Tiberius suffered under the misfortune of being compared to the great Augustus. He was a lover of solitude which rendered him unsuitable for his position hut he seems to have been a great ruler, though with many personal faults. Caligula was the youngest son of Germanicus. His reign is a typical ex ample of what may happen when inheritance dictates the choice of a ruler for he proved to be quite insane and a very monster of cruelty. He was murdered by an officer of the Prmtor ian Guard and then the army dictated that Claudius the uncle of Caligula, and brother of Germanicus, should be chosen as Emperor and the Senate had to confirm their choice. Clau dius in person led the Roman army in Britain and made that a Roman province, and he added Mauretania, Lycia and Thrace to the Empire and did much for Rome, making the harbor of Ostia and draining the neighborhood. Claudius was even more unfortunate than Au gustus in his domestic life and was poisoned by his last wife, Agrippina, who made him adopt her son, Nero, as his successor, while his first wife Messalina, goes down in history, proverbial for wickedness. Nero is one of the worst abused men of history, and yet probably does not deserve it all. In the first part of his reign he accomplished much for the Roman people. Then a strain of madness came over him and he committed some of the worst crimes. He initiated the persecution of the Christians and whether he set Rome on fire or not is uncertain, but he took advantage of the fire to rebuild the city much more safely and substantially and in more magnificent style. The Greeks sincerely mourned his death for he had a fine appreciation of their art and literature and seems to have possessed no mean artistic talents in music and in acting, though of course his desire to exhibit these was counted a deep stigma on his dignity at that time.
The three military Caesars were succeeded by Flavius Vespasian whose sons, Titus and Domitian followed him on the throne, as the Flavian line. Vespasian was chosen Emperor by the Eastern troops. He had to take Rome by siege, during which the ancient temple on the Capitoline was burned. The disorder in the choice of emperors for several years led to insurrection among the subject peoples, but these were suppressed by Vespasian firmly and completely. When Vespasian was elected em peror, he was on an expedition against the Jews who had declared their independence of Rome (67) and his son Titus was left in com mand in Palestine. Titus captured the city and destroyed the Jewish temple (70), which led to the dispersion of the Jews throughout .the the world, and undoubtedly helped in the propa gation of Christianity. Vespasian proved a great emperor who brought peace and security to Rome. He built the Coliseum as well as a number of other magnificent buildings and established a system of schools with regularly paid professors. In 79 he was succeeded by his son Titus who had been- associated with him in the government. Titus made himself the most loved ruler that Rome ever had. From him comes the expression (Count that day lost on which no good action has been done?' Famine, pestilence, earthquake, the eruption of Vesuvius which destroyed Pompeii and Her culanwum as well as a severely destructive fire at Rome lasting three days occurred during his reign and Titus had abundant opportunities to exercise his benevolence and took them finely. He was given the title of ((the Love
and Darling of the human race' Unfortu nately he died at the early age of 41 after a reign of 12 years to be succeeded by his brother Domitian. Titus was the first son of a father to succeed to the Empire as Domitian was the second but with very unlike results. After a worthy beginning of his reign, he became as cruel as any of the Claudian emperors and, with inordinate vanity, insisted on being called not only Lord, Dominus, but God, Divus. He came after a time to delight in murder, and when at last he himself was murdered by his wife (96), all Rome was relieved. Domitian, however, enriched the capital with some of its finest monuments — the Temple of Vespasian in the Forum, the Arch of Titus for his brother's victory over the Jews and the Palace on the Palatine still a subject of wonder.
The Golden Age of Latin literature was finished before the Christian era began. Virgil, Horace, Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, all being dead, though Ovid and Livy lived over into the 1st century even longer than Augustus himself, both dying in 17 A.D. What has been called the Silver Age marks this century as a great though not one of the greatest periods in the history of literature. The important names in it are Seneca, Tacitus, Juvenal, Quintilian and the Plinys beside whom deserve to be mentioned Lucan, Persius, Martial and Petronius. Tacitus is often spoken of with Herodotus and Thucy dides as one of the three greatest of historians and there is no doubt that he had a wonderful power of penetrating human motives and a marvellous condensation of style, but the ques tion whether the satirist and politician did not eclipse the historian in him has come to be discussed more and more in recent years. Quintilian is one of the first successful men of letters in history, who rose to wealth and honor through literature; Juvenal is perhaps the greatest of satirists who ever lived, though Martial in his Epigrams has given a fuller picture of the characteristic frivolous life of Rome at the end of the 1st century. Roman literature of the Golden Age had much less of native originality and of the national char acter than that of the Silver Age. Greek models were more consciously imitated in the first period but the time of the Cvsars with its tyranny and lack of true national spirit could not be favorable to the growth of a really great national literature. Livy's fervid belief in the greatness of Rome so beautifully expressed at the beginning of the century had little chance to be lived under the Claudian Emperors, though the Flavian era and the be ginning of the times of the Spanish Qesars at Rome gave the or the Silver Age literature which has always Influenced deeply all subsequent periods of conscious literary devel opment.