rapine and exactions of our Magistrates; in vain too, under these their
oppressions, had been their appeal to the protection of the laws, which
were utterly enfeebled and borne down by might and violence, by faction
and parties; nay, even by subornation and money.

Moreover, Augustus, in order to fortify his domination with collateral
bulwarks, raised his sister's son Claudius Marcellus, a perfect youth, to
the dignity of Pontiff and that of Aedile; preferred Marcus Agrippa to two
successive Consulships, a man in truth meanly born but an accomplished
soldier, and the companion of his victories; and Marcellus, the husband of
Julia, soon after dying, chose him for his son-in-law. Even the sons of
his wife, Tiberius Nero, and Claudius Drusus, he dignified with high
military titles and commands; though his house was yet supported by
descendants of his own blood. For into the Julian family and name of the
Caesars he had already adopted Lucius and Caius, the sons of Agrippa; and
though they were but children, neither of them seventeen years old,
vehement had been his ambition to see them declared Princes of the Roman
Youth and even designed to the Consulship; while openly, he was protesting
against admitting these early honours. Presently, upon the decease of
Agrippa, were these his children snatched away, either by their own
natural but hasty fate, or by the deadly fraud of their step-mother Livia;
Lucius on his journey to command the armies in Spain; Caius in his return
from Armenia, ill of a wound: and as Drusus, one of her own sons, had been
long since dead, Tiberius remained sole candidate for the succession. Upon
this object, centred all princely honours; he was by Augustus adopted for
his son, assumed Colleague in the Empire, partner in the jurisdiction
tribunitial, and presented under all these dignities to the several
armies: instances of grandeur which were no longer derived from the secret
schemes and plottings of his mother, as in times past, while her husband
had unexceptionable heirs of his own, but thenceforth bestowed at her open