" The Emperor
adopted the offspring of Claudius: among the Romans, these legal adoptions
were as valid as descent by blood; and Tiberius was brought up to be the
son of Caesar. His natural parts were improved and strengthened, by the
training of the Forum and the camp. Tiberius became a good orator; and he
gained victory and reputation, in his wars against the savages of Germany
and Dalmatia: but his peculiar talent was for literature; in this, "he was
a great purist, and affected a wonderful precision about his words." He
composed some Greek poems, and a Latin Elegy upon Lucius Caesar: he also
wrote an account of his own life, an _Apologia_; a volume, which the
Emperor Domitian was never tired of reading. But the favourite pursuit of
Tiberius was Greek divinity; like some of the mediaeval Doctors, he
frequented the by-ways of religion, and amused his leisure with the more
difficult problems in theology: "Who was Hecuba's mother?" "What poetry
the Sirens chaunted?" "What was Achilles' name, when he lay hid among the
women?" The writings of Tiberius have all perished; and in these days, we
have only too much cause to regret, that nothing of his "precision" has
come down to us.
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