with one of those strange flashes of prevision of which we sometimes read in history.  “Why are you so eager?  Some day you will kill this boy, and some one else will murder you.”  There were some who believed that Tiberius deliberately cherished the intention of allowing Caius to succeed him, in order that the Roman world might relent towards his own memory under the tyranny of a worse monster than himself.  Even the Romans, who looked up to the family of Germanicus with extraordinary affection, seem early to have lost all hopes about Caius.  They looked for little improvement under the government of a vicious boy, “ignorant of all things, or nurtured only in the worst,” who would be likely to reflect the influence of Macro, and present the spectacle of a worse Tiberius under a worse Sejanus.

[Footnote 23:  We shall call him Caius, because it is as little correct to write of him by the sobriquet Caligula as it would be habitually to write of our kings Edward or John as Longshanks or Lackland.  The name Caligula means “a little shoe,” and was the pet name given to him by the soldiers of his father, in whose camp he was born.]

[Footnote 24:  Josephus adds some curious and interesting particulars to the story of this Herod and his death which are not mentioned in the narrative of St. Luke (Antiq. xix. 7, 8.  Jahn, Hebr.  Commonwealth, sec. cxxvi.)]

At last health and strength failed Tiberius, but not his habitual dissimulation.  He retained the same unbending soul, and by his fixed countenance and measured language, sometimes by an artificial affability, he tried to conceal his approaching end.  After many restless changes, he finally settled down in a villa at Misenum which had once belonged to the luxurious Lucullus.  There the real state of his health was discovered.  Charicles, a distinguished physician, who had been paying him a friendly visit on kissing his hand to bid farewell, managed to ascertain the state of his pulse.  Suspecting that this was the case Tiberius, concealing his displeasure, ordered a banquet to be spread, as though in honour of his friend’s departure, and stayed longer than usual at table.  A similar story is told of Louis XIV. who, noticing from the whispers of his courtiers that they believed him to be dying, ate an unusually large dinner on the very day of his death, and sarcastically observed, “Il me semble que pour un homme qui va mourir je ne mange pas mal.”  But, in spite of the precautions of Tiberius, Charicles informed Macro that the Emperor could not last beyond two days.

A scene of secret intrigue at once began.  The court broke up into knots and cliques.  Hasty messengers were sent to the provinces and their armies, until at last, on the 16th of March, it was believed that Tiberius had breathed his last.  Just as on the death of Louis XV. a sudden noise was heard as of thunder, the sound of courtiers rushing along the corridors to congratulate Louis XVI. in the famous