Editing Agrippa Postumus (section)

===Events of AD 14===
[[File:Tiberius bust.jpg|thumb|right|A bust of Tiberius conserved in Paris at the [[Louvre]]]]
Augustus made no effort to contact Postumus until AD 14. In the summer of that year, Augustus left Rome, never to see the capital again. The main ancient sources of information about the period, Tacitus and Cassius Dio, suggest that Augustus left Rome in the company of only one trusted friend, the senator [[Paullus Fabius Maximus]]. They left for Planasia to pay Augustus' banished grandson a highly-controversial visit.<ref name=Fox471>{{harvnb|Fox|2006|p=471}}</ref>

Fabius and then Augustus died on their return without revealing what they had been doing.<ref name=Fox471/> Tacitus reports their visit to Planasia as a rumour although Dio reports it as fact. According to the historian [[Robin Lane Fox]], the alleged visit has sometimes been dismissed by modern scholars. However, it has been shown that Augustus and Fabius were absent from Rome in mid-May of AD 14. Augustus' adopted grandson, [[Drusus the Younger]], was then being admitted into the [[Arval Brethren]], and an inscription (''[[Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae|ILS]]'', 5026) shows that both Augustus and Fabius voted {{lang|la|in absentia}} to admit him into the priesthood.<ref>{{harvnb|Fox|2006|pp=471–472}}</ref>

There was much gossip over the outcome of their expedition. Tacitus recounts the rumour that Augustus had decided to reverse his decision and make Postumus his successor. In his account, Fabius indiscreetly told his wife what had occurred during the trip, and that cost him his life. Augustus' wife, Livia, too was said to have poisoned her husband to prevent Postumus from becoming the successor and thus supplanting her son Tiberius. While modern historians, including Fox, agree that such stories are highly unlikely, there is evidence that Augustus' journey was historical. "It is the last act in Augustus' long marathon of finding and keeping an heir to the new Empire".<ref name=Fox472>{{harvnb|Fox|2006|p=472}}</ref>