s--when his end was at hand, and
thence a new source of hopes and views was presented--some few there
were who began to talk idly about the blessings of liberty: many
dreaded a civil war--others longed for one; while far the greatest
part were occupied in circulating various surmises reflecting upon
those who seemed likely to be their masters: "That Agrippa was
naturally stern and savage, and exasperated by contumely; and neither
in age nor experience equal to a task of such magnitude. Tiberius,
indeed, had arrived at fulness of years, and was a distinguished
captain, but possest the inveterate and inherent pride of the
Claudian family; and many indications of cruel nature escaped him, in
spite of all his arts to disguise it; that even from his early infancy
he had been trained up in an imperial house; that consulships and
triumphs had been accumulated upon him while but a youth. Not even
during the years of his abode at Rhodes, where under the plausible
name of retirement, he was in fact an exile, did he employ himself
otherwise than in meditating future vengeance, studying the arts of
simulation, and practising secret and abominable sensualities. That to
these considerations was added that of his mother, a woman with the
ungovernable spirit peculiar to her sex; that the Romans must be under
bondage to a woman, and moreover to two youths, who would meanwhile
oppress the state, and, at one time or other, rend it piecemeal."

While the public mind was agitated by these and similar discussions,
the illness of Augustus grew daily more serious, and some suspected
nefarious practises on the part of his wife. For some months before, a
rumor had gone abroad that Augustus, having singled out a few to whom
he communicated his purpose, had taken Fabius Maximus for his only
companion, had sailed over to the island of Planasia, to visit
Agrippa; that many tears were shed on both sides, many tokens of
mutual tenderness shown, and hopes from thence conceived that the
youth would be restored to the household gods of his grandfather. That
Maximus had disclosed this to Martia, his wife--she to Livia; and that
the emperor was informed of it: and that Maximus, not long after,
dying (it is doubtful whether naturally or by means sought for the
purpose), Martia was observed, in her lamentations at his funeral, to
upbraid herself as the cause of her husband's destruction. Howsoever
that matter might have been, Tiberius was scarce entered Illy