Kings held the city of Rome from its beginnings; liberty and the consulship Lucius Brutus established. Dictatorships were taken up for an emergency; neither the decemviral power held beyond two years, nor did the consular authority of the military tribunes long prevail. Not Cinna’s, not Sulla’s mastery was long-lived; and the dominance of Pompey and Crassus passed swiftly to Caesar, the arms of Lepidus and Antony to Augustus, who, when all things were worn out by civil discords, took them under his sway with the name of princeps. But the fortunes of the old Roman people, prosperous and adverse alike, have been recorded by famous writers; and for the telling of Augustus’s age there was no want of fine talents, until they were frightened off by the swelling tide of flattery. The doings of Tiberius and Gaius, of Claudius and Nero, were, while they yet flourished, falsified through fear, and after they had fallen composed under the freshness of hatred. Hence my design to set down a little about Augustus, and his last days, then the principate of Tiberius and what followed, without anger and without partiality, the motives for which I hold far off.

Vrbem Romam a principio reges habuere; libertatem et consulatum L. Brutus instituit. dictaturae ad tempus sumebantur; neque decemviralis potestas ultra biennium, neque tribunorum militum consulare ius diu valuit. non Cinnae, non Sullae longa dominatio; et Pompei Crassique potentia cito in Caesarem, Lepidi atque Antonii arma in Augustum cessere, qui cuncta discordiis civilibus fessa nomine principis sub imperium accepit. sed veteris populi Romani prospera vel adversa claris scriptoribus memorata sunt; temporibusque Augusti dicendis non defuere decora ingenia, donec gliscente adulatione deterrerentur. Tiberii Gaique et Claudii ac Neronis res florentibus ipsis ob metum falsae, postquam occiderant recentibus odiis compositae sunt. inde consilium mihi pauca de Augusto et extrema tradere, mox Tiberii principatum et cetera, sine ira et studio, quorum causas procul habeo.

After the killing of Brutus and Cassius there were no longer any arms of the commonwealth; Pompeius was crushed off Sicily, and with Lepidus stripped of power and Antony slain, not even to the Julian party was any leader left but Caesar; who, laying aside the name of triumvir and styling himself consul, content with the tribunician right to protect the plebs, when once he had seduced the soldiery with gifts, the people with grain, and all men with the sweetness of repose, rose by degrees and drew to himself the functions of the Senate, the magistrates, and the laws, with none to oppose, since the most spirited had fallen in the battle-line or by proscription, while the rest of the nobility, the readier each man was for servitude, were lifted up by riches and offices, and, grown great out of the new order, preferred the present with its safety to the old with its peril. Nor did the provinces refuse that condition of things, suspicious as they were of the Senate’s and people’s rule, on account of the contests of the powerful and the greed of the magistrates, against which the protection of the laws was feeble, broken as they were by violence, by intrigue, and last of all by money.

Postquam Bruto et Cassio caesis nulla iam publica arma, Pompeius apud Siciliam oppressus exutoque Lepido, interfecto Antonio ne Iulianis quidem partibus nisi Caesar dux reliquus, posito triumviri nomine consulem se ferens et ad tuendam plebem tribunicio iure contentum, ubi militem donis, populum annona, cunctos dulcedine otii pellexit, insurgere paulatim, munia senatus magistratuum legum in se trahere, nullo adversante, cum ferocissimi per acies aut proscriptione cecidissent, ceteri nobilium, quanto quis servitio promptior, opibus et honoribus extollerentur ac novis ex rebus aucti tuta et praesentia quam vetera et periculosa mallent. neque provinciae illum rerum statum abnuebant, suspecto senatus populique imperio ob certamina potentium et avaritiam magistratuum, invalido legum auxilio quae vi ambitu postremo pecunia turbabantur.

For the rest, Augustus, as props for his dominion, raised up Claudius Marcellus, his sister’s son and still a mere youth, with the pontificate and the curule aedileship; Marcus Agrippa, of no high birth but a good soldier and the partner of his victory, with consulships twice renewed; and soon, Marcellus being dead, took him for his son-in-law. Tiberius Nero and Claudius Drusus, his stepsons, he advanced with imperatorial titles, though his own house was as yet entire. For he had brought into the family of the Caesars the sons of Agrippa, Gaius and Lucius, and, though they had not yet laid aside the boy’s bordered toga, had ardently desired—while feigning reluctance—that they be styled princes of the youth and marked out for the consulship. When Agrippa departed this life, Lucius Caesar on his way to the armies of Spain, and Gaius returning from Armenia and weak from a wound, a death untimely by fate—or the treachery of their stepmother Livia—carried off; and Drusus having long since been taken, Nero alone of the stepsons remained; toward him all things inclined: he is taken up as son, as colleague in the imperium, as partner in the tribunician power, and paraded through all the armies—no longer, as before, by his mother’s secret arts, but at her open urging. For she had so bound the aged Augustus that he cast out onto the island of Planasia his one grandson, Agrippa Postumus—untrained indeed in the better arts, and stupidly fierce in his bodily strength, yet convicted of no disgraceful deed. But—strange to say—Germanicus, the son of Drusus, he set over the eight legions on the Rhine, and ordered Tiberius to adopt him, though there was in Tiberius’s house a son already grown; but he did it that he might stand on more supports. War at that season there was none left but against the Germans, waged rather to wipe out the shame of the army lost with Quintilius Varus than from any desire to enlarge the empire or for a worthy prize. At home all was quiet, the magistracies bore the same names; the younger men had been born after the victory at Actium, and most even of the old amid the civil wars: how few were left who had seen the commonwealth!

Ceterum Augustus subsidia dominationi Claudium Marcellum sororis filium admodum adulescentem pontificatu et curuli aedilitate, M. Agrippam, ignobilem loco, bonum militia et victoriae socium, geminatis consulatibus extulit, mox defuncto Marcello generum sumpsit; Tiberium Neronem et Claudium Drusum privignos imperatoriis nominibus auxit, integra etiam tum domo sua. nam genitos Agrippa Gaium ac Lucium in familiam Caesarum induxerat, necdum posita puerili praetexta principes iuventutis appellari, destinari consules specie recusantis flagrantissime cupiverat. ut Agrippa vita concessit, Lucium Caesarem euntem ad Hispaniensis exercitus, Gaium remeantem Armenia et vulnere invalidum mors fato propera vel novercae Liviae dolus abstulit, Drusoque pridem extincto Nero solus e privignis erat, illuc cuncta vergere: filius, collega imperii, consors tribuniciae potestatis adsumitur omnisque per exercitus ostentatur, non obscuris, ut antea, matris artibus, sed palam hortatu. nam senem Augustum devinxerat adeo, uti nepotem unicum, Agrippam Postumum, in insulam Planasiam proiecerit, rudem sane bonarum artium et robore corporis stolide ferocem, nullius tamen flagitii conpertum. at hercule Germanicum Druso ortum octo apud Rhenum legionibus inposuit adscirique per adoptionem a Tiberio iussit, quamquam esset in domo Tiberii filius iuvenis, sed quo pluribus munimentis insisteret. bellum ea tempestate nullum nisi adversus Germanos supererat, abolendae magis infamiae ob amissum cum Quintilio Varo exercitum quam cupidine proferendi imperii aut dignum ob praemium. domi res tranquillae, eadem magistratuum vocabula; iuniores post Actiacam victoriam, etiam senes plerique inter bella civium nati: quotus quisque reliquus qui rem publicam vidisset?

So, the condition of the state being overturned, nowhere was there any trace of the old, unspoiled character: all, casting off equality, looked to the orders of the princeps, with no fear for the present, while Augustus, vigorous in his years, upheld himself and his house and the peace. But after old age, now far advanced, was wearied also by an ailing body, and the end was at hand with its new hopes, a few spoke idly of the blessings of liberty, more dreaded war, and others longed for it. By far the largest part bandied about the masters that threatened them in various rumors: Agrippa was savage and inflamed by his disgrace, and neither in age nor in experience of affairs equal to so great a burden; Tiberius Nero was ripe in years and tried in war, but had the old and inbred arrogance of the Claudian house, and many tokens of cruelty, though pressed down, broke out. Him, too, they said, reared from earliest infancy in a reigning house; consulships and triumphs heaped on the young man; and not even in those years which, under the show of retirement, he had spent as an exile at Rhodes had he meditated anything but resentment and dissimulation and secret lusts. There was his mother besides, with her woman’s want of restraint: they must be slaves to a female, and to two young men as well, who would for a time oppress and one day tear apart the commonwealth.

Igitur verso civitatis statu nihil usquam prisci et integri moris: omnes exuta aequalitate iussa principis aspectare, nulla in praesens formidine, dum Augustus aetate validus seque et domum et pacem sustentavit. postquam provecta iam senectus aegro et corpore fatigabatur aderatque finis et spes novae, pauci bona libertatis in cassum disserere, plures bellum pavescere, alii cupere. pars multo maxima inminentis dominos variis rumoribus differebant: trucem Agrippam et ignominia accensum non aetate neque rerum experientia tantae moli parem, Tiberium Neronem maturum annis, spectatum bello, sed vetere atque insita Claudiae familiae superbia, multaque indicia saevitiae, quamquam premantur, erumpere. hunc et prima ab infantia eductum in domo regnatrice; congestos iuveni consulatus, triumphos; ne iis quidem annis quibus Rhodi specie secessus exul egerit aliud quam iram et simulationem et secretas libidines meditatum. accedere matrem muliebri inpotentia: serviendum feminae duobusque insuper adulescentibus qui rem publicam interim premant quandoque distrahant.

While men were busy with these thoughts and the like, Augustus’s health grew worse, and some suspected a crime of his wife’s. For a rumor had gone abroad that a few months before, Augustus, with chosen confidants and a single companion, Fabius Maximus, had sailed to Planasia to visit Agrippa; that there were many tears on both sides and signs of affection, and from this a hope that the young man would be restored to the household gods of his grandfather; that Maximus had disclosed this to his wife Marcia, she to Livia. The matter was known to Caesar; and not long after, Maximus being dead—it was doubtful whether by a death he had sought—there had been heard at his funeral the lamentations of Marcia reproaching herself for having been the cause of her husband’s destruction. However the affair stood, Tiberius, scarce yet entered upon Illyricum, was summoned back by his mother’s hurried letters; and it is not sufficiently ascertained whether he found Augustus at the town of Nola still breathing, or already lifeless. For Livia had hedged the house and the roads with strict watches, and from time to time cheering bulletins were given out, until, the measures the moment counselled being provided for, one and the same report bore it abroad that Augustus had departed and that Nero was master of affairs.

Haec atque talia agitantibus gravescere valetudo Augusti, et quidam scelus uxoris suspectabant. quippe rumor incesserat paucos ante mensis Augustum, electis consciis et comite uno Fabio Maximo, Planasiam vectum ad visendum Agrippam; multas illic utrimque lacrimas et signa caritatis spemque ex eo fore ut iuvenis penatibus avi redderetur: quod Maximum uxori Marciae aperuisse, illam Liviae. gnarum id Caesari; neque multo post extincto Maximo, dubium an quaesita morte, auditos in funere eius Marciae gemitus semet incusantis quod causa exitii marito fuisset. utcumque se ea res habuit, vixdum ingressus Illyricum Tiberius properis matris litteris accitur; neque satis conpertum est spirantem adhuc Augustum apud urbem Nolam an exanimem reppererit. acribus namque custodiis domum et vias saepserat Livia, laetique interdum nuntii vulgabantur, donec provisis quae tempus monebat simul excessisse Augustum et rerum potiri Neronem fama eadem tulit.

The first crime of the new principate was the killing of Postumus Agrippa, whom, off his guard and unarmed, a centurion, though steeled in spirit, dispatched with difficulty. Of this matter Tiberius said nothing before the Senate: he pretended his father’s orders, by which he had instructed the tribune set over the guard not to delay in putting Agrippa to death whenever he himself should have completed his last day. Beyond doubt Augustus had complained much and harshly of the young man’s character, and had brought it about that his exile was ratified by a decree of the Senate: but he never hardened to the killing of any of his own, nor was it credible that death had been inflicted on a grandson for the security of a stepson. Nearer the truth it was that Tiberius and Livia—he from fear, she from a stepmother’s hatred—had hastened the slaughter of a youth suspected and detested. To the centurion who announced, after the manner of soldiers, that what he had commanded was done, he replied that he had not commanded it, and that account must be rendered before the Senate. When Sallustius Crispus, a sharer in the secrets—it was he who had sent the warrant to the tribune—learned this, fearing he might be put up as the defendant, and that it was equally perilous whether he spoke falsehood or truth, he warned Livia not to let the secrets of the house, nor the counsels of friends, nor the services of soldiers be divulged, and not to let Tiberius dissolve the force of the principate by referring everything to the Senate: such was the condition of ruling, that the reckoning could not balance unless it were rendered to one man alone.

Primum facinus novi principatus fuit Postumi Agrippae caedes, quem ignarum inermumque quamvis firmatus animo centurio aegre confecit. nihil de ea re Tiberius apud senatum disseruit: patris iussa simulabat, quibus praescripsisset tribuno custodiae adposito ne cunctaretur Agrippam morte adficere quandoque ipse supremum diem explevisset. multa sine dubio saevaque Augustus de moribus adulescentis questus, ut exilium eius senatus consulto sanciretur perfecerat: ceterum in nullius umquam suorum necem duravit, neque mortem nepoti pro securitate privigni inlatam credibile erat. propius vero Tiberium ac Liviam, illum metu, hanc novercalibus odiis, suspecti et invisi iuvenis caedem festinavisse. nuntianti centurioni, ut mos militiae, factum esse quod imperasset, neque imperasse sese et rationem facti reddendam apud senatum respondit. quod postquam Sallustius Crispus particeps secretorum (is ad tribunum miserat codicillos) comperit, metuens ne reus subderetur, iuxta periculoso ficta seu vera promeret monuit Liviam ne arcana domus, ne consilia amicorum, ministeria militum vulgarentur, neve Tiberius vim principatus resolveret cuncta ad senatum vocando: eam condicionem esse imperandi ut non aliter ratio constet quam si uni reddatur.

But at Rome consuls, senators, knights rushed headlong into servitude. The more illustrious each man was, the falser and the more in haste, and with composed countenances, that they might seem neither glad at the prince’s death nor too gloomy at the new reign, they mingled tears with joy, lamentation with flattery. Sextus Pompeius and Sextus Appuleius, the consuls, were the first to swear allegiance to Tiberius Caesar, and in their presence Seius Strabo and Gaius Turranius, the one prefect of the praetorian cohorts, the other of the grain-supply; soon the Senate, the soldiery, and the people. For Tiberius began everything through the consuls, as though the old commonwealth still stood and he were of two minds about ruling: not even the edict by which he summoned the senators to the Curia did he issue except under the title of the tribunician power received under Augustus. The words of the edict were few and very modest in their sense: he would take counsel about the honors due to his father, and would not leave the body, and this alone of public functions did he claim. Yet, Augustus being dead, he had given the watchword to the praetorian cohorts as imperator; he had the sentries, the arms, the rest of a court; a soldier escorted him into the Forum, a soldier into the Curia. He sent letters to the armies as if the principate were already his, nowhere hesitating except when he spoke in the Senate. The chief cause was his fear that Germanicus, in whose hand were so many legions, an immense force of allied auxiliaries, and a marvelous favor with the people, might prefer to hold the imperium rather than wait for it. He paid something, too, to reputation, that he might seem summoned and chosen by the commonwealth rather than to have crept in by a wife’s intrigue and an old man’s adoption. Afterward it was understood that his hesitation had been feigned also to probe the dispositions of the nobles: for he twisted their words and looks into a charge and stored them up.

At Romae ruere in servitium consules, patres, eques. quanto quis inlustrior, tanto magis falsi ac festinantes, vultuque composito ne laeti excessu principis neu tristiores primordio, lacrimas gaudium, questus adulationem miscebant. Sex. Pompeius et Sex. Appuleius consules primi in verba Tiberii Caesaris iuravere, aputque eos Seius Strabo et C. Turranius, ille praetoriarum cohortium praefectus, hic annonae; mox senatus milesque et populus. nam Tiberius cuncta per consules incipiebat tamquam vetere re publica et ambiguus imperandi: ne edictum quidem, quo patres in curiam vocabat, nisi tribuniciae potestatis praescriptione posuit sub Augusto acceptae. verba edicti fuere pauca et sensu permodesto: de honoribus parentis consulturum, neque abscedere a corpore idque unum ex publicis muneribus usurpare. sed defuncto Augusto signum praetoriis cohortibus ut imperator dederat; excubiae, arma, cetera aulae; miles in forum, miles in curiam comitabatur. litteras ad exercitus tamquam adepto principatu misit, nusquam cunctabundus nisi cum in senatu loqueretur. causa praecipua ex formidine ne Germanicus, in cuius manu tot legiones, immensa sociorum auxilia, mirus apud populum favor, habere imperium quam exspectare mallet. dabat et famae ut vocatus electusque potius a re publica videretur quam per uxorium ambitum et senili adoptione inrepsisse. postea cognitum est ad introspiciendas etiam procerum voluntates inductam dubitationem: nam verba vultus in crimen detorquens recondebat.

On the first day of the Senate he allowed nothing to be transacted except concerning the last rites of Augustus, whose will, brought in by the Vestal virgins, named Tiberius and Livia heirs. Livia was taken into the Julian family and the Augustan name; in the second degree of hope he had written grandsons and great-grandsons, and in the third the chief men of the state—most of them hateful to him, but he flaunted them for boasting and for glory before posterity. The legacies were not beyond a citizen’s measure, save that to the people and the plebs he gave forty-three million five hundred thousand sesterces, to the soldiers of the praetorian cohorts a thousand sesterces each, to the city cohorts five hundred, to the legionaries or the cohorts of Roman citizens three hundred apiece. Then there was deliberation about honors; of which those that seemed most marked were proposed: that the funeral be led through the triumphal gate, by Asinius Gallus; that the titles of the laws he had carried, and the names of the nations he had conquered, be borne before it, by Lucius Arruntius. Messala Valerius added that the oath of allegiance to the name of Tiberius be renewed yearly; and being asked by Tiberius whether he had brought forward that proposal at his bidding, he answered that he had said it of his own accord, and that in matters touching the commonwealth he would use no counsel but his own, even at the risk of giving offense: this was the only species of flattery left. The senators cried out that the body should be carried to the pyre on the shoulders of senators. Caesar excused them with an arrogant moderation, and admonished the people by edict not to wish—as once by excessive zeal they had thrown the funeral of the deified Julius into confusion—that Augustus be cremated in the Forum rather than in the Field of Mars, his appointed resting-place. On the day of the funeral soldiers stood as if for a guard, amid much mockery from those who had themselves seen, or had received from their parents, that day of servitude still raw and of liberty vainly sought again, when the slaying of the dictator Caesar seemed to some the worst, to others the fairest of deeds: now an aged princeps, after a long mastery, with the resources of his heirs against the commonwealth provided for besides, must forsooth be protected by a military guard, that his burial might be undisturbed.

Nihil primo senatus die agi passus est nisi de supre- mis Augusti, cuius testamentum inlatum per virgines Vestae Tiberium et Liviam heredes habuit. Livia in familiam Iuliam nomenque Augustum adsumebatur; in spem secundam nepotes pronepotesque, tertio gradu primores civitatis scripserat, plerosque invisos sibi sed iactantia gloriaque ad posteros. legata non ultra civilem modum, nisi quod populo et plebi quadringenties tricies quinquies, praetoriarum cohortium militibus singula nummum milia, urbanis quingenos, legionariis aut cohortibus civium Romanorum trecenos nummos viritim dedit. tum consultatum de honoribus; ex quis qui maxime insignes visi, ut porta triumphali duceretur funus Gallus Asinius, ut legum latarum tituli, victarum ab eo gentium vocabula anteferrentur L. Arruntius censuere. addebat Messala Valerius renovandum per annos sacramentum in nomen Tiberii; interrogatusque a Tiberio num se mandante eam sententiam prompsisset, sponte dixisse respondit, neque in iis quae ad rem publicam pertinerent consilio nisi suo usurum vel cum periculo offensionis: ea sola species adulandi supererat. conclamant patres corpus ad rogum umeris senatorum ferendum. remisit Caesar adroganti moderatione, populumque edicto monuit ne, ut quondam nimiis studiis funus divi Iulii turbassent, ita Augustum in foro potius quam in campo Martis, sede destinata, cremari vellent. die funeris milites velut praesidio stetere, multum inridentibus qui ipsi viderant quique a parentibus acceperant diem illum crudi adhuc servitii et libertatis inprospere repetitae, cum occisus dictator Caesar aliis pessimum aliis pulcherrimum facinus videretur: nunc senem principem, longa potentia, provisis etiam heredum in rem publicam opibus, auxilio scilicet militari tuendum, ut sepultura eius quieta foret.

Hereupon there was much talk about Augustus himself, most men marveling at idle things: that the same day, once, had marked his first taking of power and his last of life; that he had ended his days at Nola in the same house and chamber where his father Octavius had finished his. The number of his consulships, too, was much celebrated, in which he had equaled together Valerius Corvus and Gaius Marius; the tribunician power continued through thirty-seven years; the name of imperator won one-and-twenty times; and his other honors, multiplied or new. But among the discerning his life was variously extolled or arraigned. These said that out of piety toward his father and the necessity of the commonwealth, in which there was then no place for laws, he had been driven to civil arms, which can neither be prepared nor held by honest arts. He had conceded much to Antony, while he avenged his father’s murderers, much to Lepidus. When the latter had grown old in sloth, and the former been ruined by his lusts, there was no other remedy for the discordant fatherland than that it be ruled by one. Yet he had ordered the commonwealth not by kingship or dictatorship, but under the name of princeps; the empire was fenced by the Ocean or by distant rivers; legions, provinces, fleets, all things knit together; justice among the citizens, modesty toward the allies; the city itself adorned with magnificence; a very few things handled by force, that the rest might have repose.

Multus hinc ipso de Augusto sermo, plerisque vana mirantibus quod idem dies accepti quondam imperii princeps et vitae supremus, quod Nolae in domo et cubiculo in quo pater eius Octavius vitam finivisset. numerus etiam consulatuum celebrabatur, quo Valerium Corvum et C. Marium simul aequaverat; continuata per septem et triginta annos tribunicia potestas, nomen inperatoris semel atque vicies partum aliaque honorum multiplicata aut nova. at apud prudentis vita eius varie extollebatur arguebaturve. hi pietate erga parentem et necessitudine rei publicae, in qua nullus tunc legibus locus, ad arma civilia actum quae neque parari possent neque haberi per bonas artis. multa Antonio, dum interfectores patris ulcisceretur, multa Lepido concessisse. postquam hic socordia senuerit, ille per libidines pessum datus sit, non aliud discordantis patriae remedium fuisse quam ut ab uno regeretur. non regno tamen neque dictatura sed principis nomine constitutam rem publicam; mari Oceano aut amnibus longinquis saeptum imperium; legiones, provincias, classis, cuncta inter se conexa; ius apud civis, modestiam apud socios; urbem ipsam magnifico ornatu; pauca admodum vi tractata quo ceteris quies esset.

On the other side it was said: piety toward his father and the times of the commonwealth had been taken up for a pretext: in fact, from a lust to dominate, he had stirred up the veterans by largess, had got ready an army while a private youth, had corrupted a consul’s legions, and feigned a partisanship for the Pompeian cause; soon, when by a decree of the Senate he had seized the fasces and the praetor’s authority, when Hirtius and Pansa had been slain—whether the enemy carried them off, or, in Pansa’s case, poison poured into his wound, in Hirtius’s, his own soldiers and Caesar the contriver of the treachery—he had taken over the forces of both; the consulship had been wrung from a reluctant Senate, and the arms he had received against Antony turned against the commonwealth; the proscription of citizens, the divisions of lands, not praised even by those who did them. Granted that the ends of Cassius and the Bruti were a payment to his father’s enmities—though it be right to remit private hatreds to the public good: yet Pompeius had been deceived by the image of peace, Lepidus by the show of friendship; afterward Antony, lured by the treaties of Tarentum and Brundisium and by marriage with his sister, had paid with his death the penalty of a treacherous alliance. Peace there was, no doubt, after these things, but a bloody one: the disasters of Lollius and Varus, the slayings at Rome of Varrones, Egnatii, Iulli. Nor was he spared even at home: a wife snatched from Nero, and the pontiffs consulted in mockery whether she could lawfully marry with a child conceived but not yet brought forth; the luxury of Quintus Tedius and Vedius Pollio; lastly Livia, a mother grievous to the commonwealth, a stepmother grievous to the house of the Caesars. Nothing was left for the honors of the gods, when he wished himself to be worshiped in temples and in the image of a divinity by flamens and priests. Not even Tiberius had he adopted as successor out of affection or care for the commonwealth, but, having looked into his arrogance and cruelty, had sought glory for himself by the basest of comparisons. For Augustus, a few years before, when he was again asking of the senators the tribunician power for Tiberius, had in a speech, honorable though it was, let fall certain things about his bearing and dress and habits which, while seeming to excuse, were a reproach. However, his burial being duly performed, a temple and the rites of heaven were decreed him.

Dicebatur contra: pietatem erga parentem et tempora rei publicae obtentui sumpta: ceterum cupidine dominandi concitos per largitionem veteranos, paratum ab adulescente privato exercitum, corruptas consulis legiones, simulatam Pompeianarum gratiam partium; mox ubi decreto patrum fascis et ius praetoris invaserit, caesis Hirtio et Pansa, sive hostis illos, seu Pansam venenum vulneri adfusum, sui milites Hirtium et machinator doli Caesar abstu- lerat, utriusque copias occupavisse; extortum invito senatu consulatum, armaque quae in Antonium acceperit contra rem publicam versa; proscriptionem civium, divisiones agrorum ne ipsis quidem qui fecere laudatas. sane Cassii et Brutorum exitus paternis inimicitiis datos, quamquam fas sit privata odia publicis utilitatibus remittere: sed Pompeium imagine pacis, sed Lepidum specie amicitiae deceptos; post Antonium, Tarentino Brundisinoque foedere et nuptiis sororis inlectum, subdolae adfinitatis poenas morte exsolvisse. pacem sine dubio post haec, verum cruentam: Lollianas Varianasque cladis, interfectos Romae Varrones, Egnatios, Iullos. nec domesticis abstinebatur: abducta Neroni uxor et consulti per ludibrium pontifices an concepto necdum edito partu rite nuberet; que tedii et Vedii Pollionis luxus; postremo Livia gravis in rem publicam mater, gravis domui Caesarum noverca. nihil deorum honoribus relictum cum se templis et effigie numinum per flamines et sacerdotes coli vellet. ne Tiberium quidem caritate aut rei publicae cura successorem adscitum, sed quoniam adrogantiam saevitiamque eius introspexerit, comparatione deterrima sibi gloriam quaesivisse. etenim Augustus paucis ante annis, cum Tiberio tribuniciam potestatem a patribus rursum postularet, quamquam honora oratione, quaedam de habitu cultuque et institutis eius iecerat quae velut excusando exprobraret. ceterum sepultura more perfecta templum et caelestes religiones decernuntur.

Then the prayers were turned to Tiberius. And he discoursed variously on the greatness of the empire and his own modesty. The mind of the deified Augustus alone, he said, had been capable of so great a mass: called by him into a share of the cares, he had learned by trial how arduous, how subject to fortune, was the burden of governing all things. Therefore in a state upheld by so many illustrious men they should not commit everything to one: more men would more easily execute the functions of the commonwealth by sharing the labors. There was more dignity in such a speech than good faith; and Tiberius’s words, even in matters he did not conceal—whether by nature or by habit—were always poised and obscure: but then, when he strove to hide his thoughts deep, they were the more entangled in uncertainty and ambiguity. But the senators, whose one fear was that they might seem to understand him, poured out complaints, tears, vows; they stretched their hands to the gods, to the image of Augustus, to his own knees, when he ordered a document to be brought forward and read. In it were comprised the public resources: how many citizens and allies were under arms, how many fleets, kingdoms, provinces, tributes or revenues, and the necessary expenses and largesses. All this Augustus had written out in his own hand, and had added the counsel of confining the empire within its boundaries—uncertain whether from fear or from jealousy.

Versae inde ad Tiberium preces. et ille varie disserebat de magnitudine imperii sua modestia. solam divi Augusti mentem tantae molis capacem: se in partem curarum ab illo vocatum experiendo didicisse quam arduum, quam subiectum fortunae regendi cuncta onus. proinde in civitate tot inlustribus viris subnixa non ad unum omnia deferrent: plures facilius munia rei publicae sociatis laboribus exsecuturos. plus in oratione tali dignitatis quam fidei erat; Tiberioque etiam in rebus quas non occuleret, seu natura sive adsuetudine, suspensa semper et obscura verba: tunc vero nitenti ut sensus suos penitus abderet, in incertum et ambiguum magis implicabantur. at patres, quibus unus metus si intellegere viderentur, in questus lacrimas vota effundi; ad deos, ad effigiem Augusti, ad genua ipsius manus tendere, cum proferri libellum recitarique iussit. opes publicae continebantur, quantum civium sociorumque in armis, quot classes, regna, provinciae, tributa aut vectigalia, et necessitates ac largitiones. quae cuncta sua manu perscripserat Augustus addideratque consilium coercendi intra terminos imperii, incertum metu an per invidiam.

Amid this, while the Senate was sinking to the most abject entreaties, Tiberius chanced to say that, though he was not equal to the whole commonwealth, yet he would undertake the charge of whatever part should be committed to him. Then Asinius Gallus said, "I ask, Caesar, what part of the commonwealth you would wish to be committed to you." Struck by the unforeseen question, he was silent a little; then, collecting himself, he answered that it was in no way becoming to his modesty to choose or to avoid any portion of that from which he would rather be excused altogether. Gallus in turn—for he had divined offense from his look—said he had not asked in order to divide what could not be separated, but that by his own confession he might be shown that the body of the commonwealth was one, and to be ruled by the mind of one. He added praise of Augustus, and reminded Tiberius himself of his victories and of all that he had done so excellently in the toga through so many years. Yet he did not thereby soften his anger, hated as he had long been, on the ground that, having taken in marriage Vipsania the daughter of Marcus Agrippa, who had once been Tiberius’s wife, he was meditating something beyond a citizen’s part and kept his father Asinius Pollio’s ferocity.

Inter quae senatu ad infimas obtestationes procumbente, dixit forte Tiberius se ut non toti rei publicae parem, ita quaecumque pars sibi mandaretur eius tutelam suscepturum. tum Asinius Gallus ’interrogo’ inquit, ’Caesar, quam partem rei publicae mandari tibi velis.’ perculsus inprovisa interrogatione paulum reticuit: dein collecto animo respondit nequaquam decorum pudori suo legere aliquid aut evitare ex eo cui in universum excusari mallet. rursum Gallus (etenim vultu offensionem coniectaverat) non idcirco interrogatum ait, ut divideret quae separari nequirent sed ut sua confessione argueretur unum esse rei publicae corpus atque unius animo regendum. addidit laudem de Augusto Tiberiumque ipsum victoriarum suarum quaeque in toga per tot annos egregie fecisset admonuit. nec ideo iram eius lenivit, pridem invisus, tamquam ducta in matrimonium Vipsania M. Agrippae filia, quae quondam Tiberii uxor fuerat, plus quam civilia agitaret Pollionisque Asinii patris ferociam retineret.

After this Lucius Arruntius, differing not much from Gallus’s speech, gave equal offense, though Tiberius had no old anger against Arruntius: but he was rich, ready, of distinguished accomplishments and of like public fame, and so suspected. For Augustus, in his last conversations, when he was discussing who would be fit to attain the prince’s place but would refuse it, or who would be unequal yet desire it, or who could and at once wished it, had said that Manius Lepidus was capable but disdainful, Gallus Asinius eager but inferior, Lucius Arruntius not unworthy and, if the chance were given, would dare. About the first there is agreement; for Arruntius some have handed down Gnaeus Piso; and all but Lepidus were soon encompassed by Tiberius’s contrivance with various charges. Quintus Haterius, too, and Mamercus Scaurus grazed his suspicious mind: Haterius, because he had said, "How long, Caesar, will you suffer the commonwealth to be without a head?"; Scaurus, because he had said there was hope that the Senate’s prayers would not be vain, since he had not interposed his tribunician veto against the consuls’ motion. Against Haterius he inveighed at once; Scaurus, with whom he was more implacably angry, he passed over in silence. And, wearied by the clamor of all and the importunity of each man, he gave way little by little—not so as to confess that he took up the imperium, but so as to cease refusing and being entreated. It is agreed that Haterius, when he had entered the Palace to deprecate his anger and flung himself at the knees of the walking Tiberius, was all but killed by the soldiers, because Tiberius—by chance, or hampered by Haterius’s hands—had fallen. Yet not even by the peril of so great a man was he softened, until Haterius supplicated Augusta and was shielded by her most careful prayers.

Post quae L. Arruntius haud multum discrepans a Galli oratione perinde offendit, quamquam Tiberio nulla vetus in Arruntium ira: sed divitem, promptum, artibus egregiis et pari fama publice, suspectabat. quippe Augustus supremis sermonibus cum tractaret quinam adipisci principem locum suffecturi abnuerent aut inpares vellent vel idem possent cuperentque, M’. Lepidum dixerat capacem sed aspernantem, Gallum Asinium avidum et minorem, L. Arruntium non indignum et si casus daretur ausurum. de prioribus consentitur, pro Arruntio quidam Cn. Pisonem tradidere; omnesque praeter Lepidum variis mox criminibus struente Tiberio circumventi sunt. etiam Q. Haterius et Mamercus Scaurus suspicacem animum perstrinxere, Haterius cum dixisset ’quo usque patieris, Caesar, non adesse caput rei publicae?’ Scaurus quia dixerat spem esse ex eo non inritas fore senatus preces quod relationi consulum iure tribuniciae potestatis non intercessisset. in Haterium statim invectus est; Scaurum, cui inplacabilius irascebatur, silentio tramisit. fessusque clamore omnium, expostulatione singulorum flexit paulatim, non ut fateretur suscipi a se imperium, sed ut negare et rogari desineret. constat Haterium, cum deprecandi causa Palatium introisset ambulantisque Tiberii genua advolveretur, prope a militibus interfectum quia Tiberius casu an manibus eius inpeditus prociderat. neque tamen periculo talis viri mitigatus est, donec Haterius Augustam oraret eiusque curatissimis precibus protegeretur.

Much was the flattery of the senators toward Augusta also. Some thought she should be styled "parent," others "mother of the fatherland," and very many that to the name of Caesar should be added "son of Julia." He, declaring repeatedly that women’s honors must be kept within bounds, and that he would use the same temperance in those bestowed on himself, but in truth anxious through jealousy and taking a woman’s eminence as a diminution of his own, would not suffer even a lictor to be decreed her, and forbade an altar of the adoption and other things of the kind. But for Germanicus Caesar he sought proconsular authority, and envoys were sent to confer it and at the same time to console his grief at the death of Augustus. That the same was not asked for Drusus, the cause was that Drusus was consul-designate and present. He named twelve candidates for the praetorship, the number handed down from Augustus; and when the Senate urged him to increase it, he bound himself by an oath that he would not exceed it.

Multa patrum et in Augustam adulatio. alii parentem, alii matrem patriae appellandam, plerique ut nomini Caesaris adscriberetur ’Iuliae filius’ censebant. ille moderan- dos feminarum honores dictitans eademque se temperantia usurum in iis quae sibi tribuerentur, ceterum anxius invidia et muliebre fastigium in deminutionem sui accipiens ne lictorem quidem ei decerni passus est aramque adoptionis et alia huiusce modi prohibuit. at Germanico Caesari proconsulare imperium petivit, missique legati qui deferrent, simul maestitiam eius ob excessum Augusti solarentur. quo minus idem pro Druso postularetur, ea causa quod designatus consul Drusus praesensque erat. candidatos praeturae duodecim nominavit, numerum ab Augusto traditum; et hortante senatu ut augeret, iure iurando obstrinxit se non excessurum.

Then for the first time the elections were transferred from the Field to the senators: for until that day, though the most important were at the prince’s discretion, some yet were done by the zeal of the tribes. Nor did the people complain of the right taken from them, save in idle rumor; and the Senate, released from largesses and sordid entreaties, gladly held to it, Tiberius limiting himself to commending no more than four candidates, to be designated without rejection and without canvassing. Meanwhile the tribunes of the plebs asked leave to give at their own cost games which, from the name of Augustus, should be added to the calendar and called Augustal. But money was decreed from the treasury, and that they should use the triumphal robe in the circus: to ride in a chariot was not permitted. Soon the annual celebration was transferred to the praetor to whom the jurisdiction between citizens and foreigners had fallen.

Tum primum e campo comitia ad patres translata sunt: nam ad eam diem, etsi potissima arbitrio principis, quaedam tamen studiis tribuum fiebant. neque populus ademptum ius questus est nisi inani rumore, et senatus largitionibus ac precibus sordidis exsolutus libens tenuit, moderante Tiberio ne plures quam quattuor candidatos commendaret sine repulsa et ambitu designandos. inter quae tribuni plebei petivere ut proprio sumptu ederent ludos qui de nomine Augusti fastis additi Augustales vocarentur. sed decreta pecunia ex aerario, utque per circum triumphali veste uterentur: curru vehi haud permissum. mox celebratio annua ad praetorem translata cui inter civis et peregrinos iurisdictio evenisset.

