Who can adequately express his astonishment at the changes of fortune, and the mysterious vicissitudes in human affairs? Who can refrain from hoping for a lot different from that which he now has, or from dreading one that is the opposite of what he expects? Take for example Livia. She, the daughter of the brave and noble Drusus Claudianus, most eminent of Roman women in birth, in sincerity, and in beauty, she, whom we later saw as the wife of Augustus, and as his priestess and daughter after his deification, was then a fugitive before the arms and forces of the very Caesar who was soon to, be her husband, carrying in her bosom her infant of two years, the present emperor Tiberius Caesar, destined to be the defender of the Roman empire and the son of this same Caesar. Pursuing by-paths that she might avoid the swords of the soldiers, and accompanied by but one attendant, so as the more readily to escape detection in her flight, she finally reached the sea, and with her husband Nero made her escape by ship to Sicily.

XCIV. At this period Tiberius Claudius Nero, in his nineteenth year, began his public life as quaestor. I have already told how, when he was three years of age, his mother Livia, the daughter of Drusus Claudianus, had become the wife of Caesar, her the island of Planasia where he was murdered by a centurion on the succession of Tiberius' former husband, Tiberius Nero, himself giving her in marriage to him. Nurtured by the teaching of eminent praeceptors, a youth equipped in the highest degree with the advantages of birth, personal beauty, commanding presence, an excellent education combined with native talents, Tiberius gave early promise of becoming the great man he now is, and already by his look revealed the prince. Now, acting on the orders of his stepfather, he so skillfully regulated the difficulties of the grain supply and relieved the scarcity of corn at Ostia and in the city that it was apparent from his execution of this commission how great he was destined to become. Shortly afterwards he was sent by his stepfather with an army to visit the eastern provinces and restore them to order, and in that part of the world gave splendid illustration of all his strong qualities. Entering Armenia with his legions, he brought it once more under the sovereignty of the Roman people, and gave the kingship to Artavasdes. Even the king of the Parthians, awed by the reputation of so great a name, sent his own children as hostages to Caesar.