pated in
useless expenditures was dubbed avarice, and the prudence which had
impelled him to restrain the rash policy of expansion and aggression
which Germanicus had tried to initiate beyond the Rhine was construed
as envy and surly malignity. Against all considerations of justice,
logic, or good sense, this accusation was repeated, and now that
destiny had cut down Germanicus, he was accused _sotto voce_ of being
responsible for his death by many of the great families of Rome and
even in senatorial circles. They treated it as most natural that
through jealousy he should poison his own nephew, his adopted son, the
popular descendant of Drusus, the son of that virtuous Antonia who was
his best and most faithful friend! But if, after having been accepted
as true by the great families of Rome who sent it on its rounds, such a
report had been allowed to circulate through the empire, how much
authority would have been left to an emperor who was suspected of so
terrible a crime? How could he have maintained discipline in the army,
of which he was the head, and order among the people of Rome, of whom,
as tribune, he was the great protector? How could he have directed,
urged on, or restrained the senate, of which he was, in the language of
to-day, the president? The various Italian peoples from whom the army
was drawn did not yet consider the head of the state a being so
superior to the laws that it would be permissible for him to commit
crimes which were branded as disgustingly repulsive to ordinary human
nature.

No historian who understands the affairs of the world in general, and
the story of the first century of the empire in particular, will
attribute to ferocity or to the tyrannical spirit of Tiberius the
increasingly harsh application of the _Lex de majestate_ which followed
the death of Germanicus and the trial of Piso. This harshness was the
natural reaction against the delirium of atrocious calumnies against
Tiberius which raged in the aristocracy of that time and especially in
the house of Agrippina. For she, in spite of the undeniably virtuous
character of her private life, was influenced by friends who, for
motives of political advancement took advantage of her passions and
inexperience.

Too credulous of Tacitus, many writers have severely characterized the
facility and the severity with which the senate condemned those accused
under the _Lex de majestate_: they consider it an indication of ignoble
se