those families which, in spite of the revolution, were still so
influential and venerable; it would be the means of lessening the
hatred, contempt, and distrust in which these families held him. It
was for him what Napoleon's marriage with Marie Louise and the
consequent connection with the imperial family of Austria had been for
the former Corsican officer, become Emperor of the French. Since, now,
a lady who belonged to one of these great families was disposed to
marry him, it would have been foolish to put obstacles in the way; it
was necessary to act with despatch; time and fortune might change.

Such are the motives that may have induced Augustus to hasten the
nuptials. But what were the motives of Livia in accepting this
marriage, in such stormy times, when the fortunes of the future
Augustus were still so uncertain? A passage in Velleius Paterculus
would lead us to believe that he who devised this historic marriage was
none other than that same first husband of Livia, Tiberius Claudius
Nero himself! According to our ideas it is inconceivable; but not at
all strange according to the ideas of the Roman. It is probable that
Tiberius Claudius Nero, feeling that the triumph of the revolution was
now assured, had wished by this marriage to attach to the cause of the
old aristocracy the youngest of the three revolutionary leaders.
Already well along in years and infirm,--he was to die shortly
after,--Nero, who well knew the intelligence of his young wife, was
perhaps planning to place her in the house of the man in whom all saw
one of the future lords of Rome. Thus he would bind him to the
interests of the aristocracy. In the person of Livia there entered
into the house of Octavianus the old Roman nobility, which, defeated at
Philippi, was striving to reacquire through the prestige and the
cleverness of a woman what it had not been able to maintain by arms.