Seekers after God

of democratic freedom would be alike impossible and useless, and with them the only question lay between the rival claimants for the vacant

have been the case with the mother of the great Wellington, to say of a dull person, "that he was a greater fool than her son Claudius." His grandmother Livia rarely deigned to address him except in the briefest and bitterest terms. His sister Livilla execrated the mere notion of his ever becoming emperor. Augustus, his grandfather by adoption, took pains to keep him as much out of sight as possible, as a wool-gathering[26] and discreditable member of the family, denied him all public honours, and left him a most paltry legacy. Tiberius, when loo

ros] which implies awkwardness

e tragedy which he had just beheld, had thus tried to conceal himself until the storm was passed. "Why, this is Germanicus!" [27] exclaimed the soldier, "let's make him emperor." Half joking and half in earnest, they hoisted him on their shoulders--for terror had deprived him of the use of his legs--and hurried him off to the camp of the Praetorians. Miserable and anxious he reached the camp, an object of compassion to the crowd of passers-by, who believed that he was be

dius was Tiberius Claudius

his family--a studious prince, who preferred the charms of literature to the turmoil of ambition. The anecdotes which have been recorded of him show that he was something of an archaeologist, and something of a philologian. The great historian Livy, pitying the neglect with which the poor young ma

powers to worthless favourites, and both of them enriched these favourites with such foolish liberality that they remained poor themselves. Both of them had been terrified into constitutional cowardice by their involuntary presence at deeds of blood. Both of them, though of naturally good dispositions, were misled by selfishness into a

poet. Heraclitus had said the same thing more than two

e exile into which their brother had driven them; and both these princesses

e had been driven by the jealousy of Caius, or that he contented himself with quietly watching the course of events. It will be observed that his biography is not like that of Cicero, with whose life we are acquainted in most trifling details; but that the curtain rises and falls on isolated scenes, throwing into sudden brilliancy or into the deepest shade long and important periods of his history. Nor are his letters and other writings full of those political and personal all

d adopted the wiser and manlier course of acting up to the doct

but a fa

gic skirts a

rms sit tempt

rly Virtue fr

d find a footing, and still fewer of the good. And all that Seneca gained from his career of ambition

ks of his freedmen. As under Louis XI. and Don Miguel, the barbers of these monarchs were the real governors, so Claudius was but the minister rather than the master of Narcissus his private secretary, of Polybius his literary adviser, and of Pallas his accountant. A third person, with whose name Scripture has made us familiar, was a freedman of Claudius. This was Felix, the brother of Pallas, and t

Act

silla, and the Salome, and the Herodias of the sacred historians were in this age a familiar spectacle; but none of them were so wicked as two at least of Claudius's wives. He was betrothed or married no less than five times. The lady first destined for his bride had been repudiated because her parents had offended Augustus; the next died on the very day intended for her nuptials. By his first actual wife, Urgulania, whom he had married in early youth, he had two children, Drusus and Claudia; Drusus was accidental

een years old, yet she at once assumed a dominant position

, the supremacy of a bold but reckless rival. They too, used their arts, their wealth, their rank, their political influence, their personal fascinations, to secure for themselves a band of adherents, ready, when the proper moment arrived, for any conspiracy. It is unlikely that, even in the first flush of her husband's strange and unexpecte

olerable to contemplate as the factions of the court of France in the worst periods of its history. We can only ask what possible part a philosopher could play at such a court? We can only say that his position there is not to the credit of

ly waiting her opportunity to strike a blow. Julia, possibly as being the younger and the less powerful of the two sisters, was marked out as the first victim, and the opportunity seemed a favourable one for involving Seneca in her ruin. His enormous wealth, his high reputation, his splendid abilities, made him

most impossible to refute. When we consider who were Seneca's accusers, we are not forced to believe his guilt; his character was indeed deplorably weak, and the laxity of the age in such matters was fearfully demoralising; but there are sufficient circumstances in

er that, when he was falling headlong, the Emperor supported him with the moderation of his divine hand; "he entreated the Senate on my behalf; he not only gave me life, but even begged it for me. Let it be his to consider," adds Seneca, with the most dulcet f

itings of Seneca, yet there can be no doubt that the charge was brought by her instigation before the senators; that after a very slight discussion, or none at all, Claudius was, or pretended to be convinced of Seneca's culpability; that the senators, with their usual abject servility, at once voted him guilty of high treason,

whose suit came before him grew so impatient at his stupidity as to exclaim aloud, "You are an old fool." We are not informed that the Greek was punished. Roman usage allowed a good deal of banter and coarse personality. We are told that on one occasion even the furious and bloody Caligula, seeing a provincial smile, called him up, and asked him what he was laughing at. "At you," said the man, "you look such a humbug." The grim tyrant was so struck with the humour of the thing that he took no further notice of it. A Roman knight against whom some foul charge had been trumped up, seeing Claudius listening to the most contemptible and worthless evidenc

ry little in the question of a man's innocence or guilt; but the s