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 beneficial or

hurtful to their constitutions.

At Rome meanwhile were being sown the seeds of bloodshed to come

even after Tiberius's death. Acutia, formerly the wife of Publius

Vitellius, had been accused of treason by Laelius Balbus. When on

her condemnation a reward was being voted to her prosecutor, Junius

Otho, tribune of the people, interposed his veto. Hence a feud between

Vitellius and Otho, ending in Otho's banishment. Then Albucilla,

notorious for the number of her lovers, who had been married to

Satrius Secundus, the betrayer of the late conspiracy, was charged

with irreverence towards the emperor. With her were involved as her

accomplices and paramours Cneius Domitius, Vibius Marsus and Lucius

Arruntius. I have already spoken of the illustrious rank of

Domitius. Marsus too was distinguished by the honours of his ancestors

and by his own attainments. It was, however, stated in the notes of

the proceedings furnished to the Senate that Macro had superintended

the examination of the witnesses and the torture of the slaves, and

the fact that there was no letter from the emperor against the

defendants caused a suspicion that, while he was very feeble and

possibly ignorant of the matter, the charge was to a great extent

invented to gratify Macro's well-known enmity against Arruntius.

And so Domitius and Marsus prolonged their lives, Domitius,

preparing his defence, Marsus, having apparently resolved on

starvation. Arruntius, when his friends advised delay and temporising,

replied that "the same conduct was not becoming in all persons. He had

had enough of life, and all he regretted was that he had endured

amid scorn and peril an old age of anxious fears, long detested by

Sejanus, now by Macro, always, indeed, by some powerful minister,

not for any fault, but as a man who could not tolerate gross

iniquities. Granted the possibility of passing safely through the

few last days of Tiberius. How was he to be secure under the youth

of the coming sovereign? Was it probable that, when Tiberius with

his long experience of affairs was, under the influence of absolute

power, wholly perverted and changed, Caius Caesar, who had hardly

completed his boyhood, was thoroughly ignorant and bred under the

vilest training, would enter on a better course, with Macro for his

guide, who having been selected for his superior wickedness, to

crush Sejanus had by yet more numerous crimes been the scourge of

the State? He now foresaw a still more galling slavery, and

therefore sought to flee alike from the past and from the impending

future."

While he thus spoke like a prophet, he opened his veins. What

followed will be a proof that Arruntius rightly chose death.

Albucilla, having stabbed herself with an ineffectual wound, was by

the Senate's order carried off to prison. Those who had ministered

to her profligacy, Carsidius Sacerdos, an ex-praetor, and Pontius

Fregellanus were sentenced, respectively, to transportation to an

island and to loss of a senator's rank. A like punishment was adjudged

in the case of Laelius Balbus, and, indeed, with intense satisfaction,

as Balbus was noted for his savage eloquence and his eagerness to

assail the innocent.

About the same time Sextus Papinius, who belonged to a family of

consular rank, chose a sudden and shocking death, by throwing

himself from a height. The cause was ascribed to his mother who,

having been repeatedly repulsed in her overtures, had at last by her

arts and seductions driven him to an extremity from which he could

find no escape but death. She was accordingly put on her trial

before the Senate, and, although she grovelled at the knees of the

senators and long urged a parent's grief, the greater weakness of a

woman's mind under such an affliction and other sad and pitiful

pleas of the same painful kind, she was after all banished from Rome

for ten years, till her younger son would have passed the frail period

of youth.

Tiberius's bodily powers were now leaving him, but not his skill

in dissembling. There was the same stern spirit; he had his words

and looks under strict control, and occasionally would try to hide his

weakness, evident as it was, by a forced politeness. After frequent

changes of place, he at last settled down on the promontory of Misenum

in a country-house once owned by Lucius Lucullus. There it was

noted, in this way, that he was drawing near his end. There was a

physician, distinguished in his profession, of the name of

Charicles, usually employed, not indeed to have the direction of the

emperor's varying health, but to put his advice at immediate disposal.

