rium when
he was summoned by a letter from his mother, forwarded with speed, nor
is it fully known whether, at his return to Nola,[105] he found
Augustus yet breathing, or already lifeless. For Livia had carefully
beset the palace, and all the avenues to it, with vigilant guards; and
favorable bulletins were from time to time given out, until, the
provisions which the conjuncture required being completed, in one and
the same moment were published the departure of Augustus, and the
accession of Tiberius.

II

THE FUNERAL OF GERMANICUS[106]

(19 A.D.)

Agrippina,[107] continuing her course without the least intermission
through all the perils and rigors of a sea-voyage in the winter,
arrived at the island Corcyra, situated over against the shores of
Calabria. Unable to moderate her grief, and impatient from
inexperience of affliction, she spent a few days there to tranquillize
her troubled spirit; when, on hearing of her arrival, all the intimate
friends of her family, and most of the officers who had served under
Germanicus, with a number of strangers from the neighboring municipal
towns, some thinking it due as a mark of respect to the prince, but
the greater part carried along with the current, rushed to the city of
Brundusium, the readiest port in her way, and the safest landing. As
soon as the fleet appeared in the deep, instantly were filled, not the
port alone and adjacent parts of the sea, but the walls and roofs, and
wherever the most distant prospect could be obtained, with a sorrowing
multitude, earnestly asking each other "whether they should receive
her on landing in silence, or with some expression of feeling?" Nor
was it clearly determined what course would be most suitable to the
occasion, when the fleet came slowly in, not as usual in sprightly
trim, but all wearing the impress of sadness. When she descended from
the ship, accompanied by her two infants,[108] and bearing in her hand
the funeral urn, her eyes fixt stedfastly upon the earth, one
simultaneous groan burst from the whole assemblage; nor could you
distinguish relations from strangers, nor the wailings of men from
those of women; nor could any difference be discerned, except that
those who came to meet her, in the vehemence of recent grief,
surpassed the attendants of Agrippina, who were exhausted with
continued mourning.

Tiberius had dispatched two praetorian cohorts, with directions that
the magistrates of Calabria, with Apuli