Unfortunately Tiberius did not foresee the possibility of friction between Germanicus and Piso; still less did he take into account the results of the juxtaposition of two such explosive fireships as Agrippina and Plancina the wife of Piso; and he forgot that Plancina was among the devoted friends of Livia, who had a long-standing personal interest in the affairs of Syria and its adjacent principalities. It was the scene of her first diplomatic triumphs, the place where she had cemented by the interchange of presents a friendship with that worthy pater-familias Herod the Great, whose posterity shared with Jerusalem the honour of being a meeting point of the intrigues of the Jews of all nations. The story of the events which followed is so obviously coloured by the partisanship of the chief actors that much of it must be far from the truth. It is not, for instance, easy to believe that Piso, having no authority outside his own province, would follow Germanicus to Athens, where Germanicus had authority, and take a pleasure in reversing his compliments to the Athenians. There is no inherent improbability in the action ascribed to Piso inside his own province, where he practically refused to recognize the proconsular power of Germanicus, but he could hardly with safety have followed the footsteps of Germanicus eastwards, loudly proclaiming his insubordination in places where he had no more right to express an opinion than a private citizen; had he done so, a swift Liburnian galley would have brought his letters of recall. Idle stories of this kind probably took their origin at a later period, and were communicated with mistaken zeal to Agrippina by her sympathizing friends. At first all went well with Germanicus, and his commission bore the appearance of a holiday progress. He met his brother Drusus at Nicopolis, the city which had been built to commemorate the victory off the promontory of Actium, and they celebrated the glorious event in company; he then went to Athens, and up the Ægæan into the Euxine, redressing grievances and visiting holy places. In the course of the tour Agrippina’s youngest daughter Julia was born at Lesbos, destined afterwards to marry M. Vinicius, the friend of Paterculus. On the return journey southwards Germanicus met the convoy of Piso at Rhodes on its way to Syria, where, the historian tells us, that Germanicus, though well aware of the persecution of Piso, saved his ship from destruction in a storm. Germanicus made his way from thence to Armenia and the frontiers of the Empire, where he conducted his negotiations with success. Meanwhile Piso hurried on his way to Syria, and at once began to make favour with the army and the residents. His indulgences to the troops were such that the soldiers called him “father of the legions”; while Plancina, to the horror of Agrippina, forgetting the limitations of her sex, took part in drills and parades.