This man, as if he were leaving on business his own, clasped his hand,

with a show of homage, and touched his pulse. Tiberius noticed it.

Whether he was displeased and strove the more to hide his anger, is

a question; at any rate, he ordered the banquet to be renewed, and sat

at the table longer than usual, by way, apparently, of showing

honour to his departing friend. Charicles, however, assured Macro that

his breath was failing and that he would not last more than two

days. All was at once hurry; there were conferences among those on the

spot and despatches to the generals and armies. On the 15th of

March, his breath failing, he was believed to have expired, and

Caius Caesar was going forth with a numerous throng of

congratulating followers to take the first possession of the empire,

when suddenly news came that Tiberius was recovering his voice and

sight, and calling for persons to bring him food to revive him from

his faintness. Then ensued a universal panic, and while the rest

fled hither and thither, every one feigning grief or ignorance,

Caius Caesar, in silent stupor, passed from the highest hopes to the

extremity of apprehension. Macro, nothing daunted, ordered the old

emperor to be smothered under a huge heap of clothes, and all to

quit the entrance-hall.

And so died Tiberius, in the seventy eighth year of his age. Nero

was his father, and he was on both sides descended from the Claudian

house, though his mother passed by adoption, first into the Livian,

then into the Julian family. From earliest infancy, perilous

vicissitudes were his lot. Himself an exile, he was the companion of a

proscribed father, and on being admitted as a stepson into the house

of Augustus, he had to struggle with many rivals, so long as Marcellus

and Agrippa and, subsequently, Caius and Lucius Caesar were in their

glory. Again his brother Drusus enjoyed in a greater degree the

affection of the citizens. But he was more than ever on dangerous

ground after his marriage with Julia, whether he tolerated or

escaped from his wife's profligacy. On his return from Rhodes he ruled

the emperor's now heirless house for twelve years, and the Roman

world, with absolute sway, for about twenty-three. His character too

had its distinct periods. It was a bright time in his life and

reputation, while under Augustus he was a private citizen or held high

offices; a time of reserve and crafty assumption of virtue, as long as

Germanicus and Drusus were alive. Again, while his mother lived, he

was a compound of good and evil; he was infamous for his cruelty,

though he veiled his debaucheries, while he loved or feared Sejanus.

Finally, he plunged into every wickedness and disgrace, when fear

and shame being cast off, he simply indulged his own inclinations.

[The four following books and the beginning of Book XI, which are

lost, contained the history of a period of nearly ten years, from A.D.

37 to A.D. 47. These years included the reign of Caius Caesar

(Caligula), the son of Germanicus by the elder Agrippina, and the

first six years of the reign of Claudius. Caius Caesar's reign was

three years ten months and eight days in duration. Claudius

(Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus), the brother of Germanicus,

succeeded him, at the age of fifty, and reigned from A.D. 41 to A.D.

54.

The Eleventh Book of the Annals opens with the seventh year of

Claudius's reign. The power of his wife Messalina was then at its

height. She was, it seems, jealous of a certain Poppaea Sabina, who is

mentioned in Book XIII., as "having surpassed in beauty all the ladies

of her day." This Poppaea was the daughter of the Poppaeus Sabinus

alluded to in Book VI., and the mother of the more famous Poppaea,

afterwards the wife of the emperor Nero. Messalina contrived to

involve this lady and her lover, Valerius Asiaticus, in a ruinous

charge. Asiaticus had been twice consul, once under Caius Caesar, a

second time under Claudius in A.D. 46. He was rich as well as noble.

The Eleventh Book, as we have it, begins with the account of his

prosecution by means Messalina, who with the help of Lucius Vitellius,

Vitellius, father of the Vitellius, afterwards emperor, effected his

ruin.]

