ulcisci." He protected magistrates and poor suitors, against the nobles.
He refused to add to the public burdens, by pensioning needy Senators: but
he was charitable to poor debtors; and lavish to the people, whether
Romans or Provincials, in times of calamity and want. Not least admirable
was his quiet dignity, in periods of disturbance and of panic: he refused
to hurry to the mutinous legions, or to a mean rebellion in Gaul; and he
condescended to reason excellently about his behaviour, when his people
were sane enough to listen. He was both sensible and modest: he restrained
the worship of Augustus, "lest through being too common it should be
turned into an idle ceremony;" he refused the worship of himself, except
in one temple dedicated equally to the Senate and to the Emperor. Tiberius
could be pathetic, too: "I bewail my son, and ever shall bewail him," he
says of Germanicus; and again, "Eloquence is not measured by fortune, and
it is a sufficient honour, if he be ranked among the ancient orators."
"Princes are mortal;" he says again, "the Commonwealth, eternal." Then his
wit, how fine it was; how quick his humour: when he answered the tardy
condolences from Troy, by lamenting the death of Hector: when he advised
an eager candidate, "not to embarrass his eloquence by impetuosity;" when
he said of another, a low, conceited person, "he gives himself the airs of
a dozen ancestors," "videtur mihi ex se natus:" when he muttered in the
Senate, "O homines ad servitutem paratos:" when he refused to become a
persecutor; "It would be much better, if the Gods were allowed to manage
their own affairs," "Deorum injurias Dis curae." In all this; in his
leisured ways, in his dislike of parade and ceremonial, in his mockery of
flatterers and venal "patriots"; how like to Charles II., "the last King
of England who was a man of parts." And no one will deny "parts" to
Tiberius; he was equal to the burden of Imperial cares: the latest
researches have discovered, that his provincial administration was most
excellent; and even Tacitus admits, that his choice of magistrates "could
not have been better." He says, in another passage, "The Emperor's domains