ANNALS.

109 AD
THE ANNALS
By P. Cornelius Tacitus
translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
BOOK I, A.D. 14, 15

ROME at the beginning was ruled by kings. Freedom and the consulship
were established by Lucius Brutus. Dictatorships were held for a
temporary crisis. The power of the decemvirs did not last beyond two
years, nor was the consular jurisdiction of the military tribunes of
long duration. The despotisms of Cinna and Sulla were brief; the
rule of Pompeius and of Crassus soon yielded before Caesar; the arms
of Lepidus and Antonius before Augustus; who, when the world was
wearied by civil strife, subjected it to empire under the title of
"Prince." But the successes and reverses of the old Roman people
have been recorded by famous historians; and fine intellects were
not wanting to describe the times of Augustus, till growing sycophancy
scared them away. The histories of Tiberius, Caius, Claudius, and
Nero, while they were in power, were falsified through terror, and
after their death were written under the irritation of a recent
hatred. Hence my purpose is to relate a few facts about Augustus- more
particularly his last acts, then the reign of Tiberius, and all
which follows, without either bitterness or partiality, from any
motives to which I am far removed.
When after the destruction of Brutus and Cassius there was no longer
any army of the Commonwealth, when Pompeius was crushed in Sicily, and
when, with Lepidus pushed aside and Antonius slain, even the Julian
faction had only Caesar left to lead it, then, dropping the title of
triumvir, and giving out that he was a Consul, and was satisfied
with a tribune's authority for the protection of the people,
Augustus won over the soldiers with gifts, the populace with cheap
corn, and all men with the sweets of repose, and so grew greater by
degrees, while he concentrated in himself the functions of the Senate,
the magistrates, and the laws. He was wholly unopposed, for the
boldest spirits had fallen in battle, or in the proscription, while
the remaining nobles, the readier they were to be slaves, were
raised the higher by wealth and promotion, so that, aggrandised by
revolution, they preferred the safety of the present to the
dangerous past. Nor did the provinces dislike that condition of
affairs, for they distrusted the government of the Senate and the
people, because of the rivalries between the leading men and the
rapacity of the officials, while the protection of the laws was
unavailing, as they were continually deranged by violence, intrigue,
and finally by corruption.
Augustus meanwhile, as supports to his despotism, raised to the
pontificate and curule aedileship Claudius Marcellus, his sister's
son, while a mere stripling, and Marcus Agrippa, of humble birth, a
good soldier, and one who had shared his victory, to two consecutive
consulships, and as Marcellus soon afterwards died, he also accepted
him as his son-in-law. Tiberius Nero and Claudius Drusus, his
stepsons, he honoured with imperial tides, although his own family was
as yet undiminished. For he had admitted the children of Agrippa,
Caius and Lucius, into the house of the Caesars; and before they had
yet laid aside the dress of boyhood he had most fervently desired,
with an outward show of reluctance, that they should be entitled
"princes of the youth," and be consuls-elect. When Agrippa died, and
Lucius Caesar as he was on his way to our armies in Spain, and Caius
while returning from Armenia, still suffering from a wound, were
prematurely cut off by destiny, or by their step-mother Livia's
treachery, Drusus too having long been dead, Nero remained alone of
the stepsons, and in him everything tended to centre. He was adopted
as a son, as a colleague in empire and a partner in the tribunitian
power, and paraded through all the armies, no longer through his
mother's secret intrigues, but at her open suggestion. For she had
gained such a hold on the aged Augustus that he drove out as an
exile into the island of Planasia, his only grandson, Agrippa
Postumus, who, though devoid of worthy qualities, and having only
the brute courage of physical strength, had not been convicted of
any gross offence. And yet Augustus had appointed Germanicus, Drusus's
offspring, to the command of eight legions on the Rhine, and
required Tiberius to adopt him, although Tiberius had a son, now a
young man, in his house; but he did it that he might have several
safeguards to rest on. He had no war at the time on his hands except
against the Germans, which was rather to wipe out the disgrace of
the loss of Quintilius Varus and his army than out of an ambition to
extend the empire, or for any adequate recompense. At home all was
tranquil, and there were magistrates with the same titles; there was a
younger generation, sprung up since the victory of Actium, and even
many of the older men had been born during the civil wars. How few
were left who had seen the republic!
Thus the State had been revolutionised, and there was not a
vestige left of the old sound morality. Stript of equality, all looked
up to the commands of a sovereign without the least apprehension for
the present, while Augustus in the vigour of life, could maintain
his own position, that of his house, and the general tranquillity.
When in advanced old age, he was worn out by a sickly frame, and the
end was near and new prospects opened, a few spoke in vain of the
blessings of freedom, but most people dreaded and some longed for war.
The popular gossip of the large majority fastened itself variously
on their future masters. "Agrippa was savage, and had been exasperated
by insult, and neither from age nor experience in affairs was equal to
so great a burden. Tiberius Nero was of mature years, and had
established his fame in war, but he had the old arrogance inbred in
the Claudian family, and many symptoms of a cruel temper, though
they were repressed, now and then broke out. He had also from earliest
infancy been reared in an imperial house; consulships and triumphs had
been heaped on him in his younger days; even in the years which, on
the pretext of seclusion he spent in exile at Rhodes, he had had no
thoughts but of wrath, hypocrisy, and secret sensuality. There was his
mother too with a woman caprice. They must, it seemed, be subject to a
female and to two striplings besides, who for a while would burden,
and some day rend asunder the State."
While these and like topics were discussed, the infirmities of
Augustus increased, and some suspected guilt on his wife's part. For a
rumour had gone abroad that a few months before he had sailed to
Planasia on a visit to Agrippa, with the knowledge of some chosen
friends, and with one companion, Fabius Maximus; that many tears
were shed on both sides, with expressions of affection, and that
thus there was a hope of the young man being restored to the home of
his grandfather. This, it was said, Maximus had divulged to his wife
Marcia, she again to Livia. All was known to Caesar, and when
Maximus soon afterwards died, by a death some thought to be
self-inflicted, there were heard at his funeral wailings from
Marcia, in which she reproached herself for having been the cause of
her husband's destruction. Whatever the fact was, Tiberius as he was
just entering Illyria was summoned home by an urgent letter from his
mother, and it has not been thoroughly ascertained whether at the city
of Nola he found Augustus still breathing or quite lifeless. For Livia
had surrounded the house and its approaches with a strict watch, and
favourable bulletins were published from time to time, till, provision
having been made for the demands of the crisis, one and the same
report told men that Augustus was dead and that Tiberius Nero was
master of the State.
The first crime of the new reign was the murder of Postumus Agrippa.
Though he was surprised and unarmed, a centurion of the firmest
resolution despatched him with difficulty. Tiberius gave no
explanation of the matter to the Senate; he pretended that there
were directions from his father ordering the tribune in charge of
the prisoner not to delay the slaughter of Agrippa, whenever he should
himself have breathed his last. Beyond a doubt, Augustus had often
complained of the young man's character, and had thus succeeded in
obtaining the sanction of a decree of the Senate for his banishment.
But he never was hard-hearted enough to destroy any of his kinsfolk,
nor was it credible that death was to be the sentence of the
grandson in order that the stepson might feel secure. It was more
probable that Tiberius and Livia, the one from fear, the other from
a stepmother's enmity, hurried on the destruction of a youth whom they
suspected and hated. When the centurion reported, according to
military custom, that he had executed the command, Tiberius replied
that he had not given the command, and that the act must be
justified to the Senate.
As soon as Sallustius Crispus who shared the secret (he had, in
fact, sent the written order to the tribune) knew this, fearing that
the charge would be shifted on himself, and that his peril would be
the same whether he uttered fiction or truth, he advised Livia not
to divulge the secrets of her house or the counsels of friends, or any
services performed by the soldiers, nor to let Tiberius weaken the
strength of imperial power by referring everything to the Senate,
for "the condition," he said, "of holding empire is that an account
cannot be balanced unless it be rendered to one person."
Meanwhile at Rome people plunged into slavery- consuls, senators,
knights. The higher a man's rank, the more eager his hypocrisy, and
his looks the more carefully studied, so as neither to betray joy at
the decease of one emperor nor sorrow at the rise of another, while he
mingled delight and lamentations with his flattery. Sextus Pompeius
and Sextus Apuleius, the consuls, were the first to swear allegiance
to Tiberius Caesar, and in their presence the oath was taken by
Seius Strabo and Caius Turranius, respectively the commander of the
praetorian cohorts and the superintendent of the corn supplies. Then
the Senate, the soldiers and the people did the same. For Tiberius
would inaugurate everything with the consuls, as though the ancient
constitution remained, and he hesitated about being emperor. Even
the proclamation by which he summoned the senators to their chamber,
he issued merely with the title of Tribune, which he had received
under Augustus. The wording of the proclamation was brief, and in a
very modest tone. "He would," it said, "provide for the honours due to
his father, and not leave the lifeless body, and this was the only
public duty he now claimed."
As soon, however, as Augustus was dead, he had given the watchword
to the praetorian cohorts, as commander-in-chief. He had the guard
under arms, with all the other adjuncts of a court; soldiers
attended him to the forum; soldiers went with him to the Senate House.
He sent letters to the different armies, as though supreme power was
now his, and showed hesitation only when he spoke in the Senate. His
chief motive was fear that Germanicus, who had at his disposal so many
legions, such vast auxiliary forces of the allies, and such
wonderful popularity, might prefer the possession to the expectation
of empire. He looked also at public opinion, wishing to have the
credit of having been called and elected by the State rather than of
having crept into power through the intrigues of a wife and a dotard's
adoption. It was subsequently understood that he assumed a wavering
attitude, to test likewise the temper of the nobles. For he would
twist a word or a look into a crime and treasure it up in his memory.
On the first day of the Senate he allowed nothing to be discussed
but the funeral of Augustus, whose will, which was brought in by the
Vestal Virgins, named as his heirs Tiberius and Livia. The latter
was to be admitted into the Julian family with the name of Augusta;
next in expectation were the grand and great-grandchildren. In the
third place, he had named the chief men of the State, most of whom
he hated, simply out of ostentation and to win credit with
posterity. His legacies were not beyond the scale of a private
citizen, except a bequest of forty-three million five hundred thousand
sesterces "to the people and populace of Rome," of one thousand to
every praetorian soldier, and of three hundred to every man in the
legionary cohorts composed of Roman citizens.
Next followed a deliberation about funeral honours. Of these the
most imposing were thought fitting. The procession was to be conducted
through "the gate of triumph," on the motion of Gallus Asinius; the
titles of the laws passed, the names of the nations conquered by
Augustus were to be borne in front, on that of Lucius Arruntius.
Messala Valerius further proposed that the oath of allegiance to
Tiberius should be yearly renewed, and when Tiberius asked him whether
it was at his bidding that he had brought forward this motion, he
replied that he had proposed it spontaneously, and that in whatever
concerned the State he would use only his own discretion, even at
the risk of offending. This was the only style of adulation which
yet remained. The Senators unanimously exclaimed that the body ought
to be borne on their shoulders to the funeral pile. The emperor left
the point to them with disdainful moderation, he then admonished the
people by a proclamation not to indulge in that tumultuous
enthusiasm which had distracted the funeral of the Divine Julius, or
express a wish that Augustus should be burnt in the Forum instead of
in his appointed resting-place in the Campus Martius.
On the day of the funeral soldiers stood round as a guard, amid much
ridicule from those who had either themselves witnessed or who had
heard from their parents of the famous day when slavery was still
something fresh, and freedom had been resought in vain, when the
slaying of Caesar, the Dictator, seemed to some the vilest, to others,
the most glorious of deeds. "Now," they said, "an aged sovereign,
whose power had lasted long, who had provided his heirs with
abundant means to coerce the State, requires forsooth the defence of
soldiers that his burial may be undisturbed."
Then followed much talk about Augustus himself, and many expressed
an idle wonder that the same day marked the beginning of his
assumption of empire and the close of his life, and, again, that he
had ended his days at Nola in the same house and room as his father
Octavius. People extolled too the number of his consulships, in
which he had equalled Valerius Corvus and Caius Marius combined, the
continuance for thirty-seven years of the tribunitian power, the title
of Imperator twenty-one times earned, and his other honours which
had either frequently repeated or were wholly new. Sensible men,
however, spoke variously of his life with praise and censure. Some
said "that dutiful feeling towards a father, and the necessities of
the State in which laws had then no place, drove him into civil war,
which can neither be planned nor conducted on any right principles. He
had often yielded to Antonius, while he was taking vengeance on his
father's murderers, often also to Lepidus. When the latter sank into
feeble dotage and the former had been ruined by his profligacy, the
only remedy for his distracted country was the rule of a single man.
Yet the State had been organized under the name neither of a kingdom
nor a dictatorship, but under that of a prince. The ocean and remote
rivers were the boundaries of the empire; the legions, provinces,
fleets, all things were linked together; there was law for the
citizens; there was respect shown to the allies. The capital had
been embellished on a grand scale; only in a few instances had he
resorted to force, simply to secure general tranquillity."
It was said, on the other hand, "that filial duty and State
necessity were merely assumed as a mask. It was really from a lust
of sovereignty that he had excited the veterans by bribery, had,
when a young man and a subject, raised an army, tampered with the
Consul's legions, and feigned an attachment to the faction of
Pompeius. Then, when by a decree of the Senate he had usurped the high
functions and authority of Praetor when Hirtius and Pansa were
slain- whether they were destroyed by the enemy, or Pansa by poison
infused into a wound, Hirtius by his own soldiers and Caesar's
treacherous machinations- he at once possessed himself of both their
armies, wrested the consulate from a reluctant Senate, and turned
against the State the arms with which he had been intrusted against
Antonius. Citizens were proscribed, lands divided, without so much
as the approval of those who executed these deeds. Even granting
that the deaths of Cassius and of the Bruti were sacrifices to a
hereditary enmity (though duty requires us to waive private feuds
for the sake of the public welfare), still Pompeius had been deluded
by the phantom of peace, and Lepidus by the mask of friendship.
Subsequently, Antonius had been lured on by the treaties of Tarentum
and Brundisium, and by his marriage with the sister, and paid by his
death the penalty of a treacherous alliance. No doubt, there was peace
after all this, but it was a peace stained with blood; there were
the disasters of Lollius and Varus, the murders at Rome of the Varros,
Egnatii, and Juli."
The domestic life too of Augustus was not spared. "Nero's wife had
been taken from him, and there had been the farce of consulting the
pontiffs, whether, with a child conceived and not yet born, she
could properly marry. There were the excesses of Quintus Tedius and
Vedius Pollio; last of all, there was Livia, terrible to the State
as a mother, terrible to the house of the Caesars as a stepmother.
No honour was left for the gods, when Augustus chose to be himself
worshipped with temples and statues, like those of the deities, and
with flamens and priests. He had not even adopted Tiberius as his
successor out of affection or any regard to the State, but, having
thoroughly seen his arrogant and savage temper, he had sought glory
for himself by a contrast of extreme wickedness." For, in fact,
Augustus, a few years before, when he was a second time asking from
the Senate the tribunitian power for Tiberius, though his speech was
complimentary, had thrown out certain hints as to his manners,
style, and habits of life, which he meant as reproaches, while he
seemed to excuse. However, when his obsequies had been duly performed,
a temple with a religious ritual was decreed him.
After this all prayers were addressed to Tiberius. He, on his
part, urged various considerations, the greatness of the empire, his
distrust of himself. "Only," he said, "the intellect of the Divine
Augustus was equal to such a burden. Called as he had been by him to
share his anxieties, he had learnt by experience how exposed to
fortune's caprices was the task of universal rule. Consequently, in
a state which had the support of so many great men, they should not
put everything on one man, as many, by uniting their efforts would
more easily discharge public functions." There was more grand
sentiment than good faith in such words. Tiberius's language even in
matters which he did not care to conceal, either from nature or habit,
was always hesitating and obscure, and now that he was struggling to
hide his feelings completely, it was all the more involved in
uncertainty and doubt. The Senators, however, whose only fear was lest
they might seem to understand him, burst into complaints, tears, and
prayers. They raised their hands to the gods, to the statue of
Augustus, and to the knees of Tiberius, when he ordered a document
to be produced and read. This contained a description of the resources
of the State, of the number of citizens and allies under arms, of
the fleets, subject kingdoms, provinces, taxes, direct and indirect,
necessary expenses and customary bounties. All these details
Augustus had written with his own hand, and had added a counsel,
that the empire should be confined to its present limits, either
from fear or out of jealousy.
Meantime, while the Senate stooped to the most abject
supplication, Tiberius happened to say that although he was not
equal to the whole burden of the State, yet he would undertake the
charge of whatever part of it might be intrusted to him. Thereupon
Asinius Gallus said, "I ask you, Caesar, what part of the State you
wish to have intrusted to you?" Confounded by the sudden inquiry he
was silent for a few moments; then, recovering his presence of mind,
he replied that it would by no means become his modesty to choose or
to avoid in a case where he would prefer to be wholly excused. Then
Gallus again, who had inferred anger from his looks, said that the
question had not been asked with the intention of dividing what
could not be separated, but to convince him by his own admission
that the body of the State was one, and must be directed by a single
mind. He further spoke in praise of Augustus, and reminded Tiberius
himself of his victories, and of his admirable deeds for many years as
a civilian. Still, he did not thereby soften the emperor's resentment,
for he had long been detested from an impression that, as he had
married Vipsania, daughter of Marcus Agrippa, who had once been the
wife of Tiberius, he aspired to be more than a citizen, and kept up
the arrogant tone of his father, Asinius Pollio.
Next, Lucius Arruntius, who differed but little from the speech of
Gallus, gave like offence, though Tiberius had no old grudge against
him, but simply mistrusted him, because he was rich and daring, had
brilliant accomplishments, and corresponding popularity. For Augustus,
when in his last conversations he was discussing who would refuse
the highest place, though sufficiently capable, who would aspire to it
without being equal to it, and who would unite both the ability and
ambition, had described Marcus Lepidus as able but contemptuously
indifferent, Gallus Asinius as ambitious and incapable, Lucius
Arruntius as not unworthy of it, and, should the chance be given
him, sure to make the venture. About the two first there is a
general agreement, but instead of Arruntius some have mentioned Cneius
Piso, and all these men, except Lepidus, were soon afterwards
destroyed by various charges through the contrivance of Tiberius.
Quintus Haterius too and Mamercus Scaurus ruffled his suspicious
temper, Haterius by having said- "How long, Caesar, will you suffer
the State to be without a head?" Scaurus by the remark that there
was a hope that the Senate's prayers would not be fruitless, seeing
that he had not used his right as Tribune to negative the motion of
the Consuls. Tiberius instantly broke out into invective against
Haterius; Scaurus, with whom he was far more deeply displeased, he
passed over in silence. Wearied at last by the assembly's clamorous
importunity and the urgent demands of individual Senators, he gave way
by degrees, not admitting that he undertook empire, but yet ceasing to
refuse it and to be entreated. It is known that Haterius having
entered the palace to ask pardon, and thrown himself at the knees of
Tiberius as he was walking, was almost killed by the soldiers, because
Tiberius fell forward, accidentally or from being entangled by the
suppliant's hands. Yet the peril of so great a man did not make him
relent, till Haterius went with entreaties to Augusta, and was saved
by her very earnest intercessions.
Great too was the Senate's sycophancy to Augusta. Some would have
her styled "parent"; others "mother of the country," and a majority
proposed that to the name of Caesar should be added "son of Julia."
The emperor repeatedly asserted that there must be a limit to the
honours paid to women, and that he would observe similar moderation in
those bestowed on himself, but annoyed at the invidious proposal,
and indeed regarding a woman's elevation as a slight to himself, he
would not allow so much as a lictor to be assigned her, and forbade
the erection of an altar in memory of her adoption, and any like
distinction. But for Germanicus Caesar he asked pro-consular powers,
and envoys were despatched to confer them on him, and also to
express sympathy with his grief at the death of Augustus. The same
request was not made for Drusus, because he was consul elect and
present at Rome. Twelve candidates were named for the praetorship, the
number which Augustus had handed down, and when the Senate urged
Tiberius to increase it, he bound himself by an oath not to exceed it.
It was then for the first time that the elections were transferred
from the Campus Martius to the Senate. For up to that day, though
the most important rested with the emperor's choice, some were settled
by the partialities of the tribes. Nor did the people complain of
having the right taken from them, except in mere idle talk, and the
Senate, being now released from the necessity of bribery and of
degrading solicitations, gladly upheld the change, Tiberius
confining himself to the recommendation of only four candidates who
were to be nominated without rejection or canvass. Meanwhile the
tribunes of the people asked leave to exhibit at their own expense
games to be named after Augustus and added to the Calendar as the
Augustales. Money was, however, voted from the exchequer, and though
the use of the triumphal robe in the circus was prescribed, it was not
allowed them to ride in a chariot. Soon the annual celebration was
transferred to the praetor, to whose lot fell the administration of
justice between citizens and foreigners.
This was the state of affairs at Rome when a mutiny broke out in the
legions of Pannonia, which could be traced to no fresh cause except
the change of emperors and the prospect it held out of license in
tumult and of profit from a civil war. In the summer camp three
legions were quartered, under the command of Junius Blaesus, who on
hearing of the death of Augustus and the accession of Tiberius, had
allowed his men a rest from military duties, either for mourning or
rejoicing. This was the beginning of demoralization among the
troops, of quarreling, of listening to the talk of every pestilent
fellow, in short, of craving for luxury and idleness and loathing
discipline and toil. In the camp was one Percennius, who had once been
a leader of one of the theatrical factions, then became a common
soldier, had a saucy tongue, and had learnt from his applause of
actors how to stir up a crowd. By working on ignorant minds, which
doubted as to what would be the terms of military service after
Augustus, this man gradually influenced them in conversations at night
or at nightfall, and when the better men had dispersed, he gathered
round him all the worst spirits.
At last, when there were others ready to be abettors of a mutiny, he
asked, in the tone of a demagogue, why, like slaves, they submitted to
a few centurions and still fewer tribunes. "When," he said, "will
you dare to demand relief, if you do not go with your prayers or
arms to a new and yet tottering throne? We have blundered enough by
our tameness for so many years, in having to endure thirty or forty
campaigns till we grow old, most of us with bodies maimed by wounds.
Even dismissal is not the end of our service, but, quartered under a
legion's standard we toil through the same hardships under another
title. If a soldier survives so many risks, he is still dragged into
remote regions where, under the name of lands, he receives soaking
swamps or mountainous wastes. Assuredly, military service itself is
burdensome and unprofitable; ten as a day is the value set on life and
limb; out of this, clothing, arms, tents, as well as the mercy of
centurions and exemptions from duty have to be purchased. But indeed
of floggings and wounds, of hard winters, wearisome summers, of
terrible war, or barren peace, there is no end. Our only relief can
come from military life being entered on under fixed conditions,
from receiving each the pay of a denarius, and from the sixteenth year
terminating our service. We must be retained no longer under a
standard, but in the same camp a compensation in money must be paid
us. Do the praetorian cohorts, which have just got their two denarii
per man, and which after sixteen years are restored to their homes,
encounter more perils? We do not disparage the guards of the
capital; still, here amid barbarous tribes we have to face the enemy
from our tents."
The throng applauded from various motives, some pointing with
indignation to the marks of the lash, others to their grey locks,
and most of them to their threadbare garments and naked limbs. At,
last, in their fury they went so far as to propose to combine the
three legions into one. Driven from their purpose by the jealousy with
which every one sought the chief honour for his own legion, they
turned to other thoughts, and set up in one spot the three eagles,
with the ensigns of the cohorts. At the same time they piled up turf
and raised a mound, that they might have a more conspicuous
meeting-place. Amid the bustle Blaesus came up. He upbraided them
and held back man after man with the exclamation, "Better imbrue
your hands in my blood: it will be less guilt to slay your commander
than it is to be in revolt from the emperor. Either living I will
uphold the loyalty of the legions, or Pierced to the heart I will
hasten on your repentance."
None the less however was the mound piled up, and it was quite
breast high when, at last overcome by his persistency, they gave up
their purpose. Blaesus, with the consummate tact of an orator, said,
"It is not through mutiny and tumult that the desires of the army
ought to be communicated to Caesar, nor did our soldiers of old ever
ask so novel a boon of ancient commanders, nor have you yourselves
asked it of the Divine Augustus. It is far from opportune that the
emperor's cares, now in their first beginning, should be aggravated.
If, however, you are bent upon attempting in peace what even after
your victory in the civil wars you did not demand, why, contrary to
the habit of obedience, contrary to the law of discipline, do you
meditate violence? Decide on sending envoys, and give them
instructions in your presence."
It was carried by acclamation that the son of Blaesus, one of the
tribunes, should undertake the mission, and demand for the soldiers
release from service after sixteen years. He was to have the rest of
their message when the first part had been successful. After the young
man departure there was comparative quiet, but there was an arrogant
tone among the soldiers, to whom the fact that their commander's son
was pleading their common cause clearly showed that they had wrested
by compulsion what they had failed to obtain by good behaviour.
Meanwhile the companies which previous to the mutiny had been sent
to Nauportus to make roads and bridges and for other purposes, when
they heard of the tumult in the camp, tore up the standards, and
having plundered the neighbouring villages and Nauportus itself, which
was like a town, assailed the centurions who restrained them with
jeers and insults, last of all, with blows. Their chief rage was
against Aufidienus Rufus, the camp-prefect, whom they dragged from a
waggon, loaded with baggage, and drove on at the head of the column,
asking him in ridicule whether he liked to bear such huge burdens
and such long marches. Rufus, who had long been a common soldier, then
a centurion, and subsequently camp-prefect, tried to revive the old
severe discipline, inured as he was to work and toil, and all the
sterner because he had endured.
On the arrival of these troops the mutiny broke out afresh, and
straggling from the camp they plundered the neighbourhood. Blaesus
ordered a few who had conspicuously loaded themselves with spoil to be
scourged and imprisoned as a terror to the rest; for, even as it
then was, the commander was still obeyed by the centurions and by
all the best men among the soldiers. As the men were dragged off, they
struggled violently, clasped the knees of the bystanders, called to
their comrades by name, or to the company, cohort, or legion to
which they respectively belonged, exclaiming that all were
threatened with the same fate. At the same time they heaped abuse on
the commander; they appealed to heaven and to the gods, and left
nothing undone by which they might excite resentment and pity, alarm
and rage. They all rushed to the spot, broke open the guardhouse,
unbound the prisoners, and were in a moment fraternising with
deserters and men convicted on capital charges.
Thence arose a more furious outbreak, with more leaders of the
mutiny. Vibulenus, a common soldier, was hoisted in front of the
general's tribunal on the shoulders of the bystanders and addressed
the excited throng, who eagerly awaited his intentions. "You have
indeed," he said, "restored light and air to these innocent and most
unhappy men, but who restores to my brother his life, or my brother to
myself? Sent to you by the German army in our common cause, he was
last night butchered by the gladiators whom the general keeps and arms
for the destruction of his soldiers. Answer, Blaesus, where you have
flung aside the corpse? Even an enemy grudges not burial. When, with
embraces and tears, I have sated my grief, order me also to be
slain, provided only that when we have been destroyed for no crime,
but only because we consulted the good of the legions, we may be
buried by these men around me."
He inflamed their excitement by weeping and smiting his breast and
face with his hands. Then, hurling aside those who bore him on their
shoulders, and impetuously flinging himself at the feet of one man
after another, he roused such dismay and indignation that some of
the soldiers put fetters on the gladiators who were among the number
of Blaesus's slaves, others did the like to the rest of his household,
while a third party hurried out to look for the corpse. And had it not
quickly been known that no corpse was found, that the slaves, when
tortures were applied, denied the murder, and that the man never had a
brother, they would have been on the point of destroying the
general. As it was, they thrust out the tribunes and the camp-prefect;
they plundered the baggage of the fugitives, and they killed a
centurion, Lucilius, to whom, with soldiers' humour, they had given
the name "Bring another," because when he had broken one vine-stick on
a man's back, he would call in a loud voice for another and another.
The rest sheltered themselves in concealment, and one only was
detained, Clemens Julius, whom the soldiers considered a fit person to
carry messages, from his ready wit. Two legions, the eighth and the
fifteenth, were actually drawing swords against each other, the former
demanding the death of a centurion, whom they nicknamed Sirpicus,
while the men of the fifteenth defended him, but the soldiers of the
ninth interposed their entreaties, and when these were disregarded,
their menaces.
This intelligence had such an effect on Tiberius, close as he was,
and most careful to hush up every very serious disaster, that he
despatched his son Drusus with the leading men of the State and with
two praetorian cohorts, without any definite instructions, to take
suitable measures. The cohorts were strengthened beyond their usual
force with some picked troops. There was in addition a considerable
part of the Praetorian cavalry, and the flower of the German soldiery,
which was then the emperor's guard. With them too was the commander of
the praetorians, Aelius Sejanus, who had been associated with his
own father, Strabo, had great influence with Tiberius, and was to
advise and direct the young prince, and to hold out punishment or
reward to the soldiers. When Drusus approached, the legions, as a mark
of respect, met him, not as usual, with glad looks or the glitter of
military decorations, but in unsightly squalor, and faces which,
though they simulated grief, rather expressed defiance.
As soon as he entered the entrenchments, they secured the gates with
sentries, and ordered bodies of armed men to be in readiness at
certain points of the camp. The rest crowded round the general's
tribunal in a dense mass. Drusus stood there, and with a gesture of
his hand demanded silence. As often as they turned their eyes back
on the throng, they broke into savage exclamations, then looking up to
Drusus they trembled. There was a confused hum, a fierce shouting, and
a sudden lull. Urged by conflicting emotions, they felt panic and they
caused the like. At last, in an interval of the uproar, Drusus read
his father's letter, in which it was fully stated that he had a
special care for the brave legions with which he had endured a
number of campaigns; that, as soon as his mind had recovered from
its grief, he would lay their demands before the Senators; that
meanwhile he had sent his son to concede unhesitatingly what could
be immediately granted, and that the rest must be reserved for the
Senate, which ought to have a voice in showing either favour or
severity.
The crowd replied that they had delivered their instructions to
Clemens, one of the centurions, which he was to convey to Rome. He
began to speak of the soldiers' discharge after sixteen years, of
the rewards of completed service, of the daily pay being a denarius,
and of the veterans not being detained under a standard. When Drusus
pleaded in answer reference to the Senate and to his father, he was
interrupted by a tumultuous shout. "Why had he come, neither to
increase the soldiers' pay, nor to alleviate their hardships, in a
word, with no power to better their lot? Yet heaven knew that all were
allowed to scourge and to execute. Tiberius used formerly in the
name of Augustus to frustrate the wishes of the legions, and the
same tricks were now revived by Drusus. Was it only sons who were to
visit them? Certainly, it was a new thing for the emperor to refer
to the Senate merely what concerned the soldier's interests. Was
then the same Senate to be consulted whenever notice was given of an
execution or of a battle? Were their rewards to be at the discretion
of absolute rulers, their punishments to be without appeal?"
At last they deserted the general's tribunal, and to any
praetorian soldier or friend of Caesar's who met them, they used those
threatening gestures which are the cause of strife and the beginning
of a conflict, with special rage against Cneius Lentulus, because they
thought that he above all others, by his age and warlike renown,
encouraged Drusus, and was the first to scorn such blots on military
discipline. Soon after, as he was leaving with Drusus to betake
himself in foresight of his danger to the winter can they surrounded
him, and asked him again and again whither he was going; was it to the
emperor or to the Senate, there also to oppose the interests of the
legions. At the same moment they menaced him savagely and flung
stones. And now, bleeding from a blow, and feeling destruction
certain, he was rescued by the hurried arrival of the throng which had
accompanied Drusus.
That terrible night which threatened an explosion of crime was
tranquillised by a mere accident. Suddenly in a clear sky the moon's
radiance seemed to die away. This the soldiers in their ignorance of
the cause regarded as an omen of their condition, comparing the
failure of her light to their own efforts, and imagining that their
attempts would end prosperously should her brightness and splendour be
restored to the goddess. And so they raised a din with brazen
instruments and the combined notes of trumpets and horns, with joy
or sorrow, as she brightened or grew dark. When clouds arose and
obstructed their sight, and it was thought she was buried in the
gloom, with that proneness to superstition which steals over minds
once thoroughly cowed, they lamented that this was a portent of
never-ending hardship, and that heaven frowned on their deeds.
Drusus, thinking that he ought to avail himself of this change in
their temper and turn what chance had offered to a wise account,
ordered the tents to be visited. Clemens, the centurion was summoned
with all others who for their good qualities were liked by the
common soldiers. These men made their way among the patrols,
sentries and guards of the camp-gates, suggesting hope or holding
out threats. "How long will you besiege the emperor's son? What is
to be the end of our strifes? Will Percennius and Vibulenus give pay
to the soldiers and land to those who have earned their discharge?
In a word, are they, instead of the Neros and the Drusi, to control
the empire of the Roman people? Why are we not rather first in our
repentance as we were last in the offence? Demands made in common
are granted slowly; a separate favour you may deserve and receive at
the same moment."
With minds affected by these words and growing mutually
suspicious, they divided off the new troops from the old, and one
legion from another. Then by degrees the instinct of obedience
returned. They quitted the gates and restored to their places the
standards which at the beginning of the mutiny they had grouped into
one spot.
At daybreak Drusus called them to an assembly, and, though not a
practised speaker, yet with natural dignity upbraided them for their
past and commended their present behaviour. He was not, he said, to be
conquered by terror or by threats. Were he to see them inclining to
submission and hear the language of entreaty, he would write to his
father, that he might be merciful and receive the legions' petition.
At their prayer, Blaesus and Lucius Apronius, a Roman knight on
Drusus's staff, with Justus Catonius, a first-rank centurion, were
again sent to Tiberius. Then ensued a conflict of opinion among
them, some maintaining that it was best to wait the envoys' return and
meanwhile humour the soldiers, others, that stronger measures ought to
be used, inasmuch as the rabble knows no mean, and inspires fear,
unless they are afraid, though when they have once been overawed, they
can be safely despised. "While superstition still swayed them, the
general should apply terror by removing the leaders of the mutiny."
Drusus's temper was inclined to harsh measures. He summoned
Vibulenus and Percennius and ordered them to be put to death. The
common account is that they were buried in the general's tent,
though according to some their bodies were flung outside the
entrenchments for all to see.
Search was then made for all the chief mutineers. Some as they
roamed outside the camp were cut down by the centurions or by soldiers
of the praetorian cohorts. Some even the companies gave up in proof of
their loyalty. The men's troubles were increased by an early winter
with continuous storms so violent that they could not go beyond
their tents or meet together or keep the standards in their places,
from which they were perpetually tom by hurricane and rain. And
there still lingered the dread of the divine wrath; nor was it without
meaning, they thought, that, hostile to an impious host, the stars
grew dim and storms burst over them. Their only relief from misery was
to quit an ill-omened and polluted camp, and, having purged themselves
of their guilt, to betake themselves again every one to his
winterquarters. First the eighth, then the fifteenth legion
returned; the ninth cried again and again that they ought to wait
for the letter from Tiberius, but soon finding themselves isolated
by the departure of the rest, they voluntarily forestalled their
inevitable fate. Drusus, without awaiting the envoys' return, as for
the present all was quiet, went back to Rome.
About the same time, from the same causes, the legions of Germany
rose in mutiny, with a fury proportioned to their greater numbers,
in the confident hope that Germanicus Caesar would not be able to
endure another's supremacy and offer himself to the legions, whose
strength would carry everything before it. There were two armies on
the bank of the Rhine; that named the upper army had Caius Silius
for general; the lower was under the charge of Aulus Caecina. The
supreme direction rested with Germanicus, then busily employed in
conducting the assessment of Gaul. The troops under the control of
Silius, with minds yet in suspense, watched the issue of mutiny
elsewhere; but the soldiers of the lower army fell into a frenzy,
which had its beginning in the men of the twenty-first and fifth
legions, and into which the first and twentieth were also drawn. For
they were all quartered in the same summer-camp, in the territory of
the Ubii, enjoying ease or having only light on hearing of the death
of Augustus, a rabble of city slaves, who had been enlisted under a
recent levy at Rome, habituated to laxity and impatient of hardship,
filled the ignorant minds of the other soldiers with notions that
the time had come when the veteran might demand a timely discharge,
the young, more liberal pay, all, an end of their miseries, and
vengeance on the cruelty of centurions.
It was not one alone who spoke thus, as did Percennius among the
legions of Pannonia, nor was it in the ears of trembling soldiers, who
looked with apprehension to other and mightier armies, but there was
sedition in many a face and voice. "The Roman world," they said, was
in their hand; their victories aggrandised the State; it was from them
that emperors received their titles."
Nor did their commander check them. Indeed, the blind rage of so
many had robbed him of his resolution., In a sudden frenzy they rushed
with drawn swords on the centurions, the immemorial object of the
soldiers' resentment and the first cause of savage fury. They threw
them to the earth and beat them sorely, sixty to one, so as to
correspond with the number of centurions. Then tearing them from the
ground, mangled, and some lifeless, they flung them outside the
entrenchments or into the river Rhine. One Septimius, who fled to
the tribunal and was grovelling at Caecina's feet, was persistently
demanded till he was given up to destruction. Cassius Chaerea, who won
for himself a memory with posterity by the murder of Caius Caesar,
being then a youth of high spirit, cleared a passage with his sword
through the armed and opposing throng. Neither tribune nor
camp-prefect maintained authority any longer. Patrols, sentries, and
whatever else the needs of the time required, were distributed by
the men themselves. To those who could guess the temper of soldiers
with some penetration, the strongest symptom of a wide-spread and
intractable commotion, was the fact that, instead of being divided
or instigated by a few persons, they were unanimous in their fury
and equally unanimous in their composure, with so uniform a
consistency that one would have thought them to be under command.
Meantime Germanicus, while, as I have related, he was collecting the
taxes of Gaul, received news of the death of Augustus. He was
married to the granddaughter of Augustus, Agrippina, by whom he had
several children, and though he was himself the son of Drusus, brother
of Tiberius, and grandson of Augusta, he was troubled by the secret
hatred of his uncle and grandmother, the motives for which were the
more venomous because unjust. For the memory of Drusus was held in
honour by the Roman people, and they believed that had he obtained
empire, he would have restored freedom. Hence they regarded Germanicus
with favour and with the same hope. He was indeed a young man of
unaspiring temper, and of wonderful kindliness, contrasting strongly
with the proud and mysterious reserve that marked the conversation and
the features of Tiberius. Then, there were feminine jealousies,
Livia feeling a stepmother's bitterness towards Agrippina, and
Agrippina herself too being rather excitable, only her purity and love
of her husband gave a right direction to her otherwise imperious
disposition.
But the nearer Germanicus was to the highest hope, the more
laboriously did he exert himself for Tiberius, and he made the
neighbouring Sequani and all the Belgic states swear obedience to him.
On hearing of the mutiny in the legions, he instantly went to the
spot, and met them outside the camp, eyes fixed on the ground, and
seemingly repentant. As soon as he entered the entrenchments, confused
murmurs became audible. Some men, seizing his hand under pretence of
kissing it, thrust his fingers into their mouths, that he might
touch their toothless gums; others showed him their limbs bowed with
age. He ordered the throng which stood near him, as it seemed a
promiscuous gathering, to separate itself into its military companies.
They replied that they would hear better as they were. The standards
were then to be advanced, so that thus at least the cohorts might be
distinguished. The soldiers obeyed reluctantly. Then beginning with
a reverent mention of Augustus, he passed on to the victories and
triumphs of Tiberius, dwelling with especial praise on his glorious
achievements with those legions in Germany. Next, he extolled the
unity of Italy, the loyalty of Gaul, the entire absence of
turbulence or strife. He was heard in silence or with but a slight
murmur.
As soon as he touched on the mutiny and asked what had become of
soldierly obedience, of the glory of ancient discipline, whither
they had driven their tribunes and centurions, they all bared their
bodies and taunted him with the scars of their wounds and the marks of
the lash. And then with confused exclamations they spoke bitterly of
the prices of exemptions, of their scanty pay, of the severity of
their tasks, with special mention of the entrenchment, the fosse,
the conveyance of fodder, building-timber, firewood, and whatever else
had to be procured from necessity, or as a check on idleness in the
camp. The fiercest clamour arose from the veteran soldiers, who, as
they counted their thirty campaigns or more, implored him to relieve
worn-out men, and not let them die under the same hardships, but
have an end of such harassing service, and repose without beggary.
Some even claimed the legacy of the Divine Augustus, with words of
good omen for Germanicus, and, should he wish for empire, they
showed themselves abundantly willing. Thereupon, as though he were
contracting the pollution of guilt, he leapt impetuously from the
tribunal. The men opposed his departure with their weapons,
threatening him repeatedly if he would not go back. But Germanicus
protesting that he would die rather than cast off his loyalty, plucked
his sword from his side, raised it aloft and was plunging it into
his breast, when those nearest him seized his hand and held it by
force. The remotest and most densely crowded part of the throng,
and, what almost passes belief, some, who came close up to him,
urged him to strike the blow, and a soldier, by name Calusidius,
offered him a drawn sword, saying that it was sharper than his own.
Even in their fury, this seemed to them a savage act and one of evil
precedent, and there was a pause during which Caesar's friends hurried
him into his tent.
There they took counsel how to heal matters. For news was also
brought that the soldiers were preparing the despatch of envoys who
were to draw the upper army into their cause; that the capital of
the Ubii was marked out for destruction, and that hands with the stain
of plunder on them would soon be daring enough for the pillage of
Gaul. The alarm was heightened by the knowledge that the enemy was
aware of the Roman mutiny, and would certainly attack if the Rhine
bank were undefended. Yet if the auxiliary troops and allies were to
be armed against the retiring legions, civil war was in fact begun.
Severity would be dangerous; profuse liberality would be scandalous.
Whether all or nothing were conceded to the soldiery, the State was
equally in jeopardy.
Accordingly, having weighed their plans one against each other, they
decided that a letter should be written in the prince's name, to the
effect that full discharge was granted to those who had served in
twenty campaigns; that there was a conditional release for those who
had served sixteen, and that they were to be retained under a standard
with immunity from everything except actually keeping off the enemy;
that the legacies which they had asked, were to be paid and doubled.
The soldiers perceived that all this was invented for the
occasion, and instantly pressed their demands. The discharge from
service was quickly arranged by the tribunes. Payment was put off till
they reached their respective winterquarters. The men of the fifth and
twenty-first legions refused to go till in the summer-camp where
they stood the money was made up out of the purses of Germanicus
himself and his friends, and paid in full. The first and twentieth
legions were led back by their officer Caecina to the canton of the
Ubii, marching in disgrace, since sums of money which had been
extorted from the general were carried among the eagles and standards.
Germanicus went to the Upper Army, and the second, thirteenth, and
sixteenth legions, without any delay, accepted from him the oath of
allegiance. The fourteenth hesitated a little, but their money and the
discharge were offered even without their demanding it.
Meanwhile there was an outbreak among the Chauci, begun by some
veterans of the mutinous legions on garrison duty. They were quelled
for a time by the instant execution of two soldiers. Such was the
order of Mennius, the camp-prefect, more as a salutary warning than as
a legal act. Then, when the commotion increased, he fled and having
been discovered, as his hiding place was now unsafe, he borrowed a
resource from audacity. "It was not," he told them, "the camp-prefect,
it was Germanicus, their general, it was Tiberius, their emperor, whom
they were insulting." At the same moment, overawing all resistance, he
seized the standard, faced round towards the river-bank, and
exclaiming that whoever left the ranks, he would hold as a deserter,
he led them back into their winter-quarters, disaffected indeed, but
cowed.
Meanwhile envoys from the Senate had an interview with Germanicus,
who had now returned, at the Altar of the Ubii. Two legions, the first
and twentieth, with veterans discharged and serving under a
standard, were there in winter-quarters. In the bewilderment of terror
and conscious guilt they were penetrated by an apprehension that
persons had come at the Senate's orders to cancel the concessions they
had extorted by mutiny. And as it is the way with a mob to fix any
charge, however groundless, on some particular person, they reproached
Manatius Plancus, an ex-consul and the chief envoy, with being the
author of the Senate's decree. At midnight they began to demand the
imperial standard kept in Germanicus's quarters, and having rushed
together to the entrance, burst the door, dragged Caesar from his bed,
and forced him by menaces of death to give up the standard. Then
roaming through the camp-streets, they met the envoys, who on
hearing of the tumult were hastening to Germanicus. They loaded them
with insults, and were on the point of murdering them, Plancus
especially, whose high rank had deterred him from flight. In his peril
he found safety only in the camp of the first legion. There clasping
the standards and the eagle, he sought to protect himself under
their sanctity. And had not the eagle-bearer, Calpurnius, saved him
from the worst violence, the blood of an envoy of the Roman people, an
occurrence rare even among our foes, would in a Roman camp have
stained the altars of the gods.
At last, with the light of day, when the general and the soldiers
and the whole affair were clearly recognised, Germanicus entered the
camp, ordered Plancus to be conducted to him, and received him on
the tribunal. He then upbraided them with their fatal infatuation,
revived not so much by the anger of the soldiers as by that of heaven,
and explained the reasons of the envoys' arrival. On the rights of
ambassadors, on the dreadful and undeserved peril of Plancus, and also
on the disgrace into which the legion had brought itself, he dwelt
with the eloquence of pity, and while the throng was confounded rather
than appeased, he dismissed the envoys with an escort of auxiliary
cavalry.
Amid the alarm all condemned Germanicus for not going to the Upper
Army, where he might find obedience and help against the rebels.
"Enough and more than enough blunders," they said, "had been made by
granting discharges and money, indeed, by conciliatory measures.
Even if Germanicus held his own life cheap, why should he keep a
little son and a pregnant wife among madmen who outraged every human
right? Let these, at least, be restored safely to their grandsire
and to the State."
When his wife spurned the notion, protesting that she was a
descendant of the Divine Augustus and could face peril with no
degenerate spirit, he at last embraced her and the son of their love
with many tears, and after long delay compelled her to depart.
Slowly moved along a pitiable procession of women, a general's
fugitive wife with a little son in her bosom, her friends' wives
weeping round her, as with her they were dragging themselves from
the camp. Not less sorrowful were those who remained.
There was no appearance of the triumphant general about
Germanicus, and he seemed to be in a conquered city rather than in his
own camp, while groans and wailings attracted the ears and looks
even of the soldiers. They came out of their tents, asking "what was
that mournful sound? What meant the sad sight? Here were ladies of
rank, not a centurion to escort them, not a soldier, no sign of a
prince's wife, none of the usual retinue. Could they be going to the
Treveri, to be subjects of the foreigner?" Then they felt shame and
pity, and remembered his father Agrippa, her grandfather Augustus, her
father-in-law Drusus, her own glory as a mother of children, her noble
purity. And there was her little child too, born in the camp,
brought up amid the tents of the legions, whom they used to call in
soldiers' fashion, Caligula, because he often wore the shoe so called,
to win the men's goodwill. But nothing moved them so much as
jealousy towards the Treveri. They entreated, stopped the way, that
Agrippina might return and remain, some running to meet her, while
most of them went back to Germanicus. He, with a grief and anger
that were yet fresh, thus began to address the throng around him-
"Neither wife nor son are dearer to me than my father and the State.
But he will surely have the protection of his own majesty, the
empire of Rome that of our other armies. My wife and children whom,
were it a question of your glory, I would willingly expose to
destruction, I now remove to a distance from your fury, so that
whatever wickedness is thereby threatened, may be expiated by my blood
only, and that you may not be made more guilty by the slaughter of a
great-grandson of Augustus, and the murder of a daughter-in-law of
Tiberius. For what have you not dared, what have you not profaned
during these days? What name shall I give to this gathering? Am I to
call you soldiers, you who have beset with entrenchments and arms your
general's son, or citizens, when you have trampled under foot the
authority of the Senate? Even the rights of public enemies, the sacred
character of the ambassador, and the law of nations have been violated
by you. The Divine Julius once quelled an army's mutiny with a
single word by calling those who were renouncing their military
obedience 'citizens.' The Divine Augustus cowed the legions who had
fought at Actium with one look of his face. Though I am not yet what
they were, still, descended as I am from them, it would be a strange
and unworthy thing should I be spurned by the soldiery of Spain or
Syria. First and twentieth legions, you who received your standards
from Tiberius, you, men of the twentieth who have shared with me so
many battles and have been enriched with so many rewards, is not
this a fine gratitude with which you are repaying your general? Are
these the tidings which I shall have to carry to my father when he
hears only joyful intelligence from our other provinces, that his
own recruits, his own veterans are not satisfied with discharge or
pay; that here only centurions are murdered, tribunes driven away,
envoys imprisoned, camps and rivers stained with blood, while I am
myself dragging on a precarious existence amid those who hate me?
"Why, on the first day of our meeting, why did you, my friends,
wrest from me, in your blindness, the steel which I was preparing to
plunge into my breast? Better and more loving was the act of the man
who offered me the sword. At any rate I should have perished before
I was as yet conscious of all the disgraces of my army, while you
would have chosen a general who though he might allow my death to pass
unpunished would avenge the death of Varus and his three legions.
Never indeed may heaven suffer the Belgae, though they proffer their
aid, to have the glory and honour of having rescued the name of Rome
and quelled the tribes of Germany. It is thy spirit, Divine
Augustus, now received into heaven, thine image, father Drusus, and
the remembrance of thee, which, with these same soldiers who are now
stimulated by shame and ambition, should wipe out this blot and turn
the wrath of civil strife to the destruction of the foe. You too, in
whose faces and in whose hearts I perceive a change, if only you
restore to the Senate their envoys, to the emperor his due allegiance,
to myself my wife and son, do you stand aloof from pollution and
separate the mutinous from among you. This will be a pledge of your
repentance, a guarantee of your loyalty."