BOOK XI, A.D. 47, 48

MESSALINA believed that Valerius Asiaticus, who had been twice

consul, was one of Poppaea's old lovers. At the same time she was

looking greedily at the gardens which Lucullus had begun and which

Asiaticus was now adorning with singular magnificence, and so she

suborned Suilius to accuse both him and Poppaea. With Suilius was

associated Sosibius, tutor to Britannicus, who was to give Claudius an

apparently friendly warning to beware of a power and wealth which

threatened the throne. Asiaticus, he said, had been the ringleader

in the murder of a Caesar, and then had not feared to face an assembly

of the Roman people, to own the deed, and challenge its glory for

his own. Thus grown famous in the capital, and with a renown widely

spread through the provinces, he was planning a journey to the

armies of Germany. Born at Vienna, and supported by numerous and

powerful connections, he would find it easy to rouse nations allied to

his house. Claudius made no further inquiry, but sent Crispinus,

commander of the Praetorians, with troops in hot haste, as though to

put down a revolt. Crispinus found him at Baiae, loaded him with

chains, and hurried him to Rome.

No hearing before the Senate was granted him. It was in the

emperor's chamber, in the presence of Messalina, that he was heard.

There Suilius accused him of corrupting the troops, of binding them by

bribes and indulgences to share in every crime, of adultery with

Poppaea, and finally of unmanly vice. It was at this last that the

accused broke silence, and burst out with the words, "Question thy own

sons, Suilius;they will own my manhood." Then he entered on his

defence. Claudius he moved profoundly, and he even drew tears from

Messalina. But as she left the chamber to wipe them away, she warned

Vitellius not to let the man escape. She hastened herself to effect

Poppaea's destruction, and hired agents to drive her to suicide by the

terrors of a prison. Caesar meanwhile was so unconscious that a few

days afterwards he asked her husband Scipio, who was dining with

him, why he sat down to table without his wife, and was told in

reply that she had paid the debt of nature.

When Claudius began to deliberate about the acquittal of

Asiaticus, Vitellius, with tears in his eyes, spoke of his old

friendship with the accused, and of their joint homage to the

emperor's mother, Antonia. He then briefly reviewed the services of

Asiaticus to the State, his recent campaign in the invasion of

Britain, and everything else which seemed likely to win compassion,

and suggested that he should be free to choose his death. Claudius's

reply was in the same tone of mercy. Some friends urged on Asiaticus

the quiet death of self-starvation, but he declined it with thanks. He

took his usual exercise, then bathed and dined cheerfully, and

saying that he had better have fallen by the craft of Tiberius or

the fury of Caius Caesar than by the treachery of a woman and the

shameless mouth of Vitellius, he opened his veins, but not till he had

inspected his funeral pyre, and directed its removal to another

spot, lest the smoke should hurt the thick foliage of the trees. So

complete was his calmness even to the last.

The senators were then convoked, and Suilius proceeded to find new

victims in two knights of the first rank who bore the surname of

Petra. The real cause of their destruction was that they had lent

their house for the meetings of Mnester and Poppaea. But it was a

vision of the night that was the actual charge against one of them. He

had, it was alleged, beheld Claudius crowned with a garland of

wheat, the ears of which were turned downwards, and, from this

appearance, he foretold scanty harvests. Some have said that it was

a vine-wreath, of which the leaves were white, which he saw, and

that he interpreted it to signify the death of the emperor after the

turn of autumn. It is, however, beyond dispute that in consequence

of some dream, whatever it was, both the man and his brother perished.

Fifteen hundred thousand sesterces and the decorations of the

praetorship were voted to Crispinus. Vitellius bestowed a million on

Sosibius, for giving Britannicus the benefit of his teaching and

Claudius that of his counsels. I may add that when Scipio was called

on for his opinion, he replied, "As I think what all men think about

the deeds of Poppaea, suppose me to say what all men say." A

graceful compromise this between the affection of the husband and

the necessities of the senator.

