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He did it; and the feet of his soul were indeed washed in the blood of his heart. He said no word; he divorced Vipsania and explained nothing. But for months afterwards, if he should chance to meet her, or see her in the street far off, he could not hide the fact that his eyes filled with tears.
Marrying Vipsania after she had been divorced by Tiberius, he incurred the displeasure of that emperor, and died of famine, either voluntarily, or by order of the tyrant. He wrote a comparison between his father and Cicero, in which, with more filial partiality than justice, he gave the preference to the former.
But Tiberius had made a love-match, with a mere daughter of Agrippa by some former wife: an alliance that could not advance him in any way. Her name was Vipsania; the whole intensity of his pent-up nature went into his feeling for her; he was remarkably happily married; that is, for the human, the tender, sensitive, and affectionate side of him. Meanwhile both brothers had proved their worth.
What figures from the Comédie Humaine of Roman society of the first century throng the pages of Tacitus Sejanus, Arruntius, Piso, Otho, Bassus, Caecina, Tigellinus, Lucanus, Petronius, Seneca, Corbulo, Burrus, Silius, Drusus, Pallas, and Narcissus; and those tragic women of the Annals imperious, recklessly daring, beautiful or loyal Livia, Messalina, Vipsania, the two Agrippinas, mothers of Caligula and of Nero, Urgulania, Sabina Poppaea, Epicharis, Lollia Paulina, Lepida, Calpurnia, Pontia, Servilia, and Acte!
The cup of his grief was now quite full; and indeed, worse things a man could hardly suffer. Austere, reserved, and self-controlled as he was, at sight of Vipsania he could not hide his tears. But it is written: "Before the eyes can see, they must become incapable of tears."
There was also his patent devotion to Vipsania..... You could only sneer at him, if at all, for lack of spirit. He had, then, great and magnificent qualities; but the scars of his babyhood peril remained.
Augustus hesitated long before he dared take the tremendous step he did: as one doubtful whether it would accomplish what he hoped, or simply kill at once the delicate psychic organism to be affected by it. Then he struck, hurled the bolt. Let Tiberius put away Vipsania and marry Julia. Put away that adored Vipsania: marry that Julia, whom every single instinct in his nature abhorred!
Tiberius, in the name of his adopted son, bestowed three hundred sesterces apiece upon all the citizens, and the Senate chose the popular favorite as consul for the ensuing year, in conjunction with the emperor himself. This prince was the son of Tiberius by his first wife, Vipsania, and was the cousin of Germanicus.
Drusus went now without the city, there to renew the ceremony of the auspices, and presently re-entered in the triumph of ovation. A few days after died Vipsania his mother; of all the children of Agrippa, the only one who made a pacific end: the rest manifestly perished, or are believed to have perished, by the sword, poison, or famine.
For this purpose, he had the presumption to seduce Livia, the wife of Drusus, to whom she had borne several children; and she consented to marry her adulterer upon the death of her husband, who was soon after poisoned, through the means of an eunuch named Lygdus, by order of her and Sejanus. Drusus was the son of Tiberius by Vipsania, one of Agrippa's daughters.
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