Thereupon, as suppliants confessing that his reproaches were true,
they implored him to punish the guilty, pardon those who had erred,
and lead them against the enemy. And he was to recall his wife, to let
the nursling of the legions return and not be handed over as a hostage
to the Gauls. As to Agrippina's return, he made the excuse of her
approaching confinement and of winter. His son, he said, would come,
and the rest they might settle themselves. Away they hurried hither
and thither, altered men, and dragged the chief mutineers in chains to
Caius Caetronius commander of the first legion, who tried and punished
them one by one in the following fashion. In front of the throng stood
the legions with drawn swords. Each accused man was on a raised
platform and was pointed out by a tribune. If they shouted out that he
was guilty, he was thrown headlong and cut to pieces. The soldiers
gloated over the bloodshed as though it gave them absolution. Nor
did Caesar check them, seeing that without any order from himself
the same men were responsible for all the cruelty and all the odium of
the deed.
The example was followed by the veterans, who were soon afterwards
sent into Raetia, nominally to defend the province against a
threatened invasion of the Suevi but really that they might tear
themselves from a camp stamped with the horror of a dreadful remedy no
less than with the memory of guilt. Then the general revised the
list of centurions. Each, at his summons, stated his name, his rank,
his birthplace, the number of his campaigns, what brave deeds he had
done in battle, his military rewards, if any. If the tribunes and
the legion commended his energy and good behaviour, he retained his
rank; where they unanimously charged him with rapacity or cruelty,
he was dismissed the service.
Quiet being thus restored for the present, a no less formidable
difficulty remained through the turbulence of the fifth and
twenty-first legions, who were in winter quarters sixty miles away
at Old Camp, as the place was called. These, in fact, had been the
first to begin the mutiny, and the most atrocious deeds had been
committed by their hands. Unawed by the punishment of their
comrades, and unmoved by their contrition, they still retained their
resentment. Caesar accordingly proposed to send an armed fleet with
some of our allies down the Rhine, resolved to make war on them should
they reject his authority.
At Rome, meanwhile, when the result of affairs in Illyrium was not
yet known, and men had heard of the commotion among the German
legions, the citizens in alarm reproached Tiberius for the
hypocritical irresolution with which he was befooling the senate and
the people, feeble and disarmed as they were, while the soldiery
were all the time in revolt, and could not be quelled by the yet
imperfectly-matured authority of two striplings. "He ought to have
gone himself and confronted with his imperial majesty those who
would have soon yielded, when they once saw a sovereign of long
experience, who was the supreme dispenser of rigour or of bounty.
Could Augustus, with the feebleness of age on him, so often visit
Germany, and is Tiberius, in the vigour of life, to sit in the
Senate and criticise its members' words? He had taken good care that
there should be slavery at Rome; he should now apply some soothing
medicine to the spirit of soldiers, that they might be willing to
endure peace."
Notwithstanding these remonstrances, it was the inflexible purpose
of Tiberius not to quit the head-quarters of empire or to imperil
himself and the State. Indeed, many conflicting thoughts troubled him.
The army in Germany was the stronger; that in Pannonia the nearer; the
first was supported by all the strength of Gaul; the latter menaced
Italy. Which was he to prefer, without the fear that those whom he
slighted would be infuriated by the affront? But his sons might
alike visit both, and not compromise the imperial dignity, which
inspired the greatest awe at a distance. There was also an excuse
for mere youths referring some matters to their father, with the
possibility that he could conciliate or crush those who resisted
Germanicus or Drusus. What resource remained, if they despised the
emperor? However, as if on the eve of departure, he selected his
attendants, provided his camp-equipage, and prepared a fleet; then
winter and matters of business were the various pretexts with which he
amused, first, sensible men, then the populace, last, and longest of
all, the provinces.
Germanicus meantime, though he had concentrated his army and
prepared vengeance against the mutineers, thought that he ought
still to allow them an interval, in case they might, with the late
warning before them, regard their safety. He sent a despatch to
Caecina, which said that he was on the way with a strong force, and
that, unless they forestalled his arrival by the execution of the
guilty, he would resort to an indiscriminate massacre. Caecina read
the letter confidentially to the eagle and standardbearers, and to all
in the camp who were least tainted by disloyalty, and urged them to
save the whole army from disgrace, and themselves from destruction.
"In peace," he said, "the merits of a man's case are carefully
weighed; when war bursts on us, innocent and guilty alike perish."
Upon this, they sounded those whom they thought best for their
purpose, and when they saw that a majority of their legions remained
loyal, at the commander's suggestion they fixed a time for falling
with the sword on all the vilest and foremost of the mutineers.
Then, at a mutually given signal, they rushed into the tents, and
butchered the unsuspecting men, none but those in the secret knowing
what was the beginning or what was to be the end of the slaughter.
The scene was a contrast to all civil wars which have ever occurred.
It was not in battle, it was not from opposing camps, it was from
those same dwellings where day saw them at their common meals, night
resting from labour, that they divided themselves into two factions,
and showered on each other their missiles. Uproar, wounds,
bloodshed, were everywhere visible; the cause was a mystery. All
else was at the disposal of chance. Even some loyal men were slain,
for, on its being once understood who were the objects of fury, some
of the worst mutineers too had seized on weapons. Neither commander
nor tribune was present to control them; the men were allowed
license and vengeance to their heart's content. Soon afterwards
Germanicus entered the camp, and exclaiming with a flood of tears,
that this was destruction rather than remedy, ordered the bodies to be
burnt.
Even then their savage spirit was seized with desire to march
against the enemy, as an atonement for their frenzy, and it was felt
that the shades of their fellow-soldiers could be appeased only by
exposing such impious breasts to honourable scars. Caesar followed
up the enthusiasm of the men, and having bridged over the Rhine, he
sent across it 12,000 from the legions, with six-and-twenty allied
cohorts, and eight squadrons of cavalry, whose discipline had been
without a stain during the mutiny.
There was exultation among the Germans, not far off, as long as we
were detained by the public mourning for the loss of Augustus, and
then by our dissensions. But the Roman general in a forced march,
cut through the Caesian forest and the barrier which had been begun by
Tiberius, and pitched his camp on this barrier, his front and rear
being defended by intrenchments, his flanks by timber barricades. He
then penetrated some forest passes but little known, and, as there
were two routes, he deliberated whether he should pursue the short and
ordinary route, or that which was more difficult unexplored, and
consequently unguarded by the enemy. He chose the longer way, and
hurried on every remaining preparation, for his scouts had brought
word that among the Germans it was a night of festivity, with games,
and one of their grand banquets. Caecina had orders to advance with
some light cohorts, and to clear away any obstructions from the woods.
The legions followed at a moderate interval. They were helped by a
night of bright starlight, reached the villages of the Marsi, and
threw their pickets round the enemy, who even then were stretched on
beds or at their tables, without the least fear, or any sentries
before their camp, so complete was their carelessness and disorder;
and of war indeed there was no apprehension. Peace it certainly was
not- merely the languid and heedless ease of half-intoxicated people.
Caesar, to spread devastation widely, divided his eager legions into
four columns, and ravaged a space of fifty miles with fire and
sword. Neither sex nor age moved his compassion. Everything, sacred or
profane, the temple too of Tamfana, as they called it, the special
resort of all those tribes, was levelled to the ground. There was
not a wound among our soldiers, who cut down a half-asleep, an
unarmed, or a straggling foe. The Bructeri, Tubantes, and Usipetes,
were roused by this slaughter, and they beset the forest passes
through which the army had to return. The general knew this, and he
marched, prepared both to advance and to fight. Part of the cavalry,
and some of the auxiliary cohorts led the van; then came the first
legion, and, with the baggage in the centre, the men of the
twenty-first closed up the left, those of the fifth, the right
flank. The twentieth legion secured the rear, and, next, were the rest
of the allies.
Meanwhile the enemy moved not till the army began to defile in
column through the woods, then made slight skirmishing attacks on
its flanks and van, and with his whole force charged the rear. The
light cohorts were thrown into confusion by the dense masses of the
Germans, when Caesar rode up to the men of the twentieth legion, and
in a loud voice exclaimed that this was the time for wiping out the
mutiny. "Advance," he said, "and hasten to turn your guilt into
glory." This fired their courage, and at a single dash they broke
through the enemy, and drove him back with great slaughter into the
open country. At the same moment the troops of the van emerged from
the woods and intrenched a camp. After this their march was
uninterrupted, and the soldiery, with the confidence of recent
success, and forgetful of the past, were placed in winter-quarters.
The news was a source of joy and also of anxiety to Tiberius. He
rejoiced that the mutiny was crushed, but the fact that Germanicus had
won the soldiers' favour by lavishing money, and promptly granting the
discharge, as well as his fame as a soldier, annoyed him. Still, he
brought his achievements under the notice of the Senate, and spoke
much of his greatness in language elaborated for effect, more so
than could be believed to come from his inmost heart. He bestowed a
briefer praise on Drusus, and on the termination of the disturbance in
Illyricum, but he was more earnest, and his speech more hearty. And he
confirmed, too, in the armies of Pannonia all the concessions of
Germanicus.
That same year Julia ended her days. For her profligacy she had
formerly been confined by her father Augustus in the island of
Pandateria, and then in the town of the Regini on the shores of the
straits of Sicily. She had been the wife of Tiberius while Caius and
Lucius Caesar were in their glory, and had disdained him as an unequal
match. This was Tiberius's special reason for retiring to Rhodes. When
he obtained the empire, he left her in banishment and disgrace,
deprived of all hope after the murder of Postumus Agrippa, and let her
perish by a lingering death of destitution, with the idea that an
obscurity would hang over her end from the length of her exile. He had
a like motive for cruel vengeance on Sempronius Gracchus, a man of
noble family, of shrewd understanding, and a perverse eloquence, who
had seduced this same Julia when she was the wife of Marcus Agrippa.
And this was not the end of the intrigue. When she had been handed
over to Tiberius, her persistent paramour inflamed her with
disobedience and hatred towards her husband; and a letter which
Julia wrote to her father, Augustus, inveighing against Tiberius,
was supposed to be the composition of Gracchus. He was accordingly
banished to Cercina, where he endured an exile of fourteen years. Then
the soldiers who were sent to slay him, found him on a promontory,
expecting no good. On their arrival, he begged a brief interval in
which to give by letter his last instructions to his wife Alliaria,
and then offered his neck to the executioners, dying with a courage
not unworthy of the Sempronian name, which his degenerate life had
dishonoured. Some have related that these soldiers were not sent
from Rome, but by Lucius Asprenas, proconsul of Africa, on the
authority of Tiberius, who had vainly hoped that the infamy of the
murder might be shifted on Asprenas.
The same year witnessed the establishment of religious ceremonies in
a new priesthood of the brotherhood of the Augustales, just as in
former days Titus Tatius, to retain the rites of the Sabines, had
instituted the Titian brotherhood. Twenty-one were chosen by lot
from the chief men of the State; Tiberius, Drusus, Claudius, and
Germanicus, were added to the number. The Augustal game's which were
then inaugurated, were disturbed by quarrels arising out of rivalry
between the actors. Augustus had shown indulgence to the entertainment
by way of humouring Maecenas's extravagant passion for Bathyllus,
nor did he himself dislike such amusements, and he thought it
citizenlike to mingle in the pleasures of the populace. Very different
was the tendency of Tiberius's character. But a people so many years
indulgently treated, he did not yet venture to put under harsher
control.
In the consulship of Drusus Caesar and Caius Norbanus, Germanicus
had a triumph decreed him, though war still lasted. And though it
was for the summer campaign that he was most vigorously preparing,
he anticipated it by a sudden inroad on the Chatti in the beginning of
spring. There had, in fact, sprung up a hope of the enemy being
divided between Arminius and Segestes, famous, respectively, for
treachery and loyalty towards us. Arminius was the disturber of
Germany. Segestes often revealed the fact that a rebellion was being
organized, more especially at that last banquet after which they
rushed to arms, and he urged Varus to arrest himself and Arminius
and all the other chiefs, assuring him that the people would attempt
nothing if the leading men were removed, and that he would then have
an opportunity of sifting accusations and distinguishing the innocent.
But Varus fell by fate and by the sword of Arminius, with whom
Segestes, though dragged into war by the unanimous voice of the
nation, continued to be at feud, his resentment being heightened by
personal motives, as Arminius had married his daughter who was
betrothed to another. With a son-in-law detested, and fathers-in-law
also at enmity, what are bonds of love between united hearts became
with bitter foes incentives to fury.
Germanicus accordingly gave Caecina four legions, five thousand
auxiliaries, with some hastily raised levies from the Germans dwelling
on the left bank of the Rhine. He was himself at the head of an
equal number of legions and twice as many allies. Having established a
fort on the site of his father's entrenchments on Mount Taunus he
hurried his troops in quick marching order against the Chatti, leaving
Lucius Apronius to direct works connected with roads and bridges. With
a dry season and comparatively shallow streams, a rare circumstance in
that climate, he had accomplished, without obstruction, rapid march,
and he feared for his return heavy rains and swollen rivers. But so
suddenly did he come on the Chatti that all the helpless from age or
sex were at once captured or slaughtered. Their able-bodied men had
swum across the river Adrana, and were trying to keep back the
Romans as they were commencing a bridge. Subsequently they were driven
back by missiles and arrows, and having in vain attempted for peace,
some took refuge with Germanicus, while the rest leaving their cantons
and villages dispersed themselves in their forests.
After burning Mattium, the capital of the tribe, and ravaging the
open country, Germanicus marched back towards the Rhine, the enemy not
daring to harass the rear of the retiring army, which was his usual
practice whenever he fell back by way of stratagem rather than from
panic. It had been the intention of the Cherusci to help the Chatti;
but Caecina thoroughly cowed them, carrying his arms everywhere, and
the Marsi who ventured to engage him, he repulsed in a successful
battle.
Not long after envoys came from Segestes, imploring aid against
the violence of his fellow-countrymen, by whom he was hemmed in, and
with whom Arminius had greater influence, because he counselled war.
For with barbarians, the more eager a man's daring, the more does he
inspire confidence, and the more highly is he esteemed in times of
revolution. With the envoys Segestes had associated his son, by name
Segimundus, but the youth hung back from a consciousness of guilt. For
in the year of the revolt of Germany he had been appointed a priest at
the altar of the Ubii, and had rent the sacred garlands, and fled to
the rebels. Induced, however, to hope for mercy from Rome, he
brought his father's message; he was graciously received and sent with
an escort to the Gallic bank of the Rhine.
It was now worth while for Germanicus to march back his army. A
battle was fought against the besiegers and Segestes was rescued
with a numerous band of kinsfolk and dependents. In the number were
some women of rank; among them, the wife of Arminius, who was also the
daughter of Segestes, but who exhibited the spirit of her husband
rather than of her father, subdued neither to tears nor to the tones
of a suppliant, her hands tightly clasped within her bosom, and eyes
which dwelt on her hope of offspring. The spoils also taken in the
defeat of Varus were brought in, having been given as plunder to
many of those who were then being surrendered.
Segestes too was there in person, a stately figure, fearless in
the remembrance of having been a faithful ally. His speech was to this
effect. "This is not my first day of steadfast loyalty towards the
Roman people. From the time that the Divine Augustus gave me the
citizenship, I have chosen my friends and foes with an eye to your
advantage, not from hatred of my fatherland (for traitors are detested
even by those whom they prefer) but because I held that Romans and
Germans have the same interests, and that peace is better than war.
And therefore I denounced to Varus, who then commanded your army,
Arminius, the ravisher of my daughter, the violater of your treaty.
I was put off by that dilatory general, and, as I found but little
protection in the laws, I urged him to arrest myself, Arminius, and
his accomplices. That night is my witness; would that it had been my
last. What followed, may be deplored rather than defended. However,
I threw Arminius into chains and I endured to have them put on
myself by his partisans. And as soon as give opportunity, I show my
preference for the old over the new, for peace over commotion, not
to get a reward, but that I may clear myself from treachery and be
at the same time a fit mediator for a German people, should they
choose repentance rather than ruin, For the youth and error of my
son I entreat forgiveness. As for my daughter, I admit that it is by
compulsion she has been brought here. It will be for you to consider
which fact weighs most with you, that she is with child by Arminius or
that she owes her being to me."
Caesar in a gracious reply promised safety to his children and
kinsfolk and a home for himself in the old province. He then led
back the army and received on the proposal of Tiberius the title of
Imperator. The wife of Arminius gave birth to a male child; the boy,
who was brought up at Ravenna, soon afterwards suffered an insult,
which at the proper time I shall relate.
The report of the surrender and kind reception of Segestes, when
generally known, was heard with hope or grief according as men
shrank from war or desired it. Arminius, with his naturally furious
temper, was driven to frenzy by the seizure of his wife and the
foredooming to slavery of his wife's unborn child. He flew hither
and thither among the Cherusci, demanding "war against Segestes, war
against Caesar." And he refrained not from taunts. "Noble the father,"
he would say, "mighty the general, brave the army which, with such
strength, has carried off one weak woman. Before me, three legions,
three commanders have fallen. Not by treachery, not against pregnant
women, but openly against armed men do I wage war. There are still
to be seen in the groves of Germany the Roman standards which I hung
up to our country's gods. Let Segestes dwell on the conquered bank;
let him restore to his son his priestly office; one thing there is
which Germans will never thoroughly excuse, their having seen
between the Elbe and the Rhine the Roman rods, axes, and toga. Other
nations in their ignorance of Roman rule, have no experience of
punishments, know nothing of tributes, and, as we have shaken them
off, as the great Augustus, ranked among dieties, and his chosen
heir Tiberius, departed from us, baffled, let us not quail before an
inexperienced stripling, before a mutinous army. If you prefer your
fatherland, your ancestors, your ancient life to tyrants and to new
colonies, follow as your leader Arminius to glory and to freedom
rather than Segestes to ignominious servitude."
This language roused not only the Cherusci but the neighbouring
tribes and drew to their side Inguiomerus, the uncle of Arminius,
who had long been respected by the Romans. This increased Caesar's
alarm. That the war might not burst in all its fury on one point, he
sent Caecina through the Bructeri to the river Amisia with forty Roman
cohorts to distract the enemy, while the cavalry was led by its
commander Pedo by the territories of the Frisii. Germanicus himself
put four legions on shipboard and conveyed them through the lakes, and
the infantry, cavalry, and fleet met simultaneously at the river
already mentioned. The Chauci, on promising aid, were associated
with us in military fellowship. Lucius Stertinius was despatched by
Germanicus with a flying column and routed the Bructeri as they were
burning their possessions, and amid the carnage and plunder, found the
eagle of the nineteenth legion which had been lost with Varus. The
troops were then marched to the furthest frontier of the Bructeri, and
all the country between the rivers Amisia and Luppia was ravaged,
not far from the forest of Teutoburgium where the remains of Varus and
his legions were said to lie unburied.
Germanicus upon this was seized with an eager longing to pay the
last honour to those soldiers and their general, while the whole
army present was moved to compassion by the thought of their
kinsfolk and friends, and, indeed, of the calamities of wars and the
lot of mankind. Having sent on Caecina in advance to reconnoitre the
obscure forest-passes, and to raise bridges and causeways over
watery swamps and treacherous plains, they visited the mournful
scenes, with their horrible sights and associations. Varus's first
camp with its wide circumference and the measurements of its central
space clearly indicated the handiwork of three legions. Further on,
the partially fallen rampart and the shallow fosse suggested the
inference that it was a shattered remnant of the army which had
there taken up a position. In the centre of the field were the
whitening bones of men, as they had fled, or stood their ground,
strewn everywhere or piled in heaps. Near, lay fragments of weapons
and limbs of horses, and also human heads, prominently nailed to
trunks of trees. In the adjacent groves were the barbarous altars,
on which they had immolated tribunes and first-rank centurions. Some
survivors of the disaster who had escaped from the battle or from
captivity, described how this was the spot where the officers fell,
how yonder the eagles were captured, where Varus was pierced by his
first wound, where too by the stroke of his own ill-starred hand he
found for himself death. They pointed out too the raised ground from
which Arminius had harangued his army, the number of gibbets for the
captives, the pits for the living, and how in his exultation he
insulted the standards and eagles.
And so the Roman army now on the spot, six years after the disaster,
in grief and anger, began to bury the bones of the three legions,
not a soldier knowing whether he was interring the relics of a
relative or a stranger, but looking on all as kinsfolk and of their
own blood, while their wrath rose higher than ever against the foe. In
raising the barrow Caesar laid the first sod, rendering thus a most
welcome honour to the dead, and sharing also in the sorrow of those
present. This Tiberius did not approve, either interpreting
unfavourably every act of Germanicus, or because he thought that the
spectacle of the slain and unburied made the army slow to fight and
more afraid of the enemy, and that a general invested with the
augurate and its very ancient ceremonies ought not to have polluted
himself with funeral rites.
Germanicus, however, pursued Arminius as he fell back into trackless
wilds, and as soon as he had the opportunity, ordered his cavalry to
sally forth and scour the plains occupied by the enemy. Arminius
having bidden his men to concentrate themselves and keep close to
the woods, suddenly wheeled round, and soon gave those whom he had
concealed in the forest passes the signal to rush to the attack.
Thereupon our cavalry was thrown into disorder by this new force,
and some cohorts in reserve were sent, which, broken by the shock of
flying troops, increased the panic. They were being pushed into a
swamp, well known to the victorious assailants, perilous to men
unacquainted with it, when Caesar led forth his legions in battle
array. This struck terror into the enemy and gave confidence to our
men, and they separated without advantage to either.
Soon afterwards Germanicus led back his army to the Amisia, taking
his legions by the fleet, as he had brought them up. Part of the
cavalry was ordered to make for the Rhine along the sea-coast.
Caecina, who commanded a division of his own, was advised, though he
was returning by a route which he knew, to pass Long Bridges with
all possible speed. This was a narrow road amid vast swamps, which had
formerly been constructed by Lucius Domitius; on every side were
quagmires of thick clinging mud, or perilous with streams. Around were
woods on a gradual slope, which Arminius now completely occupied, as
soon as by a short route and quick march he had outstripped troops
heavily laden with baggage and arms. As Caecina was in doubt how he
could possibly replace bridges which were ruinous from age, and at the
same time hold back the enemy, he resolved to encamp on the spot, that
some might begin the repair and others the attack.
The barbarians attempted to break through the outposts and to
throw themselves on the engineering parties, which they harassed,
pacing round them and continually charging them. There was a
confused din from the men at work and the combatants. Everything alike
was unfavourable to the Romans, the place with its deep swamps,
insecure to the foot and slippery as one advanced, limbs burdened with
coats of mail, and the impossibility of aiming their javelins amid the
water. The Cherusci, on the other hand, were familiar with fighting in
fens; they had huge frames, and lances long enough to inflict wounds
even at a distance. Night at last released the legions, which were now
wavering, from a disastrous engagement. The Germans whom success
rendered unwearied, without even then taking any rest, turned all
the streams which rose from the slopes of the surrounding hills into
the lands beneath. The ground being thus flooded and the completed
portion of our works submerged, the soldiers' labour was doubled.
This was Caecina's fortieth campaign as a subordinate or a
commander, and, with such experience of success and peril, he was
perfectly fearless. As he thought over future possibilities, he
could devise no plan but to keep the enemy within the woods, till
the wounded and the more encumbered troops were in advance. For
between the hills and the swamps there stretched a plain which would
admit of an extended line. The legions had their assigned places,
the fifth on the right wing, the twenty-first on the left, the men
of the first to lead the van, the twentieth to repel pursuers.
It was a restless night for different reasons, the barbarians in
their festivity filling the valleys under the hills and the echoing
glens with merry song or savage shouts, while in the Roman camp were
flickering fires, broken exclamations, and the men lay scattered along
the intrenchments or wandered from tent to tent, wakeful rather than
watchful. A ghastly dream appalled the general. He seemed to see
Quintilius Varus, covered with blood, rising out of the swamps, and to
hear him, as it were, calling to him, but he did not, as he
imagined, obey the call; he even repelled his hand, as he stretched it
over him. At daybreak the legions, posted on the wings, from panic
or perversity, deserted their position and hastily occupied a plain
beyond the morass. Yet Arminius, though free to attack, did not at the
moment rush out on them. But when the baggage was clogged in the mud
and in the fosses, the soldiers around it in disorder, the array of
the standards in confusion, every one in selfish haste and all ears
deaf to the word of command he ordered the Germans to charge,
exclaiming again and again, "Behold a Varus and legions once more
entangled in Varus's fate." As he spoke, he cut through the column
with some picked men, inflicting wounds chiefly on the horses.
Staggering in their blood on the slippery marsh, they shook off
their riders, driving hither and thither all in their way, and
trampling on the fallen. The struggle was hottest round the eagles,
which could neither be carried in the face of the storm of missiles,
nor planted in the miry soil. Caecina, while he was keeping up the
battle, fell from his horse, which was pierced under him, and was
being hemmed in, when the first legion threw itself in the way. The
greed of the foe helped him, for they left the slaughter to secure the
spoil, and the legions, towards evening, struggled on to open and firm
ground.
Nor did this end their miseries. Entrenchments had to be thrown
up, materials sought for earthworks, while the army had lost to a
great extent their implements for digging earth and cutting turf.
There were no tents for the rank and file, no comforts for the
wounded. As they shared their food, soiled by mire or blood, they
bewailed the darkness with its awful omen, and the one day which yet
remained to so many thousand men.
It chanced that a horse, which had broken its halter and wandered
wildly in fright at the uproar, overthrew some men against whom it
dashed. Thence arose such a panic, from the belief that the Germans
had burst into the camp, that all rushed to the gates. Of these the
decuman gate was the point chiefly sought, as it was furthest from the
enemy and safer for flight. Caecina, having ascertained that the alarm
was groundless, yet being unable to stop or stay the soldiers by
authority or entreaties or even by force, threw himself to the earth
in the gateway, and at last by an appeal to their pity, as they
would have had to pass over the body of their commander, closed the
way. At the same moment the tribunes and the centurions convinced them
that it was a false alarm.
Having then assembled them at his headquarters, and ordered them
to hear his words in silence, he reminded them of the urgency of the
crisis. "Their safety," he said, "lay in their arms, which they
must, however, use with discretion, and they must remain within the
entrenchments, till the enemy approached closer, in the hope of
storming them; then, there must be a general sortie; by that sortie
the Rhine might be reached. Whereas if they fled, more forests, deeper
swamps, and a savage foe awaited them; but if they were victorious,
glory and renown would be theirs." He dwelt on all that was dear to
them at home, all that testified to their honour in the camp,
without any allusion to disaster. Next he handed over the horses,
beginning with his own, of the officers and tribunes, to the bravest
fighters in the army, quite impartially, that these first, and then
the infantry, might charge the enemy.
There was as much restlessness in the German host with its hopes,
its eager longings, and the conflicting opinions of its chiefs.
Arminius advised that they should allow the Romans to quit their
position, and, when they had quitted it, again surprise them in swampy
and intricate ground. Inguiomerus, with fiercer counsels, heartily
welcome to barbarians, was for beleaguering the entrenchment in
armed array, as to storm them would, he said, be easy, and there would
be more prisoners and the booty unspoilt. So at daybreak they trampled
in the fosses, flung hurdles into them, seized the upper part of the
breastwork, where the troops were thinly distributed and seemingly
paralysed by fear. When they were fairly within the fortifications,
the signal was given to the cohorts, and the horns and trumpets
sounded. Instantly, with a shout and sudden rush, our men threw
themselves on the German rear, with taunts, that here were no woods or
swamps, but that they were on equal ground, with equal chances. The
sound of trumpets, the gleam of arms, which were so unexpected,
burst with all the greater effect on the enemy, thinking only, as they
were, of the easy destruction of a few half-armed men, and they were
struck down, as unprepared for a reverse as they had been elated by
success. Arminius and Inguiomerus fled from the battle, the first
unhurt, the other severely wounded. Their followers were
slaughtered, as long as our fury and the light of day lasted. It was
not till night that the legions returned, and though more wounds and
the same want of provisions distressed them, yet they found
strength, healing, sustenance, everything indeed, in their victory.
Meanwhile a rumour had spread that our army was cut off, and that
a furious German host was marching on Gaul. And had not Agrippina
prevented the bridge over the Rhine from being destroyed, some in
their cowardice would have dared that base act. A woman of heroic
spirit, she assumed during those days the duties of a general, and
distributed clothes or medicine among the soldiers, as they were
destitute or wounded. According to Caius Plinius, the historian of the
German wars, she stood at the extremity of the bridge, and bestowed
praise and thanks on the returning legions. This made a deep
impression on the mind of Tiberius. "Such zeal," he thought, "could
not be guileless; it was not against a foreign foe that she was thus
courting the soldiers. Generals had nothing left them when a woman
went among the companies, attended the standards, ventured on bribery,
as though it showed but slight ambition to parade her son in a
common soldier's uniform, and wish him to be called Caesar Caligula.
Agrippina had now more power with the armies than officers, than
generals. A woman had quelled a mutiny which the sovereign's name
could not check." All this was inflamed and aggravated by Sejanus,
who, with his thorough comprehension of the character of Tiberius,
sowed for a distant future hatreds which the emperor might treasure up
and might exhibit when fully matured.
Of the legions which he had conveyed by ship, Germanicus gave the
second and fourteenth to Publius Vitellius, to be marched by land,
so that the fleet might sail more easily over a sea full of shoals, or
take the ground more lightly at the ebb-tide. Vitellius at first
pursued his route without interruption, having a dry shore, or the
waves coming in gently. After a while, through the force of the
north wind and the equinoctial season, when the sea swells to its
highest, his army was driven and tossed hither and thither. The
country too was flooded; sea, shore, fields presented one aspect,
nor could the treacherous quicksands be distinguished from solid
ground or shallows from deep water. Men were swept away by the waves
or sucked under by eddies; beasts of burden, baggage, lifeless
bodies floated about and blocked their way. The companies were mingled
in confusion, now with the breast, now with the head only above water,
sometimes losing their footing and parted from their comrades or
drowned. The voice of mutual encouragement availed not against the
adverse force of the waves. There was nothing to distinguish the brave
from the coward, the prudent from the careless, forethought from
chance; the same strong power swept everything before it. At last
Vitellius struggled out to higher ground and led his men up to it.
There they passed the night, without necessary food, without fire,
many of them with bare or bruised limbs, in a plight as pitiable as
that of men besieged by an enemy. For such, at least, have the
opportunity of a glorious death, while here was destruction without
honour. Daylight restored land to their sight, and they pushed their
way to the river Visurgis, where Caesar had arrived with the fleet.
The legions then embarked, while a rumour was flying about that they
were drowned. Nor was there a belief in their safety till they saw
Caesar and the army returned.
By this time Stertinius, who had been despatched to receive the
surrender of Segimerus, brother of Segestes, had conducted the
chief, together with his son, to the canton of the Ubii. Both were
pardoned, Segimerus readily, the son with some hesitation, because
it was said that he had insulted the corpse of Quintilius Varus.
Meanwhile Gaul, Spain, and Italy vied in repairing the losses of the
army, offering whatever they had at hand, arms, horses, gold.
Germanicus having praised their zeal, took only for the war their arms
and horses, and relieved the soldiers out of his own purse. And that
he might also soften the remembrance of the disaster by kindness, he
went round to the wounded, applauded the feats of soldier after
soldier, examined their wounds, raised the hopes of one, the
ambition of another, and the spirits of all by his encouragement and
interest, thus strengthening their ardour for himself and for battle.
That year triumphal honours were decreed to Aulus Caecina, Lucius
Apronius, Caius Silius for their achievements under Germanicus. The
title of "father of his country," which the people had so often thrust
on him, Tiberius refused, nor would he allow obedience to be sworn
to his enactments, though the Senate voted it, for he said
repeatedly that all human things were uncertain, and that the more
he had obtained, the more precarious was his position. But he did
not thereby create a belief in his patriotism, for he had revived
the law of treason, the name of which indeed was known in ancient
times, though other matters came under its jurisdiction, such as the
betrayal of an army, or seditious stirring up of the people, or, in
short, any corrupt act by which a man had impaired "the majesty of the
people of Rome." Deeds only were liable to accusation; words went
unpunished. It was Augustus who first, under colour of this law,
applied legal inquiry to libellous writings provoked, as he had
been, by the licentious freedom with which Cassius Severus had defamed
men and women of distinction in his insulting satires. Soon
afterwards, Tiberius, when consulted by Pompeius Macer, the praetor,
as to whether prosecutions for treason should be revived, replied that
the laws must be enforced. He too had been exasperated by the
publication of verses of uncertain authorship, pointed at his cruelty,
his arrogance, and his dissensions with his mother.
It will not be uninteresting if I relate in the cases of Falanius
and Rubrius, Roman knights of moderate fortune, the first
experiments at such accusations, in order to explain the origin of a
most terrible scourge, how by Tiberius's cunning it crept in among us,
how subsequently it was checked, finally, how it burst into flame
and consumed everything. Against Falanius it was alleged by his
accuser that he had admitted among the votaries of Augustus, who in
every great house were associated into a kind of brotherhood, one
Cassius, a buffoon of infamous life, and that he had also in selling
his gardens included in the sale a statue of Augustus. Against Rubrius
the charge was that he had violated by perjury the divinity of
Augustus. When this was known to Tiberius, he wrote to the consuls
"that his father had not had a place in heaven decreed to him, that
the honour might be turned to the destruction of the citizens.
Cassius, the actor, with men of the same profession, used to take part
in the games which had been consecrated by his mother to the memory of
Augustus. Nor was it contrary to the religion of the State for the
emperor's image, like those of other deities, to be added to a sale of
gardens and houses. As to the oath, the thing ought to be considered
as if the man had deceived Jupiter. Wrongs done to the gods were the
gods' concern."
Not long afterwards, Granius Marcellus, proconsul of Bithynia, was
accused of treason by his quaestor, Caepio Crispinus, and the charge
was supported by Romanus Hispo. Crispinus then entered on a line of
life afterwards rendered notorious by the miseries of the age and
men's shamelessness. Needy, obscure, and restless, he wormed himself
by stealthy informations into the confidence of a vindictive prince,
and soon imperilled all the most distinguished citizens; and having
thus gained influence with one, hatred from all besides, he left an
example in following which beggars became wealthy, the
insignificant, formidable, and brought ruin first on others, finally
on themselves. He alleged against Marcellus that he had made some
disrespectful remarks about Tiberius, a charge not to be evaded,
inasmuch as the accuser selected the worst features of the emperor's
character and grounded his case on them. The things were true, and
so were believed to have been said.
Hispo added that Marcellus had placed his own statue above those
of the Caesars, and had set the bust of Tiberius on another statue
from which he had struck off the head of Augustus. At this the
emperor's wrath blazed forth, and, breaking through his habitual
silence, he exclaimed that in such a case he would himself too give
his vote openly on oath, that the rest might be under the same
obligation. There lingered even then a few signs of expiring
freedom. And so Cneius Piso asked, "In what order will you vote,
Caesar? If first, I shall know what to follow; if last, I fear that
I may differ from you unwillingly." Tiberius was deeply moved, and
repenting of the outburst, all the more because of its
thoughtlessness, he quietly allowed the accused to be acquitted of the
charges of treason. As for the question of extortion, it was
referred to a special commission.
Not satisfied with judicial proceedings in the Senate, the emperor
would sit at one end of the Praetor's tribunal, but so as not to
displace him from the official seat. Many decisions were given in
his presence, in opposition to improper influence and the
solicitations of great men. This, though it promoted justice, ruined
freedom. Pius Aurelius, for example, a senator, complained that the
foundations of his house had been weakened by the pressure of a public
road and aqueduct, and he appealed to the Senate for assistance. He
was opposed by the praetors of the treasury, but the emperor helped
him, and paid him the value of his house, for he liked to spend
money on a good purpose, a virtue which he long retained, when he cast
off all others. To Propertius Celer, an ex-praetor, who sought because
of his indigence to be excused from his rank as a senator, he gave a
million sesterces, having ascertained that he had inherited poverty.
He bade others, who attempted the same, prove their case to the
Senate, as from his love of strictness he was harsh even where he
acted on right grounds. Consequently every one else preferred
silence and poverty to confession and relief.
In the same year the Tiber, swollen by continuous rains, flooded the
level portions of the city. Its subsidence was followed by a
destruction of buildings and of life. Thereupon Asinius Gallus
proposed to consult the Sibylline books. Tiberius refused, veiling
in obscurity the divine as well as the human. However, the devising of
means to confine the river was intrusted to Ateius Capito and Lucius
Arruntius.
Achaia and Macedonia, on complaining of their burdens, were, it
was decided, to be relieved for a time from proconsular government and
to be transferred to the emperor. Drusus presided over a show of
gladiators which he gave in his own name and in that of his brother
Germanicus, for he gloated intensely over bloodshed, however cheap its
victims. This was alarming to the populace, and his father had, it was
said, rebuked him. Why Tiberius kept away from the spectacle was
variously explained. According to some, it was his loathing of a
crowd, according to others, his gloomy temper, and a fear of
contrast with the gracious presence of Augustus. I cannot believe that
he deliberately gave his son the opportunity of displaying his
ferocity and provoking the people's disgust, though even this was
said.
Meanwhile the unruly tone of the theatre which first showed itself
in the preceding year, broke out with worse violence, and some
soldiers and a centurion, besides several of the populace, were
killed, and the tribune of a praetorian cohort was wounded, while they
were trying to stop insults to the magistrates and the strife of the
mob. This disturbance was the subject of a debate in the Senate, and
opinions were expressed in favour of the praetors having authority
to scourge actors. Haterius Agrippa, tribune of the people, interposed
his veto, and was sharply censured in a speech from Asinius Gallus,
without a word from Tiberius, who liked to allow the Senate such shows
of freedom. Still the interposition was successful, because Augustus
had once pronounced that actors were exempt from the scourge, and it
was not lawful for Tiberius to infringe his decisions. Many enactments
were passed to fix the amount of their pay and to check the disorderly
behaviour of their partisans. Of these the chief were that no
Senator should enter the house of a pantomime player, that Roman
knights should not crowd round them in the public streets, that they
should exhibit themselves only in the theatre, and that the praetors
should be empowered to punish with banishment any riotous conduct in
the spectators.
A request from the Spaniards that they might erect a temple to
Augustus in the colony of Tarraco was granted, and a precedent thus
given for all the provinces. When the people of Rome asked for a
remission of the one per cent. tax on all saleable commodities,
Tiberius declared by edict "that the military exchequer depended on
that branch of revenue, and, further, that the State was unequal to
the burden, unless the twentieth year of service were to be that of
the veteran's discharge." Thus the ill-advised results of the late
mutiny, by which a limit of sixteen campaigns had been extorted,
were cancelled for the future.
A question was then raised in the Senate by Arruntius and Ateius
whether, in order to restrain the inundations of the Tiber, the rivers
and lakes which swell its waters should be diverted from their
courses. A hearing was given to embassies from the municipal towns and
colonies, and the people of Florentia begged that the Clanis might not
be turned out of its channel and made to flow into the Arnus, as
that would bring ruin on themselves. Similar arguments were used by
the inhabitants of Interamna. The most fruitful plains of Italy,
they said, would be destroyed if the river Nar (for this was the
plan proposed) were to be divided into several streams and overflow
the country. Nor did the people of Reate remain silent. They
remonstrated against the closing up of the Veline lake, where it
empties itself into the Nar, "as it would burst in a flood on the
entire neighbourhood. Nature had admirably provided for human
interests in having assigned to rivers their mouths, their channels,
and their limits, as well as their sources. Regard, too, must be
paid to the different religions of the allies, who had dedicated
sacred rites, groves, and altars to the rivers of their country. Tiber
himself would be altogether unwilling to be deprived of his
neighbour streams and to flow with less glory." Either the
entreaties of the colonies, or the difficulty of the work or
superstitious motives prevailed, and they yielded to Piso's opinion,
who declared himself against any change.
Poppaeus Sabinus was continued in his government of the province
of Moesia with the addition of Achaia and Macedonia. It was part of
Tiberius' character to prolong indefinitely military commands and to
keep many men to the end of their life with the same armies and in the
same administrations. Various motives have been assigned for this.
Some say that, out of aversion to any fresh anxiety, he retained
what he had once approved as a permanent arrangement; others, that
he grudged to see many enjoying promotion. Some, again, think that
though he had an acute intellect, his judgment was irresolute, for
he did not seek out eminent merit, and yet he detested vice. From
the best men he apprehended danger to himself, from the worst,
disgrace to the State. He went so far at last in this irresolution,
that he appointed to provinces men whom he did not mean to allow to
leave Rome.
I can hardly venture on any positive statement about the consular
elections, now held for the first time under this emperor, or, indeed,
subsequently, so conflicting are the accounts we find not only in
historians but in Tiberius' own speeches. Sometimes he kept back the
names of the candidates, describing their origin, their life and
military career, so that it might be understood who they were.
Occasionally even these hints were withheld, and, after urging them
not to disturb the elections by canvassing, he would promise his own
help towards the result. Generally he declared that only those had
offered themselves to him as candidates whose names he had given to
the consuls, and that others might offer themselves if they had
confidence in their influence or merit. A plausible profession this in
words, but really unmeaning and delusive, and the greater the disguise
of freedom which marked it, the more cruel the enslavement into
which it was soon to plunge us.
BOOK II, A.D. 16-19

IN the consulship of Sisenna Statilius Taurus and Lucius Libo
there was a commotion in the kingdoms and Roman provinces of the East.
It had its origin among the Parthians, who disdained as a foreigner
a king whom they had sought and received from Rome, though he was of
the family of the Arsacids. This was Vonones, who had been given as an
hostage to Augustus by Phraates. For although he had driven before him
armies and generals from Rome, Phraates had shown to Augustus every
token of reverence and had sent him some of his children, to cement
the friendship, not so much from dread of us as from distrust of the
loyalty of his countrymen.
After the death of Phraates and the succeeding kings in the
bloodshed of civil wars, there came to Rome envoys from the chief
men of Parthia, in quest of Vonones, his eldest son. Caesar thought
this a great honour to himself, and loaded Vonones with wealth. The
barbarians, too, welcomed him with rejoicing, as is usual with new
rulers. Soon they felt shame at Parthians having become degenerate, at
their having sought a king from another world, one too infected with
the training of the enemy, at the throne of the Arsacids now being
possessed and given away among the provinces of Rome. "Where," they
asked, "was the glory of the men who slew Crassus, who drove out
Antonius, if Caesar's drudge, after an endurance of so many years'
slavery, were to rule over Parthians."
Vonones himself too further provoked their disdain, by his
contrast with their ancestral manners, by his rare indulgence in the
chase, by his feeble interest in horses, by the litter in which he was
carried whenever he made a progress through their cities, and by his
contemptuous dislike of their national festivities. They also
ridiculed his Greek attendants and his keeping under seal the
commonest household articles. But he was easy of approach; his
courtesy was open to all, and he had thus virtues with which the
Parthians were unfamiliar, and vices new to them. And as his ways were
quite alien from theirs they hated alike what was bad and what was
good in him.
Accordingly they summoned Artabanus, an Arsacid by blood, who had
grown to manhood among the Dahae, and who, though routed in the
first encounter, rallied his forces and possessed himself of the
kingdom. The conquered Vonones found a refuge in Armenia, then a
free country, and exposed to the power of Parthia and Rome, without
being trusted by either, in consequence of the crime of Antonius, who,
under the guise of friendship, had inveigled Artavasdes, king of the
Armenians, then loaded him with chains, and finally murdered him.
His son, Artaxias, our bitter foe because of his father's memory,
found defence for himself and his kingdom in the might of the
Arsacids. When he was slain by the treachery of kinsmen, Caesar gave
Tigranes to the Armenians, and he was put in possession of the kingdom
under the escort of Tiberius Nero. But neither Tigranes nor his
children reigned long, though, in foreign fashion, they were united in
marriage and in royal power.
Next, at the bidding of Augustus, Artavasdes was set on the
throne, nor was he deposed without disaster to ourselves. Caius Caesar
was then appointed to restore order in Armenia. He put over the
Armenians Ariobarzanes, a Mede by birth, whom they willingly accepted,
because of his singularly handsome person and noble spirit. On the
death of Ariobarzanes through a fatal accident, they would not
endure his son. Having tried the government of a woman named Erato and
having soon afterwards driven her from them, bewildered and
disorganised, rather indeed without a ruler than enjoying freedom,
they received for their king the fugitive Vonones. When, however,
Artabanus began to threaten, and but feeble support could be given
by the Armenians, or war with Parthia would have to be undertaken,
if Vonones was to be upheld by our arms, the governor of Syria,
Creticus Silanus, sent for him and kept him under surveillance,
letting him retain his royal pomp and title. How Vonones meditated
an escape from this mockery, I will relate in the proper place.
Meanwhile the commotion in the East was rather pleasing to Tiberius,
as it was a pretext for withdrawing Germanicus from the legions
which knew him well, and placing him over new provinces where he would
be exposed both to treachery and to disasters. Germanicus, however, in
proportion to the strength of the soldiers' attachment and to his
uncle's dislike, was eager to hasten his victory, and he pondered on
plans of battle, and on the reverses or successes which during more
than three years of war had fallen to his lot. The Germans, he knew,
were beaten in the field and on fair ground; they were helped by
woods, swamps, short summers, and early winters. His own troops were
affected not so much by wounds as by long marches and damage to
their arms. Gaul had been exhausted by supplying horses; a long
baggage-train presented facilities for ambuscades, and was
embarrassing to its defenders. But by embarking on the sea, invasion
would be easy for them, and a surprise to the enemy, while a
campaign too would be more quickly begun, the legions and supplies
would be brought up simultaneously, and the cavalry with their
horses would arrive, in good condition, by the rivermouths and
channels, at the heart of Germany.
To this accordingly he gave his mind, and sent Publius Vitellius and
Caius Antius to collect the taxes of Gaul. Silius, Anteius, and
Caecina had the charge of building a fleet. It seemed that a
thousand vessels were required, and they were speedily constructed,
some of small draught with a narrow stem and stern and a broad centre,
that they might bear the waves more easily; some flat-bottomed, that
they might ground without being injured; several, furnished with a
rudder at each end, so that by a sudden shifting of the oars they
might be run into shore either way. Many were covered in with decks,
on which engines for missiles might be conveyed, and were also fit for
the carrying of horses or supplies, and being equipped with sails as
well as rapidly moved by oars, they assumed, through the enthusiasm of
our soldiers, an imposing and formidable aspect.
The island of the Batavi was the appointed rendezvous, because of
its easy landing-places, and its convenience for receiving the army
and carrying the war across the river. For the Rhine after flowing
continuously in a single channel or encircling merely insignificant
islands, divides itself, so to say, where the Batavian territory
begins, into two rivers, retaining its name and the rapidity of its
course in the stream which washes Germany, till it mingles with the
ocean. On the Gallic bank, its flow is broader and gentler; it is
called by an altered name, the Vahal, by the inhabitants of its shore.
Soon that name too is changed for the Mosa river, through whose vast
mouth it empties itself into the same ocean.
Caesar, however, while the vessels were coming up, ordered Silius,
his lieutenant-general, to make an inroad on the Chatti with a
flying column. He himself, on hearing that a fort on the river
Luppia was being besieged, led six legions to the spot. Silius owing
to sudden rains did nothing but carry off a small booty, and the
wife and daughter of Arpus, the chief of the Chatti. And Caesar had no
opportunity of fighting given him by the besiegers, who dispersed on
the rumour of his advance. They had, however, destroyed the barrow
lately raised in memory of Varus's legions, and the old altar of
Drusus. The prince restored the altar, and himself with his legions
celebrated funeral games in his father's honour. To raise a new barrow
was not thought necessary. All the country between the fort Aliso
and the Rhine was thoroughly secured by new barriers and earthworks.
By this time the fleet had arrived, and Caesar, having sent on his
supplies and assigned vessels for the legions and the allied troops,
entered "Drusus's fosse," as it was called. He prayed Drusus his
father to lend him, now that he was venturing on the same
enterprise, the willing and favourable aid of the example and wi
memory of his counsels and achievements, and he arrived after a
prosperous voyage through the lakes and the ocean as far as the
river Amisia. His fleet remained there on the left bank of the stream,
and it was a blunder that he did not have it brought up the river.
He disembarked the troops, which were to be marched to the country
on the right, and thus several days were wasted in the construction of
bridges. The cavalry and the legions fearlessly crossed the first
estuaries in which the tide had not yet risen. The rear of the
auxiliaries, and the Batavi among the number, plunging recklessly into
the water and displaying their skill in swimming, fell into
disorder, and some were drowned. While Caesar was measuring out his
camp, he was told of a revolt of the Angrivarii in his rear. He at
once despatched Stertinius with some cavalry and a light armed
force, who punished their perfidy with fire and sword.
The waters of the Visurgis flowed between the Romans and the
Cherusci. On its banks stood Arminius with the other chiefs. He
asked whether Caesar had arrived, and on the reply that he was
present, he begged leave to have an interview with his brother. That
brother, surnamed Flavus, was with our army, a man famous for his
loyalty, and for having lost an eye by a wound, a few years ago,
when Tiberius was in command. The permission was then given, and he
stepped forth and was saluted by Arminius, who had removed his
guards to a distance and required that the bowmen ranged on our bank
should retire. When they had gone away, Arminius asked his brother
whence came the scar which disfigured his face, and on being told
the particular place and battle, he inquired what reward he had
received. Flavus spoke of increased pay, of a neck chain, a crown, and
other military gifts, while Arminius jeered at such a paltry
recompense for slavery.
Then began a controversy. The one spoke of the greatness of Rome,
the resources of Caesar, the dreadful punishment in store for the
vanquished, the ready mercy for him who surrenders, and the fact
that neither Arminius's wife nor his son were treated as enemies;
the other, of the claims of fatherland, of ancestral freedom, of the
gods of the homes of Germany, of the mother who shared his prayers,
that Flavus might not choose to be the deserter and betrayer rather
than the ruler of his kinsfolk and relatives, and indeed of his own
people.