Suilius after this plied his accusations without cessation or

pity, and his audacity had many rivals. By assuming to himself all the

functions of laws and magistrates, the emperor had left exposed

everything which invited plunder, and of all articles of public

merchandise nothing was more venal than the treachery of advocates.

Thus it happened that one Samius, a Roman knight of the first rank,

who had paid four hundred thousand sesterces to Suilius, stabbed

himself in the advocate's house, on ascertaining his collusion with

the adversary. Upon this, following the lead of Silius,

consul-elect, whose elevation and fall I shall in due course relate,

the senators rose in a body, and demanded the enforcement of the

Cincian law, an old enactment, which forbade any one to receive a

fee or a gift for pleading a cause.

When the men, at whom this strong censure was levelled, loudly

protested, Silius, who had a quarrel with Suilius, attacked them

with savage energy. He cited as examples the orators of old who had

thought fame with posterity the fairest recompense of eloquence.

And, "apart from this," he said, "the first of noble accomplishments

was debased by sordid services, and even good faith could not be

upheld in its integrity, when men looked at the greatness of their

gains. If law suits turned to no one's profit, there would be fewer of

them. As it was, quarrels, accusations, hatreds and wrongs were

encouraged, in order that, as the violence of disease brings fees to

the physician, so the corruption of the forum might enrich the

advocate. They should remember Caius Asinius and Messala, and, in

later days, Arruntius and Aeserninus, men raised by a blameless life

and by eloquence to the highest honours."

So spoke the consul-elect, and others agreed with him. A

resolution was being framed to bring the guilty under the law of

extortion, when Suilius and Cossutianus and the rest, who saw

themselves threatened with punishment rather than trial, for their

guilt was manifest, gathered round the emperor, and prayed forgiveness

for the past.

When he had nodded assent, they began to plead their cause. "Who,"

they asked, "can be so arrogant as to anticipate in hope an eternity

of renown? It is for the needs and the business of life that the

resource of eloquence is acquired, thanks to which no one for want

of an advocate is at the mercy of the powerful. But eloquence cannot

be obtained for nothing; private affairs are neglected, in order

that a man may devote himself to the business of others. Some

support life by the profession of arms, some by cultivating land. No

work is expected from any one of which he has not before calculated

the profits. It was easy for Asinius and Messala, enriched with the

prizes of the conflict between Antony and Augustus, it was easy for

Arruntius and Aeserninus, the heirs of wealthy families, to assume

grand airs. We have examples at hand. How great were the fees for

which Publius Clodius and Caius Curio were wont to speak! We are

ordinary senators, seeking in the tranquillity of the State for none

but peaceful gains. You must consider the plebeian, how he gains

distinction from the gown. Take away the rewards of a profession,

and the profession must perish." The emperor thought that these

arguments, though less noble, were not without force. He limited the

fee which might be taken to ten thousand sesterces, and those who

exceeded this limit were to be liable to the penalties of extortion.

About this same time Mithridates, of whom I have before spoken as

having ruled Armenia, and having been imprisoned by order of Caius

Caesar, made his way back to his kingdom at the suggestion of Claudius

and in reliance on the help of Pharasmanes. This Pharasmanes, who

was king of the Iberians and Mithridates' brother, now told him that

the Parthians were divided, and that the highest questions of empire

being uncertain, lesser matters were neglected. Gotarzes, among his

many cruelties, had caused the death of his brother Artabanus, with

his wife and son. Hence his people feared for themselves and sent

for Vardanes. Ever ready for daring achievements, Vardanes traversed

375 miles in two days, and drove before him the surprised and

terrified Gotarzes. Without moment's delay, he seized the neighbouring

governments, Seleucia alone refusing his rule. Rage against the place,

which indeed had also revolted from his father, rather than

considerations of policy, made him embarrass himself with the siege of

a strong city, which the defence of a river flowing by it, with

fortifications and supplies, had thoroughly secured. Gotarzes

meanwhile, aided by the resources of the Dahae and Hyrcanians, renewed

the war; and Vardanes, compelled to raise the siege of Seleucia,

encamped on the plains of Bactria.

