n and affection
which the armies had once felt for the Roman nobility were now centered
about the family of Augustus. In this difficulty, therefore, the
senate chose the lesser evil, and, annulling a part of the testament of
Tiberius, elected Caligula, the son of Germanicus, as their emperor.

The death of Tiberius, however, was destined to show the Romans for the
first time that although it was hard to find an emperor, it might even
be harder to find an empress. During the long reign of Augustus, Livia
had discharged the duties of this difficult position with incomparable
success. Tiberius had succeeded Augustus, and after his divorce from
Julia had never remarried. There had therefore been a long interregnum
in the Roman world of feminine society, during which no one had ever
stopped to think whether it would be easy or difficult to find a woman
who could with dignity take over the position of Livia. The problem
was really presented for the first time with the advent of Caligula;
for, at twenty-seven, he could not solve it as simply as Tiberius had
done. In the first place, it was to be expected that a man of his age
would have a wife; secondly, the _Lex de maritandis ordinibus_ made
marriage a necessity for him, as for all the senators; furthermore, the
head of the state needed to have a woman at his side, if he wished to
discharge all his social duties. The celibacy of Tiberius had
undoubtedly contributed to the social isolation which had been fatal
both to him and to the state.

Therefore in Caligula's time the Roman public became aware that the
problem confronting it was a most difficult one. A most exacting
public opinion, hesitating between the ideals of two epochs, wished to
see united in the empress the best part, both of the ancient and of the
modern customs, and was consequently demanding that the second Livia
should possess virtually every quality. It was necessary that she
should be of noble birth; that is, a descendant of one of those great
Roman families which with every year were becoming less numerous, less
prolific, less virtuous, and more fiercely divided among themselves by
irreconcilable hatreds. This latter was a most serious difficulty; for
by marrying into one of these lines, the emperor ran the risk of
antagonizing all those other families which were its enemies. The
empress, furthermore, must be the model of all the virtues; fruitful,
in order to obey the _Lex de maritandis ordinib