those who were sharp-sighted enough to foresee the clouds which would gather when she was once dead. Tiberius stood in fear and dread of his mother to the very end of her days, and all affection between them had now for a great while been no more: she was a terrible woman; and yet her life was a blessing for Rome,—at least for those who had forgotten the old times. After her death, Tiberius had nothing to restrain him: he dropped the virtues which he had formerly displayed owing to his diligence while under the authority of another to whom he had to give account; he allowed his activity to flag, and became quite lost in his hateful and gloomy disposition. The only enjoyment he had in life, was in most infamous lusts; and a man advanced in years, who gives himself up to shameful pleasures, must irretrievably sink into the basest state of worthlessness. Napoleon is said to have once told a deputation of the Institute that Tiberius had been very hardly dealt with, and that Tacitus had been unjust to him. Napoleon was far from being a learned man, his knowledge was all picked up; but Roman military history he knew very well. He must have said,—“if we form our opinion of Tiberius only from Tacitus, and deem him to have been an infamous, brutal voluptuary, and a tiger of cruelty, then we have not a correct idea of him; for Tiberius was in his youth, and even up, to his fiftieth year, a great general and statesman. None of his _vitia subdola_ came to light before that time; and whilst he kept the energetic and good qualities of his disposition in full play, he behaved as if he were quite another man.” This view is a perfectly true one. Tiberius’ only friend was Ælius Sejanus, the son of Seius Strabo, a Vulsinian, _equestri loco natus_; him he made _præfectus prætorio_. Sejanus’ character has a great likeness to that of his master, and he ought not to be looked upon with contempt: he was an excellent officer, a man of great strength of will, of courage and of much talent; but without any sort of principle. To him alone Tiberius unbosomed himself; and he knew how to make the emperor feel quite comfortable, and to lead him to yield himself up entirely to his own propensities: Tiberius’ mind was at rest while Sejanus gave him security against those whom he was most afraid of, namely, his own family, and the few grandees who still remained. Sejanus increased the prætorian cohorts; and he suggested to Tiberius the plan of concentrating them in the _Castrum Prætorianum_ (a citadel outside the wall of Servius Tullius, but in what is now the very midst of the city); just as the Italian tyrants were wont to do. This is the most momentous event in the history of the emperors. The prætorians now became the real sovereigns, like the janissaries at Algiers; so that they are the pivots on which the Roman history turns, down to the times of Diocletian: by this means, Rome was converted into a military republic, which was generally dormant