At the end of the five years Tiberius might well think that he could return to Rome without being suspected of a wish to exercise political influence, so plainly had he shown his indifference to public life. He had left his son at Rome, and there were others to whom he was attached; there were the three children of his brother Drusus, with their charming mother Antonia; and in spite of their awkward mutual relations, he had a genuine affection for Augustus. The family entanglements had been straightened out; Julia was in exile; the young Cæsars were beginning to take their part in public affairs. Surely their stepfather could live in dignified retirement at Rome, ready to advise and help, when counsel and assistance were demanded of him, but otherwise unmolested and unobserved. This, however, was not to be. Augustus himself had acquiesced in the departure of Tiberius, if not before, certainly after the revelation of the intemperance of Julia, and was not improbably touched by the consideration which Tiberius had shown for his personal difficulties in the matter. But Livia had been bitterly disappointed; all her schemes had come to nothing just at the moment when the victory seemed to have been won, and her son had been declared heir-apparent, as far as the constitutional forms of Rome permitted. Consequently when Tiberius wrote, expressing an intention of returning to Rome and his wish to see his relatives, further declaring his determination to acquiesce in whatever arrangements Augustus might be disposed to make for the advancement of the young Cæsars, and pointing to his voluntary retirement as irrefutable evidence of the fact that he wished to stand out of their way, he received an exceedingly unamiable answer, and was told that he need not concern himself about the affairs of relatives, whom he had been so very ready to abandon. We are not told whether this letter was written by Livia or by Augustus; but it was surely written at the instance of Livia. No man was more willing to forgive and to forget than the Emperor; his whole life had been a record of successful conciliation of declared enemies; both by policy and inclination he was averse to the maintenance of personal feuds. Livia, too, may have seen in the stiffness of Tiberius a reason for advancing the young Cæsars, over whom, as more pliable, she hoped to secure influence.