To the cities in Asia which had been damaged by the earthquake an ex-praetor was assigned with five lictors.  Considerable money therefore was diverted from the revenues and considerable was given by Tiberius personally.  For whereas he refrained scrupulously from the possessions of others,—­so long at least as he practiced virtue at all,—­and would not even accept the inheritances which were left to him by testators having relatives, he spent vast sums both upon the cities and upon private individuals.  He would not hear of any honor or praise for these acts.—­Embassies that came from foreign cities or nations he never dealt with alone, but caused a number of others to participate in the deliberations, and especially such as had once governed these peoples.

[-18-] Now Germanicus, having acquired a reputation for his campaign against the Celtae, advanced as far as the ocean, inflicted an overwhelming defeat upon the barbarians, collected and buried the bones of those who had fallen under Varus, and won back the military standards.

His wife Julia was not recalled from the banishment to which for unchastity her father Augustus had condemned her; nay, he even put her under lock and key till wretchedness and starvation caused her death.

[A.D. 17 or 18]

The senate urged upon Tiberius the request that the month of November, on the sixteenth of which he had been born, should be called Tiberius; to which he responded:  “What will you do, if there arise thirteen Caesars?”

[A.D. 19 (a. u. 772)]

Later, when Marcus Junius and Lucius Norbanus came to office, a portent of some magnitude occurred on the very first day of the month, and it doubtless had a bearing on the fate of Germanicus.  Norbanus the consul had always been devoted to the trumpet, and as he had practiced assiduously in this pursuit he wished on this occasion also to play the instrument just about dawn, when many persons were already near his house This proceeding threw them all without exception into confusion, just as if the consul had imparted to them some warlike signal; and they were also disturbed by the falling of the statue of Janus.  Their calm was further ruffled by an oracle, reputed to be a Sibylline utterance, which would not fit any other period of the city’s history, but pointed to that very time.  It declared: 

  “After thrice three hundred revolving years have been numbered, Civil
  strife shall consume the Romans,—­and the Sybaritan Folly.” ...

Tiberius denounced these verses as false and made an investigation of all the books containing any prophecies.  Some he rejected as worthless and others he admitted as genuine.

  As there had been a large influx of Jews into Rome and they were
  converting many of the native inhabitants to their principles he
  expelled the great majority of them.