By degrees they fell to bitter words, and even the river between
them would not have hindered them from joining combat, had not
Stertinius hurried up and put his hand on Flavus, who in the full tide
of his fury was demanding his weapons and his charger. Arminius was
seen facing him, full of menaces and challenging him to conflict. Much
of what he said was in Roman speech, for he had served in our camp
as leader of his fellow-countrymen.
Next day the German army took up its position on the other side of
the Visurgis. Caesar, thinking that without bridges and troops to
guard them, it would not be good generalship to expose the legions
to danger, sent the cavalry across the river by the fords. It was
commanded by Stertinius and Aemilius, one of the first rank
centurions, who attacked at widely different points so as to
distract the enemy. Chariovalda, the Batavian chief, dashed to the
charge where the stream is most rapid. The Cherusci, by a pretended
flight, drew him into a plain surrounded by forest-passes. Then
bursting on him in a sudden attack from all points they thrust aside
all who resisted, pressed fiercely on their retreat, driving them
before them, when they rallied in compact array, some by close
fighting, others by missiles from a distance. Chariovalda, after
long sustaining the enemy's fury, cheered on his men to break by a
dense formation the onset of their bands, while he himself, plunging
into the thickest of the battle, fell amid a shower of darts with
his horse pierced under him, and round him many noble chiefs. The rest
were rescued from the peril by their own strength, or by the cavalry
which came up with Stertinius and Aemilius.
Caesar on crossing the Visurgis learnt by the information of a
deserter that Arminius had chosen a battle-field, that other tribes
too had assembled in a forest sacred to Hercules, and would venture on
a night attack on his camp. He put faith in this intelligence, and,
besides, several watchfires were seen. Scouts also, who had crept
close up to the enemy, reported that they had heard the neighing of
horses and the hum of a huge and tumultuous host. And so as the
decisive crisis drew near, that he ought thoroughly to sound the
temper of his soldiers, he considered with himself how this was to
be accomplished with a genuine result. Tribunes and centurions, he
knew, oftener reported what was welcome than what was true; freedmen
had slavish spirits, friends a love of flattery. If an assembly were
called, there too the lead of a few was followed by the shout of the
many. He must probe their inmost thoughts, when they were uttering
their hopes and fears at the military mess, among themselves, and
unwatched.
At nightfall, leaving his tent of augury by a secret exit, unknown
to the sentries, with one companion, his shoulders covered with a wild
beast's skin, he visited the camp streets, stood by the tents, and
enjoyed the men's talk about himself, as one extolled his noble
rank, another, his handsome person, nearly all of them, his endurance,
his gracious manner and the evenness of his temper, whether he was
jesting or was serious, while they acknowledged that they ought to
repay him with their gratitude in battle, and at the same time
sacrifice to a glorious vengeance the perfidious violators of peace.
Meanwhile one of the enemy, acquainted with the Roman tongue,
spurred his horse up to the entrenchments, and in a loud voice
promised in the name of Arminius to all deserters wives and lands with
daily pay of a hundred sesterces as long as war lasted. The insult
fired the wrath of the legions. "Let daylight come," they said, "let
battle be given. The soldiers will possess themselves of the lands
of the Germans and will carry off their wives. We hail the omen; we
mean the women and riches of the enemy to be our spoil." About
midday there was a skirmishing attack on our camp, without any
discharge of missiles, when they saw the cohorts in close array before
the lines and no sign of carelessness.
The same night brought with it a cheering dream to Germanicus. He
saw himself engaged in sacrifice, and his robe being sprinkled with
the sacred blood, another more beautiful was given him by the hands of
his grandmother Augusta. Encouraged by the omen and finding the
auspices favourable, he called an assembly, and explained the
precautions which wisdom suggested as suitable for the impending
battle. "It is not," he said, "plains only which are good for the
fighting of Roman soldiers, but woods and forest passes, if science be
used. For the huge shields and unwieldly lances of the barbarians
cannot, amid trunks of trees and brushwood that springs from the
ground, be so well managed as our javelins and swords and closefitting
armour. Shower your blows thickly; strike at the face with your
swords' points. The German has neither cuirass nor helmet; even his
shield is not strengthened with leather or steel, but is of osiers
woven together or of thin and painted board. If their first line is
armed with spears, the rest have only weapons hardened by fire or very
short. Again, though their frames are terrible to the eye and
formidable in a brief onset, they have no capacity of enduring wounds;
without, any shame at the disgrace, without any regard to their
leaders, they quit the field and flee; they quail under disaster, just
as in success they forget alike divine and human laws. If in your
weariness of land and sea you desire an end of service, this battle
prepares the way to it. The Elbe is now nearer than the Rhine, and
there is no war beyond, provided only you enable me, keeping close
as I do to my father's and my uncle's footsteps, to stand a
conqueror on the same spot."
The general's speech was followed by enthusiasm in the soldiers, and
the signal for battle was given. Nor were Arminius and the other
German chiefs slow to call their respective clansmen to witness that
"these Romans were the most cowardly fugitives out of Varus's army,
men who rather than endure war had taken to mutiny. Half of them
have their backs covered with wounds; half are once again exposing
limbs battered by waves and storms to a foe full of fury, and to
hostile deities, with no hope of advantage. They have, in fact, had
recourse to a fleet and to a trackless ocean, that their coming
might be unopposed, their flight unpursued. But when once they have
joined conflict with us, the help of winds or oars will be
unavailing to the vanquished. Remember only their greed, their
cruelty, their pride. Is anything left for us but to retain our
freedom or to die before we are enslaved?
When they were thus roused and were demanding battle, their chiefs
led them down into a plain named Idistavisus. It winds between the
Visurgis and a hill range, its breadth varying as the river banks
recede or the spurs of the hills project on it. In their rear rose a
forest, with the branches rising to a great height, while there were
clear spaces between the trunks. The barbarian army occupied the plain
and the outskirts of the wood. The Cherusci were posted by
themselves on the high ground, so as to rush down on the Romans during
the battle.
Our army advanced in the following order. The auxiliary Gauls and
Germans were in the van, then the foot-archers, after them, four
legions and Caesar himself with two praetorian cohorts and some picked
cavalry. Next came as many other legions, and light-armed troops
with horse-bowmen, and the remaining cohorts of the allies. The men
were quite ready and prepared to form in line of battle according to
their marching order.
Caesar, as soon as he saw the Cheruscan bands which in their
impetuous spirit had rushed to the attack, ordered the finest of his
cavalry to charge them in flank, Stertinius with the other squadrons
to make a detour and fall on their rear, promising himself to come
up in good time. Meanwhile there was a most encouraging augury.
Eight eagles, seen to fly towards the woods and to enter them,
caught the general's eye. "Go," he exclaimed, "follow the Roman birds,
the true deities of our legions." At the same moment the infantry
charged, and the cavalry which had been sent on in advance dashed on
the rear and the flanks. And, strange to relate, two columns of the
enemy fled in opposite directions, that, which had occupied the
wood, rushing into the open, those who had been drawn up on the
plains, into the wood. The Cherusci, who were between them, were
dislodged from the hills, while Arminius, conspicuous among them by
gesture, voice, and a wound he had received, kept up the fight. He had
thrown himself on our archers and was on the point of breaking through
them, when the cohorts of the Raeti, Vendelici, and Gauls faced his
attack. By a strong bodily effort, however, and a furious rush of
his horse, he made his way through them, having smeared his face
with his blood, that he might not be known. Some have said that he was
recognised by Chauci serving among the Roman auxiliaries, who let
him go.
Inguiomerus owed his escape to similar courage or treachery. The
rest were cut down in every direction. Many in attempting to swim
across the Visurgis were overwhelmed under a storm of missiles or by
the force of the current, lastly, by the rush of fugitives and the
falling in of the banks. Some in their ignominious flight climbed
the tops of trees, and as they were hiding themselves in the boughs,
archers were brought up and they were shot for sport. Others were
dashed to the ground by the felling of the trees.
It was a great victory and without bloodshed to us. From nine in the
morning to nightfall the enemy were slaughtered, and ten miles were
covered with arms and dead bodies, while there were found amid the
plunder the chains which the Germans had brought with them for the
Romans, as though the issue were certain. The soldiers on the battle
field hailed Tiberius as Imperator, and raised a mound on which arms
were piled in the style of a trophy, with the names of the conquered
tribes inscribed beneath them.
That sight caused keener grief and rage among the Germans than their
wounds, their mourning, and their losses. Those who but now were
preparing to quit their settlements and to retreat to the further side
of the Elbe, longed for battle and flew to arms. Common people and
chiefs, young and old, rushed on the Roman army, and spread
disorder. At last they chose a spot closed in by a river and by
forests, within which was a narrow swampy plain. The woods too were
surrounded by a bottomless morass, only on one side of it the
Angrivarii had raised a broad earthwork, as a boundary between
themselves and the Cherusci. Here their infantry was ranged. Their
cavalry they concealed in neighbouring woods, so as to be on the
legions' rear, as soon as they entered the forest.
All this was known to Caesar. He was acquainted with their plans,
their positions, with what met the eye, and what was hidden, and he
prepared to turn the enemy's stratagems to their own destruction. To
Seius Tubero, his chief officer, he assigned the cavalry and the
plain. His infantry he drew up so that part might advance on level
ground into the forest, and part clamber up the earthwork which
confronted them. He charged himself with what was the specially
difficult operation, leaving the rest to his officers. Those who had
the level ground easily forced a passage. Those who had to assault the
earthwork encountered heavy blows from above, as if they were
scaling a wall. The general saw how unequal this close fighting was,
and having withdrawn his legions to a little distance, ordered the
slingers and artillerymen to discharge a volley of missiles and
scatter the enemy. Spears were hurled from the engines, and the more
conspicuous were the defenders of the position, the more the wounds
with which they were driven from it. Caesar with some praetorian
cohorts was the first, after the storming of the ramparts, to dash
into the woods. There they fought at close quarters. A morass was in
the enemy's rear, and the Romans were hemmed in by the river or by the
hills. Both were in a desperate plight from their position; valour was
their only hope, victory their only safety.
The Germans were equally brave, but they were beaten by the nature
of the fighting and of the weapons, for their vast host in so confined
a space could neither thrust out nor recover their immense lances,
or avail themselves of their nimble movements and lithe frames, forced
as they were to a close engagement. Our soldiers, on the other hand,
with their shields pressed to their breasts, and their hands
grasping their sword-hilts, struck at the huge limbs and exposed faces
of the barbarians, cutting a passage through the slaughtered enemy,
for Arminius was now less active, either from incessant perils, or
because he was partially disabled by his recent wound. As for
Inguiomerus, who flew hither and thither over the battlefield, it
was fortune rather than courage which forsook him. Germanicus, too,
that he might be the better known, took his helmet off his head and
begged his men to follow up the slaughter, as they wanted not
prisoners, and the utter destruction of the nation would be the only
conclusion of the war. And now, late in the day, he withdrew one of
his legions from the field, to intrench a camp, while the rest till
nightfall glutted themselves with the enemy's blood. Our cavalry
fought with indecisive success.
Having publicly praised his victorious troops, Caesar raised a
pile of arms with the proud inscription, "The army of Tiberius Caesar,
after thoroughly conquering the tribes between the Rhine and the Elbe,
has dedicated this monument to Mars, Jupiter, and Augustus." He
added nothing about himself, fearing jealousy, or thinking that the
conciousness of the achievement was enough. Next he charged Stertinius
with making war on the Angrivarii, but they hastened to surrender.
And, as suppliants, by refusing nothing, they obtained a full pardon.
When, however, summer was at its height some of the legions were
sent back overland into winter-quarters, but most of them Caesar put
on board the fleet and brought down the river Amisia to the ocean.
At first the calm waters merely sounded with the oars of a thousand
vessels or were ruffled by the sailing ships. Soon, a hailstorm
bursting from a black mass of clouds, while the waves rolled hither
and thither under tempestuous gales from every quarter, rendered clear
sight impossible, and the steering difficult, while our soldiers,
terrorstricken and without any experience of disasters on the sea,
by embarrassing the sailors or giving them clumsy aid, neutralized the
services of the skilled crews. After a while, wind and wave shifted
wholly to the south, and from the hilly lands and deep rivers of
Germany came with a huge line of rolling clouds, a strong blast, all
the more frightful from the frozen north which was so near to them,
and instantly caught and drove the ships hither and thither into the
open ocean, or on islands with steep cliffs or which hidden shoals
made perilous. these they just escaped, with difficulty, and when
the tide changed and bore them the same way as the wind, they could
not hold to their anchors or bale out the water which rushed in upon
them. Horses, beasts of burden, baggage, were thrown overboard, in
order to lighten the hulls which leaked copiously through their sides,
while the waves too dashed over them.
As the ocean is stormier than all other seas, and as Germany is
conspicuous for the terrors of its climate, so in novelty and extent
did this disaster transcend every other, for all around were hostile
coasts, or an expanse so vast and deep that it is thought to be the
remotest shoreless sea. Some of the vessels were swallowed up; many
were wrecked on distant islands, and the soldiers, finding there no
form of human life, perished of hunger, except some who supported
existence on carcases of horses washed on the same shores.
Germanicus's trireme alone reached the country of the Chauci. Day
and night, on those rocks and promontories he would incessantly
exclaim that he was himself responsible for this awful ruin, and
friends scarce restrained him from seeking death in the same sea.
At last, as the tide ebbed and the wind blew favourably, the
shattered vessels with but few rowers, or clothing spread as sails,
some towed by the more powerful, returned, and Germanicus, having
speedily repaired them, sent them to search the islands. Many by
that means were recovered. The Angrivarii, who had lately been
admitted to our alliance, restored to us several had ransomed from the
inland tribes. Some had been carried to Britain and were sent back
by the petty chiefs. Every one, as he returned from some far-distant
region, told of wonders, of violent hurricanes, and unknown birds,
of monsters of the sea, of forms half-human, half beast-like, things
they had really seen or in their terror believed.
Meanwhile the rumoured loss of the fleet stirred the Germans to hope
for war, as it did Caesar to hold them down. He ordered Caius Silius
with thirty thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry to march
against the Chatti. He himself, with a larger army, invaded the Marsi,
whose leader, Mallovendus, whom we had lately admitted to surrender,
pointed out a neighbouring wood, where, he said, an eagle of one of
Varus's legions was buried and guarded only by a small force.
Immediately troops were despatched to draw the enemy from his position
by appearing in his front, others, to hem in his rear and open the
ground. Fortune favoured both. So Germanicus, with increased energy,
advanced into the country, laying it waste, and utterly ruining a
foe who dared not encounter him, or who was instantly defeated
wherever he resisted, and, as we learnt from prisoners, was never more
panic-stricken. The Romans, they declared, were invincible, rising
superior to all calamities; for having thrown away a fleet, having
lost their arms, after strewing the shores with the carcases of horses
and of men, they had rushed to the attack with the same courage,
with equal spirit, and, seemingly, with augmented numbers.
The soldiers were then led back into winter-quarters, rejoicing in
their hearts at having been compensated for their disasters at sea
by a successful expedition. They were helped too by Caesar's bounty,
which made good whatever loss any one declared he had suffered. It was
also regarded as a certainty that the enemy were wavering and
consulting on negotiations for peace, and that, with an additional
campaign next summer the war might be ended. Tiberius, however, in
repeated letters advised Germanicus to return for the triumph
decreed him. "He had now had enough of success, enough of disaster. He
had fought victorious battles on a great scale; he should also
remember those losses which the winds and waves had inflicted, and
which, though due to no fault of the general, were still grievous
and shocking. He, Tiberius, had himself been sent nine times by
Augustus into Germany, and had done more by policy than by arms. By
this means the submission of the Sugambri had been secured, and the
Suevi with their king Maroboduus had been forced into peace. The
Cherusci too and the other insurgent tribes, since the vengeance of
Rome had been satisfied, might be left to their internal feuds."
When Germanicus requested a year for the completion of his
enterprise, Tiberius put a severer pressure on his modesty by offering
him a second consulship, the functions of which he was to discharge in
person. He also added that if war must still be waged, he might as
well leave some materials for renown to his brother Drusus, who, as
there was then no other enemy, could win only in Germany the
imperial title and the triumphal laurel. Germanicus hesitated no
longer, though he saw that this was a pretence, and that he was
hurried away through jealousy from the glory he had already acquired.
About the same time Libo Drusus, of the family of Scribonii, was
accused of revolutionary schemes. I will explain, somewhat minutely,
the beginning, progress, and end of this affair, since then first were
originated those practices which for so many years have eaten into the
heart of the State. Firmius Catus, a senator, an intimate friend of
Libo's, prompted the young man, who was thoughtless and an easy prey
to delusions, to resort to astrologers' promises, magical rites, and
interpreters of dreams, dwelling ostentatiously on his
great-grandfather Pompeius, his aunt Scribonia, who had formerly
been wife of Augustus, his imperial cousins, his house crowded with
ancestral busts, and urging him to extravagance and debt, himself
the companion of his profligacy and desperate embarrassments,
thereby to entangle him in all the more proofs of guilt.
As soon as he found enough witnesses, with some slaves who knew
the facts, he begged an audience of the emperor, after first
indicating the crime and the criminal through Flaccus Vescularius, a
Roman knight, who was more intimate with Tiberius than himself.
Caesar, without disregarding the information, declined an interview,
for the communication, he said, might be conveyed to him through the
same messenger, Flaccus. Meanwhile he conferred the praetorship on
Libo and often invited him to his table, showing no unfriendliness
in his looks or anger in his words (so thoroughly had he concealed his
resentment); and he wished to know all his saying and doings, though
it was in his power to stop them, till one Junius, who had been
tampered with by Libo for the purpose of evoking by incantations
spirits of the dead, gave information to Fulcinius Trio. Trio's
ability was conspicuous among informers, as well as his eagerness
for an evil notoriety. He at once pounced on the accused, went to
the consuls, and demanded an inquiry before the Senate. The Senators
were summoned, with a special notice that they must consult on a
momentous and terrible matter.
Libo meanwhile, in mourning apparel and accompanied by ladies of the
highest rank, went to house after house, entreating his relatives, and
imploring some eloquent voice to ward off his perils; which all
refused, on different pretexts, but from the same apprehension. On the
day the Senate met, jaded with fear and mental anguish, or, as some
have related, feigning illness, he was carried in a litter to the
doors of the Senate House, and leaning on his brother he raised his
hands and voice in supplication to Tiberius, who received him with
unmoved countenance. The emperor then read out the charges and the
accusers' names, with such calmness as not to seem to soften or
aggravate the accusations.
Besides Trio and Catus, Fonteius Agrippa and Caius Vibius were among
his accusers, and claimed with eager rivalry the privilege of
conducting the case for the prosecution, till Vibius, as they would
not yield one to the other, and Libo had entered without counsel,
offered to state the charges against him singly, and produced an
extravagantly absurd accusation, according to which Libo had consulted
persons whether he would have such wealth as to be able to cover the
Appian road as far as Brundisium with money. There were other
questions of the same sort, quite senseless and idle; if leniently
regarded, pitiable. But there was one paper in Libo's handwriting,
so the prosecutor alleged, with the names of Caesars and of
Senators, to which marks were affixed of dreadful or mysterious
significance. When the accused denied this, it was decided that his
slaves who recognised the writing should be examined by torture. As an
ancient statute of the Senate forbade such inquiry in a case affecting
a master's life, Tiberius, with his cleverness in devising new law,
ordered Libo's slaves to be sold singly to the State-agent, so that,
forsooth, without an infringement of the Senate's decree, Libo might
be tried on their evidence. As a consequence, the defendant asked an
adjournment till next day, and having gone home he charged his
kinsman, Publius Quirinus, with his last prayer to the emperor.
The answer was that he should address himself to the Senate.
Meanwhile his house was surrounded with soldiers; they crowded noisily
even about the entrance, so that they could be heard and seen; when
Libo, whose anguish drove him from the very banquet he had prepared as
his last gratification, called for a minister of death, grasped the
hands of his slaves, and thrust a sword into them. In their confusion,
as they shrank back, they overturned the lamp on the table at his
side, and in the darkness, now to him the gloom of death, he aimed two
blows at a vital part. At the groans of the falling man his freedmen
hurried up, and the soldiers, seeing the bloody deed, stood aloof. Yet
the prosecution was continued in the Senate with the same persistency,
and Tiberius declared on oath that he would have interceded for his
life, guilty though he was, but for his hasty suicide.
His property was divided among his accusers, and praetorships out of
the usual order were conferred on those who were of senators' rank.
Cotta Messalinus then proposed that Libo's bust should not be
carried in the funeral procession of any of his descendants; and
Cneius Lentulus, that no Scribonius should assume the surname of
Drusus. Days of public thanksgiving were appointed on the suggestion
of Pomponius Flaccus. Offerings were given to Jupiter, Mars, and
Concord, and the 13th day of September, on which Libo had killed
himself, was to be observed as a festival, on the motion of Gallus
Asinius, Papius Mutilus, and Lucius Apronius. I have mentioned the
proposals and sycophancy of these men, in order to bring to light this
old-standing evil in the State.
Decrees of the Senate were also passed to expel from Italy
astrologers and magicians. One of their number, Lucius Pituanius,
was hurled from the Rock. Another, Publius Marcius, was executed,
according to ancient custom, by the consuls outside the Esquiline
Gate, after the trumpets had been bidden to sound.
On the next day of the Senate's meeting much was said against the
luxury of the country by Quintus Haterius, an ex-consul, and by
Octavius Fronto, an ex-praetor. It was decided that vessels of solid
gold should not be made for the serving of food, and that men should
not disgrace themselves with silken clothing from the East. Fronto
went further, and insisted on restrictions being put on plate,
furniture, and household establishments. It was indeed still usual
with the Senators, when it was their turn to vote, to suggest anything
they thought for the State's advantage. Gallus Asinius argued on the
other side. "With the growth of the empire private wealth too," he
said, "had increased, and there was nothing new in this, but it
accorded with the fashions of the earliest antiquity. Riches were
one thing with the Fabricii, quite another with the Scipios. The State
was the standard of everything; when it was poor, the homes of the
citizens were humble; when it reached such magnificence, private
grandeur increased. In household establishments, and plate, and in
whatever was provided for use, there was neither excess nor
parsimony except in relation to the fortune of the possessor. A
distinction had been made in the assessments of Senators and
knights, not because they differed naturally, but that the superiority
of the one class in places in the theatre, in rank and in honour,
might be also maintained in everything else which insured mental
repose and bodily recreation, unless indeed men in the highest
position were to undergo more anxieties and more dangers, and to be at
the same time deprived of all solace under those anxieties and
dangers." Gallus gained a ready assent, under these specious
phrases, by a confession of failings with which his audience
symphathised. And Tiberius too had added that this was not a time
for censorship, and that if there were any declension in manners, a
promoter of reform would not be wanting.
During this debate Lucius Piso, after exclaiming against the
corruption of the courts, the bribery of judges, the cruel threats
of accusations from hired orators, declared that he would depart and
quit the capital, and that he meant to live in some obscure and
distant rural retreat. At the same moment he rose to leave the
Senate House. Tiberius was much excited, and though he pacified Piso
with gentle words, he also strongly urged his relatives to stop his
departure by their influence or their entreaties.
Soon afterwards this same Piso gave an equal proof of a fearless
sense of wrong by suing Urgulania, whom Augusta's friendship had
raised above the law. Neither did Urgulania obey the summons, for in
defiance of Piso she went in her litter to the emperor's house; nor
did Piso give way, though Augusta complained that she was insulted and
her majesty slighted. Tiberius, to win popularity by so humouring
his mother as to say that he would go to the praetor's court and
support Urgulania, went forth from the palace, having ordered soldiers
to follow him at a distance. He was seen, as the people thronged about
him, to wear a calm face, while he prolonged his time on the way
with various conversations, till at last when Piso's relatives tried
in vain to restrain him, Augusta directed the money which was
claimed to be handed to him. This ended the affair, and Piso, in
consequence, was not dishonoured, and the emperor rose in
reputation. Urgulania's influence, however, was so formidable to the
State, that in a certain cause which was tried by the Senate she would
not condescend to appear as a witness. The praetor was sent to
question her at her own house, although the Vestal virgins,
according to ancient custom, were heard in the courts, before
judges, whenever they gave evidence.
I should say nothing of the adjournment of public business in this
year, if it were not worth while to notice the conflicting opinions of
Cneius Piso and Asinius Gallus on the subject. Piso, although the
emperor had said that he would be absent, held that all the more ought
the business to be transacted, that the State might have honour of its
Senate and knights being able to perform their duties in the
sovereign's absence. Gallus, as Piso had forestalled him in the
display of freedom, maintained that nothing was sufficiently
impressive or suitable to the majesty of the Roman people, unless done
before Caesar and under his very eyes, and that therefore the
gathering from all Italy and the influx from the provinces ought to be
reserved for his presence. Tiberius listened to this in silence, and
the matter was debated on both sides in a sharp controversy. The
business, however, was adjourned.
A dispute then arose between Gallus and the emperor. Gallus proposed
that the elections of magistrates should be held every five years, and
that the commanders of the legions who before receiving a
praetorship discharged this military service should at once become
praetorselect, the emperor nominating twelve candidates every year. It
was quite evident that this motion had a deeper meaning and was an
attempt to explore the secrets of imperial policy. Tiberius,
however, argued as if his power would be thus increased. "It would,"
he said, "be trying to his moderation to have to elect so many and
to put off so many. He scarcely avoided giving offence from year to
year, even though a candidate's rejection was solaced by the near
prospect of office. What hatred would be incurred from those whose
election was deferred for five years! How could he foresee through
so long an interval what would be a man's temper, or domestic
relations, or estate? Men became arrogant even with this annual
appointment. What would happen if their thoughts were fixed on
promotion for five years? It was in fact a multiplying of the
magistrates five-fold, and a subversion of the laws which had
prescribed proper periods for the exercise of the candidate's activity
and the seeking or securing office. With this seemingly conciliatory
speech he retained the substance of power.
He also increased the incomes of some of the Senators. Hence it
was the more surprising that he listened somewhat disdainfully to
the request of Marcus Hortalus, a youth of noble rank in conspicuous
poverty. He was the grandson of the orator Hortensius, and had been
induced by Augustus, on the strength of a gift of a million sesterces,
to marry and rear children, that one of our most illustrious
families might not become extinct. Accordingly, with his four sons
standing at the doors of the Senate House, the Senate then sitting
in the palace, when it was his turn to speak he began to address
them as follows, his eyes fixed now on the statue of Hortensius
which stood among those of the orators, now on that of Augustus:-
"Senators, these whose numbers and boyish years you behold I have
reared, not by my own choice, but because the emperor advised me. At
the same time, my ancestors deserved to have descendants. For
myself, not having been able in these altered times to receive or
acquire wealth or popular favour, or that eloquence which has been the
hereditary possession of our house, I was satisfied if my narrow means
were neither a disgrace to myself nor burden to others. At the
emperor's bidding I married. Behold the offspring and progeny of a
succession of consuls and dictators. Not to excite odium do I recall
such facts, but to win compassion. While you prosper, Caesar, they
will attain such promotion as you shall bestow. Meanwhile save from
penury the great-grandsons of Quintus Hortensius, the
foster-children of Augustus."
The Senate's favourable bias was an incitement to Tiberius to
offer prompt opposition, which he did in nearly these words:- "If
all poor men begin to come here and to beg money for their children,
individuals will never be satisfied, and the State will be bankrupt.
Certainly our ancestors did not grant the privilege of occasionally
proposing amendments or of suggesting, in our turn for speaking,
something for the general advantage in order that we might in this
house increase our private business and property, thereby bringing
odium on the Senate and on emperors whether they concede or refuse
their bounty. In fact, it is not a request, but an importunity, as
utterly unreasonable as it is unforeseen, for a senator, when the
house has met on other matters, to rise from his place and, pleading
the number and age of his children, put a pressure on the delicacy
of the Senate, then transfer the same constraint to myself, and, as it
were, break open the exchequer, which, if we exhaust it by improper
favouritism, will have to be replenished by crimes. Money was given
you, Hortalus, by Augustus, but without solicitation, and not on the
condition of its being always given. Otherwise industry will
languish and idleness be encouraged, if a man has nothing to fear,
nothing to hope from himself, and every one, in utter recklessness,
will expect relief from others, thus becoming useless to himself and a
burden to me."
These and like remarks, though listened to with assent by those
who make it a practice to eulogise everything coming from
sovereigns, both good and bad, were received by the majority in
silence or with suppressed murmurs. Tiberius perceived it, and
having paused a while, said that he had given Hortalus his answer, but
that if the senators thought it right, he would bestow two hundred
thousand sesterces on each of his children of the male sex. The others
thanked him; Hortalus said nothing, either from alarm or because
even in his reduced fortunes he clung to his hereditary nobility.
Nor did Tiberius afterwards show any pity, though the house of
Hortensius sank into shameful poverty.
That same year the daring of a single slave, had it not been
promptly checked, would have ruined the State by discord and civil
war. A servant of Postumus Agrippa, Clemens by name, having
ascertained that Augustus was dead, formed a design beyond a slave's
conception, of going to the island of Planasia and seizing Agrippa
by craft or force and bringing him to the armies of Germany. The
slowness of a merchant vessel thwarted his bold venture. Meanwhile the
murder of Agrippa had been perpetrated, and then turning his
thoughts to a greater and more hazardous enterprise, he stole the
ashes of the deceased, sailed to Cosa, a promontory of Etruria, and
there hid himself in obscure places till his hair and beard were long.
In age and figure he was not unlike his master. Then through
suitable emissaries who shared his secret, it was rumoured that
Agrippa was alive, first in whispered gossip, soon, as is usual with
forbidden topics, in vague talk which found its way to the credulous
ears of the most ignorant people or of restless and revolutionary
schemers. He himself went to the towns, as the day grew dark,
without letting himself be seen publicly or remaining long in the same
places, but, as he knew that truth gains strength by notoriety and
time, falsehood by precipitancy and vagueness, he would either
withdraw himself from publicity or else forestall it.
It was rumoured meanwhile throughout Italy, and was believed at
Rome, that Agrippa had been saved by the blessing of Heaven. Already
at Ostia, where he had arrived, he was the centre of interest to a
vast concourse as well as to secret gatherings in the capital, while
Tiberius was distracted by the doubt whether he should crush this
slave of his by military force or allow time to dissipate a silly
credulity. Sometimes he thought that he must overlook nothing,
sometimes that he need not be afraid of everything, his mind
fluctuating between shame and terror. At last he entrusted the
affair to Sallustius Crispus, who chose two of his dependants (some
say they were soldiers) and urged them to go to him as pretended
accomplices, offering money and promising faithful companionship in
danger. They did as they were bidden; then, waiting for an unguarded
hour of night, they took with them a sufficient force, and having
bound and gagged him, dragged him to the palace. When Tiberius asked
him how he had become Agrippa, he is said to have replied, "As you
became Caesar." He could not be forced to divulge his accomplices.
Tiberius did not venture on a public execution, but ordered him to
be slain in a private part of the palace and his body to be secretly
removed. And although many of the emperor's household and knights
and senators were said to have supported him with their wealth and
helped him with their counsels, no inquiry was made.
At the close of the year was consecrated an arch near the temple
of Saturn to commemorate the recovery of the standards lost with
Varus, under the leadership of Germanicus and the auspices of
Tiberius; a temple of Fors Fortuna, by the Tiber, in the gardens which
Caesar, the dictator, bequeathed to the Roman people; a chapel to
the Julian family, and statues at Bovillae to the Divine Augustus.
In the consulship of Caius Caecilius and Lucius Pomponius,
Germanicus Caesar, on the 26th day of May, celebrated his triumph over
the Cherusci, Chatti, and Angrivarii, and the other tribes which
extend as far as the Elbe. There were borne in procession spoils,
prisoners, representations of the mountains, the rivers and battles;
and the war, seeing that he had been forbidden to finish it, was taken
as finished. The admiration of the beholders was heightened by the
striking comeliness of the general and the chariot which bore his five
children. Still, there was a latent dread when they remembered how
unfortunate in the case of Drusus, his father, had been the favour
of the crowd; how his uncle Marcellus, regarded by the city populace
with passionate enthusiasm, had been snatched from them while yet a
youth, and how short-lived and ill-starred were the attachments of the
Roman people.
Tiberius meanwhile in the name of Germanicus gave every one of the
city populace three hundred sesterces, and nominated himself his
colleague in the consulship. Still, failing to obtain credit for
sincere affection, he resolved to get the young prince out of the way,
under pretence of conferring distinction, and for this he invented
reasons, or eagerly fastened on such as chance presented.
King Archelaus had been in possession of Cappadocia for fifty years,
and Tiberius hated him because he had not shown him any mark of
respect while he was at Rhodes. This neglect of Archelaus was not
due to pride, but was suggested by the intimate friends of Augustus,
because, when Caius Caesar was in his prime and had charge of the
affairs of the East, Tiberius's friendship was thought to be
dangerous. When, after the extinction of the family of the Caesars,
Tiberius acquired the empire, he enticed Archelaus by a letter from
his mother, who without concealing her son's displeasure promised
mercy if he would come to beg for it. Archelaus, either quite
unsuspicious of treachery, or dreading compulsion, should it be
thought that he saw through it, hastened to Rome. There he was
received by a pitiless emperor, and soon afterwards was arraigned
before the Senate. In his anguish and in the weariness of old age, and
from being unused, as a king, to equality, much less to degradation,
not, certainly, from fear of the charges fabricated against him, he
ended his life, by his own act or by a natural death. His kingdom
was reduced into a province, and Caesar declared that, with its
revenues, the one per cent. tax could be lightened, which, for the
future, he fixed at one-half per cent.
During the same time, on the deaths of Antiochus and Philopator,
kings respectively of the Commageni and Cilicians, these nations
became excited, a majority desiring the Roman rule, some, that of
their kings. The provinces too of Syria and Judaea, exhausted by their
burdens, implored a reduction of tribute.
Tiberius accordingly discussed these matters and the affairs of
Armenia, which I have already related, before the Senate. "The
commotions in the East," he said, "could be quieted only by the
wisdom, of Germanicus; own life was on the decline, and Drusus had not
yet reached his maturity." Thereupon, by a decree of the Senate, the
provinces beyond sea were entrusted to Germanicus, with greater powers
wherever he went than were given to those who obtained their provinces
by lot or by the emperor's appointment.
Tiberius had however removed from Syria Creticus Silanus, who was
connected by a close tie with Germanicus, his daughter being betrothed
to Nero, the eldest of Germanicus's children. He appointed to it
Cneius Piso, a man of violent temper, without an idea of obedience,
with indeed a natural arrogance inherited from his father Piso, who in
the civil war supported with the most energetic aid against Caesar the
reviving faction in Africa, then embraced the cause of Brutus and
Cassius, and, when suffered to return, refrained from seeking
promotion till, he was actually solicited to accept a consulship
offered by Augustus. But beside the father's haughty temper there
was also the noble rank and wealth of his wife Plancina, to inflame
his ambition. He would hardly be the inferior of Tiberius, and as
for Tiberius's children, he looked down on them as far beneath him. He
thought it a certainty that he had been chosen to govern Syria in
order to thwart the aspirations of Germanicus. Some believed that he
had even received secret instructions from Tiberius, and it was beyond
a question that Augusta, with feminine jealousy, had suggested to
Plancina calumnious insinuations against Agrippina. For there was
division and discord in the court, with unexpressed partialities
towards either Drusus or Germanicus. Tiberius favoured Drusus, as his.
son and born of his own blood. As for Germanicus, his uncle's
estrangement had increased the affection which all others felt for
him, and there was the fact too that he had an advantage in the
illustrious rank of his mother's family, among whom he could point
to his grandfather Marcus Antonius and to his great-uncle Augustus.
Drusus, on the other hand, had for his great-grandfather a Roman
knight, Pomponius Atticus, who seemed to disgrace the ancestral images
of the Claudii. Again, the consort of Germanicus, Agrippina, in number
of children and in character, was superior to Livia, the wife of
Drusus. Yet the brothers were singularly united, and were wholly
unaffected by the rivalries of their kinsfolk.
Soon afterwards Drusus was sent into Illyricum to be familiarised
with military service, and to win the goodwill of the army. Tiberius
also thought that it was better for the young prince, who was being
demoralised by the luxury of the capital, to serve in a camp, while he
felt himself the safer with both his sons in command of legions.
However, he made a pretext of the Suevi, who were imploring help
against the Cherusci. For when the Romans had departed and they were
free from the fear of an invader, these tribes, according to the
custom of the race, and then specially as rivals in fame, had turned
their arms against each other. The strength of the two nations, the
valour of their chiefs were equal. But the title of king rendered
Maroboduus hated among his countrymen, while Arminius was regarded
with favour as the champion of freedom.
Thus it was not only the Cherusci and their allies, the old soldiers
of Arminius, who took up arms, but even the Semnones and Langobardi
from the kingdom of Maroboduus revolted to that chief. With this
addition he must have had an overwhelming superiority, had not
Inguiomerus deserted with a troop of his dependants to Maroboduus,
simply for the reason that the aged uncle scorned to obey a
brother's youthful son. The armies were drawn up, with equal
confidence on both sides, and there were not those desultory attacks
or irregular bands, formerly so common with the Germans. Prolonged
warfare against us had accustomed them to keep close to their
standards, to have the support of reserves, and to take the word of
command from their generals. On this occasion Arminius, who reviewed
the whole field on horseback, as he rode up to each band, boasted of
regained freedom, of slaughtered legions, of spoils and weapons
wrested from the Romans, and still in the hands of many of his men. As
for Maroboduus, he called him a fugitive, who had no experience of
battles, who had sheltered himself in the recesses of the Hercynian
forest and then with presents and embassies sued for a treaty; a
traitor to his country, a satellite of Caesar, who deserved to be
driven out, with rage as furious as that with which they had slain
Quintilius Varus. They should simply remember their many battles,
the result of which, with the final expulsion of the Romans,
sufficiently showed who could claim the crowning success in war.
Nor did Maroboduus abstain from vaunts about himself or from
revilings of the foe. Clasping the hand of Inguiomerus, he protested
"that in the person before them centred all the renown of the
Cherusci, that to his counsels was due whatever had ended
successfully. Arminius in his infatuation and ignorance was taking
to himself the glory which belonged to another, for he had
treacherously surprised three unofficered legions and a general who
had not an idea of perfidy, to the great hurt of Germany and to his
own disgrace, since his wife and his son were still enduring
slavery. As for himself, he had been attacked by twelve legions led by
Tiberius, and had preserved untarnished the glory of the Germans,
and then on equal terms the armies had parted. He was by no means
sorry that they had the matter in their own hands, whether they
preferred to war with all their might against Rome, or to accept a
bloodless peace."
To these words, which roused the two armies, was added the
stimulus of special motives of their own. The Cherusci and
Langobardi were fighting for ancient renown or newly-won freedom;
the other side for the increase of their dominion. Never at any time
was the shock of battle more tremendous or the issue more doubtful, as
the right wings of both armies were routed. Further fighting was
expected, when Maroboduus withdrew his camp to the hills. This was a
sign of discomfiture. He was gradually stripped of his strength by
desertions, and, having fled to the Marcomanni, he sent envoys to
Tiberius with entreaties for help. The answer was that he had no right
to invoke the aid of Roman arms against the Cherusci, when he had
rendered no assistance to the Romans in their conflict with the same
enemy. Drusus, however, was sent as I have related, to establish
peace.
That same year twelve famous cities of Asia fell by an earthquake in
the night, so that the destruction was all the more unforeseen and
fearful. Nor were there the means of escape usual in, such a disaster,
by rushing out into the open country, for there people were
swallowed up by the yawning earth. Vast mountains, it is said,
collapsed; what had been level ground seemed to be raised aloft, and
fires blazed out amid the ruin. The calamity fell most fatally on
the inhabitants of Sardis, and it attracted to them the largest
share of sympathy. The emperor promised ten million sesterces, and
remitted for five years all they paid to the exchequer or to the
emperor's purse. Magnesia, under Mount Sipylus, was considered to come
next in loss and in need of help. The people of Temnus, Philadelpheia,
Aegae, Apollonis, the Mostenians, and Hyrcanian Macedonians, as they
were called, with the towns of Hierocaesarea, Myrina, Cyme, and
Tmolus, were; it was decided, to be exempted from tribute for the same
time, and some one was to be sent from the Senate to examine their
actual condition and to relieve them. Marcus Aletus, one of the
expraetors, was chosen, from a fear that, as an exconsul was
governor of Asia, there might be rivalry between men of equal rank,
and consequent embarrassment.
To his splendid public liberality the emperor added bounties no less
popular. The property of Aemilia Musa, a rich woman who died
intestate, on which the imperial treasury had a claim, he handed
over to Aemilius Lepidus, to whose family she appeared to belong;
and the estate of Patuleius, a wealthy Roman knight, though he was
himself left in part his heir, he gave to Marcus Servilius, whose name
he discovered in an earlier and unquestioned will. In both these cases
he said that noble rank ought to have the support of wealth. Nor did
he accept a legacy from any one unless he had earned it by friendship.
Those who were strangers to him, and who, because they were at
enmity with others, made the emperor their heir, he kept at a
distance. While, however, he relieved the honourable poverty of the
virtuous, he expelled from the Senate or suffered voluntarily to
retire spendthrifts whose vices had brought them to penury, like
Vibidius Varro, Marius Nepos, Appius Appianus, Cornelius Sulla, and
Quintus Vitellius.
About the same time he dedicated some temples of the gods, which had
perished from age or from fire, and which Augustus had begun to
restore. These were temples to Liber, Libera, and Ceres, near the
Great Circus, which last Aulus Postumius, when Dictator, had vowed;
a temple to Flora in the same place, which had been built by Lucius
and Marcus Publicius, aediles, and a temple to Janus, which had been
erected in the vegetable market by Caius Duilius, who was the first to
make the Roman power successful at sea and to win a naval triumph over
the Carthaginians. A temple to Hope was consecrated by Germanicus;
this had been vowed by Atilius in that same war.
Meantime the law of treason was gaining strength. Appuleia
Varilia, grand-niece of Augustus, was accused of treason by an
informer for having ridiculed the Divine Augustus, Tiberius, and
Tiberius's mother, in some insulting remarks, and for having been
convicted of adultery, allied though she was to Caesar's house.
Adultery, it was thought, was sufficiently guarded against by the
Julian law. As to the charge of treason, the emperor insisted that
it should be taken separately, and that she should be condemned if she
had spoken irreverently of Augustus. Her insinuations against
himself he did not wish to be the subject of judicial inquiry. When
asked by the consul what he thought of the unfavourable speeches she
was accused of having uttered against his mother, he said nothing.
Afterwards, on the next day of the Senate's meeting, he even begged in
his mother's name that no words of any kind spoken against her might
in any case be treated as criminal. He then acquitted Appuleia of
treason. For her adultery, he deprecated the severer penalty, and
advised that she should be removed by her kinsfolk, after the
example of our forefathers, to more than two hundred miles from
Rome. Her paramour, Manlius, was forbidden to live in Italy or Africa.
A contest then arose about the election of a praetor in the room
of Vipstanus Gallus, whom death had removed. Germanicus and Drusus
(for they were still at Rome) supported Haterius Agrippa, a relative
of Germanicus. Many, on the other hand, endeavoured to make the number
of children weigh most in favour of the candidates. Tiberius
rejoiced to see a strife in the Senate between his sons and the law.
Beyond question the law was beaten, but not at once, and only by a few
votes, in the same way as laws were defeated even when they were in
force.
In this same year a war broke out in Africa, where the enemy was led
by Tacfarinas. A Numidian by birth, he had served as an auxiliary in
the Roman camp, then becoming a deserter, he at first gathered round
him a roving band familiar with robbery, for plunder and for rapine.
After a while, he marshalled them like regular soldiers, under
standards and in troops, till at last he was regarded as the leader,
not of an undisciplined rabble, but of the Musulamian people. This
powerful tribe, bordering on the deserts of Africa, and even then with
none of the civilisation of cities, took up arms and drew their
Moorish neighbours into the war. These too had a leader, Mazippa.
The army was so divided that Tacfarinas kept the picked men who were
armed in Roman fashion within a camp, and familiarised them with a
commander's authority, while Mazippa, with light troops, spread around
him fire, slaughter, and consternation. They had forced the
Ciniphii, a far from contemptible tribe, into their cause, when Furius
Camillus, proconsul of Africa, united in one force a legion and all
the regularly enlisted allies, and, with an army insignificant
indeed compared with the multitude of the Numidians and Moors, marched
against the enemy. There was nothing however which he strove so much
to avoid as their eluding an engagement out of fear. It was by the
hope of victory that they were lured on only to be defeated. The
legion was in the army's centre; the light cohorts and two cavalry
squadrons on its wings. Nor did Tacfarinas refuse battle. The
Numidians were routed, and after a number of years the name of
Furius won military renown. Since the days of the famous deliverer
of our city and his son Camillus, fame as a general had fallen to
the lot of other branches of the family, and the man of whom I am
now speaking was regarded as an inexperienced soldier. All the more
willingly did Tiberius commemorate his achievements in the Senate, and
the Senators voted him the ornaments of triumph, an honour which
Camillus, because of his unambitious life, enjoyed without harm.
In the following year Tiberius held his third, Germanicus his
second, consulship. Germanicus, however, entered on the office at
Nicopolis, a city of Achaia, whither he had arrived by the coast of
Illyricum, after having seen his brother Drusus, who was then in
Dalmatia, and endured a stormy voyage through the Adriatic and
afterwards the Ionian Sea. He accordingly devoted a few days to the
repair of his fleet, and, at the same time, in remembrance of his
ancestors, he visited the bay which the victory of Actium had made
famous, the spoils consecrated by Augustus, and the camp of
Antonius. For, as I have said, Augustus was his great-uncle,
Antonius his grandfather, and vivid images of disaster and success
rose before him on the spot. Thence he went to Athens, and there, as a
concession to our treaty with an allied and ancient city, he was
attended only by a single lictor. The Greeks welcomed him with the
most elaborate honours, and brought forward all the old deeds and
sayings of their countrymen, to give additional dignity to their
flattery.
Thence he directed his course to Euboea and crossed to Lesbos, where
Agrippina for the last time was confined and gave birth to Julia. He
then penetrated to the remoter parts of the province of Asia,
visited the Thracian cities, Perinthus and Byzantium; next, the narrow
strait of the Propontis and the entrance of the Pontus, from an
anxious wish to become acquainted with those ancient and celebrated
localities. He gave relief, as he went, to provinces which had been
exhausted by internal feuds or by the oppressions of governors. In his
return he attempted to see the sacred mysteries of the
Samothracians, but north winds which he encountered drove him aside
from his course. And so after visiting Ilium and surveying a scene
venerable from the vicissitudes of fortune and as the birth-place of
our people, he coasted back along Asia, and touched at Colophon, to
consult the oracle of the Clarian Apollo. There, it is not a woman, as
at Delphi, but a priest chosen from certain families, generally from
Miletus, who ascertains simply the number and the names of the
applicants. Then descending into a cave and drinking a draught from
a secret spring, the man, who is commonly ignorant of letters and of
poetry, utters a response in verse answering to the thoughts conceived
in the mind of any inquirer. It was said that he prophesied to
Germanicus, in dark hints, as oracles usually do, an early doom.
Cneius Piso meanwhile, that he might the sooner enter on his design,
terrified the citizens of Athens by his tumultuous approach, and
then reviled them in a bitter speech, with indirect reflections on
Germanicus, who, he said, had derogated from the honour of the Roman
name in having treated with excessive courtesy, not the people of
Athens, who indeed had been exterminated by repeated disasters, but
a miserable medley of tribes. As for the men before him, they had been
Mithridates's allies against Sulla, allies of Antonius against the
Divine Augustus. He taunted them too with the past, with their
ill-success against the Macedonians, their violence to their own
countrymen, for he had his own special grudge against this city,
because they would not spare at his intercession one Theophilus whom
the Areopagus had condemned for forgery. Then, by sailing rapidly
and by the shortest route through the Cyclades, he overtook Germanicus
at the island of Rhodes. The prince was not ignorant of the slanders
with which he had been assailed, but his good nature was such that
when a storm arose and drove Piso on rocks, and his enemy's
destruction could have been referred to chance, he sent some triremes,
by the help of which he might be rescued from danger. But this did not
soften Piso's heart. Scarcely allowing a day's interval, he left
Germanicus and hastened on in advance. When he reached Syria and the
legions, he began, by bribery and favouritism, to encourage the lowest
of the common soldiers, removing the old centurions and the strict
tribunes and assigning their places to creatures of his own or to
the vilest of the men, while he allowed idleness in the camp,
licentiousness in the towns, and the soldiers to roam through the
country and take their pleasure. He went such lengths in
demoralizing them, that he was spoken of in their vulgar talk as the
father of the legions.
Plancina too, instead of keeping herself within the proper limits of
a woman, would be present at the evolutions of the cavalry and the
manoeuvres of the cohorts, and would fling insulting remarks at
Agrippina and Germanicus. Some even of the good soldiers were inclined
to a corrupt compliance, as a whispered rumour gained ground that
the emperor was not averse to these proceedings. Of all this
Germanicus was aware, but his most pressing anxiety was to be first in
reaching Armenia.
This had been of old an unsettled country from the character of
its people and from its geographical position, bordering, as it
does, to a great extent on our provinces and stretching far away to
Media. It lies between two most mighty empires, and is very often at
strife with them, hating Rome and jealous of Parthia. It had at this
time no king, Vonones having been expelled, but the nation's likings
inclined towards Zeno, son of Polemon, king of Pontus, who from his
earliest infancy had imitated Armenian manners and customs, loving the
chase, the banquet, and all the popular pastimes of barbarians, and
who had thus bound to himself chiefs and people alike. Germanicus
accordingly, in the city of Artaxata, with the approval of the
nobility, in the presence of a vast multitude, placed the royal diadem
on his head. All paid him homage and saluted him as King Artaxias,
which name they gave him from the city.