This was the state of affairs at Rome, when a mutiny seized the Pannonian legions, on no new grounds save that the change of princeps held out a license for tumult and the hope of spoil from civil war. In the summer camp three legions were quartered together, under the command of Junius Blaesus, who, on hearing of the end of Augustus and the beginnings of Tiberius, had, for the public mourning or for joy, suspended the usual duties. From this beginning the soldier grew wanton, fell to quarreling, lent his ears to the talk of every worst man, and at last longed for luxury and idleness and spurned discipline and toil. There was in the camp one Percennius, formerly a leader of theatrical claques, then a common soldier, with an insolent tongue, and skilled, by his playhouse practice, in stirring up gatherings. Upon untaught minds, doubtful what the condition of their service would be after Augustus, he worked little by little in nightly talk, or, as the day declined toward evening and the better men had slipped away, gathered together all the worst.

Hic rerum urbanarum status erat, cum Pannonicas legiones seditio incessit, nullis novis causis nisi quod mutatus princeps licentiam turbarum et ex civili bello spem praemiorum ostendebat. castris aestivis tres simul legiones habebantur, praesidente Iunio Blaeso, qui fine Augusti et initiis Tiberii auditis ob iustitium aut gaudium intermiserat solita munia. eo principio lascivire miles, discordare, pessimi cuiusque sermonibus praebere auris, denique luxum et otium cupere, disciplinam et laborem aspernari. erat in castris Percennius quidam, dux olim theatralium operarum, dein gregarius miles, procax lingua et miscere coetus histrionali studio doctus. is imperitos animos et quaenam post Augustum militiae condicio ambigentis inpellere paulatim nocturnis conloquiis aut flexo in vesperam die et dilapsis melioribus deterrimum quemque congregare.

At last, when others too were now ready as ministers of mutiny, he asked, as if haranguing an assembly, why they obeyed a few centurions and fewer tribunes in the manner of slaves. When would they dare to demand redress, if they did not approach a prince new and still tottering with prayers or with arms? Enough had been sinned through sloth in so many years, in that old men, and most with bodies maimed by wounds, endured thirty or forty campaigns. Not even to the discharged was there an end of service, but, encamped under a standard, they bore the same toils under another name. And if a man survived so many hazards, he was still dragged off into far-flung lands, where, under the name of fields, he received the marshes of swamps or the wastes of mountains. Indeed the soldiering itself was heavy and unprofitable: at ten asses a day soul and body were valued; out of this clothing, arms, tents must be bought, out of this the cruelty of the centurions and exemptions from duty redeemed. But—by Hercules—blows and wounds, a hard winter, toilsome summers, savage war or barren peace, were everlasting. Nor was there any relief but if service were entered on under fixed conditions: that they should earn a denarius a day, that the sixteenth year should bring an end to service, that they be no longer kept under the standards, but the bounty be paid in cash in the same camp. Did the praetorian cohorts, who received two denarii, who after sixteen years were restored to their homes, undertake more dangers? He did not disparage the city watches: yet they themselves, among savage nations, looked on the enemy from their tents.

Postremo promptis iam et aliis seditionis ministris velut contionabundus interrogabat cur paucis centurionibus paucioribus tribunis in modum servorum oboedirent. quando ausuros exposcere remedia, nisi novum et nutantem adhuc principem precibus vel armis adirent? satis per tot annos ignavia peccatum, quod tricena aut quadragena stipendia senes et plerique truncato ex vulneribus corpore tolerent. ne dimissis quidem finem esse militiae, sed apud vexillum tendentis alio vocabulo eosdem labores perferre. ac si quis tot casus vita superaverit, trahi adhuc diversas in terras ubi per nomen agrorum uligines paludum vel inculta montium accipiant. enimvero militiam ipsam gravem, infructuosam: denis in diem assibus animam et corpus aestimari: hinc vestem arma tentoria, hinc saevitiam centurionum et vacationes munerum redimi. at hercule verbera et vulnera, duram hiemem, exercitas aestates, bellum atrox aut sterilem pacem sempiterna. nec aliud levamentum quam si certis sub legibus militia iniretur, ut singulos denarios mererent, sextus decumus stipendii annus finem adferret, ne ultra sub vexillis tenerentur, sed isdem in castris praemium pecunia solveretur. an praetorias cohortis, quae binos denarios acceperint, quae post sedecim annos penatibus suis reddantur, plus periculorum suscipere? non obtrectari a se urbanas excubias: sibi tamen apud horridas gentis e contuberniis hostem aspici.

The crowd roared assent, prompted by various incitements, some pointing in reproach to the marks of the lash, others to their gray hairs, most to their worn coverings and naked bodies. At last they came to such a pitch of frenzy that they proposed to merge the three legions into one. Driven off by rivalry, since each sought that honor for his own legion, they turned another way and set the three eagles and the standards of the cohorts together in one place; at the same time they heaped up turf and built a platform, that the seat might be the more conspicuous. As they hurried, Blaesus came, and rebuked and held back individuals, crying out: "Stain your hands rather with my blood: you will kill your legate by a lighter crime than you desert from your emperor. Either, living, I will keep the legions’ loyalty, or, with my throat cut, I will hasten their repentance."

Adstrepebat vulgus, diversis incitamentis, hi verberum notas, illi canitiem, plurimi detrita tegmina et nudum corpus exprobrantes. postremo eo furoris venere ut tres legiones miscere in unam agitaverint. depulsi aemulatione, quia suae quisque legioni eum honorem quaerebant, alio vertunt atque una tres aquilas et signa cohortium locant; simul congerunt caespites, exstruunt tribunal, quo magis conspicua sedes foret. properantibus Blaesus advenit, increpabatque ac retinebat singulos, clamitans ’mea potius caede imbuite manus: leviore flagitio legatum interficietis quam ab imperatore desciscitis. aut incolumis fidem legionum retinebo aut iugulatus paenitentiam adcelerabo.’

The turf was heaped up none the less, and had already risen to the breast, when at last, overcome by his persistence, they abandoned the attempt. Blaesus, with much art of speech, said that the soldiers’ desires were not to be carried to Caesar through mutiny and uproar; that neither the men of old had sought anything so unprecedented of the ancient commanders, nor they themselves of the deified Augustus; and that it was ill-timed to load with cares a prince at his outset. But if, even so, they were bent on attempting in peace what not even the victors of the civil wars had demanded, why, against the custom of obedience, against the sanctity of discipline, did they meditate violence? Let them appoint envoys and give their commands in his presence. They shouted that Blaesus’s son, a tribune, should discharge that embassy and ask discharge for the soldiers from the sixteenth year: the rest they would commit when the first demands had succeeded. When the young man had set out, there was a moderate quiet; but the soldier was insolent, since the legate’s son as the spokesman of the public cause showed plainly enough that necessity had wrung what modesty would not have obtained.

Aggerabatur nihilo minus caespes iamque pectori usque adcreverat, cum tandem pervicacia victi inceptum omisere. Blaesus multa dicendi arte non per seditionem et turbas desideria militum ad Caesarem ferenda ait, neque veteres ab imperatoribus priscis neque ipsos a divo Augusto tam nova petivisse; et parum in tempore incipientis principis curas onerari. si tamen tenderent in pace temptare quae ne civilium quidem bellorum victores expostulaverint, cur contra morem obsequii, contra fas disciplinae vim meditentur? decernerent legatos seque coram mandata darent. adclamavere ut filius Blaesi tribunus legatione ea fungeretur peteretque militibus missionem ab sedecim annis: cetera mandaturos ubi prima provenissent. profecto iuvene modicum otium: sed superbire miles quod filius legati orator publicae causae satis ostenderet necessitate expressa quae per modestiam non obtinuissent.

Meanwhile the companies sent before the mutiny began to Nauportus, for the roads and bridges and other uses, when they heard of the disorder in the camp, tore up their standards, and, having plundered the nearest villages and Nauportus itself, which was like a township, pursued the centurions who held them back with mockery and insults, and at last with blows—their chief anger against Aufidienus Rufus, the camp prefect, whom they dragged from his vehicle, loaded with baggage, and drove at the head of the column, asking in mockery whether he gladly bore such immense loads, such long marches. For Rufus, long a common soldier, then a centurion, then camp prefect, was bringing back the old, hard service, an old hand at toil and labor, and the harsher because he had endured it.

Interea manipuli ante coeptam seditionem Nauportum missi ob itinera et pontes et alios usus, postquam turbatum in castris accepere, vexilla convellunt direptisque proximis vicis ipsoque Nauporto, quod municipii instar erat, retinentis centuriones inrisu et contumeliis, postremo verberibus insectantur, praecipua in Aufidienum Rufum praefectum castrorum ira, quem dereptum vehiculo sarcinis gravant aguntque primo in agmine per ludibrium rogitantes an tam immensa onera, tam longa itinera libenter ferret. quippe Rufus diu manipularis, dein centurio, mox castris praefectus, antiquam duramque militiam revocabat, vetus operis ac laboris et eo inmitior quia toleraverat.

At the coming of these men the mutiny was renewed, and they straggled abroad and plundered the country round. Blaesus ordered a few, chiefly those laden with spoil, to be flogged for the terror of the rest and shut in prison; for even then the legate was obeyed by the centurions and by all the best of the common soldiers. They struggled against those who dragged them, clutched the knees of the bystanders, called now on the names of individuals, now on the century to which each belonged, the cohort, the legion, crying out that the same threatened all. At the same time they heaped reproaches on the legate, called heaven and the gods to witness, left nothing undone to stir up envy, pity, fear, and rage. All ran together, and, the prison broken open, they loosed the bonds and mingled with themselves deserters and men condemned on capital charges.

Horum adventu redintegratur seditio et vagi circumiecta populabantur. Blaesus paucos, maxime praeda onustos, ad terrorem ceterorum adfici verberibus, claudi carcere iubet; nam etiam tum legato a centurionibus et optimo quoque manipularium parebatur. illi obniti trahentibus, prensare circumstantium genua, ciere modo nomina singulorum, modo centuriam quisque cuius manipularis erat, cohortem, legionem, eadem omnibus inminere clamitantes. simul probra in legatum cumulant, caelum ac deos obtestantur, nihil reliqui faciunt quo minus invidiam misericordiam metum et iras permoverent. adcurritur ab universis, et carcere effracto solvunt vincula desertoresque ac rerum capitalium damnatos sibi iam miscent.

Thence a fiercer violence, more leaders to the mutiny. And one Vibulenus, a common soldier, lifted before Blaesus’s tribunal on the shoulders of the bystanders, addressed the agitated throng, intent on what he was preparing: "You indeed," he said, "have given back light and breath to these innocent and most wretched men: but who gives life to my brother, who my brother to me? Sent to you by the army of Germany about our common interests, he butchered him last night by means of his gladiators, whom he keeps and arms for the destruction of the soldiers. Answer, Blaesus, where you have flung the body: not even enemies grudge burial. When with kisses, with tears, I have sated my grief, bid me too be slain, provided that these may bury us, killed for no crime but because we took counsel for the good of the legions."

Flagrantior inde vis, plures seditioni duces. et Vibulenus quidam gregarius miles, ante tribunal Blaesi adlevatus circumstantium umeris, apud turbatos et quid pararet intentos ’vos quidem’ inquit ’his innocentibus et miserrimis lucem et spiritum reddidistis: sed quis fratri meo vitam, quis fratrem mihi reddit? quem missum ad vos a Germanico exercitu de communibus commodis nocte proxima iugulavit per gladiatores suos, quos in exitium militum habet atque armat. responde, Blaese, ubi cadaver abieceris: ne hostes quidem sepultura invident. cum osculis, cum lacrimis dolorem meum implevero, me quoque trucidari iube, dum interfectos nullum ob scelus sed quia utilitati legionum consulebamus hi sepeliant.’

He inflamed these things with weeping, beating his breast and his face with his hands. Then, scattering those on whose shoulders he was upheld, he flung himself headlong at the feet of one man after another, and stirred up such consternation and ill-will that part of the soldiers bound the gladiators who were of Blaesus’s household, part the rest of his servants, while others poured out to seek the body. And had it not quickly become known that no body was anywhere found, that the slaves, though tortures were applied, denied the killing, and that the man had never had a brother, they were not far from the legate’s destruction. The tribunes, however, and the camp prefect they thrust out, the baggage of the fugitives was plundered, and the centurion Lucilius was killed, on whom, with soldiers’ wit, they had bestowed the nickname "Fetch-another," because, when his vine-staff was broken on a soldier’s back, he would in a loud voice call for another and again another. Hiding-places sheltered the rest, one only being kept back, Julius Clemens, who was held fit for carrying the soldiers’ messages on account of his ready wit. Nay, the eighth and the fifteenth legions were making ready the sword against each other, while the one demanded for death a centurion surnamed Sirpicus, and the men of the fifteenth defended him, had not the soldiers of the ninth thrown in entreaties, and, against those who spurned them, threats.

Incendebat haec fletu et pectus atque os manibus verberans. mox disiectis quorum per umeros sustinebatur, praeceps et singulorum pedibus advolutus tantum consternationis invidiaeque concivit, ut pars militum gladiatores, qui e servitio Blaesi erant, pars ceteram eiusdem familiam vincirent, alii ad quaerendum corpus effunderentur. ac ni propere neque corpus ullum reperiri, et servos adhibitis cruciatibus abnuere caedem, neque illi fuisse umquam fratrem pernotuisset, haud multum ab exitio legati aberant. tribunos tamen ac praefectum castrorum extrusere, sarcinae fugientium direptae, et centurio Lucilius interficitur cui militaribus facetiis vocabulum ’cedo alteram’ indiderant, quia fracta vite in tergo militis alteram clara voce ac rursus aliam poscebat. ceteros latebrae texere, uno retento Clemente Iulio qui perferendis militum mandatis habebatur idoneus ob promptum ingenium. quin ipsae inter se legiones octava et quinta decuma ferrum parabant, dum centurionem cognomento Sirpicum illa morti deposcit, quintadecumani tuentur, ni miles nonanus preces et adversum aspernantis minas interiecisset.

These things, heard of, drove Tiberius—though he was close and hid all the gloomiest matters most of all—to send his son Drusus, with the chief men of the state and two praetorian cohorts, with no instructions definite enough: he was to take counsel from the situation. And the cohorts were strengthened beyond the usual with picked men. There was added a great part of the praetorian cavalry and the flower of the Germans, who were then the emperor’s bodyguard; and at the same time the praetorian prefect Aelius Sejanus, given as colleague to his father Strabo, of great authority with Tiberius, as guide to the young man and as one who held out to the rest the prospect of dangers and rewards. To Drusus as he drew near the legions came out to meet him, as if from duty—not glad, as is usual, nor glittering with their decorations, but in foul squalor and with looks which, though they counterfeited sorrow, were nearer to contumacy.

Haec audita quamquam abstrusum et tristissima quaeque maxime occultantem Tiberium perpulere, ut Drusum filium cum primoribus civitatis duabusque praetoriis cohortibus mitteret, nullis satis certis mandatis, ex re consulturum. et cohortes delecto milite supra solitum firmatae. additur magna pars praetoriani equitis et robora Germano- rum, qui tum custodes imperatori aderant; simul praetorii praefectus Aelius Seianus, collega Straboni patri suo datus, magna apud Tiberium auctoritate, rector iuveni et ceteris periculorum praemiorumque ostentator. Druso propinquanti quasi per officium obviae fuere legiones, non laetae, ut adsolet, neque insignibus fulgentes, sed inluvie deformi et vultu, quamquam maestitiam imitarentur contumaciae propiores.

After he had entered the rampart, they secured the gates with pickets and ordered bands of armed men to wait at fixed points of the camp; the rest surrounded the tribunal in a vast throng. Drusus stood, demanding silence with his hand. Whenever they turned their eyes back upon the multitude, they roared with truculent voices, and again, at the sight of the Caesar, they trembled; an uncertain murmur, a fierce shout, and suddenly a hush; with conflicting movements of feeling they feared and terrified by turns. At last, the tumult breaking off, he read his father’s letter, in which it was written that he had a special care for the bravest legions, with whom he had borne very many wars; that, as soon as his mind had rested from grief, he would treat with the senators about their demands; that meanwhile he had sent his son to grant without delay whatever could at once be conceded; the rest must be reserved for the Senate, which it was right should be held not without a share in either favor or severity.

Postquam vallum introiit, portas stationibus firmant, globos armatorum certis castrorum locis opperiri iubent: ceteri tribunal ingenti agmine circumveniunt. stabat Drusus silentium manu poscens. illi quoties oculos ad multitudinem rettulerant, vocibus truculentis strepere, rursum viso Caesare trepidare; murmur incertum, atrox clamor et repente quies; diversis animorum motibus pavebant terrebantque. tandem interrupto tumultu litteras patris recitat, in quis perscriptum erat, praecipuam ipsi fortissimarum legionum curam, quibuscum plurima bella toleravisset; ubi primum a luctu requiesset animus, acturum apud patres de postulatis eorum; misisse interim filium ut sine cunctatione concederet quae statim tribui possent; cetera senatui servanda quem neque gratiae neque severitatis expertem haberi par esset.

The assembly answered that they had given their commands to the centurion Clemens to deliver. He began about discharge from the sixteenth year, about the rewards of completed service, that the daily pay should be a denarius, that the veterans should not be kept under the standard. When Drusus pleaded against these the discretion of the Senate and his father, he was broken in upon with shouting. Why had he come, if neither to increase the soldiers’ pay nor to lighten their toils—in short, with no liberty to do them any good? But, by Hercules, the lash and death were permitted to all. Tiberius, they said, had of old been wont to baffle the legions’ desires in the name of Augustus: Drusus had brought back the same arts. Would none but sons of households ever come to them? It was a strange thing indeed that the emperor should refer the soldiers’ interests alone to the Senate. The same Senate, then, must be consulted whenever punishments or battles were ordered: or were rewards under masters, penalties without an arbiter?

Responsum est a contione mandata Clementi centurioni quae perferret. is orditur de missione a sedecim annis, de praemiis finitae militiae, ut denarius diurnum stipendium foret, ne veterani sub vexillo haberentur. ad ea Drusus cum arbitrium senatus et patris obtenderet, clamore turbatur. cur venisset neque augendis militum stipendiis neque adlevandis laboribus, denique nulla bene faciendi licentia? at hercule verbera et necem cunctis permitti. Tiberium olim nomine Augusti desideria legionum frustrari solitum: easdem artis Drusum rettulisse. numquamne ad se nisi filios familiarum venturos? novum id plane quod imperator sola militis commoda ad senatum reiciat. eundem ergo senatum consulendum quotiens supplicia aut proelia indicantur: an praemia sub dominis, poenas sine arbitro esse?

At last they leave the tribunal, and shake their fists at any praetorian soldier or friend of Caesar’s who met them, the seed of discord and the beginning of arms—their bitterest enmity against Gnaeus Lentulus, because he, beyond the rest in age and in the glory of war, was believed to strengthen Drusus and to be the first to spurn those disgraceful demands of the soldiery. And not long after, as he was departing with the Caesar and, foreseeing the danger, making for the winter camp, they surround him, asking where he was going—to the emperor, or to the senators, that there too he might oppose the legions’ interests; at the same time they rush on him and throw stones. And now, bloodied by the blow of a stone and sure of death, he was saved by the onrush of the multitude that had come with Drusus.

Postremo deserunt tribunal, ut quis praetorianorum militum amicorumve Caesaris occurreret, manus intentantes, causam discordiae et initium armorum, maxime infensi Cn. Lentulo, quod is ante alios aetate et gloria belli firmare Drusum credebatur et illa militiae flagitia primus aspernari. nec multo post digredientem cum Caesare ac provisu periculi hiberna castra repetentem circumsistunt, rogitantes quo pergeret, ad imperatorem an ad patres, ut illic quoque commodis legionum adversaretur; simul ingruunt, saxa iaciunt. iamque lapidis ictu cruentus et exitii certus adcursu multitudinis quae cum Druso advenerat protectus est.

A night that threatened violence and was about to break out into crime, chance allayed: for the moon, in a suddenly clear sky, was seen to wane. The soldier, ignorant of the cause, took it as an omen of the present, likening the failure of the star to his own toils, and that things would go prosperously whither he was bound if the brightness and radiance of the goddess were restored. So with the clash of bronze and the blended note of trumpets and horns they raised a din; and according as she shone brighter or dimmer, they rejoiced or grieved; and after risen clouds blocked the sight, and it was believed she was hidden in darkness—as minds once stricken are unsteady toward superstition—they wailed that everlasting toil was portended to them, that the gods turned away from their deeds. Caesar, judging that this inclination must be used, and that what chance had offered must be turned into wisdom, ordered the tents to be visited; the centurion Clemens is summoned, and any others who by good qualities were pleasing to the crowd. These work their way among the watches, the pickets, the gate-guards, hold out hope, press home fear: "How long shall we besiege the emperor’s son? What end of contests? Shall we swear allegiance to Percennius and Vibulenus? Will Percennius and Vibulenus give pay to the soldiers, lands to the discharged? Shall they, in fine, take up the rule of the Roman people in place of the Neros and the Drusi? Why are we not rather, as we were the last in fault, so the first to repentance? Slow are the things demanded in common: private favor you earn at once, at once receive." Their minds being stirred by these words, and suspicious of one another, they sundered the recruit from the veteran, legion from legion. Then by degrees the love of obedience returns: they abandon the gates, and the standards, gathered into one place at the mutiny’s outset, they carry back to their proper stations.

Noctem minacem et in scelus erupturam fors lenivit: nam luna claro repente caelo visa languescere. id miles rationis ignarus omen praesentium accepit, suis laboribus defectionem sideris adsimulans, prospereque cessura qua pergerent si fulgor et claritudo deae redderetur. igitur aeris sono, tubarum cornuumque concentu strepere; prout splendidior obscuriorve laetari aut maerere; et postquam ortae nubes offecere visui creditumque conditam tenebris, ut sunt mobiles ad superstitionem perculsae semel mentes, sibi aeternum laborem portendi, sua facinora aversari deos lamentantur. utendum inclinatione ea Caesar et quae casus obtulerat in sapientiam vertenda ratus circumiri ten- toria iubet; accitur centurio Clemens et si alii bonis artibus grati in vulgus. hi vigiliis, stationibus, custodiis portarum se inserunt, spem offerunt, metum intendunt. ’quo usque filium imperatoris obsidebimus? quis certaminum finis? Percennione et Vibuleno sacramentum dicturi sumus? Percennius et Vibulenus stipendia militibus, agros emeritis largientur? denique pro Neronibus et Drusis imperium populi Romani capessent? quin potius, ut novissimi in culpam, ita primi ad paenitentiam sumus? tarda sunt quae in commune expostulantur: privatam gratiam statim mereare, statim recipias.’ commotis per haec mentibus et inter se suspectis, tironem a veterano, legionem a legione dissociant. tum redire paulatim amor obsequii: omittunt portas, signa unum in locum principio seditionis congregata suas in sedes referunt.

At daybreak Drusus called an assembly, and, though unpracticed in speaking, with inbred nobility censured the past and approved the present. He said he was not to be conquered by terror and threats: if he saw them turned to submission, if he heard them suppliant, he would write to his father to receive the legions’ prayers appeased. At their entreaty the same Blaesus, and Lucius Aponius, a Roman knight of Drusus’s staff, and Justus Catonius, a centurion of the first rank, are sent to Tiberius. Then there was a struggle of opinions, some holding that the envoys must be waited for and the soldier meanwhile soothed by courtesy, others that sterner remedies must be used: nothing in the mob was moderate; they were a terror unless they feared, and once they had been thoroughly frightened, might be despised with impunity; while superstition pressed, fears too must be added from the leader, the authors of the mutiny removed. Drusus’s nature was prone to harshness: Vibulenus and Percennius being summoned, he orders them killed. Most have handed down that they were buried within the leader’s tent, others that their bodies were flung outside the rampart for a show.

Drusus orto die et vocata contione, quamquam rudis dicendi, nobilitate ingenita incusat priora, probat praesentia; negat se terrore et minis vinci: flexos ad modestiam si videat, si supplices audiat, scripturum patri ut placatus legionum preces exciperet. orantibus rursum idem Blaesus et L. Aponius, eques Romanus e cohorte Drusi, Iustusque Catonius, primi ordinis centurio, ad Tiberium mittuntur. certatum inde sententiis, cum alii opperiendos legatos atque interim comitate permulcendum militem censerent, alii fortioribus remediis agendum: nihil in vulgo modicum; terrere ni paveant, ubi pertimuerint inpune contemni: dum superstitio urgeat, adiciendos ex duce metus sublatis seditionis auctoribus. promptum ad asperiora ingenium Druso erat: vocatos Vibulenum et Percennium interfici iubet. tradunt plerique intra tabernaculum ducis obrutos, alii corpora extra vallum abiecta ostentui.

Then, as each man was a chief disturber, they were hunted out, and part, straying outside the camp, were cut down by centurions or by the soldiers of the praetorian cohorts; some the companies themselves handed over, as a proof of fidelity. The soldiers’ troubles had been increased by a premature winter, with rains so continuous and so savage that they could not go out of their tents, nor gather together, and scarcely save the standards, which were swept away by whirlwind and flood. There endured too the dread of heaven’s wrath: not in vain, against the impious, did the stars grow dim and tempests rush down; there was no other relief from their ills than to leave the camp, ill-omened and defiled, and, absolved of guilt, be each restored to his own winter quarters. First the eighth, then the fifteenth legion went back: the men of the ninth had loudly insisted that Tiberius’s letters be waited for; soon, left desolate by the departure of the others, they anticipated of their own accord the necessity that hung over them. And Drusus, without waiting for the envoys’ return—since present matters had settled enough—went back to the city.

Tum ut quisque praecipuus turbator conquisiti, et pars, extra castra palantes, a centurionibus aut praetoriarum cohortium militibus caesi: quosdam ipsi manipuli documentum fidei tradidere. auxerat militum curas praematura hiems imbribus continuis adeoque saevis, ut non egredi tentoria, congregari inter se, vix tutari signa possent, quae turbine atque unda raptabantur. durabat et formido caelestis irae, nec frustra adversus impios hebescere sidera, ruere tempestates: non aliud malorum levamentum, quam si linquerent castra infausta temerataque et soluti piaculo suis quisque hibernis redderentur. primum octava, dein quinta decuma legio rediere: nonanus opperiendas Tiberii epistulas clamitaverat, mox desolatus aliorum discessione imminentem necessitatem sponte praevenit. et Drusus non exspectato legatorum regressu, quia praesentia satis consederant, in urbem rediit.

In nearly those same days, from those same causes, the legions of Germany were thrown into turmoil, the more violently the more numerous they were, and in great hope that Germanicus Caesar would not be able to endure another’s rule, and would give himself to the legions, who by their own force would draw all things along. There were two armies on the bank of the Rhine: the upper under the legate Gaius Silius, the lower in the charge of Aulus Caecina. The supreme command rested with Germanicus, then intent on conducting the assessment of the Gauls. But those whom Silius governed watched, with doubtful mind, the fortune of another’s mutiny: the soldiers of the lower army slid into frenzy, the beginning arising from the men of the twenty-first and fifth, with the first and twentieth legions also drawn in; for they were quartered in the same summer camp on the borders of the Ubii, in idleness or light duties. So, on hearing of the end of Augustus, the home-bred multitude, lately levied at Rome, used to license and impatient of toils, filled the untaught minds of the rest: the time had come when the veterans should demand a timely discharge, the young men larger pay, all of them a limit to their miseries, and should avenge the cruelty of the centurions. Not one man said these things, as Percennius among the Pannonian legions, nor to the timid ears of soldiers who looked to other, stronger armies, but many were the mouths and voices of mutiny: in their hand lay the Roman state, by their victories the commonwealth was enlarged, into their surname the emperors were adopted.

Isdem ferme diebus isdem causis Germanicae legiones turbatae, quanto plures tanto violentius, et magna spe fore ut Germanicus Caesar imperium alterius pati nequiret daretque se legionibus vi sua cuncta tracturis. duo apud ripam Rheni exercitus erant: cui nomen superiori sub C. Silio legato, inferiorem A. Caecina curabat. regimen summae rei penes Germanicum agendo Galliarum censui tum intentum. sed quibus Silius moderabatur, mente ambigua fortunam seditionis alienae speculabantur: inferioris exercitus miles in rabiem prolapsus est, orto ab unetvicesimanis quintanisque initio, et tractis prima quoque ac vicesima legionibus: nam isdem aestivis in finibus Vbiorum habebantur per otium aut levia munia. igitur audito fine Augusti vernacula multitudo, nuper acto in urbe dilectu, lasciviae sueta, laborum intolerans, implere ceterorum rudes animos: venisse tempus quo veterani maturam missionem, iuvenes largiora stipendia, cuncti modum miseriarum exposcerent saevitiamque centurionum ulciscerentur. non unus haec, ut Pannonicas inter legiones Percennius, nec apud trepidas militum auris, alios validiores exercitus respicientium, sed multa seditionis ora vocesque: sua in manu sitam rem Romanam, suis victoriis augeri rem publicam, in suum cognomentum adscisci imperatores.

Nor did the legate go to meet it: for the madness of the many had stripped him of firmness. Suddenly, frenzied, with drawn swords they fall upon the centurions: that is the most ancient material of soldiers’ hatreds and the first thing they vent their savagery on. Throwing them down, they belabor them with blows, sixty men to one, that they might equal the number of the centurions: then, mangled and torn and partly lifeless, they fling them before the rampart or into the river Rhine. Septimius, having fled to the tribunal and cast himself at Caecina’s feet, was clamored for until he was given up to destruction. Cassius Chaerea, who soon won a name with posterity by the killing of Gaius Caesar, then a young man and fierce of spirit, opened a path with the sword through those who stood in his way and were armed. No longer did tribune, no longer camp prefect keep his authority: the watches, the pickets, and whatever else present need had enjoined, they apportioned themselves. To those who conjectured the soldiers’ temper more deeply, this was the chief sign of a great and implacable rising: that they were not scattered, nor at the instigation of a few, but flared up together, fell silent together, with such uniformity and steadiness that you would believe them under command.

Nec legatus obviam ibat: quippe plurium vaecordia constantiam exemerat. repente lymphati destrictis gladiis in centuriones invadunt: ea vetustissima militaribus odiis materies et saeviendi principium. prostratos verberibus mulcant, sexageni singulos, ut numerum centurionum adaequarent: tum convulsos laniatosque et partim exanimos ante vallum aut in amnem Rhenum proiciunt. Septimius cum perfugisset ad tribunal pedibusque Caecinae advolveretur, eo usque flagitatus est donec ad exitium dederetur. Cassius Chaerea, mox caede Gai Caesaris memoriam apud posteros adeptus, tum adulescens et animi ferox, inter obstantis et armatos ferro viam patefecit. non tribunus ultra, non castrorum praefectus ius obtinuit: vigilias, stationes, et si qua alia praesens usus indixerat, ipsi partiebantur. id militaris animos altius coniectantibus praecipuum indicium magni atque inplacabilis motus, quod neque disiecti nec paucorum instinctu, set pariter ardescerent, pariter silerent, tanta aequalitate et constantia ut regi crederes.

Meanwhile to Germanicus, receiving the census throughout the Gauls, as we have said, word is brought that Augustus has died. He had Augustus’s granddaughter Agrippina in marriage and several children by her, being himself born of Drusus, Tiberius’s brother, and grandson of Augusta, but anxious because of the hidden hatreds of his uncle and grandmother against him, whose causes were the sharper for being unjust. For the memory of Drusus was great among the Roman people, and it was believed that, had he gained mastery, he would have restored liberty; whence toward Germanicus there was the same favor and hope. For the young man had a citizen’s temper, a marvelous courtesy, and a converse and countenance far other than Tiberius’s, which were arrogant and dark. There were added the women’s quarrels, with Livia’s stepmotherly goads against Agrippina; and Agrippina herself was somewhat too excitable, save that by her chastity and love of her husband she turned even an untamed spirit to good.

Interea Germanico per Gallias, ut diximus, census accipienti excessisse Augustum adfertur. neptem eius Agrippinam in matrimonio pluresque ex ea liberos habebat, ipse Druso fratre Tiberii genitus, Augustae nepos, set anxius occultis in se patrui aviaeque odiis quorum causae acriores quia iniquae. quippe Drusi magna apud populum Romanum memoria, credebaturque, si rerum potitus foret, libertatem redditurus; unde in Germanicum favor et spes eadem. nam iuveni civile ingenium, mira comitas et diversa ab Tiberii sermone vultu, adrogantibus et obscuris. accedebant muliebres offensiones novercalibus Liviae in Agrippinam stimulis, atque ipsa Agrippina paulo commotior, nisi quod castitate et mariti amore quamvis indomitum animum in bonum vertebat.

But Germanicus, the nearer he was to the highest hope, the more earnestly did he exert himself for Tiberius. He bound the neighboring Sequani and the states of the Belgae by oath to his name. Then, on hearing of the legions’ tumult, he set out in haste and met them outside the camp, his eyes cast down to the ground as if in penitence. After he entered the rampart, discordant complaints began to be heard. And some, seizing his hand under pretense of kissing it, thrust his fingers into their mouths, that he might touch their gums empty of teeth; others showed limbs bent with age. He ordered the assembly, which seemed a mingled mass, to part into companies: thus they would better hear the answer; that the standards be borne in front, so that at least the cohorts might be distinguished: they obeyed slowly. Then, beginning from the reverence due to Augustus, he passed to the victories and triumphs of Tiberius, celebrating with special praise what he had done most gloriously in the Germanies with those very legions. Next he extolled the unanimity of Italy, the loyalty of the Gauls; nowhere anything turbulent or discordant. These things were heard in silence or with moderate murmuring.

Sed Germanicus quanto summae spei propior, tanto impensius pro Tiberio niti. Sequanos proximos et Belgarum civitates in verba eius adigit. dehinc audito legionum tumultu raptim profectus obvias extra castra habuit, deiectis in terram oculis velut paenitentia. postquam vallum iniit dissoni questus audiri coepere. et quidam prensa manu eius per speciem exosculandi inseruerunt digitos ut vacua dentibus ora contingeret; alii curvata senio membra ostendebant. adsistentem contionem, quia permixta videbatur, discedere in manipulos iubet: sic melius audituros responsum; vexilla praeferri ut id saltem discerneret cohortis: tarde obtemperavere. tunc a veneratione Augusti orsus flexit ad victorias triumphosque Tiberii, praecipuis laudibus celebrans quae apud Germanias illis cum legionibus pulcherrima fecisset. Italiae inde consensum, Galliarum fidem extollit; nil usquam turbidum aut discors. silentio haec vel murmure modico audita sunt.

When he touched on the mutiny, asking where was the soldier’s modesty, where the honor of the old discipline, whither they had driven their tribunes, whither their centurions, they all bared their bodies and reproached him with the scars from their wounds, the marks of the lash; then with confused voices they arraigned the prices of exemptions, the meagerness of the pay, the hardness of the works, and by their proper names the rampart, the ditches, the gathering of forage, timber, and firewood, and whatever else is sought from necessity or against idleness in camp. The most savage outcry arose from the veterans, who, counting thirty campaigns or more, begged him to relieve their weariness, and that they might not die amid the same toils, but that there be an end of so toilsome a service and a rest that was not destitute. There were even some who demanded back the money bequeathed by the deified Augustus, with auspicious omens for Germanicus; and, if he wished the imperium, they showed themselves ready. Then indeed, as if defiled by crime, he leapt headlong down from the tribunal. They opposed their arms to him as he departed, threatening unless he went back; but he, crying out that he would die rather than throw off his faith, snatched the sword from his side and was carrying it raised toward his breast, had not those nearest seized his right hand and held it by force. The farthest and densely packed part of the assembly, and—scarce credible to tell—certain men coming up nearer one by one, urged him to strike; and a soldier named Calusidius offered his drawn sword, adding that it was sharper. That seemed savage and of evil custom even to the frenzied, and there was a space in which the Caesar was hurried off by his friends into his tent.

Vt seditionem attigit, ubi modestia militaris, ubi veteris disciplinae decus, quonam tribunos, quo centuriones exegissent, rogitans, nudant universi corpora, cicatrices ex vulneribus, verberum notas exprobrant; mox indiscretis vocibus pretia vacationum, angustias stipendii, duritiam operum ac propriis nominibus incusant vallum, fossas, pabuli materiae lignorum adgestus, et si qua alia ex necessitate aut adversus otium castrorum quaeruntur. atrocissimus veteranorum clamor oriebatur, qui tricena aut supra stipendia numerantes, mederetur fessis, neu mortem in isdem laboribus, sed finem tam exercitae militiae neque inopem requiem orabant. fuere etiam qui legatam a divo Augusto pecuniam reposcerent, faustis in Germanicum ominibus; et si vellet imperium promptos ostentavere. tum vero, quasi scelere contaminaretur, praeceps tribunali desiluit. opposuerunt abeunti arma, minitantes, ni regrederetur; at ille moriturum potius quam fidem exueret clamitans, ferrum a latere diripuit elatumque deferebat in pectus, ni proximi prensam dextram vi attinuissent. extrema et conglobata inter se pars contionis ac, vix credibile dictu, quidam singuli propius incedentes feriret hortabantur; et miles nomine Calusidius strictum obtulit gladium, addito acutiorem esse. saevum id malique moris etiam furentibus visum, ac spatium fuit quo Caesar ab amicis in tabernaculum raperetur.

