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The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Volume 03: Tiberius by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus
page 57 of 79 (72%)
equally successful. But the (243) fame which he acquired, served only to
render him an object of jealousy to Tiberius, by whose order he was
secretly poisoned at Daphne, near Antioch, in the thirty-fourth year of
his age. The news of Germanicus's death was received at Rome with
universal lamentation; and all ranks of the people entertained an
opinion, that, had he survived Tiberius, he would have restored the
freedom of the republic. The love and gratitude of the Romans decreed
many honours to his memory. It was ordered, that his name should be sung
in a solemn procession of the Salii; that crowns of oak, in allusion to
his victories, should be placed upon curule chairs in the hall pertaining
to the priests of Augustus; and that an effigy of him in ivory should be
drawn upon a chariot, preceding the ceremonies of the Circensian games.
Triumphal arches were erected, one at Rome, another on the banks of the
Rhine, and a third upon Mount Amanus in Syria, with inscriptions of his
achievements, and that he died for his services to the republic. [376]

His obsequies were celebrated, not with the display of images and funeral
pomp, but with the recital of his praises and the virtues which rendered
him illustrious. From a resemblance in his personal accomplishments, his
age, the manner of his death, and the vicinity of Daphne to Babylon, many
compared his fate to that of Alexander the Great. He was celebrated for
humanity and benevolence, as well as military talents, and amidst the
toils of war, found leisure to cultivate the arts of literary genius. He
composed two comedies in Greek, some epigrams, and a translation of
Aratus into Latin verse. He married Agrippina, the daughter of M.
Agrippa, by whom he had nine children. This lady, who had accompanied
her husband into the east, carried his ashes to Italy, and accused his
murderer, Piso; who, unable to bear up against the public odium incurred
by that transaction, laid violent hands upon himself. Agrippina was now
nearly in the same predicament with regard to Tiberius, that Ovid had
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