Cappadocia meanwhile, which had been reduced to the form of a
province, received as its governor Quintus Veranius. Some of the royal
tributes were diminished, to inspire hope of a gentler rule under
Rome. Quintus Servaeus was appointed to Commagene, then first put
under a praetor's jurisdiction.
Successful as was this settlement of all the interests of our
allies, it gave Germanicus little joy because of the arrogance of
Piso. Though he had been ordered to march part of the legions into
Armenia under his own or his son's command, he had neglected to do
either. At length the two met at Cyrrhus, the winterquarters of the
tenth legion, each controlling his looks, Piso concealing his fears,
Germanicus shunning the semblance of menace. He was indeed, as I
have said, a kind-hearted man. But friends who knew well how to
inflame a quarrel, exaggerated what was true and added lies,
alleging various charges against Piso, Plancina, and their sons.
At last, in the presence of a few intimate associates, Germanicus
addressed him in language such as suppressed resentment suggests, to
which Piso replied with haughty apologies. They parted in open enmity.
After this Piso was seldom seen at Caesar's tribunal, and if he ever
sat by him, it was with a sullen frown and a marked display of
opposition. He was even heard to say at a banquet given by the king of
the Nabataeans, when some golden crowns of great weight were presented
to Caesar and Agrippina and light ones to Piso and the rest, that
the entertainment was given to the son of a Roman emperor, not of a
Parthian king. At the same time he threw his crown on the ground, with
a long speech against luxury, which, though it angered Germanicus,
he still bore with patience.
Meantime envoys arrived from Artabanus, king of the Parthians. He
had sent them to recall the memory of friendship and alliance, with an
assurance that he wished for a renewal of the emblems of concord,
and that he would in honour of Germanicus yield the point of advancing
to the bank of the Euphrates. He begged meanwhile that Vonones might
not be kept in Syria, where, by emissaries from an easy distance, he
might draw the chiefs of the tribes into civil strife. Germanicus'
answer as to the alliance between Rome and Parthia was dignified; as
to the king's visit and the respect shown to himself, it was
graceful and modest. Vonones was removed to Pompeiopolis, a city on
the coast of Cilicia. This was not merely a concession to the
request of Artabanus, but was meant as an affront to Piso, who had a
special liking for Vonones, because of the many attentions and
presents by which he had won Plancina's favour.
In the consulship of Marcus Silanus and Lucius Norbanus,
Germanicus set out for Egypt to study its antiquities. His
ostensible motive however was solicitude for the province. He
reduced the price of corn by opening the granaries, and adopted many
practices pleasing to the multitude. He would go about without
soldiers, with sandalled feet, and apparelled after the Greek fashion,
in imitation of Publius Scipio, who, it is said, habitually did the
same in Sicily, even when the war with Carthage was still raging.
Tiberius having gently expressed disapproval of his dress and manners,
pronounced a very sharp censure on his visit to Alexandria without the
emperor's leave, contrary to the regulations of Augustus. That prince,
among other secrets of imperial policy, had forbidden senators and
Roman knights of the higher rank to enter Egypt except by
permission, and he had specially reserved the country, from a fear
that any one who held a province containing the key of the land and of
the sea, with ever so small a force against the mightiest army,
might distress Italy by famine.
Germanicus, however, who had not yet learnt how much he was blamed
for his expedition, sailed up the Nile from the city of Canopus as his
starting-point. Spartans founded the place because Canopus, pilot of
one of their ships, had been buried there, when Menelaus on his return
to Greece was driven into a distant sea and to the shores of Libya.
Thence he went to the river's nearest mouth, dedicated to a Hercules
who, the natives say, was born in the country and was the original
hero, others, who afterwards showed like valour, having received his
name. Next he visited the vast ruins of ancient Thebes. There yet
remained on the towering piles Egyptian inscriptions, with a
complete account of the city's past grandeur. One of the aged priests,
who was desired to interpret the language of his country, related
how once there had dwelt in Thebes seven hundred thousand men of
military age, and how with such an army king Rhamses conquered
Libya, Ethiopia, Media, Persia, Bactria, and Scythia, and held under
his sway the countries inhabited by the Syrians, Armenians, and
their neighbours, the Cappadocians, from the Bithynian to the Lycian
sea. There was also to be read what tributes were imposed on these
nations, the weight of silver and gold, the tale of arms and horses,
the gifts of ivory and of perfumes to the temples, with the amount
of grain and supplies furnished by each people, a revenue as
magnificent as is now exacted by the might of Parthia or the power
of Rome.
But Germanicus also bestowed attention on other wonders. Chief of
these were the stone image of Memnon, which, when struck by the
sun's rays, gives out the sound of a human voice; the pyramids, rising
up like mountains amid almost impassable wastes of shifting sand,
raised by the emulation and vast wealth of kings; the lake hollowed
out of the earth to be a receptacle for the Nile's overflow; and
elsewhere the river's narrow channel and profound depth which no
line of the explorer can penetrate. He then came to Elephantine and
Syene, formerly the limits of the Roman empire, which now extends to
the Red Sea.
While Germanicus was spending the summer in visits to several
provinces, Drusus gained no little glory by sowing discord among the
Germans and urging them to complete the destruction of the now
broken power of Maroboduus. Among the Gotones was a youth of noble
birth, Catualda by name, who had formerly been driven into exile by
the might of Maroboduus, and who now, when the king's fortunes were
declining, ventured on revenge. He entered the territory of the
Marcomanni with a strong force, and, having corruptly won over the
nobles to join him, burst into the palace and into an adjacent
fortress. There he found the long-accumulated plunder of the Suevi and
camp followers and traders from our provinces who had been attracted
to an enemy's land, each from their various homes, first by the
freedom of commerce, next by the desire of amassing wealth, finally by
forgetfulness of their fatherland.
Maroboduus, now utterly deserted, had no resource but in the mercy
of Caesar. Having crossed the Danube where it flows by the province of
Noricum, he wrote to Tiberius, not like a fugitive or a suppliant, but
as one who remembered his past greatness. When as a most famous king
in former days he received invitations from many nations, he had
still, he said, preferred the friendship of Rome. Caesar replied
that he should have a safe and honourable home in Italy, if he would
remain there, or, if his interests required something different, he
might leave it under the same protection under which he had come.
But in the Senate he maintained that Philip had not been so formidable
to the Athenians, or Pyrrhus or Antiochus to the Roman people, as
was Maroboduus. The speech is extant, and in it he magnifies the man's
power, the ferocity of the tribes under his sway, his proximity to
Italy as a foe, finally his own measures for his overthrow. The result
was that Maroboduus was kept at Ravenna, where his possible return was
a menace to the Suevi, should they ever disdain obedience. But he
never left Italy for eighteen years, living to old age and losing much
of his renown through an excessive clinging to life.
Catualda had a like downfall and no better refuge. Driven out soon
afterwards by the overwhelming strength of the Hermundusi led by
Vibilius, he was received and sent to Forum Julii, a colony of
Narbonensian Gaul. The barbarians who followed the two kings, lest
they might disturb the peace of the provinces by mingling with the
population, were settled beyond the Danube between the rivers Marus
and Cusus, under a king, Vannius, of the nation of the Quadi.
Tidings having also arrived of Artaxias being made king of Armenia
by Germanicus, the Senate decreed that both he and Drusus should enter
the city with an ovation. Arches too were raised round the sides of
the temple of Mars the Avenger, with statues of the two Caesars.
Tiberius was the more delighted at having established peace by wise
policy than if he had finished a war by battle. And so next he planned
a crafty scheme against Rhescuporis, king of Thrace. That entire
country had been in the possession of Rhoemetalces, after whose
death Augustus assigned half to the king's brother Rhescuporis, half
to his son Cotys. In this division the cultivated lands, the towns,
and what bordered on Greek territories, fell to Cotys; the wild and
barbarous portion, with enemies on its frontier, to Rhescuporis. The
kings too themselves differed, Cotys having a gentle and kindly
temper, the other a fierce and ambitious spirit, which could not brook
a partner. Still at first they lived in a hollow friendship, but
soon Rhescuporis overstepped his bounds and appropriated to himself
what had been given to Cotys, using force when he was resisted, though
somewhat timidly under Augustus, who having created both kingdoms
would, he feared, avenge any contempt of his arrangement. When however
he heard of the change of emperor, he let loose bands of freebooters
and razed the fortresses, as a provocation to war.
Nothing made Tiberius so uneasy as an apprehension of the
disturbance of any settlement. He commissioned a centurion to tell the
kings not to decide their dispute by arms. Cotys at once dismissed the
forces which he had prepared. Rhescuporis, with assumed modesty, asked
for a place of meeting where, he said, they might settle their
differences by an interview. There was little hesitation in fixing
on a time, a place, finally on terms, as every point was mutually
conceded and accepted, by the one out of good nature, by the other
with a treacherous intent. Rhescuporis, to ratify the treaty, as he
said, further proposed a banquet; and when their mirth had been
prolonged far into the night, and Cotys amid the feasting and the wine
was unsuspicious of danger, he loaded him with chains, though he
appealed, on perceiving the perfidy, to the sacred character of a
king, to the gods of their common house, and to the hospitable
board. Having possessed himself of all Thrace, he wrote word to
Tiberius that a plot had been formed against him, and that he had
forestalled the plotter. Meanwhile, under pretext of a war against the
Bastarnian and Scythian tribes, he was strengthening himself with
fresh forces of infantry and cavalry.
He received a conciliatory answer. If there was no treachery in
his conduct, he could rely on his innocence, but neither the emperor
nor the Senate would decide on the right or wrong of his cause without
hearing it. He was therefore to surrender Cotys, come in person
transfer from himself the odium of the charge.
This letter Latinius Pandus, propraetor of Moesia, sent to Thrace,
with soldiers to whose custody Cotys was to be delivered. Rhescuporis,
hesitating between fear and rage, preferred to be charged with an
accomplished rather than with an attempted crime. He ordered Cotys
to be murdered and falsely represented his death as self-inflicted.
Still the emperor did not change the policy which he had once for
all adopted. On the death of Pandus, whom Rhescuporis accused of being
his personal enemy, he appointed to the government of Moesia Pomponius
Flaccus, a veteran soldier, specially because of his close intimacy
with the king and his consequent ability to entrap him.
Flaccus on arriving in Thrace induced the king by great promises,
though he hesitated and thought of his guilty deeds, to enter the
Roman lines. He then surrounded him with a strong force under pretence
of showing him honour, and the tribunes and centurions, by counsel, by
persuasion, and by a more undisguised captivity the further he went,
brought him, aware at last of his desperate plight, to Rome. He was
accused before the Senate by the wife of Cotys, and was condemned to
be kept a prisoner far away from his kingdom. Thrace was divided
between his son Rhoemetalces, who, it was proved, had opposed his
father's designs, and the sons of Cotys. As these were still minors,
Trebellienus Rufus, an expraetor, was appointed to govern the
kingdom in the meanwhile, after the precedent of our ancestors who
sent Marcus Lepidus into Egypt as guardian to Ptolemy's children.
Rhescuporis was removed to Alexandria, and there attempting or falsely
charged with attempting escape, was put to death.
About the same time, Vonones, who, as I have related, had been
banished to Cilicia, endeavoured by bribing his guards to escape
into Armenia, thence to Albania and Heniochia, and to his kinsman, the
king of Scythia. Quitting the sea-coast on the pretence of a hunting
expedition, he struck into trackless forests, and was soon borne by
his swift steed to the river Pyramus, the bridges over which had
been broken down by the natives as soon as they heard of the king's
escape. Nor was there a ford by which it could be crossed. And so on
the river's bank he was put in chains by Vibius Fronto, an officer
of cavalry; and then Remmius, an enrolled pensioner, who had
previously been entrusted with the king's custody, in pretended
rage, pierced him with his sword. Hence there was more ground for
believing that the man, conscious of guilty complicity and fearing
accusation, had slain Vonones.
Germanicus meanwhile, as he was returning from Egypt, found that all
his directions to the legions and to the various cities had been
repealed or reversed. This led to grievous insults on Piso, while he
as savagely assailed the prince. Piso then resolved to quit Syria.
Soon he was detained there by the failing health of Germanicus, but
when he heard of his recovery, while people were paying the vows
they had offered for his safety, he went attended by his lictors,
drove away the victims placed by the altars with all the
preparations for sacrifice, and the festal gathering of the populace
of Antioch. Then he left for Seleucia and awaited the result of the
illness which had again attacked Germanicus. The terrible intensity of
the malady was increased by the belief that he had been poisoned by
Piso. And certainly there were found hidden in the floor and in the
walls disinterred remains of human bodies, incantations and spells,
and the name of Germanicus inscribed on leaden tablets, half-burnt
cinders smeared with blood, and other horrors by which in popular
belief souls are devoted so the infernal deities. Piso too was accused
of sending emissaries to note curiously every unfavourable symptom
of the illness.
Germanicus heard of all this with anger, no less than with fear. "If
my doors," he said, "are to be besieged, if I must gasp out my last
breath under my enemies' eyes, what will then be the lot of my most
unhappy wife, of my infant children? Poisoning seems tedious; he is in
eager haste to have the sole control of the province and the
legions. But Germanicus is not yet fallen so low, nor will the
murderer long retain the reward of the fatal deed."
He then addressed a letter to Piso, renouncing his friendship,
and, as many also state, ordered him to quit the province. Piso
without further delay weighed anchor, slackening his course that he
might not have a long way to return should Germanicus' death leave
Syria open to him.
For a brief space the prince's hopes rose; then his frame became
exhausted, and, as his end drew near, he spoke as follows to the
friends by his side:-
"Were I succumbing to nature, I should have just ground of complaint
even against the gods for thus tearing me away in my youth by an
untimely death from parents, children, country. Now, cut off by the
wickedness of Piso and Plancina, I leave to your hearts my last
entreaties. Describe to my father and brother, torn by what
persecutions, entangled by what plots, I have ended by the worst of
deaths the most miserable of lives. If any were touched by my bright
prospects, by ties of blood, or even by envy towards me while I lived,
they will weep that the once prosperous survivor of so many wars has
perished by a woman's treachery. You will have the opportunity of
complaint before the Senate, of an appeal to the laws. It is not the
chief duty of friends to follow the dead with unprofitable laments,
but to remember his wishes, to fulfil his commands. Tears for
Germanicus even strangers will shed; vengeance must come from you,
if you loved the man more than his fortune. Show the people of Rome
her who is the granddaughter of the Divine Augustus, as well as my
consort; set before them my six children. Sympathy will be on the side
of the accusers, and to those who screen themselves under infamous
orders belief or pardon will be refused."
His friends clasped the dying man's right hand, and swore that
they would sooner lose life than revenge.
He then turned to his wife and implored her by the memory of her
husband and by their common offspring to lay aside her high spirit, to
submit herself to the cruel blows of fortune, and not, when she
returned to Rome, to enrage by political rivalry those who were
stronger than herself. This was said openly; other words were
whispered, pointing, it was supposed, to his fears from Tiberius. Soon
afterwards he expired, to the intense sorrow of the province and of
the neighbouring peoples. Foreign nations and kings grieved over
him, so great was his courtesy to allies, his humanity to enemies.
He inspired reverence alike by look and voice, and while he maintained
the greatness and dignity of the highest rank, he had escaped the
hatred that waits on arrogance.
His funeral, though it lacked the family statues and procession, was
honoured by panegyrics and a commemoration of his virtues. Some
there were who, as they thought of his beauty, his age, and the manner
of his death, the vicinity too of the country where he died, likened
his end to that of Alexander the Great. Both had a graceful person and
were of noble birth; neither had much exceeded thirty years of age,
and both fell by the treachery of their own people in strange lands.
But Germanicus was gracious to his friends, temperate in his
pleasures, the husband of one wife, with only legitimate children.
He was too no less a warrior, though rashness he had none, and, though
after having cowed Germany by his many victories, he was hindered from
crushing it into subjection. Had he had the sole control of affairs,
had he possessed the power and title of a king, he would have attained
military glory as much more easily as he had excelled Alexander in
clemency, in self-restraint, and in all other virtues.
As to the body which, before it was burnt, lay bare in the forum
at Antioch, its destined place of burial, it is doubtful whether it
exhibited the marks of poisoning. For men according as they pitied
Germanicus and were prepossessed with suspicion or were biased by
partiality towards Piso, gave conflicting accounts.
Then followed a deliberation among the generals and other senators
present about the appointment of a governor to Syria. The contest
was slight among all but Vibius Marsus and Cneius Sentius, between
whom there was a long dispute. Finally Marsus yielded to Sentius as an
older and keener competitor. Sentius at once sent to Rome a woman
infamous for poisonings in the province and a special favourite of
Plancina, Martina by name, on the demand of Vitellius and Veranius and
others, who were preparing the charges and the indictment as if a
prosecution had already been commenced.
Agrippina meantime, worn out though she was with sorrow and bodily
weakness, yet still impatient of everything which might delay her
vengeance, embarked with the ashes of Germanicus and with her
children, pitied by all. Here indeed was a woman of the highest
nobility, and but lately because of her splendid union wont to be seen
amid an admiring and sympathizing throng, now bearing in her bosom the
mournful relics of death, with an uncertain hope of revenge, with
apprehensions for herself, repeatedly at fortune's mercy by reason
of the ill-starred fruitfulness of her marriage. Piso was at the
island of Coos when tidings reached him that Germanicus was dead. He
received the news with extravagant joy, slew victims, visited the
temples, with no moderation in his transports; while Plancina's
insolence increased, and she then for the first time exchanged for the
gayest attire the mourning she had worn for her lost sister.
Centurions streamed in, and hinted to Piso that he had the
sympathy of the legions at his command. "Go back," they said, "to
the province which has not been rightfully taken from you, and is
still vacant." While he deliberated what he was to do, his son, Marcus
Piso, advised speedy return to Rome. "As yet," he said, "you have
not contracted any inexpiable guilt, and you need not dread feeble
suspicions or vague rumours. Your strife with Germanicus deserved
hatred perhaps, but not punishment, and by your having been deprived
of the province, your enemies have been fully satisfied. But if you
return, should Sentius resist you, civil war is begun, and you will
not retain on your side the centurions and soldiers, who are
powerfully swayed by the yet recent memory of their general and by a
deep-rooted affection for the Caesars."
Against this view Domitius Celer, one of Piso's intimate friends,
argued that he ought to profit by the opportunity. "It was Piso, not
Sentius, who had been appointed to Syria. It was to Piso that the
symbols of power and a praetor's jurisdiction and the legions had been
given. In case of a hostile menace, who would more rightfully confront
it by arms than the man who had received the authority and special
commission of a governor? And as for rumours, it is best to leave time
in which they may die away. Often the innocent cannot stand against
the first burst of unpopularity. But if Piso possesses himself of
the army, and increases his resources, much which cannot be foreseen
will haply turn out in his favour. Are we hastening to reach Italy
along with the ashes of Germanicus, that, unheard and undefended,
you may be hurried to ruin by the wailings of Agrippina and the
first gossip of an ignorant mob? You have on your side the
complicity of Augusta and the emperor's favour, though in secret,
and none mourn more ostentatiously over the death of Germanicus than
those who most rejoice at it."
Without much difficulty Piso, who was ever ready for violent action,
was led into this view. He sent a letter to Tiberius accusing
Germanicus of luxury and arrogance, and asserting that, having been
driven away to make room for revolution, he had resumed the command of
the army in the same loyal spirit in which he had before held it. At
the same time he put Domitius on board a trireme, with an order to
avoid the coast and to push on to Syria through the open sea away from
the islands. He formed into regular companies the deserters who
flocked to him, armed the camp-followers, crossed with his ships to
the mainland, intercepted a detachment of new levies on their way to
Syria, and wrote word to the petty kings of Cilicia that they were
to help him with auxiliaries, the young Piso actively assisting in all
the business of war, though he had advised against undertaking it.
And so they coasted along Lycia and Pamphylia, and on meeting the
fleet which conveyed Agrippina, both sides in hot anger at first armed
for battle, and then in mutual fear confined themselves to
revilings, Marsus Vibius telling Piso that he was to go to Rome to
defend himself. Piso mockingly replied that he would be there as
soon as the praetor who had to try poisoning cases had fixed a day for
the accused and his prosecutors.
Meanwhile Domitius having landed at Laodicea, a city of Syria, as he
was on his way to the winter-quarters of the sixth legion, which
was, he believed, particularly open to revolutionary schemes, was
anticipated by its commander Pacuvius. Of this Sentius informed Piso
in a letter, and warned him not to disturb the armies by agents of
corruption or the province by war. He gathered round him all whom he
knew to cherish the memory of Germanicus, and to be opposed to his
enemies, dwelling repeatedly on the greatness of the general, with
hints that the State was being threatened with an armed attack, and he
put himself at the head of a strong force, prepared for battle.
Piso, too, though his first attempts were unsuccessful, did not omit
the safest precautions under present circumstances, but occupied a
very strongly fortified position in Cilicia, named, Celenderis. He had
raised to the strength of a legion the Cilician auxiliaries which
the petty kings had sent, by mixing with them some deserters, and
the lately intercepted recruits with his own and Plancina's slaves.
And he protested that he, though Caesar's legate, was kept out of
the province which Caesar had given him, not by the legions (for he
had come at their invitation) but by Sentius, who was veiling
private animosity under lying charges. "Only," he said, "stand in
battle array, and the soldiers will not fight when they see that
Piso whom they themselves once called 'father,' is the stronger, if
right is to decide; if arms, is far from powerless."
He then deployed his companies before the lines of the fortress on a
high and precipitous hill, with the sea surrounding him on every other
side. Against him were the veteran troops drawn up in ranks and with
reserves, a formidable soldiery on one side, a formidable position
on the other. But his men had neither heart nor hope, and only
rustic weapons, extemporised for sudden use. When they came to
fighting, the result was doubtful only while the Roman cohorts were
struggling up to level ground; then, the Cilicians turned their
backs and shut themselves up within the fortress.
Meanwhile Piso vainly attempted an attack on the fleet which
waited at a distance; he then went back, and as he stood before the
walls, now smiting his breast, now calling on individual soldiers by
name, and luring them on by rewards, sought to excite a mutiny. He had
so far roused them that a standard bearer of the sixth legion went
over to him with his standard. Thereupon Sentius ordered the horns and
trumpets to be sounded, the rampart to be assaulted, the scaling
ladders to be raised, all the bravest men to mount on them, while
others were to discharge from the engines spears, stones, and
brands. At last Piso's obstinacy was overcome, and he begged that he
might remain in the fortress on surrendering his arms, while the
emperor was being consulted about the appointment of a governor to
Syria. The proposed terms were refused, and all that was granted him
were some ships and a safe return to Rome.
There meantime, when the illness of Germanicus was universally
known, and all news, coming, as it did, from a distance, exaggerated
the danger, there was grief and indignation. There was too an outburst
of complaint. "Of course this was the meaning," they said, "of
banishing him to the ends of the earth, of giving Piso the province;
this was the drift of Augusta's secret interviews with Plancina.
What elderly men had said of Drusus was perfectly true, that rulers
disliked a citizen-like temper in their sons, and the young princes
had been put out of the way because they had the idea of comprehending
in a restored era of freedom the Roman people under equal laws."
This popular talk was so stimulated by the news of Germanicus's
death that even before the magistrate's proclamation or the Senate's
resolution, there was a voluntary suspension of business, the public
courts were deserted, and private houses closed. Everywhere there
was a silence broken only by groans; nothing was arranged for mere
effect. And though they refrained not from the emblems of the mourner,
they sorrowed yet the more deeply in their hearts.
It chanced that some merchants who left Syria while Germanicus was
still alive, brought more cheering tidings about his health. These
were instantly believed, instantly published. Every one passed on to
others whom he met the intelligence, ill-authenticated as it was,
and they again to many more, with joyous exaggeration. They ran to and
fro through the city and broke open the doors of the temples. Night
assisted their credulity, and amid the darkness confident assertion
was comparatively easy. Nor did Tiberius check the false reports
till by lapse of time they died away.
And so the people grieved the more bitterly as though Germanicus was
again lost to them. New honours were devised and decreed, as men
were inspired by affection for him or by genius. His name was to be
celebrated in the song of the Salii; chairs of state with oaken
garlands over them were to be set up in the places assigned to the
priesthood of the Augustales; his image in ivory was to head the
procession in the games of the circus; no flamen or augur, except from
the Julian family, was to be chosen in the room of Germanicus.
Triumphal arches were erected at Rome, on the banks of the Rhine,
and on mount Amanus in Syria, with an inscription recording his
achievements, and how he had died in the public service. A cenotaph
was raised at Antioch, where the body was burnt, a lofty mound at
Epidaphna, where he had ended his life. The number of his statues,
or of the places in which they were honoured, could not easily be
computed. When a golden shield of remarkable size was voted him as a
leader among orators, Tiberius declared that he would dedicate to
him one of the usual kind, similar to the rest, for in eloquence, he
said, there was no distinction of rank, and it was a sufficient
glory for him to be classed among ancient writers. The knights
called the seats in the theatre known as "the juniors," Germanicus's
benches, and arranged that their squadrons were to ride in
procession behind his effigy on the fifteenth of July. Many of these
honours still remain; some were at once dropped, or became obsolete
with time.
While men's sorrow was yet fresh, Germanicus's sister Livia, who was
married to Drusus, gave birth to twin sons. This, as a rare event,
causing joy even in humble homes, so delighted the emperor that he did
not refrain from boasting before the senators that to no Roman of
the same rank had twin offspring ever before been born. In fact, he
would turn to his own glory every incident, however casual. But at
such a time, even this brought grief to the people, who thought that
the increase of Drusus's family still further depressed the house of
Germanicus.
That same year the profligacy of women was checked by stringent
enactments, and it was provided that no woman whose grandfather,
father, or husband had been a Roman knight should get money by
prostitution. Vistilia, born of a praetorian family, had actually
published her name with this object on the aedile's list, according to
a recognised custom of our ancestors, who considered it a sufficient
punishment on unchaste women to have to profess their shame.
Titidius Labeo, Vistilia's husband, was judicially called on to say
why with a wife whose guilt was manifest he had neglected to inflict
the legal penalty. When he pleaded that the sixty days given for
deliberation had not yet expired, it was thought sufficient to
decide Vistilia's case, and she was banished out of sight to the
island of Seriphos.
There was a debate too about expelling the Egyptian and Jewish
worship, and a resolution of the Senate was passed that four
thousand of the freedmen class who were infected with those
superstitions and were of military age should be transported to the
island of Sardinia, to quell the brigandage of the place, a cheap
sacrifice should they die from the pestilential climate. The rest were
to quit Italy, unless before a certain day they repudiated their
impious rites.
Next the emperor brought forward a motion for the election of a
Vestal virgin in the room of Occia, who for fifty-seven years had
presided with the most immaculate virtue over the Vestal worship. He
formally thanked Fonteius Agrippa and Domitius Pollio for offering
their daughters and so vying with one another in zeal for the
commonwealth. Pollio's daughter was preferred, only because her mother
had lived with one and the same husband, while Agrippa had impaired
the honour of his house by a divorce. The emperor consoled his
daughter, passed over though she was, with a dowry of a million
sesterces.
As the city populace complained of the cruel dearness of corn, he
fixed a price for grain to be paid by the purchaser, promising himself
to add two sesterces on every peck for the traders. But he would not
therefore accept the title of "father of the country" which once
before too had been offered him, and he sharply rebuked those who
called his work "divine" and himself "lord." Consequently, speech
was restricted and perilous under an emperor who feared freedom
while he hated sycophancy.
I find it stated by some writers and senators of the period that a
letter from Adgandestrius, chief of the Chatti, was read in the
Senate, promising the death of Arminius, if poison were sent for the
perpetration of the murder, and that the reply was that it was not
by secret treachery but openly and by arms that the people of Rome
avenged themselves on their enemies. A noble answer, by which Tiberius
sought to liken himself to those generals of old who had forbidden and
even denounced the poisoning of king Pyrrhus.
Arminius, meanwhile, when the Romans retired and Maroboduus was
expelled, found himself opposed in aiming at the throne by his
countrymen's independent spirit. He was assailed by armed force, and
while fighting with various success, fell by the treachery of his
kinsmen. Assuredly he was the deliverer of Germany, one too who had
defied Rome, not in her early rise, as other kings and generals, but
in the height of her empire's glory, had fought, indeed, indecisive
battles, yet in war remained unconquered. He completed thirty-seven
years of life, twelve years of power, and he is still a theme of
song among barbarous nations, though to Greek historians, who admire
only their own achievements, he is unknown, and to Romans not as
famous as he should be, while we extol the past and are indifferent to
our own times.
BOOK III, A.D. 20-22

WITHOUT pausing in her winter voyage Agrippina arrived at the island
of Corcyra, facing the shores of Calabria. There she spent a few
days to compose her mind, for she was wild with grief and knew not how
to endure. Meanwhile on hearing of her arrival, all her intimate
friends and several officers, every one indeed who had served under
Germanicus, many strangers too from the neighbouring towns, some
thinking it respectful to the emperor, and still more following
their example, thronged eagerly to Brundisium, the nearest and
safest landing place for a voyager.
As soon as the fleet was seen on the horizon, not only the harbour
and the adjacent shores, but the city walls too and the roofs and
every place which commanded the most distant prospect were filled with
crowds of mourners, who incessantly asked one another, whether, when
she landed, they were to receive her in silence or with some utterance
of emotion. They were not agreed on what befitted the occasion when
the fleet slowly approached, its crew, not joyous as is usual, but
wearing all a studied expression of grief. When Agrippina descended
from the vessel with her two children, clasping the funeral urn,
with eyes riveted to the earth, there was one universal groan. You
could not distinguish kinsfolk from strangers, or the laments of men
from those of women; only the attendants of Agrippina, worn out as
they were by long sorrow, were surpassed by the mourners who now met
them, fresh in their grief.
The emperor had despatched two praetorian cohorts with
instructions that the magistrates of Calabria, Apulia, and Campania
were to pay the last honours to his son's memory. Accordingly tribunes
and centurions bore Germanicus's ashes on their shoulders. They were
preceded by the standards unadorned and the faces reversed. As they
passed colony after colony, the populace in black, the knights in
their state robes, burnt vestments and perfumes with other usual
funeral adjuncts, in proportion to the wealth of the place. Even those
whose towns were out of the route, met the mourners, offered victims
and built altars to the dead, testifying their grief by tears and
wailings. Drusus went as far as Tarracina with Claudius, brother of
Germanicus, and had been at Rome. Marcus Valerius and Caius
Aurelius, the consuls, who had already entered on office, and a
great number of the people thronged the road in scattered groups,
every one weeping as he felt inclined. Flattery there was none, for
all knew that Tiberius could scarcely dissemble his joy at the death
of Germanicus.
Tiberius Augusta refrained from showing themselves, thinking it
below their dignity to shed tears in public, or else fearing that,
if all eyes scrutinised their faces, their hypocrisy would be
revealed. I do not find in any historian or in the daily register that
Antonia, Germanicus's mother, rendered any conspicuous honour to the
deceased, though besides Agrippina, Drusus, and Claudius, all his
other kinsfolk are mentioned by name. She may either have been
hindered by illness, or with a spirit overpowered by grief she may not
have had the heart to endure the sight of so great an affliction.
But I can more easily believe that Tiberius and Augusta, who did not
leave the palace, kept her within, that their sorrow might seem
equal to hers, and that the grandmother and uncle might be thought
to follow the mother's example in staying at home.
The day on which the remains were consigned to the tomb of Augustus,
was now desolate in its silence, now distracted by lamentations. The
streets of the city were crowded; torches were blazing throughout
the Campus Martius. There the soldiers under arms, the magistrates
without their symbols of office, the people in the tribes, were all
incessantly exclaiming that the commonwealth was ruined, that not a
hope remained, too boldly and openly to let one think that they
remembered their rulers. But nothing impressed Tiberius more deeply
than the enthusiasm kindled in favor of Agrippina, whom men spoke of
as the glory of the country, the sole surviving off spring of
Augustus, the solitary example of the old times, while looking up to
heaven and the gods they prayed for the safety of her children and
that they might outlive their oppressors.
Some there were who missed the grandeur of a state-funeral, and
contrasted the splendid honours conferred by Augustus on Drusus, the
father of Germanicus. "Then the emperor himself," they said, "went
in the extreme rigour of winter as far as Ticinum, and never leaving
the corpse entered Rome with it. Round the funeral bier were ranged
the images of the Claudii and the Julii; there was weeping in the
forum, and a panegyric before the rostra; every honour devised by
our ancestors or invented by their descendants was heaped on him.
But as for Germanicus, even the customary distinctions due to any
noble had not fallen to his lot. Granting that his body, because of
the distance of tie journey, was burnt in any fashion in foreign
lands, still all the more honours ought to have been afterwards paid
him, because at first chance had denied them. His brother had gone but
one day's journey to meet him; his uncle, not even to the city
gates. Where were all those usages of the past, the image at the
head of the bier, the lays composed in commemoration of worth, the
eulogies and laments, or at least the semblance of grief?"
All this was known to Tiberius, and, to silence popular talk, he
reminded the people in a proclamation that many eminent Romans had
died for their country and that none had been honoured with such
passionate regret. This regret was a glory both to himself and to all,
provided only a due mean were observed; for what was becoming in
humble homes and communities, did not befit princely personages and an
imperial people. Tears and the solace found in mourning were
suitable enough for the first burst of grief; but now they must
brace their hearts to endurance, as in former days the Divine Julius
after the loss of his only daughter, and the Divine Augustus when he
was bereft of his grandchildren, had thrust away their sorrow. There
was no need of examples from the past, showing how often the Roman
people had patiently endured the defeats of armies, the destruction of
generals, the total extinction of noble families. Princes were mortal;
the State was everlasting. Let them then return to their usual
pursuits, and, as the shows of the festival of the Great Goddess
were at hand, even resume their amusements.
The suspension of business then ceased, and men went back to their
occupations. Drusus was sent to the armies of Illyricum, amidst an
universal eagerness to exact vengeance on Piso, and ceaseless
complaints that he was meantime roaming through the delightful regions
of Asia and Achaia, and was weakening the proofs of his guilt by an
insolent and artful procrastination. It was indeed widely rumoured
that the notorius poisoner Martina, who, as I have related, had been
despatched to Rome by Cneius Sentius, had died suddenly at Brundisium;
that poison was concealed in a knot of her hair, and that no
symptoms of suicide were discovered on her person.
Piso meanwhile sent his son on to Rome with a message intended to
pacify the emporer, and then made his way to Drusus, who would, he
hoped, be not so much infuriated at his brother's death as kindly
disposed towards himself in consequence of a rival's removal.
Tiberius, to show his impartiality, received the youth courteously,
and enriched him with the liberality he usually bestowed on the sons
of noble families. Drusus replied to Piso that if certain insinuations
were true, he must be foremost in his resentment, but he preferred
to believe that they were false and groundless, and that
Germanicus's death need be the ruin of no one. This he said openly,
avoiding anything like secrecy. Men did not doubt that his answer
prescribed him by Tiberius, inasmuch as one who had generally all
the simplicity and candour of youth, now had recourse to the artifices
of old age.
Piso, after crossing the Dalmatian sea and leaving his ships at
Ancona, went through Picenum and along the Flaminian road, where he
overtook a legion which was marching from Pannonia to Rome and was
then to garrison Africa. It was a matter of common talk how he had
repeatedly displayed himself to the soldiers on the road during the
march. From Narnia, to avoid suspicion or because the plans of fear
are uncertain, he sailed down the Nar, then down the Tiber, and
increased the fury of the populace by bringing his vessel to shore
at the tomb of the Caesars. In broad daylight, when the river-bank was
thronged, he himself with a numerous following of dependents, and
Plancina with a retinue of women, moved onward with joy in their
countenances. Among other things which provoked men's anger was his
house towering above the forum, gay with festal decorations, his
banquets and his feasts, about which there was no secrecy, because the
place was so public.
Next day, Fulcinius Trio asked the consul's leave to prosecute Piso.
It was contended against him by Vitellius and Veranius and the
others who had been the companions of Germanicus, that this was not
Trio's proper part, and that they themselves meant to report their
instructions from Germanicus, not as accusers, but as deponents and
witnesses to facts. Trio, abandoning the prosecution on this count,
obtained leave to accuse Piso's previous career, and the emperor was
requested to undertake the inquiry. This even the accused did not
refuse, fearing, as he did, the bias of the people and of the
Senate; while Tiberius, he knew, was resolute enough to despise
report, and was also entangled in his mother's complicity. Truth too
would be more easily distinguished from perverse misrepresentation
by a single judge, where a number would be swayed by hatred and
ill-will.
Tiberius was not unaware of the formidable difficulty of the inquiry
and of the rumours by which he was himself assailed. Having
therefore summoned a few intimate friends, he listened to the
threatening speeches of the prosecutors and to the pleadings of the
accused, and finally referred the whole case to the Senate.
Drusus meanwhile, on his return from Illyricum, though the Senate
had voted him an ovation for the submission of Maroboduus and the
successes of the previous summer, postponed the honour and entered
Rome. Then the defendant sought the advocacy of Lucius Arruntius,
Marcus Vinicius, Asinius Gallus, Aeserninus Marcellus and Sextus
Pompeius, and on their declining for different reasons, Marcus
Lepidus, Lucius Piso, and Livineius Regulus became his counsel, amid
the excitement of the whole country, which wondered how much
fidelity would be shown by the friends of Germanicus, on what the
accused rested his hopes, and how far Tiberius would repress and
hide his feelings. Never were the people more keenly interested; never
did they indulge themselves more freely in secret whispers against the
emperor or in the silence of suspicion.
On the day the Senate met, Tiberius delivered a speech of studied
moderation. "Piso," he said, "was my father's representative and
friend, and was appointed by myself, on the advice of the Senate, to
assist Germanicus in the administration of the East. Whether he
there had provoked the young prince by wilful opposition and
rivalry, and had rejoiced at his death or wickedly destroyed him, is
for you to determine with minds unbiassed. Certainly if a
subordinate oversteps the bounds of duty and of obedience to his
commander, and has exulted in his death and in my affliction, I
shall hate him and exclude him from my house, and I shall avenge a
personal quarrel without resorting to my power as emperor. If
however a crime is discovered which ought to be punished, whoever
the murdered man may be, it is for you to give just reparation both to
the children of Germanicus and to us, his parents.
"Consider this too, whether Piso dealt with the armies in a
revolutionary and seditious spirit; whether he sought by intrigue
popularity with the soldiers; whether he attempted to repossess
himself of the province by arms, or whether these are falsehoods which
his accusers have published with exaggeration. As for them, I am
justly angry with their intemperate zeal. For to what purpose did they
strip the corpse and expose it to the pollution of the vulgar gaze,
and circulate a story among foreigners that he was destroyed by
poison, if all this is still doubtful and requires investigation?
For my part, I sorrow for my son and shall always sorrow for him;
still I would not hinder the accused from producing all the evidence
which can relieve his innocence or convict Germanicus of any
unfairness, if such there was. And I implore you not to take as proven
charges alleged, merely because the case is intimately bound up with
my affliction. Do you, whom ties of blood or your own true-heartedness
have made his advocates, help him in his peril, every one of you, as
far as each man's eloquence and diligence can do so. To like exertions
and like persistency I would urge the prosecutors. In this, and in
this only, will we place Germanicus above the laws, by conducting
the inquiry into his death in this house instead of in the forum,
and before the Senate instead of before a bench of judges. In all else
let the case be tried as simply as others. Let no one heed the tears
of Drusus or my own sorrow, or any stories invented to our discredit."
Two days were then assigned for the bringing forward of the charges,
and after six days' interval, the prisoner's defence was to occupy
three days. Thereupon Fulcinius Trio began with some old and
irrelevant accusations about intrigues and extortion during Piso's
government of Spain. This, if proved, would not have been fatal to the
defendant, if he cleared himself as to his late conduct, and, if
refuted, would not have secured his acquittal, if he were convicted of
the greater crimes. Next, Servaeus, Veranius, and Vitellius, all
with equal earnestness, Vitellius with striking eloquence, alleged
against Piso that out of hatred of Germanicus and a desire of
revolution he had so corrupted the common soldiers by licence and
oppression of the allies that he was called by the vilest of them
"father of the legions" while on the other hand to all the best men,
especially to the companions and friends of Germanicus, he had been
savagely cruel. Lastly, he had, they said, destroyed Germanicus
himself by sorceries and poison, and hence came those ceremonies and
horrible sacrifices made by himself and Plancina; then he had
threatened the State with war, and had been defeated in battle, before
he could be tried as a prisoner.
On all points but one the defence broke down. That he had tampered
with the soldiers, that his province had been at the mercy of the
vilest of them, that he had even insulted his chief, he could not
deny. It was only the charge of poisoning from which he seemed to have
cleared himself. This indeed the prosecutors did not adequately
sustain by merely alleging that at a banquet given by Germanicus,
his food had been tainted with poison by the hands of Piso who sat
next above him. It seemed absurd to suppose that he would have dared
such an attempt among strange servants, in the sight of so many
bystanders, and under Germanicus's own eyes. And, besides, the
defendant offered his slaves to the torture, and insisted on its
application to the attendants on that occasion. But the judges for
different reasons were merciless, the emperor, because war had been
made on a province, the Senate because they could not be
sufficiently convinced that there had been no treachery about the
death of Germanicus.
At the same time shouts were heard from the people in front of the
Senate House, threatening violence if he escaped the verdict of the
Senators. They had actually dragged Piso's statues to the Gemonian
stairs, and were breaking them in pieces, when by the emperor's
order they were rescued and replaced. Piso was then put in a litter
and attended by a tribune of one of the Praetorian cohorts, who
followed him, so it was variously rumoured, to guard his person or
to be his executioner.
Plancina was equally detested, but had stronger interest.
Consequently it was considered a question how far the emperor would be
allowed to go against her. While Piso's hopes were in suspense, she
offered to share his lot, whatever it might be, and in the worst
event, to be his companion in death. But as soon as she had secured
her pardon through the secret intercessions of Augusta, she
gradually withdrew from her husband and separated her defence from
his. When the prisoner saw that this was fatal to him, he hesitated
whether he should still persist, but at the urgent request of his sons
braced his courage and once more entered the Senate. There he bore
patiently the renewal of the accusation, the furious voices of the
Senators, savage opposition indeed from every quarter, but nothing
daunted him so much as to see Tiberius, without pity and without
anger, resolutely closing himself against any inroad of emotion. He
was conveyed back to his house, where, seemingly by way of preparing
his defence for the next day, he wrote a few words, sealed the paper
and handed it to a freedman. Then he bestowed the usual attention on
his person; after a while, late at night, his wife having left his
chamber, he ordered the doors to be closed, and at daybreak was
found with his throat cut and a sword lying on the ground.
I remember to have heard old men say that a document was often
seen in Piso's hands, the substance of which he never himself
divulged, but which his friends repeatedly declared contained a letter
from Tiberius with instructions referring to Germanicus, and that it
was his intention to produce it before the Senate and upbraid the
emperor, had he not been deluded by vain promises from Sejanus. Nor
did he perish, they said, by his own hand, but by that of one sent
to be his executioner. Neither of these statements would I
positively affirm; still it would not have been right for me to
conceal what was related by those who lived up to the time of my
youth.
The emperor, assuming an air of sadness, complained in the Senate
that the purpose of such a death was to bring odium on himself, and he
asked with repeated questionings how Piso had spent his last day and
night. Receiving answers which were mostly judicious, though in part
somewhat incautious, he read out a note written by Piso, nearly to the
following effect:-
"Crushed by a conspiracy of my foes and the odium excited by a lying
charge, since my truth and innocence find no place here, I call the
immortal gods to witness that towards you Caesar, I have lived
loyally, and with like dutiful respect towards your mother. And I
implore you to think of my children, one of whom, Cneius is in way
implicated in my career, whatever it may have been, seeing that all
this time he has been at Rome, while the other, Marcus Piso, dissuaded
me from returning to Syria. Would that I had yielded to my young son
rather than he to his aged father! And therefore I pray the more
earnestly that the innocent may not pay the penalty of my
wickedness. By forty-five years of obedience, by my association with
you in the consulate, as one who formerly won the esteem of the Divine
Augustus, your father, as one who is your friend and will never
hereafter ask a favour, I implore you to save my unhappy son." About
Plancina he added not a word.
Tiberius after this acquitted the young Piso of the charge of
civil war on the ground that a son could not have refused a father's
orders, compassionating at the same time the high rank of the family
and the terrible downfall even of Piso himself, however he might
have deserved it. For Plancina he spoke with shame and conscious
disgrace, alleging in excuse the intercession of his mother, secret
complaints against whom from all good men were growing more and more
vehement. "So it was the duty of a grandmother," people said, "to look
a grandson's murderess in the face, to converse with her and rescue
her from the Senate. What the laws secure on behalf of every
citizen, had to Germanicus alone been denied. The voices of a
Vitellius and Veranius had bewailed a Caesar, while the emperor and
Augusta had defended Plancina. She might as well now turn her
poisonings, and her devices which had proved so successful, against
Agrippina and her children, and thus sate this exemplary grandmother
and uncle with the blood of a most unhappy house."
Two days were frittered away over this mockery of a trial,
Tiberius urging Piso's children to defend their mother. While the
accusers and their witnesses pressed the prosecution with rival
zeal, and there was no reply, pity rather than anger was on the
increase. Aurelius Cotta, the consul, who was first called on for
his vote (for when the emperor put the question, even those in
office went through the duty of voting), held that Piso's name ought
to be erased from the public register, half of his property
confiscated, half given up to his son, Cneius Piso, who was to
change his first name; that Marcus Piso, stript of his rank, with an
allowance of five million sesterces, should be banished for ten years,
Plancina's life being spared in consideration of Augusta's
intercession.
Much of the sentence was mitigated by the emperor. The name of
Piso was not to be struck out of the public register, since that of
Marcus Antonius who had made war on his country, and that of Julius
Antonius who had dishonoured the house of Augustus, still remained.
Marcus Piso too he saved from degradation, and gave him his father's
property, for he was firm enough, as I have often related, against the
temptation of money, and now for very shame at Plancina's acquittal,
he was more than usually merciful. Again, when Valerius Messalinus and
Caecina Severus proposed respectively the erection of a golden
statue in the temple of Mars the Avenger and of an altar to Vengeance,
he interposed, protesting that victories over the foreigner were
commemorated with such monuments, but that domestic woes ought to be
shrouded in silent grief.
There was a further proposal of Messalinus, that Tiberius,
Augusta, Antonia, Agrippina and Drusus ought to be publicly thanked
for having avenged Germanicus. He omitted all mention of Claudius.
Thereupon he was pointedly asked by Lucius Asprenas before the Senate,
whether the omission had been intentional, and it was only then that
the name of Claudius was added. For my part, the wider the scope of my
reflection on the present and the past, the more am I impressed by
their mockery of human plans in every transaction. Clearly, the very
last man marked out for empire by public opinion, expectation and
general respect was he whom fortune was holding in reserve as the
emperor of the future.
A few days afterwards the emperor proposed to the Senate to confer
the priesthood on Vitellius, Veranius and Servaeus. To Fulcinius he
promised his support in seeking promotion, but warned him not to
ruin his eloquence by rancour. This was the end of avenging the
death of Germanicus, a subject of conflicting rumours not only among
the people then living but also in after times. So obscure are the
greatest events, as some take for granted any hearsay, whatever its
source, others turn truth into falsehood, and both errors find
encouragement with posterity.
Drusus meanwhile quitted Rome to resume his command and soon
afterwards re-entered the city with an ovation. In the course of a few
days his mother Vipsania died, the only one of all Agrippa's
children whose death was without violence. As for the rest, they
perished, some it is certain by the sword, others it was believed by
poison or starvation.
That same year Tacfarinas who had been defeated, as I have
related, by Camillus in the previous summer, renewed hostilities in
Africa, first by mere desultory raids, so swift as to be unpunished;
next, by destroying villages and carrying off plunder wholesale.
Finally, he hemmed in a Roman cohort near the river Pagyda. The
position was commanded by Decrius, a soldier energetic in action and
experienced in war, who regarded the siege as a disgrace. Cheering
on his men to offer battle in the open plain, he drew up his line in
front of his intrenchments. At the first shock, the cohort was
driven back, upon which he threw himself fearlessly amid the
missiles in the path of the fugitives and cried shame on the
standard-bearers for letting Roman soldiers show their backs to a
rabble of deserters. At the same moment he was covered with wounds,
and though pierced through the eye, he resolutely faced the enemy
and ceased not to fight till he fell deserted by his men.
On receiving this information, Lucius Apronius, successor to
Camillus, alarmed more by the dishonour of his own men than by the
glory of the enemy, ventured on a deed quite exceptional at that
time and derived from old tradition. He flogged to death every tenth
man drawn by lot from the disgraced cohort. So beneficial was this
rigour that a detachment of veterans, numbering not more than five
hundred, routed those same troops of Tacfarinas on their attacking a
fortress named Thala. In this engagement Rufus Helvius, a common
soldier, won the honour of saving a citizen's life, and was rewarded
by Apronius with a neck-chain and a spear. To these the emperor
added the civic crown, complaining, but without anger, that Apronius
had not used his right as proconsul to bestow this further
distinction.
Tacfarinas, however, finding that the Numidians were cowed and had a
horror of siege-operations, pursued a desultory warfare, retreating
when he was pressed, and then again hanging on his enemy's rear. While
the barbarian continued these tactics, he could safely insult the
baffled and exhausted Romans. But when he marched away towards the
coast and, hampered with booty, fixed himself in a regular camp,
Caesianus was despatched by his father Apronius with some cavalry
and auxiliary infantry, reinforced by the most active of the
legionaries, and, after a successful battle with the Numidians,
drove them into the desert.