Then it was that while the forces of the East were divided, and

hesitated which side they should take, the opportunity of occupying

Armenia was presented to Mithridates, who had the vigorous soldiers of

Rome to storm the fortified heights, while his Iberian cavalry scoured

the plain. The Armenians made no resistance after their governor,

Demonax, had ventured on a battle and had been routed. Cotys, king

of Lesser Armenia, to whom some of the nobles inclined, caused some

delay, but he was stopped by a despatch from Claudius, and then

everything passed into the hands of Mithridates, who showed more

cruelty than was wise in a new ruler. The Parthian princes however,

just when they were beginning battle, came to a sudden agreement, on

discovering a plot among their people, which Gotarzes revealed to

his brother. At first they approached each other with hesitation;

then, joining right hands, they promised before the altars of their

gods to punish the treachery of their enemies and to yield one to

the other. Vardanes seemed more capable of retaining rule. Gotarzes,

to avoid all rivalry, retired into the depths of Hyrcania. When

Vardanes returned, Seleucia capitulated to him, seven years after

its revolt, little to the credit of the Parthians, whom a single

city had so long defied.

He then visited the strongest governments, and was eager to

recover Armenia, but was stopped by Vibius Marsus, governor of

Syria, who threatened war. Meanwhile Gotarzes, who repented of

having relinquished his throne, at the solicitation of the nobility,

to whom subjection is a special hardship in peace, collected a

force. Vardanes marched against him to the river Charinda; a fierce

battle was fought over the passage, Vardanes winning a complete

victory, and in a series of successful engagements subduing the

intermediate tribes as far as the river Sindes, which is the

boundary between the Dahae and the Arians. There his successes

terminated. The Parthians, victorious though they were, rebelled

against distant service. So after erecting monuments on which he

recorded his greatness, and the tribute won from peoples from whom

no Arsacid had won it before, he returned covered with glory, and

therefore the more haughty and more intolerable to his subjects than

ever. They arranged a plot, and slew him when he was off his guard and

intent upon the chase. He was still in his first youth, and might have

been one of the illustrious few among aged princes, had he sought to

be loved by his subjects as much as to be feared by his foes.

The murder of Vardanes threw the affairs of Parthia into

confusion, as the people were in doubt who should be summoned to the

throne. Many inclined to Gotarzes, some to Meherdates, a descendant of

Phraates, who was a hostage in our hands. Finally Gotarzes

prevailed. Established in the palace, he drove the Parthians by his

cruelty and profligacy to send a secret entreaty to the Roman

emperor that Meherdates might be allowed to mount the throne of his

ancestors.

It was during this consulship, in the eight hundredth year after the

foundation of Rome and the sixty-fourth after their celebration by

Augustus that the secular games were exhibited. I say nothing of the

calculations of the two princes, which I have sufficiently discussed

in my history of the emperor Domitian; for he also exhibited secular

games, at which indeed, being one of the priesthood of the Fifteen and

praetor at the time, I specially assisted. It is in no boastful spirit

that I mention this, but because this duty has immemorially belonged

to the College of the Fifteen, and the praetors have performed the

chief functions in these ceremonies. While Claudius sat to witness the

games of the circus, some of the young nobility acted on horseback the

battle of Troy. Among them was Britannicus, the emperor's son, and

Lucius Domitius, who became soon afterwards by adoption heir to the

empire with the surname of Nero. The stronger popular enthusiasm which

greeted him was taken to presage his greatness. It was commonly

reported that snakes had been seen by his cradle, which they seemed to

guard, a fabulous tale invented to match the marvels of other lands.

Nero, never a disparager of himself, was wont to say that but one

snake, at most, had been seen in his chamber.

