[-2-] So it was that Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus, the son of Drusus child of Livia, obtained the imperial power without having been previously tested at all in any position of authority, save only that he had been consul.  He was fifty years of age.  In mental development he was by no means inferior, having been through a sufficient education to do a little history writing, but physically he was frail, and his head and hands shook a little.  Hence his voice was also faltering and he did not himself read all the measures that he introduced before the senate but would give them to the quaestor to read,—­though at first, at least, he was regularly present.  Whatever he did read in person he generally recited sitting down.  He was the first of the Romans, too, to employ a covered chair,—­which has led to the present custom which prescribes that not only the emperors be carried in chairs but we ex-consuls, as well.  Before this time, Augustus, Tiberius, and some others used to be carried sometimes in litters such as women even at the present day affect.  These infirmities, however, were not the cause of nearly so much trouble to him as were the freedmen and women with whom he associated; for more conspicuously than any of his peers he was ruled by slaves and by women.  From a child he had been reared with careful nursing and in the midst of terror and had for that reason feigned simplicity to a greater extent than was really true this fact he himself admitted in the senate:  and as he had lived for a long time with his grandmother Livia and for another long period with his mother Antonia and again with liberti, and moreover had had several amours with women, he had acquired no qualities becoming a freeman, but although ruler of all the Romans and their subjects he was himself nothing more nor less than a slave.  They would take advantage of him particularly when he was inclined to drink and sexual intercourse, for in both these directions he was quite insatiable and on such occasions was exceedingly easy to master.  Moreover, he was afflicted by cowardice, which frequently roused in him so great alarm that he could not calculate anything as he ought.  They anticipated this failing of his, too, and it was no inconsiderable help toward getting the better of him.  By frightening him half to death they would reap great benefits, and in other people they inspired so much fear that—­to give an epitome of the situation—­once when a number were on the same day invited to dinner by Claudius and again by his dependents, the guests neglected him on some indifferent pretext and presented themselves at the feast of his companions.

[-3-] Though, generally speaking, he was the sort of character described, still he performed not a few valuable services whenever he was free from the influences mentioned and was master of himself.  I shall take up his acts in detail.