There they took counsel about a remedy; for it was reported that envoys were being made ready to draw the upper army to the same cause; that the town of the Ubii was marked out for destruction, and that hands stained with plunder would burst out to ravage the Gauls. The fear was heightened by the knowledge that the enemy was aware of the Roman mutiny and would invade if the bank were abandoned: but if the auxiliaries and allies were armed against the seceding legions, civil war would be undertaken. Severity was perilous, largess shameful: whether nothing or everything were granted to the soldier, the commonwealth was in jeopardy. So, after the reasons had been weighed among them, it was resolved that letters be written in the name of the princeps: discharge be given to those who had served twenty campaigns, those who had done sixteen be released and kept under a standard, exempt from all duty but that of repelling the enemy, and the legacies they had demanded be paid and doubled.

Consultatum ibi de remedio; etenim nuntiabatur parari legatos qui superiorem exercitum ad causam eandem traherent; destinatum excidio Vbiorum oppidum, imbutasque praeda manus in direptionem Galliarum erupturas. augebat metum gnarus Romanae seditionis et, si omitteretur ripa, invasurus hostis: at si auxilia et socii adversum abscedentis legiones armarentur, civile bellum suscipi. periculosa severitas, flagitiosa largitio: seu nihil militi sive omnia concedentur in ancipiti res publica. igitur volutatis inter se rationibus placitum ut epistulae nomine principis scriberentur: missionem dari vicena stipendia meritis, exauctorari qui sena dena fecissent ac retineri sub vexillo ceterorum inmunes nisi propulsandi hostis, legata quae petiverant exsolvi duplicarique.

The soldier perceived that these things were contrived for the moment, and demanded them at once. Discharge is hastened through the tribunes; the largess was deferred to each man’s winter quarters. The men of the fifth and twenty-first did not depart until, in the very summer camp, money collected from the travel-funds of Germanicus’s friends and of himself was paid out. The first and twentieth legions Caecina the legate led back to the city of the Ubii, a shameful column, since the moneys snatched from the emperor were carried among the standards and the eagles. Germanicus, having set out to the upper army, bound the second and the thirteenth and the sixteenth legions, which hesitated not at all, by the oath; the men of the fourteenth had wavered a little: money and discharge were offered though they did not demand it.

Sensit miles in tempus conficta statimque flagitavit. missio per tribunos maturatur, largitio differebatur in hiberna cuiusque. non abscessere quintani unetvicesimanique donec isdem in aestivis contracta ex viatico amicorum ipsiusque Caesaris pecunia persolveretur. primam ac vicesimam legiones Caecina legatus in civitatem Vbiorum reduxit turpi agmine cum fisci de imperatore rapti inter signa interque aquilas veherentur. Germanicus superiorem ad exercitum profectus secundam et tertiam decumam et sextam decumam legiones nihil cunctatas sacramento adigit. quartadecumani paulum dubitaverant: pecunia et missio quamvis non flagitantibus oblata est.

But among the Chauci a body of detached troops drawn from the mutinous legions, who were doing garrison duty, began a mutiny, and were a little checked by the immediate execution of two soldiers. Manius Ennius, the camp prefect, had ordered it, more by a good example than by a granted right. Then, as the movement swelled, he fled, and, being found, when his hiding-place proved unsafe, he borrowed protection from boldness: it was not the prefect, he said, that they outraged, but Germanicus their leader, but Tiberius their emperor. At the same time, terrifying those who stood in his way, he seized the standard, turned it toward the bank, and, crying out that whoever fell out of the column should be reckoned a deserter, led them back into winter quarters, turbulent and having dared nothing.

At in Chaucis coeptavere seditionem praesidium agitantes vexillarii discordium legionum et praesenti duorum militum supplicio paulum repressi sunt. iusserat id M’. Ennius castrorum praefectus, bono magis exemplo quam concesso iure. deinde intumescente motu profugus repertusque, postquam intutae latebrae, praesidium ab audacia mutuatur: non praefectum ab iis, sed Germanicum ducem, sed Tiberium imperatorem violari. simul exterritis qui obstiterant, raptum vexillum ad ripam vertit, et si quis agmine decessisset, pro desertore fore clamitans, reduxit in hiberna turbidos et nihil ausos.

Meanwhile the envoys from the Senate approached Germanicus, now returned, at the altar of the Ubii. Two legions were there, the first and twentieth, and the veterans lately discharged, wintering under a standard. Upon them, frightened and crazed by a guilty conscience, came a fear that the envoys had come by order of the senators to make void what they had wrung out by mutiny. And, as it is the way of a mob to fasten a charge on someone, however false, they accuse Munatius Plancus, an ex-consul, the head of the embassy, as the author of the senatorial decree; and in the dead of night they begin to demand the standard kept in Germanicus’s house, and, a rush being made to the door, they force it, and, dragging the Caesar from his bed, compel him by the threat of death to hand over the standard. Soon, roaming the streets, they fell in with the envoys, who, hearing of the disturbance, were making for Germanicus. They heap insults on them, prepare slaughter, especially against Plancus, whom his rank had hindered from flight; nor had he in his peril any refuge but the camp of the first legion. There, embracing the standards and the eagle, he sheltered himself by their sanctity; and had not the eagle-bearer Calpurnius warded off the extreme violence, a thing rare even among enemies, a legate of the Roman people would, in a Roman camp, have stained the altars of the gods with his blood. At last, in full daylight, when the leader and the soldier and the deeds were recognized, Germanicus entered the camp, ordered Plancus to be brought to him, and received him onto the tribunal. Then, decrying the fatal frenzy, that it rose again not from the soldiers but from the wrath of the gods, he discloses why the envoys had come; he eloquently bewails the right of embassy, and Plancus’s grievous and undeserved peril, and at the same time how much disgrace the legion had incurred; and, the assembly being stunned rather than quieted, he dismisses the envoys under the guard of auxiliary cavalry.

Interea legati ab senatu regressum iam apud aram Vbiorum Germanicum adeunt. duae ibi legiones, prima atque vicesima, veteranique nuper missi sub vexillo hiemabant. pavidos et conscientia vaecordes intrat metus venisse patrum iussu qui inrita facerent quae per seditionem expresserant. utque mos vulgo quamvis falsis reum subdere, Munatium Plancum consulatu functum, principem legationis, auctorem senatus consulti incusant; et nocte concubia vexillum in domo Germanici situm flagitare occipiunt, concursuque ad ianuam facto moliuntur foris, extra- ctum cubili Caesarem tradere vexillum intento mortis metu subigunt. mox vagi per vias obvios habuere legatos, audita consternatione ad Germanicum tendentis. ingerunt contumelias, caedem parant, Planco maxime, quem dignitas fuga impediverat; neque aliud periclitanti subsidium quam castra primae legionis. illic signa et aquilam amplexus religione sese tutabatur, ac ni aquilifer Calpurnius vim extremam arcuisset, rarum etiam inter hostis, legatus populi Romani Romanis in castris sanguine suo altaria deum commaculavisset. luce demum, postquam dux et miles et facta noscebantur, ingressus castra Germanicus perduci ad se Plancum imperat recepitque in tribunal. tum fatalem increpans rabiem, neque militum sed deum ira resurgere, cur venerint legati aperit; ius legationis atque ipsius Planci gravem et immeritum casum, simul quantum dedecoris adierit legio, facunde miseratur, attonitaque magis quam quieta contione legatos praesidio auxiliarium equitum dimittit.

In that alarm all blamed Germanicus that he did not go to the upper army, where were obedience and aid against the rebels: enough and more had been sinned by discharge and money and soft counsels. Or, if his own safety were cheap to him, why did he keep his little son, why his pregnant wife, among madmen and violators of every human right? Let him at least restore them to their grandfather and the commonwealth. Long he hesitated, his wife spurning the thought, while she protested that she was sprung from the deified Augustus and would not degenerate in the face of danger; but at last, embracing her womb and their common son with many tears, he prevailed on her to depart. There went forth a womanly and pitiable train, the fugitive wife of the leader, bearing her little son in her bosom, around her the lamenting wives of his friends who were dragged off with her, nor less mournful those who stayed.

Eo in metu arguere Germanicum omnes quod non ad superiorem exercitum pergeret, ubi obsequia et contra rebellis auxilium: satis superque missione et pecunia et mollibus consultis peccatum. vel si vilis ipsi salus, cur filium parvulum, cur gravidam coniugem inter furentis et omnis humani iuris violatores haberet? illos saltem avo et rei publicae redderet. diu cunctatus aspernantem uxorem, cum se divo Augusto ortam neque degenerem ad pericula testaretur, postremo uterum eius et communem filium multo cum fletu complexus, ut abiret perpulit. incedebat muliebre et miserabile agmen, profuga ducis uxor, parvulum sinu filium gerens, lamentantes circum amicorum coniuges quae simul trahebantur nec minus tristes qui manebant.

The aspect was not of a Caesar in his glory, nor in his own camp, but as in a captured city; and the groaning and wailing drew even the soldiers’ ears and faces. They come out of their tents: what is that mournful sound? what so sad? Noble women, no centurion for their guard, no soldier, nothing of an emperor’s wife or her usual retinue—making for the Treveri and a stranger’s protection. Thence came shame and pity, and the memory of her father Agrippa, of her grandfather Augustus, her father-in-law Drusus, herself of conspicuous fertility and noted chastity; and the infant, too, born in the camp, reared in the tents of the legions, whom by a soldier’s word they called Caligula, because for the most part, to win the favor of the crowd, he was shod in that covering of the feet. But nothing so bent them as their resentment against the Treveri: they entreat, they oppose, that she return and stay—part running to meet Agrippina, most going back to Germanicus. And he, fresh as he was in grief and anger, began thus to those gathered about him.

Non florentis Caesaris neque suis in castris, sed velut in urbe victa facies gemitusque ac planctus etiam militum auris oraque advertere: progrediuntur contuberniis. quis ille flebilis sonus? quod tam triste? feminas inlustris, non centurionem ad tutelam, non militem, nihil imperatoriae uxoris aut comitatus soliti: pergere ad Treviros externae fidei. pudor inde et miseratio et patris Agrippae, Augusti avi memoria, socer Drusus, ipsa insigni fecunditate, praeclara pudicitia; iam infans in castris genitus, in contubernio legionum eductus, quem militari vocabulo Caligulam appellabant, quia plerumque ad concilianda vulgi studia eo tegmine pedum induebatur. sed nihil aeque flexit quam invidia in Treviros: orant obsistunt, rediret maneret, pars Agrippinae occursantes, plurimi ad Germanicum regressi. isque ut erat recens dolore et ira apud circumfusos ita coepit.

"Not wife nor son are dearer to me than my father and the commonwealth: but him his own majesty, the Roman empire its other armies will defend. My wife and children, whom for your glory I would gladly offer to destruction, I now remove far from your madness, that whatever of crime is impending may be expiated by my blood alone, and that the slaying of Augustus’s great-grandson, the killing of Tiberius’s daughter-in-law, may not make you more guilty. What, in these days, have you left undared, unprofaned? What name shall I give to this gathering? Shall I call you soldiers—you who have beset with rampart and arms the son of your emperor? Or citizens—by whom the authority of the Senate has been so flung aside? You have broken the law even of enemies, the sanctity of an embassy, the right of nations. The deified Julius quelled a mutiny of his army with one word, by calling ’Quirites’ those who refused his oath: the deified Augustus by his look and presence terrified the legions of Actium: we, though not yet the same, are yet sprung from them; and if the soldiery of Spain or Syria should spurn us, it would still be strange and shameful. Is it the first and twentieth legions—the one that received its standards from Tiberius, you, the partner of so many battles, enriched with so many rewards—that render this fine thanks to your leader? Is this the news I am to carry to my father, who hears all things glad from the other provinces—that his own recruits, his own veterans, are sated neither with discharge nor with money: that here alone centurions are killed, tribunes cast out, envoys imprisoned, the camps and rivers stained with blood, and that I drag out a begged-for life among men who hate me?

’Non mihi uxor aut filius patre et re publica cariores sunt, sed illum quidem sua maiestas, imperium Romanum ceteri exercitus defendent. coniugem et liberos meos, quos pro gloria vestra libens ad exitium offerrem, nunc procul a furentibus summoveo, ut quidquid istud sceleris imminet, meo tantum sanguine pietur, neve occisus Augusti pronepos, interfecta Tiberii nurus nocentiores vos faciant. quid enim per hos dies inausum intemeratumve vobis? quod nomen huic coetui dabo? militesne appellem, qui filium imperatoris vestri vallo et armis circumsedistis? an civis, quibus tam proiecta senatus auctoritas? hostium quoque ius et sacra legationis et fas gentium rupistis. divus Iulius seditionem exercitus verbo uno compescuit, Quirites vocando qui sacramentum eius detrectabant: divus Augustus vultu et aspectu Actiacas legiones exterruit: nos ut nondum eosdem, ita ex illis ortos si Hispaniae Syriaeve miles aspernaretur, tamen mirum et indignum erat. primane et vicesima legiones, illa signis a Tiberio acceptis, tu tot proeliorum socia, tot praemiis aucta, egregiam duci vestro gratiam refertis? hunc ego nuntium patri laeta omnia aliis e provinciis audienti feram? ipsius tirones, ipsius veteranos non missione, non pecunia satiatos: hic tantum interfici centuriones, eici tribunos, includi legatos, infecta sanguine castra, flumina, meque precariam animam inter infensos trahere.

"Why, on the first day of the assembly, did you wrest from me that steel which I was making ready to plunge into my breast, O improvident friends? Better and more loving was he who offered me the sword. I should at least have fallen not yet conscious of so many crimes of my army; you would have chosen a leader who, though he might leave my death unpunished, would yet avenge that of Varus and the three legions. For let not the gods permit that to the Belgae—though they offer it—belong that honor and renown, of having succored the Roman name and crushed the peoples of Germany. Your spirit, deified Augustus, received into heaven, your image, father Drusus, and your memory—with these very soldiers, into whom shame and glory are now entering—may they wash out this stain, and turn their civil wraths to the destruction of the enemy. You too, whose faces, whose hearts I now behold changed, if you restore the envoys to the Senate, obedience to the emperor, to me my wife and son, withdraw from the contagion and separate the seditious: that will be a pledge of repentance, that a bond of loyalty."

’Cur enim primo contionis die ferrum illud, quod pectori meo infigere parabam, detraxistis, o inprovidi amici? melius et amantius ille qui gladium offerebat. cecidissem certe nondum tot flagitiorum exercitu meo conscius; legissetis ducem, qui meam quidem mortem inpunitam sineret, Vari tamen et trium legionum ulcisceretur. neque enim di sinant ut Belgarum quamquam offerentium decus istud et claritudo sit subvenisse Romano nomini, compressisse Germaniae populos. tua, dive Auguste, caelo recepta mens, tua, pater Druse, imago, tui memoria isdem istis cum militibus, quos iam pudor et gloria intrat, eluant hanc maculam irasque civilis in exitium hostibus vertant. vos quoque, quorum alia nunc ora, alia pectora contueor, si legatos senatui, obsequium imperatori, si mihi coniugem et filium redditis, discedite a contactu ac dividite turbidos: id stabile ad paenitentiam, id fidei vinculum erit.’

Suppliant at these words, and confessing that the reproaches were true, they begged him to punish the guilty, to pardon the fallen, and to lead them against the enemy: let his wife be recalled, let the legions’ nursling return, and not be given over as a hostage to the Gauls. Agrippina’s return he excused on account of her approaching childbirth and the winter: his son would come; the rest let them carry out themselves. Changed men, they run this way and that, and drag the most seditious in bonds to Gaius Caetronius, legate of the first legion, who held trial and exacted penalties on each in this fashion. The legions stood before the assembly with drawn swords; the accused was shown on a platform by a tribune: if they had shouted him guilty, he was thrown down and butchered. And the soldier rejoiced in the killings, as though he absolved himself; nor did the Caesar restrain them, since, by no order of his own, the savagery and the odium of the deed lay with the same men. The veterans, following the example, are sent not long after into Raetia, on the pretext of defending the province against the threatening Suebi, but really that they might be torn from a camp grim still no less from the harshness of the cure than from the memory of the crime. Then he held a review of the centurions. Summoned by the emperor, each declared his name, his rank, his birthplace, the number of his campaigns, what he had done bravely in battles, and what military decorations he had. If the tribunes, if the legion, approved his diligence and uprightness, he kept his rank: where by common consent they charged greed or cruelty, he was dismissed from the service.

Supplices ad haec et vera exprobrari fatentes orabant puniret noxios, ignosceret lapsis et duceret in hostem: revocaretur coniunx, rediret legionum alumnus neve obses Gallis traderetur. reditum Agrippinae excusavit ob inminentem partum et hiemem: venturum filium: cetera ipsi exsequerentur. discurrunt mutati et seditiosissimum quemque vinctos trahunt ad legatum legionis primae C. Caetronium, qui iudicium et poenas de singulis in hunc modum exercuit. stabant pro contione legiones destrictis gladiis: reus in suggestu per tribunum ostendebatur: si nocentem adclamaverant, praeceps datus trucidabatur. et gaudebat caedibus miles tamquam semet absolveret; nec Caesar arcebat, quando nullo ipsius iussu penes eosdem saevitia facti et invidia erat. secuti exemplum veterani haud multo post in Raetiam mittuntur, specie defendendae provinciae ob imminentis Suebos ceterum ut avellerentur castris trucibus adhuc non minus asperitate remedii quam sceleris memoria. centurionatum inde egit. citatus ab imperatore nomen, ordinem, patriam, numerum stipendiorum, quae strenue in proeliis fecisset, et cui erant, dona militaria edebat. si tribuni, si legio industriam innocentiamque adprobaverant, retinebat ordinem: ubi avaritiam aut crudelitatem consensu obiectavissent, solvebatur militia.

With present matters thus composed, no less a mass remained, owing to the ferocity of the fifth and twenty-first legions, wintering at the sixtieth milestone (the place is called Vetera). For they had been the first to begin the mutiny: every most atrocious deed had been wrought by their hands; nor were they terrified by the punishment of their comrades, nor turned by repentance, but kept their wraths. So Caesar makes ready to send down the Rhine arms, a fleet, and allies, resolved, if his command were spurned, to settle it by war.

Sic compositis praesentibus haud minor moles supererat ob ferociam quintae et unetvicesimae legionum, sexagesimum apud lapidem (loco Vetera nomen est) hibernantium. nam primi seditionem coeptaverant: atrocissimum quodque facinus horum manibus patratum; nec poena commilitonum exterriti nec paenitentia conversi iras retinebant. igitur Caesar arma classem socios demittere Rheno parat, si imperium detrectetur, bello certaturus.

But at Rome, before it was yet known what end had come in Illyricum, and the stir of the German legions being heard of, the city in alarm arraigned Tiberius: that while he mocked the senators and the plebs, feeble and unarmed, with a feigned delay, the soldiery meanwhile was in revolt and could not be checked by the not-yet-grown authority of two young men. He ought to have gone himself and set the majesty of the emperor against them, who would have yielded once they had seen a princeps of long experience and supreme alike in severity and in bounty. Could Augustus, worn with age, journey so often into the Germanies, while Tiberius, vigorous in his years, sat in the Senate, cavilling at the senators’ words? Enough had been provided for the servitude of the city: the soldiers’ minds needed soothing poultices, that they might be willing to bear peace.

At Romae nondum cognito qui fuisset exitus in Illyrico, et legionum Germanicarum motu audito, trepida civitas incusare Tiberium quod, dum patres et plebem, invalida et inermia, cunctatione ficta ludificetur, dissideat interim miles neque duorum adulescentium nondum adulta auctoritate comprimi queat. ire ipsum et opponere maiestatem imperatoriam debuisse cessuris ubi principem longa experientia eundemque severitatis et munificentiae summum vidissent. an Augustum fessa aetate totiens in Ger- manias commeare potuisse: Tiberium vigentem annis sedere in senatu, verba patrum cavillantem? satis prospectum urbanae servituti: militaribus animis adhibenda fomenta ut ferre pacem velint.

Against these speeches Tiberius’s resolve stood unmoved and fixed: not to abandon the head of affairs nor to put himself and the commonwealth to the hazard. For many and diverse things gnawed at him: the army in Germany was the stronger, that in Pannonia the nearer; the one was propped on the resources of the Gauls, the other hung over Italy: which, then, should he prefer? And lest those passed over should be inflamed by the slight. But through his sons both could be approached alike, his majesty safe, since reverence is greater from afar. At the same time it was excusable in young men to refer some things to their father, and those who resisted Germanicus or Drusus could be softened or broken by himself: what other resource was there, if they had spurned the emperor? Yet, as though on the very point of going, he chose companions, got together baggage, fitted out ships: then, pleading now winter, now business in various ways, he deceived first the prudent, then the common sort, and the provinces longest of all.

Immotum adversus eos sermones fixumque Tiberio fuit non omittere caput rerum neque se remque publicam in casum dare. multa quippe et diversa angebant: validior per Germaniam exercitus, propior apud Pannoniam; ille Galliarum opibus subnixus, hic Italiae inminens: quos igitur anteferret? ac ne postpositi contumelia incenderentur. at per filios pariter adiri maiestate salva, cui maior e longinquo reverentia. simul adulescentibus excusatum quaedam ad patrem reicere, resistentisque Germanico aut Druso posse a se mitigari vel infringi: quod aliud subsidium si imperatorem sprevissent? ceterum ut iam iamque iturus legit comites, conquisivit impedimenta, adornavit navis: mox hiemem aut negotia varie causatus primo prudentis, dein vulgum, diutissime provincias fefellit.

But Germanicus, although he had collected his army and prepared vengeance against the deserters, thought that space should still be given, in case they should take counsel for themselves by the recent example, and sent word ahead to Caecina that he was coming with a strong force, and, unless they forestalled him by punishment of the guilty, he would use indiscriminate slaughter. Caecina read these letters secretly to the eagle-bearers and standard-bearers and whatever was soundest in the camp, and urged them to rescue all from infamy, themselves from death: for in peace men’s cases and deserts were weighed, but when war pressed, the innocent and the guilty fell alike. They, having tried those whom they thought fit, when they see the greater part of the legions in their duty, fix, on the legate’s advice, a time at which to fall with the sword upon the foulest and the readiest for mutiny. Then, a signal given among themselves, they burst into the tents, butcher the unsuspecting, with none but those in the secret knowing what was the beginning of the slaughter, what the end.

At Germanicus, quamquam contracto exercitu et parata in defectores ultione, dandum adhuc spatium ratus, si recenti exemplo sibi ipsi consulerent, praemittit litteras ad Caecinam, venire se valida manu ac, ni supplicium in malos praesumant, usurum promisca caede. eas Caecina aquiliferis signiferisque et quod maxime castrorum sincerum erat occulte recitat, utque cunctos infamiae, se ipsos morti eximant hortatur: nam in pace causas et merita spectari, ubi bellum ingruat innocentis ac noxios iuxta cadere. illi temptatis quos idoneos rebantur, postquam maiorem legionum partem in officio vident, de sententia legati statuunt tempus, quo foedissimum quemque et seditioni promptum ferro invadant. tunc signo inter se dato inrumpunt contubernia, trucidant ignaros, nullo nisi consciis noscente quod caedis initium, quis finis.

The aspect was unlike all the civil wars that ever befell. Not in battle, not from opposing camps, but from the same beds—whom the day had held eating together, the night resting together—they part into sides and hurl their weapons. Shouting, wounds, blood were open; the cause was hidden; the rest chance ruled. And some of the good were slain, after, the object of the rage being understood, the worst too had snatched up arms. Neither legate nor tribune was at hand to control: license was granted to the mob, and revenge, and satiety. Soon Germanicus, entering the camp, calling that not a cure but a calamity, with many tears ordered the bodies to be burned. Their spirits, savage even then, are seized by a longing to march against the enemy, in expiation of their frenzy; nor could the shades of their comrades be appeased otherwise than if they had received honorable wounds in their impious breasts. The Caesar follows the soldiers’ ardor, and, a bridge being joined, sends across twelve thousand from the legions, six-and-twenty allied cohorts, eight squadrons of cavalry whose discipline had been unstained in that mutiny.

Diversa omnium, quae umquam accidere, civilium armorum facies. non proelio, non adversis e castris, sed isdem e cubilibus, quos simul vescentis dies, simul quietos nox habuerat, discedunt in partis, ingerunt tela. clamor vulnera sanguis palam, causa in occulto; cetera fors regit. et quidam bonorum caesi, postquam intellecto in quos saeviretur pessimi quoque arma rapuerant. neque legatus aut tribunus moderator adfuit: permissa vulgo licentia atque ultio et satietas. mox ingressus castra Germanicus, non medicinam illud plurimis cum lacrimis sed cladem appellans, cremari corpora iubet. Truces etiam tum animos cupido involat eundi in hostem, piaculum furoris; nec aliter posse placari commilitonum manis quam si pectoribus impiis honesta vulnera accepissent. sequitur ardorem militum Caesar iunctoque ponte tramittit duodecim milia e legionibus, sex et viginti socias cohortis, octo equitum alas, quarum ea seditione intemerata modestia fuit.

The Germans were astir, in joy and not far off, while we were held back—first by the suspension of business for the loss of Augustus, then by our discords. But the Roman, in a hurried march, cuts through the Caesian forest and the frontier-line begun by Tiberius, places his camp on the line, fortifying front and rear with a rampart, the flanks with felled timber. Thence he passes through dark glens and deliberates which of two routes to follow, the short and the usual or the more difficult and untried and therefore unguarded by the enemy. The longer way being chosen, the rest is hastened: for scouts had brought word that that night was a festival for the Germans, given over to solemn feasts and sport. Caecina is ordered to go before with the light cohorts and clear away the obstructions of the woods: the legions follow at a moderate interval. The night, bright with stars, aided them, and they came to the villages of the Marsi, and pickets were thrown around them as they yet lay scattered through their beds and beside their tables, in no fear, with no sentries posted: so utterly was everything dissolved in carelessness, with no dread of war, nor even a peace, but a languid and loosened one, among drunken men.

Laeti neque procul Germani agitabant, dum iustitio ob amissum Augustum, post discordiis attinemur. at Romanus agmine propero silvam Caesiam limitemque a Tiberio coeptum scindit, castra in limite locat, frontem ac tergum vallo, latera concaedibus munitus. inde saltus obscuros permeat consultatque ex duobus itineribus breve et solitum sequatur an inpeditius et intemptatum eoque hostibus incautum. delecta longiore via cetera adcelerantur: etenim attulerant exploratores festam eam Germanis noctem ac sollemnibus epulis ludicram. Caecina cum expeditis cohortibus praeire et obstantia silvarum amoliri iubetur: legiones modico intervallo sequuntur. iuvit nox sideribus inlustris, ventumque ad vicos Marsorum et circumdatae stationes stratis etiam tum per cubilia propterque mensas, nullo metu, non antepositis vigiliis: adeo cuncta incuria disiecta erant neque belli timor, ac ne pax quidem nisi languida et soluta inter temulentos.

To make the ravaging the wider, the Caesar divides his eager legions into four columns; over a space of fifty miles he wastes all with fire and sword. Neither sex nor age brought any pity: things profane and sacred alike, and the temple most famous among those peoples, which they called Tanfana’s, are leveled to the ground. The soldiers were without a wound, having cut down men half-asleep, unarmed, or straggling. This slaughter roused the Bructeri, the Tubantes, the Usipetes, and they beset the passes through which the army must return. The leader knew it, and set out prepared for march and battle. Part of the cavalry and the auxiliary cohorts led the way, then the first legion, and, the baggage in the center, the men of the twenty-first closed the left flank, those of the fifth the right, the twentieth legion strengthened the rear, the rest of the allies behind. But the enemy, until the column was strung out through the glens, stayed motionless, then, lightly assailing the flanks and front, charged with their whole force upon the rear. And the light cohorts were being thrown into confusion by the dense bands of Germans, when the Caesar, riding up to the men of the twentieth, cried out in a loud voice that this was the time to blot out the mutiny: let them go on, let them hasten to turn their fault into glory. They blazed up in spirit, and in one charge broke through the enemy and drove him into the open and cut him down: at the same time the forces of the van got clear of the woods and fortified a camp. Thereafter the march was quiet, and the soldier, confident in his recent deeds and forgetful of the past, was settled in winter quarters.

Caesar avidas legiones quo latior populatio foret quattuor in cuneos dispertit; quinquaginta milium spatium ferro flammisque pervastat. non sexus, non aetas miserationem attulit: profana simul et sacra et celeberrimum illis gentibus templum quod Tanfanae vocabant solo aequantur. sine vulnere milites, qui semisomnos, inermos aut palantis ceciderant. excivit ea caedes Bructeros, Tubantes, Vsipetes, saltusque, per quos exercitui regressus, insedere. quod gnarum duci incessitque itineri et proelio. pars equitum et auxiliariae cohortes ducebant, mox prima legio, et mediis impedimentis sinistrum latus unetvicesimani, dextrum quintani clausere, vicesima legio terga firmavit, post ceteri sociorum. sed hostes, donec agmen per saltus porrigeretur, immoti, dein latera et frontem modice adsultantes, tota vi novissimos incurrere. turbabanturque densis Germanorum catervis leves cohortes, cum Caesar advectus ad vicesimanos voce magna hoc illud tempus obliterandae seditionis clamitabat: pergerent, properarent culpam in decus vertere. exarsere animis unoque impetu perruptum hostem redigunt in aperta caeduntque: simul primi agminis copiae evasere silvas castraque communivere. quietum inde iter, fidensque recentibus ac priorum oblitus miles in hibernis locatur.

The news affected Tiberius with gladness and with anxiety: he rejoiced that the mutiny was crushed, but that Germanicus had courted the soldiers’ favor by lavishing money and hastening discharge, and his glory in war besides, galled him. Yet he reported to the Senate on his exploits and recounted much of his valor, more adorned with words for show than as if he were believed to feel it in his heart. In fewer words he praised Drusus and the ending of the Illyrian disturbance, but more earnestly and in a sincere speech. And all that Germanicus had granted he maintained also among the Pannonian armies.

Nuntiata ea Tiberium laetitia curaque adfecere: gaudebat oppressam seditionem, sed quod largiendis pecuniis et missione festinata favorem militum quaesivisset, bellica quoque Germanici gloria angebatur. rettulit tamen ad senatum de rebus gestis multaque de virtute eius memoravit, magis in speciem verbis adornata quam ut penitus sentire crederetur. paucioribus Drusum et finem Illyrici motus laudavit, sed intentior et fida oratione. cunctaque quae Germanicus indulserat servavit etiam apud Pannonicos exercitus.

In the same year Julia met her last day, long since shut up, for her unchastity, by her father Augustus on the island of Pandateria, then in the town of the Regini, who dwell by the Sicilian strait. She had been in marriage to Tiberius while Gaius and Lucius Caesar flourished, and had spurned him as beneath her; nor was there any cause so deep within Tiberius for his withdrawing to Rhodes. Having gained the imperium, he destroyed her—an exile, infamous, and after the killing of Postumus Agrippa bereft of all hope—by want and slow wasting, reckoning that the killing would be obscured by the length of her exile. A like cause there was for his savagery against Sempronius Gracchus, who, of a noble family, clever in wit and perversely eloquent, had defiled the same Julia while she was married to Marcus Agrippa. Nor was this the end of the lust: handed over to Tiberius, the obstinate adulterer fired her with stubbornness and hatred against her husband; and the letters which Julia wrote to her father Augustus, abusing Tiberius, were believed to have been composed by Gracchus. So he was removed to Cercina, an island of the African sea, and endured exile for fourteen years. Then the soldiers sent to slay him found him on a jutting headland of the shore, awaiting nothing glad. At their coming he asked a brief time, that he might give his last commands to his wife Alliaria by letter, and offered his neck to the assassins; in the steadfastness of his death not unworthy of the Sempronian name, from which his life had degenerated. Some have handed down that these soldiers were sent not from Rome, but by Lucius Asprenas, proconsul of Africa, on Tiberius’s prompting—who had vainly hoped that the report of the killing could be turned upon Asprenas.

Eodem anno Iulia supremum diem obiit, ob impudicitiam olim a patre Augusto Pandateria insula, mox oppido Reginorum, qui Siculum fretum accolunt, clausa. fuerat in matrimonio Tiberii florentibus Gaio et Lucio Caesaribus spreveratque ut inparem; nec alia tam intima Tiberio causa cur Rhodum abscederet. imperium adeptus extorrem, infamem et post interfectum Postumum Agrippam omnis spei egenam inopia ac tabe longa peremit, obscuram fore necem longinquitate exilii ratus. par causa saevitiae in Sempronium Gracchum, qui familia nobili, sollers ingenio et prave facundus, eandem Iuliam in matrimonio Marci Agrippae temeraverat. nec is libidini finis: traditam Tiberio pervicax adulter contumacia et odiis in maritum accendebat; litteraeque quas Iulia patri Augusto cum insectatione Tiberii scripsit a Graccho compositae credebantur. igitur amotus Cercinam, Africi maris insulam, quattuordecim annis exilium toleravit. tunc milites ad caedem missi invenere in prominenti litoris nihil laetum opperientem. quorum adventu breve tempus petivit ut suprema mandata uxori Alliariae per litteras daret, cervicemque percussoribus obtulit; constantia mortis haud indignus Sempronio nomine vita degeneraverat. quidam non Roma eos milites, sed ab L. Asprenate pro consule Africae missos tradidere auctore Tiberio, qui famam caedis posse in Asprenatem verti frustra speraverat.

The same year received new ceremonies, with the priesthood of the Augustal brotherhood added, as once Titus Tatius, to retain the rites of the Sabines, had established the Titian brotherhood. One-and-twenty of the chief men of the state were chosen by lot; Tiberius and Drusus and Claudius and Germanicus are added. The Augustal games, then first begun, were thrown into disorder by strife arising from a contest of actors. Augustus had indulged that entertainment, while he humored Maecenas in his unbounded passion for Bathyllus; nor did he himself shrink from such pursuits, and he thought it democratic to mingle in the pleasures of the crowd. Other was Tiberius’s way in manners: but a people held softly for so many years he did not yet dare to turn to harder things.

Idem annus novas caerimonias accepit addito sodalium Augustalium sacerdotio, ut quondam Titus Tatius retinendis Sabinorum sacris sodalis Titios instituerat. sorte ducti e primoribus civitatis unus et viginti: Tiberius Drususque et Claudius et Germanicus adiciuntur. ludos Augustalis tunc primum coeptos turbavit discordia ex certamine histrionum. indulserat ei ludicro Augustus, dum Maecenati obtem- perat effuso in amorem Bathylli; neque ipse abhorrebat talibus studiis, et civile rebatur misceri voluptatibus vulgi. alia Tiberio morum via: sed populum per tot annos molliter habitum nondum audebat ad duriora vertere.

In the consulship of Drusus Caesar and Gaius Norbanus a triumph is decreed to Germanicus, the war still continuing; which, though he was making ready for it with all his strength against the summer, he anticipated by a sudden inroad upon the Chatti at the beginning of spring. For a hope had arisen that the enemy was divided between Arminius and Segestes, each notable for his treachery toward us or his fidelity. Arminius was the disturber of Germany; Segestes had often elsewhere, and at the last banquet—after which men went to arms—disclosed that rebellion was being prepared, and had urged Varus to bind himself and Arminius and the other chiefs: the commons would dare nothing once the leaders were removed; and Varus would then have time to distinguish the guilty from the innocent. But Varus fell by fate and the force of Arminius: Segestes, though dragged into the war by the consent of his nation, remained at odds, his private hatreds heightened because Arminius had carried off his daughter, betrothed to another—a hated son-in-law to a hostile father-in-law; and the ties that are bonds of affection among the harmonious were, among the embittered, goads to wrath.

Druso Caesare C. Norbano consulibus decernitur Germanico triumphus manente bello; quod quamquam in aestatem summa ope parabat, initio veris et repentino in Chattos excursu praecepit. nam spes incesserat dissidere hostem in Arminium ac Segestem, insignem utrumque perfidia in nos aut fide. Arminius turbator Germaniae, Segestes parari rebellionem saepe alias et supremo convivio, post quod in arma itum, aperuit suasitque Varo ut se et Arminium et ceteros proceres vinciret: nihil ausuram plebem principibus amotis; atque ipsi tempus fore quo crimina et innoxios discerneret. sed Varus fato et vi Armini cecidit: Segestes quamquam consensu gentis in bellum tractus discors manebat, auctis privatim odiis, quod Arminius filiam eius alii pactam rapuerat: gener invisus inimici soceri; quaeque apud concordes vincula caritatis, incitamenta irarum apud infensos erant.

