several apprehensions of their future masters; "that naturally stern and
savage was the temper of Agrippa, and by his public contumely enraged into
fury; and neither in age nor experience was he equal to the weight of
Empire. Tiberius indeed had arrived at fulness of years, and was a
distinguished captain, but possessed the inveterate pride entailed upon
the Claudian race; and many indications of a cruel nature escaped him, in
spite of all his arts to disguise it; besides that from his early infancy
he was trained up in a reigning house, and even in his youth inured to an
accumulation of power and honours, consulships and triumphs: nor during
the several years of his abode at Rhodes, where, under the plausible name
of retirement, a real banishment was covered, did he exercise other
occupation than that of meditating future vengeance, studying the arts of
treachery, and practising secret, abominable sensualities: add to these
considerations, that of his mother, a woman inspired with all the tyranny
of her sex; yes, the Romans must be under bondage to a woman, and moreover
enthralled by two youths, who would first combine to oppress the State,
and then falling into dissension, rend it piecemeal."

While the public was engaged in these and the like debates, the illness of
Augustus waxed daily more grievous; and some strongly suspected the
pestilent practices of his wife. For there had been, some months before, a
rumour abroad, that Augustus having singled out a few of his most faithful
servants, and taken Fabius Maximus for his only companion, had, with no
other retinue, sailed secretly over to the Island of Planasia, there to
visit his Grandson Agrippa; that many tears were shed on both sides, many
tokens of mutual tenderness shown, and hopes from thence conceived, that
the unhappy youth would be restored to his own place in his Grandfather's
family. That Maximus had disclosed it to Martia, she to Livia; and thence
the Emperor knew that the secret was betrayed: that Maximus being soon
after dead (dead, as it was doubted, through fear, by his own hands),