In conclusion, the departure of Tiberius, and the severe judgment the public gave it, still further weakened the conservative party, already for some years in decline, by a natural transformation of the public spirit.  Perhaps the party of tradition would have been entirely spent, had not events soon reminded Rome that its spirit was the life of the military order.  The departure of Tiberius, the man who represented this spirit, rapidly disorganised the army and the external policy of Rome.  Up to that time Augustus had had beside him a powerful helper—­first Agrippa, afterwards Tiberius; but then he found himself alone at the head of the Empire, a man already well on in years; and for the first time it appeared that this zealous bureaucrat, this fastidious administrator, this intellectual idler, who could do an enormous amount of work on condition that he be not forced to issue from his study and encounter currents of air too strong for him, was insufficient to direct alone the politics of an immense empire, which required, in addition to the sagacity of the administrator and the ingenuity of the legislator, the resoluteness of the warrior and the man of action.

The State rapidly fell into a stupor.  In Germany, where it was necessary to proceed to the ordering of the province, everything was suspended; the people, apparently subdued, were not bound to pay any tribute, and were left to govern themselves solely and entirely by their own laws—­a strange anomaly in the history of the Roman conquests, which only the departure of Tiberius can explain.  At such a distance, when he was no longer counselled by Tiberius who so well understood German affairs, Augustus trusted no other assistants, fearing lack of zeal and intelligence; distrusting himself also, he dared initiate nothing in the conquered province.  The Senate, inert as usual, gave it not a thought.  So Germany remained an uncertainty, neither a province nor independent, for fifteen years, a fact wherein is perhaps to be found the real cause of the catastrophe of Varus, which ruined the whole German policy of Rome.

Furthermore, in Pannonia and Dalmatia, when it was known that the most valiant general of Rome was in disgrace at Rodi, the malcontents took fresh courage, reopened an agitation that could but terminate in a revolt, much more dangerous than any preceding.  In the Orient, Palestine arose in 4 B.C., on the death of Herod the Great, against his son, Archelaus, and against the Hellenised monarchy, demanding to be made a Roman province like Syria, and a frightful civil war illumined with its sinister glare the cradle of Jesus.  The governor of Syria, Quintilius Varus, threw himself into Judea and succeeded in crushing the revolt; but Augustus, unable to bring himself either to give full satisfaction to the Hebrew people or to execute entirely the testament of Herod, decided as usual on a compromise:  he divided the ancient kingdom of Herod the Great among three of his sons,