as the enemies of both—­of the Romans, and of the democratic Nazarene.  If this emperor’s life had come down through provincial, and not metropolitan, channels, we should have heard of him as the most beneficent of men.  Indeed, Mr. Baring-Gould argues that among the Christians a tradition came down of him as of one “very near the Kingdom of God.”  It may be so; and such a view may even be the reflexion of the Nazarene Master’s own opinion as to Tiberius.  At any rate, we must suppose that at that time the Christian Movement was still fairly pure:  its seat was in the provinces, far from Rome; and its strength among humble people seeking to live the higher life.  But those who were interested to lie against Tiberius, and whose lies come down to us for history, were all metropolitans, and aristocrats, and apostles of degeneracy.  I do not mean to include Tacitus under the last head; but he belonged to the party, and inherited the tradition.

It was on the provinces that Tiberius had his hand, not on the metropolis.  He hoped the senators would do their duty, gave them every chance to; he rather turned his eyes away from their sphere, and kept them fixed on his own.  We must understand this well:  the histories give but accounts of Roman and home affairs; with which, as they were outside his duty, Tiberius concerned himself as little as he might.

But the senate’s conception of duty-doing was this:  flatter the Caesar in public with all the ingenuity and rhetoric God or the devil has given you; but for the sake of decency slander him in private, and so keep your self-respect.—­I abased my soul to Caesar, I?  Yes, I know I licked his shoes in the senate house; but that was merely camouflage.  At Agrippina’s at home I made up for it; was it not high-souled I who told that filthy story about him?—­which, (congratulate me!) I invented myself.  How dare you then accuse me of being small-spirited, or one to reverence any man soever?—­So these maggots crawled and tumbled; untill they brought down their own karma on their heads like the Assyrian in the poem, or a thousand of bricks.  Constitutuionalism broke down, and tyranny came on awfully in its place; and those who had not upheld the constitution suffered from the tyranny.  But it was not heroic Tiberius who was the tyrant.

He was unpopular with the crowd, because austere and taciturn; he would not wear the pomps and tinsels, or swagger it in public to their taste.  He was too reserved; he was not a good mixer:  if you fell on your knees to him, he simply recoiled in disgust.  He would not witness the gladiatorial games, with their sickening senseless bloodshed; nor the plays at the theatre, with their improprieties.  In these things he was an anomaly in his age, and felt about them as would any humane gentleman today.  So it was easy for his enemies to work up popular feeling aginst him.