riends of Tiberius had thought to bring him in
by the gate where Julia went out, they were not slow in recognising
themselves deceived. The fall of Julia struck Tiberius on the rebound
in his distant island. His unpopularity, already great, grew by all
the disgust that the scandal about Julia had provoked, and became
so formidable that one day about this time the inhabitants of Nimes
overturned his statues. It was the beginning of the Christian era, but
a dark silence brooded over the Palatine; the defamed Julia was making
her hard way to Pandataria; Tiberius, discredited and detested, was
wasting himself in inaction at Rodi; Augustus in his empty house,
disgusted, distrustful, half paralysed by deep grief, would hear to
no counsels of peace, of indulgence, of reconciliation. Tiberius and
Julia were equally hateful to him, and as he did not allow himself
to be moved by the friends of Julia, who did not cease to implore her
pardon, so he resisted the friends of Tiberius, who tried to persuade
him to reconciliation. What mattered it to him if the administration
of the State fell to pieces on all sides; if Germans threatened
revolt; if Rome had need of the courage, of the valour, of the
experience of Tiberius?

Tiberius from his retreat in Rodi kept every one in Rome afraid,
beginning with Augustus. Too rich, too eager now for pleasures and
comforts, Rome was almost disgusted with the virtues and the
defects that had in fact created it, and which survived in
Tiberius--aristocratic pride, the spirit of rigour in authority,
military valour, simplicity. Peace had come, extending everywhere,
with wealth, the desire for enjoyment, happiness, pleasure, freedom,
loosening everywhere the firmest bonds of social discipline,
persuading Rome to lay down the heavy armour it had worn for so many
centuries.

In this family quarrel, which comprises a struggle of everlasting
tendencies, Julia represented the new spirit that will prevail,
Tiberius, the old, destined to perish; but for the time being, both
spirits, however opposed, were necessary; for peace did not expand its
gifts in the Empire without the protection of the great armies
that fought on the Rhine and on the Danube. If the spirit of peace
refreshed Rome, Italy, the Provinces, only the old aristocratic and
military spirit could keep the Germans on the Rhine. As in all great
social conflicts, the two opposing parties were both, in a certain
measure and each from its own poin