So Germanicus hands over to Caecina four legions, five thousand of the auxiliaries, and the hastily-gathered bands of the Germans who dwell this side of the Rhine; as many legions, and a double number of allies, he leads himself; and, having set a fort upon the traces of his father’s stronghold on Mount Taunus, he hurries his unencumbered army against the Chatti, leaving Lucius Apronius for the works of roads and rivers. For—a rare thing in that climate—he had pressed his march unhindered by drought and moderate streams, and rains and the swelling of the rivers were to be feared on his return. But he came upon the Chatti so unforeseen that whatever was weak in age and sex was at once taken or butchered. The fighting men had swum across the river Adrana, and tried to bar the Romans as they began the bridge. Then, driven off by engines and arrows, after the terms of peace had been tried in vain, when some had deserted to Germanicus, the rest, abandoning their cantons and villages, are scattered into the woods. The Caesar, having burned Mattium (that is the nation’s capital) and laid waste the open country, turned toward the Rhine, the enemy not daring to harass the rear of the departing—as is their custom whenever they have given way by craft rather than from fear. The Cherusci had had a mind to aid the Chatti, but Caecina, carrying his arms this way and that, terrified them; and the Marsi, who dared to engage, he checked in a successful battle.

Igitur Germanicus quattuor legiones, quinque auxiliarium milia et tumultuarias catervas Germanorum cis Rhenum colentium Caecinae tradit; totidem legiones, duplicem sociorum numerum ipse ducit, positoque castello super vestigia paterni praesidii in monte Tauno expeditum exercitum in Chattos rapit, L. Apronio ad munitiones viarum et fluminum relicto. nam (rarum illi caelo) siccitate et amnibus modicis inoffensum iter properaverat, imbresque et fluminum auctus regredienti metuebantur. sed Chattis adeo inprovisus advenit, ut quod imbecillum aetate ac sexu statim captum aut trucidatum sit. iuventus flumen Adranam nando tramiserat, Romanosque pontem coeptantis arcebant. dein tormentis sagittisque pulsi, temptatis frustra condicionibus pacis, cum quidam ad Germanicum perfugissent, reliqui omissis pagis vicisque in silvas disperguntur. Caesar incenso Mattio (id genti caput) aperta populatus vertit ad Rhenum, non auso hoste terga abeuntium lacessere, quod illi moris, quotiens astu magis quam per formidinem cessit. fuerat animus Cheruscis iuvare Chattos, sed exterruit Caecina huc illuc ferens arma; et Marsos congredi ausos prospero proelio cohibuit.

And not long after, envoys came from Segestes, begging aid against the violence of his countrymen, by whom he was beset, Arminius having the greater weight among them since he counselled war: for among barbarians, the readier a man is in daring, so much the more trusted is he, and the foremost in troubled times. Segestes had added to the envoys his son, named Segimundus: but the young man hung back from a guilty conscience. For in the year that the Germanies revolted, he, made a priest at the altar of the Ubii, had torn off his fillets and fled to the rebels. Yet, drawn into a hope of Roman clemency, he carried his father’s commands, and, kindly received, was sent with an escort to the Gallic bank. It was worth Germanicus’s while to turn his column, and there was fighting against the besiegers, and Segestes was rescued with a great band of kinsmen and clients. Among them were noble women, and among these the wife of Arminius, who was also the daughter of Segestes, of a temper more her husband’s than her father’s, neither broken into tears nor suppliant in voice; her hands clasped within her bosom, she gazed upon her pregnant womb. There were borne too the spoils of the Varian disaster, given as plunder to many of those who were then coming over in surrender: at the same time Segestes himself, huge to look upon and undaunted by the memory of a good alliance.

Neque multo post legati a Segeste venerunt auxilium orantes adversus vim popularium a quis circumsedebatur, validiore apud eos Arminio quoniam bellum suadebat: nam barbaris, quanto quis audacia promptus, tanto magis fidus rebusque motis potior habetur. addiderat Segestes legatis filium, nomine Segimundum: sed iuvenis conscientia cunctabatur. quippe anno quo Germaniae descivere sacerdos apud aram Vbiorum creatus ruperat vittas, profugus ad rebellis. adductus tamen in spem clementiae Romanae pertulit patris mandata benigneque exceptus cum praesidio Gallicam in ripam missus est. Germanico pretium fuit convertere agmen, pugnatumque in obsidentis, et ereptus Segestes magna cum propinquorum et clientium manu. inerant feminae nobiles, inter quas uxor Arminii eademque filia Segestis, mariti magis quam parentis animo, neque victa in lacrimas neque voce supplex; compressis intra sinum manibus gravidum uterum intuens. ferebantur et spolia Varianae cladis, plerisque eorum qui tum in deditionem veniebant praedae data: simul Segestes ipse, ingens visu et memoria bonae societatis inpavidus.

His words were after this manner: "This is not my first day of fidelity and constancy toward the Roman people. From the time I was given citizenship by the deified Augustus, I have chosen friends and foes by your interests—not from hatred of my fatherland (for traitors are detested even by those whom they prefer), but because I judged the same thing profitable to Romans and Germans, and approved peace rather than war. Therefore I accused Arminius, the ravisher of my daughter, the violator of your treaty, before Varus, who then commanded the army. Put off by the leader’s slackness, since there was too little protection in the laws, I demanded that he bind me and Arminius and the accomplices: that night is my witness—would it had been my last! What followed can be wept over rather than defended: yet I both threw chains on Arminius and endured them thrown on me by his faction. And as soon as there was access to you, I prefer the old to the new, the quiet to the turbulent—and not for a reward, but to free myself from treachery, and at the same time to be a fit conciliator for the German nation, if it shall prefer repentance to ruin. For my son’s youth and error I beg pardon; that my daughter was brought here by necessity I confess. It will be yours to weigh whether it prevails that she conceived from Arminius, or that she was begotten by me." The Caesar, with a clement reply, promises safety to his children and kinsmen, and to himself a dwelling in the old province. He led his army back, and received the name of imperator on Tiberius’s motion. Arminius’s wife brought forth a child of the male sex: the boy was reared at Ravenna; with what mockery he was afterward buffeted I shall relate in its place.

Verba eius in hunc modum fuere: ’non hic mihi primus erga populum Romanum fidei et constantiae dies. ex quo a divo Augusto civitate donatus sum, amicos inimicosque ex vestris utilitatibus delegi, neque odio patriae (quippe proditores etiam iis quos anteponunt invisi sunt), verum quia Romanis Germanisque idem conducere et pacem quam bellum probabam. ergo raptorem filiae meae, violatorem foederis vestri, Arminium apud Varum, qui tum exercitui praesidebat, reum feci. dilatus segnitia ducis, quia parum praesidii in legibus erat, ut me et Arminium et conscios vinciret flagitavi: testis illa nox, mihi utinam potius novissima! quae secuta sunt defleri magis quam defendi possunt: ceterum et inieci catenas Arminio et a factione eius iniectas perpessus sum. atque ubi primum tui copia, vetera novis et quieta turbidis antehabeo, neque ob praemium, sed ut me perfidia exsolvam, simul genti Germanorum idoneus conciliator, si paenitentiam quam perniciem maluerit. pro iuventa et errore filii veniam precor: filiam necessitate huc adductam fateor. tuum erit consultare utrum praevaleat quod ex Arminio concepit an quod ex me genita est.’ Caesar clementi responso liberis propinquisque eius incolumitatem, ipsi sedem vetere in provincia pollicetur. exercitum reduxit nomenque imperatoris auctore Tiberio accepit. Arminii uxor virilis sexus stirpem edidit: educatus Ravennae puer quo mox ludibrio conflictatus sit in tempore memorabo.

The report of Segestes surrendered and kindly received was spread abroad, and was received with hope or with grief, according as men were unwilling for the war or eager for it. Arminius, beyond his inborn violence, was driven frantic by the seizure of his wife and the subjection to servitude of the child in her womb, and flew about among the Cherusci, demanding arms against Segestes, arms against the Caesar. Nor did he refrain from taunts: an excellent father-in-law, a great commander, a brave army, whose so many hands had carried off one little woman! For him three legions, as many legates, had fallen; for he waged war not by treachery nor against pregnant women, but openly against armed men. There were still to be seen in the groves of the Germans the Roman standards, which he had hung up to the gods of his fathers. Let Segestes inhabit the conquered bank, let him give back to his son a priesthood among men: the Germans would never sufficiently excuse it, that between the Elbe and the Rhine they had seen the rods and the axes and the toga. To other nations, in their ignorance of the Roman dominion, punishments were untried, tributes unknown: and since they had thrown these off, and that man, Augustus, ranked among the divinities, that man, the chosen Tiberius, had departed baffled, let them not dread an unskilled stripling, a mutinous army. If they preferred their fatherland, their parents, the old ways to masters and new settlements, let them follow Arminius as their leader to glory and freedom rather than Segestes to shameful servitude.

Fama dediti benigneque excepti Segestis vulgata, ut quibusque bellum invitis aut cupientibus erat, spe vel dolore accipitur. Arminium super insitam violentiam rapta uxor, subiectus servitio uxoris uterus vaecordem agebant, volitabatque per Cheruscos, arma in Segestem, arma in Caesarem poscens. neque probris temperabat: egregium patrem, magnum imperatorem, fortem exercitum, quorum tot manus unam mulierculam avexerint. sibi tres legiones, totidem legatos procubuisse; non enim se proditione neque adversus feminas gravidas, sed palam adversus armatos bellum tractare. cerni adhuc Germanorum in lucis signa Romana, quae dis patriis suspenderit. coleret Segestes victam ripam, redderet filio sacerdotium hominum: Germanos numquam satis excusaturos quod inter Albim et Rhenum virgas et securis et togam viderint. aliis gentibus ignorantia imperi Romani inexperta esse supplicia, nescia tributa: quae quoniam exuerint inritusque discesserit ille inter numina dicatus Augustus, ille delectus Tiberius, ne inperitum adulescentulum, ne seditiosum exercitum pavescerent. si patriam parentes antiqua mallent quam dominos et colonias novas, Arminium potius gloriae ac libertatis quam Segestem flagitiosae servitutis ducem sequerentur.

Stirred by these things, not only the Cherusci but the neighboring nations, and Inguiomerus, Arminius’s uncle, of old authority among the Romans, was drawn to their side; whence the greater fear for the Caesar. And, that the war might not burst on in one mass, he sends Caecina with forty Roman cohorts through the Bructeri to the river Amisia, to draw off the enemy; the cavalry the prefect Pedo leads along the borders of the Frisii. He himself carried four legions, embarked on ships, through the lakes; and at the same time foot, horse, and fleet met at the aforesaid river. The Chauci, since they promised auxiliaries, were taken into fellowship in arms. The Bructeri, who were burning their own possessions, Lucius Stertinius, sent by Germanicus, routed with a light force; and amid the slaughter and the plunder he found the eagle of the nineteenth legion, lost with Varus. Thence the column was led to the farthest of the Bructeri, and all the country between the rivers Amisia and Lupia was laid waste, not far from the Teutoburgian forest, in which the remains of Varus and his legions were said to lie unburied.

Conciti per haec non modo Cherusci, sed conterminae gentes, tractusque in partis Inguiomerus Arminii patruus, vetere apud Romanos auctoritate; unde maior Caesari metus. et ne bellum mole una ingrueret Caecinam cum quadraginta cohortibus Romanis distrahendo hosti per Bructeros ad flumen Amisiam mittit, equitem Pedo praefectus finibus Frisiorum ducit. ipse inpositas navibus quattuor legiones per lacus vexit; simulque pedes eques classis apud praedictum amnem convenere. Chauci cum auxilia pollicerentur, in commilitium adsciti sunt. Bructeros sua urentis expedita cum manu L. Stertinius missu Germanici fudit; interque caedem et praedam repperit undevicesimae legionis aquilam cum Varo amissam. ductum inde agmen ad ultimos Bructerorum, quantumque Amisiam et Lupiam amnis inter vastatum, haud procul Teutoburgiensi saltu in quo reliquiae Vari legionumque insepultae dicebantur.

So a longing seized the Caesar to pay the last rites to the soldiers and the leader, the whole army that was present being moved to pity for kinsmen, friends, and at last for the chances of war and the lot of men. Caecina being sent ahead to search out the hidden places of the glens and to lay bridges and causeways over the wet of the marshes and the treacherous flats, they advance over the mournful ground, hideous to sight and in memory. The first camp of Varus, by its wide circuit and the measured headquarters, displayed the work of three legions; then, by a half-ruined rampart and a shallow ditch, it was understood that the now-shattered remnant had taken its stand: in the middle of the field were whitening bones, scattered or heaped, as the men had fled or had resisted. Beside them lay fragments of weapons and the limbs of horses, and at the same time human skulls fastened to the trunks of trees. In the neighboring groves were the barbarous altars at which they had butchered the tribunes and centurions of the first rank. And the survivors of that disaster, who had escaped the battle or their chains, would tell that here the legates had fallen, there the eagles had been seized; where the first wound was driven into Varus, where by his own ill-starred right hand and his own stroke he had found death; from what tribunal Arminius had harangued, how many gibbets for the captives, what pits, and how in his arrogance he had mocked the standards and the eagles.

Igitur cupido Caesarem invadit solvendi suprema militibus ducique, permoto ad miserationem omni qui aderat exercitu ob propinquos, amicos, denique ob casus bellorum et sortem hominum. praemisso Caecina ut occulta saltuum scrutaretur pontesque et aggeres umido paludum et fallacibus campis inponeret, incedunt maestos locos visuque ac memoria deformis. prima Vari castra lato ambitu et dimensis principiis trium legionum manus ostentabant; dein semiruto vallo, humili fossa accisae iam reliquiae consedisse intellegebantur: medio campi albentia ossa, ut fugerant, ut restiterant, disiecta vel aggerata. adiacebant fragmina telorum equorumque artus, simul truncis arborum antefixa ora. lucis propinquis barbarae arae, apud quas tribunos ac primorum ordinum centuriones mactaverant. et cladis eius superstites, pugnam aut vincula elapsi, referebant hic cecidisse legatos, illic raptas aquilas; primum ubi vulnus Varo adactum, ubi infelici dextera et suo ictu mortem invenerit; quo tribunali contionatus Arminius, quot patibula captivis, quae scrobes, utque signis et aquilis per superbiam inluserit.

So the Roman army that was present, in the sixth year after the disaster, buried the bones of three legions—no man knowing whether he covered with earth the remains of strangers or of his own—all as kinsmen, as of one blood, their anger against the enemy heightened, mourning and embittered together. The Caesar laid the first sod for the rising mound, a most welcome service to the dead and a sharer in the grief of those present. This was not approved by Tiberius—whether because he drew all Germanicus’s acts to the worse, or because he believed that the army was made slower for battle and more afraid of the enemy by the sight of the slain and unburied; and that a commander invested with the augurate and the most ancient ceremonies ought not to have handled things of death.

Igitur Romanus qui aderat exercitus sextum post cladis annum trium legionum ossa, nullo noscente alienas reliquias an suorum humo tegeret, omnis ut coniunctos, ut consanguineos, aucta in hostem ira, maesti simul et infensi condebant. primum extruendo tumulo caespitem Caesar posuit, gratissimo munere in defunctos et praesentibus doloris socius. quod Tiberio haud probatum, seu cuncta Germanici in deterius trahenti, sive exercitum imagine caesorum insepultorumque tardatum ad proelia et formidolosiorem hostium credebat; neque imperatorem auguratu et vetustissimis caerimoniis praeditum adtrectare feralia debuisse.

But Germanicus, having followed Arminius as he withdrew into the trackless country, as soon as there was opportunity ordered the cavalry to ride out and seize the plain which the enemy had occupied. Arminius, having warned his men to gather and draw near the woods, suddenly wheeled about: soon he gave the signal to break out to those whom he had hidden in the glens. Then the cavalry, thrown into confusion by the new line of battle, and the reserve cohorts sent up and driven on by the column of fugitives, had increased the disorder; and they were being thrust into a marsh, known to the victors, treacherous to those who did not know it, had not the Caesar drawn out and arrayed his legions: thence terror to the enemy, confidence to the soldier; and they parted on even terms. Soon, the army being led back to the Amisia, he carries the legions back by fleet, as he had brought them; part of the cavalry was ordered to make for the Rhine along the shore of the Ocean; Caecina, who was leading his own troops, though he was returning by known routes, was warned to cross the Long Bridges as soon as possible. This was a narrow path amid vast marshes, once embanked by Lucius Domitius; the rest was miry, clinging with heavy mud or uncertain with streams; round about were woods on a gradual slope, which Arminius then filled, having outstripped, by short cuts and a swift column, the soldier laden with baggage and arms. To Caecina, doubting how to relay the bridges broken by age and at the same time to repel the enemy, it seemed best to mark out a camp on the spot, so that some might begin the work and others the battle.

Sed Germanicus cedentem in avia Arminium secu- tus, ubi primum copia fuit, evehi equites campumque quem hostis insederat eripi iubet. Arminius colligi suos et propinquare silvis monitos vertit repente: mox signum prorumpendi dedit iis quos per saltus occultaverat. tunc nova acie turbatus eques, missaeque subsidiariae cohortes et fugientium agmine impulsae auxerant consternationem; trudebanturque in paludem gnaram vincentibus, iniquam nesciis, ni Caesar productas legiones instruxisset: inde hostibus terror, fiducia militi; et manibus aequis abscessum. mox reducto ad Amisiam exercitu legiones classe, ut advexerat, reportat; pars equitum litore Oceani petere Rhenum iussa; Caecina, qui suum militem ducebat, monitus, quamquam notis itineribus regrederetur, pontes longos quam maturrime superare. angustus is trames vastas inter paludes et quondam a L. Domitio aggeratus, cetera limosa, tenacia gravi caeno aut rivis incerta erant; circum silvae paulatim adclives, quas tum Arminius inplevit, compendiis viarum et cito agmine onustum sarcinis armisque militem cum antevenisset. Caecinae dubitanti quonam modo ruptos vetustate pontes reponeret simulque propulsaret hostem, castra metari in loco placuit, ut opus et alii proelium inciperent.

The barbarians, striving to break through the pickets and fling themselves on the working parties, harass them, go round them, run at them: the shouting of the laborers and the fighters is mingled. And all things were alike adverse to the Romans: the ground deep with mire, unsteady to the tread, slippery to those advancing; their bodies heavy with corselets; nor could they balance their javelins amid the waters. The Cherusci, on the contrary, were used to fighting in marshes, with tall limbs and huge spears to deal wounds even from afar. Night at last released the legions, now giving way in the unequal fight. The Germans, untired by their success, not even then taking rest, turned aside into the lower ground all the waters that rise around the encircling hills, and, the ground being flooded and what was finished of the work overwhelmed, the soldier’s labor was doubled. This was Caecina’s fortieth campaign of obeying and commanding, and he was versed in fortune favorable and doubtful and therefore undismayed. So, revolving the future, he found nothing but to keep the enemy within the woods until the wounded and the heavier part of the column had gone before; for between the mountains and the marshes stretched a plain that would admit a thin line. The legions are chosen: the fifth for the right flank, the twenty-first for the left, the men of the first to lead the column, those of the twentieth to face such as should follow.

Barbari perfringere stationes seque inferre munitoribus nisi lacessunt, circumgrediuntur, occursant: miscetur operantium bellantiumque clamor. et cuncta pariter Romanis adversa, locus uligine profunda, idem ad gradum instabilis, procedentibus lubricus, corpora gravia loricis; neque librare pila inter undas poterant. contra Cheruscis sueta apud paludes proelia, procera membra, hastae ingentes ad vulnera facienda quamvis procul. nox demum inclinantis iam legiones adversae pugnae exemit. Germani ob prospera indefessi, ne tum quidem sumpta quiete, quantum aquarum circum surgentibus iugis oritur vertere in subiecta, mersaque humo et obruto quod effectum operis duplicatus militi labor. quadragesimum id stipendium Caecina parendi aut imperitandi habebat, secundarum ambiguarumque rerum sciens eoque interritus. igitur futura volvens non aliud repperit quam ut hostem silvis coerceret, donec saucii quantumque gravioris agminis anteirent; nam medio montium et paludum porrigebatur planities, quae tenuem aciem pateretur. deliguntur legiones quinta dextro lateri, unetvicesima in laevum, primani ducendum ad agmen, vicesimanus adversum secuturos.

The night was restless in different ways, as the barbarians with festive banquets, with glad song or savage din, filled the depths of the valleys and the echoing glens, while among the Romans were feeble fires, broken voices, and the men themselves lay here and there along the rampart, or strayed among the tents, sleepless rather than wakeful. And the leader was terrified by a dreadful dream: for he seemed to see and to hear Quintilius Varus, smeared with blood and risen out of the marshes, as it were calling him—yet he had not obeyed, and had thrust back the hand that was held out. At daybreak the legions sent to the flanks, from fear or from contumacy, deserted their position, hastily seizing a field beyond the wet ground. Yet Arminius, though the onset was free, did not at once break out: but when the baggage stuck fast in the mud and the ditches, the soldiers round it in confusion, the order of the standards uncertain, and, as is the way at such a time, each man hasty for himself and his ears slow to commands, he ordered the Germans to burst in, crying out, "Behold Varus, and the legions bound a second time by the same fate!" And with this he both cleaves the column with picked men and deals wounds chiefly to the horses. They, slipping in their own blood and the slime of the marshes, throwing their riders, scattered those who met them and trampled the fallen. The greatest struggle was around the eagles, which could neither be carried against the storm of weapons nor planted in the miry ground. Caecina, while he sustained the line, was falling, his horse stabbed under him, and was being surrounded, had not the first legion thrown itself in his way. The enemy’s greed helped, who, leaving off the slaughter, chased the plunder, and the legions, as the day waned, struggled out into open and solid ground. Nor was that the end of their miseries. A rampart had to be built, a mound to be sought, lost in great part were the tools by which earth is heaped or sods are cut; no tents for the companies, no dressings for the wounded; and, dividing food fouled with mud or with gore, they bewailed the deadly darkness and the one day now left to so many thousands of men.

Nox per diversa inquies, cum barbari festis epulis, laeto cantu aut truci sonore subiecta vallium ac resultantis saltus complerent, apud Romanos invalidi ignes, interruptae voces, atque ipsi passim adiacerent vallo, oberrarent tentoriis, insomnes magis quam pervigiles. ducemque terruit dira quies: nam Quintilium Varum sanguine oblitum et paludibus emersum cernere et audire visus est velut vocantem, non tamen obsecutus et manum intendentis reppulisse. coepta luce missae in latera legiones, metu an contumacia, locum deseruere, capto propere campo umentia ultra. neque tamen Arminius quamquam libero incursu statim prorupit: sed ut haesere caeno fossisque impedimenta, turbati circum milites, incertus signorum ordo, utque tali in tempore sibi quisque properus et lentae adversum imperia aures, inrumpere Germanos iubet, clamitans ’en Varus eodemque iterum fato vinctae legiones!’ simul haec et cum delectis scindit agmen equisque maxime vulnera ingerit. illi sanguine suo et lubrico paludum lapsantes excussis rectoribus disicere obvios, proterere iacentis. plurimus circa aquilas labor, quae neque ferri adversum ingruentia tela neque figi limosa humo poterant. Caecina dum sustentat aciem, suffosso equo delapsus circumveniebatur, ni prima legio sese opposuisset. iuvit hostium aviditas, omissa caede praedam sectantium, enisaeque legiones vesperascente die in aperta et solida. neque is miseriarum finis. struendum vallum, petendus agger, amissa magna ex parte per quae egeritur humus aut exciditur caespes; non tentoria manipulis, non fomenta sauciis; infectos caeno aut cruore cibos dividentes funestas tenebras et tot hominum milibus unum iam reliquum diem lamentabantur.

By chance a horse, broken from its tether and straying, terrified by the noise, threw into disorder some of those it ran against. Such was the consternation thence, of men believing the Germans had broken in, that all rushed to the gates, of which the decuman was most sought, turned away from the enemy and safer for fugitives. Caecina, having learned that the alarm was groundless, when nevertheless he could neither by authority nor by entreaty, nor even by hand, stop or hold the soldier, flung himself down on the threshold of the gate, and by pity at last—since the way lay over the legate’s body—barred the passage: at the same time the tribunes and centurions taught them that the panic was false.

Forte equus abruptis vinculis vagus et clamore territus quosdam occurrentium obturbavit. tanta inde consternatio inrupisse Germanos credentium ut cuncti ruerent ad portas, quarum decumana maxime petebatur, aversa hosti et fugientibus tutior. Caecina comperto vanam esse formidinem, cum tamen neque auctoritate neque precibus, ne manu quidem obsistere aut retinere militem quiret, proiectus in limine portae miseratione demum, quia per corpus legati eundum erat, clausit viam: simul tribuni et centuriones falsum pavorem esse docuerunt.

Then, drawing them together at the headquarters and bidding them receive his words in silence, he warns them of the time and the necessity. Their one safety was in arms, but that must be tempered with judgment, and they must stay within the rampart until the enemy should come up nearer in hope of storming it; then they must burst out on every side: by that sally the Rhine would be reached. But if they fled, more woods, deeper marshes, the savagery of the enemy remained; while to the victors there was honor and glory. He recalls what was dear at home, what honorable in the camp; he kept silent about their reverses. The horses next, beginning with his own, and those of the legates and tribunes, with no favoritism, he hands over to the bravest warriors, that these, and soon the foot, might charge the enemy.

Tunc contractos in principia iussosque dicta cum silentio accipere temporis ac necessitatis monet. unam in armis salutem, sed ea consilio temperanda manendumque intra vallum, donec expugnandi hostis spe propius succederent; mox undique erumpendum: illa eruptione ad Rhenum perveniri. quod si fugerent, pluris silvas, profundas magis paludes, saevitiam hostium superesse; at victoribus decus gloriam. quae domi cara, quae in castris honesta, memorat; reticuit de adversis. equos dehinc, orsus a suis, legatorum tribunorumque nulla ambitione fortissimo cuique bellatori tradit, ut hi, mox pedes in hostem invaderent.

No less restless was the German, driven by hope, by desire, and by the differing opinions of his leaders, Arminius advising that they let the Romans go out, and, once out, surround them again amid the wet and entangled ground, Inguiomerus urging fiercer counsels, and welcome to barbarians, that they ring the rampart with arms: storming would be easy, the captives more, the plunder undamaged. So at daybreak they tear up the ditches, throw in hurdles, grasp the top of the rampart, on which the soldier was thinly posted and, as if from fear, fixed in place. After they had stuck fast in the works, the signal is given to the cohorts, and the horns and trumpets sounded together. Then with shout and charge they pour round the rear of the Germans, taunting them that here were no woods nor marshes, but on level ground level gods. To the enemy, who thought of an easy destruction and of a few half-armed men, the blare of trumpets, the flash of arms, the greater for being unlooked-for, are flung in their faces, and they fell—as men greedy in success, so heedless in adversity. Arminius unhurt, Inguiomerus after a grievous wound left the battle: the rank and file were butchered, while wrath and the daylight lasted. At night at last the legions returned, and, though more wounds, the same want of food wearied them, found in victory their strength, their health, their supply—all things.

Haud minus inquies Germanus spe, cupidine et diversis ducum sententiis agebat, Arminio sinerent egredi egressosque rursum per umida et inpedita circumvenirent suadente, atrociora Inguiomero et laeta barbaris, ut vallum armis ambirent: promptam expugnationem, plures captivos, incorruptam praedam fore. igitur orta die proruunt fossas, iniciunt cratis, summa valli prensant, raro super milite et quasi ob metum defixo. postquam haesere munimentis, datur cohortibus signum cornuaque ac tubae concinuere. exim clamore et impetu tergis Germanorum circumfunduntur, exprobrantes non hic silvas nec paludes, sed aequis locis aequos deos. hosti facile excidium et paucos ac semermos cogitanti sonus tubarum, fulgor armorum, quanto inopina tanto maiora offunduntur, cadebantque, ut rebus secundis avidi, ita adversis incauti. Arminius integer, Inguiomerus post grave vulnus pugnam deseruere: vulgus trucidatum est, donec ira et dies permansit. nocte demum reversae legiones, quamvis plus vulnerum, eadem ciborum egestas fatigaret, vim sanitatem copias, cuncta in victoria habuere.

Meanwhile the report had spread that the army was surrounded and that a hostile column of Germans was making for the Gauls; and, had not Agrippina forbidden the bridge laid over the Rhine to be broken, there were those who would have dared that infamy through fear. But the woman, of great spirit, put on through those days the duties of a leader, and to the soldiers, as each was needy or wounded, dealt out clothing and dressings. Gaius Pliny, the historian of the German wars, hands down that she stood at the head of the bridge, giving praise and thanks to the returning legions. This sank the deeper into Tiberius’s mind: these were no simple cares, he thought, nor was it against foreign foes that the soldiers’ goodwill was being sought. Nothing was left for commanders, where a woman went among the companies, approached the standards, attempted largess—as though it were too little to court favor by carrying the leader’s son about in a common soldier’s dress and wishing him called Caesar Caligula. More powerful now with the armies was Agrippina than the legates, than the generals; a mutiny had been quelled by a woman which the prince’s name had not been able to withstand. These things Sejanus inflamed and aggravated, who, with his knowledge of Tiberius’s character, was sowing hatreds far ahead, to store up and bring out enlarged.

Pervaserat interim circumventi exercitus fama et infesto Germanorum agmine Gallias peti, ac ni Agrippina inpositum Rheno pontem solvi prohibuisset, erant qui id flagitium formidine auderent. sed femina ingens animi munia ducis per eos dies induit, militibusque, ut quis inops aut saucius, vestem et fomenta dilargita est. tradit C. Plinius, Germanicorum bellorum scriptor, stetisse apud principium ponti laudes et grates reversis legionibus habentem. id Tiberii animum altius penetravit: non enim simplicis eas curas, nec adversus externos studia militum quaeri. nihil relictum imperatoribus, ubi femina manipulos intervisat, signa adeat, largitionem temptet, tamquam parum ambitiose filium ducis gregali habitu circumferat Caesaremque Caligulam appellari velit. potiorem iam apud exercitus Agrippinam quam legatos, quam duces; conpressam a muliere seditionem, cui nomen principis obsistere non quiverit. accendebat haec onerabatque Seianus, peritia morum Tiberii odia in longum iaciens, quae reconderet auctaque promeret.

But Germanicus hands over to Publius Vitellius two of the legions he had carried by ship, the second and the fourteenth, to be led by the land route, so that the fleet might float the lighter on the shoaly sea or settle the more easily on an ebb-tide. Vitellius at first had a quiet march, over dry ground or with the tide gently flowing in: soon, by the driving of the north wind, and at the same time the equinoctial constellation, at which the Ocean swells most of all, the column was caught and tossed. And the lands were flooded: sea, shore, and plain wore one face, and the uncertain could not be told from the solid, shallows from deeps. They are thrown down by the waves, swallowed in the eddies; baggage-animals, packs, lifeless bodies float between and meet them. The companies are mingled with one another, standing out now to the breast, now to the mouth, sometimes, the ground withdrawn from under them, scattered or overwhelmed. Nor did voice and mutual encouragement avail against the opposing flood; nothing distinguished the brave from the coward, the wise from the heedless, design from chance: all were rolled under with equal violence. At last Vitellius, struggling up to the higher ground, drew the column to the same. They passed the night without provisions, without fire, a great part with body naked or bruised, no less pitiable than those whom an enemy besets: for there at least was the resource of an honorable death, here an inglorious destruction. Daylight gave back the land, and they pushed through to the river to which the Caesar had pressed with his fleet. The legions were then embarked, while rumor went that they had been drowned; nor was there faith in their safety before men saw the Caesar and the army returned.

At Germanicus legionum, quas navibus vexerat, secundam et quartam decimam itinere terrestri P. Vitellio ducendas tradit, quo levior classis vadoso mari innaret vel reciproco sideret. Vitellius primum iter sicca humo aut modice adlabente aestu quietum habuit: mox inpulsu aquilonis, simul sidere aequinoctii, quo maxime tumescit Oceanus, rapi agique agmen. et opplebantur terrae: eadem freto litori campis facies, neque discerni poterant incerta ab solidis, brevia a profundis. sternuntur fluctibus, hauriuntur gurgitibus; iumenta, sarcinae, corpora exanima interfluunt, occursant. permiscentur inter se manipuli, modo pectore, modo ore tenus extantes, aliquando subtracto solo disiecti aut obruti. non vox et mutui hortatus iuvabant adversante unda; nihil strenuus ab ignavo, sapiens ab inprudenti, consilia a casu differre: cuncta pari violentia involvebantur. tandem Vitellius in editiora enisus eodem agmen subduxit. pernoctavere sine utensilibus, sine igni, magna pars nudo aut mulcato corpore, haud minus miserabiles quam quos hostis circumsidet: quippe illic etiam honestae mortis usus, his inglorium exitium. lux reddidit terram, penetratumque ad amnem, quo Caesar classe contenderat. inpositae dein legiones, vagante fama submersas; nec fides salutis, antequam Caesarem exercitumque reducem videre.

Already Stertinius, sent ahead to receive in surrender Segimerus, the brother of Segestes, had brought him and his son into the city of the Ubii. Pardon was granted to both, easily to Segimerus, more reluctantly to the son, because he was said to have insulted the body of Quintilius Varus. For the rest, in supplying the army’s losses Gaul, Spain, and Italy vied, offering, as each was ready, arms, horses, gold. Their zeal Germanicus praised, but, taking only arms and horses for the war, he aided the soldier from his own money. And, that he might soften the memory of the disaster even by kindness, he went round the wounded, extolled the deeds of individuals; gazing on their wounds, he steadied one by hope, another by glory, all by his address and care, for himself and for battle.

Iam Stertinius, ad accipiendum in deditionem Segi- merum fratrem Segestis praemissus, ipsum et filium eius in civitatem Vbiorum perduxerat. data utrique venia, facile Segimero, cunctantius filio, quia Quintilii Vari corpus inlusisse dicebatur. ceterum ad supplenda exercitus damna certavere Galliae Hispaniae Italia, quod cuique promptum, arma equos aurum offerentes. quorum laudato studio Germanicus, armis modo et equis ad bellum sumptis, propria pecunia militem iuvit. utque cladis memoriam etiam comitate leniret, circumire saucios, facta singulorum extollere; vulnera intuens alium spe, alium gloria, cunctos adloquio et cura sibique et proelio firmabat.

In that year the triumphal insignia were decreed to Aulus Caecina, Lucius Apronius, and Gaius Silius for their deeds with Germanicus. The name of Father of his Country, pressed on him repeatedly by the people, Tiberius refused; nor would he permit an oath to be taken to his acts, though the Senate so voted, declaring that all things mortal were uncertain, and the more he had attained, the more he stood on slippery ground. Yet he did not thereby make men believe in a citizen’s temper; for he had brought back the law of treason, which, of the same name among the ancients, brought other matters into judgment: if any man had impaired the majesty of the Roman people by betraying an army, or by stirring the plebs to sedition, in short by ill conduct of public affairs: deeds were arraigned, words went unpunished. Augustus was the first to handle a charge of libelous writings under the show of that law, provoked by the wantonness of Cassius Severus, by which he had defamed illustrious men and women with insolent screeds; soon Tiberius, when the praetor Pompeius Macer consulted him whether trials for treason should be granted, answered that the laws must be enforced. Him too verses, published by uncertain authors, had exasperated, against his cruelty and arrogance and his discord with his mother.

Decreta eo anno triumphalia insignia A. Caecinae, L. Apronio, C. Silio ob res cum Germanico gestas. nomen patris patriae Tiberius, a populo saepius ingestum, repudiavit; neque in acta sua iurari quamquam censente senatu permisit, cuncta mortalium incerta, quantoque plus adeptus foret, tanto se magis in lubrico dictitans. non tamen ideo faciebat fidem civilis animi; nam legem maiestatis reduxerat, cui nomen apud veteres idem, sed alia in iudicium veniebant, si quis proditione exercitum aut plebem seditionibus, denique male gesta re publica maiestatem populi Romani minuisset: facta arguebantur, dicta inpune erant. primus Augustus cognitionem de famosis libellis specie legis eius tractavit, commotus Cassii Severi libidine, qua viros feminasque inlustris procacibus scriptis diffamaverat; mox Tiberius, consultante Pompeio Macro praetore an iudicia maiestatis redderentur, exercendas leges esse respondit. hunc quoque asperavere carmina incertis auctoribus vulgata in saevitiam superbiamque eius et discordem cum matre animum.

It will not be irksome to relate, in the cases of Falanius and Rubrius, modest Roman knights, the charges first tried, that it may be known by what beginnings, by how great an art of Tiberius’s, that most grievous ruin crept in, then was checked, and at last blazed up and seized upon all. Falanius the accuser charged with this: that among the worshipers of Augustus, who were kept up throughout all the households after the manner of guilds, he had enrolled a certain Cassius, a mime infamous in body, and that, in selling his gardens, he had at the same time made over a statue of Augustus. Against Rubrius it was laid as a crime that the divinity of Augustus had been violated by perjury. When these things became known to Tiberius, he wrote to the consuls that heaven had not been decreed to his father in order that the honor might be turned to the destruction of citizens. Cassius the player was wont, among others of the same art, to take part in the games which his own mother had consecrated to the memory of Augustus; nor was it against religion that his image, like the likenesses of other divinities, should go with the sale of gardens and houses. As for the oath, it must be reckoned as if he had deceived Jupiter: the gods’ wrongs were the gods’ concern.

