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Suetonius describes Tiberius as surrounded by learned men and absorbed in obscure problems of astrology, mythology, and letters. The most resolute adherent of the more romantic story must have some difficulty in reconciling this band of prosy pedants with the sensual orgies which popular rumour located in the lonely palace. When, however, we learn that two young princes of the least intellectual and most immoral character formed part of the household, we see that there may have been two entirely distinct lives sheltered by the palace at Capreæ. If we suppose that these young men and their sycophantic attendants freely indulged in the vices which were then common to Roman youths, while their elders were intent on the glorious planets of a Neapolitan sky, we have a satisfactory explanation of the legend. The horror of Rome at the Emperor’s bloody avenging of the murder of his son would not dispose people to discriminate conscientiously.

One of these princes was Herod Agrippa, son of the King of Judæa, whom Octavian had brought to Rome for security. The other, a year younger, was “Caligula,” as the soldiers had nicknamed the surviving son of Agrippina and Germanicus. Caius Cæsar—to give him his real name—was in his nineteenth year when his mother was banished. Tiberius a few years later took him to Capreæ, where he would prove an apt pupil to Herod in Oriental ways. The vein of moral perversity, if not insanity, which we trace in all the descendants of Julia, is most clearly exhibited in Caligula, and the tragedy of the Cæsars deepens when, in the year 37, Tiberius dies, and Caligula is called to the throne.8