TIBERIUS NERO CAESAR.

One of the first victims in the sanguinary reign of the present emperor, was Germanicus, the son of Drusus, Tiberius’s own brother, and who had been adopted by his uncle himself. Under any sovereign, of a temper different from that of Tiberius, this amiable and meritorious prince would have been held in the highest esteem. At the death of his grandfather Augustus, he was employed in a war in Germany, where he greatly distinguished himself by his military achievements; and as soon as intelligence of that event arrived, the soldiers, by whom he was extremely beloved, unanimously saluted him emperor. Refusing, however, to accept this mark of their partiality, he persevered in allegiance to the government of his uncle, and prosecuted the war with success. Upon the conclusion of this expedition, he was sent, with the title of emperor in the East, to repress the seditions of the Armenians, in which he was equally successful. But the (243) fame which he acquired, served only to render him an object of jealousy to Tiberius, by whose order he was secretly poisoned at Daphne, near Antioch, in the thirty-fourth year of his age. The news of Germanicus’s death was received at Rome with universal lamentation; and all ranks of the people entertained an opinion, that, had he survived Tiberius, he would have restored the freedom of the republic. The love and gratitude of the Romans decreed many honours to his memory. It was ordered, that his name should be