Haud pigebit referre in Falanio et Rubrio, modicis equitibus Romanis, praetemptata crimina, ut quibus initiis, quanta Tiberii arte gravissimum exitium inrepserit, dein repressum sit, postremo arserit cunctaque corripuerit, noscatur. Falanio obiciebat accusator, quod inter cultores Augusti, qui per omnis domos in modum collegiorum habebantur, Cassium quendam mimum corpore infamem adscivisset, quodque venditis hortis statuam Augusti simul mancipasset. Rubrio crimini dabatur violatum periurio numen Augusti. quae ubi Tiberio notuere, scripsit consulibus non ideo decretum patri suo caelum, ut in perniciem civium is honor verteretur. Cassium histrionem solitum inter alios eiusdem artis interesse ludis, quos mater sua in memoriam Augusti sacrasset; nec contra religiones fieri quod effigies eius, ut alia numinum simulacra, venditionibus hortorum et domuum accedant. ius iurandum perinde aestimandum quam si Iovem fefellisset: deorum iniurias dis curae.

And not long after, Granius Marcellus, praetor of Bithynia, was arraigned for treason by his own quaestor, Caepio Crispinus, with Romanus Hispo subscribing; who entered upon a way of life which the wretchedness of the times and the audacity of men afterward made notorious. For, needy, obscure, restless, while by secret papers he wormed his way into the prince’s cruelty, soon making trouble for every most distinguished man, having gained power with one and hatred with all, he set an example which, when others followed it, made them, from poor men rich, from despised men dreaded, and found ruin for others and at last for themselves. But he charged Marcellus with having held sinister conversations about Tiberius—an inescapable charge, since the accuser, picking out the foulest features of the prince’s character, fastened them on the defendant. For because they were true, they were even believed to have been said. Hispo added that a statue of Marcellus stood higher than the Caesars’, and that on another statue the head of Augustus had been cut off and the likeness of Tiberius set on. At this he blazed up so far that, breaking his silence, he proclaimed that he too in that cause would give his vote openly and on oath, so that the same necessity might be laid on the rest. There remained even then some traces of dying liberty. So Gnaeus Piso said, "In what place, Caesar, will you vote? If first, I shall have what to follow: if after all, I fear that I may unwittingly dissent." Moved by these words, and the more in proportion as he had boiled over the more incautiously, in penitence he patiently allowed the defendant to be acquitted of the charges of treason: on the matter of extortion they went to the assessors.

Nec multo post Granium Marcellum praetorem Bithyniae quaestor ipsius Caepio Crispinus maiestatis postulavit, subscribente Romano Hispone: qui formam vitae iniit, quam postea celebrem miseriae temporum et audaciae hominum fecerunt. nam egens, ignotus, inquies, dum occultis libellis saevitiae principis adrepit, mox clarissimo cuique periculum facessit, potentiam apud unum, odium apud omnis adeptus dedit exemplum, quod secuti ex pauperibus divites, ex contemptis metuendi perniciem aliis ac postremum sibi invenere. sed Marcellum insimulabat sinistros de Tiberio sermones habuisse, inevitabile crimen, cum ex moribus principis foedissima quaeque deligeret accusator obiectaretque reo. nam quia vera erant, etiam dicta credebantur. addidit Hispo statuam Marcelli altius quam Caesarum sitam, et alia in statua amputato capite Augusti effigiem Tiberii inditam. ad quod exarsit adeo, ut rupta taciturnitate proclamaret se quoque in ea causa laturum sententiam palam et iuratum, quo ceteris eadem necessitas fieret. manebant etiam tum vestigia morientis libertatis. igitur Cn. Piso ’quo’ inquit ’loco censebis, Caesar? si primus, habebo quod sequar: si post omnis, vereor ne inprudens dissentiam.’ permotus his, quantoque incautius efferverat, paenitentia patiens tulit absolvi reum criminibus maiestatis: de pecuniis repetundis ad reciperatores itum est.

Nor, sated with the senators’ inquiries, would he sit at trials, on the corner of the tribunal, that he might not drive the praetor from the curule chair; and many things were settled in his presence against intrigue and the entreaties of the powerful. But while truth was consulted, liberty was being corrupted. Among these matters Pius Aurelius, a senator, complaining that his house was shaken by the mass of a public road and the conduit of an aqueduct, invoked the aid of the senators. When the treasury praetors resisted, the Caesar came to his help and paid Aurelius the price of his house, eager to lay out money on honorable objects—a virtue he long retained when he was stripping off the rest. To Propertius Celer, an ex-praetor seeking leave to resign from the order on account of poverty, he gave a million sesterces, it being sufficiently ascertained that his straits were inherited from his father. When others attempted the same, he ordered them to prove their case to the Senate, being harsh from a craving for severity even in those things which he did rightly. Whence the rest preferred silence and poverty to confession and a benefit.

Nec patrum cognitionibus satiatus iudiciis adsidebat in cornu tribunalis, ne praetorem curuli depelleret; multaque eo coram adversus ambitum et potentium preces constituta. set dum veritati consulitur, libertas corrumpebatur. inter quae Pius Aurelius senator questus mole publicae viae ductuque aquarum labefactas aedis suas, auxilium patrum invocabat. resistentibus aerarii praetoribus subvenit Caesar pretiumque aedium Aurelio tribuit, erogandae per honesta pecuniae cupiens, quam virtutem diu retinuit, cum ceteras exueret. Propertio Celeri praetorio, veniam ordinis ob paupertatem petenti, decies sestertium largitus est, satis conperto paternas ei angustias esse. temptantis eadem alios probare causam senatui iussit, cupidine severitatis in iis etiam quae rite faceret acerbus. unde ceteri silentium et paupertatem confessioni et beneficio praeposuere.

In the same year the Tiber, swollen by continual rains, had flooded the level parts of the city; and as it subsided there followed a ruin of buildings and of men. So Asinius Gallus proposed that the Sibylline books be consulted. Tiberius refused, veiling things divine and human alike; but the remedy of restraining the river was committed to Ateius Capito and Lucius Arruntius. Achaia and Macedonia, deprecating their burdens, it was resolved to relieve for the present, by handing them over from proconsular command to the Caesar. At the gladiatorial show, which he had offered in the name of his brother Germanicus and his own, Drusus presided, taking too much joy in cheap blood; which was a thing of dread to the common people, and his father was said to have rebuked it. Why he himself abstained from the spectacle was variously construed: some said from weariness of the throng, some from a gloom of temper and a fear of comparison, because Augustus had attended affably. I would not believe that the material was granted to the son for displaying cruelty and stirring the people’s offense—though that too has been said.

Eodem anno continuis imbribus auctus Tiberis plana urbis stagnaverat; relabentem secuta est aedificiorum et hominum strages. igitur censuit Asinius Gallus ut libri Sibyllini adirentur. renuit Tiberius, perinde divina humanaque obtegens; sed remedium coercendi fluminis Ateio Capitoni et L. Arruntio mandatum. Achaiam ac Macedoniam onera deprecantis levari in praesens proconsulari imperio tradique Caesari placuit. edendis gladiatoribus, quos Germanici fratris ac suo nomine obtulerat, Drusus praesedit, quamquam vili sanguine nimis gaudens; quod in vulgus formidolosum et pater arguisse dicebatur. cur abstinuerit spectaculo ipse, varie trahebant; alii taedio coetus, quidam tristitia ingenii et metu conparationis, quia Augustus comiter interfuisset. non crediderim ad ostentandam saevitiam movendasque populi offensiones concessam filio materiem, quamquam id quoque dictum est.

But the license of the theater, begun in the year just before, then broke out more grievously, with not only some of the plebs killed but soldiers and a centurion, and a tribune of a praetorian cohort wounded, while they checked the insults to the magistrates and the dissension of the crowd. The matter of this riot was debated before the senators, and opinions were spoken that the praetors should have the right of the rod against the players. Haterius Agrippa, tribune of the plebs, interposed his veto, and was rebuked in a speech of Asinius Gallus, Tiberius being silent, who furnished the Senate these shadows of liberty. Yet the veto prevailed, because the deified Augustus had once given as his ruling that the players were exempt from the lash, and it was not lawful for Tiberius to break his words. On the limit of the prize-money, and against the wantonness of the partisans, many things are decreed; of which the most notable were: that no senator should enter the houses of the pantomimes; that Roman knights should not escort them as they went out in public, nor that they be watched anywhere but in the theater; and that the praetors should have power to punish with exile the unruliness of the spectators.

At theatri licentia, proximo priore anno coepta, gravius tum erupit, occisis non modo e plebe set militibus et centurione, vulnerato tribuno praetoriae cohortis, dum probra in magistratus et dissensionem vulgi prohibent. actum de ea seditione apud patres dicebanturque sententiae, ut praetoribus ius virgarum in histriones esset. intercessit Haterius Agrippa tribunus plebei increpitusque est Asinii Galli oratione, silente Tiberio, qui ea simulacra libertatis senatui praebebat. valuit tamen intercessio, quia divus Augustus immunis verberum histriones quondam responderat, neque fas Tiberio infringere dicta eius. de modo lucaris et adversus lasciviam fautorum multa decernuntur; ex quis maxime insignia, ne domos pantomimorum senator introiret, ne egredientis in publicum equites Romani cingerent aut alibi quam in theatro spectarentur, et spectantium immodestiam exilio multandi potestas praetoribus fieret.

That a temple be built to Augustus in the colony of Tarraco was, at the request of the Spaniards, permitted, and an example given to all the provinces. The hundredth penny on goods sold, established after the civil wars, the people deprecating it, Tiberius declared by edict that the military treasury rested on that support; and at the same time that the commonwealth was unequal to the burden unless the veterans were discharged in the twentieth year of service. So the ill-considered concessions of the recent mutiny, by which they had wrung out an end of service at sixteen campaigns, were abolished for the future.

Templum ut in colonia Tarraconensi strueretur Augusto petentibus Hispanis permissum, datumque in omnis provincias exemplum. centesimam rerum venalium post bella civilia institutam deprecante populo edixit Tiberius militare aerarium eo subsidio niti; simul imparem oneri rem publicam, nisi vicesimo militiae anno veterani dimitterentur. ita proximae seditionis male consulta, quibus sedecim stipendiorum finem expresserant, abolita in posterum.

Then it was debated in the Senate by Arruntius and Ateius whether, to moderate the floods of the Tiber, the rivers and lakes by which it grows should be diverted; and embassies of the towns and colonies were heard. The Florentines begged that the Clanis not be turned from its accustomed bed into the river Arno, and so bring destruction on themselves. The men of Interamna spoke to like effect: the most fertile fields of Italy would go to ruin if the river Nar (for that was the plan) were drawn off into channels and overflowed. Nor were the Reatines silent, refusing that Lake Velinus be dammed where it pours into the Nar, since it would burst out upon the lands adjoining; nature had best provided for the affairs of mortals, who had given the rivers their own mouths, their own courses, and, as their source, so their end; regard, too, must be had to the religious feelings of the allies, who had consecrated rites and groves and altars to their native streams: nay, the Tiber itself would by no means wish to flow with less glory, robbed of its neighboring rivers. Whether the prayers of the colonies, or the difficulty of the works, or superstition prevailed, the opinion of Piso, who had voted that nothing be changed, was acceded to.

Actum deinde in senatu ab Arruntio et Ateio an ob moderandas Tiberis exundationes verterentur flumina et lacus, per quos augescit; auditaeque municipiorum et coloniarum legationes, orantibus Florentinis ne Clanis solito alveo demotus in amnem Arnum transferretur idque ipsis perniciem adferret. congruentia his Interamnates disseruere: pessum ituros fecundissimos Italiae campos, si amnis Nar (id enim parabatur) in rivos diductus superstagnavisset. nec Reatini silebant, Velinum lacum, qua in Narem effunditur, obstrui recusantes, quippe in adiacentia erupturum; optume rebus mortalium consuluisse naturam, quae sua ora fluminibus, suos cursus utque originem, ita finis dederit; spectandas etiam religiones sociorum, qui sacra et lucos et aras patriis amnibus dicaverint: quin ipsum Tiberim nolle prorsus accolis fluviis orbatum minore gloria fluere. seu preces coloniarum seu difficultas operum sive superstitio valuit, ut in sententiam Pisonis concederetur, qui nil mutandum censuerat.

The province of Moesia is prolonged to Poppaeus Sabinus, with Achaia and Macedonia added. This too was of Tiberius’s character, to continue commands and to keep most men to the end of their lives in the same armies or jurisdictions. Various causes are handed down: some say that from weariness of a fresh care he kept his once-made decisions as everlasting; some, from jealousy, lest more should enjoy them; there are those who think that, as his wit was crafty, so his judgment was anxious; for he neither sought after eminent virtues, and again hated vices: from the best he feared peril to himself, from the worst public disgrace. By which hesitation he was at last so far carried that he assigned provinces to certain men whom he would not suffer to leave the city.

Prorogatur Poppaeo Sabino provincia Moesia, additis Achaia ac Macedonia. id quoque morum Tiberii fuit, continuare imperia ac plerosque ad finem vitae in isdem exercitibus aut iurisdictionibus habere. causae variae traduntur: alii taedio novae curae semel placita pro aeternis servavisse, quidam invidia, ne plures fruerentur; sunt qui existiment, ut callidum eius ingenium, ita anxium iudicium; neque enim eminentis virtutes sectabatur, et rursum vitia oderat: ex optimis periculum sibi, a pessimis dedecus publicum metuebat. qua haesitatione postremo eo provectus est ut mandaverit quibusdam provincias, quos egredi urbe non erat passurus.

About the consular elections, which then first under that prince and thereafter took place, I would scarcely dare to affirm anything: so different are the accounts found not only in the historians, but in his own speeches. Sometimes, the candidates’ names being withheld, he described the origin and the life and the campaigns of each, so that it might be understood who they were; sometimes, that indication too being withheld, he exhorted the candidates not to disturb the elections by canvassing, and promised his own care to that end. For the most part he declared that only those had professed themselves before him whose names he had given to the consuls; others too might profess themselves, if they trusted in their favor or their deserts: specious in words, but in fact empty or insidious, and the more they were cloaked under a greater show of liberty, the more they were to break out into a more hateful servitude.

De comitiis consularibus, quae tum primum illo prin- cipe ac deinceps fuere, vix quicquam firmare ausim: adeo diversa non modo apud auctores, sed in ipsius orationibus reperiuntur. modo subtractis candidatorum nominibus originem cuiusque et vitam et stipendia descripsit ut qui forent intellegeretur; aliquando ea quoque significatione subtracta candidatos hortatus ne ambitu comitia turbarent, suam ad id curam pollicitus est. plerumque eos tantum apud se professos disseruit, quorum nomina consulibus edidisset; posse et alios profiteri, si gratiae aut meritis confiderent: speciosa verbis, re inania aut subdola, quantoque maiore libertatis imagine tegebantur, tanto eruptura ad infensius servitium.

In the consulship of Sisenna Statilius and Lucius Libo the kingdoms and provinces of the East were thrown into commotion, the beginning arising among the Parthians, who, having sought and received a king from Rome, spurned him, though of the line of the Arsacids, as a foreigner. This was Vonones, given as a hostage to Augustus by Phraates. For Phraates, although he had driven back the armies and generals of Rome, had turned all the offices of homage toward Augustus, and had sent part of his offspring to confirm the friendship—not so much from fear of us as from distrust of the loyalty of his own people.

Sisenna Statilio L. Libone consulibus mota Orientis regna provinciaeque Romanae, initio apud Parthos orto, qui petitum Roma acceptumque regem, quamvis gentis Arsacidarum, ut externum aspernabantur. is fuit Vonones, obses Augusto datus a Phraate. nam Phraates quamquam depulisset exercitus ducesque Romanos, cuncta venerantium officia ad Augustum verterat partemque prolis firmandae amicitiae miserat, haud perinde nostri metu quam fidei popularium diffisus.

After the end of Phraates and of the kings who followed him, through internal slaughters, there came to the city envoys from the chief men of the Parthians, to fetch Vonones, the eldest of his children. Caesar reckoned this glorious to himself and enriched him with means. And the barbarians received him gladly, as men generally do at the outset of a new rule. Soon came the shame of feeling that the Parthians had degenerated: they had sought a king from another world, tainted with the arts of their enemies; the throne of the Arsacids was now reckoned among the Roman provinces, and was bestowed. Where was that glory of those who slaughtered Crassus, who drove out Antony, if a chattel of Caesar’s, who had endured slavery so many years, was to be king over the Parthians? He himself, too, kindled their disdain, being unlike the institutions of his ancestors: rarely hunting, slack in his care of horses; whenever he went through the cities, carried in a litter, and disdainful of the feasts of his fathers. His Greek companions, too, were mocked, and the cheapest of his utensils sealed under his ring. But his approachability was easy, his courtesy open—virtues unknown to the Parthians, vices new to them; and because they were foreign to their own ways, they were hated alike, the bad and the honorable.

Post finem Phraatis et sequentium regum ob internas caedis venere in urbem legati a primoribus Parthis, qui Vononem vetustissimum liberorum eius accirent. magnificum id sibi credidit Caesar auxitque opibus. et accepere barbari laetantes, ut ferme ad nova imperia. mox subiit pudor degeneravisse Parthos: petitum alio ex orbe regem, hostium artibus infectum; iam inter provincias Romanas solium Arsacidarum haberi darique. ubi illam gloriam trucidantium Crassum, exturbantium Antonium, si mancipium Caesaris, tot per annos servitutem perpessum, Parthis imperitet? accendebat dedignantis et ipse diversus a maiorum institutis, raro venatu, segni equorum cura; quotiens per urbes incederet, lecticae gestamine fastuque erga patrias epulas. inridebantur et Graeci comites ac vilissima utensilium anulo clausa. sed prompti aditus, obvia comitas, ignotae Parthis virtutes, nova vitia; et quia ipsorum moribus aliena perinde odium pravis et honestis.

So Artabanus, of the blood of the Arsacids, reared among the Dahae, was called in, and, routed in the first encounter, repaired his forces and gained the throne. To the conquered Vonones Armenia was a refuge, then vacant and, between the Parthian and the Roman power, faithless on account of the crime of Antony, who had lured Artavasdes, king of the Armenians, under the show of friendship, then loaded him with chains, and at last killed him. His son Artaxias, hostile to us in memory of his father, defended himself and his kingdom by the might of the Arsacids. When Artaxias was killed by the treachery of his kinsmen, Tigranes was given to the Armenians by Caesar and brought into the kingdom by Tiberius Nero. But neither was Tigranes’s rule long-lived, nor his children’s, though joined in marriage and kingdom after the foreign manner.

Igitur Artabanus Arsacidarum e sanguine apud Dahas adultus excitur, primoque congressu fusus reparat viris regnoque potitur. victo Vononi perfugium Armenia fuit, vacua tunc interque Parthorum et Romanas opes infida ob scelus Antonii, qui Artavasden regem Armeniorum specie amicitiae inlectum, dein catenis oneratum, postremo interfecerat. eius filius Artaxias, memoria patris nobis infensus, Arsacidarum vi seque regnumque tutatus est. occiso Artaxia per dolum propinquorum datus a Caesare Armeniis Tigranes deductusque in regnum a Tiberio Nerone. nec Tigrani diuturnum imperium fuit neque liberis eius, quamquam sociatis more externo in matrimonium regnumque.

Then by the order of Augustus Artavasdes was set up, and not without disaster to us was thrown down. Then Gaius Caesar was chosen to settle Armenia. He set over them, with the Armenians’ goodwill, Ariobarzanes, a Mede by birth, on account of his notable beauty of body and his distinguished spirit. When Ariobarzanes was carried off by a chance death, they would not endure his stock; and, the rule of a woman having been tried—her name was Erato—and she soon expelled, irresolute and unstrung, and more without a master than in liberty, they receive the fugitive Vonones into the kingdom. But when Artabanus threatened, and there was too little support in the Armenians—or, if he were defended by our force, war must be undertaken against the Parthians—Creticus Silanus, the governor of Syria, sent for him and surrounded him with a guard, his luxury and royal name remaining. How Vonones plotted to escape that mockery we shall tell in its place.

Dein iussu Augusti inpositus Artavasdes et non sine clade nostra deiectus. tum Gaius Caesar componendae Armeniae deligitur. is Ariobarzanen, origine Medum, ob insignem corporis formam et praeclarum animum volentibus Armeniis praefecit. Ariobarzane morte fortuita absumpto stirpem eius haud toleravere; temptatoque feminae imperio, cui nomen Erato, eaque brevi pulsa, incerti solutique et magis sine domino quam in libertate profugum Vononen in regnum accipiunt. sed ubi minitari Artabanus et parum subsidii in Armeniis, vel, si nostra vi defenderetur, bellum adversus Parthos sumendum erat, rector Syriae Creticus Silanus excitum custodia circumdat, manente luxu et regio nomine. quod ludibrium ut effugere agitaverit Vonones in loco reddemus.

For the rest, it fell out not unwelcome to Tiberius that the affairs of the East were troubled, since under that pretext he could draw Germanicus away from his accustomed legions and, setting him over new provinces, expose him to treachery and chance at once. But Germanicus, the keener the soldiers’ zeal toward him and the more averse his uncle’s will, was the more intent on hastening victory, and turned over the ways of battle and what, savage or prosperous, had befallen him now in his third year of war. The Germans were beaten in pitched battle and on fair ground, but were aided by woods, by marshes, by the short summer and the early winter; his own soldier was harmed not so much by wounds as by the lengths of the marches and the loss of weapons; the Gauls were exhausted in furnishing horses; the long train of baggage was opportune for ambush and hard to defend. But if the sea were entered, the approach was easy for themselves and unknown to the enemy; at the same time the war could be begun earlier, and the legions and the supplies carried together; the cavalry and the horses would arrive fresh, through the mouths and channels of the rivers, in the heart of Germany.

Ceterum Tiberio haud ingratum accidit turbari res Orientis, ut ea specie Germanicum suetis legionibus abstraheret novisque provinciis impositum dolo simul et casibus obiectaret. at ille, quanto acriora in eum studia militum et aversa patrui voluntas, celerandae victoriae intentior, tractare proeliorum vias et quae sibi tertium iam annum belligeranti saeva vel prospera evenissent. fundi Germanos acie et iustis locis, iuvari silvis, paludibus, brevi aestate et praematura hieme; suum militem haud perinde vulneribus quam spatiis itinerum, damno armorum adfici; fessas Gallias ministrandis equis; longum impedimentorum agmen opportunum ad insidias, defensantibus iniquum. at si mare intretur, promptam ipsis possessionem et hostibus ignotam, simul bellum maturius incipi legionesque et commeatus pariter vehi; integrum equitem equosque per ora et alveos fluminum media in Germania fore.

So to this he bent himself, sending Publius Vitellius and Gaius Antius to the census of the Gauls. Silius and Anteius and Caecina are set in charge of building the fleet. A thousand ships seemed enough and were hurried on: some short, with narrow stern and prow and broad belly, the better to endure the waves; some flat-keeled, to settle without harm; many with rudders set at either end, so that, the rowing being suddenly reversed, they might put in this way or that; many decked with planking, on which engines might be carried, and fit at the same time for transporting horses or supplies; handy under sail, swift with oars, and made more spirited by the ardor of the soldiers, for show and for terror. The island of the Batavi was appointed for the muster, for its easy landings, and as convenient for receiving the forces and for crossing over to the war. For the Rhine, flowing in one continuous channel or surrounding moderate islands, divides at the beginning of the Batavian land as it were into two rivers, and keeps its name and the violence of its course where it skirts Germany, until it mingles with the Ocean: on the Gallic side it flows broader and gentler (the dwellers there, with a changed name, call it the Vahalis), then changes that name too for the river Mosa, and through its vast mouth pours into the same Ocean.

Igitur huc intendit, missis ad census Galliarum P. Vitellio et C. Antio. Silius et Anteius et Caecina fabricandae classi praeponuntur. mille naves sufficere visae properataeque, aliae breves, angusta puppi proraque et lato utero, quo facilius fluctus tolerarent; quaedam planae carinis, ut sine noxa siderent; plures adpositis utrimque gubernaculis, converso ut repente remigio hinc vel illinc adpellerent; multae pontibus stratae, super quas tormenta veherentur, simul aptae ferendis equis aut commeatui; velis habiles, citae remis augebantur alacritate militum in speciem ac terrorem. insula Batavorum in quam convenirent praedicta, ob facilis adpulsus accipiendisque copiis et transmit- tendum ad bellum opportuna. nam Rhenus uno alveo continuus aut modicas insulas circumveniens apud principium agri Batavi velut in duos amnis dividitur, servatque nomen et violentiam cursus, qua Germaniam praevehitur, donec Oceano misceatur: ad Gallicam ripam latior et placidior adfluens (verso cognomento Vahalem accolae dicunt), mox id quoque vocabulum mutat Mosa flumine eiusque inmenso ore eundem in Oceanum effunditur.

But the Caesar, while the ships were being brought up, orders the legate Silius with a light force to make an inroad upon the Chatti: he himself, hearing that a fort set on the river Lupia was besieged, led six legions thither. Nor was anything done by Silius, owing to sudden rains, but to carry off a moderate booty and the wife and daughter of Arpus, chief of the Chatti; nor did the besiegers give the Caesar a chance of battle, melting away at the report of his coming: yet they had pulled down a mound lately built for the Varian legions and an old altar set up to Drusus. He restored the altar, and in honor of his father the prince himself with the legions performed the procession; to renew the mound did not seem good. And all the country between the fort Aliso and the Rhine was thoroughly secured with new lines and embankments.

Sed Caesar, dum adiguntur naves, Silium legatum cum expedita manu inruptionem in Chattos facere iubet: ipse audito castellum Lupiae flumini adpositum obsideri, sex legiones eo duxit. neque Silio ob subitos imbris aliud actum quam ut modicam praedam et Arpi principis Chattorum coniugem filiamque raperet, neque Caesari copiam pugnae opsessores fecere, ad famam adventus eius dilapsi: tumulum tamen nuper Varianis legionibus structum et veterem aram Druso sitam disiecerant. restituit aram honorique patris princeps ipse cum legionibus decucurrit; tumulum iterare haud visum. et cuncta inter castellum Alisonem ac Rhenum novis limitibus aggeribusque permunita.

And now the fleet had arrived, when, the supplies being sent ahead and the ships distributed among the legions and allies, he entered the canal called the Drusian, and, having prayed his father Drusus to aid him, having dared the same enterprise, willing and propitious, by the example and memory of his counsels and works, he is carried by a prosperous voyage through the lakes and the Ocean as far as the river Amisia. The fleet was left at the mouth of the Amisia on the left bank, and an error was made in this, that he did not carry the soldiers upstream or set them across on the right, since they were to march into the lands on the right; so several days were spent in making bridges. And the cavalry indeed and the legions crossed the first estuaries undaunted, the tide not yet rising: but the last column of the auxiliaries, and the Batavi, in that part, while they leap into the water and show off their skill in swimming, were thrown into confusion, and some were swallowed up. As the Caesar was marking out a camp, the defection of the Angrivarii in his rear is announced: Stertinius was sent at once with cavalry and light-armed troops, and avenged the treachery with fire and slaughter.

Iamque classis advenerat, cum praemisso commeatu et distributis in legiones ac socios navibus fossam, cui Drusianae nomen, ingressus precatusque Drusum patrem ut se eadem ausum libens placatusque exemplo ac memoria consiliorum atque operum iuvaret, lacus inde et Oceanum usque ad Amisiam flumen secunda navigatione pervehitur. classis Amisiae ore relicta laevo amne, erratumque in eo quod non subvexit aut transposuit militem dextras in terras iturum; ita plures dies efficiendis pontibus absumpti. et eques quidem ac legiones prima aestuaria, nondum adcrescente unda, intrepidi transiere: postremum auxiliorum agmen Batavique in parte ea, dum insultant aquis artemque nandi ostentant, turbati et quidam hausti sunt. metanti castra Caesari Angrivariorum defectio a tergo nuntiatur: missus ilico Stertinius cum equite et armatura levi igne et caedibus perfidiam ultus est.

The river Weser flowed between the Romans and the Cherusci. On its bank, with the other chiefs, Arminius took his stand, and, having asked whether the Caesar had come, when it was answered that he was present, begged that he might be allowed to converse with his brother. This man was in our army, surnamed Flavus, notable for his loyalty and for an eye lost by a wound a few years before, under the leadership of Tiberius. Then, leave being given, he came forward and was greeted by Arminius; who, his attendants being removed, demands that the archers posted along our bank withdraw, and, after they had gone off, asks his brother whence that disfigurement of his face. When the other named the place and the battle, he inquires what reward he had received. Flavus mentions increased pay, a collar and a crown and other military gifts, Arminius mocking the cheap wages of servitude.

Flumen Visurgis Romanos Cheruscosque interfluebat. eius in ripa cum ceteris primoribus Arminius adstitit, quaesitoque an Caesar venisset, postquam adesse responsum est, ut liceret cum fratre conloqui oravit. erat is in exercitu cognomento Flavus, insignis fide et amisso per vulnus oculo paucis ante annis duce Tiberio. tum permissuprogressusque salutatur ab Arminio; qui amotis stipatoribus, ut sagittarii nostra pro ripa dispositi abscederent postulat, et postquam digressi, unde ea deformitas oris interrogat fratrem. illo locum et proelium referente, quodnam praemium recepisset exquirit. Flavus aucta stipendia, torquem et coronam aliaque militaria dona memorat, inridente Arminio vilia servitii pretia.

Then they begin on opposite sides, the one the greatness of Rome, the resources of Caesar, the heavy penalties for the conquered, the clemency ready for him who came in surrender; nor was his wife and son treated as enemies: the other the duty owed to fatherland, ancestral liberty, the household gods of Germany, their mother a sharer in his prayers; let him not choose to be the deserter and betrayer of his kinsmen and connections, in short of his own nation, rather than its leader. By degrees they slid into wrangling, and not even the river between them would have kept them from joining battle, had not Stertinius, running up, held back Flavus, who was full of wrath and demanding his weapons and his horse. Opposite was seen Arminius, threatening and proclaiming battle; for he threw in much in the Latin tongue, as one who had served in the Roman camp as a leader of his countrymen.

Exim diversi ordiuntur, hic magnitudinem Romanam, opes Caesaris et victis gravis poenas, in deditionem venienti paratam clementiam; neque coniugem et filium eius hostiliter haberi: ille fas patriae, libertatem avitam, penetralis Germaniae deos, matrem precum sociam; ne propinquorum et adfinium, denique gentis suae desertor et proditor quam imperator esse mallet. paulatim inde ad iurgia prolapsi quo minus pugnam consererent ne flumine quidem interiecto cohibebantur, ni Stertinius adcurrens plenum irae armaque et equum poscentem Flavum attinuisset. cernebatur contra minitabundus Arminius proeliumque denuntians; nam pleraque Latino sermone interiaciebat, ut qui Romanis in castris ductor popularium meruisset.

On the next day the German line stood across the Weser. The Caesar, thinking it not a general’s part to put the legions in jeopardy without bridges and posted guards, sends the cavalry over by a ford. Stertinius and Aemilius, of the number of the chief centurions, were in command, charging in at points apart, to draw the enemy asunder. Where the river was swiftest, Chariovalda, leader of the Batavi, broke out. Him the Cherusci, feigning flight, drew into a plain ringed about with thickets: then, springing up and pouring in from every side, they thrust back those who faced them, pressed on those who gave way, and, when they had collected into a circle, part closing hand to hand, some from afar, dislodged them. Chariovalda, having long sustained the enemy’s fury, exhorting his men to break through the assailing bands in a body, and himself charging the thickest, falls amid a hail of weapons, his horse stabbed under him, and many of the nobles around him: the rest their own valor, or the cavalry coming up with Stertinius and Aemilius, snatched from the peril.

Postero die Germanorum acies trans Visurgim stetit. Caesar nisi pontibus praesidiisque inpositis dare in discrimen legiones haud imperatorium ratus, equitem vado tramittit. praefuere Stertinius et e numero primipilarium Aemilius, distantibus locis invecti, ut hostem diducerent. qua celerrimus amnis, Chariovalda dux Batavorum erupit. eum Cherusci fugam simulantes in planitiem saltibus circumiectam traxere: dein coorti et undique effusi trudunt adversos, instant cedentibus collectosque in orbem pars congressi, quidam eminus proturbant. Chariovalda diu sustentata hostium saevitia, hortatus suos ut ingruentis catervas globo perfringerent, atque ipse densissimos inrumpens, congestis telis et suffosso equo labitur, ac multi nobilium circa: ceteros vis sua aut equites cum Stertinio Aemilioque subvenientes periculo exemere.

The Caesar, having crossed the Weser, learns by the information of a deserter that the place of battle had been chosen by Arminius; that other nations too had assembled in a forest sacred to Hercules, and would venture a nightly assault on the camp. Faith was put in the informer, and the fires were seen, and scouts who crept up nearer brought back that the neighing of horses and the murmur of a vast and disordered host were heard. So, the decisive crisis being near, thinking the soldiers’ temper must be sounded, he debated with himself by what means it might be done untainted. The tribunes and centurions reported the glad more often than the ascertained; the freedmen had servile natures; in friends there was flattery; if an assembly were summoned, there too what a few began the rest would roar after. Their minds must be known deeply, when, secret and unwatched, amid their soldiers’ rations, they uttered their hope or their fear.

Caesar transgressus Visurgim indicio perfugae cognoscit delectum ab Arminio locum pugnae; convenisse et alias nationes in silvam Herculi sacram ausurosque nocturnam castrorum oppugnationem. habita indici fides et cernebantur ignes, suggressique propius speculatores audiri fremitum equorum inmensique et inconditi agminis murmur attulere. igitur propinquo summae rei discrimine explorandos militum animos ratus, quonam id modo incorruptum foret secum agitabat. tribunos et centuriones laeta saepius quam comperta nuntiare, libertorum servilia ingenia, amicis inesse adulationem; si contio vocetur, illic quoque quae pauci incipiant reliquos adstrepere. penitus noscendas mentes, cum secreti et incustoditi inter militaris cibos spem aut metum proferrent.

At nightfall, going out by the augural gate, through hidden ways unknown to the sentries, with a single companion, his shoulders covered with a wild beast’s hide, he goes along the camp’s streets, stands by the tents, and enjoys the report of himself, while one extolled the leader’s nobility, another his grace, most his endurance, his courtesy, that in earnest and in jest he was the same, and confessed that thanks must be rendered in the battle-line, and at the same time that the treacherous breakers of the peace must be sacrificed to vengeance and to glory. Among these one of the enemy, knowing the Latin tongue, riding up to the rampart, in a loud voice promised, in Arminius’s name, wives and lands and a hundred sesterces a day so long as the war should last, if any man would desert. This insult sharpened the legions’ wrath: let the day come, let battle be given; the soldier would take the lands of the Germans, would drag off their wives; they accepted the omen, and marked out the wives and moneys of the enemy for plunder. About the third watch the camp was assailed, without a cast of a weapon, after they perceived the cohorts thick before the defenses and nothing relaxed.

Nocte coepta egressus augurali per occulta et vigilibus ignara, comite uno, contectus umeros ferina pelle, adit castrorum vias, adsistit tabernaculis fruiturque fama sui, cum hic nobilitatem ducis, decorem alius, plurimi patientiam, comitatem, per seria per iocos eundem animum laudibus ferrent reddendamque gratiam in acie faterentur, simul perfidos et ruptores pacis ultioni et gloriae mactandos. inter quae unus hostium, Latinae linguae sciens, acto ad vallum equo voce magna coniuges et agros et stipendii in dies, donec bellaretur, sestertios centenos, si quis transfugisset, Arminii nomine pollicetur. intendit ea contumelia legionum iras: veniret dies, daretur pugna; sumpturum militem Germanorum agros, tracturum coniuges; accipere omen et matrimonia ac pecunias hostium praedae destinare. tertia ferme vigilia adsultatum est castris sine coniectu teli, postquam crebras pro munimentis cohortes et nihil remissum sensere.

That same night brought Germanicus a glad rest, and he saw himself sacrificing, and, his robe sprinkled with the blood of the victim, receiving a fairer one from the hands of his grandmother Augusta. Heightened by the omen, the auspices confirming it, he calls an assembly and sets forth what he had foreseen by wisdom and fitted to the coming battle. Not the plains only were good for the Roman soldier in fighting, but, if reason were applied, woods and glens too; for the huge shields of the barbarians, their enormous spears, could not be handled among the trunks of trees and the brushwood sprung from the ground so well as javelins and swords and armor clinging to the body. Let them thicken their blows, aim their points at the faces: the German had no corselet, no helmet, not even shields strengthened with iron or sinew, but wickerwork or thin boards dyed with color; his first line, at most, was armed with spears, the rest had fire-hardened or short weapons. As for the body, fierce as it was to see and strong for a brief onset, it had no endurance of wounds: without shame at disgrace, without regard for their leaders, they would go off, would flee, fearful in adversity, in success mindful of neither divine nor human right. If, weary of the marches and the sea, they desired an end, this battle would win it: the Elbe was now nearer than the Rhine, and there was no war beyond, provided only that they would set him, who was treading the footsteps of his father and his uncle, a victor in those same lands.

