t of view, right. Just for that
reason, the equilibrium could be found only by a continual struggle
in which men on one side and on the other were destined in turn to
triumph or fall according to the moment; a struggle in which Augustus,
fated to act the part of judge--that is, to recognise, with a final
formal sanction, a sentence already pronounced by facts--had against
his will in turn to condemn some and reward others.

Julia will remain at Pandataria, and Tiberius will return to Rome
when the danger on the Rhine becomes too threatening, yet without much
lessening the conclusive vengeance of Julia. That will come in the
long torment of the reign of Tiberius; in the infamy that will pursue
him to posterity. After having been pitilessly hated and persecuted in
life, this man and this woman, who had personified two social forces
eternally at war with each other, will both fall in death into the
same abyss of unmerited infamy: tragic spectacle and warning lesson on
the vanity of human judgments!

Wine in Roman History

In history as it is generally written, there are to be seen only great
personages and events, kings, emperors, generals, ministers, wars,
revolutions, treaties. When one closes a huge volume of history,
one knows why this state made a great war upon that; understands the
political thinking, the strategic plans, the diplomatic agreements
of the powerful, but would hardly be able to answer much more simple
questions: how people ate and drank, how the warriors, politicians,
diplomats, were clad, and in general how men lived at any particular
time.

History does not usually busy itself with little men and small facts,
and is therefore often obscure, unprecise, vague, tiresome. I believe
that if some day I deserve praise, it will be because I have tried
to show that everything has value and importance; that all phenomena
interweave, act, and react upon each other--economic changes and
political revolutions, costumes, ideas, the family and the state,
land-holding and cultivation. There are no insignificant events
in history; for the great events, like revolutions and wars, are
inevitably and indissolubly accompanied by an infinite number of
slight changes, appearing in every part of a nation: if in life there
are men without note, and if these make up the great majority of
nations--that which is called the "mass"--there is no greater mistake
than to believe they are extraneous to history, mere inert