained an inactive witness of
the long struggle waged to secure the return of Tiberius and his
reinstatement in the brilliant position once his. Moreover, Suetonius
says that during his entire stay at Rodi, Tiberius communicated with
Augustus by means of Livia. At any rate, the party of Tiberius was
not long in understanding that he could not re-enter Rome, as long as
Julia was popular and most powerful there; that to reopen the gates of
Rome to the husband, it was necessary to drive out the wife. This was
a difficult enterprise, because Julia was upheld by the party already
dominant; she had the affection of Augustus; she was the mother
of Caius and Lucius Caesar, the two hopes of the Republic, whose
popularity covered he