Nox eadem laetam Germanico quietem tulit, viditque se operatum et sanguine sacri respersa praetexta pulchriorem aliam manibus aviae Augustae accepisse. auctus omine, addicentibus auspiciis, vocat contionem et quae sapientia provisa aptaque inminenti pugnae disserit. non campos modo militi Romano ad proelium bonos, sed si ratio adsit, silvas et saltus; nec enim inmensa barbarorum scuta, enormis hastas inter truncos arborum et enata humo virgulta perinde haberi quam pila et gladios et haerentia corpori tegmina. denserent ictus, ora mucronibus quaererent: non loricam Germano, non galeam, ne scuta quidem ferro nervove firmata, sed viminum textus vel tenuis et fucatas colore tabulas; primam utcumque aciem hastatam, ceteris praeusta aut brevia tela. iam corpus ut visu torvum et ad brevem impetum validum, sic nulla vulnerum patientia: sine pudore flagitii, sine cura ducum abire, fugere, pavidos adversis, inter secunda non divini, non humani iuris memores. si tae- dio viarum ac maris finem cupiant, hac acie parari: propiorem iam Albim quam Rhenum neque bellum ultra, modo se patris patruique vestigia prementem isdem in terris victorem sisterent.

The soldiers’ ardor followed the leader’s speech, and the signal for battle was given. Nor did Arminius or the other chiefs of the Germans neglect to call each his own to witness that these were the Romans, the most runaway of Varus’s army, who, to escape bearing war, had put on mutiny; part of whom bore backs loaded with wounds, part limbs broken by the floods and storms, and now exposed them again to enemies who hated them, to gods who were against them, with no hope of good. For they had sought a fleet and the trackless ways of the Ocean, that none might meet them as they came, none press them when beaten: but once they had joined hands, the aid of winds or oars would be useless to the conquered. Let them only remember the Romans’ greed, cruelty, arrogance: what was left to themselves but to hold their liberty, or die before servitude?

Orationem ducis secutus militum ardor, signumque pugnae datum. nec Arminius aut ceteri Germanorum proceres omittebant suos quisque testari, hos esse Romanos Variani exercitus fugacissimos qui ne bellum tolerarent, seditionem induerint; quorum pars onusta vulneribus terga, pars fluctibus et procellis fractos artus infensis rursum hostibus, adversis dis obiciant, nulla boni spe. classem quippe et avia Oceani quaesita ne quis venientibus occurreret, ne pulsos premeret: sed ubi miscuerint manus, inane victis ventorum remorumve subsidium. meminissent modo avaritiae, crudelitatis, superbiae: aliud sibi reliquum quam tenere libertatem aut mori ante servitium?

Thus kindled and demanding battle, they are led down into a plain whose name is Idistavisus. It lies midway between the Weser and the hills, winding unevenly, as the banks of the river give way or the projections of the mountains stand out. Behind, a wood rose up, with branches lifted on high and clear ground between the trunks of the trees. The plain and the first reaches of the woods the barbarian line held: the Cherusci alone had taken the heights, to charge down upon the Romans as they fought. Our army advanced thus: the auxiliary Gauls and Germans in front, behind them the foot-archers; then four legions, and the Caesar with two praetorian cohorts and picked cavalry; next as many other legions, and the light-armed with mounted archers, and the rest of the allied cohorts. The soldier was intent and ready, so that the order of march should fall at once into line of battle.

Sic accensos et proelium poscentis in campum, cui Idistaviso nomen, deducunt. is medius inter Visurgim et collis, ut ripae fluminis cedunt aut prominentia montium resistunt, inaequaliter sinuatur. pone tergum insurgebat silva, editis in altum ramis et pura humo inter arborum truncos. campum et prima silvarum barbara acies tenuit: soli Cherusci iuga insedere ut proeliantibus Romanis desuper incurrerent. noster exercitus sic incessit: auxiliares Galli Germanique in fronte, post quos pedites sagittarii; dein quattuor legiones et cum duabus praetoriis cohortibus ac delecto equite Caesar; exim totidem aliae legiones et levis armatura cum equite sagittario ceteraeque sociorum cohortes. intentus paratusque miles ut ordo agminis in aciem adsisteret.

At the sight of the Cheruscan bands, which had rushed forward in their ferocity, he orders his strongest cavalry to charge the flank, Stertinius with the other squadrons to go round and fall upon the rear, himself to be at hand in time. Meanwhile a most beautiful augury, eight eagles seen to make for the woods and enter them, drew the commander’s eye. He cries out: let them go, let them follow the Roman birds, the legions’ own divinities. At the same time the line of foot is brought up and the cavalry sent ahead drove against the rear and the flanks. And, strange to tell, two columns of the enemy fled in opposite directions: those who had held the wood rushed into the open, those who had stood in the plain into the wood. Between these the Cherusci were being thrust down from the hills, among whom the conspicuous Arminius, by hand, by voice, by his wound, sustained the battle. And he had borne down upon the archers, meaning to break through there, had not the cohorts of the Raeti and Vindelici and the Gallic cohorts opposed their standards. Yet by an effort of body and the rush of his horse he won through, having smeared his face with his own blood that he might not be known. Some have handed down that he was recognized by the Chauci serving among the Roman auxiliaries, and let go. The like valor, or treachery, gave Inguiomerus his escape: the rest were butchered everywhere. And many, trying to swim the Weser, were covered by the weapons hurled at them, or the river’s force, at last by the mass of those plunging in and the collapsing banks. Some, in shameful flight, climbing to the tops of the trees and hiding among the branches, were shot for sport by archers brought up; others the felled trees crushed.

Visis Cheruscorum catervis, quae per ferociam proruperant, validissimos equitum incurrere latus, Stertinium cum ceteris turmis circumgredi tergaque invadere iubet, ipse in tempore adfuturus. interea pulcherrimum augurium, octo aquilae petere silvas et intrare visae imperatorem advertere. exclamat irent, sequerentur Romanas avis, propria legionum numina. simul pedestris acies infertur et praemissus eques postremos ac latera impulit. mirumque dictu, duo hostium agmina diversa fuga, qui silvam tenuerant, in aperta, qui campis adstiterant, in silvam ruebant. medii inter hos Cherusci collibus detrudebantur, inter quos insignis Arminius manu voce vulnere sustentabat pugnam. incubueratque sagittariis, illa rupturus, ni Raetorum Vindelicorumque et Gallicae cohortes signa obiecissent. nisu tamen corporis et impetu equi pervasit, oblitus faciem suo cruore ne nosceretur. quidam adgnitum a Chaucis inter auxilia Romana agentibus emissumque tradiderunt. virtus seu fraus eadem Inguiomero effugium dedit: ceteri passim trucidati. et plerosque tranare Visurgim conantis iniecta tela aut vis fluminis, postremo moles ruentium et incidentes ripae operuere. quidam turpi fuga in summa arborum nisi ramisque se occultantes admotis sagittariis per ludibrium figebantur, alios prorutae arbores adflixere.

That was a great victory and not a bloody one to us. From the fifth hour of the day to night the enemy were cut down, and filled ten miles with corpses and arms, there being found among their spoils the chains which they had brought for the Romans, as of an outcome not in doubt. The soldier on the field of battle saluted Tiberius as imperator, and raised a mound, and set arms upon it in the fashion of a trophy, with the names of the conquered nations written beneath.

Magna ea victoria neque cruenta nobis fuit. quinta ab hora diei ad noctem caesi hostes decem milia passuum cadaveribus atque armis opplevere, repertis inter spolia eorum catenis quas in Romanos ut non dubio eventu portaverant. miles in loco proelii Tiberium imperatorem salutavit struxitque aggerem et in modum tropaeorum arma subscriptis victarum gentium nominibus imposuit.

Not so much did wounds, mourning, devastation afflict the Germans with grief and anger as that sight. Those who but now were making ready to abandon their homes and withdraw beyond the Elbe wish for battle, snatch up arms; the commons and the chiefs, the young and the old, suddenly charge the Roman column and throw it into disorder. At last they choose a place shut in by river and woods, with a narrow plain within and wet; the woods too a deep marsh ringed about, save that on one side the Angrivarii had raised a broad earthwork to mark them off from the Cherusci. Here the foot took its stand: the horse they hid in the neighboring groves, that they might be in the rear of the legions when they entered the wood.

Haut perinde Germanos vulnera, luctus, excidia quam ea species dolore et ira adfecit. qui modo abire sedibus, trans Albim concedere parabant, pugnam volunt, arma rapiunt; plebes primores, iuventus senes agmen Romanum repente incursant, turbant. postremo deligunt locum flumine et silvis clausum, arta intus planitie et umida: silvas quoque profunda palus ambibat nisi quod latus unum Angrivarii lato aggere extulerant quo a Cheruscis dirimerentur. hic pedes adstitit: equitem propinquis lucis texere ut ingressis silvam legionibus a tergo foret.

Nothing of these things was unknown to the Caesar: he knew their plans, their positions, the open and the hidden, and turned the enemy’s stratagems to their own destruction. To the legate Seius Tubero he hands over the cavalry and the plain; the line of foot he so arrayed that part should advance into the wood by the level approach, part struggle up the earthwork set against them; what was steep he took to himself, the rest he left to the legates. Those to whom the level ground had fallen broke in easily: those who had to assault the earthwork, as if they were climbing a wall, were buffeted by heavy blows from above. The leader perceived that the close fight was unequal, and, drawing the legions back a little, ordered the slingers and engine-men to discharge their weapons and dislodge the enemy. Spears were shot from the engines, and the more conspicuous the defenders, the more wounds threw them down. The Caesar first, with the praetorian cohorts, the rampart taken, gave the charge into the woods; there it was fought foot to foot. The enemy a marsh shut in at the rear, the Romans a river or the mountains: to both there was necessity in their position, hope in their valor, safety from victory.

Nihil ex his Caesari incognitum: consilia locos, prompta occulta noverat astusque hostium in perniciem ipsis vertebat. Seio Tuberoni legato tradit equitem campumque; peditum aciem ita instruxit ut pars aequo in silvam aditu incederet, pars obiectum aggerem eniteretur; quod arduum sibi, cetera legatis permisit. quibus plana evenerant, facile inrupere: quis inpugnandus agger, ut si murum succederent, gravibus superne ictibus conflictabantur. sensit dux inparem comminus pugnam remotisque paulum legionibus funditores libritoresque excutere tela et proturbare hostem iubet. missae e tormentis hastae, quantoque conspicui magis propugnatores, tanto pluribus vulneribus deiecti. primus Caesar cum praetoriis cohortibus capto vallo dedit impetum in silvas; conlato illic gradu certatum. hostem a tergo palus, Romanos flumen aut montes claudebant: utrisque necessitas in loco, spes in virtute, salus ex victoria.

Nor was the Germans’ spirit less, but they were overmatched by the kind of battle and of arms, since their vast multitude, in the cramped ground, could neither thrust out their over-long spears nor draw them back, nor use their rushes and the swiftness of their bodies, being forced to a stationary fight; while the soldier, his shield pressed to his breast and his hand fixed on the hilt, drove at the broad limbs of the barbarians, their naked faces, and opened a way through the slaughter of the enemy—Arminius now less forward, owing to the continual perils, or perhaps the wound lately received had slowed him. Inguiomerus too, flitting over the whole field, fortune rather than valor was deserting. And Germanicus, that he might be the better recognized, had pulled the covering from his head and begged them to press on the slaughter: there was no need of captives, the extermination of the nation alone would end the war. And now, late in the day, he withdraws a legion from the line to make a camp: the rest were sated till nightfall with the enemy’s blood. The cavalry fought with no clear result.

Nec minor Germanis animus, sed genere pugnae et armorum superabantur, cum ingens multitudo artis locis praelongas hastas non protenderet, non colligeret, neque adsultibus et velocitate corporum uteretur, coacta stabile ad proelium; contra miles, cui scutum pectori adpressum et insidens capulo manus, latos barbarorum artus, nuda ora foderet viamque strage hostium aperiret, inprompto iam Arminio ob continua pericula, sive illum recens acceptum vulnus tardaverat. quin et Inguiomerum, tota volitantem acie, fortuna magis quam virtus deserebat. et Germanicus quo magis adgnosceretur detraxerat tegimen capiti orabatque insisterent caedibus: nil opus captivis, solam internicionem gentis finem bello fore. iamque sero diei subducit ex acie legionem faciendis castris: ceterae ad noctem cruore hostium satiatae sunt. equites ambigue certavere.

Having praised the victors before an assembly, the Caesar raised a heap of arms, with a proud inscription: that the army of Tiberius Caesar, the nations between the Rhine and the Elbe being subdued, had consecrated these monuments to Mars and Jupiter and Augustus. Of himself he added nothing—whether from fear of envy, or thinking the consciousness of the deed enough. Soon he commits the war against the Angrivarii to Stertinius, unless they should hasten to surrender. And they, suppliant, refusing nothing, obtained pardon for all.

Laudatis pro contione victoribus Caesar congeriem armorum struxit, superbo cum titulo: debellatis inter Rhenum Albimque nationibus exercitum Tiberii Caesaris ea monimenta Marti et Iovi et Augusto sacravisse. de se nihil addidit, metu invidiae an ratus conscientiam facti satis esse. mox bellum in Angrivarios Stertinio mandat, ni deditionem properavissent. atque illi supplices nihil abnuendo veniam omnium accepere.

But, the summer being now far advanced, some of the legions were sent back into winter quarters by the land route; the more part the Caesar embarked on the fleet and carried down the river Amisia into the Ocean. And at first the calm sea resounded with the oars of a thousand ships or was driven by their sails: soon, from a black mass of clouds, hail poured down, and at the same time, with squalls rising on every side, the uncertain waves took away the view and hampered the steering; and the soldier, frightened and ignorant of the chances of the sea, while he disturbed the sailors or unseasonably helped them, was spoiling the work of the skilled. After that all the sky and all the sea went over to the south wind, which, strong from the swollen lands of Germany, the deep rivers, and the immense tract of clouds, and grimmer for the chill of the neighboring north, snatched up and scattered the ships into the open Ocean or among islands beset with broken rocks or with hidden shoals. These being a little and with difficulty avoided, after the tide changed and bore the same way as the wind, they could neither hold by their anchors nor bail out the inrushing waters: horses, baggage-animals, packs, even arms are flung overboard to lighten the hulls, which were leaking through their sides and overwhelmed by the surge above.

Sed aestate iam adulta legionum aliae itinere terrestri in hibernacula remissae; pluris Caesar classi inpositas per flumen Amisiam Oceano invexit. ac primo placidum aequor mille navium remis strepere aut velis inpelli: mox atro nubium globo effusa grando, simul variis undique procellis incerti fluctus prospectum adimere, regimen inpedire; milesque pavidus et casuum maris ignarus dum turbat nautas vel intempestive iuvat, officia prudentium corrumpebat. omne dehinc caelum et mare omne in austrum cessit, qui tumidis Germaniae terris, profundis amnibus, immenso nubium tractu validus et rigore vicini septentrionis horridior rapuit disiecitque navis in aperta Oceani aut insulas saxis abruptis vel per occulta vada infestas. quibus paulum aegreque vitatis, postquam mutabat aestus eodemque quo ventus ferebat, non adhaerere ancoris, non exhaurire inrumpentis undas poterant: equi, iumenta, sarcinae, etiam arma praecipitantur quo levarentur alvei manantes per latera et fluctu superurgente.

As much as the Ocean is more violent than the rest of the sea, and Germany surpasses in the savagery of its climate, so much did that disaster exceed in its strangeness and its greatness, the shores around being hostile, or the sea so vast and deep that it is believed to be the last and landless one. Part of the ships were swallowed up, more cast away on islands lying farther off; and the soldier, with no human cultivation there, was consumed by famine, except those whom the bodies of horses, washed up on the same shore, had kept alive. The trireme of Germanicus alone put in to the land of the Chauci; whom through all those days and nights, on the crags and jutting headlands, while he cried out that he was guilty of so great a destruction, his friends scarce held back from meeting his death in the same sea. At last, the tide ebbing and the wind favoring, the crippled ships, with few oars or with garments stretched for sails, and some towed by the stronger, returned; and, hastily refitted, he sent them to search the islands. By that care most were gathered up: many the Angrivarii, lately received into allegiance, ransomed from the inland tribes and gave back; some, swept away to Britain, were sent back by the chieftains. As each had returned from far off, they told of marvels: the force of the whirlwinds and unheard-of birds, sea-monsters, ambiguous shapes of men and beasts—things seen, or believed out of fear.

Quanto violentior cetero mari Oceanus et truculentia caeli praestat Germania, tantum illa clades novitate et magnitudine excessit, hostilibus circum litoribus aut ita vasto et profundo ut credatur novissimum ac sine terris mare. pars navium haustae sunt, plures apud insulas longius sitas eiectae; milesque nullo illic hominum cultu fame absumptus, nisi quos corpora equorum eodem elisa toleraverant. sola Germanici triremis Chaucorum terram adpulit; quem per omnis illos dies noctesque apud scopulos et prominentis oras, cum se tanti exitii reum clamitaret, vix cohibuere amici quo minus eodem mari oppeteret. tandem relabente aestu et secundante vento claudae naves raro remigio aut intentis vestibus, et quaedam a validioribus tractae, revertere; quas raptim refectas misit ut scrutarentur insulas. collecti ea cura plerique: multos Angrivarii nuper in fidem accepti redemptos ab interioribus reddidere; quidam in Britanniam rapti et remissi a regulis. ut quis ex longinquo revenerat, miracula narrabant, vim turbinum et inauditas volucris, monstra maris, ambiguas hominum et beluarum formas, visa sive ex metu credita.

But the report of the lost fleet, as it roused the Germans to the hope of war, so it roused the Caesar to curb them. He orders Gaius Silius to go against the Chatti with thirty thousand foot and three thousand horse; he himself with larger forces bursts in upon the Marsi, whose leader Mallovendus, lately received in surrender, discloses that an eagle of a Varian legion was buried in a near-by grove and guarded by a slight garrison. A force was sent at once to draw the enemy off in front, and others to go round the rear and open up the ground; and fortune attended both. The more eager for it, the Caesar pushes inland, ravages, cuts to pieces an enemy that dared not engage, or, wherever it had resisted, was at once driven off, and never, as was learned from captives, more terrified. For they declared the Romans invincible and to be overcome by no disasters, who, with their fleet lost, their arms gone, after the shores were strewn with the bodies of horses and men, had broken in with the same valor, the same ferocity, and as if increased in number.

Sed fama classis amissae ut Germanos ad spem belli, ita Caesarem ad coercendum erexit. C. Silio cum triginta peditum, tribus equitum milibus ire in Chattos imperat; ipse maioribus copiis Marsos inrumpit, quorum dux Mallovendus nuper in deditionem acceptus propinquo luco defossam Varianae legionis aquilam modico praesidio servari indicat. missa extemplo manus quae hostem a fronte eliceret, alii qui terga circumgressi recluderent humum; et utrisque adfuit fortuna. eo promptior Caesar pergit introrsus, populatur, excindit non ausum congredi hostem aut, sicubi restiterat, statim pulsum nec umquam magis, ut ex captivis cognitum est, paventem. quippe invictos et nullis casibus superabilis Romanos praedicabant, qui perdita classe, amissis armis, post constrata equorum virorumque corporibus litora eadem virtute, pari ferocia et velut aucti numero inrupissent.

The soldier was then led back into winter quarters, glad in heart that he had balanced the reverses of the sea by a prosperous expedition. The Caesar added his bounty, paying out to each as much as he had declared his loss to be. Nor was it doubted that the enemy were wavering and taking counsel to sue for peace, and that, if the next summer were added, the war could be finished. But by frequent letters Tiberius admonished him to return to the triumph decreed him: there had been enough now of events, enough of chances. His battles had been prosperous and great: let him also remember those losses which the winds and waves, by no fault of the leader, had yet inflicted, grievous and savage. He himself had been sent nine times into Germany by the deified Augustus, and had accomplished more by counsel than by force. Thus the Sugambri had been received in surrender, thus the Suebi and king Maroboduus bound by peace. The Cherusci too, and the other rebel nations, since Roman vengeance had been satisfied, might be left to their internal discords. When Germanicus begged a year for finishing what he had begun, he assails his modesty the more keenly by offering a second consulship, whose duties he should discharge in person. At the same time he added that, if there were still to be war, he should leave material for the glory of his brother Drusus, who, there being then no other enemy, could win the name of imperator and bring home the laurel only in the Germanies. Germanicus hesitated no longer, though he understood that this was feigned and that he was being torn through envy from the glory he had already won.

Reductus inde in hiberna miles, laetus animi quod adversa maris expeditione prospera pensavisset. addidit munificentiam Caesar, quantum quis damni professus erat exsolvendo. nec dubium habebatur labare hostis petendaeque pacis consilia sumere, et si proxima aestas adiceretur, posse bellum patrari. sed crebris epistulis Tiberius monebat rediret ad decretum triumphum: satis iam eventuum, satis casuum. prospera illi et magna proelia: eorum quoque meminisset, quae venti et fluctus, nulla ducis culpa, gravia tamen et saeva damna intulissent. se novies a divo Augusto in Germaniam missum plura consilio quam vi perfecisse. sic Sugambros in deditionem acceptos, sic Suebos regemque Maroboduum pace obstrictum. posse et Cheruscos ceterasque rebellium gentis, quoniam Romanae ultioni consultum esset, internis discordiis relinqui. precante Germanico annum efficiendis coeptis, acrius modestiam eius adgreditur alterum consulatum offerendo cuius munia praesens obiret. simul adnectebat, si foret adhuc bellandum, relinqueret materiem Drusi fratris gloriae, qui nullo tum alio hoste non nisi apud Germanias adsequi nomen imperatorium et deportare lauream posset. haud cunctatus est ultra Germanicus, quamquam fingi ea seque per invidiam parto iam decori abstrahi intellegeret.

About the same time Libo Drusus, of the family of the Scribonii, is informed against as plotting revolution. The beginning, the course, the end of that business I shall set forth with some care, because then first were devised the things that for so many years ate away the commonwealth. Firmius Catus, a senator, of Libo’s most intimate friendship, drove the young man, improvident and a ready prey to vanities, to the promises of the Chaldeans, the rites of magicians, and even the interpreters of dreams, while he held up before him his great-grandfather Pompey, his great-aunt Scribonia, who had once been Augustus’s wife, his cousins the Caesars, his house full of ancestral images, and urged him to luxury and debt, the partner of his lusts and his needs, that he might entangle him with more proofs.

Sub idem tempus e familia Scriboniorum Libo Drusus defertur moliri res novas. eius negotii initium, ordinem, finem curatius disseram, quia tum primum reperta sunt quae per tot annos rem publicam exedere. Firmius Catus senator, ex intima Libonis amicitia, iuvenem inprovi- dum et facilem inanibus ad Chaldaeorum promissa, magorum sacra, somniorum etiam interpretes impulit, dum proavum Pompeium, amitam Scriboniam, quae quondam Augusti coniunx fuerat, consobrinos Caesares, plenam imaginibus domum ostentat, hortaturque ad luxum et aes alienum, socius libidinum et necessitatum, quo pluribus indiciis inligaret.

When he had found witnesses enough, and slaves who knew the same things, he asks access to the prince, the crime and the accused being pointed out through Vescularius Flaccus, a Roman knight who had a closer intimacy with Tiberius. Caesar, not spurning the information, refused a meeting: for the conversations could pass through the same Flaccus as go-between. And meanwhile he honors Libo with a praetorship, admits him to his table, not estranged in look, not more disturbed in word (so deeply had he buried his anger); and all Libo’s words and deeds, though he could have stopped them, he preferred to know, until one Junius, solicited to call up the shades of the dead by incantations, carried the information to Fulcinius Trio. Trio’s talent was famous among the informers, and greedy of an evil renown. At once he seizes the accused, approaches the consuls, demands an inquiry by the Senate. And the senators are summoned, with the addition that they must deliberate on a great and atrocious matter.

Vt satis testium et qui servi eadem noscerent repperit, aditum ad principem postulat, demonstrato crimine et reo per Flaccum Vescularium equitem Romanum, cui propior cum Tiberio usus erat. Caesar indicium haud aspernatus congressus abnuit: posse enim eodem Flacco internuntio sermones commeare. atque interim Libonem ornat praetura, convictibus adhibet, non vultu alienatus, non verbis commotior (adeo iram condiderat); cunctaque eius dicta factaque, cum prohibere posset, scire malebat, donec Iunius quidam, temptatus ut infernas umbras carminibus eliceret, ad Fulcinium Trionem indicium detulit. celebre inter accusatores Trionis ingenium erat avidumque famae malae. statim corripit reum, adit consules, cognitionem senatus poscit. et vocantur patres, addito consultandum super re magna et atroci.

Libo meanwhile, in changed dress, with women of the first rank, went round the houses, entreated his connections, begged a voice against the perils—all refusing, while they pretended different reasons, from the same fear. On the day of the Senate, worn with fear and sickness, or, as some have handed down, feigning illness, he was carried in a litter to the doors of the Curia, and, leaning on his brother and stretching his hands and suppliant cries to Tiberius, was received with an unmoved countenance. Then Caesar reads out the documents and their authors, so tempering it as to seem neither to soften nor to aggravate the charges.

Libo interim veste mutata cum primoribus feminis circumire domos, orare adfinis, vocem adversum pericula poscere, abnuentibus cunctis, cum diversa praetenderent, eadem formidine. die senatus metu et aegritudine fessus, sive, ut tradidere quidam, simulato morbo, lectica delatus ad foris curiae innisusque fratri et manus ac supplices voces ad Tiberium tendens immoto eius vultu excipitur. mox libellos et auctores recitat Caesar ita moderans ne lenire neve asperare crimina videretur.

There had been added, besides Trio and Catus, the accusers Fonteius Agrippa and Gaius Vibius, and they vied which should be given the right of pleading against the accused, until Vibius, since they would not yield to one another and Libo had come in without an advocate, professed that he would bring the charges one by one, and produced documents so crazy that Libo had inquired whether he would have wealth enough to cover the Appian Way with money as far as Brundisium. There were other things of this kind, foolish and empty, or, if you took them more gently, pitiable. On one document, however, the accuser argued, there had been added, in Libo’s hand, against the names of the Caesars or of senators, atrocious or occult marks. The accused denying it, it was resolved that the slaves who recognized them be questioned under torture. And because by an old decree of the Senate inquisition against a master’s life was forbidden, Tiberius, crafty and the inventor of a new law, orders the slaves to be sold one by one to the public agent, so that, the Senate’s decree being saved, inquisition might be made of the slaves against Libo. On account of which the accused asked for the next day, and, having gone home, committed his last prayers to the prince through his kinsman Publius Quirinius.

Accesserant praeter Trionem et Catum accusatores Fonteius Agrippa et C. Vibius, certabantque cui ius perorandi in reum daretur, donec Vibius, quia nec ipsi inter se concederent et Libo sine patrono introisset, singillatim se crimina obiecturum professus, protulit libellos vaecordes adeo ut consultaverit Libo an habiturus foret opes quis viam Appiam Brundisium usque pecunia operiret. inerant et alia huiusce modi stolida vana, si mollius acciperes, miseranda. uni tamen libello manu Libonis nominibus Caesarum aut senatorum additas atrocis vel occultas notas accusator arguebat. negante reo adgnoscentis servos per tormenta interrogari placuit. et quia vetere senatus consulto quaestio in caput domini prohibebatur, callidus et novi iuris repertor Tiberius mancipari singulos actori publico iubet, scilicet ut in Libonem ex servis salvo senatus consulto quaereretur. ob quae posterum diem reus petivit domumque digressus extremas preces P. Quirinio propinquo suo ad principem mandavit.

The answer was that he should petition the Senate. Meanwhile his house was ringed with soldiers, who clattered even in the vestibule, that they might be heard and seen, when Libo, tormented at the very banquet he had provided for his last pleasure, called for one to kill him, clutched the hands of his slaves, tried to thrust a sword on them. And as they, in their trepidation, in their flight, overturned the lamp set with the table, he aimed two blows into his vitals, the darkness being now funereal for him. At his groan as he sank down the freedmen ran up, and, the slaughter seen, the soldiers withdrew. The accusation, however, was carried through before the senators with the same insistence, and Tiberius swore that he would have petitioned for his life, guilty as he was, had he not hastened his voluntary death.

Responsum est ut senatum rogaret. cingebatur interim milite domus, strepebant etiam in vestibulo ut audiri, ut aspici possent, cum Libo ipsis quas in novissimam voluptatem adhibuerat epulis excruciatus vocare percussorem, prensare servorum dextras, inserere gladium. atque illis, dum trepidant, dum refugiunt, evertentibus adpositum cum mensa lumen, feralibus iam sibi tenebris duos ictus in viscera derexit. ad gemitum conlabentis adcurrere liberti, et caede visa miles abstitit. accusatio tamen apud patres adseveratione eadem peracta, iuravitque Tiberius petiturum se vitam quamvis nocenti, nisi voluntariam mortem properavisset.

His goods are divided among the accusers, and praetorships out of order given to those who were of the senatorial order. Then Cotta Messalinus proposed that Libo’s image should not accompany the funerals of his descendants; Gnaeus Lentulus, that no Scribonius should take the surname of Drusus. Days of thanksgiving were fixed on the motion of Pomponius Flaccus; gifts to Jupiter, Mars, and Concord; and that the thirteenth of September, the day on which Libo had killed himself, be held a festival—Lucius Piso and Gallus Asinius and Papius Mutilus and Lucius Apronius decreed it; whose authoritative judgments and flatteries I have recorded that it might be known how old that evil is in the commonwealth. Decrees of the Senate were passed also about expelling the astrologers and magicians from Italy; of whose number Lucius Pituanius was flung from the rock, and against Publius Marcius the consuls, when they had ordered the trumpet to sound, dealt by the ancient custom outside the Esquiline gate.

Bona inter accusatores dividuntur, et praeturae extra ordinem datae iis qui senatorii ordinis erant. tunc Cotta Messalinus, ne imago Libonis exequias posterorum comitaretur, censuit, Cn. Lentulus, ne quis Scribonius cognomentum Drusi adsumeret. supplicationum dies Pomponii Flacci sententia constituti, dona Iovi, Marti, Concordiae, utque iduum Septembrium dies, quo se Libo interfecerat, dies festus haberetur, L. Piso et Gallus Asinius et Papius Mutilus et L. Apronius decrevere; quorum auctoritates adulationesque rettuli ut sciretur vetus id in re publica malum. facta et de mathematicis magisque Italia pellendis senatus consulta; quorum e numero L. Pituanius saxo deiectus est, in P. Marcium consules extra portam Esquilinam, cum classicum canere iussissent, more prisco advertere.

At the next sitting of the Senate much was said against the luxury of the state by Quintus Haterius, an ex-consul, and Octavius Fronto, an ex-praetor; and it was decreed that vessels of solid gold should not be made for serving food, and that silken garments should not degrade men. Fronto went further and demanded a limit to silver plate, furniture, household slaves: for it was still frequent for senators, if they believed anything to be for the public good, to bring it forward in their place of speaking. Against him Gallus Asinius argued: that with the growth of the empire private wealth too had grown, and this was not new but from the most ancient ways: one fortune among the Fabricii, another among the Scipiones; and that all was referred to the commonwealth, which, when it was poor, had cramped the homes of citizens, but after it had come to such magnificence, each man’s grew too. Nor was there, in household slaves and silver and whatever is provided for use, anything excessive or moderate except by the fortune of the possessor. The censuses of the Senate and the knights were distinguished, not because they differ in nature, but that, as they take precedence in place, in rank, in esteem, so they should in those things provided for the mind’s rest or the body’s health—unless perchance the most illustrious must undergo more cares and greater perils, and yet go without the solaces of cares and perils. The easy assent to Gallus, under honorable names, a confession of vices and the likeness of his hearers gave. Tiberius too had added that this was no time for a censorship, and that, if anything in morals were tottering, there would not be wanting one to set it right.

Proximo senatus die multa in luxum civitatis dicta a Q. Haterio consulari, Octavio Frontone praetura functo; decretumque ne vasa auro solida ministrandis cibis fierent, ne vestis serica viros foedaret. excessit Fronto ac postulavit modum argento, supellectili, familiae: erat quippe adhuc frequens senatoribus, si quid e re publica crederent, loco sententiae promere. contra Gallus Asinius disseruit: auctu imperii adolevisse etiam privatas opes, idque non novum, sed e vetustissimis moribus: aliam apud Fabricios, aliam apud Scipiones pecuniam; et cuncta ad rem publicam referri, qua tenui angustas civium domos, postquam eo magnificentiae venerit, gliscere singulos. neque in familia et argento quaeque ad usum parentur nimium aliquid aut modicum nisi ex fortuna possidentis. distinctos senatus et equitum census, non quia diversi natura, sed ut locis ordi- nibus dignationibus antistent, ita iis quae ad requiem animi aut salubritatem corporum parentur, nisi forte clarissimo cuique pluris curas, maiora pericula subeunda, delenimentis curarum et periculorum carendum esse. facilem adsensum Gallo sub nominibus honestis confessio vitiorum et similitudo audientium dedit. adiecerat et Tiberius non id tempus censurae nec, si quid in moribus labaret, defuturum corrigendi auctorem.

Amid these things Lucius Piso, inveighing against the intrigue of the forum, the corruption of the courts, the savagery of the orators who threatened accusations, protested that he would go away and quit the city and live in some hidden and far-off countryside; and at the same time he was leaving the Curia. Tiberius was moved, and, though he soothed Piso with gentle words, urged his kinsmen too to hold him back, as he departed, by their authority or their prayers. No less a proof of free indignation did the same Piso soon give, summoning to court Urgulania, whom her friendship with Augusta had exalted above the laws. Neither did Urgulania obey, being carried, in scorn of Piso, into the Caesar’s house, nor did he give way, though Augusta complained that she was being insulted and lowered. Tiberius, thinking it citizen-like to indulge his mother so far, said that he would go to the praetor’s tribunal and support Urgulania, and went forth from the Palace, the soldiers ordered to follow at a distance. He was watched, as the people ran to meet him, with composed face, drawing out the time and the journey with various talk, until, his kinsmen vainly restraining Piso, Augusta ordered the money that was demanded to be paid over. And that was the end of the affair, from which neither was Piso inglorious, and the Caesar was of greater fame. But the power of Urgulania was so excessive in the state that, being summoned as a witness in a certain cause which was being heard before the Senate, she disdained to come: a praetor was sent to question her at home, though it had been the ancient custom for the Vestal virgins to be heard in the forum and the court whenever they gave testimony.

Inter quae L. Piso ambitum fori, corrupta iudicia, saevitiam oratorum accusationes minitantium increpans, abire se et cedere urbe, victurum in aliquo abdito et longinquo rure testabatur; simul curiam relinquebat. commotus est Tiberius, et quamquam mitibus verbis Pisonem permulsisset, propinquos quoque eius impulit ut abeuntem auctoritate vel precibus tenerent. haud minus liberi doloris documentum idem Piso mox dedit vocata in ius Vrgulania, quam supra leges amicitia Augustae extulerat. nec aut Vrgulania optemperavit, in domum Caesaris spreto Pisone vecta, aut ille abscessit, quamquam Augusta se violari et imminui quereretur. Tiberius hactenus indulgere matri civile ratus, ut se iturum ad praetoris tribunal, adfuturum Vrgulaniae diceret, processit Palatio, procul sequi iussis militibus. spectabatur occursante populo compositus ore et sermonibus variis tempus atque iter ducens, donec propinquis Pisonem frustra coercentibus deferri Augusta pecuniam quae petebatur iuberet. isque finis rei, ex qua neque Piso inglorius et Caesar maiore fama fuit. ceterum Vrgulaniae potentia adeo nimia civitati erat ut testis in causa quadam, quae apud senatum tractabatur, venire dedignaretur: missus est praetor qui domi interrogaret, cum virgines Vestales in foro et iudicio audiri, quotiens testimonium dicerent, vetus mos fuerit.

The adjournment of business that year I would not record, were it not worth while to know the differing opinions of Gnaeus Piso and Asinius Gallus on the matter. Piso, although the Caesar had said he would be absent, judged that business should the rather be transacted, that it might be an honor to the commonwealth that the Senate and the knights could sustain their functions in the prince’s absence. Gallus, because Piso had forestalled the show of liberty, said that nothing was illustrious enough or worthy of the dignity of the Roman people unless before and under the eyes of the Caesar, and that therefore the concourse of Italy and the inflowing provinces should be reserved for his presence. While Tiberius heard this and was silent, it was argued with great contention on both sides, but the matters were deferred.