At Rome meanwhile Lepida, who beside the glory of being one of the
Aemilii was the great-granddaughter of Lucius Sulla and Cneius
Pompeius, was accused of pretending to be a mother by Publius
Quirinus, a rich and childless man. Then, too, there were charges of
adulteries, of poisonings, and of inquiries made through astrologers
concerning the imperial house. The accused was defended by her brother
Manius Lepidus. Quirinus by his relentless enmity even after his
divorce, had procured for her some sympathy, infamous and guilty as
she was. One could not easily perceive the emperor's feelings at her
trial; so effectually did he interchange and blend the outward signs
of resentment and compassion. He first begged the Senate not to deal
with the charges of treason, and subsequently induced Marcus
Servilius, an ex-consul, to divulge what he had seemingly wished to
suppress. He also handed over to the consuls Lepida's slaves, who were
in military custody, but would not allow them to be examined by
torture on matters referring to his own family. Drusus too, the
consul-elect, he released from the necessity of having to speak
first to the question. Some thought this a gracious act, done to
save the rest of the Senators from a compulsory assent, while others
ascribed it to malignity, on the ground that he would have yielded
only where there was a necessity of condemning.
On the days of the games which interrupted the trial, Lepida went
into the theatre with some ladies of rank, and as she appealed with
piteous wailings to her ancestors and to that very Pompey, the
public buildings and statues of whom stood there before their eyes,
she roused such sympathy that people burst into tears and shouted,
without ceasing, savage curses on Quirinus, "to whose childless
old-age and miserably obscure family, one once destined to be the wife
of Lucius Caesar and the daughter-in-law of the Divine Augustus was
being sacrificed." Then, by the torture of the slaves, her infamies
were brought to light, and a motion of Rubellius Blandus was carried
which outlawed her. Drusus supported him, though others had proposed a
milder sentence. Subsequently, Scaurus, who had had daughter by her,
obtained as a concession that her property should not be
confiscated. Then at last Tiberius declared that he had himself too
ascertained from the slaves of Publius Quirinus that Lepida had
attempted their master's life by poison.
It was some compensation for the misfortunes of great houses (for
within a short interval the Calpurnii had lost Piso and the Aemilii
Lepida) that Decimus Silanus was now restored to the Junian family.
I will briefly relate his downfall.
Though the Divine Augustus in his public life enjoyed unshaken
prosperity, he was unfortunate at home from the profligacy of his
daughter and granddaughter, both of whom he banished from Rome, and
punished their paramours with death or exile. Calling, as he did, a
vice so habitual among men and women by the awful name of sacrilege
and treason, he went far beyond the indulgent spirit of our ancestors,
beyond indeed his own legislation. But I will relate the deaths of
others with the remaining events of that time, if after finishing
the work I have now proposed to myself, I prolong my life for
further labours.
Decimus Silanus, the paramour of the granddaughter of Augustus,
though the only severity he experienced was exclusion from the
emperor's friendship, saw clearly that it meant exile; and it was
not till Tiberius's reign that he ventured to appeal to the Senate and
to the prince, in reliance on the influence of his brother Marcus
Silanus, who was conspicuous both for his distinguished rank and
eloquence. But Tiberius, when Silanus thanked him, replied in the
Senate's presence, "that he too rejoiced at the brother's return
from his long foreign tour, and that this was justly allowable,
inasmuch as he had been banished not by a decree of the Senate or
under any law. Still, personally," he said, "he felt towards him his
father's resentment in all its force, and the return of Silanus had
not cancelled the intentions of Augustus." Silanus after this lived at
Rome without attaining office.
It was next proposed to relax the Papia Poppaea law, which
Augustus in his old age had passed subsequently to the Julian
statutes, for yet further enforcing the penalties on celibacy and
for enriching the exchequer. And yet, marriages and the rearing of
children did not become more frequent, so powerful were the
attractions of a childless state. Meanwhile there was an increase in
the number of persons imperilled, for every household was undermined
by the insinuations of informers; and now the country suffered from
its laws, as it had hitherto suffered from its vices. This suggests to
me a fuller discussion of the origin of law and of the methods by
which we have arrived at the present endless multiplicity and
variety of our statutes.
Mankind in the earliest age lived for a time without a single
vicious impulse, without shame or guilt, and, consequently, without
punishment and restraints. Rewards were not needed when everything
right was pursued on its own merits; and as men desired nothing
against morality, they were debarred from nothing by fear. When
however they began to throw off equality, and ambition and violence
usurped the place of self-control and modesty, despotisms grew up
and became perpetual among many nations. Some from the beginning, or
when tired of kings, preferred codes of laws. These were at first
simple, while men's minds were unsophisticated. The most famous of
them were those of the Cretans, framed by Minos; those of the
Spartans, by Lycurgus, and, subsequently, those which Solan drew up
for the Athenians on a more elaborate and extensive scale. Romulus
governed us as he pleased; then Numa united our people by religious
ties and a constitution of divine origin, to which some additions were
made by Tullus and Ancus. But Servius Tullius was our chief
legislator, to whose laws even kings were to be subject.
After Tarquin's expulsion, the people, to check cabals among the
Senators, devised many safeguards for freedom and for the
establishment of unity. Decemvirs were appointed; everything specially
admirable elsewhere was adopted, and the Twelve Tables drawn up, the
last specimen of equitable legislation. For subsequent enactments,
though occasionally directed against evildoers for some crime, were
oftener carried by violence amid class dissensions, with a view to
obtain honours not as yet conceded, or to banish distinguished
citizens, or for other base ends. Hence the Gracchi and Saturnini,
those popular agitators, and Drusus too, as flagrant a corrupter in
the Senate's name; hence, the bribing of our allies by alluring
promises and the cheating them by tribunes vetoes. Even the Italian
and then the Civil war did not pass without the enactment of many
conflicting laws, till Lucius Sulla, the Dictator, by the repeal or
alteration of past legislation and by many additions, gave us a
brief lull in this process, to be instantly followed by the
seditious proposals of Lepidus, and soon afterwards by the tribunes
recovering their license to excite the people just as they chose.
And now bills were passed, not only for national objects but for
individual cases, and laws were most numerous when the commonwealth
was most corrupt.
Cneius Pompeius was then for the third time elected consul to reform
public morals, but in applying remedies more terrible than the evils
and repealing the legislation of which he had himself been the author,
he lost by arms what by arms he had been maintaining. Then followed
twenty years of continuous strife; custom or law there was none; the
vilest deeds went unpunished, while many noble acts brought ruin. At
last, in his sixth consulship, Caesar Augustus, feeling his power
secure, annulled the decrees of his triumvirate, and gave us a
constitution which might serve us in peace under a monarchy.
Henceforth our chains became more galling, and spies were set over us,
stimulated by rewards under the Papia Poppaea law, so that if men
shrank from the privileges of fatherhood, the State, as universal
parent, might possess their ownerless properties. But this espionage
became too searching, and Rome and Italy and Roman citizens everywhere
fell into its clutches. Many men's fortunes were ruined, and over
all there hung a terror till Tiberius, to provide a remedy, selected
by lot five ex-consuls, five ex-praetors, and five senators, by whom
most of the legal knots were disentangled and some light temporary
relief afforded.
About this same time he commended to the Senate's favour, Nero,
Germanicus's son, who was just entering on manhood, and asked them,
not without smiles of ridicule from his audience, to exempt him from
serving as one of the Twenty Commissioners, and let him be a candidate
for quaestorship five years earlier than the law allowed. His excuse
was that a similar decree had been made for himself and his brother at
the request of Augustus. But I cannot doubt that even then there
were some who secretly laughed at such a petition, though the
Caesars were but in the beginning of their grandeur, and ancient usage
was more constantly before men's eyes, while also the tie between
stepfather and stepson was weaker than that between grandfather and
grandchild. The pontificate was likewise conferred on Nero, and on the
day on which he first entered the forum, a gratuity was given to the
city-populace, who greatly rejoiced at seeing a son of Germanicus
now grown to manhood. Their joy was further increased by Nero's
marriage to Julia, Drusus's daughter. This news was met with
favourable comments, but it was heard with disgust that Sejanus was to
be the father-in-law of the son of Claudius. The emperor was thought
to have polluted the nobility of his house and to have yet further
elevated Sejanus, whom they already suspected of overweening ambition.
Two remarkable men died at the end of the year, Lucius Volusius
and Sallustius Crispus. Volusius was of an old family, which had
however never risen beyond the praetorship. He brought into it the
consulship; he also held the office of censor for arranging the
classes of the knights, and was the first to pile up the wealth
which that house enjoyed to a boundless extent.
Crispus was of equestrian descent and grandson of a sister of
Caius Sallustius, that most admirable Roman historian, by whom he
was adopted and whose name he took. Though his road to preferment
was easy, he chose to emulate Maecenas, and without rising to a
senator's rank, he surpassed in power many who had won triumphs and
consulships. He was a contrast to the manners of antiquity in his
elegance and refinement, and in the sumptuousness of his wealth he was
almost a voluptuary. But beneath all this was a vigorous mind, equal
to the greatest labours, the more active in proportion as he made a
show of sloth and apathy. And so while Maecenas lived, he stood next
in favour to him, and was afterwards the chief depository of
imperial secrets, and accessory to the murder of Postumus Agrippa,
till in advanced age he retained the shadow rather than the
substance of the emperor's friendship. The same too had happened to
Maecenas, so rarely is it the destiny of power to be lasting, or
perhaps a sense of weariness steals over princes when they have
bestowed everything, or over favourites, when there is nothing left
them to desire.
Next followed Tiberius's fourth, Drusus's second consulship,
memorable from the fact that father and son were colleagues. Two years
previously the association of Germanicus and Tiberius in the same
honour had not been agreeable to the uncle, nor had it the link of
so close a natural tie.
At the beginning of this year Tiberius, avowedly to recruit his
health, retired to Campania, either as a gradual preparation for
long and uninterrupted seclusion, or in order that Drusus alone in his
father's absence might discharge the duties of the consulship. It
happened that a mere trifle which grew into a sharp contest gave the
young prince the means of acquiring popularity. Domitius Corbulo, an
ex-praetor, complained to the Senate that Lucius Sulla, a young noble,
had not given place to him at a gladiatorial show. Corbulo had age,
national usage and the feelings of the older senators in his favour.
Against him Mamercus Scaurus, Lucius Arruntius and other kinsmen of
Sulla strenuously exerted themselves. There was a keen debate, and
appeal was made to the precedents of our ancestors, as having censured
in severe decrees disrespect on the part of the young, till Drusus
argued in a strain calculated to calm their feelings. Corbulo too
received an apology from Mamercus, who was Sulla's uncle and
stepfather, and the most fluent speaker of that day.
It was this same Corbulo, who, after raising a cry that most of
the roads in Italy were obstructed or impassable through the
dishonesty of contractors and the negligence of officials, himself
willingly undertook the complete management of the business. This
proved not so beneficial to the State as ruinous to many persons,
whose property and credit he mercilessly attacked by convictions and
confiscations.
Soon afterwards Tiberius informed the Senate by letter that Africa
was again disturbed by an incursion of Tacfarinas, and that they
must use their judgment in choosing as proconsul an experienced
soldier of vigorous constitution, who would be equal to the war.
Sextus Pompeius caught at this opportunity of venting his hatred
against Lepidus, whom he condemned as a poor-spirited and needy man,
who was a disgrace to his ancestors, and therefore deserved to lose
even his chance of the province of Asia. But the Senate were against
him, for they thought Lepidus gentle rather than cowardly, and that
his inherited poverty, with the high rank in which he had lived
without a blot, ought to be considered a credit to instead of a
reproach. And so he was sent to Asia, and with respect to Africa it
was decided that the emperor should choose to whom it was to be
assigned.
During this debate Severus Caecina proposed that no magistrate who
had obtained a province should be accompanied by his wife. He began by
recounting at length how harmoniously he had lived with his wife,
who had borne him six children, and how in his own home he had
observed what he was proposing for the public, by having kept her in
Italy, though he had himself served forty campaigns in various
provinces. "With good reason," he said, "had it been formerly
decided that women were not to be taken among our allies or into
foreign countries. A train of women involves delays through luxury
in peace and through panic in war, and converts a Roman army on the
march into the likeness of a barbarian progress. Not only is the sex
feeble and unequal to hardship, but, when it has liberty, it is
spiteful, intriguing and greedy of power. They show themselves off
among the soldiers and have the centurions at their beck. Lately a
woman had presided at the drill of the cohorts and the evolutions of
the legions. You should yourselves bear in mind that, whenever men are
accused of extortion, most of the charges are directed against the
wives. It is to these that the vilest of the provincials instantly
attach themselves; it is they who undertake and settle business; two
persons receive homage when they appear; there are two centres of
government, and the women's orders are the more despotic and
intemperate. Formerly they were restrained by the Oppian and other
laws; now, loosed from every bond, they rule our houses, our
tribunals, even our armies."
A few heard this speech with approval, but the majority
clamorously objected that there was no proper motion on the subject,
and that Caecina was no fit censor on so grave an issue. Presently
Valerius Messalinus, Messala's son, in whom the father's eloquence was
reproduced, replied that much of the sternness of antiquity had been
changed into a better and more genial system. "Rome," he said, "is not
now, as formerly, beset with wars, nor are the provinces hostile. A
few concessions are made to the wants of women, but such as are not
even a burden to their husbands homes, much less to the allies. In all
other respects man and wife share alike, and this arrangement involves
no trouble in peace. War of course requires that men should be
unincumbered, but when they return what worthier solace can they
have after their hardships than a wife's society? But some wives
have abandoned themselves to scheming and rapacity. Well; even among
our magistrates, are not many subject to various passions? Still, that
is not a reason for sending no one into a province. Husbands have
often been corrupted by the vices of their wives. Are then all
unmarried men blameless? The Oppian laws were formerly adopted to meet
the political necessities of the time, and subsequently there was some
remission and mitigation of them on grounds of expediency. It is
idle to shelter our own weakness under other names; for it is the
husband's fault if the wife transgresses propriety. Besides, it is
wrong that because of the imbecility of one or two men, all husbands
should be cut off from their partners in prosperity and adversity. And
further, a sex naturally weak will be thus left to itself and be at
the mercy of its own voluptuousness and the passions of others. Even
with the husband's personal vigilance the marriage tie is scarcely
preserved inviolate. What would happen were it for a number of years
to be forgotten, just as in a divorce? You must not check vices abroad
without remembering the scandals of the capital."
Drusus added a few words on his own experience as a husband.
"Princes," he said, "must often visit the extremities of their empire.
How often had the Divine Augustus travelled to West and to the East
accompanied by Livia? He had himself gone to Illyricum and, should
it be expedient, he would go to other countries, not always however
with a contented mind, if he had to tear himself from a much loved
wife, the mother of his many children."
Caecina's motion was thus defeated. At the Senate's next meeting
came a letter from Tiberius, which indirectly censured them for
throwing on the emperor every political care, and named Marcus Lepidus
and Junius Blaesus, one of whom was to be chosen pro-consul of Africa.
Both spoke on the subject, and Lepidus begged earnestly to be excused.
He alleged ill-health, his children's tender age, his having a
daughter to marry, and something more of which he said nothing, was
well understood, the fact that Blaesus was uncle of Sejanus and so had
very powerful interest. Blaesus replied with an affectation of
refusal, but not with the same persistency, nor was he backed up by
the acquiescence of flatterers.
Next was exposed an abuse, hitherto the subject of many a
whispered complaint. The vilest wretches used a growing freedom in
exciting insult and obloquy against respectable citizens, and
escaped punishment by clasping some statue of the emperor. The very
freedman or slave was often an actual terror to his patron or master
whom he would menace by word and gesture. Accordingly Caius Cestius, a
senator, argued that "though princes were like deities, yet even the
gods listened only to righteous prayers from their suppliants, and
that no one fled to the Capitol or any other temple in Rome to use
it as an auxiliary in crime. There was an end and utter subversion
of all law when, in the forum and on the threshold of the Senate
House, Annia Rufilla, whom he had convicted of fraud before a judge,
assailed him with insults and threats, while he did not himself dare
to try legal proceedings, because he was confronted by her with the
emperor's image." There rose other clamorous voices, with even more
flagrant complaints, and all implored Drusus to inflict exemplary
vengeance, till he ordered Rufilla to be summoned, and on her
conviction to be confined in the common prison.
Considius Aequus too and Coelius Cursor, Roman knights, were
punished on the emperor's proposal, by a decree of the Senate, for
having attacked the praetor, Magius Caecilianus, with false charges of
treason. Both these results were represented as an honour to Drusus.
By moving in society at Rome, amid popular talk, his father's dark
policy, it was thought, was mitigated. Even voluptuousness in one so
young gave little offence. Better that he should incline that way,
spend his days in architecture, his nights in banquets, than that he
should live in solitude, cut off from every pleasure, and absorbed
in a gloomy vigilance and mischievous schemes.
Tiberius indeed and the informers were never weary. Ancharius
Priscus had prosecuted Caesius Cordus, proconsul of Crete, for
extortion, adding a charge of treason, which then crowned all
indictments. Antistius Vetus, one of the chief men of Macedonia, who
had been acquitted of adultery, was recalled by the emperor himself,
with a censure on the judges, to be tried for treason, as a
seditious man who had been implicated in the designs of Rhescuporis,
when that king after the murder of his brother Cotys had meditated war
against us. The accused was accordingly outlawed, with the further
sentence that he was to be confined in an island from which neither
Macedonia nor Thrace were conveniently accessible.
As for Thrace, since the division of the kingdom between
Rhoemetalces and the children of Cotys, who because of their tender
age were under the guardianship of Trebellienus Rufus, it was
divided against itself, from not being used to our rule, and blamed
Rhoemetalces no less than Trebellienus for allowing the wrongs of
his countrymen to go unpunished. The Coelaletae, Odrusae and Dii,
powerful tribes, took up arms, under different leaders, all on a level
from their obscurity. This hindered them from combining in a
formidable war. Some roused their immediate neighbourhood; others
crossed Mount Haemus, to stir up remote tribes; most of them, and
the best disciplined, besieged the king in the city of
Philippopolis, founded by the Macedonian Philip.
When this was known to Publius Vellaeus who commanded the nearest
army, he sent some allied cavalry and light infantry to attack those
who were roaming in quest of plunder or of reinforcements, while he
marched in person with the main strength of the foot to raise the
siege. Every operation was at the same moment successful; the
pillagers were cut to pieces; dissensions broke out among the
besiegers, and the king made a well-timed sally just as the legion
arrived. A battle or even a skirmish it did not deserve to be
called, in which merely half-armed stragglers were slaughtered without
bloodshed on our side.
That same year, some states of Gaul, under the pressure of heavy
debts, attempted a revolt. Its most active instigators were Julius
Florus among the Treveri and Julius Sacrovir among the Aedui. Both
could show noble birth and signal services rendered by ancestors,
for which Roman citizenship had formerly been granted them, when the
gift was rare and a recompense only of merit. In secret conferences to
which the fiercest spirits were admitted, or any to whom poverty or
the fear of guilt was an irresistible stimulus to crime, they arranged
that Florus was to rouse the Belgae, Sacrovir the Gauls nearer home.
These men accordingly talked sedition before small gatherings and
popular assemblies about the perpetual tributes, the oppressive usury,
the cruelty and arrogance of their governors, hinting too that there
was disaffection among our soldiers, since they had heard of the
murder of Germanicus. "It was," they said, "a grand opportunity for
the recovery of freedom, if only they would contrast their own
vigour with the exhaustion of Italy, the unwarlike character of the
city populace, and the utter weakness of Rome's armies in all but
their foreign element."
Scarcely a single community was untouched by the germs of this
commotion. First however in actual revolt were the Andecavi and
Turoni. Of these the former were put down by an officer, Acilius
Aviola, who had summoned a cohort which was on garrison duty at
Lugdunum. The Turoni were quelled by some legionary troops sent by
Visellius Varro who commanded in Lower Germany, and led by the same
Aviola and some Gallic chieftains who brought aid, in order that
they might disguise their disaffection and exhibit it at a better
opportunity. Sacrovir too was conspicuous, with head uncovered,
cheering on his men to fight for Rome, to display, as he said, his
valour. But the prisoners asserted that he sought recognition that
he might not be a mark for missiles. Tiberius when consulted on the
matter disdained the information, and fostered the war by his
irresolution.
Florus meanwhile followed up his designs and tried to induce a
squadron of cavalry levied among the Treveri, trained in our service
and discipline, to begin hostilities by a massacre of the Roman
traders. He corrupted a few of the men, but the majority were
steadfast in their allegiance. A host however of debtors and
dependents took up arms, and they were on their way to the forest
passes known as the Arduenna, when they were stopped by legions
which Visellius and Silius had sent from their respective armies, by
opposite routes, to meet them. Julius Indus from the same state, who
was at feud with Florus and therefore particularly eager to render
us a service, was sent on in advance with a picked force, and
dispersed the undisciplined rabble. Florus after eluding the
conquerors by hiding himself in one place after another, at last
when he saw some soldiers who had barred every possible escape, fell
by his own hand. Such was the end of the rebellion of the Treveri.
A more formidable movement broke out among the Aedui, proportioned
to the greater wealth of the state and the distance of the force which
should repress it. Sacrovir with some armed cohorts had made himself
master of Augustodunum, the capital of the tribe, with the noblest
youth of Gaul, there devoting themselves to a liberal education, and
with such hostages he proposed to unite in his cause their parents and
kinsfolk. He also distributed among the youth arms which he had had
secretly manufactured. There were forty thousand, one fifth armed like
our legionaries; the rest had spears and knives and other weapons used
in the chase. In addition were some slaves who were being trained
for gladiators, clad after the national fashion in a complete covering
of steel. They were called crupellarii, and though they were
ill-adapted for inflicting wounds, they were impenetrable to them.
This army was continually increased, not yet by any open combination
of the neighbouring states, but by zealous individual enthusiasm, as
well as by strife between the Roman generals, each of whom claimed the
war for himself. Varro after a while, as he was infirm and aged,
yielded to Silius who was in his prime.
At Rome meanwhile people said that it was not only the Treveri and
Aedui who had revolted, but sixty-four states of Gaul with the Germans
in alliance, while Spain too was disaffected; anything in fact was
believed, with rumour's usual exaggeration. All good men were saddened
by anxiety for the country, but many in their loathing of the
present system and eagerness for change, rejoiced at their very perils
and exclaimed against Tiberius for giving attention amid such
political convulsions to the calumnies of informers. "Was Sacrovir
too," they asked, "to be charged with treason before the Senate? We
have at last found men to check those murderous missives by the sword.
Even war is a good exchange for a miserable peace." Tiberius all the
more studiously assumed an air of unconcern. He changed neither his
residence nor his look, but kept up his usual demeanour during the
whole time, either from the profoundness of his reserve; or was it
that he had convinced himself that the events were unimportant and
much more insignificant than the rumours represented?
Silius meantime was advancing with two legions, and having sent
forward some auxiliary troops was ravaging those villages of the
Sequani, which, situated on the border, adjoin the Aedui, and were
associated with them in arms. He then pushed on by forced marches to
Augustodunum, his standard-bearers vying in zeal, and even the
privates loudly protesting against any halt for their usual rest or
during the hours of night. "Only," they said, "let us have the foe
face to face; that will be enough for victory." Twelve miles from
Augustodunum they saw before them Sacrovir and his army in an open
plain. His men in armour he had posted in the van, his light
infantry on the wings, and the half-armed in the rear. He himself rode
amid the foremost ranks on a splendid charger, reminding them of the
ancient glories of the Gauls, of the disasters they had inflicted on
the Romans, how grand would be the freedom of the victorious, how more
intolerable than ever the slavery of a second conquest.
His words were brief and heard without exultation. For now the
legions in battle array were advancing, and the rabble of townsfolk
who knew nothing of war had their faculties of sight and hearing quite
paralysed. Silius, on the one hand, though confident hope took away
any need for encouragement, exclaimed again and again that it was a
shame to the conquerors of Germany to have to be led against Gauls, as
against an enemy. "Only the other day the rebel Turoni had been
discomfited by a single cohort, the Treveri by one cavalry squadron,
the Sequani by a few companies of this very army. Prove to these Aedui
once for all that the more they abound in wealth and luxury, the
more unwarlike are they, but spare them when they flee."
Then there was a deafening cheer; the cavalry threw itself on the
flanks, and the infantry charged the van. On the wings there was but a
brief resistance. The men in mail were somewhat of an obstacle, as the
iron plates did not yield to javelins or swords; but our men,
snatching up hatchets and pickaxes, hacked at their bodies and their
armour as if they were battering a wall. Some beat down the unwieldy
mass with pikes and forked poles, and they were left lying on the
ground, without an effort to rise, like dead men. Sacrovir with his
most trustworthy followers hurried first to Augustodunum and then,
from fear of being surrendered, to an adjacent country house. There by
his own hand he fell, and his comrades by mutually inflicted wounds.
The house was fired over their heads, and with it they were all
consumed.
Then at last Tiberius informed the Senate by letter of the beginning
and completion of the war, without either taking away from or adding
to the truth, but ascribing the success to the loyalty and courage
of his generals, and to his own policy. He also gave the reasons why
neither he himself nor Drusus had gone to the war; he magnified the
greatness of the empire, and said it would be undignified for
emperors, whenever there was a commotion in one or two states, to quit
the capital, the centre of all government. Now, as he was not
influenced by fear, he would go to examine and settle matters.
The Senate decreed vows for his safe return, with thanksgivings
and other appropriate ceremonies. Cornelius Dolabella alone, in
endeavouring to outdo the other Senators, went the length of a
preposterous flattery by proposing that he should enter Rome from
Campania with an ovation. Thereupon came a letter from the emperor,
declaring that he was not so destitute of renown as after having
subdued the most savage nations and received or refused so many
triumphs in his youth, to covet now that he was old an unmeaning
honour for a tour in the neighbourhood of Rome.
About the same time he requested the Senate to let the death of
Sulpicius Quirinus be celebrated with a public funeral. With the old
patrician family of the Sulpicii this Quirinus, who was born in the
town of Lanuvium, was quite unconnected. An indefatigable soldier,
he had by his zealous services won the consulship under the Divine
Augustus, and subsequently the honours of a triumph for having stormed
some fortresses of the Homonadenses in Cilicia. He was also
appointed adviser to Caius Caesar in the government of Armenia, and
had likewise paid court to Tiberius, who was then at Rhodes. The
emperor now made all this known to the Senate, and extolled the good
offices of Quirinus to himself, while he censured Marcus Lollius, whom
he charged with encouraging Caius Caesar in his perverse and
quarrelsome behaviour. But people generally had no pleasure in the
memory of Quirinus, because of the perils he had brought, as I have
related, on Lepida, and the meanness and dangerous power of his last
years.
At the close of the year, Caius Lutorius Priscus, a Roman knight,
who, after writing a popular poem bewailing the death of Germanicus,
had received a reward in money from the emperor, was fastened on by an
informer, and charged with having composed another during the
illness of Drusus, which, in the event of the prince's death, might be
published with even greater profit to himself. He had in his vanity
read it in the house of Publius Petronius before Vitellia, Petronius's
mother-in-law, and several ladies of rank. As soon as the accuser
appeared, all but Vitellia were frightened into giving evidence. She
alone swore that she had heard not a word. But those who criminated
him fatally were rather believed, and on the motion of Haterius
Agrippa, the consul-elect, the last penalty was invoked on the
accused.
Marcus Lepidus spoke against the sentence as follows:- "Senators, if
we look to the single fact of the infamous utterance with which
Lutorius has polluted his own mind and the ears of the public, neither
dungeon nor halter nor tortures fit for a slave would be punishment
enough for him. But though vice and wicked deeds have no limit,
penalties and correctives are moderated by the clemency of the
sovereign and by the precedents of your ancestors and yourselves.
Folly differs from wickedness; evil words from evil deeds, and thus
there is room for a sentence by which this offence may not go
unpunished, while we shall have no cause to regret either leniency
or severity. Often have I heard our emperor complain when any one
has anticipated his mercy by a self-inflicted death. Lutorius's life
is still safe; if spared, he will be no danger to the State; if put to
death, he will be no warning to others. His productions are as empty
and ephemeral as they are replete with folly. Nothing serious or
alarming is to be apprehended from the man who is the betrayer of
his own shame and works on the imaginations not of men but of silly
women. However, let him leave Rome, lose his property, and be
outlawed. That is my proposal, just as though he were convicted
under the law of treason."
Only one of the ex-consuls, Rubellius Blandus, supported Lepidus.
The rest voted with Agrippa. Priscus was dragged off to prison and
instantly put to death. Of this Tiberius complained to the Senate with
his usual ambiguity, extolling their loyalty in so sharply avenging
the very slightest insults to the sovereign, though he deprecated such
hasty punishment of mere words, praising Lepidus and not censuring
Agrippa. So the Senate passed a resolution that their decrees should
not be registered in the treasury till nine days had expired, and so
much respite was to be given to condemned persons. Still the Senate
had not liberty to alter their purpose, and lapse of time never
softened Tiberius.
Caius Sulpicius and Didius Haterius were the next consuls. It was
a year free from commotions abroad, while at home stringent
legislation was apprehended against the luxury which had reached
boundless excess in everything on which wealth is lavished. Some
expenses, though very serious, were generally kept secret by a
concealment of the real prices; but the costly preparations for
gluttony and dissipation were the theme of incessant talk, and had
suggested a fear that a prince who clung to oldfashioned frugality
would be too stern in his reforms. In fact, when the aedile Caius
Bibulus broached the topic, all his colleagues had pointed out that
the sumptuary laws were disregarded, that prohibited prices for
household articles were every day on the increase, and that moderate
measures could not stop the evil.
The Senate on being consulted had, without handling the matter,
referred it to the emperor. Tiberius, after long considering whether
such reckless tastes could be repressed, whether the repression of
them would not be still more hurtful to the State, also, how
undignified it would be to meddle with what he could not succeed in,
or what, if effected, would necessitate the disgrace and infamy of men
of distinction, at last addressed a letter to the Senate to the
following purport:-
Perhaps in any other matter, Senators, it would be more convenient
that I should be consulted in your presence, and then state what I
think to be for the public good. In this debate it was better that
my eyes should not be on you, for while you were noting the anxious
faces of individual senators charged with shameful luxury, I too
myself might observe them and, as it were, detect them. Had those
energetic men, our aediles, first taken counsel with me, I do not know
whether I should not have advised them to let alone vices so strong
and so matured, rather than merely attain the result of publishing
what are the corruptions with which we cannot cope. They however
have certainly done their duty, as I would wish all other officials
likewise to fulfil their parts. For myself, it is neither seemly to
keep silence nor is it easy to speak my mind, as I do not hold the
office of aedile, praetor, or consul. Something greater and loftier is
expected of a prince, and while everybody takes to himself the
credit of right policy, one alone has to bear the odium of every
person's failures. For what am I first to begin with restraining and
cutting down to the old standard? The vast dimensions of country
houses? The number of slaves of every nationality? The masses of
silver and gold? The marvels in bronze and painting? The apparel
worn indiscriminately by both sexes, or that peculiar luxury of
women which, for the sake of jewels, diverts our wealth to strange
or hostile nations?
I am not unaware that people at entertainments and social gatherings
condemn all this and demand some restriction. But if a law were to
be passed and a penalty imposed, those very same persons will cry
out that the State is revolutionised, that ruin is plotted against all
our most brilliant fashion, that not a citizen is safe from
incrimination. Yet as even bodily disorders of long standing and
growth can be checked only by sharp and painful treatment, so the
fever of a diseased mind, itself polluted and a pollution to others,
can be quenched only by remedies as strong as the passions which
inflame it. Of the many laws devised by our ancestors, of the many
passed by the Divine Augustus, the first have been forgotten, while
his (all the more to our disgrace) have become obsolete through
contempt, and this has made luxury bolder than ever. The truth is,
that when one craves something not yet forbidden, there is a fear that
it may be forbidden; but when people once transgress prohibitions with
impunity, there is no longer any fear or any shame.
Why then in old times was economy in the ascendant? Because every
one practised self-control; because we were all members of one city.
Nor even afterwards had we the same temptations, while our dominion
was confined to Italy. Victories over the foreigner taught us how to
waste the substance of others; victories over ourselves, how to
squander our own. What a paltry matter is this of which the aediles
are reminding us! What a mere trifle if you look at everything else!
No one represents to the Senate that Italy requires supplies from
abroad, and that the very existence of the people of Rome is daily
at the mercy of uncertain waves and storms. And unless masters,
slaves, and estates have the resources of the provinces as their
mainstay, our shrubberies, forsooth, and our country houses will
have to support us.
Such, Senators, are the anxieties which the prince has to sustain,
and the neglect of them will be utter ruin to the State. The cure
for other evils must be sought in our own hearts. Let us be led to
amendment, the poor by constraint, the rich by satiety. Or if any of
our officials give promise of such energy and strictness as can stem
the corruption, I praise the man, and I confess that I am relieved
of a portion of my burdens. But if they wish to denounce vice, and
when they have gained credit for so doing they arouse resentments
and leave them to me, be assured, Senators, that I too am by no
means eager to incur enmities, and though for the public good I
encounter formidable and often unjust enmities, yet I have a right
to decline such as are unmeaning and purposeless and will be of use
neither to myself nor to you.
When they had heard the emperor's letter, the aediles were excused
from so anxious a task, and that luxury of the table which from the
close of the war ended at Actium to the armed revolution in which
Servius Galba rose to empire, had been practised with profuse
expenditure, gradually went out of fashion. It is as well that I
should trace the causes of this change.
Formerly rich or highly distinguished noble families often sank into
ruin from a passion for splendour. Even then men were still at liberty
to court and be courted by the city populace, by our allies and by
foreign princes, and every one who from his wealth, his mansion and
his establishment was conspicuously grand, gained too proportionate
lustre by his name and his numerous clientele. After the savage
massacres in which greatness of renown was fatal, the survivors turned
to wiser ways. The new men who were often admitted into the Senate
from the towns, colonies and even the provinces, introduced their
household thrift, and though many of them by good luck or energy
attained an old age of wealth, still their former tastes remained. But
the chief encourager of strict manners was Vespasian, himself
old-fashioned both in his dress and diet. Henceforth a respectful
feeling towards the prince and a love of emulation proved more
efficacious than legal penalties or terrors. Or possibly there is in
all things a kind of cycle, and there may be moral revolutions just as
there are changes of seasons. Nor was everything better in the past,
but our own age too has produced many specimens of excellence and
culture for posterity to imitate. May we still keep up with our
ancestors a rivalry in all that is honourable!
Tiberius having gained credit for forbearance by the check he had
given to the growing terror of the informers, wrote a letter to the
Senate requesting the tribunitian power for Drusus. This was a
phrase which Augustus devised as a designation of supremacy, so that
without assuming the name of king or dictator he might have some title
to mark his elevation above all other authority. He then chose
Marcus Agrippa to be his associate in this power, and on Agrippa's
death, Tiberius Nero, that there might be no uncertainty as to the
succession. In this manner he thought to check the perverse ambition
of others, while he had confidence in Nero's moderation and in his own
greatness.
Following this precedent, Tiberius now placed Drusus next to the
throne, though while Germanicus was alive he had maintained an
impartial attitude towards the two princes. However in the beginning
of his letter he implored heaven to prosper his plans on behalf of the
State, and then added a few remarks, without falsehood or
exaggeration, on the character of the young prince. He had, he
reminded them, a wife and three children, and his age was the same
as that at which he had himself been formerly summoned by the Divine
Augustus to undertake this duty. Nor was it a precipitate step; it was
only after an experience of eight years, after having quelled mutinies
and settled wars, after a triumph and two consulships, that he was
adopted as a partner in trials already familiar to him.
The senators had anticipated this message and hence their flattery
was the more elaborate. But they could devise nothing but voting
statues of the two princes, shrines to certain deities, temples,
arches and the usual routine, except that Marcus Silanus sought to
honour the princes by a slur on the consulate, and proposed that on
all monuments, public or private, should be inscribed, to mark the
date, the names, not of the consuls, but of those who were holding the
tribunitian power. Quintus Haterius, when he brought forward a
motion that the decrees passed that day should be set up in the Senate
House in letters of gold, was laughed at as an old dotard, who would
get nothing but infamy out of such utterly loathsome sycophancy.
Meantime Junius Blaesus received an extension of his government of
Africa, and Servius Maluginensis, the priest of Jupiter, demanded to
have Asia allotted to him. "It was," he asserted, "a popular error
that it was not lawful for the priests of Jupiter to leave Italy; in
fact, his own legal position differed not from that of the priests
of Mars and of Quirinus. If these latter had provinces allotted to
them, why was it forbidden to the priests of Jupiter? There were no
resolutions of the people or anything to be found in the books of
ceremonies on the subject. Pontiffs had often performed the rites to
Jupiter when his priest was hindered by illness or by public duty. For
seventy-five years after the suicide of Cornelius Merula no
successor to his office had been appointed; yet religious rites had
not ceased. If during so many years it was possible for there to be no
appointment without any prejudice to religion, with what comparative
ease might he be absent for one year's proconsulate? That these
priests in former days were prohibited by the pontiff from going
into the provinces, was the result of private feuds. Now, thank
heaven, the supreme pontiff was also the supreme man, and was
influenced by no rivalry, hatred or personal feeling."
As the augur Lentulus and others argued on various grounds against
this view, the result was that they awaited the decision of the
supreme pontiff. Tiberius deferred any investigation into the priest's
legal position, but he modified the ceremonies which had been
decreed in honour of Drusus's tribunitian power with special censure
on the extravagance of the proposed inscription in gold, so contrary
to national usage. Letters also from Drusus were read, which, though
studiously modest in expression, were taken to be extremely
supercilious. "We have fallen so low," people said, "that even a
mere youth who has received so high an honour does not go as a
worshipper to the city's gods, does not enter the Senate, does not
so much as take the auspices on his country's soil. There is a war,
forsooth, or he is kept from us in some remote part of the world. Why,
at this very moment, he is on a tour amid the shores and lakes of
Campania. Such is the training of the future ruler of mankind; such
the lesson he first learns from his father's counsels. An aged emperor
may indeed shrink from the citizen's gaze, and plead the weariness
of declining years and the toils of the past. But, as for Drusus, what
can be his hindrance but pride?"
Tiberius meantime, while securing to himself the substance of
imperial power, allowed the Senate some shadow of its old constitution
by referring to its investigation certain demands of the provinces. In
the Greek cities license and impunity in establishing sanctuaries were
on the increase. Temples were thronged with the vilest of the
slaves; the same refuge screened the debtor against his creditor, as
well as men suspected of capital offences. No authority was strong
enough to check the turbulence of a people which protected the
crimes of men as much as the worship of the gods.
It was accordingly decided that the different states were to send
their charters and envoys to Rome. Some voluntarily relinquished
privileges which they had groundlessly usurped; many trusted to old
superstitions, or to their services to the Roman people. It was a
grand spectacle on that day, when the Senate examined grants made by
our ancestors, treaties with allies, even decrees of kings who had
flourished before Rome's ascendancy, and the forms of worship of the
very deities, with full liberty as in former days, to ratify or to
alter.
First of all came the people of Ephesus. They declared that Diana
and Apollo were not born at Delos, as was the vulgar belief. They
had in their own country a river Cenchrius, a grove Ortygia, where
Latona, as she leaned in the pangs of labour on an olive still
standing, gave birth to those two deities, whereupon the grove at
the divine intimation was consecrated. There Apollo himself, after the
slaughter of the Cyclops, shunned the wrath of Jupiter; there too
father Bacchus, when victorious in war, pardoned the suppliant Amazons
who had gathered round the shrine. Subsequently by the permission of
Hercules, when he was subduing Lydia, the grandeur of the temple's
ceremonial was augmented, and during the Persian rule its privileges
were not curtailed. They had afterwards been maintained by the
Macedonians, then by ourselves.
Next the people of Magnesia relied on arrangements made by Lucius
Scipio and Lucius Sulla. These generals, after respectively
defeating Antiochus and Mithridates, honoured the fidelity and courage
of the Magnesians by allowing the temple of Diana of the White Brow to
be an inviolable sanctuary. Then the people of Aphrodisia produced a
decree of the dictator Caesar for their old services to his party, and
those of Stratonicea, one lately passed by the Divine Augustus, in
which they were commended for having endured the Parthian invasion
without wavering in their loyalty to the Roman people. Aphrodisia
maintained the worship of Venus; Stratonicea, that of Jupiter and of
Diana of the Cross Ways.
Hierocaesarea went back to a higher antiquity, and spoke of having a
Persian Diana, whose fane was consecrated in the reign of Cyrus.
They quoted too the names of Perperna, Isauricus, and many other
generals who had conceded the same sacred character not only to the
temple but to its precincts for two miles. Then came the Cyprians on
behalf of three shrines, the oldest of which had been set up by
their founder Aerias to the Paphian Venus, the second by his son
Amathus to Venus of Amathus, and the last to Jupiter of Salamis, by
Teucer when he fled from the wrath of his father Telamon.
Audience was also given to embassies from other states. The senators
wearied by their multiplicity and seeing the party spirit that was
being roused, intrusted the inquiry to the consuls, who were to sift
each title and see if it involved any abuse, and then refer back the
entire matter to the Senate. Besides the states already mentioned, the
consuls reported that they had ascertained that at Pergamus there
was a sanctuary of Aesculapius, but that the rest relied on an
origin lost in the obscurity of antiquity. For example, the people
of Smyrna quoted an oracle of Apollo, which had commanded them to
dedicate a temple to Venus Stratonicis; and the islanders of Tenos, an
utterance from the same deity, bidding them consecrate a statue and
a fane to Neptune. Sardis preferred a more modern claim, a grant
from the victorious Alexander. So again Miletus relied on king Darius.
But in each case their religious worship was that of Diana or
Apollo. The Cretans too demanded a like privilege for a statue of
the Divine Augustus. Decrees of the Senate were passed, which though
very respectful, still prescribed certain limits, and the
petitioners were directed to set up bronze tablets in each temple,
to be a sacred memorial and to restrain them from sinking into selfish
aims under the mask of religion.
About this time Julia Augusta had an alarming illness, which
compelled the emperor to hasten his return to Rome, for hitherto there
had been a genuine harmony between the mother and son, or a hatred
well concealed. Not long before, for instance, Julia in dedicating a
statue to the Divine Augustus near the theatre of Marcellus had
inscribed the name of Tiberius below her own, and it was surmised that
the emperor, regarding this as a slight on a sovereign's dignity,
had brooded over it with deep and disguised resentment. However the
Senate now decreed supplications to the gods and the celebration of
the Great Games, which were to be exhibited by the pontiffs, augurs,
the colleges of the Fifteen and of the Seven, with the Augustal
Brotherhood. Lucius Apronius moved that the heralds too should preside
over these Games. This the emperor opposed, distinguishing the
peculiar privileges of the sacred guilds, and quoting precedents.
Never, he argued, had the heralds this dignity. "The Augustal
priests were included expressly because their sacred office was
specially attached to the family for which vows were being performed."
My purpose is not to relate at length every motion, but only such as
were conspicuous for excellence or notorious for infamy. This I regard
as history's highest function, to let no worthy action be
uncommemorated, and to hold out the reprobation of posterity as a
terror to evil words and deeds. So corrupted indeed and debased was
that age by sycophancy that not only the foremost citizens who were
forced to save their grandeur by servility, but every exconsul, most
of the ex-praetors and a host of inferior senators would rise in eager
rivalry to propose shameful and preposterous motions. Tradition says
that Tiberius as often as he left the Senate-House used to exclaim
in Greek, "How ready these men are to be slaves." Clearly, even he,
with his dislike of public freedom, was disgusted at the abject
abasement of his creatures.
From unseemly flatteries they passed by degrees to savage acts.
Caius Silanus, pro-consul of Asia, was accused by our allies of
extortion; whereupon Mamercus Scaurus, an ex-consul, Junius Otho, a
praetor, Brutidius Niger, an aedile, simultaneously fastened on him
and charged him with sacrilege to the divinity of Augustus, and
contempt of the majesty of Tiberius, while Mamercus Scaurus quoted old
precedents, the prosecutions of Lucius Cotta by Scipio Africanus, of
Servius Galba by Cato the Censor and of Publius Rutilius by Scaurus.
As if indeed Scipio's and Cato's vengeance fell on such offences, or
that of the famous Scaurus, whom his great grandson, a blot on his
ancestry, this Mamercus was now disgracing by his infamous occupation.
Junius Otho's old employment had been the keeping of a preparatory
school. Subsequently, becoming a senator by the influence of
Sejanus, he shamed his origin, low as it was, by his unblushing
effronteries. Brutidius who was rich in excellent accomplishments, and
was sure, had he pursued a path of virtue, to reach the most brilliant
distinction, was goaded on by an eager impatience, while he strove
to outstrip his equals, then his superiors, and at last even his own
aspirations. Many have thus perished, even good men, despising slow
and safe success and hurrying on even at the cost of ruin to premature
greatness.
Gellius Publicola and Marcus Paconius, respectively quaestor and
lieutenant of Silanus, swelled the number of the accusers. No doubt
was felt as to the defendant's conviction for oppression and
extortion, but there was a combination against him, that must have
been perilous even to an innocent man. Besides a host of adverse
Senators there were the most accomplished orators of all Asia, who, as
such, had been retained for the prosecution, and to these he had to
reply alone, without any experience in pleading, and under that
personal apprehension which is enough to paralyse even the most
practised eloquence. For Tiberius did not refrain from pressing him
with angry voice and look, himself putting incessant questions,
without allowing him to rebut or evade them, and he had often even
to make admissions, that the questions might not have been asked in
vain. His slaves too were sold by auction to the state-agent, to be
examined by torture. And that not a friend might help him in his
danger, charges of treason were added, a binding guarantee for
sealed lips. Accordingly he begged a few days' respite, and at last
abandoned his defence, after venturing on a memorial to the emperor,
in which he mingled reproach and entreaty.
Tiberius, that his proceedings against Silanus might find some
justification in precedent, ordered the Divine Augustus's indictment
of Volesus Messala, also a proconsul of Asia, and the Senate's
sentence on him to be read. He then asked Lucius Piso his opinion.
After a long preliminary eulogy on the prince's clemency, Piso
pronounced that Silanus ought to be outlawed and banished to the
island of Gyarus. The rest concurred, with the exception of Cneius
Lentulus, who, with the assent of Tiberius, proposed that the property
of Silanus's mother, as she was very different from him, should be
exempted from confiscation, and given to the son.
Cornelius Dolabella however, by way of carrying flattery yet
further, sharply censured the morals of Silanus, and then moved that
no one of disgraceful life and notorious infamy should be eligible for
a province, and that of this the emperor should be judge. "Laws,
indeed," he said, "punish crimes committed; but how much more merciful
would it be to individuals, how much better for our allies, to provide
against their commission."
The emperor opposed the motion. "Although," he said, "I am not
ignorant of the reports about Silanus, still we must decide nothing by
hearsay. Many a man has behaved in a province quite otherwise than was
hoped or feared of him. Some are roused to higher things by great
responsibility; others are paralysed by it. It is not possible for a
prince's knowledge to embrace everything, and it is not expedient that
he should be exposed to the ambitious schemings of others. Laws are
ordained to meet facts, inasmuch as the future is uncertain. It was
the rule of our ancestors that, whenever there was first an offence,
some penalty should follow. Let us not revolutionise a wisely
devised and ever approved system. Princes have enough burdens, and
also enough power. Rights are invariably abridged, as despotism
increases; nor ought we to fall back on imperial authority, when we
can have recourse to the laws."
Such constitutional sentiments were so rare with Tiberius, that they
were welcomed with all the heartier joy. Knowing, as he did, how to be
forbearing, when he was not under the stimulus of personal resentment,
he further said that Gyarus was a dreary and uninhabited island, and
that, as a concession to the Junian family and to a man of the same
order as themselves, they might let him retire by preference to
Cythnus. This, he added, was also the request of Torquata, Silanus's
sister, a vestal of primitive purity. The motion was carried after a
division.
Audience was next given to the people of Cyrene, and on the
prosecution of Ancharius Priscus, Caesius Cordus was convicted of
extortion. Lucius Ennius, a Roman knight, was accused of treason,
for having converted a statue of the emperor to the common use of
silver plate; but the emperor forbade his being put upon his trial,
though Ateius Capito openly remonstrated, with a show of independence.
"The Senate," he said, "ought not to have wrested from it the power of
deciding a question, and such a crime must not go unpunished.
Granted that the emperor might be indifferent to a personal grievance,
still he should not be generous in the case of wrongs to the
commonwealth." Tiberius interpreted the remark according to its
drift rather than its mere expression, and persisted in his veto.
Capito's disgrace was the more conspicuous, for, versed as he was in
the science of law, human and divine, he had now dishonoured a
brilliant public career as well as a virtuous private life.
Next came a religious question, as to the temple in which ought to
be deposited the offering which the Roman knights had vowed to Fortune
of the Knights for the recovery of Augusta. Although that Goddess
had several shrines in Rome, there was none with this special
designation. It was ascertained that there was a temple so called at
Antium, and that all sacred rites in the towns of Italy as well as
temples and images of deities were under the jurisdiction and
authority of Rome. Accordingly the offering was placed at Antium.
As religious questions were under discussion, the emperor now
produced his answer to Servius Maluginensis, Jupiter's priest, which
he had recently deferred, and read the pontifical decree,
prescribing that whenever illness attacked a priest of Jupiter, he
might, with the supreme pontiff's permission, be absent more than
two nights, provided it was not during the days of public sacrifice or
more than twice in the same year. This regulation of the emperor
Augustus sufficiently proved that a year's absence and a provincial
government were not permitted to the priests of Jupiter. There was
also cited the precedent of Lucius Metellus, supreme pontiff, who
had detained at Rome the priest Aulus Postumius. And so Asia was
allotted to the exconsul next in seniority to Maluginensis.
About the same time Lepidus asked the Senate's leave to restore
and embellish, at his own expense, the basilica of Paulus, that
monument of the Aemilian family. Public-spirited munificence was still
in fashion, and Augustus had not hindered Taurus, Philippus, or Balbus
from applying the spoils of war or their superfluous wealth to adorn
the capital and to win the admiration of posterity. Following these
examples, Lepidus, though possessed of a moderate fortune, now revived
the glory of his ancestors.
