Agrippa was even greater in his moral qualities, in the self-restraint, or perhaps absence of a morbid ambition, which forbade him to become a rival to the man whose superiority he had elected to recognize. In the later days of the Republic a man could hardly become a great general without threatening the balance of the constitution; the death of Cæsar brought into prominence ambitious soldiers; it seemed that it was enough to be a successful leader of troops in order to enter upon the enjoyment of all things that ambitious men most covet; but to this kind of ambition Agrippa was superior; if he had a conscious ambition over and above the satisfaction of doing his work well, it was to make Octavian. His example was most valuable to the fortunes of the Empire; his character impressed itself upon the young men at a later time, upon the youthful Tiberius his son-in-law among others. Henceforth the old loyalty to the Republic which restored victorious consuls to their proper place in civil life, when their wars were finished, was replaced by the loyalty of the army to a possibly civilian Imperator, whose military work was delegated to subordinate commanders; it was possible for a man to command an army without feeling that he lost dignity by submitting to the control of the head of the State. If Octavian is to be admired for learning in a few years the trade of a statesman, Agrippa is no less to be admired for the celerity with which he acquired the detailed knowledge of a naval and military commander; both young men started with a rare power of submitting themselves to the guidance of men of experience; the eventual result was a combination of administrative ability, which was able to use other men without impairing its own supremacy. After Sextus Pompeius had disappeared, and Lepidus had found himself in the unenviable position of a general without an army, and a provincial governor without a province, the delimitation of authority which followed may well have seemed to the sharers in power to be final.