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38 ROMAN DA YS.
Drusus, and knew that the emperor, for state reasons,
prized the popularity Drusus had won ; and from pride,
he could not bring himself to use a gesture, a look,
a word, that should be misconstrued into an attempt to
emulate the favorite in his stepfather’s liking. That he
himself stretched out his hand after the power, cannot on
valid grounds be imputed to him. Livia, his mother,
worked in his stead ; and the question is always open,
whether the melancholy, the weariness of life, that at
that time weighed him down, was not aggravated by
a horrible suspicion of the means she is thought to have
made use of to that end. By this, I would on no ac-
count be understood to say that he was a stranger to
ambition ; but one can safely say that little as anything
else power loomed up before his soul in illusive colors.
He found no aim worth striving for ; but when a call
was given him, duties as public officer or general were
laid upon him, he cared for his business with superior
understanding, and transacted it with the inherited en-
ergy of the Claudian race.
From the circle that surrounded him with cold calcu-
lations and insidious snares, he broke loose in his love
for the woman who was his first wife. State reasons
snatched her from his embrace, and bound him to Julia,
the daughter of Augustus, who violated the proud man’s
honor. Years after the separation, as Tiberius was one
day walking in one of the streets of Rome, chance willed
it that he and his first wife should meet. As they passed
each other, he stood still and gazed after her: the mock-
ing look vanished, the hard features softened ;
and he
who reckoned emotion a shame, and who least of all
would bare his feelings to the crowd, burst into tear&
He had seen the happiness of his life go by him.
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