Julius Claudius had displayed the utmost political adroitness during the fearful contests that had made Italy a war-field and a grave. He had shown an acute judgment in abandoning the prince whom fortune was about to desert. He forsook Galba’s adopted son Piso at a critical point of time. With Otho he remained till that emperor left Rome, for he had foreseen that the Prætorian army would not be able to compete with the German legions. The splendid but erratic course of one of his dissipated friends, Antonius Primus, a young Roman knight, whose participation in forging a will had caused his banishment, but to whom Galba gave a legion, had made Julius forsake the failing cause of Vitellius, though he had been one of his chief favourites. He had declared for Vespasian in time to save himself from confiscation, and when Licinius Mucianus, the friend of Titus, took upon himself the direction of public affairs, and Antonius Primus fell into disgrace, he abandoned him, and attached himself to the man who had reaped the blood-stained laurels of the general whose arm had placed Vespasian on the throne of Rome. From Vespasian himself Julius Claudius had expected no marks of favour, but Titus had received his old friend with open arms; yet his star had declined before that of a woman whose years nearly doubled those of her youthful lover. But the charms of Berenice, like those of Cleopatra, defied the power of time, for her intellectual powers enabled her to retain her beauty beyond the usual period assigned for the possession of a gift so precious, rare, and fleeting. Her fascinating manners veiled her disposition, which once, and once only, had betrayed the softness of the woman and the feelings of a patriot. She had formerly stood a barefooted suppliant for her own people before the tribunal of a merciless Roman procurator,[19] and had pleaded for the Jews, and vainly pleaded, for the man was avaricious, and the tears and abasement of a beautiful woman had offered no counter-charm to the greater influence of gold and the gratification of a barbarous revenge. History has recorded to her honour this solitary instance of compassion shown by the guilty sister of Agrippa. She had persecuted her sister Drusilla, who was supposed to be the most beautiful woman in the world; but, though that unfortunate princess had been forgetful of the obligation of her first marriage vow, her fidelity to Felix, and the self-devotion that induced her to die with him, proved at least that she possessed a depth of tenderness of which Berenice was incapable.