allowance, by a quibble of law, because Augustus had made no provision
for them on her behalf in his will. Being harassed by his mother, Livia,
who claimed an equal share in the government with him, he frequently
avoided (223) seeing her, and all long and private conferences with her,
lest it should be thought that he was governed by her counsels, which,
notwithstanding, he sometimes sought, and was in the habit of adopting.
He was much offended at the senate, when they proposed to add to his
other titles that of the Son of Livia, as well as Augustus. He,
therefore, would not suffer her to be called "the Mother of her Country,"
nor to receive any extraordinary public distinction. Nay, he frequently
admonished her "not to meddle with weighty affairs, and such as did not
suit her sex;" especially when he found her present at a fire which broke
out near the Temple of Vesta [351], and encouraging the people and
soldiers to use their utmost exertions, as she had been used to do in the
time of her husband.

LI. He afterwards proceeded to an open rupture with her, and, as is
said, upon this occasion. She having frequently urged him to place among
the judges a person who had been made free of the city, he refused her
request, unless she would allow it to be inscribed on the roll, "That the
appointment had been extorted from him by his mother." Enraged at this,
Livia brought forth from her chapel some letters from Augustus to her,
complaining of the sourness and insolence of Tiberius's temper, and these
she read. So much was he offended at these letters having been kept so
long, and now produced with so much bitterness against him, that some
considered this incident as one of the causes of his going into
seclusion, if not the principal reason for his so doing. In the (224)
whole years she lived during his retirement, he saw her but once, and
that for a few hours only. When she fell sick shortly afterwards, he was
quite unconcerned about visiting her in her illness; and when she died,