VIII. THE "BOY HERO" OF THE CRIMEA, Public Opinion,

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Since when, I've toiled and failed and There was a time I loved to flit

From The Quarterly Review. Gaius, it has very strong probability.
Like much else, too, that has since

THE TRAGEDY OF THE CÆSARS.1

"THE Tragedy of the Cæsars" is been written about the earlier emthe taking title which Mr. Baring-perors, it may be found in substance Gould, with an eye to effect, has chosen in De Quincey's celebrated series of for his elaborate study of character essays on "The Cæsars." In the prefamong the earlier Roman emperors. ace to his tenth volume (printed as a Nor can he be accused of parading in postscript in Professor Masson's edi this a mere catch-penny phrase. To tion) he says downright, "A taint of every lover of his country, whether a insanity certainly prevailed in the Cæsarian or a partisan of the Seuate, blood of the earlier Cæsars," though the story of the principate must have he somewhat weakens the ground of seemed, as early as the later days of his own diagnosis by admitting that Nero, to have possessed all the ele-"the largest license might have been ments of genuine tragedy, only that properly allowed to a bold spirit of the one would have regarded it as a incredulity "—about the very facts on sad example of dramatic irony, the the enormity of which the charge of other of unrelenting Nemesis. Mr. insanity mainly depends. Mr. BaringBaring-Gould is not merely a fervent Gould is somewhat more consistent but if we may be allowed the word in one part of his work, but less so in a perfervid Cæsarian. To him the the other. Having a natural bias fall from the opening millennium un- rather towards dramatic imagination der Julius to the unchaining of the than sternly critical history, he puts all devil under Nero resolves itself into the lights in the first half of his picture the doom of the imperial family, the in order to deepen the shadows of the curse of hereditary insanity. Let this other half. be assumed as the key to the enigma, and we unquestionably have the materials for a gigantic tragedy, working itself out on a vaster and more conspicuous stage than was ever conceived by the brain of a dramatist.

Crimina rasis

Librat in antithetis.

Julius, Augustus, and Tiberius appear very white, in order that Gaius, Claudius, and Nero may be by contrast even more than traditionally black.

Now this theory of insanity is an How far Mr. Baring-Gould is preattempt to account for much that seems pared to go in his theory is best shown absolutely to bewilder any reader when by a curious little table (ii. 9), which, he tries to realize the extraordinary as he says, "surely speaks for itself," world depicted by Tacitus or Suetonius. provided, that is (as he does not say), It is neither a new nor an entirely that the facts stated therein are suffibaseless one; in fact, in the case of ciently attested. Here it is:

OCTAVIUS

JULIA
(moral paralysis).

The omissions as well as the inclusions | theory of insanity among the Cæsars, of this table should be noticed. If but in its use of portraiture as a suffi"moral paralysis " be a proof of hered- cient source or test of history. The itary insanity in Julia, which of the work, as its sub-title indicates, is bioladies of the imperial house — unless it graphical rather than historical; a study be Octavia - would not have to be of the character of the first six emadded to the list? And, again, the perors rather than of the early Empire. "probable half insanity" of Agrippina Mr. Baring-Gould believes that where the elder and the insanity of Agrippa available historiaus are untrustworthy, and Drusus require much more careful a character can be accurately deciexamination of the evidence than they phered from coins or busts. He says : receive in order to bear the weight that When I have come to know intimately is thus put upon them. On the other one whose face I have thus explored, it has haud, Mr. Baring-Gould must be "as-been instructive to compare the man as I tonished at his own moderation" for have found him with the man I imagined not including Agrippina the younger him, to correct errors in interpretation and among the insane, or at least the mor- supplement deficiencies in observation. ally paralyzed. The explanation, per- Accordingly the principal feature of haps, is that the victims of Nero must the work is the fine series of illustrabe so treated as to heighten the tragictions, one hundred and seventeen in effect of his madness in the story of their deaths.

all, from busts, coins, or cameos, for the most part excellently reproduced, It is scarcely surprising, therefore, if which even without any letter-press Mr. Baring-Gould, himself a novelist of - would give the book a permanent powerful and somewhat gloomy imagi- interest and value. The illustrations nation, has marshalled his facts, with are thus not a mere embellishment, but this end in view, more for their iman essential part of the work, the lanpressiveness than their critical value. teru-slides to which Mr. Baring-Gould He makes, however, a remarkable exception in the case of Tiberius. In-line of dignified figures, from Sulla to proposes to act as interpreter. As the stead of letting himself be led away, as might perhaps have been expected, by the unquestionably dramatic though morally impossible portrait drawn by Tacitus, he has not only resisted the temptation, but devoted himself to clearing away the slanders with unusual thoroughness; and his appendix

to the second volume in vindication of

Tiberius is the most painstaking piece of writing in the whole work. So the emperors come out neatly arranged on a sort of Ebal and Gerizim; the first three, virtuous, merciful, and wise; the last three, debauched, murderous, and either idiotic or insane.

Seneca, from Julius to Nero, passes before his eye, the scholar may perhaps think of the "Hebdomades, sive de imaginibus," 1 of Varro, the earliest portrait-album known in the world; the most fascinating, probably, if we could but recover it, of all the lost works of antiquity.

Now, on this use of classical portraits, invaluable as it unquestionably is within certain limits, two fairly obvi

ous cautions will occur to most of those

who have had to deal with ancient busts or coins. The first is that busts are but rarely attested by a certain conBut the originality of this very in-need rigorous verification and general temporary inscription, and therefore teresting if somewhat provoking-acceptance before they can possibly be work consists not in its acceptance, or admitted not merely to supplement but even its large development of the to modify or upset definite written evidence. Like other witnesses, they need full cross-examination.

3. The Annals of Tacitus. Edited by Henry Furneaux. 2 vols. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1884

and 1891.

4. Catiline, Clodius, and Tiberius. By E. S. Beesly. London, 1878.

The

1 Pliny, Hist. Nat., xxxv. 2, 11; Cicero, ad Att., xvi. 11, 3.

other, which applies rather to the | Still, when all drawbacks are admitted, coins, is how far can these heads of the this portion of Mr. Baring-Gould's Cæsars or other great personages be work is the one which gives the most admitted as portraits at all? Realistic satisfaction, though his imagination as portraiture was neither understood nor an interpreter is sometimes allowed to attempted in the earlier heads of this outrun his critical discretion. The series, some of which were not even great advantage of this power of destruck in the lifetime of the person ciding character by intuition is that depicted, and in the cases of ladies it enables the interpreter to confirm especially, was probably thought a vul- or dismiss evidence without further garization until a later date than Nero.