Rome -- History -- Tiberius, 14-37; Tiberius, Emperor of Rome 42 B.C.-37 A.D.
enemy; the army forced him to marry the daughter of Fulvia the tigress;
the army forced the proscription upon him; the army compelled him to
deeds of savage cruelty at Perusia; the army forced him to hand over
his sister to the embraces of Antonius; he felt that he could not be a
free agent so long as the army was the dominant factor in politics. His
ideal was not the magnificent stride of the conqueror from continent
to continent. Other young men, finding several thousand veterans ready
to follow them, might have been tempted to a career of conquest; not
so Octavian; circumstances compelled him to temporize with the army,
and to use the army, but he naturally preferred the city to the camp,
and the Forum to the field. Year by year, and even month by month, he
advanced in the favour of the capitalists and constitutionalists, who
dreaded nothing so much as a perpetual cock fight of generals. All
over the Empire a new ideal had been steadily growing, the conception
of war as a permanent condition of society had been replaced by the
conception of peace. In the East for two centuries the internecine wars
between city States had disappeared; the Macedonian Empire, though
broken up and divided, had established permanent umpires; society
was united over larger areas; in the West, after the elimination of
the discordant Phœnician factor, Rome had held the same position of
supreme umpire; great cities had grown up: Smyrna, Ephesus, Antioch,
Alexandria in the East, Rome in the West, for whose populations the
orderly progress of commerce was a necessity of life; war had ceased
to be the only or the most profitable investment; other than military
careers were attractive to the ambitious. Octavian presented the
combination of qualities which the world wanted; he could command
the allegiance of armies without being intoxicated by the possession
of that form of power; he respected the civilian, and had the power
to protect him. But Octavian did not carry his dislike of military
domination to the point of extravagance; he was no intemperate advocate
of peace principles; he did not make the mistake of allowing his army
to become inefficient; he knew that a well ordered army was a necessary
instrument of sound civil Government; he knew that unless the chief
of the State demonstrably enjoyed the support of an efficient army
his reign would be short; but he took care that no successful officer
should be tempted to play the part of an Antonius, or dream that it
was in his power to become a second Cæsar. He had the good fortune to
find first in his friend Agrippa, and subsequently in his two stepsons
Tiberius and Drusus, able generals, who abstained from interfering with
the civil administration. Not the least of the remarkable powers of
Octavian was his power of commanding willing service from equals and
even from superiors, and his recognition of the men who would be useful
to him. As the heir of his father and great-uncle, he inherited not
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