We have seen that Livia had used the same restraining influence on the impetuosity of Octavian. With her died the attribute, or the wise policy, of Imperial clemency, only to be revived by Emperors who adopted that Stoic creed in which she found consolation after the death of her son. That she was “hard” and “unscrupulous” is entirely at variance with the most authenticated facts of her career. To say that she was “avaricious” is a sheer absurdity. She maintained her sober personal habits to the end, and took money only to bestow it on the indigent and worthy, or expend it in raising public buildings. We may grant that she had some ambition, but may claim that it was well for Rome that she had it. She fell into many errors of judgment in her later years, when Roman life was confused by such strong undercurrents of intrigue; but these very errors tend to discredit the notion that she employed a consummate art and strong intelligence in the furthering of her own interests. In a word, it is the vices and follies of later Empresses that have disposed historians to regard her sober virtues as a mere mask. NOTE For the guidance of the general reader it is advisable to add a few words on the Latin authorities, whom we now constantly quote. Tacitus, the chief source of our knowledge down to the year 70 A.D., is not only weakened as an historian by the very strength of his morality, but he has too lightly followed the memoirs in which the later Agrippina defamed the rival Imperial family. Suetonius, who takes us as far as Domitian, is no less honest, but he has too genial and indulgent a love of anecdotes to discard any on the mere ground that they are untrue or improbable. Dio Cassius, who covers the first two centuries, is usually described as malignant; but one may question if he does more than indulge still further the same amiable preference of piquancy to truth. The “Historia Augusta,” which is our chief authority for the greater part of the Empresses and the richest source of scandal, has been much and profitably discussed since Gibbon placed such reliance on it. It is now thought by some experts that the original writers of this series of biographical sketches of the Roman Emperors lived at the beginning of the third century, and had a comparatively sober standard of work. Toward the close of the third, or beginning of the fourth, century the work was written afresh by the group of less scrupulous writers whose names, or pseudonyms, actually stand at the head of its chapters. But a still later writer once more recast the work, and lowered its authority. He wrote frankly from the point of view of the piquant anecdotist, omitting much that would interest only the prosy student of exact facts, and filling up the vacant space with such faint legends of Imperial vice or folly as still, in his time,