Res eo anno prolatas haud referrem, ni pretium foret Cn. Pisonis et Asinii Galli super eo negotio diversas sententias noscere. Piso, quamquam afuturum se dixerat Caesar, ob id magis agendas censebat, ut absente principe senatum et equites posse sua munia sustinere decorum rei publicae foret. Gallus, quia speciem libertatis Piso praeceperat, nihil satis inlustre aut ex dignitate populi Romani nisi coram et sub oculis Caesaris, eoque conventum Italiae et adfluentis provincias praesentiae eius servanda dicebat. audiente haec Tiberio ac silente magnis utrimque contentionibus acta, sed res dilatae.

And a contest arose for Gallus against the Caesar. For he proposed that the elections of magistrates be held for a five-year period, that the legates of legions, who before the praetorship discharged that service, should even then be designated praetors, and that the prince should name twelve candidates for each year. There was no doubt that this proposal reached deeper and that the secrets of empire were being tried. Tiberius, however, as if his power were being increased, argued: it was hard for his moderation to choose so many, to put off so many. Scarce year by year were offenses avoided, although a near hope consoled a rejection: how much hatred would there be from those flung beyond five years? Whence could it be foreseen what each man’s mind, household, fortune would be over so long a space of time? Men grew arrogant even with a yearly designation: what if they should canvass the office through five years? The magistracies would be quintupled outright, the laws subverted which had fixed their own periods for the exercise of the candidates’ industry and for the seeking or gaining of offices. By a speech specious in appearance he kept the force of his power.

Et certamen Gallo adversus Caesarem exortum est. nam censuit in quinquennium magistratuum comitia habenda, utque legionum legati, qui ante praeturam ea militia fungebantur, iam tum praetores destinarentur, princeps duodecim candidatos in annos singulos nominaret. haud dubium erat eam sententiam altius penetrare et arcana imperii temptari. Tiberius tamen, quasi augeretur potestas eius, disseruit: grave moderationi suae tot eligere, tot differre. vix per singulos annos offensiones vitari, quamvis repulsam propinqua spes soletur: quantum odii fore ab iis qui ultra quinquennium proiciantur? unde prospici posse quae cuique tam longo temporis spatio mens, domus, fortuna? superbire homines etiam annua designatione: quid si honorem per quinquennium agitent? quinquiplicari prorsus magistratus, subverti leges, quae sua spatia exercendae candidatorum industriae quaerendisque aut potiundis honoribus statuerint. favorabili in speciem oratione vim imperii tenuit.

And he aided the estates of certain senators. The more strange was it that he received more arrogantly the prayers of Marcus Hortalus, a noble youth, in manifest poverty. He was a grandson of the orator Hortensius, induced by the deified Augustus, by a bounty of a million sesterces, to take a wife and rear children, that a most illustrious family might not die out. So, with his four sons standing before the threshold of the Curia, in his place of speaking—the Senate being held in the Palace—now gazing at the image of Hortensius set among the orators, now at that of Augustus, he began thus: "Conscript fathers, these, whose number and boyhood you see, I reared not of my own will, but because the prince advised it; and at the same time my ancestors had earned that they should have posterity. For I, who could not, through the changes of the times, have received or gained money, nor the people’s favor, nor eloquence, the hereditary good of our house, held it enough if my slender means were neither a shame to myself nor a burden to any man. Ordered by the emperor, I took a wife. Behold the stock and offspring of so many consuls, so many dictators. Nor do I bring this up for envy, but to win compassion. They shall attain, while you flourish, Caesar, what honors you shall give: meanwhile defend from want the great-grandsons of Quintus Hortensius, the foster-children of the deified Augustus."

Censusque quorundam senatorum iuvit. quo magis mirum fuit quod preces Marci Hortali, nobilis iuvenis, in paupertate manifesta superbius accepisset. nepos erat oratoris Hortensii, inlectus a divo Augusto liberalitate decies sestertii ducere uxorem, suscipere liberos, ne clarissima familia extingueretur. igitur quattuor filiis ante limen curiae adstantibus, loco sententiae, cum in Palatio senatus haberetur, modo Hortensii inter oratores sitam imaginem modo Augusti intuens, ad hunc modum coepit: ’patres conscripti, hos, quorum numerum et pueritiam videtis, non sponte sustuli sed quia princeps monebat; simul maiores mei meruerant ut posteros haberent. nam ego, qui non pecuniam, non studia populi neque eloquentiam, gentile domus nostrae bonum, varietate temporum accipere vel parare potuissem, satis habebam, si tenues res meae nec mihi pudori nec cuiquam oneri forent. iussus ab imperatore uxorem duxi. en stirps et progenies tot consulum, tot dictatorum. nec ad invidiam ista sed conciliandae misericordiae refero. adsequentur florente te, Caesar, quos dederis honores: interim Q. Hortensii pronepotes, divi Augusti alumnos ab inopia defende.’

The Senate’s inclination was a goad to Tiberius to oppose the more readily, using nearly these words: "If all the poor begin to come here and ask money for their children, individuals will never be satisfied, the commonwealth will fail. Nor truly was it conceded by our ancestors to depart sometimes from the motion and to bring forward, in one’s place of speaking, what is for the common good, in order that we may here increase our private affairs and our family fortunes, to the odium of the Senate and the princes, whether they grant the largess or refuse it. For that is no prayer, but a demand—unseasonable indeed and unforeseen—that, when the senators have met on other matters, a man should rise and press by the number and age of his children upon the Senate’s modesty, transmit the same force to me, and as it were break open the treasury, which, if we drain it by intrigue, must be replenished by crimes. The deified Augustus gave you money, Hortalus, but not on demand, nor on the condition that it should always be given. Otherwise industry will languish, sloth will be encouraged, if there is no fear or hope from oneself, and all, careless, will await another’s support, useless to themselves, burdensome to us." These and the like, though heard with assent by those whose custom it is to praise all that princes do, honorable and dishonorable, more men received in silence or in a hidden murmur. And Tiberius perceived it; and, when he had paused a little, said that he had answered Hortalus: but if the senators thought fit, he would give his children two hundred thousand sesterces each, those who were of the male sex. Others gave thanks: Hortalus was silent, from fear, or retaining, even amid the straits of his fortune, his ancestral nobility. Nor did Tiberius pity him thereafter, although the house of Hortensius sank into shameful want.

Inclinatio senatus incitamentum Tiberio fuit quo promptius adversaretur, his ferme verbis usus: ’si quantum pauperum est venire huc et liberis suis petere pecunias coeperint, singuli numquam exsatiabuntur, res publica deficiet. nec sane ideo a maioribus concessum est egredi aliquando relationem et quod in commune conducat loco sententiae proferre, ut privata negotia et res familiaris nostras hic augeamus, cum invidia senatus et principum, sive indulserint largitionem sive abnuerint. non enim preces sunt istud, sed efflagitatio, intempestiva quidem et inprovisa, cum aliis de rebus convenerint patres, consurgere et numero atque aetate liberum suorum urgere modestiam senatus, eandem vim in me transmittere ac velut perfringere aerarium, quod si ambitione exhauserimus, per scelera supplendum erit. dedit tibi, Hortale, divus Augustus pecuniam, sed non conpellatus nec ea lege ut semper daretur. languescet alioqui industria, intendetur socordia, si nullus ex se metus aut spes, et securi omnes aliena subsidia expectabunt, sibi ignavi, nobis graves.’ haec atque talia, quamquam cum adsensu audita ab iis quibus omnia principum, honesta atque inhonesta, laudare mos est, plures per silentium aut occultum murmur excepere. sensitque Tiberius; et cum paulum reticuisset, Hortalo se respondisse ait: ceterum si patribus videretur, daturum liberis eius ducena sestertia singulis, qui sexus virilis essent. egere alii grates: siluit Hortalus, pavore an avitae nobilitatis etiam inter angustias fortunae retinens. neque miseratus est posthac Tiberius, quamvis domus Hortensii pudendam ad inopiam delaberetur.

In the same year the audacity of a single slave, had it not been met in time, would have stricken the commonwealth with civil discords and arms. A slave of Postumus Agrippa, named Clemens, on learning of the end of Augustus, conceived a design no slave’s: to go to the island of Planasia and, carrying Agrippa off by fraud or force, to bring him to the German armies. The slowness of a merchant-ship hindered his venture: and meanwhile, the murder being accomplished, turning to greater and more headlong things, he steals the ashes, and, sailing to Cosa, a promontory of Etruria, hides himself in unknown places until he could let his hair and beard grow long: for in age and feature he was not unlike his master. Then, through fit men and the partners of his secret, the report spreads that Agrippa is alive—at first in hidden conversations, as forbidden things are wont, soon in a wandering rumor among the ready ears of every most ignorant man, or again among the turbulent and therefore eager for revolution. And he himself would approach the towns in the dusk of the day, neither seen openly nor staying longer in the same places, but, because truth grows strong by being seen and by delay, falsehood by haste and uncertainties, he would either leave his fame behind or outstrip it.

Eodem anno mancipii unius audacia, ni mature subventum foret, discordiis armisque civilibus rem publicam perculisset. Postumi Agrippae servus, nomine Clemens, comperto fine Augusti pergere in insulam Planasiam et fraude aut vi raptum Agrippam ferre ad exercitus Germanicos non servili animo concepit. ausa eius inpedivit tarditas onerariae navis: atque interim patrata caede ad maiora et magis praecipitia conversus furatur cineres vectusque Cosam Etruriae promunturium ignotis locis sese abdit, donec crinem barbamque promitteret: nam aetate et forma haud dissimili in dominum erat. tum per idoneos et secreti eius socios crebrescit vivere Agrippam, occultis primum sermonibus, ut vetita solent, mox vago rumore apud inperitissimi cuiusque promptas auris aut rursum apud tur- bidos eoque nova cupientis. atque ipse adire municipia obscuro diei, neque propalam aspici neque diutius isdem locis, sed quia veritas visu et mora, falsa festinatione et incertis valescunt, relinquebat famam aut praeveniebat.

Meanwhile it was being spread through Italy that Agrippa had been preserved by the gift of the gods; at Rome it was believed; and now a vast multitude celebrated him as he was carried into Ostia, now secret gatherings in the city, when a twofold care distracted Tiberius—whether to coerce his own slave by force of soldiers, or to let the empty credulity vanish with time itself: now thinking nothing should be despised, now that not all should be feared, he wavered between shame and fear. At last he gives the business to Sallustius Crispus. He chooses two of his clients (some hand down that they were soldiers) and urges them to approach with feigned complicity, offer money, promise loyalty and a share in the perils. They carry it out as ordered. Then, having watched for an unguarded night and taken a fit band, they dragged him bound and gagged to the Palace. To Tiberius, asking how he had become Agrippa, he is said to have answered, "In the same way as you became Caesar." To make him give up his accomplices he could not be forced. Nor did Tiberius dare to punish him openly, but ordered him killed in a secret part of the Palace and the body carried off privately. And although many of the prince’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.

Vulgabatur interim per Italiam servatum munere deum Agrippam, credebatur Romae; iamque Ostiam invectum multitudo ingens, iam in urbe clandestini coetus celebrabant, cum Tiberium anceps cura distrahere, vine militum servum suum coerceret an inanem credulitatem tempore ipso vanescere sineret: modo nihil spernendum, modo non omnia metuenda ambiguus pudoris ac metus reputabat. postremo dat negotium Sallustio Crispo. ille e clientibus duos (quidam milites fuisse tradunt) deligit atque hortatur, simulata conscientia adeant, offerant pecuniam, fidem atque pericula polliceantur. exequuntur ut iussum erat. dein speculati noctem incustoditam, accepta idonea manu, vinctum clauso ore in Palatium traxere. percontanti Tiberio quo modo Agrippa factus esset respondisse fertur ’quo modo tu Caesar.’ ut ederet socios subigi non potuit. nec Tiberius poenam eius palam ausus, in secreta Palatii parte interfici iussit corpusque clam auferri. et quamquam multi e domo principis equitesque ac senatores sustentasse opibus, iuvisse consiliis dicerentur, haud quaesitum.

At the end of the year an arch was dedicated beside the temple of Saturn, for the recovery of the standards lost with Varus, under the leadership of Germanicus and the auspices of Tiberius; and a temple of Fors Fortuna by the Tiber, in the gardens which Caesar the dictator had bequeathed to the Roman people; and a shrine to the Julian house, and an image to the deified Augustus, at Bovillae. In the consulship of Gaius Caelius and Lucius Pomponius, Germanicus Caesar, on the seventh day before the Kalends of June, triumphed over the Cherusci, the Chatti, the Angrivarii, and the other nations that dwell as far as the Elbe. There were borne the spoils, the captives, the representations of mountains, rivers, battles; and the war, because he had been forbidden to finish it, was taken as finished. To the lookers-on the surpassing beauty of the man himself, and his chariot laden with his five children, heightened the sight. But beneath there lurked a hidden dread, in those who reflected that the favor of the crowd had not been prosperous for his father Drusus, that his uncle Marcellus had been snatched away within his youth amid the burning zeal of the plebs—that the loves of the Roman people are brief and ill-starred.

Fine anni arcus propter aedem Saturni ob recepta signa cum Varo amissa ductu Germanici, auspiciis Tiberii, et aedes Fortis Fortunae Tiberim iuxta in hortis, quos Caesar dictator populo Romano legaverat, sacrarium genti Iuliae effigiesque divo Augusto apud Bovillas dicantur. C. Caelio L. Pomponio consulibus Germanicus Caesar a. d. VII. Kal. Iunias triumphavit de Cheruscis Chattisque et Angrivariis quaeque aliae nationes usque ad Albim colunt. vecta spolia, captivi, simulacra montium, fluminum, proeliorum; bellumque, quia conficere prohibitus erat, pro confecto accipiebatur. augebat intuentium visus eximia ipsius species currusque quinque liberis onustus. sed suberat occulta formido, reputantibus haud prosperum in Druso patre eius favorem vulgi, avunculum eiusdem Marcellum flagrantibus plebis studiis intra iuventam ereptum, brevis et infaustos populi Romani amores.

For the rest, Tiberius in Germanicus’s name gave to the plebs three hundred sesterces a head, and designated himself colleague in his consulship. Nor, thereby failing to win belief in a sincere affection, he resolved to remove the young man under the show of an honor, and built up causes, or seized on such as chance offered. King Archelaus had held Cappadocia for fifty years, hateful to Tiberius because, while he was at Rhodes, he had paid him no office of respect. Nor had Archelaus omitted this through arrogance, but warned by Augustus’s intimates, because, while Gaius Caesar flourished and was sent to the affairs of the East, the friendship of Tiberius was believed unsafe. When, the line of the Caesars being changed, Tiberius gained the empire, he lures Archelaus by letters of his mother, who, not concealing her son’s offenses, offered clemency if he came to entreat. He, ignorant of the trap, or, if he were thought to understand, fearing force, hastens to the city; and, received harshly by the prince and soon accused in the Senate—not for the crimes that were feigned, but from anguish, and at the same time worn with age, and because to kings even an equal, much more the lowest, condition is strange—he completed the end of his life, whether by his own act or by fate. His kingdom was reduced to a province, and the Caesar, declaring that by its revenues the one-percent tax could be lightened, fixed it at one in two hundred for the future. About the same time, Antiochus of the Commageni and Philopator of the Cilicians, the kings, being dead, the nations were in commotion, most desiring a Roman, others a royal rule; and the provinces of Syria and Judaea, wearied by their burdens, begged a reduction of their tribute.

Ceterum Tiberius nomine Germanici trecenos plebi sestertios viritim dedit seque collegam consulatui eius destinavit. nec ideo sincerae caritatis fidem adsecutus amoliri iuvenem specie honoris statuit struxitque causas aut forte oblatas arripuit. rex Archelaus quinquagesimum annum Cappadocia potiebatur, invisus Tiberio quod eum Rhodi agentem nullo officio coluisset. nec id Archelaus per superbiam omiserat, sed ab intimis Augusti monitus, quia florente Gaio Caesare missoque ad res Orientis intuta Tiberii amicitia credebatur. ut versa Caesarum subole imperium adeptus est, elicit Archelaum matris litteris, quae non dissimulatis filii offensionibus clementiam offerebat, si ad precandum veniret. ille ignarus doli vel, si intellegere crederetur, vim metuens in urbem properat; exceptusque immiti a principe et mox accusatus in senatu, non ob crimina quae fingebantur sed angore, simul fessus senio et quia regibus aequa, nedum infima insolita sunt, finem vitae sponte an fato implevit. regnum in provinciam redactum est, fructibusque eius levari posse centesimae vectigal professus Caesar ducentesimam in posterum statuit. per idem tempus Antiocho Commagenorum, Philopatore Cilicum regibus defunctis turbabantur nationes, plerisque Romanum, aliis regium imperium cupientibus; et provinciae Syria atque Iudaea, fessae oneribus, deminutionem tributi orabant.

So he discoursed before the senators of these things, and of what I have above recorded about Armenia, and that the East could not be settled but by the wisdom of Germanicus: for his own age was declining, that of Drusus not yet grown enough. Then by a decree of the senators the provinces divided by the sea were committed to Germanicus, and a greater authority, wherever he went, than to those who held their commands by lot or by the prince’s sending. But Tiberius had removed from Syria Creticus Silanus, connected with Germanicus by marriage-tie—since Silanus’s daughter was betrothed to Nero, the eldest of his children—and had set over it Gnaeus Piso, violent in temper and ignorant of compliance, with an inbred ferocity from his father Piso, who in the civil war aided with the most strenuous service the reviving party in Africa against Caesar, then followed Brutus and Cassius, and, when his return was permitted, abstained from seeking offices, until he was of his own accord canvassed to accept the consulship offered by Augustus. But besides his father’s spirit he was kindled also by the nobility and wealth of his wife Plancina; he scarce yielded to Tiberius, and looked down on his children as far beneath him. Nor did he doubt that he had been chosen to be set over Syria to curb the hopes of Germanicus. Some have believed that secret instructions were given him by Tiberius too; and Plancina without doubt Augusta admonished, in a woman’s rivalry, to harry Agrippina. For the court was divided and at odds, with silent partialities toward Drusus or Germanicus. Tiberius favored Drusus as his own and of his blood: for Germanicus, his uncle’s estrangement had increased the love of the rest, and because he excelled in the splendor of his mother’s line, having for grandfather Mark Antony, for great-uncle Augustus. But for Drusus a great-grandfather, the Roman knight Pomponius Atticus, seemed to disgrace the images of the Claudii: and Germanicus’s wife Agrippina surpassed in fertility and fame Livia, the wife of Drusus. But the brothers were excellently harmonious and unshaken by the contentions of their kinsmen.

Igitur haec et de Armenia quae supra memoravi apud patres disseruit, nec posse motum Orientem nisi Germanici sapientia conponi: nam suam aetatem vergere, Drusi nondum satis adolevisse. tunc decreto patrum permissae Germanico provinciae quae mari dividuntur, maiusque imperium, quoquo adisset, quam iis qui sorte aut missu principis obtinerent. sed Tiberius demoverat Syria Creticum Silanum, per adfinitatem conexum Germanico, quia Silani filia Neroni vetustissimo liberorum eius pacta erat, praefeceratque Cn. Pisonem, ingenio violentum et obsequii ignarum, insita ferocia a patre Pisone qui civili bello resurgentis in Africa partis acerrimo ministerio adversus Caesarem iuvit, mox Brutum et Cassium secutus concesso reditu petitione honorum abstinuit, donec ultro ambiretur delatum ab Augusto consulatum accipere. sed praeter paternos spiritus uxoris quoque Plancinae nobilitate et opibus accendebatur; vix Tiberio concedere, liberos eius ut multum infra despectare. nec dubium habebat se delectum qui Syriae imponeretur ad spes Germanici coercendas. credidere quidam data et a Tiberio occulta mandata; et Plancinam haud dubie Augusta monuit aemulatione muliebri Agrippinam insectandi. divisa namque et discors aula erat tacitis in Drusum aut Germanicum studiis. Tiberius ut proprium et sui sanguinis Drusum fovebat: Germanico alienatio patrui amorem apud ceteros auxerat, et quia claritudine materni generis anteibat, avum M. Antonium, avunculum Augustum ferens. contra Druso proavus eques Romanus Pomponius Atticus dedecere Claudiorum imagines videbatur: et coniunx Germanici Agrippina fecunditate ac fama Liviam uxorem Drusi praecellebat. sed fratres egregie concordes et proximorum certaminibus inconcussi.

Not long after, Drusus was sent into Illyricum, to grow accustomed to soldiering and to win the army’s goodwill; at the same time Tiberius thought that the young man, running wanton in the luxury of the city, was better kept in the camp, and that he himself was the safer with both his sons holding legions. But the Suebi were the pretext, begging aid against the Cherusci; for, at the Romans’ departure and free of foreign fear, by the custom of their nation and then in rivalry of glory, they had turned their arms upon themselves. The force of the nations, the valor of the leaders, were equal; but the name of king made Maroboduus hated among his people, while Arminius, fighting for liberty, had favor.

Nec multo post Drusus in Illyricum missus est ut suesceret militiae studiaque exercitus pararet; simul iuvenem urbano luxu lascivientem melius in castris haberi Tiberius seque tutiorem rebatur utroque filio legiones obtinente. sed Suebi praetendebantur auxilium adversus Cheruscos orantes; nam discessu Romanorum ac vacui externo metu gentis adsuetudine et tum aemulatione gloriae arma in se verterant. vis nationum, virtus ducum in aequo; set Maroboduum regis nomen invisum apud popularis, Arminium pro libertate bellantem favor habebat.

So not only the Cherusci and their allies, Arminius’s old soldiery, took up the war, but from Maroboduus’s own kingdom the Suebic nations, the Semnones and the Langobardi, revolted to him. With these added he would have prevailed, had not Inguiomerus deserted with a band of clients to Maroboduus, for no other cause than that an old uncle disdained to obey his brother’s young son. The lines are drawn up, with equal hope on both sides, and not, as once among the Germans, with wandering charges or in scattered bands: for by their long warfare against us they had learned to follow the standards, to be strengthened by reserves, to receive the commanders’ orders. And then Arminius, surveying all on horseback, as he came to each, held up before them their recovered liberty, the butchered legions, the spoils and weapons still in the hands of many, torn from the Romans; while he called Maroboduus a runaway, with no experience of battles, sheltered in the hiding-places of the Hercynian forest, who had soon, by gifts and embassies, sought a treaty—a betrayer of his country, a satellite of Caesar, to be cast out with no less hostile spirits than they had killed Quintilius Varus. Let them only remember so many battles, by whose outcome, and by the final expulsion of the Romans, it had been sufficiently proved in whose hands the mastery of the war had lain.

Igitur non modo Cherusci sociique eorum, vetus Arminii miles, sumpsere bellum, sed e regno etiam Marobodui Suebae gentes, Semnones ac Langobardi, defecere ad eum. quibus additis praepollebat, ni Inguiomerus cum manu clientium ad Maroboduum perfugisset, non aliam ob causam quam quia fratris filio iuveni patruus senex parere dedignabatur. deriguntur acies, pari utrimque spe, nec, ut olim apud Germanos, vagis incursibus aut disiectas per catervas: quippe longa adversum nos militia insueverant sequi signa, subsidiis firmari, dicta imperatorum accipere. ac tunc Arminius equo conlustrans cuncta, ut quosque advectus erat, reciperatam libertatem, trucidatas legiones, spolia adhuc et tela Romanis derepta in manibus multorum ostentabat; contra fugacem Maroboduum appellans, proeliorum expertem, Hercyniae latebris defensum; ac mox per dona et legationes petivisse foedus, proditorem patriae, satellitem Caesaris, haud minus infensis animis exturbandum quam Varum Quintilium interfecerint. meminissent modo tot proeliorum, quorum eventu et ad postremum eiectis Romanis satis probatum, penes utros summa belli fuerit.

Nor did Maroboduus refrain from vaunting himself or reviling the enemy, but, holding fast Inguiomerus, declared that in that person was all the honor of the Cherusci, that by his counsels had been done whatever had fallen out prosperously: that Arminius was crazed and ignorant of affairs, drawing to himself another’s glory, since by treachery he had deceived three wandering legions and a leader ignorant of the fraud, with great disaster to Germany and disgrace to himself, while his wife and his son still endured slavery. But he himself, assailed by twelve legions under Tiberius’s leadership, had preserved the glory of the Germans unimpaired, and had soon parted on equal terms; nor did he repent that it lay in their own hands whether they preferred against the Romans an undiminished war or a bloodless peace. The armies, kindled by these words, were spurred also by their own causes, since the Cherusci and Langobardi fought for their ancient honor or their recent liberty, and on the other side for the increase of dominion. Never with greater mass was there an onset, nor with more doubtful result, the right wings being routed on both sides; and battle was hoped for again, had not Maroboduus drawn his camp back to the hills. That was the sign of a man beaten; and, gradually stripped by desertions, he withdrew to the Marcomani and sent envoys to Tiberius to beg auxiliaries. The answer was that he had no right to invoke Roman arms against the Cherusci, who had aided with no help the Romans fighting against the same enemy. Yet Drusus was sent, as we have related, to confirm the peace.

Neque Maroboduus iactantia sui aut probris in hostem abstinebat, sed Inguiomerum tenens illo in cor- pore decus omne Cheruscorum, illius consiliis gesta quae prospere ceciderint testabatur: vaecordem Arminium et rerum nescium alienam gloriam in se trahere, quoniam tres vagas legiones et ducem fraudis ignarum perfidia deceperit, magna cum clade Germaniae et ignominia sua, cum coniunx, cum filius eius servitium adhuc tolerent. at se duodecim legionibus petitum duce Tiberio inlibatam Germanorum gloriam servavisse, mox condicionibus aequis discessum; neque paenitere quod ipsorum in manu sit, integrum adversum Romanos bellum an pacem incruentam malint. his vocibus instinctos exercitus propriae quoque causae stimulabant, cum a Cheruscis Langobardisque pro antiquo decore aut recenti libertate et contra augendae dominationi certaretur. non alias maiore mole concursum neque ambiguo magis eventu, fusis utrimque dextris cornibus; sperabaturque rursum pugna, ni Maroboduus castra in collis subduxisset. id signum perculsi fuit; et transfugiis paulatim nudatus in Marcomanos concessit misitque legatos ad Tiberium oraturos auxilia. responsum est non iure eum adversus Cheruscos arma Romana invocare, qui pugnantis in eundem hostem Romanos nulla ope iuvisset. missus tamen Drusus, ut rettulimus, paci firmator.

In the same year twelve famous cities of Asia collapsed in a nocturnal earthquake, by which the calamity was the more unforeseen and the heavier. Nor did the usual refuge in such a case avail, of rushing out into the open, because, the earth gaping, men were swallowed up. They tell that vast mountains subsided, that what had been level was seen on high, and that fire flashed out amid the ruin. The disaster was harshest on the Sardians, and drew most compassion upon them: for the Caesar promised ten million sesterces, and remitted for five years whatever they were paying to the treasury or the imperial fisc. The Magnesians by Mount Sipylus were reckoned next in damage and in remedy. The Temnii, the Philadelpheni, the Aegeatae, the Apollonidenses, those called Mosteni or Macedones Hyrcani, and Hierocaesarea, Myrina, Cyme, Tmolus, it was resolved to relieve of tribute for the same time, and to send one from the Senate to inspect things on the spot and restore them. Marcus Ateius was chosen, of praetorian rank, lest, a consular holding Asia, rivalry between equals and from that a hindrance should arise.

Eodem anno duodecim celebres Asiae urbes conlapsae nocturno motu terrae, quo inprovisior graviorque pestis fuit. neque solitum in tali casu effugium subveniebat in aperta prorumpendi, quia diductis terris hauriebantur. sedisse inmensos montis, visa in arduo quae plana fuerint, effulsisse inter ruinam ignis memorant. asperrima in Sardianos lues plurimum in eosdem misericordiae traxit: nam centies sestertium pollicitus Caesar, et quantum aerario aut fisco pendebant in quinquennium remisit. Magnetes a Sipylo proximi damno ac remedio habiti. Temnios, Philadelphenos, Aegeatas, Apollonidenses, quique Mosteni aut Macedones Hyrcani vocantur, et Hierocaesariam, Myrinam, Cymen, Tmolum levari idem in tempus tributis mittique ex senatu placuit, qui praesentia spectaret refoveretque. delectus est M. Ateius e praetoriis, ne consulari obtinente Asiam aemulatio inter pares et ex eo impedimentum oreretur.

A magnificent largess to the public the Caesar heightened by a liberality no less welcome: that, the goods of Aemilia Musa, a rich woman who died intestate, being claimed for the fisc, he handed them over to Aemilius Lepidus, to whose house she seemed to belong; and the inheritance of Pantuleius, a wealthy Roman knight, though he himself was named heir in part, he gave to Marcus Servilius, whom he had found written in earlier and unsuspected tablets, declaring that the nobility of both should be aided by money. Nor did he enter on anyone’s inheritance unless he had earned it by friendship: men unknown and hostile to others, and therefore naming the prince, he kept far off. But as he relieved the honorable poverty of the innocent, so the prodigal, and those needy through disgrace—Vibidius Varro, Marius Nepos, Appius Appianus, Cornelius Sulla, Quintus Vitellius—he removed from the Senate, or suffered to withdraw of their own accord.

Magnificam in publicum largitionem auxit Caesar haud minus grata liberalitate, quod bona Aemiliae Musae, locupletis intestatae, petita in fiscum, Aemilio Lepido, cuius e domo videbatur, et Pantulei divitis equitis Romani hereditatem, quamquam ipse heres in parte legeretur, tradidit M. Servilio, quem prioribus neque suspectis tabulis scriptum compererat, nobilitatem utriusque pecunia iuvandam praefatus. neque hereditatem cuiusquam adiit nisi cum amicitia meruisset: ignotos et aliis infensos eoque principem nuncupantis procul arcebat. ceterum ut honestam innocentium paupertatem levavit, ita prodigos et ob flagitia egentis, Vibidium Varronem, Marium Nepotem, Appium Appianum, Cornelium Sullam, Q. Vitellium movit senatu aut sponte cedere passus est.

At the same time he dedicated temples of the gods, decayed by age or by fire and begun by Augustus: to Liber and Libera and Ceres beside the Circus Maximus, which Aulus Postumius the dictator had vowed; and, in the same place, a temple of Flora, established by Lucius and Marcus Publicius as aediles; and a temple to Janus, which Gaius Duilius had built in the vegetable-market, who first conducted the Roman cause prosperously by sea and earned a naval triumph over the Carthaginians. A temple of Hope is consecrated by Germanicus: this Aulus Atilius had vowed in the same war.

Isdem temporibus deum aedis vetustate aut igni abolitas coeptasque ab Augusto dedicavit, Libero Liberaeque et Cereri iuxta circum maximum, quam A. Postumius dictator voverat, eodemque in loco aedem Florae ab Lucio et Marco Publiciis aedilibus constitutam, et Iano templum, quod apud forum holitorium C. Duilius struxerat, qui primus rem Romanam prospere mari gessit triumphumque navalem de Poenis meruit. Spei aedes a Germanico sacratur: hanc A. Atilius voverat eodem bello.

Meanwhile the law of treason was growing up. And Appuleia Varilla, granddaughter of Augustus’s sister, an informer for treason was summoning, because by scandalous talk she had mocked the deified Augustus and Tiberius and his mother, and was held bound to the Caesar by adultery. For the adultery it seemed sufficiently provided by the Julian law: the charge of treason the Caesar demanded be distinguished, and that she be condemned if she had spoken irreligiously of Augustus: of things thrown out against himself he would not have inquiry made. Asked by the consul what he thought of those things which she was charged with having spoken amiss of his mother, he kept silent; then, at the next sitting of the Senate, in her name too he begged that no man’s words spoken against her in any way be made a charge. And he freed Appuleia from the law of treason: deprecating the heavier penalty for adultery, he advised that, by the example of the ancestors, she be removed by her kinsmen beyond the two-hundredth milestone. Her adulterer Manlius was forbidden Italy and Africa.

Adolescebat interea lex maiestatis. et Appuleiam Varillam, sororis Augusti neptem, quia probrosis sermonibus divum Augustum ac Tiberium et matrem eius inlusisset Caesarique conexa adulterio teneretur, maiestatis delator arcessebat. de adulterio satis caveri lege Iulia visum: maiestatis crimen distingui Caesar postulavit damnarique, si qua de Augusto inreligiose dixisset: in se iacta nolle ad cognitionem vocari. interrogatus a consule quid de iis censeret quae de matre eius locuta secus argueretur reticuit; dein proximo senatus die illius quoque nomine oravit ne cui verba in eam quoquo modo habita crimini forent. liberavitque Appuleiam lege maiestatis: adulterii graviorem poenam deprecatus, ut exemplo maiorum propinquis suis ultra ducentesimum lapidem removeretur suasit. adultero Manlio Italia atque Africa interdictum est.

A contest arose about substituting a praetor in the place of Vipstanus Gallus, whom death had carried off. Germanicus and Drusus (for they were even then at Rome) favored Haterius Agrippa, a kinsman of Germanicus: on the other side most strove that the number of children should prevail among the candidates, as the law ordained. Tiberius was glad when there was a dispute between his sons and the laws of the Senate. The law was beaten, no doubt, but neither at once nor by many votes, in the way that laws were beaten even when they were in force.

De praetore in locum Vipstani Galli, quem mors abstulerat, subrogando certamen incessit. Germanicus atque Drusus (nam etiam tum Romae erant) Haterium Agrippam propinquum Germanici fovebant: contra plerique nitebantur ut numerus liberorum in candidatis praepolleret, quod lex iubebat. laetabatur Tiberius, cum inter filios eius et leges senatus disceptaret. victa est sine dubio lex, sed neque statim et paucis suffragiis, quo modo etiam cum valerent leges vincebantur.

In the same year a war began in Africa, the leader of the enemy being Tacfarinas. He, a Numidian by nation, having earned auxiliary pay in the Roman camp, then a deserter, first gathered the vagrant and those used to brigandage for plunder and rapine, then, after the manner of soldiering, marshaled them by standards and squadrons, and at last was held leader not of a disordered rabble but of the Musulamii. This was a strong nation, near the deserts of Africa, with as yet no civic life of cities, and it took up arms and drew the neighboring Moors into the war: their leader too was Mazippa. And the army was divided, so that Tacfarinas should keep in the camp picked men, armed in the Roman fashion, and train them in discipline and obedience, while Mazippa with a light force should carry around fire and slaughter and terror. They had driven the Cinithii, no contemptible nation, into the same cause, when Furius Camillus, proconsul of Africa, led against the enemy his legion and what of the allies were under the standards, gathered into one—a moderate force, if you looked to the multitude of Numidians and Moors; but nothing was so guarded against as that they should elude the war through fear; they were led on by the hope of victory that they might be conquered. So the legion is placed in the center, the light cohorts and two squadrons on the wings. Nor did Tacfarinas decline battle. The Numidians were routed, and after many years a glory of soldiering was won for the name of Furius. For since that recoverer of the city and his son Camillus, the praise of command had been in the hands of other families; and this man, whom we mention, was reckoned without experience of wars. The more readily Tiberius celebrated his exploits before the Senate; and the senators decreed triumphal insignia, which to Camillus, on account of the modesty of his life, was without harm.

Eodem anno coeptum in Africa bellum, duce hostium Tacfarinate. is natione Numida, in castris Romanis auxiliaria stipendia meritus, mox desertor, vagos primum et latrociniis suetos ad praedam et raptus congregare, dein more militiae per vexilla et turmas componere, postremo non inconditae turbae sed Musulamiorum dux haberi. valida ea gens et solitudinibus Africae propinqua, nullo etiam tum urbium cultu, cepit arma Maurosque accolas in bellum traxit: dux et his, Mazippa. divisusque exercitus, ut Tacfarinas lectos viros et Romanum in modum armatos castris attineret, disciplina et imperiis suesceret, Mazippa levi cum copia incendia et caedis et terrorem circumferret. conpulerantque Cinithios, haud spernendam nationem, in eadem, cum Furius Camillus pro consule Africae legionem et quod sub signis sociorum in unum conductos ad hostem duxit, modicam manum, si multitudinem Numidarum atque Maurorum spectares; sed nihil aeque cavebatur quam ne bellum metu eluderent; spe victoriae inducti sunt ut vincerentur. igitur legio medio, leves cohortes duaeque alae in cornibus locantur. nec Tacfarinas pugnam detrectavit. fusi Numidae, multosque post annos Furio nomini partum decus militiae. nam post illum reciperatorem urbis filiumque eius Camillum penes alias familias imperatoria laus fuerat; atque hic, quem memoramus, bellorum expers habebatur. eo pronior Tiberius res gestas apud senatum celebravit; et decrevere patres triumphalia insignia, quod Camillo ob modestiam vitae impune fuit.

The following year had Tiberius for the third time and Germanicus for the second as consuls. But that honor Germanicus entered on at the city of Nicopolis in Achaia, whither he had come along the Illyrian coast, having seen his brother Drusus who was busy in Dalmatia, after enduring a contrary voyage of the Adriatic and soon the Ionian sea. So he spent a few days in refitting his fleet; and at the same time he visited the bays famous for the victory of Actium, and the spoils consecrated by Augustus, and the camp of Antony, with recollection of his own ancestors. For to him, as I have related, Augustus was great-uncle, Antony grandfather, and there was great there an image of sorrowful and of glad things. Thence he came to Athens, and, in deference to the treaty with an allied and ancient city, used but a single lictor. The Greeks received him with the most studied honors, parading the old deeds and sayings of their own people, that their flattery might carry more weight.

