infamy by their baseness and their crimes. Possibly this unhappy result
may have been partly due to the sad circumstances of their early
education. Their father, Germanicus, who by his virtue and his successes
had excited the suspicious jealousy of his uncle Tiberius, was by his
distinct connivance, if not by his actual suggestion, atrociously
poisoned in Syria. Agrippina, after being subjected to countless cruel
insults, was banished in the extremest poverty to the island of
Pandataria. Two of the elder brothers, Nero and Drusus Germanicus, were
proclaimed public enemies: Nero was banished to the island Pontia, and
there put to death; Drusus was kept a close prisoner in a secret prison
of the palace. Caius, the youngest, who is better known by the name
Caligula, was summoned by Tiberius to his wicked retirement at Capreae,
and there only saved his life by the most abject flattery and the most
adroit submission.

Capreae is a little island of surpassing loveliness, forming one
extremity of the Bay of Naples. Its soil is rich, its sea bright and
limpid, its breezes cool and healthful. Isolated by its position, it is
yet within easy reach of Rome. At that time, before Vesuvius had
rekindled those wasteful fires which first shook down, and then deluged
under lava and scoriae, the little cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii,
the scene which it commanded was even more pre-eminently beautiful than
now. Vineyards and olive-groves clothed the sides of that matchless bay,
down to the very line where the bright blue waters seem to kiss with
their ripples the many-coloured pebbles of the beach. Over all, with its
sides dotted with picturesque villas and happy villages, towered the
giant cone of the volcano which for centuries had appeared to be
extinct, and which was clothed up to the very crater with luxurious
vegetation. Such was the delicious home which Tiberius disgraced for
ever by the seclusion of his old age. Here he abandoned himself to every