Pompeius's theatre, which had been destroyed by an accidental
fire, the emperor promised to rebuild, simply because no member of the
family was equal to restoring it, but Pompeius's name was to be
retained. At the same time he highly extolled Sejanus on the ground
that it was through his exertions and vigilance that such fury of
the flames had been confined to the destruction of a single
building. The Senate voted Sejanus a statue, which was to be placed in
Pompeius's theatre. And soon afterwards the emperor in honouring
Junius Blaesus proconsul of Africa, with triumphal distinctions,
said that he granted them as a compliment to Sejanus, whose uncle
Blaesus was.
Still the career of Blaesus merited such a reward. For Tacfarinas,
though often driven back, had recruited his resources in the
interior of Africa, and had become so insolent as to send envoys to
Tiberius, actually demanding a settlement for himself and his army, or
else threatening us with an interminable war. Never, it is said, was
the emperor so exasperated by an insult to himself and the Roman
people as by a deserter and brigand assuming the character of a
belligerent. "Even Spartacus when he had destroyed so many consular
armies and was burning Italy with impunity, though the State was
staggering under the tremendous wars of Sertorius and Mithridates, had
not the offer of an honourable surrender on stipulated conditions; far
less, in Rome's most glorious height of power, should a robber like
Tacfarinas be bought off by peace and concessions of territory." He
intrusted the affair to Blaesus, who was to hold out to the other
rebels the prospect of laying down their arms without hurt to
themselves, while he was by any means to secure the person of the
chief. Many surrendered themselves on the strength of this amnesty.
Before long the tactics of Tacfarinas were encountered in a similar
fashion.
Unequal to us in solid military strength, but better in a war of
surprises, he would attack, would elude pursuit, and still arrange
ambuscades with a multitude of detachments. And so we prepared three
expeditions and as many columns. One of the three under the command of
Cornelius Scipio, Blaesus's lieutenant, was to stop the enemy's forays
on the Leptitani and his retreat to the Garamantes. In another
quarter, Blaesus's son led a separate force of his own, to save the
villages of Cirta from being ravaged with impunity. Between the two
was the general himself with some picked troops. By establishing
redoubts and fortified lines in commanding positions, he had
rendered the whole country embarrassing and perilous to the foe,
for, whichever way he turned, a body of Roman soldiers was in his
face, or on his flank, or frequently in the rear. Many were thus slain
or surprised.
Blaesus then further divided his triple army into several
detachments under the command of centurions of tried valour. At the
end of the summer he did not, as was usual, withdraw his troops and
let them rest in winter-quarters in the old province; but, forming a
chain of forts, as though he were on the threshold of a campaign, he
drove Tacfarinas by flying columns well acquainted with the desert,
from one set of huts to another, till he captured the chief's brother,
and then returned, too soon however for the welfare of our allies,
as there yet remained those who might renew hostilities.
Tiberius however considered the war as finished, and awarded Blaesus
the further distinction of being hailed "Imperator" by the legions, an
ancient honour conferred on generals who for good service to the State
were saluted with cheers of joyful enthusiasm by a victorious army.
Several men bore the title at the same time, without pre-eminence
above their fellows. Augustus too granted the name to certain persons;
and now, for the last time, Tiberius gave it to Blaesus.
Two illustrious men died that year. One was Asinius Saloninus,
distinguished as the grandson of Marcus Agrippa, and Asinius Pollio,
as the brother of Drusus and the intended husband of the emperor's
granddaughter. The other was Capito Ateius, already mentioned, who had
won a foremost position in the State by his legal attainments,
though his grandfather was but a centurion in Sulla's army, his father
having been a praetor. He was prematurely advanced to the consulship
by Augustus, so that he might be raised by the honour of this
promotion above Labeo Antistius, a conspicuous member of the same
profession. That age indeed produced at one time two brilliant
ornaments of peace. But while Labeo was a man of sturdy independence
and consequently of wider fame, Capito's obsequiousness was more
acceptable to those in power. Labeo, because his promotion was
confined to the praetorship, gained in public favour through the
wrong; Capito, in obtaining the consulship, incurred the hatred
which grows out of envy.
Junia too, the niece of Cato, wife of Caius Cassius and sister of
Marcus Brutus, died this year, the sixty-fourth after the battle of
Philippi. Her will was the theme of much popular criticism, for,
with her vast wealth, after having honourably mentioned almost every
nobleman by name, she passed over the emperor. Tiberius took the
omission graciously and did not forbid a panegyric before the Rostra
with the other customary funeral honours. The busts of twenty most
illustrious families were borne in the procession, with the names of
Manlius, Quinctius, and others of equal rank. But Cassius and Brutus
outshone them all, from the very fact that their likenesses were not
to be seen.
BOOK IV, A.D. 23-28

THE year when Caius Asinius and Caius Antistius were consuls was the
ninth of Tiberius's reign, a period of tranquillity for the State
and prosperity for his own house, for he counted Germanicus's death
a happy incident. Suddenly fortune deranged everything; the emperor
became a cruel tyrant, as well as an abettor of cruelty in others.
Of this the cause and origin was Aelius Sejanus, commander of the
praetorian cohorts, of whose influence I have already spoken. I will
now fully describe his extraction, his character, and the daring
wickedness by which he grasped at power.
Born at Vulsinii, the son of Seius Strabo, a Roman knight, he
attached himself in his early youth to Caius Caesar, grandson of the
Divine Augustus, and the story went that he had sold his person to
Apicius, a rich debauchee. Soon afterwards he won the heart of
Tiberius so effectually by various artifices that the emperor, ever
dark and mysterious towards others, was with Sejanus alone careless
and freespoken. It was not through his craft, for it was by this
very weapon that he was overthrown; it was rather from heaven's
wrath against Rome, to whose welfare his elevation and his fall were
alike disastrous. He had a body which could endure hardships, and a
daring spirit. He was one who screened himself, while he was attacking
others; he was as cringing as he was imperious; before the world he
affected humility; in his heart he lusted after supremacy, for the
sake of which he sometimes lavish and luxurious, but oftener energetic
and watchful, qualities quite as mischievous when hypocritically
assumed for the attainment of sovereignty.
He strengthened the hitherto moderate powers of his office by
concentrating the cohorts scattered throughout the capital into one
camp, so that they might all receive orders at the same moment, and
that the sight of their numbers and strength might give confidence
to themselves, while it would strike terror into the citizens. His
pretexts were the demoralisation incident to a dispersed soldiery, the
greater effectiveness of simultaneous action in the event of a
sudden peril, and the stricter discipline which would be insured by
the establishment of an encampment at a distance from the
temptations of the city. As soon as the camp was completed, he crept
gradually into the affections of the soldiers by mixing with them
and addressing them by name, himself selecting the centurions and
tribunes. With the Senate too he sought to ingratiate himself,
distinguishing his partisans with offices and provinces, Tiberius
readily yielding, and being so biassed that not only in private
conversation but before the senators and the people he spoke highly of
him as the partner of his toils, and allowed his statues to be
honoured in theatres, in forums, and at the head-quarters of our
legions.
There were however obstacles to his ambition in the imperial house
with its many princes, a son in youthful manhood and grown-up
grandsons. As it would be unsafe to sweep off such a number at once by
violence, while craft would necessitate successive intervals in crime,
he chose, on the whole, the stealthier way and to begin with Drusus,
against whom he had the stimulus of a recent resentment. Drusus, who
could not brook a rival and was somewhat irascible, had, in a casual
dispute, raised his fist at Sejanus, and, when he defended himself,
had struck him in the face. On considering every plan Sejanus
thought his easiest revenge was to turn his attention to Livia,
Drusus's wife. She was a sister of Germanicus, and though she was
not handsome as a girl, she became a woman of surpassing beauty.
Pretending an ardent passion for her, he seduced her, and having won
his first infamous triumph, and assured that a woman after having
parted with her virtue will hesitate at nothing, he lured her on to
thoughts of marriage, of a share in sovereignty, and of her
husband's destruction. And she, the niece of Augustus, the
daughter-in-law of Tiberius, the mother of children by Drusus, for a
provincial paramour, foully disgraced herself, her ancestors, and
her descendants, giving up honour and a sure position for prospects as
base as they were uncertain. They took into their confidence
Eudemus, Livia's friend and physician, whose profession was a
pretext for frequent secret interviews. Sejanus, to avert his
mistress's jealousy, divorced his wife Apicata, by whom he had had
three children. Still the magnitude of the crime caused fear and
delay, and sometimes a conflict of plans.
Meanwhile, at the beginning of this year, Drusus, one of the
children of Germanicus, assumed the dress of manhood, with a
repetition of the honours decreed by the Senate to his brother Nero.
The emperor added a speech with warm praise of his son for sharing a
father's affection to his brother's children. Drusus indeed, difficult
as it is for power and mutual harmony to exist side by side, had the
character of being kindly disposed or at least not unfriendly
towards the lads. And now the old plan, so often insincerely broached,
of a progress through the provinces, was again discussed. The
emperor's pretext was the number of veterans on the eve of discharge
and the necessity of fresh levies for the army. Volunteers were not
forthcoming, and even if they were sufficiently numerous, they had not
the same bravery and discipline, as it is chiefly the needy and the
homeless who adopt by their own choice a soldier's life. Tiberius also
rapidly enumerated the legions and the provinces which they had to
garrison. I too ought, I think, to go through these details, and
thus show what forces Rome then had under arms, what kings were our
allies, and how much narrower then were the limits of our empire.
Italy on both seas was guarded by fleets, at Misenum and at Ravenna,
and the contiguous coast of Gaul by ships of war captured in the
victory of Actium, and sent by Augustus powerfully manned to the
town of Forojulium. But chief strength was on the Rhine, as a
defence alike against Germans and Gauls, and numbered eight legions.
Spain, lately subjugated, was held by three. Mauretania was king
Juba's, who had received it as a gift from the Roman people. The
rest of Africa was garrisoned by two legions, and Egypt by the same
number. Next, beginning with Syria, all within the entire tract of
country stretching as far as the Euphrates, was kept in restraint by
four legions, and on this frontier were Iberian, Albanian, and other
kings, to whom our greatness was a protection against any foreign
power. Thrace was held by Rhoemetalces and the children of Cotys;
the bank of the Danube by two legions in Pannonia, two in Moesia,
and two also were stationed in Dalmatia, which, from the situation
of the country, were in the rear of the other four, and, should
Italy suddenly require aid, not to distant to be summoned. But the
capital was garrisoned by its own special soldiery, three city, nine
praetorian cohorts, levied for the most part in Etruria and Umbria, or
ancient Latium and the old Roman colonies. There were besides, in
commanding positions in the provinces, allied fleets, cavalry and
light infantry, of but little inferior strength. But any detailed
account of them would be misleading, since they moved from place to
place as circumstances required, and had their numbers increased and
sometimes diminished.
It is however, I think, a convenient opportunity for me to review
the hitherto prevailing methods of administration in the other
departments of the State, inasmuch as that year brought with it the
beginning of a change for the worse in Tiberius's policy. In the first
place, public business and the most important private matters were
managed by the Senate: the leading men were allowed freedom of
discussion, and when they stooped to flattery, the emperor himself
checked them. He bestowed honours with regard to noble ancestry,
military renown, or brilliant accomplishments as a civilian, letting
it be clearly seen that there were no better men to choose. The consul
and the praetor retained their prestige; inferior magistrates
exercised their authority; the laws too, with the single exception
of cases of treason, were properly enforced.
As to the duties on corn, the indirect taxes and other branches of
the public revenue, they were in the hands of companies of Roman
knights. The emperor intrusted his own property to men of the most
tried integrity or to persons known only by their general
reputation, and once appointed they were retained without any
limitation, so that most of them grew old in the same employments. The
city populace indeed suffered much from high prices, but this was no
fault of the emperor, who actually endeavoured to counteract barren
soils and stormy seas with every resource of wealth and foresight. And
he was also careful not to distress the provinces by new burdens,
and to see that in bearing the old they were safe from any rapacity or
oppression on the part of governors. Corporal punishments and
confiscations of property were unknown.
The emperor had only a few estates in Italy, slaves on a moderate
scale, and his household was confined to a few freedmen. If ever he
had a dispute with a private person, it was decided in the law courts.
All this, not indeed with any graciousness, but in a blunt fashion
which often alarmed, he still kept up, until the death of Drusus
changed everything. While he lived, the system continued, because
Sejanus, as yet only in the beginning of his power, wished to be known
as an upright counsellor, and there was one whose vengeance he
dreaded, who did not conceal his hatred and incessantly complained
"that a stranger was invited to assist in the government while the
emperor's son was alive. How near was the step of declaring the
stranger a colleague! Ambition at first had a steep path before it;
when once the way had been entered, zealous adherents were
forthcoming. Already, at the pleasure of the commander of the
guards, a camp had been established; the soldiers given into his
hands; his statues were to be seen among the monuments of Cneius
Pompeius; his grandsons would be of the same blood as the family of
the Drusi. Henceforth they must pray that he might have
self-control, and so be contented." So would Drusus talk, not
unfrequently, or only in the hearing of a few persons. Even his
confidences, now that his wife had been corrupted, were betrayed.
Sejanus accordingly thought that he must be prompt, and chose a
poison the gradual working of which might be mistaken for a natural
disorder. It was given to Drusus by Lygdus, a eunuch, as was
ascertained eight years later. As for Tiberius, he went to the
Senate house during the whole time of the prince's illness, either
because he was not afraid, or to show his strength of mind, and even
in the interval between his death and funeral. Seeing the consuls,
in token of their grief, sitting on the ordinary benches, he
reminded them of their high office and of their proper place; and when
the Senate burst into tears, suppressing a groan, he revived their
spirits with a fluent speech. "He knew indeed that he might be
reproached for thus encountering the gaze of the Senate after so
recent an affliction. Most mourners could hardly bear even the
soothing words of kinsfolk or to look on the light of day. And such
were not to be condemned as weak. But he had sought a more manly
consolation in the bosom of the commonwealth."
Then deploring the extreme age of Augusta, the childhood of his
grandsons, and his own declining years, he begged the Senate to summon
Germanicus's children, the only comfort under their present misery.
The consuls went out, and having encouraged the young princes with
kind words, brought them in and presented them to the emperor.
Taking them by the hand he said: "Senators, when these boys lost their
father, I committed them to their uncle, and begged him, though he had
children of his own, to cherish and rear them as his own offspring,
and train them for himself and for posterity. Drusus is now lost to
us, and I turn my prayers to you, and before heaven and your country I
adjure you to receive into your care and guidance the
great-grandsons of Augustus, descendants of a most noble ancestry.
So fulfil your duty and mine. To you, Nero and Drusus, these
senators are as fathers. Such is your birth that your prosperity and
adversity must alike affect the State."
There was great weeping at these words, and then many a benediction.
Had the emperor set bounds to his speech, he must have filled the
hearts of his hearers with sympathy and admiration. But he now fell
back on those idle and often ridiculed professions about restoring the
republic, and the wish that the consuls or some one else might
undertake the government, and thus destroyed belief even in what was
genuine and noble.
The same honours were decreed to the memory of Drusus as to that
of Germanicus, and many more were added. Such is the way with
flattery, when repeated. The funeral with its procession of statues
was singularly grand. Aeneas, the father of the Julian house, all
the Alban kings, Romulus, Rome's founder, then the Sabine nobility,
Attus Clausus, and the busts of all the other Claudii were displayed
in a long train.
In relating the death of Drusus I have followed the narrative of
most of the best historians. But I would not pass over a rumour of the
time, the strength of which is not even yet exhausted. Sejanus, it
is said, having seduced Livia into crime, next secured, by the foulest
means, the consent of Lygdus, the eunuch, as from his youth and beauty
he was his master's favourite, and one of his principal attendants.
When those who were in the secret had decided on the time and place of
the poisoning, Sejanus, with the most consummate daring, reversed
his plan, and, whispering an accusation against Drusus of intending to
poison his father, warned Tiberius to avoid the first draught
offered him as he was dining at his son's house. Thus deceived, the
old emperor, on sitting down to the banquet, took the cup and handed
it to Drusus. His suspicions were increased when Drusus, in perfect
unconsciousness, drank it off with youthful eagerness, apparently, out
of fear and shame, bringing on himself the death which he had
plotted against his father.
These popular rumours, over and above the fact that they are not
vouched for by any good writer, may be instantly refuted. For who,
with moderate prudence, far less Tiberius with his great experience,
would have thrust destruction on a son, without even hearing him, with
his own hand too, and with an impossibility of returning to better
thoughts. Surely he would rather have had the slave who handed the
poison, tortured, have sought to discover the traitor, in short, would
have been as hesitating and tardy in the case of an only son
hitherto unconvicted of any crime, as he was naturally even with
strangers. But as Sejanus had the credit of contriving every sort of
wickedness, the fact that he was the emperor's special favourite,
and that both were hated by the rest of the world, procured belief for
any monstrous fiction, and rumour too always has a dreadful side in
regard to the deaths of men in power. Besides, the whole process of
the crime was betrayed by Apicata, Sejanus's wife, and fully divulged,
under torture, by Eudemus and Lygdus. No writer has been found
sufficiently malignant to fix the guilt on Tiberius, though every
circumstance was scrutinized and exaggerated. My object in
mentioning and refuting this story is, by a conspicuous example, to
put down hearsay, and to request all into whose hands my work shall
come, not to catch eagerly at wild and improbable rumours in
preference to genuine history which has not been perverted into
romance.
Tiberius pronounced a panegyric on his son before the Rostra, during
which the Senate and people, in appearance rather than in heart, put
on the expression and accents of sorrow, while they inwardly
rejoiced at the brightening future of the family of Germanicus. This
beginning of popularity and the ill-concealed ambition of their mother
Agrippina, hastened its downfall. Sejanus when he saw that the death
of Drusus was not avenged on the murderers and was no grief to the
people, grew bold in wickedness, and, now that his first attempt had
succeeded, speculated on the possibility of destroying the children of
Germanicus, whose succession to the throne was a certainty. There were
three, and poison could not be distributed among them, because of
the singular fidelity of their guardians and the unassailable virtue
of Agrippina. So Sejanus inveighed against Agrippina's arrogance,
and worked powerfully on Augusta's old hatred of her and on Livia's
consciousness of recent guilt, and urged both these women to represent
to the emperor that her pride as a mother and her reliance on
popular enthusiasm were leading her to dream of empire. Livia
availed herself of the cunning of accusers, among whom she had
selected Julius Postumus, a man well suited to her purpose, as he
had an intrigue with Mutilia Prisca, and was consequently in the
confidence of Augusta, over whose mind Prisca had great influence. She
thus made her aged grandmother, whose nature it was to tremble for her
power, irreconcilably hostile to her grandson's widow. Agrippina's
friends too were induced to be always inciting her proud spirit by
mischievous talk.
Tiberius meanwhile, who did not relax his attention to business, and
found solace in his work, occupied himself with the causes of citizens
at Rome and with petitions from allies. Decrees of the Senate were
passed at his proposal for relieving the cities of Cibyra and Aegium
in Asia and Achaia, which had suffered from earthquakes, by a
remission of three years' tribute. Vibius Serenus too, proconsul of
Further Spain, was condemned for violence in his official capacity,
and was banished to the island of Amorgus for his savage temper.
Carsidius Sacerdos, accused of having helped our enemy Tacfarinas with
supplies of grain, was acquitted, as was also Caius Gracchus on the
same charge. Gracchus's father, Sempronius, had taken him when a
mere child to the island of Cercina to be his companion in exile.
There he grew up among outcasts who knew nothing of a liberal
education, and after a while supported himself in Africa and Sicily by
petty trade. But he did not escape the dangers of high rank. Had not
his innocence been protected by Aelius Lamia and Lucius Apronius,
successive governors of Africa, the splendid fame of that
ill-starred family and the downfall of his father would have dragged
him to ruin.
This year too brought embassies from the Greek communities. The
people of Samos and Cos petitioned for the confirmation of the ancient
right of sanctuary for the respective temples of Juno and Aesculapius.
The Samians relied on a decree of the Amphictyonic Council, which
had the supreme decision of all questions when the Greeks, through the
cities they had founded in Asia, had possession of the sea-coast.
Cos could boast equal antiquity, and it had an additional claim
connected with the place. Roman citizens had been admitted to the
temple of Aesculapius, when king Mithridates ordered a general
massacre of them throughout all the islands and cities of Asia.
Next, after various and usually fruitless complaints from the
praetors, the emperor finally brought forward a motion about the
licentious behaviour of the players. "They had often," he said,
"sought to disturb the public peace, and to bring disgrace on
private families, and the old Oscan farce, once a wretched amusement
for the vulgar, had become at once so indecent and so popular, that it
must be checked by the Senate's authority. The players, upon this,
were banished from Italy.
That same year also brought fresh sorrow to the emperor by being
fatal to one of the twin sons of Drusus, equally too by the death of
an intimate friend. This was Lucilius Longus, the partner of all his
griefs and joys, the only senator who had been the companion of his
retirement in Rhodes. And so, though he was a man of humble origin,
the Senate decreed him a censor's funeral and a statue in the forum of
Augustus at the public expense. Everything indeed was as yet in the
hands of the Senate, and consequently Lucilius Capito, procurator of
Asia, who was impeached by his province, was tried by them, the
emperor vehemently asserting "that he had merely given the man
authority over the slaves and property of the imperial establishments;
that if he had taken upon himself the powers of a praetor and used
military force, he had disregarded his instructions; therefore they
must hear the provincials." So the case was heard and the accused
condemned. The cities of Asia, gratified by this retribution and the
punishment inflicted in the previous year on Caius Silanus, voted a
temple to Tiberius, his mother, and the Senate, and were permitted
to build it. Nero thanked the Senators and his grandfather on their
behalf and carried with him the joyful sympathies of his audience,
who, with the memory of Germanicus fresh in their minds, imagined that
it was his face they saw, his voice they heard. The youth too had a
modesty and a grace of person worthy of a prince, the more charming
because of his peril from the notorious enmity of Sejanus.
About the same time the emperor spoke on the subject of electing a
priest of Jupiter in the room of Servius Maluginensis, deceased, and
of the enactment of a new law. "It was," he said, "the old custom to
nominate together three patricians, sons of parents wedded according
to the primitive ceremony, and of these one was to be chosen. Now
however there was not the same choice as formerly, the primitive
form of marriage having been given up or being observed only by a
few persons." For this he assigned several reasons, the chief being
men's and women's indifference; then, again, the ceremony itself had
its difficulties, which were purposely avoided; and there was the
objection that the man who obtained this priesthood was emancipated
from the father's authority, as also was his wife, as passing into the
husband's control. So the Senate, Tiberius argued, ought to apply some
remedy by a decree of a law, as Augustus had accommodated certain
relics of a rude antiquity to the modern spirit.
It was then decided, after a discussion of religious questions, that
the institution of the priests of Jupiter should remain unchanged. A
law however was passed that the priestess, in regard to her sacred
functions, was to be under the husband's control, but in other
respects to retain the ordinary legal position of women. Maluginensis,
the son, was chosen successor to his father. To raise the dignity of
the priesthood and to inspire the priests with more zeal in
attending to the ceremonial, a gift of two million sesterces was
decreed to the Vestal Cornelia, chosen in the room of Scantia; and,
whenever Augusta entered the theatre, she was to have a place in the
seats of the Vestals.
In the consulship of Cornelius Cethegus and Visellius Varro, the
pontiffs, whose example was followed by the other priests in
offering prayers for the emperor's health, commended also Nero and
Drusus to the same deities, not so much out of love for the young
princes as out of sycophancy, the absence and excess of which in a
corrupt age are alike dangerous. Tiberius indeed, who was never
friendly to the house of Germanicus, was then vexed beyond endurance
at their youth being honoured equally with his declining years. He
summoned the pontiffs, and asked them whether it was to the entreaties
or the threats of Agrippina that they had made this concession. And
though they gave a flat denial, he rebuked them but gently, for many
of them were her own relatives or were leading men in the State.
However he addressed a warning to the Senate against encouraging pride
in their young and excitable minds by premature honours. For Sejanus
spoke vehemently, and charged them with rending the State almost by
civil war. "There were those," he said, "who called themselves the
party of Agrippina, and, unless they were checked, there would be
more; the only remedy for the increasing discord was the overthrow
of one or two of the most enterprising leaders."
Accordingly he attacked Caius Silius and Titius Sabinus. The
friendship of Germanicus was fatal to both. As for Silius, his
having commanded a great army for seven years, and won in Germany
the distinctions of a triumph for his success in the war with
Sacrovir, would make his downfall all the more tremendous and so
spread greater terror among others. Many thought that he had
provoked further displeasure by his own presumption and his
extravagant boasts that his troops had been steadfastly loyal, while
other armies were falling into mutiny, and that Tiberius's throne
could not have lasted had his legions too been bent on revolution. All
this the emperor regarded as undermining his own power, which seemed
to be unequal to the burden of such an obligation. For benefits
received are a delight to us as long as we think we can requite
them; when that possibility is far exceeded, they are repaid with
hatred instead of gratitude.
Silius had a wife, Sosia Galla, whose love of Agrippina made her
hateful to the emperor. The two, it was decided, were to be
attacked, but Sabinus was to be put off for a time. Varro, the consul,
was let loose on them, who, under colour of a hereditary feud,
humoured the malignity of Sejanus to his own disgrace. The accused
begged a brief respite, until the prosecutor's consulship expired, but
the emperor opposed the request. "It was usual," he argued, "for
magistrates to bring a private citizen to trial, and a consul's
authority ought not to be impaired, seeing that it rested with his
vigilance to guard the commonwealth from loss." It was
characteristic of Tiberius to veil new devices in wickedness under
ancient names. And so, with a solemn appeal, he summoned the Senate,
as if there were any laws by which Silius was being tried, as if Varro
were a real consul, or Rome a commonwealth. The accused either said
nothing, or, if he attempted to defend himself, hinted, not obscurely,
at the person whose resentment was crushing him. A long concealed
complicity in Sacrovir's rebellion, a rapacity which sullied his
victory, and his wife Sosia's conduct, were alleged against him.
Unquestionably, they could not extricate themselves from the charge of
extortion. The whole affair however was conducted as a trial for
treason, and Silius forestalled impending doom by a self-inflicted
death.
Yet there was a merciless confiscation of his property, though not
to refund their money to the provincials, none of whom pressed any
demand. But Augustus's bounty was wrested from him, and the claims
of the imperial exchequer were computed in detail. This was the
first instance on Tiberius's part of sharp dealing with the wealth
of others. Sosia was banished on the motion of Asinius Gallus, who had
proposed that half her estate should be confiscated, half left to
the children. Marcus Lepidus, on the contrary, was for giving a fourth
to the prosecutors, as the law required, and the remainder to the
children.
This Lepidus, I am satisfied, was for that age a wise and
high-principled man. Many a cruel suggestion made by the flattery of
others he changed for the better, and yet he did not want tact, seeing
that he always enjoyed an uniform prestige, and also the favour of
Tiberius. This compels me to doubt whether the liking of princes for
some men and their antipathy to others depend, like other
contingencies, on a fate and destiny to which we are born, or, to some
degree, on our own plans; so that it is possible to pursue a course
between a defiant independence and a debasing servility, free from
ambition and its perils. Messalinus Cotta, of equally illustrious
ancestry as Lepidus, but wholly different in disposition, proposed
that the Senate should pass a decree providing that even innocent
governors who knew nothing of the delinquencies of others should be
punished for their wives' offences in the provinces as much as for
their own.
Proceedings were then taken against Calpurnius Piso, a high-spirited
nobleman. He it was, as I have related, who had exclaimed more than
once in the Senate that he would quit Rome because of the combinations
of the informers, and had dared in defiance of Augusta's power, to sue
Urgulania and summon her from the emperor's palace. Tiberius submitted
to this at the time not ungraciously, but the remembrance of it was
vividly impressed on a mind which brooded over its resentments, even
though the first impulse of his displeasure had subsided.
Quintus Granius accused Piso of secret treasonable conversation, and
added that he kept poison in his house and wore a dagger whenever he
came into the Senate. This was passed over as too atrocious to be
true. He was to be tried on the other charges, a multitude of which
were heaped on him, but his timely death cut short the trial.
Next was taken the case of Cassius Severus' an exile. A man of
mean origin and a life of crime, but a powerful pleader, he had
brought on himself, by his persistent quarrelsomeness, a decision of
the Senate, under oath, which banished him to Crete. There by the same
practices he drew on himself, fresh odium and revived the old;
stripped of his property and outlawed, he wore out his old age on
the rock of Seriphos.
About the same time Plautius Silvanus, the praetor, for unknown
reasons, threw his wife Apronia out of a window. When summoned
before the emperor by Lucius Apronius, his father-in-law, he replied
incoherently, representing that he was in a sound sleep and
consequently knew nothing, and that his wife had chosen to destroy
herself. Without a moment's delay Tiberius went to the house and
inspected the chamber, where were seen the marks of her struggling and
of her forcible ejection. He reported this to the Senate, and as
soon as judges had been appointed, Urgulania, the grandmother of
Silvanus, sent her grandson a dagger. This was thought equivalent to a
hint from the emperor, because of the known intimacy between Augusta
and Urgulania. The accused tried the steel in vain, and then allowed
his veins to be opened. Shortly afterwards Numantina, his former wife,
was charged with having caused her husband's insanity by magical
incantations and potions, but she was acquitted.
This year at last released Rome from her long contest with the
Numidian Tacfarinas. Former generals, when they thought that their
successes were enough to insure them triumphal distinctions, left
the enemy to himself. There were now in Rome three laurelled
statues, and yet Tacfarinas was still ravaging Africa, strengthened by
reinforcements from the Moors, who, under the boyish and careless rule
of Ptolemaeus, Juba's son, had chosen war in preference to the
despotism of freedmen and slaves. He had the king of the Garamantes to
receive his plunder and to be the partner of his raids, not indeed
with a regular army, but with detachments of light troops whose
strength, as they came from a distance, rumour exaggerated. From the
province itself every needy and restless adventurer hurried to join
him, for the emperor, as if not an enemy remained in Africa after
the achievements of Blaesus, had ordered the ninth legion home, and
Publius Dolabella, proconsul that year, had not dared to retain it,
because he feared the sovereign's orders more than the risks of war.
Tacfarinas accordingly spread rumours; that elsewhere also nations
were rending the empire of Rome and that therefore her soldiers were
gradually retiring from Africa, and that the rest might be cut off
by a strong effort on the part of all who loved freedom more than
slavery. He thus augmented his force, and having formed a camp, he
besieged the town of Thubuscum. Dolabella meanwhile collecting all the
troops on the spot, raised the siege at his first approach, by the
terror of the Roman name and because the Numidians cannot stand
against the charge of infantry. He then fortified suitable
positions, and at the same time beheaded some chiefs of the Musulamii,
who were on the verge of rebellion. Next, as several expeditions
against Tacfarinas had proved the uselessness of following up the
enemy's desultory movements with the attack of heavy troops from a
single point, he summoned to his aid king Ptolemaeus and his people,
and equipped four columns, under the command of his lieutenants and
tribunes. Marauding parties were also led by picked Moors, Dolabella
in person directing every operation.
Soon afterwards news came that the Numidians had fixed their tents
and encamped near a half-demolished fortress, by name Auzea, to
which they had themselves formerly set fire, and on the position of
which they relied, as it was inclosed by vast forests. Immediately the
light infantry and cavalry, without knowing whither they were being
led, were hurried along at quick march. Day dawned, and with the sound
of trumpets and fierce shouts, they were on the half-asleep
barbarians, whose horses were tethered or roaming over distant
pastures. On the Roman side, the infantry was in close array, the
cavalry in its squadrons, everything prepared for an engagement, while
the enemy, utterly surprised, without arms, order, or plan, were
seized, slaughtered, or captured like cattle. The infuriated soldiers,
remembering their hardships and how often the longed-for conflict
had been eluded, sated themselves to a man with vengeance and
bloodshed. The word went through the companies that all were to aim at
securing Tacfarinas, whom, after so many battles, they knew well, as
there would be no rest from war except by the destruction of the
enemy's leader. Tacfarinas, his guards slain round him, his son a
prisoner, and the Romans bursting on him from every side, rushed on
the darts, and by a death which was not unavenged, escaped captivity.
This ended the war. Dolabella asked for triumphal distinctions,
but was refused by Tiberius, out of compliment to Sejanus, the glory
of whose uncle Blaesus he did not wish to be forgotten. But this did
not make Blaesus more famous, while the refusal of the honour
heightened Dolabella's renown. He had, in fact, with a smaller army,
brought back with him illustrious prisoners and the fame of having
slain the enemy's leader and terminated the war. In his train were
envoys from the Garamantes, a rare spectacle in Rome. The nation, in
its terror at the destruction of Tacfarinas, and innocent of any
guilty intention, had sent them to crave pardon of the Roman people.
And now that this war had proved the zealous loyalty of Ptolemaeus,
a custom of antiquity was revived, and one of the Senators was sent to
present him with an ivory sceptre and an embroidered robe, gifts
anciently bestowed by the Senate, and to confer on him the titles of
king, ally, and friend.
The same summer, the germs of a slave war in Italy were crushed by a
fortunate accident. The originator of the movement was Titus
Curtisius, once a soldier of the praetorian guard. First, by secret
meetings at Brundisium and the neighbouring towns, then by placards
publicly exhibited, he incited the rural and savage slave-population
of the remote forests to assert their freedom. By divine providence,
three vessels came to land for the use of those who traversed that
sea. In the same part of the country too was Curtius Lupus, the
quaestor, who, according to ancient precedent, had had the charge of
the "woodland pastures" assigned to him. Putting in motion a force
of marines, he broke up the seditious combination in its very first
beginnings. The emperor at once sent Staius, a tribune, with a
strong detachment, by whom the ringleader himself, with his most
daring followers, were brought prisoners to Rome where men already
trembled at the vast scale of the slave-establishments, in which there
was an immense growth, while the freeborn populace daily decreased.
That same consulship witnessed a horrible instance of misery and
brutality. A father as defendant, a son as prosecutor, (Vibius Serenus
was the name of both) were brought before the Senate; the father,
dragged from exile in filth and squalor now stood in irons, while
the son pleaded for his guilt. With studious elegance of dress and
cheerful looks, the youth, at once accuser and witness, alleged a plot
against the emperor and that men had been sent to Gaul to excite
rebellion, further adding that Caecilius Cornutus, an ex-praetor,
had furnished money. Cornutus, weary of anxiety and feeling that peril
was equivalent to ruin, hastened to destroy himself. But the accused
with fearless spirit, looked his son in the face, shook his chains,
and appealed to the vengeance of the gods, with a prayer that they
would restore him to his exile, where he might live far away from such
practices, and that, as for his son, punishment might sooner or
later overtake him. He protested too that Cornutus was innocent and
that his terror was groundless, as would easily be perceived, if other
names were given up; for he never would have plotted the emperor's
murder and a revolution with only one confederate.
Upon this the prosecutor named Cneius Lentulus and Seius Tubero,
to the great confusion of the emperor, at finding a hostile
rebellion and disturbance of the public peace charged on two leading
men in the state, his own intimate friends, the first of whom was in
extreme old age and the second in very feeble health. They were,
however, at once acquitted. As for the father, his slaves were
examined by torture, and the result was unfavourable to the accuser.
The man, maddened by remorse, and terror-stricken by the popular
voice, which menaced him with the dungeon, the rock, or a
parricide's doom, fled from Rome. He was dragged back from Ravenna,
and forced to go through the prosecution, during which Tiberius did
not disguise the old grudge he bore the exile Serenus. For after
Libo's conviction, Serenus had sent the emperor a letter, upbraiding
him for not having rewarded his special zeal in that trial, with
further hints more insolent than could be safely trusted to the easily
offended ears of a despot. All this Tiberius revived eight years
later, charging on him various misconduct during that interval, even
though the examination by torture, owing to the obstinacy of the
slaves, had contradicted his guilt.
The Senate then gave their votes that Serenus should be punished
according to ancient precedent, when the emperor, to soften the
odium of the affair, interposed with his veto. Next, Gallus Asinius
proposed that he should be confined in Gyaros or Donusa, but this he
rejected, on the ground that both these islands were deficient in
water, and that he whose life was spared, ought to be allowed the
necessaries of life. And so Serenus was conveyed back to Amorgus.
In consequence of the suicide of Cornutus, it was proposed to
deprive informers of their rewards whenever a person accused of
treason put an end to his life by his own act before the completion of
the trial. The motion was on the point of being carried when the
emperor, with a harshness contrary to his manner, spoke openly for the
informers, complaining that the laws would be ineffective, and the
State brought to the verge of ruin. "Better," he said, "to subvert the
constitution than to remove its guardians." Thus the informers, a
class invented to destroy the commonwealth, and never enough
controlled even by legal penalties, were stimulated by rewards.
Some little joy broke this long succession of horrors. Caius
Cominius, a Roman knight, was spared by the emperor, against whom he
was convicted of having written libellous verses, at the
intercession of his brother, who was a Senator. Hence it seemed the
more amazing that one who knew better things and the glory which waits
on mercy, should prefer harsher courses. He did not indeed err from
dulness, and it is easy to see when the acts of a sovereign meet
with genuine, and when with fictitious popularity. And even he
himself, though usually artificial in manner, and though his words
escaped him with a seeming struggle, spoke out freely and fluently
whenever he came to a man's rescue.
In another case, that of Publius Suillius, formerly quaestor to
Germanicus, who was to be expelled from Italy on a conviction of
having received money for a judicial decision, he held that the man
ought to be banished to an island, and so intensely strong was his
feeling that he bound the Senate by an oath that this was a State
necessity. The act was thought cruel at the moment, but subsequently
it redounded to his honour when Suillius returned from exile. The next
age saw him in tremendous power and a venal creature of the emperor
Claudius, whose friendship he long used, with success, never for good.
The same punishment was adjudged to Catus Firmius, a Senator, for
having (it was alleged) assailed his sister with a false charge of
treason. Catus, as I have related, had drawn Libo into a snare and
then destroyed him by an information. Tiberius remembering this
service, while he alleged other reasons, deprecated a sentence of
exile, but did not oppose his expulsion from the Senate.
Much what I have related and shall have to relate, may perhaps, I am
aware, seem petty trifles to record. But no one must compare my annals
with the writings of those who have described Rome in old days. They
told of great wars, of the storming of cities, of the defeat and
capture of kings, or whenever they turned by preference to home
affairs, they related, with a free scope for digression, the strifes
of consuls with tribunes, land and corn-laws, and the struggles
between the commons and the aristocracy. My labours are
circumscribed and inglorious; peace wholly unbroken or but slightly
disturbed, dismal misery in the capital, an emperor careless about the
enlargement of the empire, such is my theme. Still it will not be
useless to study those at first sight trifling events out of which the
movements of vast changes often take their rise.
All nations and cities are ruled by the people, the nobility, or
by one man. A constitution, formed by selection out of these elements,
it is easy to commend but not to produce; or, if it is produced, it
cannot be lasting. Formerly, when the people had power or when the
patricians were in the ascendant, the popular temper and the methods
of controlling it, had to be studied, and those who knew most
accurately the spirit of the Senate and aristocracy, had the credit of
understanding the age and of being wise men. So now, after a
revolution, when Rome is nothing but the realm of a single despot,
there must be good in carefully noting and recording this period,
for it is but few who have the foresight to distinguish right from
wrong or what is sound from what is hurtful, while most men learn
wisdom from the fortunes of others. Still, though this is instructive,
it gives very little pleasure. Descriptions of countries, the
various incidents of battles, glorious deaths of great generals,
enchain and refresh a reader's mind. I have to present in succession
the merciless biddings of a tyrant, incessant prosecutions,
faithless friendships, the ruin of innocence, the same causes
issuing in the same results, and I am everywhere confronted by a
wearisome monotony in my subject matter. Then, again, an ancient
historian has but few disparagers, and no one cares whether you praise
more heartily the armies of Carthage or Rome. But of many who
endured punishment or disgrace under Tiberius, the descendants yet
survive; or even though the families themselves may be now extinct,
you will find those who, from a resemblance of character, imagine that
the evil deeds of others are a reproach to themselves. Again, even
honour and virtue make enemies, condemning, as they do, their
opposites by too close a contrast. But I return to my work.
In the year of the consulship of Cornelius Cossus and Asinius
Agrippa, Cremutius Cordus was arraigned on a new charge, now for the
first time heard. He had published a history in which he had praised
Marcus Brutus and called Caius Cassius the last of the Romans. His
accusers were Satrius Secundus and Pinarius Natta, creatures of
Sejanus. This was enough to ruin the accused; and then too the emperor
listened with an angry frown to his defence, which Cremutius, resolved
to give up his life, began thus:-
"It is my words, Senators, which are condemned, so innocent am I
of any guilty act; yet these do not touch the emperor or the emperor's
mother, who are alone comprehended under the law of treason. I am said
to have praised Brutus and Cassius, whose careers many have
described and no one mentioned without eulogy. Titus Livius,
pre-eminently famous for eloquence and truthfulness, extolled Cneius
Pompeius in such a panegyric that Augustus called him Pompeianus,
and yet this was no obstacle to their friendship. Scipio, Afranius,
this very Cassius, this same Brutus, he nowhere describes as
brigands and traitors, terms now applied to them, but repeatedly as
illustrious men. Asinius Pollio's writings too hand down a glorious
memory of them, and Messala Corvinus used to speak with pride of
Cassius as his general. Yet both these men prospered to the end with
wealth and preferment. Again, that book of Marcus Cicero, in which
he lauded Cato to the skies, how else was it answered by Caesar the
dictator, than by a written oration in reply, as if he was pleading in
court? The letters Antonius, the harangues of Brutus contain
reproaches against Augustus, false indeed, but urged with powerful
sarcasm; the poems which we read of Bibaculus and Catullus are crammed
with invectives on the Caesars. Yet the Divine Julius, the Divine
Augustus themselves bore all this and let it pass, whether in
forbearance or in wisdom I cannot easily say. Assuredly what is
despised is soon forgotten; when you resent a thing, you seem to
recognise it."
"Of the Greeks I say nothing; with them not only liberty, but even
license went unpunished, or if a person aimed at chastising, he
retaliated on satire by satire. It has, however, always been perfectly
open to us without any one to censure, to speak freely of those whom
death has withdrawn alike from the partialities of hatred or esteem.
Are Cassius and Brutus now in arms on the fields of Philippi, and am I
with them rousing the people by harangues to stir up civil war? Did
they not fall more than seventy years ago, and as they are known to us
by statues which even the conqueror did not destroy, so too is not
some portion of their memory preserved for us by historians? To
every man posterity gives his due honour, and, if a fatal sentence
hangs over me, there will be those who will remember me as well as
Cassius and Brutus."
He then left the Senate and ended his life by starvation. His books,
so the Senators decreed, were to be burnt by the aediles; but some
copies were left which were concealed and afterwards published. And so
one is all the more inclined to laugh at the stupidity of men who
suppose that the despotism of the present can actually efface the
remembrances of the next generation. On the contrary, the
persecution of genius fosters its influence; foreign tyrants, and
all who have imitated their oppression, have merely procured infamy
for themselves and glory for their victims.
That year was such a continuous succession of prosecutions that on
the days of the Latin festival when Drusus, as city-prefect, had
ascended his tribunal for the inauguration of his office, Calpurnius
Salvianus appeared before him against Sextus Marius. This the
emperor openly censured, and it caused the banishment of Salvianus.
Next, the people of Cyzicus were accused of publicly neglecting the
established worship of the Divine Augustus, and also of acts of
violence to Roman citizens. They were deprived of the franchise
which they had earned during the war with Mithridates, when their city
was besieged, and when they repulsed the king as much by their own
bravery as by the aid of Lucullus. Then followed the acquittal of
Fonteius Capito, the late proconsul of Asia, on proof that charges
brought against him by Vibius Serenus were fictitious. Still this
did not injure Serenus, to whom public hatred was actually a
protection. Indeed any conspicuously restless informer was, so to say,
inviolable; only the insignificant and undistinguished were punished.
About the same time Further Spain sent a deputation to the Senate,
with a request to be allowed, after the example of Asia, to erect a
temple to Tiberius and his mother. On this occasion, the emperor,
who had generally a strong contempt for honours, and now thought it
right to reply to the rumour which reproached him with having
yielded to vanity, delivered the following speech:-
"I am aware, Senators, that many deplore my want of firmness in
not having opposed a similar recent petition from the cities of
Asia. I will therefore both explain the grounds of my previous silence
and my intentions for the future. Inasmuch as the Divine Augustus
did not forbid the founding of a temple at Pergamos to himself and
to the city of Rome, I who respect as law all his actions and sayings,
have the more readily followed a precedent once approved, seeing
that with the worship of myself was linked an expression of
reverence towards the Senate. But though it may be pardonable to
have allowed this once, it would be a vain and arrogant thing to
receive the sacred honour of images representing the divine throughout
all the provinces, and the homage paid to Augustus will disappear if
it is vulgarised by indiscriminate flattery.
"For myself, Senators, I am mortal and limited to the functions of
humanity, content if I can adequately fill the highest place; of
this I solemnly assure you, and would have posterity remember it. They
will more than sufficiently honour my memory by believing me to have
been worthy of my ancestry, watchful over your interests, courageous
in danger, fearless of enmity, when the State required it. These
sentiments of your hearts are my temples, these my most glorious and
abiding monuments. Those built of stone are despised as mere tombs, if
the judgment of posterity passes into hatred. And therefore this is my
prayer to our allies, our citizens, and to heaven itself; to the last,
that, to my life's close, it grant me a tranquil mind, which can
discern alike human and divine claims; to the first, that, when I die,
they honour my career and the reputation of my name with praise and
kindly remembrance."
Henceforth Tiberius even in private conversations persisted in
showing contempt for such homage to himself. Some attributed this to
modesty; many to self-distrust; a few to a mean spirit. "The noblest
men," it was said, "have the loftiest aspirations, and so Hercules and
Bacchus among the Greeks and Quirinus among us were enrolled in the
number of the gods. Augustus, did better, seeing that he had
aspired. All other things princes have as a matter of course; one
thing they ought insatiably to pursue, that their memory may be
glorious. For to despise fame is to despise merit."
Sejanus meanwhile, dazed by his extravagant prosperity and urged
on too by a woman's passion, Livia now insisting on his promise of
marriage, addressed a memorial to the emperor. For it was then the
custom to apply to him by writing, even though he was at Rome. This
petition was to the following effect:- The kindness of Augustus, the
father, and then the many favourable testimonies of Tiberius, the son,
had engendered the habit of confiding his hopes and wishes to the ears
of emperors as readily as to those of the gods. The splendour of
high distinctions he had never craved; he had rather chosen
watchings and hardships, like one of the common soldiers, for the
emperor's safety. But there was one most glorious honour he had won,
the reputation of being worthy of an alliance with a Caesar. This
was the first motive of his ambition. As he had heard that Augustus,
in marrying his daughter, had even entertained some thoughts of
Roman knights, so if a husband were sought for Livia, he hoped
Tiberius would bear in mind a friend who would find his reward
simply in the glory of the alliance. He did not wish to rid himself of
the duties imposed on him; he thought it enough for his family to be
secured against the unjust displeasure of Agrippina, and this for
the sake of his children. For, as for himself, enough and more than
enough for him would be a life completed while such a sovereign
still reigned.
Tiberius, in reply, after praising the loyal sentiments of Sejanus
and briefly enumerating the favours he had bestowed on him, asked time
for impartial consideration, adding that while other men's plans
depended on their ideas of their own interest, princes, who had to
regulate their chief actions by public opinion, were in a different
position. "Hence," he said, "I do not take refuge in an answer which
it would be easy to return, that Livia can herself decide whether
she considers that, after Drusus, she ought again to marry or rather
to endure life in the same home, and that she has in her mother and
grandmother counsellors nearer and dearer to her. I will deal more
frankly. First, as to the enmity of Agrippina, I maintain that it will
blaze out more fiercely if Livia's marriage rends, so to say, the
house of the Caesars into two factions. Even as it is, feminine
jealousies break out, and my grandsons are torn asunder by the strife.
What will happen if the rivalry is rendered more intense by such a
marriage? For you are mistaken, Sejanus, if you think that you will
then remain in the same position, and that Livia, who has been the
wife of Caius Caesar and afterwards of Drusus, will have the
inclination to pass her old age with a mere Roman knight. Though I
might allow it, do you imagine it would be tolerated by those who have
seen her brother, her father, and our ancestors in the highest offices
of state? You indeed desire to keep within your station; but those
magistrates and nobles who intrude on you against your wishes and
consult you on all matters, openly give out that you have long
overstepped the rank of a knight and gone far beyond my father's
friendships, and from their dislike of you they also condemn me.
But, you say, Augustus had thoughts of giving his daughter to a
Roman knight. Is it surprising that, with so many distracting cares,
foreseeing too the immense elevation to which a man would be raised
above others by such an alliance, he talked of Caius Proculeius and
certain persons of singularly quiet life, wholly free from political
entanglements? Still, if the hesitation of Augustus is to influence
us, how much stronger is the fact that he bestowed his daughter on
Marcus Agrippa, then on myself. All this, as a friend, I have stated
without reserve, but I will not oppose your plans or those of Livia.
My own earnest thoughts and the ties with which I am still purposing
to unite you to myself, I shall for the present forbear to explain.
This only I will declare, that nothing is too grand to be deserved
by your merits and your goodwill towards me. When an opportunity
presents itself, either in the Senate, or in a popular assembly, I
shall not be silent."
