An Outline History of the Roman Empire

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II THE GREATNESS OF THE EMPIRE 1. Tiberius (reign 14 to 37 A-d.); Internal Policy.--A new hand was at the helm of state, but not an untried hand. As subordinate, and later as colleague of Augustus, Tiberius had learned all the processes of the government. He was a passing elderly man now,--fifty-five years old,--not likely to be affected by youthful giddiness of power. All evidence goes to show that he was an administrator of no mean order. But the intrigues of the court, his semi-banishment at Rhodes, the tardy recognition by Augustus, seem to have embittered him. He was hard and cynical. He lacked personal magnetism: what was worse, he won the hate of the cultured literary circle at Rome,--of the fine gentlemen of old Republican families, who were as yet unreconciled to the new imperial regime, and traduced it at every opportunity. Writing after their spirit, and drawing upon their literary memoirs, the great historian Tacitus (nearly a hundred years later) has given us a picture of Tiberius unmatched for masterly portrayal of a gloomy, unscrupulous, bloodthirsty monster. More modern criticism has decided that many of the worst charges against the second Princeps are unproved, although there is much that cannot be explained away. Yet certain it is that the twenty-three odd years of his reign were years of prosperity and good government for the Empire, and if there were tyranny and discontent, they existed almost wholly at Rome. In his dealings with the Senate--which readily confirmed him in the power that Augustus could only partially delegate--Tiberius showed at first the greatest consideration. He made it a constant rule to allow the most important matters to be submitted to it for discussion, but more important still, he...