done out of real solicitude, or for the purposes of state inquisition.
On the day of his decease, it is certain that accounts of his
approaching dissolution were every instant transmitted to the emperor
by couriers stationed for the purpose; and no one believed that the
information, which so much pains was taken to accelerate, could be
received with regret. He put on, however, in his countenance and
demeanor, the semblance of grief: for he was now secured from an
object of hatred, and could more easily conceal his joy than his fear.
It was well known that on reading the will, in which he was nominated
co-heir with the excellent wife and most dutiful daughter of Agricola,
he exprest great satisfaction, as if it had been a voluntary testimony
of honor and esteem: so blind and corrupt had his mind been rendered
by continual adulation, that he was ignorant none but a bad prince
could be nominated heir to a good father.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 101: "If by eloquence is meant the ability to persuade, then
Tacitus," according to Cruttwell, "is the most eloquent historian that
ever existed." His portraits, especially those of Tiberius and Nero,
have been severely criticized by French and English writers, but while
his verdicts have been shaken, they have not been reversed. The world
still fails to doubt their substantial reality. Tacitus, adds
Cruttwell, has probably exercised upon readers a greater power than
any other writer of prose whom Rome produced.]

[Footnote 102: From Book I of the "Annals." The Oxford translation
revised.]

[Footnote 103: Marcellus was the son of Octavia by her husband C.
Claudius Marcellus. He married Julia, a daughter of Augustus.]

[Footnote 104: Agrippa was the leading administrative mind under
Augustus, with whom he had served in the Civil War and in the battle
Actium. The Pantheon, the only complete building of Imperial Rome that
still survives, was finished and dedicated by him. He married as his
third wife Julia, the widow of Marcellus.]

[Footnote 105: Nola lay sixteen miles northeast of Naples. The
reference is to Drusus, son of Tiberius, and to Germanicus, at that
time commanding on the Rhine.]

[Footnote 106: From Book III of the "Annals." The Oxford translation
revised.]

[Footnote 107: This Agrippina was the daughter of Agrippa and Julia.
She married Germanicus, became the mother of Caligula, and was a woman
of lofty character, who died by voluntary starvation after having been