Something however of popular favour was bequeathed to him from the

remembrance of Germanicus, whose only male descendant he was, and

the pity felt for his mother Agrippina was increased by the cruelty of

Messalina, who, always her enemy, and then more furious than ever, was

only kept from planning an accusation and suborning informers by a new

and almost insane passion. She had grown so frantically enamoured of

Caius Silius, the handsomest of the young nobility of Rome, that she

drove from his bed Junia Silana, a high-born lady, and had her lover

wholly to herself. Silius was not unconscious of his wickedness and

his peril; but a refusal would have insured destruction, and he had

some hope of escaping exposure; the prize too was great, so he

consoled himself by awaiting the future and enjoying the present. As

for her, careless of concealment, she went continually with a numerous

retinue to his house, she haunted his steps, showered on him wealth

and honours, and, at last, as though empire had passed to another, the

slaves, the freedmen, the very furniture of the emperor were to be

seen in the possession of the paramour.

Claudius meanwhile, who knew nothing about his wife, and was busy

with his functions as censor, published edicts severely rebuking the

lawlessness of the people in the theatre, when they insulted Caius

Pomponius, an ex-consul, who furnished verses for the stage, and

certain ladies of rank. He introduced too a law restraining the

cruel greed of the usurers, and forbidding them to lend at interest

sums repayable on a father's death. He also conveyed by an aqueduct

into Rome the waters which flow from the hills of Simbrua. And he

likewise invented and published for use some new letters, having

discovered, as he said, that even the Greek alphabet had not been

completed at once.

It was the Egyptians who first symbolized ideas, and that by the

figures of animals. These records, the most ancient of all human

history, are still seen engraved on stone. The Egyptians also claim to

have invented the alphabet, which the Phoenicians, they say, by

means of their superior seamanship, introduced into Greece, and of

which they appropriated the glory, giving out that they had discovered

what they had really been taught. Tradition indeed says that Cadmus,

visiting Greece in a Phoenician fleet, was the teacher of this art

to its yet barbarous tribes. According to one account, it was

Cecrops of Athens or Linus of Thebes, or Palamedes of Argos in

Trojan times who invented the shapes of sixteen letters, and others,

chiefly Simonides, added the rest. In Italy the Etrurians learnt

them from Demaratus of Corinth, and the Aborigines from the Arcadian

Evander. And so the Latin letters have the same form as the oldest

Greek characters. At first too our alphabet was scanty, and

additions were afterwards made. Following this precedent Claudius

added three letters, which were employed during his reign and

subsequently disused. These may still be seen on the tablets of

brass set up in the squares and temples, on which new statutes are

published.

Claudius then brought before the Senate the subject of the college

of "haruspices," that, as he said, "the oldest of Italian sciences

might not be lost through negligence. It had often happened in evil

days for the State that advisers had been summoned at whose suggestion

ceremonies had been restored and observed more duly for the future.

The nobles of Etruria, whether of their own accord or at the

instigation of the Roman Senate, had retained this science, making

it the inheritance of distinct families. It was now less zealously

studied through the general indifference to all sound learning and

to the growth of foreign superstitions. At present all is well, but we

must show gratitude to the favour of Heaven, by taking care that the

rites observed during times of peril may not be forgotten in

prosperity." A resolution of the Senate was accordingly passed,

charging the pontiffs to see what should be retained or reformed

with respect to the "haruspices."

It was in this same year that the Cherusci asked Rome for a king.

They had lost all their nobles in their civil wars, and there was left

but one scion of the royal house, Italicus by name, who lived at Rome.

On the father's side he was descended from Flavus, the brother of

Arminius; his mother was a daughter of Catumerus, chief of the Chatti.

The youth himself was of distinguished beauty, a skilful horseman

and swordsman both after our fashion and that of his country. So the

emperor made him a present of money, furnished him with an escort, and

bade him enter with a good heart on the honours of his house. "Never

before," he said, "had a native of Rome, no hostage but a citizen,

gone to mount a foreign throne." At first his arrival was welcome to