Gaius, who was not a bad fellow at bottom [and neither was Lucius] had to some extent come to fill the place in Augustus' affections that Marcellus had once held. But he spoilt them both so shamelessly, in spite of Livia's warnings, that the wonder is that they did not turn out far worse than they did. They tended to behave insolently towards their elders, particularly men towards whom they knew Augustus would secretly like them to behave so, and to live with great extravagance. When Livia saw that it was [69] useless trying to keep Augustus'
nepotism in check she changed her policy and encouraged him to make greater favourites of them than ever. By doing so, and letting them know she was doing so, she hoped to gain their confidence.
She calculated, too, that if their self-importance was increased only a little more they would forget themselves and try to seize the monarchy for themselves.
Her spy-system was excellent and she would get wind of any such plot in good time to have them arrested. She encouraged Augustus to have Gaius elected Consul, for four years ahead, when he was only fifteen; though the youngest age at which a man could legally become Consul had been fixed by Sulla at forty-three, before which he had to fill three different magistratal offices of ascending importance. Later, Lucius was given the same honour. She also suggested that Augustus should present them to the Senate as "Leaders of Cadets". The title was not, as in the case of Marcellus, given them for a specific occasion only, but put them in a position of permanent authority over all their equals in age and rank. It seemed perfectly clear now that Augustus intended Gaius as his successor; so it was not to be wondered Jt that the' same sort of young noblemen as had boasted the untried powers of young Marcellus against the ministerial and military reputation of the veteran Agrippa now did the same for Agrippa's son Gaius against the veteran reputation of Tiberius, whom they subjected to many slights.
Livia intended Tiberius to follow the example of Agrippa. If he now retired, with so many victories and public honours to his credit, to some near-by Greek island and left the political field clear for Gaius and Lucius, this would create a better impression and win him far more popular sympathy than if he stayed behind to dispute it.
[The historical parallel would become still closer if Gaius and Lucius were to die during Tiberius' retirement and Augustus were to feel the need of his services again.] So she promised to prevail on Augustus to grant him indefinite leave of absence from Rome and permission to resign from all his offices; but to give him the honorary rank of Protector of the People--which would make him secure against assassination by Gaius, should Gaius think of removing him.
Livia found it extremely difficult to keep her promise, for Tiberius was Augustus' most useful minister and most successful general, and for a long time the old man refused to treat the request seriously. But Tiberius pleaded ill health and urged that his absence would relieve Gains and Lucius of much embarrassment: he admitted that he did lot get on well with them. Still Augustus would not listen.
Gaius and Lucius were mere lads, totally inexperienced as yet in war or statecraft, and would be of no service to him it all should serious disturbances break out in the City, in he provinces, or on the frontier. He realised, perhaps for he first time, that Tiberius was now his only stand-by in any such emergency. But he was irritated at having the realization forced on him. He refused Tiberius'
request md said that he would listen to no arguments. Since there vas no help for it, therefore, Tiberius went to Julia and old her with studied brutality that their marriage had be; ome such a farce that he could not bear to remain in the same house with her a day longer. He suggested that she should go to Augustus and complain that she had been ill-treated by her ruffianly husband and would not be happy until she had a divorce. Augustus, he said, was for family reasons unlikely, worse luck, to consent to the divorce, but would probably banish him from Rome.
He was ready even to go into exile rather than continue to live with her.
Julia decided to forget that she had ever loved Tiberius.
She had suffered much from him. Not only did he treat her with the greatest contempt whenever they were alone together, but he had by now begun cautiously experimenting in those ludicrously filthy practices which later made us name so detestable to all decent-minded people; and she had found out about it. So she took him at his word and complained to Augustus in far stronger terms than Tiberius
[who was vain enough to believe that she still loved him in spite of everything]
could have foreseen.
Augustus had always had great difficulty in concealing his dislike for Tiberius as a son-in-law--which had of course encouraged the Gaius faction--and now went storming up and down his study calling Tiberius all the names that he could lay his tongue on. But he nevertheless reminded lulia that she had only herself to blame for her disappointed ment in a husband about whose character he had never failed to warn her. And, much as he loved and pitied her, he could not dissolve the marriage. For his daughter and stepson to separate after a union that had been given such political importance would never do, and Livia would see the matter in the same light as himself, he was sureSo Julia begged that Tiberius should at least be sent away somewhere for a yeai or two, because at the moment she could not abide his presence within a hundred miles of her.
To this he eventually agreed, and a few days later Tiberius was on his way to the island of Rhodes, which be had, long before this, chosen as the ideal place for retirement. But Augustus, while granting him the rank of Protector, at Livia's urgent insistence, had made it plain that if he never saw his face again it would be no grief to him.
Nobody but the principals in this curious drama knew why Tiberius was leaving Rome, and Livia used Augustus' unwillingness to discuss the matter publicly, to Tiberius' advantage. She told her friends, "in confidence", that Tiberius had decided to retire as a protest against the scandalous behaviour of the party of Gaius and Lucius. She also said that Augustus had sympathised greatly with him, and had at first refused to accept hfs resignation, promising to silence the offenders; Tiberius had then insisted that he did not wish to make further bad blood between himself and his wife's sons, and had demonstrated the fixity of his purpose by going without food for four days. Livia kept up the farce by accompanying Tiberius to his ship at Ostia, the port of Rome, and beseeching him, in Augustus' name and her own, to reconsider his decision. She even arranged that all the members of her immediate family--Tiberius' young son Castor, and my mother, and Germanicus, Livilla and myself--should come along with her and increase the poignancy of the occasion by adding our pleas to hers. Julia did not appear, and her absence fitted in well with the impression that Livia was trying to create--that she had been siding with her sons against her husband. It was a ridiculous but well-staged scene. My mother played up well, and the three elder children, who had been carefully coached, really spoke their parts as if they meant them. I was bewildered and dumb until Livilla gave me a good pinching, at which I burst into tears and so did better than any of them. I was four years old when ill this happened, but I had turned twelve before Augustus was reluctantly compelled to recall my uncle to Rome, the political situation having by then greatly changed.