Sejanus, no longer thinking of his marriage but filled with a deeper
alarm, rejoined by deprecating the whispers of suspicion, popular
rumour and the gathering storm of odium. That he might not impair
his influence by closing his doors on the throngs of his many visitors
or strengthen the hands of accusers by admitting them, he made it
his aim to induce Tiberius to live in some charming spot at a distance
from Rome. In this he foresaw several advantages. Access to the
emperor would be under his own control, and letters, for the most part
being conveyed by soldiers, would pass through his hands. Caesar
too, who was already in the decline of life, would soon, when
enervated by retirement, more readily transfer to him the functions of
empire; envy towards himself would be lessened when there was an end
to his crowded levies and the reality of power would be increased by
the removal of its empty show. So he began to declaim against the
laborious life of the capital, the bustling crowds and streaming
multitudes, while he praised repose and solitude, with their freedom
from vexations and misunderstandings, and their special
opportunities for the study of the highest questions.
It happened that the trial at this time of Votienus Montanus, a
popular wit, convinced the hesitating Tiberius that he ought to shun
all assemblies of the Senate, where speeches, often true and
offensive, were flung in his very face. Votienus was charged with
insulting expressions towards the emperor, and while the witness,
Aemilius, a military man, in his eagerness to prove the case, repeated
the whole story and amid angry clamour struggled on with loud
assertion, Tiberius heard the reproaches by which he was assailed in
secret, and was so deeply impressed that he exclaimed that he would
clear himself either at once or on a legal inquiry, and the entreaties
of friends, with the flattery of the whole assembly, hardly restored
his composure. As for Votienus, he suffered the penalty of treason;
but the emperor, clinging all the more obstinately to the harshness
with which he had been reproached in regard to accused persons,
punished Aquilia with exile for the crime of adultery with Varius
Ligur, although Lentulus Gaetulicus, the consul-elect, had proposed
that she should be sentenced under the Julian law. He next struck
off Apidius Merula from the register of the Senate for not having
sworn obedience to the legislation of the Divine Augustus.
Then a hearing was given to embassies from the Lacedaemonians and
Messenians on the question of the temple of Diana in the Marshes.
The Lacedaemonians asserted that it had been dedicated by their
ancestors and in their territory, and appealed to the records of their
history and the hymns of poets, but it had been wrested from, they
said, by the arms of the Macedonian Philip, with whom they had fought,
and subsequently restored by the decision of Caius Caesar and Marcus
Antonius. The Messenians, on the contrary, alleged the ancient
division of the Peloponnesus among the descendants of Hercules, in
which the territory of Denthelia (where the temple stood) had fallen
to their king. Records of this event still existed, engraven on
stone and ancient bronze. But if they were asked for the testimony
of poetry and of history, they had it, they said, in greater abundance
and authenticity. Philip had not decided arbitrarily, but according to
fact, and king Antigonus, as also the general Mummius, had
pronounced the same judgment. Such too had been the award of the
Milesians to whom the arbitration had been publicly entrusted, and,
finally, of Atidius Geminus, the praetor of Achaia. And so the
question was decided in favour of the Messenians.
Next the people of Segesta petitioned for the restoration of the
temple of Venus at Mount Eryx, which had fallen to ruin from its
antiquity. They repeated the well-known story of its origin, which
delighted Tiberius. He undertook the work willingly, as being a
kinsman of the goddess. After this was discussed a petition from the
city of Massilia, and sanction given to the precedent of Publius
Rutilius, who having been legally banished from Rome, had been adopted
as a citizen by the people of Smyrna. Volcatius Moschus, also an
exile, had been received with a similar privilege by the inhabitants
of Massilia, and had left his property to their community, as being
now his own country.
Two men of noble rank died in that year, Cneius Lentulus and
Lucius Domitius. It had been the glory of Lentulus, to say nothing
of his consulship and his triumphal distinctions over the Gaetuli,
to have borne poverty with a good grace, then to have attained great
wealth, which had been blamelessly acquired and was modestly
enjoyed. Domitius derived lustre from a father who during the civil
war had been master of the sea, till he united himself to the party of
Antonius and afterwards to that of Caesar. His grandfather had
fallen in the battle of Pharsalia, fighting for the aristocracy. He
had himself been chosen to be the husband of the younger Antonia,
daughter of Octavia, and subsequently led an army across the Elbe,
penetrating further into Germany than any Roman before him. For this
achievement he gained triumphal honours.
Lucius Antonius too then died, of a most illustrious but unfortunate
family. His father, Julius Antonius, was capitally punished for
adultery with Julia, and the son, when a mere youth, was banished by
Augustus, whose sister's grandson he was, to the city of Massilia,
where the name of exile might be masked under that of student. Yet
honour was paid him in death, and his bones, by the Senate's decree,
were consigned to the sepulchre of the Octavii.
While the same consuls were in office, an atrocious crime was
committed in Nearer Spain by a peasant of the Termestine tribe.
Suddenly attacking the praetor of the province, Lucius Piso, as he was
travelling in all the carelessness of peace, he killed him with a
single wound. He then fled on a swift horse, and reached a wooded
country, where he parted with his steed and eluded pursuit amid
rocky and pathless wilds. But he was soon discovered. The horse was
caught and led through the neighbouring villages, and its owner
ascertained. Being found and put to the torture that he might be
forced to reveal his accomplices, he exclaimed in a loud voice, in the
language of his country, that it was in vain to question him; his
comrades might stand by and look on, but that the most intense agony
would not wring the truth from him. Next day, when he was dragged back
to torture, he broke loose from his guards and dashed his head against
a stone with such violence that he instantly fell dead. It was however
believed that Piso was treacherously murdered by the Termestini.
Some public money had been embezzled, and he was pressing for its
payment too rigorously for the patience of barbarians.
In the consulship of Lentulus Gaetulicus and Caius Calvisius,
triumphal distinctions were decreed to Poppaeus Sabinus, for a
crushing defeat of some Thracian tribes, whose wild life in the
highlands of a mountainous country made them unusually fierce. Besides
their natural ferocity, the rebellion had its origin in their scornful
refusal to endure levies and to supply our armies with their bravest
men. Even native princes they would obey only according to their
caprice, and if they sent aid, they used to appoint their own
leaders and fight only against their neighbours. A rumour had then
spread itself among them that, dispersed and mingled with other
tribes, they were to be dragged away to distant countries. Before
however they took up arms, they sent envoys with assurances of their
friendship and loyalty, which, they said, would continue, if they were
not tried by any fresh burden. But if they were doomed to slavery as a
conquered people, they had swords and young warriors and a spirit bent
on freedom or resigned to death. As they spoke, they pointed to
fortresses amid rocks whither they had conveyed their parents and
their wives, and threatened us with a difficult, dangerous and
sanguinary war.
Sabinus meantime, while he was concentrating his troops, returned
gentle answers; but on the arrival of Pomponius Labeo with a legion
from Moesia and of king Rhoemetalces with some reinforcements from his
subjects, who had not thrown off their allegiance, with these and
the force he had on the spot, he advanced on the enemy, who were drawn
up in some wooded defiles. Some ventured to show themselves on the
open hills; these the Roman general approached in fighting order and
easily dislodged them, with only a small slaughter of the
barbarians, who had not far to flee. In this position he soon
established a camp, and held with a strong detachment a narrow and
unbroken mountain ridge, stretching as far as the next fortress, which
was garrisoned by a large force of armed soldiers along with some
irregulars. Against the boldest of these, who after the manner of
their country were disporting themselves with songs and dances in
front of the rampart, he sent some picked archers, who, discharging
distant volleys, inflicted many wounds without loss to themselves.
As they advanced, a sudden sortie put them to the rout, and they
fell back on the support of a Sugambrian cohort, drawn up at no
great distance by the Roman general, ready for any emergency and as
terrible as the foe, with the noise of their war songs and the
clashing of their arms.
He then moved his camp near to the enemy, leaving in his former
entrenchments the Thracians who, as I have mentioned, were with us.
These had permission to ravage, burn, and plunder, provided they
confined their forays to daylight, and passed the night securely and
vigilantly in their camp. This at first they strictly observed. Soon
they resigned themselves to enjoyment, and, enriched by plunder,
they neglected their guards, and amid feasts and mirth sank down in
the carelessness of the banquet, of sleep and of wine. So the enemy,
apprised of their heedlessness, prepared two detachments, one of which
was to attack the plunderers, the other, to fall on the Roman camp,
not with the hope of taking it, but to hinder the din of the other
battle from being heard by our soldiers, who, with shouts and missiles
around them, would be all intent on their own peril. Night too was
chosen for the movement to increase the panic. Those however who tried
to storm the entrenchment of the legions were easily repulsed; the
Thracian auxiliaries were dismayed by the suddenness of the onset, for
though some were lying close to their lines, far more were
straggling beyond them, and the massacre was all the more savage,
inasmuch as they were taunted with being fugitives and traitors and
bearing arms for their own and their country's enslavement.
Next day Sabinus displayed his forces in the plain, on the chance of
the barbarians being encouraged by the night's success to risk an
engagement. Finding that they did not quit the fortress and the
adjoining hills, he began a siege by means of the works which he had
opportunely began to construct; then he drew a fosse and stockade
enclosing an extent of four miles, and by degrees contracted and
narrowed his lines, with the view of cutting off their water and
forage. He also threw up a rampart, from which to discharge stones,
darts, and brands on the enemy, who was now within range. It was
thirst however which chiefly distressed them, for there was only one
spring for the use of a vast multitude of soldiers and non-combatants.
Their cattle too, penned up close to them, after the fashion of
barbarians, were dying of want of fodder; near them lay human bodies
which had perished from wounds or thirst, and the whole place was
befouled with rotting carcases and stench and infection. To their
confusion was added the growing misery of discord, some thinking of
surrender, others of destruction by mutual blows. Some there were
who suggested a sortie instead of an unavenged death, and these were
all men of spirit, though they differed in their plans.
One of their chiefs, Dinis, an old man who well knew by long
experience both the strength and clemency of Rome, maintained that
they must lay down their arms, this being the only remedy for their
wretched plight, and he was the first to give himself up with his wife
and children to the conqueror. He was followed by all whom age or
sex unfitted for war, by all too who had a stronger love of life
than of renown. The young were divided between Tarsa and Turesis, both
of whom had resolved to fall together with their freedom. Tarsa
however kept urging them to speedy death and to the instant breaking
off of all hope and fear, and, by way of example, plunged his sword
into his heart. And there were some who chose the same death.
Turesis and his band waited for night, not without the knowledge of
our general. Consequently, the sentries were strengthened with
denser masses of troops. Night was coming on with a fierce storm,
and the foe, one moment with a tumultuous uproar, another in awful
silence, had perplexed the besiegers, when Sabinus went round the
camp, entreating the men not to give a chance to their stealthy
assailants by heeding embarrassing noises or being deceived by
quiet, but to keep, every one, to his post without moving or
discharging their darts on false alarms.
The barbarians meanwhile rushed down with their bands, now hurling
at the entrenchments stones such as the hand could grasp, stakes
with points hardened by fire, and boughs lopped from oaks; now filling
up the fosses with bushes and hurdles and dead bodies, while others
advanced up to the breastwork with bridges and ladders which they
had constructed for the occasion, seized it, tore it down, and came to
close quarters with the defenders. Our soldiers on the other side
drove them back with missiles, repelled them with their shields, and
covered them with a storm of long siege-javelins and heaps of
stones. Success already gained and the more marked disgrace which
would follow repulse, were a stimulus to the Romans, while the courage
of the foe was heightened by this last chance of deliverance and the
presence of many mothers and wives with mournful cries. Darkness,
which increased the daring of some and the terror of others, random
blows, wounds not foreseen, failure to recognise friend or enemy,
echoes, seemingly in their rear, from the winding mountain valleys,
spread such confusion that the Romans abandoned some of their lines in
the belief that they had been stormed. Only however a very few of
the enemy had broken through them; the rest, after their bravest men
had been beaten back or wounded, were towards daybreak pushed back
to the upper part of the fortress and there at last compelled to
surrender. Then the immediate neighbourhood, by the voluntary action
of the inhabitants, submitted. The early and severe winter of Mount
Haemus saved the rest of the population from being reduced by
assault or blockade.
At Rome meanwhile, besides the shocks already sustained by the
imperial house, came the first step towards the destruction of
Agrippina, Claudia Pulchra, her cousin, being prosecuted by Domitius
Afer. Lately a praetor, a man of but moderate position and eager to
become notorious by any sort of deed, Afer charged her with
unchastity, with having Furnius for her paramour, and with attempts on
the emperor by poison and sorcery. Agrippina, always impetuous, and
now kindled into fury by the peril of her kinswoman, went straight
to Tiberius and found him, as it happened, offering a sacrifice to his
father. This provoked an indignant outburst. "It is not," she
exclaimed, "for the same man to slay victims to the Divine Augustus
and to persecute his posterity. The celestial spirit has not
transferred itself to the mute statue; here is the true image,
sprung of heavenly blood, and she perceives her danger, and assumes
its mournful emblems. Pulchra's name is a mere blind; the only
reason for her destruction is that she has, in utter folly, selected
Agrippina for her admiration, forgetting that Sosia was thereby
ruined." These words wrung from the emperor one of the rare utterances
of that inscrutable breast; he rebuked Agrippina with a Greek verse,
and reminded her that "she was not wronged because she was not a
queen." Pulchra and Furnius were condemned. Afer was ranked with the
foremost orators, for the ability which he displayed, and which won
strong praise from Tiberius, who pronounced him a speaker of natural
genius. Henceforward as a counsel for the defence or the prosecution
he enjoyed the fame of eloquence rather than of virtue, but old age
robbed him of much of his speaking power, while, with a failing
intellect, he was still impatient of silence.
Agrippina in stubborn rage, with the grasp of disease yet on her,
when the emperor came to see her, wept long and silently, and then
began to mingle reproach and supplication. She begged him "to
relieve her loneliness and provide her with a husband; her youth still
fitted her for marriage, which was a virtuous woman's only solace, and
there were citizens in Rome who would not disdain to receive the
wife of Germanicus and his children." But the emperor, who perceived
the political aims of her request, but did not wish to show
displeasure or apprehension, left her, notwithstanding her urgency,
without an answer. This incident, not mentioned by any historian, I
have found in the memoirs of the younger Agrippina, the mother of
the emperor Nero, who handed down to posterity the story of her life
and of the misfortunes of her family.
Sejanus meanwhile yet more deeply alarmed the sorrowing and
unsuspecting woman by sending his agents, under the guise of
friendship, with warnings that poison was prepared for her, and that
she ought to avoid her father-in-law's table. Knowing not how to
dissemble, she relaxed neither her features nor tone of voice as she
sat by him at dinner, nor did she touch a single dish, till at last
Tiberius noticed her conduct, either casually or because he was told
of it. To test her more closely, he praised some fruit as it was set
on the table and passed it with his own hand to his daughter-in-law.
This increased the suspicions of Agrippina, and without putting the
fruit to her lips she gave it to the slaves. Still no remark fell from
Tiberius before the company, but he turned to his mother and whispered
that it was not surprising if he had decided on harsh treatment
against one who implied that he was a poisoner. Then there was a
rumour that a plan was laid for her destruction, that the emperor
did not dare to attempt it openly, and was seeking to veil the deed in
secrecy.
Tiberius, to divert people's talk, continually attended the
Senate, and gave an audience of several days to embassies from Asia on
a disputed question as to the city in which the temple before
mentioned should be erected. Eleven cities were rivals for the honour,
of which they were all equally ambitious, though they differed
widely in resources. With little variation they dwelt on antiquity
of race and loyalty to Rome throughout her wars with Perseus,
Aristonicus, and other kings. But the people of Hypaepa, Tralles,
Laodicaea, and Magnesia were passed over as too insignificant; even
Ilium, though it boasted that Troy was the cradle of Rome, was
strong only in the glory of its antiquity. There was a little
hesitation about Halicarnassus, as its inhabitants affirmed that for
twelve hundred years their homes had not been shaken by an
earthquake and that the foundations of their temple were on the living
rock. Pergamos, it was thought, had been sufficiently honoured by
having a temple of Augustus in the city, on which very fact they
relied. The Ephesians and Milesians had, it seemed, wholly devoted
their respective towns to the worships of Apollo and Diana. And so the
question lay between Sardis and Smyrna. The envoys from Sardis read
a decree of the Etrurians, with whom they claimed kindred.
"Tyrrhenus and Lydus," it was said, "the sons of King Atys, divided
the nation between them because of its multitude; Lydus remained in
the country of his fathers; Tyrrhenus had the work assigned him of
establishing new settlements, and names, taken from the two leaders,
were given to the one people in Asia and to the other in Italy. The
resources of the Lydians were yet further augmented by the immigration
of nations into that part of Greece which afterwards took its name
from Pelops." They spoke too of letters from Roman generals, of
treaties concluded with us during the Macedonian war, and of their
copious rivers, of their climate, and the rich countries round them.
The envoys from Smyrna, after tracing their city's antiquity back to
such founders as either Tantalus, the son of Jupiter, or Theseus, also
of divine origin, or one of the Amazons, passed on to that on which
they chiefly relied, their services to the Roman people, whom they had
helped with naval armaments, not only in wars abroad, but in those
under which we struggled in Italy. They had also been the first,
they said, to build a temple in honour of Rome, during the
consulship of Marcus Porcius Cato, when Rome's power indeed was great,
but not yet raised to the highest point, inasmuch as the Punic capital
was still standing and there were mighty kings in Asia. They
appealed too to the of Lucius Sulla, whose army was once in terrible
jeopardy from a severe winter and want of clothing, and this having
been announced at Smyrna in a public assembly, all who were present
stript their clothes off their backs and sent them to our legions. And
so the Senate, when the question was put, gave the preference to
Smyrna. Vibius Marsus moved that Marcus Lepidus, to whom the
province of Asia had been assigned, should have under him a special
commissioner to undertake the charge of this temple. As Lepidus
himself, out of modesty, declined to appoint, Valerius Naso, one of
the ex-praetors, was chosen by lot and sent out.
Meanwhile, after long reflection on his purpose and frequent
deferment of it, the emperor retired into Campania to dedicate, as
he pretended, a temple to Jupiter at Capua and another to Augustus
at Nola, but really resolved to live at a distance from Rome. Although
I have followed most historians in attributing the cause of his
retirement to the arts of Sejanus, still, as he passed six consecutive
years in the same solitude after that minister's destruction, I am
often in doubt whether it is not to be more truly ascribed to himself,
and his wish to hide by the place of his retreat the cruelty and
licentiousness which he betrayed by his actions. Some thought that
in his old age he was ashamed of his personal appearance. He had
indeed a tall, singularly slender and stooping figure, a bald head,
a face full of eruptions, and covered here and there with plasters. In
the seclusion of Rhodes he had habituated himself to shun society
and to hide his voluptuous life. According to one account his mother's
domineering temper drove him away; he was weary of having her as his
partner in power, and he could not thrust her aside, because he had
received this very power as her gift. For Augustus had had thoughts of
putting the Roman state under Germanicus, his sister's grandson,
whom all men esteemed, but yielding to his wife's entreaties he left
Germanicus to be adopted by Tiberius and adopted Tiberius himself.
With this Augusta would taunt her son, and claim back what she had
given.
His departure was attended by a small retinue, one senator, who
was an ex-consul, Cocceius Nerva, learned in the laws, one Roman
knight, besides Sejanus, of the highest order, Curtius Atticus, the
rest being men of liberal culture, for the most part Greeks, in
whose conversation he might find amusement. It was said by men who
knew the stars that the motions of the heavenly bodies when Tiberius
left Rome were such as to forbid the possibility of his return. This
caused ruin for many who conjectured that his end was near and
spread the rumour; for they never foresaw the very improbable
contingency of his voluntary exile from his home for eleven years.
Soon afterwards it was clearly seen what a narrow margin there is
between such science and delusion and in what obscurity truth is
veiled. That he would not return to Rome was not a mere random
assertion; as to the rest, they were wholly in the dark, seeing that
he lived to extreme old age in the country or on the coast near Rome
and often close to the very walls of the city.
It happened at this time that a perilous accident which occurred
to the emperor strengthened vague rumours and gave him grounds for
trusting more fully in the friendship and fidelity of Sejanus. They
were dining in a country house called "The Cave," between the gulf
of Amuclae and the hills of Fundi, in a natural grotto. The rocks at
its entrance suddenly fell in and crushed some of the attendants;
there upon panic seized the whole company and there was a general
flight of the guests. Sejanus hung over the emperor, and with knee,
face, and hand encountered the falling stones; and was found in this
attitude by the soldiers who came to their rescue. After this he was
greater than ever, and though his counsels were ruinous, he was
listened to with confidence, as a man who had no care for himself.
He pretended to act as a judge towards the children of Germanicus,
after having suborned persons to assume the part of prosecutors and to
inveigh specially against Nero, next in succession to the throne, who,
though he had proper youthful modesty, often forgot present
expediency, while freedmen and clients, eager to get power, incited
him to display vigour and self-confidence. "This," they said, "was
what the Roman people wished, what the armies desired, and Sejanus
would not dare to oppose it, though now he insulted alike the tame
spirit of the old emperor and the timidity of the young prince."
Nero, while he listened to this and like talk, was not indeed
inspired with any guilty ambition, but still occasionally there
would break from him wilful and thoughtless expressions which spies
about his person caught up and reported with exaggeration, and this he
had no opportunity of rebutting. Then again alarms under various forms
were continually arising. One man would avoid meeting him; another
after returning his salutation would instantly turn away; many after
beginning a conversation would instantly break it off, while Sejanus's
friends would stand their ground and laugh at him. Tiberius indeed
wore an angry frown or a treacherous smile. Whether the young prince
spoke or held his tongue, silence and speech were alike criminal.
Every night had its anxieties, for his sleepless hours, his dreams and
sighs were all made known by his wife to her mother Livia and by Livia
to Sejanus. Nero's brother Drusus Sejanus actually drew into his
scheme by holding out to him the prospect of becoming emperor
through the removal of an elder brother, already all but fallen. The
savage temper of Drusus, to say nothing of lust of power and the usual
feuds between brothers, was inflamed with envy by the partiality of
the mother Agrippina towards Nero. And yet Sejanus, while he
favoured Drusus, was not without thoughts of sowing the seeds of his
future ruin, well knowing how very impetuous he was and therefore
the more exposed to treachery.
Towards the close of the year died two distinguished men, Asinius
Agrippa and Quintus Haterius. Agrippa was of illustrious rather than
ancient ancestry, which his career did not disgrace; Haterius was of a
senatorian family and famous for his eloquence while he lived,
though the monuments which remain of his genius are not admired as
of old. The truth is he succeeded more by vehemence than by finish
of style. While the research and labours of other authors are valued
by an after age, the harmonious fluency of Haterius died with him.
In the year of the consulship of Marcus Licinius and Lucius
Calpurnius, the losses of a great war were matched by an unexpected
disaster, no sooner begun than ended. One Atilius, of the freedman
class, having undertaken to build an amphitheatre at Fidena for the
exhibition of a show of gladiators, failed to lay a solid foundation
to frame the wooden superstructure with beams of sufficient
strength; for he had neither an abundance of wealth, nor zeal for
public popularity, but he had simply sought the work for sordid
gain. Thither flocked all who loved such sights and who during the
reign of Tiberius had been wholly debarred from such amusements; men
and women of every age crowding to the place because it was near Rome.
And so the calamity was all the more fatal. The building was densely
crowded; then came a violent shock, as it fell inwards or spread
outwards, precipitating and burying an immense multitude which was
intently gazing on the show or standing round. Those who were
crushed to death in the first moment of the accident had at least
under such dreadful circumstances the advantage of escaping torture.
More to be pitied were they who with limbs torn from them still
retained life, while they recognised their wives and children by
seeing them during the day and by hearing in the night their screams
and groans. Soon all the neighbours in their excitement at the
report were bewailing brothers, kinsmen or parents. Even those whose
friends or relatives were away from home for quite a different reason,
still trembled for them, and as it was not yet known who had been
destroyed by the crash, suspense made the alarm more widespread.
As soon as they began to remove the debris, there was a rush to
see the lifeless forms and much embracing and kissing. Often a dispute
would arise, when some distorted face, bearing however a general
resemblance of form and age, had baffled their efforts at recognition.
Fifty thousand persons were maimed or destroyed in this disaster.
For the future it was provided by a decree of the Senate that no one
was to exhibit a show of gladiators, whose fortune fell short of
four hundred thousand sesterces, and that no amphitheatre was to be
erected except on a foundation, the solidity of which had been
examined. Atilius was banished. At the moment of the calamity the
nobles threw open houses and supplied indiscriminately medicines and
physicians, so that Rome then, notwithstanding her sorrowful aspect,
wore a likeness to the manners of our forefathers who after a great
battle always relieved the wounded with their bounty and attentions.
This disaster was not forgotten when a furious conflagration damaged
the capital to an unusual extent, reducing Mount Caelius to ashes. "It
was an ill-starred year," people began to say, "and the emperor's
purpose of leaving Rome must have been formed under evil omens."
They began in vulgar fashion to trace ill-luck to guilt, when Tiberius
checked them by distributing money in proportion to losses
sustained. He received a vote of thanks in the Senate from its
distinguished members, and was applauded by the populace for having
assisted with his liberality, without partiality or the
solicitations of friends, strangers whom he had himself sought out.
And proposals were also made that Mount Caelius should for the
future be called Mount Augustus, inasmuch as when all around was in
flames only a single statue of Tiberius in the house of one Junius,
a senator, had remained uninjured. This, it was said, had formerly
happened to Claudia Quinta; her statue, which had twice escaped the
violence of fire, had been dedicated by our ancestors in the temple of
the Mother of Gods; hence the Claudii had been accounted sacred and
numbered among deities, and so additional sanctity ought to be given
to a spot where heaven showed such honour to the emperor.
It will not be uninteresting to mention that Mount Caelius was
anciently known by the name of Querquetulanus, because it grew oak
timber in abundance and was afterwards called Caelius by Caeles
Vibenna, who led the Etruscan people to the aid of Rome and had the
place given him as a possession by Tarquinius Priscus or by some other
of the kings. As to that point historians differ; as to the rest, it
is beyond a question that Vibenna's numerous forces established
themselves in the plain beneath and in the neighbourhood of the forum,
and that the Tuscan street was named after these strangers.
But though the zeal of the nobles and the bounty of the prince
brought relief to suffering, yet every day a stronger and fiercer host
of informers pursued its victims, without one alleviating
circumstance. Quintilius Varus, a rich man and related to the emperor,
was suddenly attacked by Domitius Afer, the successful prosecutor of
Claudia Pulchra, his mother, and no one wondered that the needy
adventurer of many years who had squandered his lately gotten
recompense was now preparing himself for fresh iniquities. That
Publius Dolabella should have associated himself in the prosecution
was a marvel, for he was of illustrious ancestry, was allied to Varus,
and was now himself seeking to destroy his own noble race, his own
kindred. The Senate however stopped the proceeding, and decided to
wait for the emperor, this being the only means of escaping for a time
impending horrors.
Caesar, meanwhile, after dedicating the temples in Campania,
warned the public by an edict not to disturb his retirement and posted
soldiers here and there to keep off the throngs of townsfolk. But he
so loathed the towns and colonies and, in short, every place on the
mainland, that he buried himself in the island of Capreae which is
separated by three miles of strait from the extreme point of the
promontory of Sorrentum. The solitude of the place was, I believe, its
chief attraction, for a harbourless sea surrounds it and even for a
small vessel it has but few safe retreats, nor can any one land
unknown to the sentries. Its air in winter is soft, as it is
screened by a mountain which is a protection against cutting winds. In
summer it catches the western breezes, and the open sea round it
renders it most delightful. It commanded too a prospect of the most
lovely bay, till Vesuvius, bursting into flames, changed the face of
the country. Greeks, so tradition says, occupied those parts and
Capreae was inhabited by the Teleboi. Tiberius had by this time filled
the island with twelve country houses, each with a grand name and a
vast structure of its own. Intent as he had once been on the cares
of state, he was now for thoroughly unbending himself in secret
profligacy and a leisure of malignant schemes. For he still retained
that rash proneness to suspect and to believe, which even at Rome
Sejanus used to foster, and which he here excited more keenly, no
longer concealing his machinations against Agrippina and Nero.
Soldiers hung about them, and every message, every visit, their public
and their private life were I may say regularly chronicled. And
persons were actually suborned to advise them to flee to the armies of
Germany, or when the Forum was most crowded, to clasp the statue of
statue of the Divine Augustus and appeal to the protection of the
people and Senate. These counsels they disdained, but they were
charged with having had thoughts of acting on them.
The year of the consulship of Silanus and Silius Nerva opened with a
foul beginning. A Roman knight of the highest rank, Titius Sabinus,
was dragged to prison because he had been a friend of Germanicus. He
had indeed persisted in showing marked respect towards his wife and
children, as their visitor at home, their companion in public, the
solitary survivor of so many clients, and he was consequently esteemed
by the good, as he was a terror to the evil-minded. Latinius Latiaris,
Porcius Cato, Petitius Rufus, and Marcus Opsius, ex-praetors,
conspired to attack him, with an eye to the consulship, to which there
was access only through Sejanus, and the good will of Sejanus was to
be gained only by a crime. They arranged amongst themselves that
Latiaris, who had some slight acquaintance with Sabinus, should devise
the plot, that the rest should be present as witnesses, and that
then they should begin the prosecution. Accordingly Latiaris, after
first dropping some casual remarks, went on to praise the fidelity
of Sabinus in not having, like others, forsaken after its fall the
house of which he had been the friend in its prosperity. He also spoke
highly of Germanicus and compassionately of Agrippina. Sabinus, with
the natural softness of the human heart under calamity, burst into
tears, which he followed up with complaints, and soon with yet more
daring invective against Sejanus, against his cruelty, pride and
ambition. He did not spare even Tiberius in his reproaches. That
conversation, having united them, as it were, in an unlawful secret,
led to a semblance of close intimacy. Henceforward Sabinus himself
sought Latiaris, went continually to his house, and imparted to him
his griefs, as to a most faithful friend.
The men whom I have named now consulted how these conversations
might fall within the hearing of more persons. It was necessary that
the place of meeting should preserve the appearance of secrecy, and,
if witnesses were to stand behind the doors, there was a fear of their
being seen or heard, or of suspicion casually arising. Three
senators thrust themselves into the space between the roof and
ceiling, a hiding-place as shameful as the treachery was execrable.
They applied their ears to apertures and crevices. Latiaris
meanwhile having met Sabinus in the streets, drew him to his house and
to the room, as if he was going to communicate some fresh discoveries.
There he talked much about past and impending troubles, a copious
topic indeed, and about fresh horrors. Sabinus spoke as before and
at greater length, as sorrow, when once it has broken into
utterance, is the harder to restrain. Instantly they hastened to
accuse him, and having despatched a letter to the emperor, they
informed him of the order of the plot and of their own infamy. Never
was Rome more distracted and terror-stricken. Meetings, conversations,
the ear of friend and stranger were alike shunned; even things mute
and lifeless, the very roofs and walls, were eyed with suspicion.
The emperor in his letter on the first of January, after offering
the usual prayers for the new year, referred to Sabinus, whom he
reproached with having corrupted some of his freedmen and having
attempted his life, and he claimed vengeance in no obscure language.
It was decreed without hesitation, and the condemned man was dragged
off, exclaiming as loudly as he could, with head covered and throat
tightly bound, "that this was inaugurating the year; these were the
victims slain to Sejanus." Wherever he turned his eyes, wherever his
words fell, there was flight and solitude; the streets and public
places were forsaken. A few retraced their steps and again showed
themselves, shuddering at the mere fact that they had betrayed
alarm. "What day," they asked, "will be without some execution, when
amid sacrifices and prayers, a time when it is usual to refrain even
from a profane word, the chain and halter are introduced? Tiberius has
not incurred such odium blindly; this is a studied device to make us
believe that there is no reason why the new magistrates should not
open the dungeons as well as the temple and the altars." Thereupon
there came a letter of thanks to them for having punished a bitter foe
to the State, and the emperor further added that he had an anxious
life, that he apprehended treachery from enemies, but he mentioned
no one by name. Still there was no question that this was aimed at
Nero and Agrippina.
But for my plan of referring each event to its own year, I should
feel a strong impulse to anticipate matters and at once relate the
deaths by which Latinius and Opsius and the other authors of this
atrocious deed perished, some after Caius became emperor, some even
while Tiberius yet ruled. For although he would not have the
instruments of his wickedness destroyed by others, he frequently, when
he was tired of them, and fresh ones offered themselves for the same
services, flung off the old, now become a mere incubus. But these
and other punishments of guilty men I shall describe in due course.
Asinius Gallus, to whose children Agrippina was aunt, then moved
that the emperor should be requested to disclose his apprehensions
to the Senate and allow their removal. Of all his virtues, as he
counted them, there was none on which Tiberius so prided himself as
his ability to dissemble, and he was therefore the more irritated at
an attempt to expose what he was hiding. Sejanus however pacified him,
not out of love for Gallus, but rather to wait the result of the
emperor's wavering mood, knowing, as he did, that, though slow in
forming his purpose, yet having once broken through his reserve, he
would follow up harsh words with terrible deeds.
About the same time Julia died, the granddaughter of Augustus. He
had condemned her on a conviction of adultery and had banished her
to the island of Trimerus, not far from the shores of Apulia. There
she endured a twenty years' exile, in which she was supported by
relief from Augusta, who having overthrown the prosperity of her
step-children by secret machinations, made open display of her
compassion to the fallen family.
That same year the Frisii, a nation beyond the Rhine, cast off
peace, more because of our rapacity than from their impatience of
subjection. Drusus had imposed on them a moderate tribute, suitable to
their limited resources, the furnishing of ox hides for military
purposes. No one ever severely scrutinized the size or thickness
till Olennius, a first-rank centurion, appointed to govern the Frisii,
selected hides of wild bulls as the standard according to which they
were to be supplied. This would have been hard for any nation, and
it was the less tolerable to the Germans, whose forests abound in huge
beasts, while their home cattle are undersized. First it was their
herds, next their lands, last, the persons of their wives and
children, which they gave up to bondage. Then came angry
remonstrances, and when they received no relief, they sought a
remedy in war. The soldiers appointed to collect the tribute were
seized and gibbeted. Olennius anticipated their fury by flight, and
found refuge in a fortress, named Flevum, where a by no means
contemptible force of Romans and allies kept guard over the shores
of the ocean.
As soon as this was known to Lucius Apronius, propraetor of Lower
Germany, he summoned from the Upper province the legionary veterans,
as well as some picked auxiliary infantry and cavalry. Instantly
conveying both armies down the Rhine, he threw them on the Frisii,
raising at once the siege of the fortress and dispersing the rebels in
defence of their own possessions. Next, he began constructing solid
roads and bridges over the neighbouring estuaries for the passage of
his heavy troops, and meanwhile having found a ford, he ordered the
cavalry of the Canninefates, with all the German infantry which served
with us, to take the enemy in the rear. Already in battle array,
they were beating back our auxiliary horse as well as that of the
legions sent to support them, when three light cohorts, then two more,
and after a while the entire cavalry were sent to the attack. They
were strong enough, had they charged altogether, but coming up, as
they did, at intervals, they did not give fresh courage to the
repulsed troops and were themselves carried away in the panic of the
fugitives. Apronius entrusted the rest of the auxiliaries to
Cethegus Labeo, the commander of the fifth legion, but he too, finding
his men's position critical and being in extreme peril, sent
messages imploring the whole strength of the legions. The soldiers
of the fifth sprang forward, drove back the enemy in a fierce
encounter, and saved our cohorts and cavalry, who were exhausted by
their wounds. But the Roman general did not attempt vengeance or
even bury the dead, although many tribunes, prefects, and first-rank
centurions had fallen. Soon afterwards it was ascertained from
deserters that nine hundred Romans had been cut to pieces in a wood
called Braduhenna's, after prolonging the fight to the next day, and
that another body of four hundred, which had taken possession of the
house of one Cruptorix, once a soldier in our pay, fearing betrayal,
had perished by mutual slaughter.
The Frisian name thus became famous in Germany, and Tiberius kept
our losses a secret, not wishing to entrust any one with the war.
Nor did the Senate care whether dishonour fell on the extreme
frontiers of the empire. Fear at home had filled their hearts, and for
this they sought relief in sycophancy. And so, although their advice
was asked on totally different subjects, they decreed an altar to
Clemency, an altar to Friendship, and statues round them to Caesar and
Sejanus, both of whom they earnestly begged with repeated entreaties
to allow themselves to be seen in public. Still, neither of them would
visit Rome or even the neighbourhood of Rome; they thought it enough
to quit the island and show themselves on the opposite shores of
Campania. Senators, knights, a number of the city populace flocked
thither, anxiously looking to Sejanus, approach to whom was
particularly difficult and was consequently sought by intrigue and
by complicity in his counsels. It was sufficiently clear that his
arrogance was increased by gazing on this foul and openly displayed
servility. At Rome indeed hurrying crowds are a familiar sight, from
the extent of the city no one knows on what business each citizen is
bent; but there, as they lounged in promiscuous crowds in the fields
or on the shore, they had to bear day and night alike the
patronising smiles and the supercilious insolence of hall-porters,
till even this was forbidden them, and those whom Sejanus had not
deigned to accost or to look on, returned to the capital in alarm,
while some felt an evil joy, though there hung over them the
dreadful doom of that ill-starred friendship.
Tiberius meanwhile having himself in person bestowed the hand of his
granddaughter Agrippina, Germanicus's daughter, on Cneius Domitius,
directed the marriage to be celebrated at Rome. In selecting
Domitius he looked not only to his ancient lineage, but also to his
alliance with the blood of the Caesars, for he could point to
Octavia as his grandmother and through her to Augustus as his
great-uncle.
BOOK V, A.D. 29-31

IN the consulship of Rubellius and Fufius, both of whom had the
surname Geminus, died in an advanced old age Julia Augusta. A
Claudia by birth and by adoption a Livia and a Julia, she united the
noblest blood of Rome. Her first marriage, by which she had
children, was with Tiberius Nero, who, an exile during the Perusian
war, returned to Rome when peace had been concluded between Sextus
Pompeius and the triumvirs. After this Caesar, enamoured of her
beauty, took her away from her husband, whether against her wish is
uncertain. So impatient was he that he brought her to his house
actually pregnant, not allowing time for her confinement. She had no
subsequent issue, but allied as she was through the marriage of
Agrippina and Germanicus to the blood of Augustus, her
great-grandchildren were also his. In the purity of her home life
she was of the ancient type, but was more gracious than was thought
fitting in ladies of former days. An imperious mother and an amiable
wife, she was a match for the diplomacy of her husband and the
dissimulation of her son. Her funeral was simple, and her will long
remained unexecuted. Her panegyric was pronounced from the Rostra by
her great-grandson, Caius Caesar, who afterwards succeeded to power.
Tiberius however, making no change in his voluptuous life, excused
himself by letter for his absence from his last duty to his mother
on the ground of the pressure of business. He even abridged, out of
moderation, as it seemed, the honours which the Senate had voted on
a lavish scale to her memory, allowing only a very few, and adding
that no religious worship was to be decreed, this having been her
own wish. In a part of the same letter he sneered at female
friendships, with an indirect censure on the consul Fufius, who had
risen to distinction through Augusta's partiality. Fufius was indeed a
man well fitted to win the affection of a woman; he was witty too, and
accustomed to ridicule Tiberius with those bitter jests which the
powerful remember so long.
This at all events was the beginning of an unmitigated and
grinding despotism. As long indeed as Augusta lived, there yet
remained a refuge, for with Tiberius obedience to his mother was the
habit of a life, and Sejanus did not dare to set himself above a
parent's authority. Now, so to say, they threw off the reins and let
loose their fury. A letter was sent, directed against Agrippina and
Nero, which was popularly believed to have been long before
forwarded and to have been kept back by Augusta, as it was publicly
read soon after her death. It contained expressions of studied
harshness, yet it was not armed rebellion or a longing for revolution,
but unnatural passions and profligacy which the emperor imputed to his
grandson. Against his daughter-in-law he did not dare to invent this
much; he merely censured her insolent tongue and defiant spirit,
amid the panic-stricken silence of the Senate, till a few who had no
hope from merit (and public calamities are ever used by individuals
for interested purposes) demanded that the question should be debated.
The most eager was Cotta Messalinus, who made a savage speech.
Still, the other principal senators, and especially the magistrates,
were perplexed, for Tiberius, notwithstanding his furious invective,
had left everything else in doubt.
There was in the Senate one Junius Rusticus, who having been
appointed by the emperor to register its debates was therefore
supposed to have an insight into his secret purposes. This man,
whether through some fatal impulse (he had indeed never before given
any evidence of courage) or a misdirected acuteness which made him
tremble at the uncertain future, while he forgot impending perils,
attached himself to the waverers, and warned the consuls not to
enter on the debate. He argued that the highest issues turned on
trivial causes, and that the fall of the house of Germanicus might one
day move the old man's remorse. At the same moment the people, bearing
the images of Agrippina and Nero, thronged round the Senate-house,
and, with words of blessing on the emperor, kept shouting that the
letter was a forgery and that it was not by the prince's will that
ruin was being plotted against his house. And so that day passed
without any dreadful result.
Fictitious speeches too against Sejanus were published under the
names of ex-consuls, for several persons indulged, all the more
recklessly because anonymously, the caprice of their imaginations.
Consequently the wrath of Sejanus was the more furious, and he had
ground for alleging that the Senate disregarded the emperor's trouble;
that the people were in revolt; that speeches in a new style and new
resolutions were being heard and read. What remained but to take the
sword and chose for their generals and emperors those whose images
they had followed as standards.
Upon this the emperor, after repeating his invectives against his
grandson and his daughter-in-law and reprimanding the populace in an
edict complained to the Senate that by the trick of one senator the
imperial dignity had been publicly flouted, and he insisted that,
after all, the whole matter should be left to his exclusive
decision. Without further deliberation, they proceeded, not indeed
to pronounce the final sentence (for this was forbidden), but to
declare that they were prepared for vengeance, and were restrained
only by the strong hand of the sovereign.
[The remainder of the fifth book and the beginning of the sixth,
recounting Sejanus' marriage and fall and covering a space of nearly
three years, are lost. Newer editions of Tacitus mark the division
between the fifth and sixth books at this point rather than at the end
of section 11; but references are regularly made to the older
numbering, and so it has been retained here. The beginning of
section 6 is obviously fragmentary.]
.... forty-four speeches were delivered on this subject, a few of
which were prompted by fear, most by the habit of flattery...
"There is now a change of fortune, and even he who chose Sejanus
to be his colleague and his son-in-law excuses his error. As for the
rest, the man whom they encouraged by shameful baseness, they now
wickedly revile. Which is the most pitiable, to be accused for
friendship's sake or to have to accuse a friend, I cannot decide. I
will not put any man's cruelty or compassion to the test, but, while I
am free and have a clear conscience, I will anticipate peril. I
implore you to cherish my memory with joy rather than with sorrow,
numbering me too with those who by noble death have fled from the
miseries of our country."
Then detaining those of his friends who were minded to stay with him
and converse, or, if otherwise, dismissing them, he thus spent part of
the day, and with a numerous circle yet round him, all gazing on his
fearless face, and imagining that there was still time to elapse
before the last scene, he fell on a sword which he had concealed in
his robe. The emperor did not pursue him after his death with either
accusation or reproach, although he had heaped a number of foul
charges on Blaesus.
Next were discussed the cases of Publius Vitellius and Pomponius
Secundus. The first was charged by his accusers with having offered
the keys of the treasury, of which he was prefect, and the military
chest in aid of a revolution. Against the latter, Considius, an
ex-praetor, alleged intimacy with Aelius Gallus, who, after the
punishment of Sejanus, had fled to the gardens of Pomponius, as his
safest refuge. They had no resource in their peril but in the
courageous firmness of their brothers who became their sureties. Soon,
after several adjournments, Vitellius, weary alike of hope and fear,
asked for a penknife, avowedly, for his literary pursuits, and
inflicted a slight wound in his veins, and died at last of a broken
heart. Pomponius, a man of refined manners and brilliant genius,
bore his adverse fortune with resignation, and outlived Tiberius.
It was next decided to punish the remaining children of Sejanus,
though the fury of the populace was subsiding, and people generally
had been appeased by the previous executions. Accordingly they were
carried off to prison, the boy, aware of his impending doom, and the
little girl, who was so unconscious that she continually asked what
was her offence, and whither she was being dragged, saying that she
would do so no more, and a childish chastisement was enough for her
correction. Historians of the time tell us that, as there was no
precedent for the capital punishment of a virgin, she was violated
by the executioner, with the rope on her neck. Then they were
strangled and their bodies, mere children as they were, were flung
down the Gemoniae.
About the same time Asia and Achaia were alarmed by a prevalent
but short-lived rumour that Drusus, the son of Germanicus, had been
seen in the Cyclades and subsequently on the mainland. There was
indeed a young man of much the same age, whom some of the emperor's
freedmen pretended to recognise, and to whom they attached
themselves with a treacherous intent. The renown of the name attracted
the ignorant, and the Greek mind eagerly fastens on what is new and
marvellous. The story indeed, which they no sooner invented than
believed, was that Drusus had escaped from custody, and was on his way
to the armies of his father, with the design of invading Egypt or
Syria. And he was now drawing to himself a multitude of young men
and much popular enthusiasm, enjoying the present and cherishing
idle hopes of the future, when Poppaeus Sabinus heard of the affair.
At the time he was chiefly occupied with Macedonia, but he also had
the charge of Achaia. So, to forestall the danger, let the story be
true or false, he hurried by the bays of Torone and Thermae, then
passed on to Euboea, an island of the Aegaean, to Piraeus, on the
coast of Attica, thence to the shores of Corinth and the narrow
Isthmus, and having arrived by the other sea at Nicopolis, a Roman
colony, he there at last ascertained that the man, when skilfully
questioned, had said that he was the son of Marcus Silanus, and
that, after the dispersion of a number of his followers' he had
embarked on a vessel, intending, it seemed, to go to Italy. Sabinus
sent this account to Tiberius, and of the origin and issue of the
affair nothing more is known to me.
At the close of the year a long growing feud between the consuls
broke out. Trio, a reckless man in incurring enmities and a
practised lawyer, had indirectly censured Regulus as having been
half-hearted in crushing the satellites of Sejanus. Regulus, who,
unless he was provoked, loved quietness, not only repulsed his
colleague's attack, but was for dragging him to trial as a guilty
accomplice in the conspiracy. And though many of the senators implored
them to compose a quarrel likely to end fatally, they continued
their enmity and their mutual menaces till they retired from office.
BOOK VI, A.D. 32-37

CNEIUS Domitius and Camillus Scribonianus had entered on the
consulship when the emperor, after crossing the channel which
divides Capreae from Surrentum, sailed along Campania, in doubt
whether he should enter Rome, or, possibly, simulating the intention
of going thither, because he had resolved otherwise. He often landed
at points in the neighborhood, visited the gardens by the Tiber, but
went back again to the cliffs and to the solitude of the sea shores,
in shame at the vices and profligacies into which he had plunged so
unrestrainedly that in the fashion of a despot he debauched the
children of free-born citizens. It was not merely beauty and a
handsome person which he felt as an incentive to his lust, but the
modesty of childhood in some, and noble ancestry in others. Hitherto
unknown terms were then for the first time invented, derived from
the abominations of the place and the endless phases of sensuality.
Slaves too were set over the work of seeking out and procuring, with
rewards for the willing, and threats to the reluctant, and if there
was resistance from a relative or a parent, they used violence and
force, and actually indulged their own passions as if dealing with
captives.
At Rome meanwhile, in the beginning of the year, as if Livia's
crimes had just been discovered and not also long ago punished,
terrible decrees were proposed against her very statues and memory,
and the property of Sejanus was to be taken from the exchequer and
transferred to the imperial treasury; as if there was any
difference. The motion was being urged with extreme persistency, in
almost the same or with but slightly changed language, by such men
as Scipio, Silanus, and Cassius, when suddenly Togonius Gallus
intruding his own obscurity among illustrious names, was heard with
ridicule. He begged the emperor to select a number of senators, twenty
out of whom should be chosen by lot to wear swords and to defend his
person, whenever he entered the Senate House. The man had actually
believed a letter from him in which he asked the protection of one
of the consuls, so that he might go in safety from Capreae to Rome.
Tiberius however, who usually combined jesting and seriousness,
thanked the senators for their goodwill, but asked who could be
rejected, who could be chosen? "Were they always to be the same, or
was there to be a succession? Were they to be men who had held
office or youths, private citizens or officials? Then, again, what a
scene would be presented by persons grasping their swords on the
threshold of the Senate House? His life was not of so much worth if it
had to be defended by arms." This was his answer to Togonius,
guarded in its expression, and he urged nothing beyond the rejection
of the motion.
Junius Gallio however, who had proposed that the praetorian
soldiers, after having served their campaigns, should acquire the
privilege of sitting in the fourteen rows of the theatre, received a
savage censure. Tiberius, just as if he were face to face with him,
asked what he had to do with the soldiers, who ought to receive the
emperor's orders or his rewards except from the emperor himself? He
had really discovered something which the Divine Augustus had not
foreseen. Or was not one of Sejanus's satellites rather seeking to sow
discord and sedition, as a means of prompting ignorant minds, under
the pretence of compliment, to ruin military discipline? This was
Gallio's recompense for his carefully prepared flattery, with
immediate expulsion from the Senate, and then from Italy. And as men
complained that he would endure his exile with equanimity, since he
had chosen the famous and lovely island of Lesbos, he was dragged back
to Rome, and confined in the houses of different officials.
The emperor in the same letter crushed Sextius Paconianus, an
ex-praetor, to the great joy of the senators, as he was a daring,
mischievous man, who pryed into every person's secrets, and had been
the chosen instrument of Sejanus in his treacherous designs against
Caius Caesar. When this fact was divulged, there came an outburst of
long-concealed hatreds, and there must have been a sentence of capital
punishment, had he not himself volunteered a disclosure.
As soon as he named Latinius Latiaris, accuser and accused, both
alike objects of execration, presented a most welcome spectacle.
