Tiberius sits in the Vatican Museum. That is to say, his marble effigy does. It was discovered in modern times at Veii in Italy and has been pronounced by antiquarian experts to be a genuine representation of him. He appears as a young man of fine figure and handsome face. With his right hand he holds up a baton, with his left he grasps a sheathed dagger between his knees; and this seems to be a fitting emblem,—though not perhaps intentional,—of his cruelty. Drapery is thrown over his shoulder and across his lap. On his head he wears a wreath. The ribbons that fasten it hang down behind his neck. His forehead is intellectual. The hair is cut straight across it. The face is smoothly shaven. The lips are thin. The other features are of generous size. Some may discern in the figure the promise of a strength and wisdom, which, also, was not fulfilled. Others may see in the face only weakness and a consciousness of posing. At any rate, the statue helps us to make history real to the imagination.
Why was this wicked man elevated to such honor and power? The thought comes to us that we have no such ancient portrait of the meek and lowly Saviour, who, while Tiberius was reigning, “went about doing good” and inviting the weary and heavy-laden to come to himself for rest. No sculptor from among Rome’s eminent artists was, of course, ever commissioned with promise of rich reward to perpetuate in bronze or marble the form and features of the despised Nazarene.
This is one of the many facts that remind us that the highest worth has often to wait long for its appreciation. But that appreciation will come at last. A few may turn aside from the busy streets of Rome to contemplate in the Vatican gallery this cold semblance of the unworthy man who petulantly ruled the world when the cruel cross was erected outside the walls of Jerusalem and when the yearning arms of Love Incarnate were stretched out in pain upon it. But the Victim on that cross has gloriously triumphed and has won His throne in millions of human hearts.
CHAPTER III
CALIGULA, THE MADCAP
CALIGULA
The third Roman emperor was Caligula. His real name was Caius. He was a son of Germanicus and Agrippina first, and a grandson of Drusus, who was a brother of the Emperor Tiberius. On his mother’s side he was a great-grandson of Augustus. Tiberius seems to have preferred him for his successor to Tiberius Gemellus, his own grandson.