A crowd of magistrates, proconsuls, priests, Senators, and ambassadors were in the polished-marble council chamber in a sumptuous palace on the Palatine Hill. Seated on a curule chair on a raised platform was a man sixty-two years old. His face was handsome, but disfigured with pimples and plasters. His eyes were large and, like those of a bat, could see in the dark. His lips were thick, puffy, and usually moist and shiny. His stern forehead was so furrowed by a frown that his eyebrows touched. His long hair fell upon and greased his toga. His figure was large and robust, his bearing erect; he held his head stiff and upright. Around his neck, over his imperial tunic, he wore a golden chain studded with jewels. As he sat there he was approached, from time to time, by different men who respectfully bowed and proffered words of salutation. From his demeanor and the manner of those who addressed him it might be inferred that he had no higher rank than that of a consul. Yet the man seated there was feared and hated by every one. He was the most powerful man in the Roman Empire. He was the Emperor, Tiberius! His early life had been full of disappointment. As step-son to the Divine Augustus he always considered himself worthy of great honors. His aspiring hopes, however, were continually shattered. Augustus, marrying his daughter Julia to his nephew Marcellus, had first adopted Marcellus as his heir. When that unfortunate youth died, Augustus married Julia to Agrippa, and then adopted Julia’s second husband as his heir. Agrippa dying and leaving five children, Augustus then adopted as heirs two older sons of Agrippa. Tiberius was then compelled to divorce his wife Vipsania, and to marry the twice-widowed Julia. While married to Julia he became so gloomy, sullen, and disappointed that, hating the sight of relations and friends thus forced upon him, he voluntarily exiled himself from Rome and lived alone at Rhodes. At that time he was thirty-seven years old. His actions were so childish that he sulked, and hid himself even from friends who passed through Rhodes on their way to the East. To give an appearance of honorable distinction to the exile, Livia, his mother, succeeded in obtaining the title of lieutenant for him. However, such a lewd and vicious life did he lead at Rhodes that the Rhodians insulted him and hurled down his statues. But Livia worked strenuously for her son. Years before, the death of Marcellus had been accomplished. Now, while her son corrupted the youth of Rhodes, Caius and Lucius were both mysteriously murdered. Tiberius and “Little Agrippa,” as he is sometimes called, the third and last son of Agrippa and Julia, were then conjointly adopted by Augustus. But the young Agrippa was cunningly surrounded by such wicked companions that he became demented and was exiled to an island called Planasia. Thus Tiberius finally became the last reluctant choice of the old emperor.