Latiaris, as I have related, had been foremost in contriving the
ruin of Titius Sabinus, and was now the first to pay the penalty. By
way of episode, Haterius Agrippa inveighed against the consuls of
the previous year for now sitting silent after their threats of
impeaching one another. "It must be fear," he said, "and a guilty
conscience which are acting as a bond of union. But the senators
must not keep back what they have heard." Regulus replied that he
was awaiting the opportunity for vengeance, and meant to press it in
the emperor's presence. Trio's answer was that it was best to efface
the memory of rivalries between colleagues, and of any words uttered
in quarrels. When Agrippa still persisted, Sanquinius Maximus, one
of the ex-consuls, implored the Senate not to increase the emperor's
anxieties by seeking further occasions of bitterness, as he was
himself competent to provide remedies. This secured the safety of
Regulus and the postponement of Trio's ruin. Haterius was hated all
the more. Wan with untimely slumbers and nights of riot, and not
fearing in his indolence even the cruellest of princes, he yet plotted
amid his gluttony and lust the destruction of illustrious men.
Several charges were next brought, as soon as the opportunity
offered, against Cotta Messalinus, the author of every unusually cruel
proposal, and consequently, regarded with inveterate hatred. He had
spoken, it was said, of Caius Caesar, as if it were a question whether
he was a man, and of an entertainment at which he was present on
Augusta's birthday with the priests, as a funeral banquet. In
remonstrating too against the influence of Marcus Lepidus and Lucius
Arruntius, with whom he had disputes on many matters, he had added the
remark, "They will have the Senate's support; I shall have that of
my darling Tiberius." But the leading men of the State failed to
convict him on all the charges. When they pressed the case, he
appealed to the emperor. Soon afterwards, a letter arrived, in which
Tiberius traced the origin of the friendship between himself and
Cotta, enumerated his frequent services, and then requested that words
perversely misrepresented and the freedom of table talk might not be
construed into a crime.
The beginning of the emperor's letter seemed very striking. It
opened thus: "May all the gods and goddesses destroy me more miserably
than I feel myself to be daily perishing, if I know at know at this
moment what to write to you, Senators, how to write it, or what, in
short, not to write." So completely had his crimes and infamies
recoiled, as a penalty, on himself. With profound meaning was it often
affirmed by the greatest teacher of philosophy that, could the minds
of tyrants be laid bare, there would be seen gashes and wounds; for,
as the body is lacerated by scourging, so is the spirit by
brutality, by lust and by evil thoughts. Assuredly Tiberius was not
saved by his elevation or his solitude from having to confess the
anguish of his heart and his self-inflicted punishment.
Authority was then given to the Senate to decide the case of
Caecilianus, one of its members, the chief witness against Cotta,
and it was agreed that the same penalty should be inflicted as on
Aruseius and Sanquinius, the accusers of Lucius Arruntius. Nothing
ever happened to Cotta more to his distinction. Of noble birth, but
beggared by extravagance and infamous for his excesses, he was now
by dignity of his revenge, raised to a level with the stainless
virtues of Arruntius.
Quintus Servaeus and Minucius Thermus were next arraigned.
Servaeus was an ex-praetor, and had formerly been a companion of
Germanicus; Minucius was of equestrian rank, and both had enjoyed,
though discreetly, the friendship of Sejanus. Hence they were the more
pitied. Tiberius, on the contrary, denounced them as foremost in
crime, and bade Caius Cestius, the elder, tell the Senate what he
had communicated to the emperor by letter. Cestius undertook the
prosecution. And this was the most dreadful feature of the age, that
leading members of the Senate, some openly, some secretly employed
themselves in the very lowest work of the informer. One could not
distinguish between aliens and kinsfolk, between friends and
strangers, or say what was quite recent, or what half-forgotten from
lapse of time. People were incriminated for some casual remark in
the forum or at the dinner-table, for every one was impatient to be
the first to mark his victim, some to screen themselves, most from
being, as it were, infected with the contagion of the malady.
Minucius and Servaeus, on being condemned, went over to the
prosecution, and then Julius Africanus with Seius Quadratus were
dragged into the same ruin. Africanus was from the Santones, one of
the states of Gaul; the origin of Quadratus I have not ascertained.
Many authors, I am well aware, have passed over the perils and
punishments of a host of persons, sickened by the multiplicity of
them, or fearing that what they had themselves found wearisome and
saddening would be equally fatiguing to their readers. For myself, I
have lighted on many facts worth knowing, though other writers have
not recorded them.
A Roman knight, Marcus Terentius, at the crisis when all others
had hypocritically repudiated the friendship of Sejanus, dared, when
impeached on that ground, to cling to it by the following avowal to
the Senate: "In my position it is perhaps less to my advantage to
acknowledge than to deny the charge. Still, whatever is to be the
issue of the matter, I shall admit that I was the friend of Sejanus,
that I anxiously sought to be such, and was delighted when I was
successful. I had seen him his father's colleague in the command of
the praetorian cohorts, and subsequently combining the duties of civil
and military life. His kinsfolk and connections were loaded with
honours; intimacy with Sejanus was in every case a powerful
recommendation to the emperor's friendship. Those, on the contrary,
whom he hated, had to struggle with danger and humiliation. I take
no individual as an instance. All of us who had no part in his last
design, I mean to defend at the peril of myself alone. It was really
not Sejanus of Vulsinii, it was a member of the Claudian and Julian
houses, in which he had taken a position by his marriage-alliance,
it was your son-in-law, Caesar, your partner in the consulship, the
man who administered your political functions, whom we courted. It
is not for us to criticise one whom you may raise above all others, or
your motives for so doing. Heaven has intrusted you with the supreme
decision of affairs, and for us is left the glory of obedience. And,
again, we see what takes place before our eyes, who it is on whom
you bestow riches and honours, who are the most powerful to help or to
injure. That Sejanus was such, no one will deny. To explore the
prince's secret thoughts, or any of his hidden plans, is a
forbidden, a dangerous thing, nor does it follow that one could
reach them.
"Do not, Senators, think only of Sejanus's last day, but of his
sixteen years of power. We actually adored a Satrius and a
Pomponius. To be known even to his freedmen and hall-porters was
thought something very grand. What then is my meaning? Is this apology
meant to be offered for all without difference and discrimination? No;
it is to be restricted within proper limits. Let plots against the
State, murderous designs against the emperor be punished. As for
friendship and its obligations, the same principle must acquit both
you, Caesar, and us."
The courage of this speech and the fact that there had been found
a man to speak out what was in all people's thoughts, had such an
effect that the accusers of Terentius were sentenced to banishment
or death, their previous offences being taken into account. Then
came a letter from Tiberius against Sextus Vestilius, an ex-praetor,
whom, as a special favourite of his brother Drusus, the emperor had
admitted into his own select circle. His reason for being displeased
with Vestilius was that he had either written an attack on Caius
Caesar as a profligate, or that Tiberius believed a false charge.
For this Vestilius was excluded from the prince's table. He then tried
the knife with his aged hand, but again bound up his veins, opening
them once more however on having begged for pardon by letter and
received a pitiless answer. After him a host of persons were charged
with treason, Annius Pollio, Appius Silanus, Scaurus Mamercus, Sabinus
Calvisius, Vinicianus too, coupled with Pollio, his father, men all of
illustrious descent, some too of the highest political distinction.
The senators were panic-stricken, for how few of their number were not
connected by alliance or by friendship with this multitude of men of
rank! Celsus however, tribune of a city cohort, and now one of the
prosecutors, saved Appius and Calvisius from the peril. The emperor
postponed the cases of Pollio, Vinicianus, and Scaurus, intending to
try them himself with the Senate, not however without affixing some
ominous marks to the name of Scaurus.
Even women were not exempt from danger. Where they could not be
accused of grasping at political power, their tears were made a crime.
Vitia, an aged woman, mother of Fufius Geminus, was executed for
bewailing the death of her son. Such were the proceedings in the
Senate. It was the same with the emperor. Vescularius Atticus and
Julius Marinus were hurried off to execution, two of his oldest
friends, men who had followed him to Rhodes and been his inseparable
companions at Capreae. Vescularius was his agent in the plot against
Libo, and it was with the co-operation of Marinus that Sejanus had
ruined Curtius Atticus. Hence there was all the more joy at the recoil
of these precedents on their authors.
About the same time Lucius Piso, the pontiff, died a natural
death, a rare incident in so high a rank. Never had he by choice
proposed a servile motion, and, whenever necessity was too strong
for him, he would suggest judicious compromises. His father, as I have
related, had been a censor. He lived to the advanced age of eighty,
and had won in Thrace the honour of a triumph. But his chief glory
rested on the wonderful tact with which as city-prefect he handled
an authority, recently made perpetual and all the more galling to
men unaccustomed to obey it.
In former days, when the kings and subsequently the chief
magistrates went from Rome, an official was temporarily chosen to
administer justice and provide for emergencies, so that the capital
might not be left without government. It is said that Denter
Romulius was appointed by Romulus, then Numa Marcius by Tullus
Hostilius, and Spurius Lucretius by Tarquinius Superbus. Afterwards,
the consuls made the appointment. The shadow of the old practice still
survives, whenever in consequence of the Latin festival some one is
deputed to exercise the consul's functions. And Augustus too during
the civil wars gave Cilnius Maecenas, a Roman knight, charge of
everything in Rome and Italy. When he rose to supreme power, in
consideration of the magnitude of the State and the slowness of
legal remedies, he selected one of the exconsuls to overawe the slaves
and that part of the population which, unless it fears a strong
hand, is disorderly and reckless. Messala Corvinus was the first to
obtain the office, which he lost within a few days, as not knowing how
to discharge it. After him Taurus Statilius, though in advanced years,
sustained it admirably; and then Piso, after twenty years of similar
credit, was, by the Senate's decree, honoured with a public funeral.
A motion was next brought forward in the Senate by Quintilianus, a
tribune of the people, respecting an alleged book of the Sibyl.
Caninius Gallus, a book of the College of the Fifteen, had asked
that it might be received among the other volumes of the same
prophetess by a decree on the subject. This having been carried by a
division, the emperor sent a letter in which he gently censured the
tribune, as ignorant of ancient usage because of his youth. Gallus
he scolded for having introduced the matter in a thin Senate,
notwithstanding his long experience in the science of religious
ceremonies, without taking the opinion of the College or having the
verses read and criticised, as was usual, by its presidents, though
their authenticity was very doubtful. He also reminded him that, as
many spurious productions were current under a celebrated name,
Augustus had prescribed a day within which they should be deposited
with the city-praetor, and after which it should not be lawful for any
private person to hold them. The same regulations too had been made by
our ancestors after the burning of the Capitol in the social war, when
there was a search throughout Samos, Ilium, Erythrae, and even in
Africa, Sicily and the Italian colonies for the verses of the Sibyl
(whether there were but one or more) and the priests were charged with
the business of distinguishing, as far as they could by human means,
what were genuine. Accordingly the book in question was now also
submitted to the scrutiny of the College of the Fifteen.
During the same consulship a high price of corn almost brought on an
insurrection. For several days there were many clamorous demands
made in the theatre with an unusual freedom of language towards the
emperor. This provoked him to censure the magistrates and the Senate
for not having used the authority of the State to put down the people.
He named too the corn-supplying provinces, and dwelt on the far larger
amount of grain imported by himself than by Augustus. So the Senate
drew up a decree in the severe spirit of antiquity, and the consuls
issued a not less stringent proclamation. The emperor's silence was
not, as he had hoped, taken as a proof of patriotism, but of pride.
At the year's close Geminius, Celsus and Pompeius, Roman knights,
fell beneath a charge of conspiracy. Of these Caius Geminius, by
lavish expenditure and a luxurious life, had been a friend of Sejanus,
but with no serious result. Julius Celsus, a tribune, while in
confinement, loosened his chain, and having twisted it around him,
broke his neck by throwing himself in an opposite direction. Rubrius
Fabatus was put under surveillance, on a suspicion that, in despair of
the fortunes of Rome, he meant to throw himself on the mercy of the
Parthians. He was, at any rate, found near the Straits of the
Sicily, and, when dragged back by a centurion, he assigned no adequate
reason for his long journey. Still, he lived on in safety, thanks to
forgetfulness rather than to mercy.
In the consulship of Servius Galba and Lucius Sulla, the emperor,
after having long considered whom he was to choose to be husbands
for his granddaughters, now that the maidens were of marriageable age,
selected Lucius Cassius and Marcus Vinicius. Vinicius was of
provincial descent; he was born at Cales, his father and grandfather
having been consuls, and his family, on the other side, being of the
rank of knights. He was a man of amiable temper and of cultivated
eloquence. Cassius was of an ancient and honourable, though plebeian
house, at Rome. Though he was brought up by his father under a
severe training, he won esteem more frequently by his good-nature than
by his diligence. To him and to Vinicius the emperor married
respectively Drusilla and Julia, Germanicus's daughters, and addressed
a letter on the subject to the Senate, with a slightly complimentary
mention of the young men. He next assigned some very vague reasons for
his absence, then passed to more important matters, the ill-will
against him originating in his state policy, and requested that Macro,
who commanded the praetorians, with a few tribunes and centurions,
might accompany him whenever he entered the Senate-house. But though a
decree was voted by the Senate on a liberal scale and without any
restrictions as to rank or numbers, he never so much as went near
the walls of Rome, much less the State-council, for he would often
go round and avoid his native city by circuitous routes.
Meanwhile a powerful host of accusers fell with sudden fury on the
class which systematically increased its wealth by usury in defiance
of a law passed by Caesar the Dictator defining the terms of lending
money and of holding estates in Italy, a law long obsolete because the
public good is sacrificed to private interest. The curse of usury
was indeed of old standing in Rome and a most frequent cause of
sedition and discord, and it was therefore repressed even in the early
days of a less corrupt morality. First, the Twelve Tables prohibited
any one from exacting more than 10 per cent., when, previously, the
rate had depended on the caprice of the wealthy. Subsequently, by a
bill brought in by the tribunes, interest was reduced to half that
amount, and finally compound interest was wholly forbidden. A check
too was put by several enactments of the people on evasions which,
though continually put down, still, through strange artifices,
reappeared. On this occasion, however, Gracchus, the praetor, to whose
jurisdiction the inquiry had fallen, felt himself compelled by the
number of persons endangered to refer the matter to the Senate. In
their dismay the senators, not one of whom was free from similar
guilt, threw themselves on the emperor's indulgence. He yielded, and a
year and six months were granted, within which every one was to settle
his private accounts conformably to the requirements of the law.
Hence followed a scarcity of money, a great shock being given to all
credit, the current coin too, in consequence of the conviction of so
many persons and the sale of their property, being locked up in the
imperial treasury or the public exchequer. To meet this, the Senate
had directed that every creditor should have two-thirds his capital
secured on estates in Italy. Creditors however were suing for
payment in full, and it was not respectable for persons when sued to
break faith. So, at first, there were clamorous meetings and
importunate entreaties; then noisy applications to the praetor's
court. And the very device intended as a remedy, the sale and purchase
of estates, proved the contrary, as the usurers had hoarded up all
their money for buying land. The facilities for selling were
followed by a fall of prices, and the deeper a man was in debt, the
more reluctantly did he part with his property, and many were
utterly ruined. The destruction of private wealth precipitated the
fall of rank and reputation, till at last the emperor interposed his
aid by distributing throughout the banks a hundred million
sesterces, and allowing freedom to borrow without interest for three
years, provided the borrower gave security to the State in land to
double the amount. Credit was thus restored, and gradually private
lenders were found. The purchase too of estates was not carried out
according to the letter of the Senate's decree, rigour at the
outset, as usual with such matters, becoming negligence in the end.
Former alarms then returned, as there was a charge of treason
against Considius Proculus. While he was celebrating his birthday
without a fear, he was hurried before the Senate, condemned and
instantly put to death. His sister Sancia was outlawed, on the
accusation of Quintus Pomponius, a restless spirit, who pretended that
he employed himself in this and like practices to win favour with
the sovereign, and thereby alleviate the perils hanging over his
brother Pomponius Secundus.
Pompeia Macrina too was sentenced to banishment. Her husband
Argolicus and her father-in-law Laco, leading men of Achaia, had
been ruined by the emperor. Her father likewise, an illustrious
Roman knight, and her brother, an ex-praetor, seeing their doom was
near, destroyed themselves. It was imputed to them as a crime that
their great-grandfather Theophanes of Mitylene had been one of the
intimate friends of Pompey the Great, and that after his death Greek
flattery had paid him divine honours.
Sextus Marius, the richest man in Spain, was next accused of
incest with his daughter, and thrown headlong from the Tarpeian
rock. To remove any doubt that the vastness of his wealth had proved
the man's ruin, Tiberius kept his gold-mines for himself, though
they were forfeited to the State. Executions were now a stimulus to
his fury, and he ordered the death of all who were lying in prison
under accusation of complicity with Sejanus. There lay, singly or in
heaps, the unnumbered dead, of every age and sex, the illustrious with
the obscure. Kinsfolk and friends were not allowed to be near them, to
weep over them, or even to gaze on them too long. Spies were set round
them, who noted the sorrow of each mourner and followed the rotting
corpses, till they were dragged to the Tiber, where, floating or
driven on the bank, no one dared to burn or to touch them. The force
of terror had utterly extinguished the sense of human fellowship, and,
with the growth of cruelty, pity was thrust aside.
About this time Caius Caesar, who became his grandfather's companion
on his retirement to Capreae, married Claudia, daughter of Marcus
Silanus. He was a man who masked a savage temper under an artful guise
of self-restraint, and neither his mother's doom nor the banishment of
his brothers extorted from him a single utterance. Whatever the humour
of the day with Tiberius, he would assume the like, and his language
differed as little. Hence the fame of a clever remark from the
orator Passienus, that "there never was a better slave or a worse
master."
I must not pass over a prognostication of Tiberius respecting
Servius Galba, then consul. Having sent for him and sounded him on
various topics, he at last addressed him in Greek to this effect: "You
too, Galba, will some day have a taste of empire." He thus hinted at a
brief span of power late in life, on the strength of his
acquaintance with the art of astrologers, leisure for acquiring
which he had had at Rhodes, with Thrasyllus for instructor. This man's
skill he tested in the following manner.
Whenever he sought counsel on such matters, he would make use of the
top of the house and of the confidence of one freedman, quite
illiterate and of great physical strength. The man always walked in
front of the person whose science Tiberius had determined to test,
through an unfrequented and precipitous path (for the house stood on
rocks), and then, if any suspicion had arisen of imposture or of
trickery, he hurled the astrologer, as he returned, into the sea
beneath, that no one might live to betray the secret. Thrasyllus
accordingly was led up the same cliffs, and when he had deeply
impressed his questioner by cleverly revealing his imperial destiny
and future career, he was asked whether he had also thoroughly
ascertained his own horoscope, and the character of that particular
year and day. After surveying the positions and relative distances
of the stars, he first paused, then trembled, and the longer he gazed,
the more was he agitated by amazement and terror, till at last he
exclaimed that a perilous and well-nigh fatal crisis impended over
him. Tiberius then embraced him and congratulated him on foreseeing
his dangers and on being quite safe. Taking what he had said as an
oracle, he retained him in the number of his intimate friends.
When I hear of these and like occurrences, I suspend my judgment
on the question whether it is fate and unchangeable necessity or
chance which governs the revolutions of human affairs. Indeed, among
the wisest of the ancients and among their disciples you will find
conflicting theories, many holding the conviction that heaven does not
concern itself with the beginning or the end of our life, or, in
short, with mankind at all; and that therefore sorrows are continually
the lot of the good, happiness of the wicked; while others, on the
contrary, believe that though there is a harmony between fate and
events, yet it is not dependent on wandering stars, but on primary
elements, and on a combination of natural causes. Still, they leave us
the capacity of choosing our life, maintaining that, the choice once
made, there is a fixed sequence of events. Good and evil, again, are
not what vulgar opinion accounts them; many who seem to be
struggling with adversity are happy; many, amid great affluence, are
utterly miserable, if only the first bear their hard lot with
patience, and the latter make a foolish use of their prosperity.
Most men, however, cannot part with the belief that each person's
future is fixed from his very birth, but that some things happen
differently from what has been foretold through the impostures of
those who describe what they do not know, and that this destroys the
credit of a science, clear testimonies to which have been given both
by past ages and by our own. In fact, how the son of this same
Thrasyllus predicted Nero's reign I shall relate when the time
comes, not to digress too far from my subject.
That same year the death of Asinius Gallus became known. That he
died of starvation, there was not a doubt; whether of his own choice
or by compulsion, was a question. The emperor was asked whether he
would allow him to be buried, and he blushed not to grant the
favour, and actually blamed the accident which had proved fatal to the
accused before he could be convicted in his presence. Just as if in
a three years' interval an opportunity was wanting for the trial of an
old ex-consul and the father of a number of ex-consuls.
Next Drusus perished, after having prolonged life for eight days
on the most wretched of food, even chewing the stuffing, his bed.
According to some writers, Macro had been instructed that, in case
of Sejanus attempting an armed revolt, he was to hurry the young
prince out of the confinement in which he was detained in the Palace
and put him at the head of the people. Subsequently the emperor, as
a rumour was gaining ground that he was on the point of a
reconciliation with his daughter-in-law and his grandson, chose to
be merciless rather than to relent.
He even bitterly reviled him after his death, taunting him with
nameless abominations and with a spirit bent on his family's ruin
and hostile to the State. And, what seemed most horrible of all, he
ordered a daily journal of all that he said and did to be read in
public. That there had been spies by his side for so many years, to
note his looks, his sighs, and even his whispered thoughts, and that
his grandfather could have heard read, and published all, was scarce
credible. But letters of Attius, a centurion, and Didymus, a freedman,
openly exhibited the names of slave after slave who had respectively
struck or scared Drusus as he was quitting his chamber. The
centurion had actually added, as something highly meritorious, his own
language in all its brutality, and some utterances of the dying man in
which, at first feigning loss of reason, he imprecated in seeming
madness fearful things on Tiberius, and then, when hope of life was
gone, denounced him with a studied and elaborate curse. "As he had
slain a daughter-in-law, a brother's son, and son's sons, and filled
his whole house with bloodshed, so might he pay the full penalty due
to the name and race of his ancestors as well as to future
generations."
The Senate clamorously interrupted, with an affectation of horror,
but they were penetrated by alarm and amazement at seeing that a
hitherto cunning prince, who had shrouded his wickedness in mystery,
had waxed so bold as to remove, so to speak, the walls of his house
and display his grandson under a centurion's lash, amid the buffetings
of slaves, craving in vain the last sustenance of life.
Men's grief at all this had not died away when news was heard of
Agrippina. She had lived on, sustained by hope, I suppose, after the
destruction of Sejanus, and, when she found no abatement of horrors,
had voluntarily perished, though possibly nourishment was refused
her and a fiction concocted of a death that might seem self-chosen.
Tiberius, it is certain, vented his wrath in the foulest charges. He
reproached her with unchastity, with having had Asinius Gallus as a
paramour and being driven by his death to loathe existence. But
Agrippina, who could not endure equality and loved to domineer, was
with her masculine aspirations far removed from the frailties of
women. The emperor further observed that she died on the same day on
which Sejanus had paid the penalty of his crime two years before, a
fact, he said, to be recorded; and he made it a boast that she had not
been strangled by the halter and flung down the Gemonian steps. He
received a vote of thanks, and it was decreed that on the
seventeenth of October, the day on which both perished, through all
future years, an offering should be consecrated to Jupiter.
Soon afterwards Cocceius Nerva, a man always at the emperor's
side, a master of law both divine and human, whose position was secure
and health sound, resolved to die. Tiberius, as soon as he knew it,
sat by him and asked his reasons, adding intreaties, and finally
protesting that it would be a burden on his conscience and a blot on
his reputation, if the most intimate of his friends were to fly from
life without any cause for death. Nerva turned away from his
expostulations and persisted in his abstinence from all food. Those
who knew his thoughts said that as he saw more closely into the
miseries of the State, he chose, in anger and alarm, an honourable
death, while he was yet safe and unassailed on.
Meanwhile Agrippina's ruin, strange to say, dragged Plancina with
it. Formerly the wife of Cneius Piso, and one who had openly exulted
at the death of Germanicus, she had been saved, when Piso fell, by the
intreaties of Augusta, and not less by the enmity of Agrippina. When
hatred and favour had alike passed away, justice asserted itself.
Pursued by charges universally notorious, she suffered by her own hand
a penalty tardy rather than undeserved.
Amid the many sorrows which saddened Rome, one cause of grief was
the marriage of Julia, Drusus's daughter and Nero's late wife, into
the humbler family of Rubellius Blandus, whose grandfather many
remembered as a Roman knight from Tibur. At the end of the year the
death of Aelius Lamia, who, after being at last released from the
farce of governing Syria, had become city-prefect, was celebrated with
the honours of a censor's funeral. He was a man of illustrious
descent, and in a hale old age; and the fact of the province having
been withheld gained him additional esteem. Subsequently, on the death
of Flaccus Pomponius, propraetor of Syria, a letter from the emperor
was read, in which he complained that all the best men who were fit to
command armies declined the service, and that he was thus
necessarily driven to intreaties, by which some of the ex-consuls
might be prevailed on to take provinces. He forgot that Arruntius
had been kept at home now for ten years, that he might not go to
Spain.
That same year Marcus Lepidus also died. I have dwelt at
sufficient length on his moderation and wisdom in my earlier books,
and I need not further enlarge on his noble descent. Assuredly the
family of the Aemilii has been rich in good citizens, and even the
members of that house whose morals were corrupt, still lived with a
certain splendour.
During the consulship of Paulus Fabius and Lucius Vitellius, the
bird called the phoenix, after a long succession of ages, appeared
in Egypt and furnished the most learned men of that country and of
Greece with abundant matter for the discussion of the marvellous
phenomenon. It is my wish to make known all on which they agree with
several things, questionable enough indeed, but not too absurd to be
noticed.
That it is a creature sacred to the sun, differing from all other
birds in its beak and in the tints of its plumage, is held unanimously
by those who have described its nature. As to the number of years it
lives, there are various accounts. The general tradition says five
hundred years. Some maintain that it is seen at intervals of
fourteen hundred and sixty-one years, and that the former birds flew
into the city called Heliopolis successively in the reigns of
Sesostris, Amasis, and Ptolemy, the third king of the Macedonian
dynasty, with a multitude of companion birds marvelling at the novelty
of the appearance. But all antiquity is of course obscure. From
Ptolemy to Tiberius was a period of less than five hundred years.
Consequently some have supposed that this was a spurious phoenix,
not from the regions of Arabia, and with none of the instincts which
ancient tradition has attributed to the bird. For when the number of
years is completed and death is near, the phoenix, it is said,
builds a nest in the land of its birth and infuses into it a germ of
life from which an offspring arises, whose first care, when fledged,
is to bury its father. This is not rashly done, but taking up a load
of myrrh and having tried its strength by a long flight, as soon as it
is equal to the burden and to the journey, it carries its father's
body, bears it to the altar of the Sun, and leaves it to the flames.
All this is full of doubt and legendary exaggeration. Still, there
is no question that the bird is occasionally seen in Egypt.
Rome meanwhile being a scene of ceaseless bloodshed, Pomponius
Labeo, who was, as I have related, governor of Moesia, severed his
veins and let his life ebb from him. His wife, Paxaea, emulated her
husband. What made such deaths eagerly sought was dread of the
executioner, and the fact too that the condemned, besides forfeiture
of their property, were deprived of burial, while those who decided
their fate themselves, had their bodies interred, and their wills
remained valid, a recompense this for their despatch. The emperor,
however, argued in a letter to the Senate that it had been the
practice of our ancestors, whenever they broke off an intimacy, to
forbid the person their house, and so put an end to friendship.
"This usage he had himself revived in Labeo's case, but Labeo, being
pressed by charges of maladministration in his province and other
crimes, had screened his guilt by bringing odium on another, and had
groundlessly alarmed his wife, who, though criminal, was still free
from danger."
Mamercus Scaurus was then for the second time impeached, a man of
distinguished rank and ability as an advocate, but of infamous life.
He fell, not through the friendship of Sejanus, but through what was
no less powerful to destroy, the enmity of Macro, who practised the
same arts more secretly. Macro's information was grounded on the
subject of a tragedy written by Scaurus, from which he cited some
verses which might be twisted into allusions to Tiberius. But
Servilius and Cornelius, his accusers, alleged adultery with Livia and
the practice of magical rites. Scaurus, as befitted the old house of
the Aemilii, forestalled the fatal sentence at the persuasion of his
wife Sextia, who urged him to die and shared his death.
Still the informers were punished when ever an opportunity occurred.
Servilius and Cornelius, for example, whom the destruction of
Scaurus had made notorious, were outlawed and transported to some
islands for having taken money from Varius Ligur for dropping a
prosecution. Abudius Ruso too, who had been an aedile, in seeking to
imperil Lentulus Gaetulicus, under whom he had commanded a legion,
by alleging that he had fixed on a son of Sejanus for his
son-in-law, was himself actually condemned and banished from Rome.
Gaetulicus at this time was in charge of the legions of Upper Germany,
and had won from them singular affection, as a man of unbounded
kindliness, moderate in his strictness, and popular even with the
neighbouring army through his father-in-law, Lucius Apronius. Hence
rumour persistently affirmed that he had ventured to send the
emperor a letter, reminding him that his alliance with Sejanus had not
originated in his own choice, but in the advice of Tiberius; that he
was himself as liable to be deceived as Tiberius, and that the same
mistake ought not to be held innocent in the prince and be a source of
ruin to others. His loyalty was still untainted and would so remain,
if he was not assaIled by any plot. A successor he should accept as an
announcement of his doom. A compact, so to say, ought to be sealed
between them, by which he should retain his province, and the
emperor be master of all else. Strange as this story was, it derived
credibility from the fact that Gaetulicus alone of all connected
with Sejanus lived in safety and in high favour, Tiberius bearing in
mind the people's hatred, his own extreme age how his government
rested more on prestige than on power.
In the consulship of Caius Cestius and Marcus Servilius, some
Parthian nobles came to Rome without the knowledge of their king
Artabanus. Dread of Germanicus had made that prince faithful to the
Romans and just to his people, but he subsequently changed this
behaviour for insolence towards us and tyranny to his subjects. He was
elated by the wars which he had successfully waged against the
surrounding nations, while he disdained the aged and, as he thought,
unwarlike Tiberius, eagerly coveting Armenia, over which, on the death
of Artaxias, he placed Arsaces, his eldest son. He further added
insult, and sent envoys to reclaim the treasures left by Vonones in
Syria and Cilicia. Then too he insisted on the ancient boundaries of
Persia and Macedonia, and intimated, with a vainglorious threat,
that he meant to seize on the country possessed by Cyrus and
afterwards by Alexander.
The chief adviser of the Parthians in sending the secret embassy was
Sinnaces, a man of distinguished family and corresponding wealth. Next
in influence was Abdus, an eunuch, a class which, far from being
despised among barbarians, actually possesses power. These, with
some other nobles whom they admitted to their counsels, as there was
not a single Arsacid whom they could put on the throne, most of the
family having been murdered by Artabanus or being under age,
demanded that Phraates, son of king Phraates, should be sent from
Rome. "Only a name," they said, "and an authority were wanted; only,
in fact, that, with Caesar's consent, a scion of the house of
Arsaces should show himself on the banks of the Euphrates."
This suited the wishes of Tiberius. He provided Phraates with what
he needed for assuming his father's sovereignty, while he clung to his
purpose of regulating foreign affairs by a crafty policy and keeping
war at a distance. Artabanus meanwhile, hearing of the treacherous
arrangement, was one moment perplexed by apprehension, the next
fired with a longing for revenge. With barbarians, indecision is a
slave's weakness; prompt action king-like. But now expediency
prevailed, and he invited Abdus, under the guise of friendship, to a
banquet, and disabled him by a lingering poison; Sinnaces he put off
by pretexts and presents, and also by various employments. Phraates
meanwhile, on arriving in Syria, where he threw off the Roman fashions
to which for so many years he had been accustomed, and adapted himself
to Parthian habits, unable to endure the customs of his country, was
carried off by an illness. Still, Tiberius did not relinquish his
purpose. He chose Tiridates, of the same stock as Artabanus, to be his
rival, and the Iberian Mithridates to be the instrument of
recovering Armenia, having reconciled him to his brother
Pharasmanes, who held the throne of that country. He then intrusted
the whole of his eastern policy to Lucius Vitellius. The man, I am
aware, had a bad name at Rome, and many a foul story was told of
him. But in the government of provinces he acted with the virtue of
ancient times. He returned, and then, through fear of Caius Caesar and
intimacy with Claudius, he degenerated into a servility so base that
he is regarded by an after-generation as the type of the most
degrading adulation. The beginning of his career was forgotten in
its end, and an old age of infamy effaced the virtues of youth.
Of the petty chiefs Mithridates was the first to persuade
Pharasmanes to aid his enterprise by stratagem and force, and agents
of corruption were found who tempted the servants of Arsaces into
crime by a quantity of gold. At the same instant the Iberians burst
into Armenia with a huge host, and captured the city of Artaxata.
Artabanus, on hearing this, made his son Orodes the instrument of
vengeance. He gave him the Parthian army and despatched men to hire
auxiliaries. Pharasmanes, on the other hand, allied himself with the
Albanians, and procured aid from the Sarmatae, whose highest chiefs
took bribes from both sides, after the fashion of their countrymen,
and engaged themselves in conflicting interests. But the Iberians, who
were masters of the various positions, suddenly poured the Sarmatae
into Armenia by the Caspian route. Meanwhile those who were coming
up to the support of the Parthians were easily kept back, all other
approaches having been closed by the enemy except one, between the sea
and the mountains on the Albanian frontier, which summer rendered
difficult, as there the shallows are flooded by the force of the
Etesian gales. The south wind in winter rolls back the waves, and when
the sea is driven back upon itself, the shallows along the coast,
are exposed.
Meantime, while Orodes was without an ally, Pharasmanes, now
strengthened by reinforcements, challenged him to battle, taunted
him on his refusal, rode up to his camp and harassed his foraging
parties. He often hemmed him in with his picquets in the fashion of
a blockade, till the Parthians, who were unused to such insults,
gathered round the king and demanded battle. Their sole strength was
in cavalry; Pharasmanes was also powerful in infantry, for the
Iberians and Albanians, inhabiting as they did a densely wooded
country, were more inured to hardship and endurance. They claim to
have been descended from the Thessalians, at the period when Jason,
after the departure of Medea and the children born of her, returned
subsequently to the empty palace of Aeetes, and the vacant kingdom
of Colchi. They have many traditions connected with his name and
with the oracle of Phrixus. No one among them would think of
sacrificing a ram, the animal supposed to have conveyed Phrixus,
whether it was really a ram or the figure-head of a ship.
Both sides having been drawn up in battle array, the Parthian leader
expatiated on the empire of the East, and the renown of the
Arsacids, in contrast to the despicable Iberian chief with his
hireling soldiery. Pharasmanes reminded his people that they had
been free from Parthian domination, and that the grander their aims,
the more glory they would win if victorious, the more disgrace and
peril they would incur if they turned their backs. He pointed, as he
spoke, to his own menacing array, and to the Median bands with their
golden embroidery; warriors, as he said, on one side, spoil on the
other.
Among the Sarmatae the general's voice was not alone to be heard.
They encouraged one another not to begin the battle with volleys of
arrows; they must, they said, anticipate attack by a hand to hand
charge. Then followed every variety of conflict. The Parthians,
accustomed to pursue or fly with equal science, deployed their
squadrons, and sought scope for their missiles. The Sarmatae, throwing
aside their bows, which at a shorter range are effective, rushed on
with pikes and swords. Sometimes, as in a cavalry-action, there
would be alternate advances and retreats, then, again, close fighting,
in which, breast to breast, with the clash of arms, they repulsed
the foe or were themselves repulsed. And now the Albanians and
Iberians seized, and hurled the Parthians from their steeds, and
embarrassed their enemy with a double attack, pressed as they were
by the cavalry on the heights and by the nearer blows of the infantry.
Meanwhile Pharasmanes and Orodes, who, as they cheered on the brave
and supported the wavering, were conspicuous to all, and so recognised
each other, rushed to the combat with a shout, with javelins, and
galloping chargers, Pharasmanes with the greater impetuosity, for he
pierced his enemy's helmet at a stroke. But he could not repeat the
blow, as he was hurried onwards by his horse, and the wounded man
was protected by the bravest of his guards. A rumour that he was
slain, which was believed by mistake, struck panic into the Parthians,
and they yielded the victory.
Artabanus very soon marched with the whole strength of his
kingdom, intent on vengeance. The Iberians from their knowledge of the
country fought at an advantage. Still Artabanus did not retreat till
Vitellius had assembled his legions and, by starting a report that
he meant to invade Mesopotamia, raised an alarm of war with Rome.
Armenia was then abandoned, and the fortunes of Artabanus were
overthrown, Vitellius persuading his subjects to forsake a king who
was a tyrant in peace, and ruinously unsuccessful in war. And so
Sinnaces, whose enmity to the prince I have already mentioned, drew
into actual revolt his father Abdageses and others, who had been
secretly in his counsel, and were now after their continued
disasters more eager to fight. By degrees, many flocked to him who,
having been kept in subjection by fear rather than by goodwill, took
courage as soon as they found leaders.
Artabanus had now no resources but in some foreigners who guarded
his person, men exiled from their own homes, who had no perception
of honour, or any scruple about a base act, mere hireling
instruments of crime. With these attendants he hastened his flight
into the remote country on the borders of Scythia, in the hope of aid,
as he was connected by marriage alliances with the Hyrcanians and
Carmanians. Meantime the Parthians, he thought, indulgent as they
are to an absent prince, though restless under his presence, might
turn to a better mind.
Vitellius, as soon as Artabanus had fled and his people were
inclined to have a new king, urged Tiridates to seize the advantage
thus offered, and then led the main strength of the legions and the
allies to the banks of the Euphrates. While they were sacrificing, the
one, after Roman custom, offering a swine, a ram and a bull; the
other, a horse which he had duly prepared as a propitiation to the
river-god, they were informed by the neighbouring inhabitants that the
Euphrates, without any violent rains, was of itself rising to an
immense height, and that the white foam was curling into circles
like a diadem, an omen of a prosperous passage. Some explained it with
more subtlety, of a successful commencement to the enterprise,
which, however, would not be lasting, on the ground, that though a
confident trust might be placed in prognostics given in the earth or
in the heavens, the fluctuating character of rivers exhibited omens
which vanished the same moment.
A bridge of boats having been constructed and the army having
crossed, the first to enter the camp was Ornospades, with several
thousand cavalry. Formerly an exile, he had rendered conspicuous aid
to Tiberius in the completion of the Dalmatic war, and had for this
been rewarded with Roman citizenship. Subsequently, he had again
sought the friendship of his king, by whom he had been raised to
high honour, and appointed governor of the plains, which, being
surrounded by the waters of those famous rivers, the Euphrates and
Tigris, have received the name of Mesopotamia. Soon afterwards,
Sinnaces reinforced the army, and Abdageses, the mainstay of the
party, came with the royal treasure and what belonged to the crown.
Vitellius thought it enough to have displayed the arms of Rome, and he
then bade Tiridates remember his grandfather Phraates, and his
foster-father Caesar, and all that was glorious in both of them, while
the nobles were to show obedience to their king, and respect for us,
each maintaining his honour and his loyalty. This done, he returned
with the legions to Syria.
I have related in sequence the events of two summer-campaigns, as
a relief to the reader's mind from our miseries at home. Though
three years had elapsed since the destruction of Sejanus, neither
time, intreaties, nor sated gratification, all which have a soothing
effect on others, softened Tiberius, or kept him from punishing
doubtful or forgotten offenses as most flagrant and recent crimes.
Under this dread, Fulcinius Trio, unwilling to face an onslaught of
accusers, inserted in his will several terrible imputations on Macro
and on the emperor's principal freedmen, while he taunted the
emperor himself with the mental decay of old age, and the virtual
exile of continuous retirement. Tiberius ordered these insults,
which Trio's heirs had suppressed, to be publicly read, thus showing
his tolerance of free speech in others and despising his own shame,
or, possibly, because he had long been ignorant of the villanies of
Sejanus, and now wished any remarks, however reckless, to published,
and so to ascertain, through invective, if it must be so, the truth,
which flattery obscures. About the same time Granius Marcianus, a
senator, who was accused of treason by Caius Gracchus, laid hands on
himself. Tarius Gratianus too, an ex-praetor, was condemned under
the same law to capital punishment.
A similar fate befell Trebellienus Rufus and Sextius Paconianus.
Trebellienus perished by his own hand; Paconianus was strangled in
prison for having there written some lampoons on the emperor. Tiberius
received the news, no longer parted by the sea, as he had been once,
or through messengers from a distance, but in close proximity to Rome,
so that on the same day, or after the interval of a single night, he
could reply to the despatches of the consuls, and almost behold the
bloodshed as it streamed from house to house, and the strokes of the
executioner.
At the year's close Poppaeus Sabinus died, a man of somewhat
humble extraction, who had risen by his friendship with two emperors
to the consulship and the honours of a triumph. During twenty-four
years he had the charge of the most important provinces, not for any
remarkable ability, but because he was equal to business and was not
too great for it.
Quintus Plautius and Sextus Papinius were the next consuls. The fact
that that year Lucius Aruseius was put to death did not strike men
as anything horrible, from their familiarity with evil deeds. But
there was a panic when Vibulenus Agrippa, a Roman knight, as soon as
his accusers had finished their case, took from his robe, in the
very Senate-house, a dose of poison, drank it off, and, as he fell
expiring, was hurried away to prison by the prompt hands of lictors,
where the neck of the now lifeless man was crushed with the halter.
Even Tigranes, who had once ruled Armenia and was now impeached, did
not escape the punishment of an ordinary citizen on the strength of
his royal title.
Caius Galba meanwhile and the Blaesi perished by a voluntary
death; Galba, because a harsh letter from the emperor forbade him to
have a province allotted to him; while, as for the Blaesi, the
priesthoods intended for them during the prosperity of their house,
Tiberius had withheld, when that prosperity was shaken, and now
conferred, as vacant offices, on others. This they understood as a
signal of their doom, and acted on it.
Aemilia Lepida too, whose marriage with the younger Drusus I have
already related, who, though she had pursued her husband with
ceaseless accusations, remained unpunished, infamous as she was, as
long as her father Lepidus lived, subsequently fell a victim to the
informers for adultery with a slave. There was no question about her
guilt, and so without an attempt at defence she put an end to her
life.
At this same time the Clitae, a tribe subject to the Cappadocian
Archelaus, retreated to the heights of Mount Taurus, because they were
compelled in Roman fashion to render an account of their revenue and
submit to tribute. There they defended themselves by means of the
nature of the country against the king's unwarlike troops, till Marcus
Trebellius, whom Vitellius, the governor of Syria, sent as his
lieutenant with four thousand legionaries and some picked auxiliaries,
surrounded with his lines two hills occupied by the barbarians, the
lesser of which was named Cadra, the other Davara. Those who dared
to sally out, he reduced to surrender by the sword, the rest by
drought.
Tiridates meanwhile, with the consent of the Parthians, received the
submission of Nicephorium, Anthemusias and the other cities, which
having been founded by Macedonians, claim Greek names, also of the
Parthian towns Halus and Artemita. There was a rivalry of joy among
the inhabitants who detested Artabanus, bred as he had been among
the Scythians, for his cruelty, and hoped to find in Tiridates a
kindly spirit from his Roman training.
Seleucia, a powerful and fortified city which had never lapsed
into barbarism, but had clung loyally to its founder Seleucus, assumed
the most marked tone of flattery. Three hundred citizens, chosen for
wealth or wisdom, form a kind of senate, and the people have powers of
their own. When both act in concert, they look with contempt on the
Parthians; as soon as they are at discord, and the respective
leaders invite aid for themselves against their rivals, the ally
summoned to help a faction crushes them all. This had lately
happened in the reign of Artabanus, who, for his own interest, put the
people at the mercy of the nobles. As a fact, popular government
almost amounts to freedom, while the rule of the few approaches
closely to a monarch's caprice.
Seleucia now celebrated the arrival of Tiridates with all the
honours paid to princes of old and all which modern times, with a more
copious inventiveness, have devised. Reproaches were at the same
time heaped on Artabanus, as an Arsacid indeed on his mother's side,
but as in all else degenerate. Tiridates gave the government of
Seleucia to the people. Soon afterwards, as he was deliberating on
what day he should inaugurate his reign, he received letters from
Phraates and Hiero, who held two very powerful provinces, imploring
a brief delay. It was thought best to wait for men of such
commanding influence, and meanwhile Ctesiphon, the seat of empire, was
their chosen destination. But as they postponed their coming from
day to day, the Surena, in the presence of an approving throng,
crowned Tiridates, according to the national usage, with the royal
diadem.
And now had he instantly made his way to the heart of the country
and to its other tribes, the reluctance of those who wavered, would
have been overpowered, and all to a man would have yielded. By
besieging a fortress into which Artabanus had conveyed his treasure
and his concubines, he gave them time to disown their compact.
Phraates and Hiero, with others who had not united in celebrating
the day fixed for the coronation, some from fear, some out of jealousy
of Abdageses, who then ruled the court and the new king, transferred
their allegiance to Artabanus. They found him in Hyrcania, covered
with filth and procuring sustenance with his bow. He was at first
alarmed under the impression that treachery was intended, but when
they pledged their honour that they had come to restore to him his
dominion, his spirit revived, and he asked what the sudden change
meant. Hiero then spoke insultingly of the boyish years of
Tiridates, hinting that the throne was not held by an Arsacid, but
that a mere empty name was enjoyed by a feeble creature bred in
foreign effeminacy, while the actual power was in the house of
Abdageses.
An experienced king, Artabanus knew that men do not necessarily
feign hatred because they are false in friendship. He delayed only
while he was raising auxiliaries in Scythia, and then pushed on in
haste, thus anticipating the plots of enemies and the fickleness of
friends. Wishing to attract popular sympathy, he did not even cast off
his miserable garb. He stooped to wiles and to entreaties, to anything
indeed by which he might allure the wavering and confirm the willing.
He was now approaching the neighbourhood of Seleucia with a large
force, while Tiridates, dismayed by the rumour. and then by the king's
presence in person, was divided in mind, and doubted whether he should
march against him or prolong the war by delay. Those who wished for
battle with its prompt decision argued that ill-arrayed levies
fatigued by a long march could not even in heart be thoroughly
united in obedience, traitors and enemies as they had lately been,
to the prince whom now again they were supporting. Abdageses, however,
advised a retreat into Mesopotamia. There, with a river in their
front, they might in the interval summon to their aid the Armenians
and Elymaeans and other nations in their rear, and then, reinforced by
allies and troops which would be sent by the Roman general, they might
try the fortune of war. This advice prevailed, for Abdageses had the
chief influence and Tiridates was a coward in the face of danger.
But their retreat resembled a flight. The Arabs made a beginning,
and then the rest went to their homes or to the camp of Artabanus,
till Tiridates returned to Syria with a few followers and thus
relieved all from the disgrace of desertion.
That same year Rome suffered from a terrible fire, and part of the
circus near the Aventine hill was burnt, as well as the Aventine
quarter itself. This calamity the emperor turned to his own glory by
paying the values of the houses and blocks of tenements. A hundred
million of sesterces was expended in this munificence, a boon all
the more acceptable to the populace, as Tiberius was rather sparing in
building at his private expense. He raised only two structures even at
the public cost, the temple of Augustus and the stage of Pompey's
theatre, and when these were completed, he did not dedicate them,
either out of contempt for popularity or from his extreme age. Four
commissioners, all husbands of the emperor's granddaughters- Cneius
Domitius, Cassius Longinus, Marcus Vinicius, Rubellius Blandus- were
appointed to assess the damage in each case, and Publius Petronius was
added to their number on the nomination of the consuls. Various
honours were devised and decreed to the emperor such as each man's
ingenuity suggested. It is a question which of these he rejected or
accepted, as the end of his life was so near.
For soon afterwards Tiberius's last consuls, Cneius Acerronius and
Caius Pontius, entered on office, Macro's power being now excessive.
Every day the man cultivated more assiduously than ever the favour
of Caius Caesar, which, indeed, he had never neglected, and after
the death of Claudia, who had, as I have related, been married to
Caius, he had prompted his wife Ennia to inveigle the young prince
by a pretence of love, and to bind him by an engagement of marriage,
and the lad, provided he could secure the throne, shrank from no
conditions. For though he was of an excitable temper, he had
thoroughly learnt the falsehoods of hypocrisy under the loving care of
his grandfather.
This the emperor knew, and he therefore hesitated about
bequeathing the empire, first, between his grandsons. Of these, the
son of Drusus was nearest in blood and natural affection, but he was
still in his childhood. Germanicus's son was in the vigour of youth
and enjoyed the people's favour, a reason for having his grandfather's
hatred. Tiberius had even thought of Claudius, as he was of sedate age
and had a taste for liberal culture, but a weak intellect was
against him. If however he were to seek a successor outside of his
house, he feared that the memory of Augustus and the name of the
Caesars would become a laughing-stock and a scorn. It was, in fact,
not so much popularity in the present for which he cared as for
glory in the future.
Perplexed in mind, exhausted in body, he soon left to destiny a
question to which he was unequal, though he threw out some hints
from which it might be inferred that he foresaw what was to come. He
taunted Macro, in no obscure terms, with forsaking the setting and
looking to the rising sun. Once too when Caius Caesar in a casual
conversation ridiculed Lucius Sulla, he predicted to him that he would
have all Sulla's vices and none of his virtues. At the same moment
he embraced the younger of his two grandsons with a flood of tears,
and, noting the savage face of the other, said, "You will slay this
boy, and will be yourself slain by another." But even while his
strength was fast failing he gave up none of his debaucheries. In
his sufferings he would simulate health, and was wont to jest at the
arts of the physician and at all who, after the age of thirty, require
another man's advice to distinguish between what is