Sequens annus Tiberium tertio, Germanicum iterum consules habuit. sed eum honorem Germanicus iniit apud urbem Achaiae Nicopolim, quo venerat per Illyricam oram viso fratre Druso in Delmatia agente, Hadriatici ac mox Ionii maris adversam navigationem perpessus. igitur paucos dies insumpsit reficiendae classi; simul sinus Actiaca victoria inclutos et sacratas ab Augusto manubias castraque Antonii cum recordatione maiorum suorum adiit. namque ei, ut memoravi, avunculus Augustus, avus Antonius erant, magnaque illic imago tristium laetorumque. hinc ventum Athenas, foederique sociae et vetustae urbis datum ut uno lictore uteretur. excepere Graeci quaesitissimis honoribus, vetera suorum facta dictaque praeferentes quo plus dignationis adulatio haberet.

Making thence for Euboea, he crossed to Lesbos, where Agrippina in her last childbirth bore Julia. Then he enters the borders of Asia and Perinthus and Byzantium, cities of Thrace, soon the narrows of the Propontis and the mouth of the Pontus, in a longing to know the old places celebrated by fame; and at the same time he restored the provinces wearied by internal contentions or the wrongs of magistrates. And as he strove, on his return, to visit the rites of the Samothracians, the north winds that met him drove him off. So, having visited Ilium and all there that for the changes of fortune and our origin is to be reverenced, he coasted Asia again and put in at Colophon to consult the oracle of the Clarian Apollo. There no woman, as at Delphi, but a priest summoned from certain families and generally from Miletus, hears only the number and the names of those who consult; then, descending into a cavern and drinking the water of a secret spring, though for the most part ignorant of letters and of verse, he gives responses in composed verses upon the matters which each has conceived in his mind. And it was reported that he had foretold to Germanicus, in dark sayings, as is the oracles’ way, an early death.

Petita inde Euboea tramisit Lesbum ubi Agrippina novissimo partu Iuliam edidit. tum extrema Asiae Perinthumque ac Byzantium, Thraecias urbes, mox Propontidis angustias et os Ponticum intrat, cupidine veteres locos et fama celebratos noscendi; pariterque provincias internis certaminibus aut magistratuum iniuriis fessas refovebat. atque illum in regressu sacra Samothracum visere nitentem obvii aquilones depulere. igitur adito Ilio quaeque ibi varietate fortunae et nostri origine veneranda, relegit Asiam adpellitque Colophona ut Clarii Apollinis oraculo uteretur. non femina illic, ut apud Delphos, sed certis e familiis et ferme Mileto accitus sacerdos numerum modo consultantium et nomina audit; tum in specum degressus, hausta fontis arcani aqua, ignarus plerumque litterarum et carminum edit responsa versibus compositis super rebus quas quis mente concepit. et ferebatur Germanico per ambages, ut mos oraculis, maturum exitum cecinisse.

But Gnaeus Piso, that he might the more speedily begin upon his designs, by a turbulent entry struck terror into the city of the Athenians, and rebuked them in a savage speech, glancing obliquely at Germanicus because, against the honor of the Roman name, it was not the Athenians—wiped out by so many disasters—but that dregs of the nations that he had courted with too much affability: for these had been the allies of Mithridates against Sulla, of Antony against the deified Augustus. He even cast up old things, what they had done unprosperously against the Macedonians, violently against their own; offended too with the city from a private anger of his own, because they would not, at his prayers, give up a certain Theophilus, condemned of forgery by the court of the Areopagus. Then by a swift voyage through the Cyclades and the short cuts of the sea he overtakes Germanicus at the island of Rhodes, not unaware with what insults he had been assailed: but Germanicus bore himself with such gentleness that, when a rising storm was carrying Piso onto the rocks, and his enemy’s destruction could have been ascribed to chance, he sent triremes by whose aid he might be snatched from the peril. Yet Piso was not softened, and, scarce enduring a day’s delay, leaves Germanicus and goes before him. And after he reached Syria and the legions, by largess, by canvassing, by aiding the lowest of the common soldiers, while he removed the old centurions and the strict tribunes and assigned their places to his own clients or to every worst man, while he allowed sloth in the camp, license in the cities, and the soldier to roam wanton through the fields, he went so far in corruption that in the talk of the crowd he was called the father of the legions. Nor did Plancina keep herself within what becomes women, but was present at the cavalry-drills and the maneuvers of the cohorts, threw out insults against Agrippina, against Germanicus, some even of the good soldiers being ready for ill compliance, because a hidden rumor went about that these things were done not against the emperor’s will. These things were known to Germanicus, but a more pressing care was to turn first to the Armenians.

At Cn. Piso quo properantius destinata inciperet civitatem Atheniensium turbido incessu exterritam oratione saeva increpat, oblique Germanicum perstringens quod contra decus Romani nominis non Atheniensis tot cladibus extinctos, sed conluviem illam nationum comitate nimia coluisset: hos enim esse Mithridatis adversus Sullam, Antonii adversus divum Augustum socios. etiam vetera obiectabat, quae in Macedones inprospere, violenter in suos fecissent, offensus urbi propria quoque ira quia Theophilum quendam Areo iudicio falsi damnatum precibus suis non concederent. exim navigatione celeri per Cycladas et compendia maris adsequitur Germanicum apud insulam Rhodum, haud nescium quibus insectationibus petitus foret: sed tanta mansuetudine agebat ut, cum orta tempestas raperet in abrupta possetque interitus inimici ad casum referri, miserit triremis quarum subsidio discrimini eximeretur. neque tamen mitigatus Piso, et vix diei moram perpessus linquit Germanicum praevenitque. et postquam Syriam ac legiones attigit, largitione, ambitu, infimos manipularium iuvando, cum veteres centuriones, severos tribunos demoveret locaque eorum clientibus suis vel deterrimo cuique attribueret, desidiam in castris, licentiam in urbibus, vagum ac lascivientem per agros militem sineret, eo usque corruptionis provectus est ut sermone vulgi parens legionum haberetur. nec Plancina se intra decora feminis tenebat, sed exercitio equitum, decursibus cohortium interesse, in Agrippinam, in Germanicum contumelias iacere, quibusdam etiam bonorum militum ad mala obsequia promptis, quod haud invito imperatore ea fieri occultus rumor incedebat. nota haec Germanico, sed praeverti ad Armenios instantior cura fuit.

That nation has been from of old ambiguous, in the temper of its men and the situation of its lands, since, stretched widely along our provinces, it reaches deep to the Medes; and, set between the greatest empires, they are very often at odds, in hatred against the Romans and in jealousy of the Parthian. A king at that time they had not, Vonones being removed: but the nation’s favor inclined toward Zeno, son of Polemon king of Pontus, because he, from earliest infancy, emulating the institutions and dress of the Armenians, in hunting, in feasts, and in whatever else the barbarians prize, had bound to himself the nobles and the commons alike. So Germanicus, in the city of Artaxata, the nobles approving and the multitude crowding round, set the royal emblem on his head. The rest, doing reverence, hailed him king Artaxias, a name they had bestowed on him from the name of the city. But the Cappadocians, reduced to the form of a province, received Quintus Veranius as legate; and certain of the royal tributes were diminished, that the Roman rule might be hoped the milder. Over the Commageni Quintus Servaeus is set, then first transferred to the jurisdiction of a praetor.

Ambigua gens ea antiquitus hominum ingeniis et situ terrarum, quoniam nostris provinciis late praetenta penitus ad Medos porrigitur; maximisque imperiis interiecti et saepius discordes sunt, adversus Romanos odio et in Parthum invidia. regem illa tempestate non habebant, amoto Vonone: sed favor nationis inclinabat in Zenonem, Polemonis regis Pontici filium, quod is prima ab infantia instituta et cultum Armeniorum aemulatus, venatu epulis et quae alia barbari celebrant, proceres plebemque iuxta devinxerat. igitur Germanicus in urbe Artaxata adprobantibus nobilibus, circumfusa multitudine, insigne regium capiti eius imposuit. ceteri venerantes regem Artaxiam consalutavere, quod illi vocabulum indiderant ex nomine urbis. at Cappadoces in formam provinciae redacti Q. Veranium legatum accepere; et quaedam ex regiis tributis deminuta quo mitius Romanum imperium speraretur. Commagenis Q. Servaeus praeponitur, tum primum ad ius praetoris translatis.

And though all the affairs of the allies were prosperously settled, they did not make Germanicus glad, on account of the arrogance of Piso, who, ordered to lead part of the legions himself or through his son into Armenia, had neglected both. At Cyrrhus at last, by the winter quarters of the tenth legion, they met, with set countenances, Piso against his fear, Germanicus lest he seem to threaten; and he was, as I have related, the more clement. But friends, cunning in kindling offenses, strained the true, heaped up the false, and accused in various ways himself and Plancina and the sons. At last, a few intimates being admitted, a conversation was begun by the Caesar, such as anger and dissimulation beget, and answered by Piso with defiant entreaties; and they parted in open hatred. After which Piso was rarely at the Caesar’s tribunal, and if ever he sat by, he was grim and manifestly dissenting. His voice too was heard at a banquet, when, at the table of the king of the Nabataeans, golden crowns of great weight were offered to the Caesar and Agrippina, light ones to Piso and the rest, that these feasts were given to the son of a Roman prince, not of a Parthian king; and he flung down the crown at the same time and added much against luxury, which, though bitter to Germanicus, was yet borne.

Cunctaque socialia prospere composita non ideo laetum Germanicum habebant ob superbiam Pisonis qui iussus partem legionum ipse aut per filium in Armeniam ducere utrumque neglexerat. Cyrri demum apud hiberna decumae legionis convenere, firmato vultu, Piso adversus metum, Germanicus ne minari crederetur; et erat, ut rettuli, clementior. sed amici accendendis offensionibus callidi intendere vera, adgerere falsa ipsumque et Plancinam et filios variis modis criminari. postremo paucis familiarium adhibitis sermo coeptus a Caesare, qualem ira et dissimulatio gignit, responsum a Pisone precibus contumacibus; discesseruntque apertis odiis. post quae rarus in tribunali Caesaris Piso, et si quando adsideret, atrox ac dissentire manifestus. vox quoque eius audita est in convivio, cum apud regem Nabataeorum coronae aureae magno pondere Caesari et Agrippinae, leves Pisoni et ceteris offerrentur, principis Romani, non Parthi regis filio eas epulas dari; abiecitque simul coronam et multa in luxum addidit quae Germanico quamquam acerba tolerabantur tamen.

Meanwhile envoys came from Artabanus, king of the Parthians. He had sent them to recall the friendship and the treaty, and that he desired the renewal of pledges, and would grant, in honor of Germanicus, to come up to the bank of the Euphrates: he begged meanwhile that Vonones be not kept in Syria, nor draw the chiefs of the nations by neighboring messengers into discords. To this Germanicus answered, of the alliance of Romans and Parthians magnificently, of the king’s coming and his courtesy toward himself with dignity and modesty. Vonones was removed to Pompeiopolis, a maritime city of Cilicia. This was granted not only to the prayers of Artabanus, but to spite Piso, to whom he was most welcome on account of the many offices and gifts by which he had bound Plancina.

Inter quae ab rege Parthorum Artabano legati venere. miserat amicitiam ac foedus memoraturos, et cupere novari dextras, daturumque honori Germanici ut ripam Euphratis accederet: petere interim ne Vonones in Syria haberetur neu proceres gentium propinquis nuntiis ad discordias traheret. ad ea Germanicus de societate Romanorum Parthorumque magnifice, de adventu regis et cultu sui cum decore ac modestia respondit. Vonones Pompeiopolim, Ciliciae maritimam urbem, amotus est. datum id non modo precibus Artabani, sed contumeliae Pisonis cui gratissimus erat ob plurima officia et dona quibus Plancinam devinxerat.

In the consulship of Marcus Silanus and Lucius Norbanus, Germanicus sets out for Egypt to learn its antiquity. But the care of the province was the pretext, and he relieved the prices of grain by opening the granaries, and adopted many things grateful to the crowd: to go about without a soldier, with feet uncovered, and in dress like the Greeks’, in emulation of Publius Scipio, who, we are told, did the same in Sicily, though the war with the Carthaginians was then still blazing. Tiberius, having lightly touched his dress and bearing with mild words, rebuked him most sharply because, against the institutions of Augustus, he had entered Alexandria without the prince’s leave. For Augustus, among other secrets of his domination, having forbidden senators or illustrious Roman knights to enter except by permission, had set Egypt apart, lest anyone who had occupied that province and the keys of land and sea, with however slight a garrison against great armies, should press Italy with famine.

M. Silano L. Norbano consulibus Germanicus Aegyptum proficiscitur cognoscendae antiquitatis. sed cura provinciae praetendebatur, levavitque apertis horreis pretia frugum multaque in vulgus grata usurpavit: sine milite incedere, pedibus intectis et pari cum Graecis amictu, P. Scipionis aemulatione, quem eadem factitavisse apud Siciliam, quamvis flagrante adhuc Poenorum bello, accepimus. Tiberius cultu habituque eius lenibus verbis perstricto, acerrime increpuit quod contra instituta Augusti non sponte principis Alexandriam introisset. nam Augustus inter alia dominationis arcana, vetitis nisi permissu ingredi senatoribus aut equitibus Romanis inlustribus, seposuit Aegyptum ne fame urgeret Italiam quisquis eam provinciam claustraque terrae ac maris quamvis levi praesidio adversum ingentis exercitus insedisset.

But Germanicus, not yet aware that this journey was being blamed, was carried up the Nile, beginning from the town of Canopus. The Spartans founded it, on account of the helmsman Canopus buried there, at the time when Menelaus, returning to Greece, was driven onto a distant sea and the land of Libya. Thence the nearest mouth of the river, sacred to Hercules, whom the natives declare to have been born among them and to be the most ancient, and that those who afterward were of like valor were taken into his name; next he visited the great traces of ancient Thebes. And there remained, on the piled-up masses, Egyptian letters comprising its former opulence: and one of the elder priests, ordered to interpret his native tongue, related that seven hundred thousand men of military age had once dwelt there, and that with that army king Rhamses had mastered Libya, Ethiopia, the Medes and Persians and the Bactrian and the Scythian, and had held in his sway the lands which the Syrians and Armenians and the neighboring Cappadocians inhabit, thence to the Bithynian, here to the Lycian sea. There were read too the tributes imposed on the nations, the weight of silver and gold, the number of weapons and horses, and the gifts to the temples, ivory and perfumes, and what stores of grain and of all utensils each nation paid—no less magnificent than what is now commanded by the power of the Parthians or the might of Rome.

Sed Germanicus nondum comperto profectionem eam incusari Nilo subvehebatur, orsus oppido a Canopo. condidere id Spartani ob sepultum illic rectorem navis Canopum, qua tempestate Menelaus Graeciam repetens diversum ad mare terramque Libyam deiectus est. inde proximum amnis os dicatum Herculi, quem indigenae ortum apud se et antiquissimum perhibent eosque, qui postea pari virtute fuerint, in cognomentum eius adscitos; mox visit veterum Thebarum magna vestigia. et manebant structis molibus litterae Aegyptiae, priorem opulentiam complexae: iussusque e senioribus sacerdotum patrium sermonem interpretari, referebat habitasse quondam septingenta milia aetate militari, atque eo cum exercitu regem Rhamsen Libya Aethiopia Medisque et Persis et Bactriano ac Scytha potitum quasque terras Suri Armeniique et contigui Cappadoces colunt, inde Bithynum, hinc Lycium ad mare imperio tenuisse. legebantur et indicta gentibus tributa, pondus argenti et auri, numerus armorum equorumque et dona templis ebur atque odores, quasque copias frumenti et omnium utensilium quaeque natio penderet, haud minus magnifica quam nunc vi Parthorum aut potentia Romana iubentur.

For the rest, Germanicus bent his mind to other marvels too, of which the chief were the stone effigy of Memnon, which, when struck by the sun’s rays, gives back a vocal sound; the pyramids reared like mountains amid almost impassable and shifting sands, by the rivalry and the wealth of kings; the lakes dug out of the ground, receptacles for the overflowing Nile; and elsewhere narrows and a depth profound, penetrable by no measuring of those who explore it. Then he came to Elephantine and Syene, once the barriers of the Roman empire, which now lies open to the Red Sea.

Ceterum Germanicus aliis quoque miraculis intendit animum, quorum praecipua fuere Memnonis saxea effigies, ubi radiis solis icta est, vocalem sonum reddens, disiectasque inter et vix pervias arenas instar montium eductae pyramides certamine et opibus regum, lacusque effossa humo, superfluentis Nili receptacula; atque alibi angustiae et profunda altitudo, nullis inquirentium spatiis penetrabilis. exim ventum Elephantinen ac Syenen, claustra olim Romani imperii, quod nunc rubrum ad mare patescit.

While that summer was passing for Germanicus through several provinces, Drusus won no slight glory by enticing the Germans to discords, and that, Maroboduus being now broken, the pressure be kept up even to his destruction. There was among the Gotones a noble youth named Catualda, formerly a fugitive by the force of Maroboduus, and now, his affairs being doubtful, venturing on revenge. He enters the borders of the Marcomani with a strong force, and, the chiefs being corrupted to his fellowship, bursts into the palace and the fort situated near by. The old plunder of the Suebi was found there, and from our provinces sutlers and traders, whom the right of trade, then the desire of increasing their money, at last forgetfulness of their fatherland, had carried each from his home into a hostile land.

Dum ea aestas Germanico pluris per provincias transigitur, haud leve decus Drusus quaesivit inliciens Germanos ad discordias utque fracto iam Maroboduo usque in exitium insisteretur. erat inter Gotones nobilis iuvenis nomine Catualda, profugus olim vi Marobodui et tunc dubiis rebus eius ultionem ausus. is valida manu finis Marcomanorum ingreditur corruptisque primoribus ad societatem inrumpit regiam castellumque iuxta situm. veteres illic Sueborum praedae et nostris e provinciis lixae ac negotiatores reperti quos ius commercii, dein cupido augendi pecu- niam, postremo oblivio patriae suis quemque ab sedibus hostilem in agrum transtulerat.

Maroboduus, deserted on every side, had no other resource than the mercy of the Caesar. Having crossed the Danube, where it flows past the province of Noricum, he wrote to Tiberius, not as a fugitive or a suppliant, but from the memory of his former fortune: for, when many nations called the once most illustrious king to them, he had preferred the friendship of Rome. The answer from the Caesar was that he should have a safe and honored seat in Italy if he stayed: but if anything else were of advantage to his affairs, he should depart with the same good faith with which he had come. But before the Senate he declared that not Philip to the Athenians, not Pyrrhus or Antiochus to the Roman people, had been so much to be feared. The speech is extant in which he extolled the greatness of the man, the violence of the nations subject to him, and how near to Italy was the enemy, and his own counsels in destroying him. And Maroboduus indeed was kept at Ravenna, and, whenever the Suebi grew insolent, was paraded as if about to return into the kingdom: but he did not leave Italy for eighteen years, and grew old, his luster much diminished by an excessive desire of living. The like was the fate of Catualda, and no other refuge. Driven out not long after by the power of the Hermunduri under the leadership of Vibilius, and received, he is sent to Forum Julium, a colony of Narbonese Gaul. The barbarians who accompanied both, lest, mingled with quiet provinces, they should disturb them, were settled beyond the Danube between the rivers Marus and Cusus, with Vannio of the nation of the Quadi given them as king.

Maroboduo undique deserto non aliud subsidium quam misericordia Caesaris fuit. transgressus Danuvium, qua Noricam provinciam praefluit, scripsit Tiberio non ut profugus aut supplex sed ex memoria prioris fortunae: nam multis nationibus clarissimum quondam regem ad se vocantibus Romanam amicitiam praetulisse. responsum a Caesare tutam ei honoratamque sedem in Italia fore, si maneret: sin rebus eius aliud conduceret, abiturum fide qua venisset. ceterum apud senatum disseruit non Philippum Atheniensibus, non Pyrrhum aut Antiochum populo Romano perinde metuendos fuisse. extat oratio qua magnitudinem viri, violentiam subiectarum ei gentium et quam propinquus Italiae hostis, suaque in destruendo eo consilia extulit. et Maroboduus quidem Ravennae habitus, si quando insolescerent Suebi quasi rediturus in regnum ostentabatur: sed non excessit Italia per duodeviginti annos consenuitque multum imminuta claritate ob nimiam vivendi cupidinem. idem Catualdae casus neque aliud perfugium. pulsus haud multo post Hermundurorum opibus et Vibilio duce receptusque, Forum Iulium, Narbonensis Galliae coloniam, mittitur. barbari utrumque comitati, ne quietas provincias immixti turbarent, Danuvium ultra inter flumina Marum et Cusum locantur, dato rege Vannio gentis Quadorum.

At the same time, it being announced that king Artaxias had been given to the Armenians by Germanicus, the senators decreed that Germanicus and Drusus should enter the city in ovation. Arches too were built about the flanks of the temple of Mars the Avenger, with the effigy of the Caesars, Tiberius being the gladder that he had confirmed peace by wisdom than if he had finished a war by battle. So he attacks Rhescuporis too, king of Thrace, by craft. That whole nation Rhoemetalces had held; on whose death Augustus assigned part of the Thracians to his brother Rhescuporis, part to his son Cotys. In that division the tilled fields and the cities and what bordered on the Greeks fell to Cotys, the uncultivated and savage and adjoining the enemy to Rhescuporis: and the tempers of the kings themselves, the one mild and pleasant, the other fierce, greedy, and impatient of partnership. But at first they acted with a treacherous concord: soon Rhescuporis began to go beyond his borders, to turn to himself what had been given to Cotys, and to use force against him when he resisted—hesitatingly under Augustus, whom, as the author of both kingdoms, he feared as an avenger if he were scorned. But indeed, on hearing of the change of prince, he sent in bands of brigands, razed the forts, made grounds for war.

Simul nuntiato regem Artaxian Armeniis a Germanico datum, decrevere patres ut Germanicus atque Drusus ovantes urbem introirent. structi et arcus circum latera templi Martis Vltoris cum effigie Caesarum, laetiore Tiberio quia pacem sapientia firmaverat quam si bellum per acies confecisset. igitur Rhescuporim quoque, Thraeciae regem, astu adgreditur. omnem eam nationem Rhoemetalces tenuerat; quo defuncto Augustus partem Thraecum Rhescuporidi fratri eius, partem filio Cotyi permisit. in ea divisione arva et urbes et vicina Graecis Cotyi, quod incultum ferox adnexum hostibus, Rhescuporidi cessit: ipsorumque regum ingenia, illi mite et amoenum, huic atrox avidum et societatis impatiens erat. sed primo subdola concordia egere: mox Rhescuporis egredi finis, vertere in se Cotyi data et resistenti vim facere, cunctanter sub Augusto, quem auctorem utriusque regni, si sperneretur, vindicem metuebat. enimvero audita mutatione principis immittere latronum globos, excindere castella, causas bello.

Nothing held Tiberius so anxious as that things settled should be disturbed. He chooses a centurion to announce to the kings that they should not contend in arms; and at once the auxiliaries which Cotys had got ready were dismissed by him. Rhescuporis, with feigned modesty, demands that they meet in the same place: the disputes could be settled by a conference. Nor was there long doubt about the time, the place, then the terms, since the one through easiness, the other through fraud, granted and accepted all things between them. Rhescuporis, to ratify the treaty, as he kept saying, adds a banquet, and, the festivity being drawn out into the deep night through feasting and wine, loads with chains the unwary Cotys, and, after he had understood the trick, calling to witness the sacred things of the kingdom, the gods of the same family, and the tables of hospitality. And, having mastered all Thrace, he wrote to Tiberius that a plot had been laid against him, that he had forestalled the plotter; at the same time, pretending a war against the Bastarnae and Scythians, he strengthened himself with new forces of foot and horse. The answer was mild: if there were no fraud, he might trust to his innocence; but that neither he nor the Senate would distinguish right from wrong unless the case were known: therefore let him give up Cotys and come and transfer the odium of the charge.

Nihil aeque Tiberium anxium habebat quam ne composita turbarentur. deligit centurionem qui nuntiaret regibus ne armis disceptarent; statimque a Cotye dimissa sunt quae paraverat auxilia. Rhescuporis ficta modestia postulat eundem in locum coiretur: posse de controversiis conloquio transigi. nec diu dubitatum de tempore, loco, dein condicionibus, cum alter facilitate, alter fraude cuncta inter se concederent acciperentque. Rhescuporis sanciendo, ut dictitabat, foederi convivium adicit, tractaque in multam noctem laetitia per epulas ac vinolentiam incautum Cotyn et, postquam dolum intellexerat, sacra regni, eiusdem familiae deos et hospitalis mensas obtestantem catenis onerat. Thraeciaque omni potitus scripsit ad Tiberium structas sibi insidias, praeventum insidiatorem; simul bellum adversus Bastarnas Scythasque praetendens novis peditum et equitum copiis sese firmabat. molliter rescriptum, si fraus abesset, posse eum innocentiae fidere; ceterum neque se neque senatum nisi cognita causa ius et iniuriam discreturos: proinde tradito Cotye veniret transferretque invidiam criminis.

These letters Latinius Pandusa, propraetor of Moesia, sent into Thrace with soldiers to whom Cotys should be handed over. Rhescuporis, wavering between fear and anger, preferred to be guilty of a crime accomplished rather than begun: he orders Cotys killed and falsely alleges a death taken of his own will. Yet the Caesar did not change his once-determined arts, but, Pandusa being dead—whom Rhescuporis charged with being hostile to him—he set over Moesia Pomponius Flaccus, an old hand in campaigns and in close friendship with the king, and therefore the fitter for deceiving him, and for that reason chiefly.

Eas litteras Latinius Pandusa pro praetore Moesiae cum militibus quis Cotys traderetur in Thraeciam misit. Rhescuporis inter metum et iram cunctatus maluit patrati quam incepti facinoris reus esse: occidi Cotyn iubet mortemque sponte sumptam ementitur. nec tamen Caesar placitas semel artes mutavit, sed defuncto Pandusa, quem sibi infensum Rhescuporis arguebat, Pomponium Flaccum, veterem stipendiis et arta cum rege amicitia eoque accommodatiorem ad fallendum, ob id maxime Moesiae praefecit.

Flaccus, having crossed into Thrace, by huge promises drove him, doubtful though he was and reflecting on his own crimes, to enter the Roman garrisons. A strong force was then thrown round the king under the show of honor, and the tribunes and centurions, by warning, by persuading, and, the farther they withdrew, by a more open custody, at last, when he knew the necessity, drew him to the city. Accused in the Senate by the wife of Cotys, he is condemned to be kept far from his kingdom. Thrace was divided between his son Rhoemetalces, who, it was agreed, had opposed his father’s counsels, and the children of Cotys; and, as these were not yet grown, Trebellenus Rufus, an ex-praetor, was given to administer the kingdom for the time, after the example by which our ancestors had sent Marcus Lepidus into Egypt as guardian to the children of Ptolemy. Rhescuporis was carried off to Alexandria, and there, attempting flight or by a feigned charge, is killed.

Flaccus in Thraeciam transgressus per ingentia promissa quamvis ambiguum et scelera sua reputantem perpulit ut praesidia Romana intraret. circumdata hinc regi specie honoris valida manus, tribunique et centuriones monendo, suadendo, et quanto longius abscedebatur, apertiore custodia, postremo gnarum necessitatis in urbem traxere. accusatus in senatu ab uxore Cotyis damnatur, ut procul regno teneretur. Thraecia in Rhoemetalcen filium, quem paternis consiliis adversatum constabat, inque liberos Cotyis dividitur; iisque nondum adultis Trebellenus Rufus praetura functus datur qui regnum interim tractaret, exemplo quo maiores M. Lepidum Ptolemaei liberis tutorem in Aegyptum miserant. Rhescuporis Alexandriam devectus atque illic fugam temptans an ficto crimine interficitur.

About the same time Vonones, whom I have recorded as removed into Cilicia, having corrupted his guards, attempted to escape to the Armenians, thence to the Albani and Heniochi and the king of the Scythians, his kinsman. Under the pretense of hunting, leaving the maritime places, he made for the trackless glens, then, by the swiftness of his horse, pressed on to the river Pyramus, whose bridges the dwellers had broken on hearing of the king’s flight, nor could it be crossed by a ford. So on the bank of the river he is bound by Vibius Fronto, a prefect of cavalry; soon Remmius, a recalled veteran, set over the king’s earlier custody, as if in anger ran him through with his sword. Whence there is the greater belief that, from consciousness of crime and fear of disclosure, death was inflicted on Vonones.

Per idem tempus Vonones, quem amotum in Ciliciam memoravi, corruptis custodibus effugere ad Armenios, inde Albanos Heniochosque et consanguineum sibi regem Scytharum conatus est. specie venandi omissis maritimis locis avia saltuum petiit, mox pernicitate equi ad amnem Pyramum contendit, cuius pontes accolae ruperant audita regis fuga, neque vado penetrari poterat. igitur in ripa fluminis a Vibio Frontone praefecto equitum vincitur, mox Remmius evocatus, priori custodiae regis adpositus, quasi per iram gladio eum transigit. unde maior fides conscientia sceleris et metu indicii mortem Vononi inlatam.

But Germanicus, returning from Egypt, learns that all he had ordered among the legions or the cities had been undone or turned to the contrary. Hence grave insults against Piso, and no less bitter the things aimed by him against the Caesar. Then Piso resolved to leave Syria. Soon, detained by Germanicus’s ill health, when he learned that he had recovered and that vows were being paid for his safety, he scatters by his lictors the victims brought up, the apparatus of sacrifice, and the festal plebs of Antioch. Then he withdrew to Seleucia, awaiting the illness which had again befallen Germanicus. The savage force of the disease was heightened by the conviction of poison received from Piso; and there were found, dug from the floor and the walls, the remains of human bodies, spells and curses, and the name of Germanicus inscribed on leaden tablets, half-burnt ashes smeared with gore, and other malefices by which souls are believed to be consecrated to the infernal powers. At the same time men sent by Piso were charged with prying into the symptoms of the illness.

At Germanicus Aegypto remeans cuncta quae apud legiones aut urbes iusserat abolita vel in contrarium versa cognoscit. hinc graves in Pisonem contumeliae, nec minus acerba quae ab illo in Caesarem intentabantur. dein Piso abire Syria statuit. mox adversa Germanici valetudine detentus, ubi recreatum accepit votaque pro incolumitate solvebantur, admotas hostias, sacrificalem apparatum, festam Antiochensium plebem per lictores proturbat. tum Seleuciam degreditur, opperiens aegritudinem, quae rursum Germanico acciderat. saevam vim morbi augebat persuasio veneni a Pisone accepti; et reperiebantur solo ac parietibus erutae humanorum corporum reliquiae, carmina et devotiones et nomen Germanici plumbeis tabulis insculptum, semusti cineres ac tabo obliti aliaque malefica quis creditur animas numinibus infernis sacrari. simul missi a Pisone incusabantur ut valetudinis adversa rimantes.

These things were received by Germanicus with no less anger than fear. If his threshold were beset, if he must pour out his breath under the eyes of his enemies, what then would befall his most wretched wife, what his infant children? The poisonings seemed slow: Piso hastened and pressed on, that he might hold the province, the legions, alone. But Germanicus was not so far gone, nor would the rewards of the murder remain with the murderer. He composes a letter by which he renounced his friendship: most add that he was ordered to quit the province. Nor did Piso delay longer, but loosed his ships and regulated his course so as to return the nearer if Germanicus’s death should open Syria.

Ea Germanico haud minus ira quam per metum accepta. si limen obsideretur, si effundendus spiritus sub oculis inimicorum foret, quid deinde miserrimae coniugi, quid infantibus liberis eventurum? lenta videri veneficia: festinare et urgere, ut provinciam, ut legiones solus habeat. sed non usque eo defectum Germanicum, neque praemia caedis apud interfectorem mansura. componit epistulas quis amicitiam ei renuntiabat: addunt plerique iussum provincia decedere. nec Piso moratus ultra navis solvit moderabaturque cursui quo propius regrederetur si mors Germanici Syriam aperuisset.

The Caesar, for a little while raised to hope, then, his body failing, when the end was at hand, addresses his friends standing by in this manner: "If I were yielding to fate, I should have just grief even against the gods, who were snatching me, within my youth, by an untimely end, from my parents, my children, my country: now, cut off by the crime of Piso and Plancina, I leave my last prayers in your breasts: report to my father and my brother by what bitternesses I have been torn, by what plots encompassed, that I have ended a most wretched life by the worst of deaths. If any were moved by my hopes, any by kindred blood, even any by envy toward me living, they will weep that one once flourishing, the survivor of so many wars, has fallen by a woman’s fraud. You will have a place for complaint before the Senate, for invoking the laws. It is not the chief office of friends to follow the dead with idle lamentation, but to remember what he wished, to carry out what he charged. Even strangers will weep for Germanicus: you will avenge me, if you cherished me rather than my fortune. Show to the Roman people the granddaughter of the deified Augustus, and my wife as well; count my six children. Compassion will be with the accusers, and those who feign criminal instructions men will either not believe, or not forgive." The friends swore, touching the dying man’s right hand, that they would sooner lose their lives than their revenge.

Caesar paulisper ad spem erectus, dein fesso corpore, ubi finis aderat, adsistentis amicos in hunc modum adloquitur: ’si fato concederem, iustus mihi dolor etiam adversus deos esset, quod me parentibus liberis patriae intra iuventam praematuro exitu raperent: nunc scelere Pisonis et Plancinae interceptus ultimas preces pectoribus vestris relinquo: referatis patri ac fratri, quibus acerbitatibus dilaceratus, quibus insidiis circumventus miserrimam vitam pessima morte finierim. si quos spes meae, si quos propinquus sanguis, etiam quos invidia erga viventem movebat, inlacrimabunt quondam florentem et tot bellorum superstitem muliebri fraude cecidisse. erit vobis locus querendi apud senatum, invocandi leges. non hoc praecipuum amicorum munus est, prosequi defunctum ignavo questu, sed quae voluerit meminisse, quae mandaverit exequi. flebunt Germanicum etiam ignoti: vindicabitis vos, si me potius quam fortunam meam fovebatis. ostendite populo Romano divi Augusti neptem eandemque coniugem meam, numerate sex liberos. misericordia cum accusantibus erit fingentibusque scelesta mandata aut non credent homines aut non ignoscent.’ iuravere amici dextram morientis contingentes spiritum ante quam ultionem amissuros.

Then, turning to his wife, he begged her, by the memory of himself, by their common children, to put off her fierceness, to bow her spirit to the raging of fortune, and not, on returning to the city, to provoke the stronger by a rivalry of power. This openly, and other things in secret, by which he was believed to have shown a fear of Tiberius. And not long after he expires, to the immense grief of the province and of the surrounding peoples. Foreign nations and kings mourned: so great was his courtesy toward allies, his mildness toward enemies; venerable alike in sight and hearing, while he kept the greatness and gravity of the highest fortune, he had escaped envy and arrogance.

Tum ad uxorem versus per memoriam sui, per communis liberos oravit exueret ferociam, saevienti fortunae summitteret animum, neu regressa in urbem aemulatione potentiae validiores inritaret. haec palam et alia secreto per quae ostendisse credebatur metum ex Tiberio. neque multo post extinguitur, ingenti luctu provinciae et circumiacentium populorum. indoluere exterae nationes regesque: tanta illi comitas in socios, mansuetudo in hostis; visuque et auditu iuxta venerabilis, cum magnitudinem et gravi- tatem summae fortunae retineret, invidiam et adrogantiam effugerat.

His funeral, without images and procession, was famous through the praises and the memory of his virtues. And there were those who likened his beauty, his age, his manner of death, and even the nearness of the places in which he perished, to the fate of Alexander the Great. For each, of comely body, of distinguished birth, having passed not much beyond thirty years, had fallen among foreign nations by the plots of his own: but this one had lived gentle toward his friends, moderate in pleasures, with one marriage and lawful children, and was no less a warrior, even if rashness was wanting and he had been hindered from pressing into servitude the Germanies, struck down by so many of his victories. And if he had been the sole arbiter of affairs, if he had held royal right and name, he would have attained the glory of soldiering the more readily by as much as he excelled in clemency, temperance, and the other good qualities. His body, before it was burned, was laid bare in the forum of Antioch, the place appointed for the cremation; whether it bore the marks of poison was not sufficiently established: for as each man was the more inclined by compassion for Germanicus and a preconceived suspicion, or by favor toward Piso, they interpreted it differently.

Funus sine imaginibus et pompa per laudes ac memoriam virtutum eius celebre fuit. et erant qui formam, aetatem, genus mortis ob propinquitatem etiam locorum in quibus interiit, magni Alexandri fatis adaequarent. nam utrumque corpore decoro, genere insigni, haud multum triginta annos egressum, suorum insidiis externas inter gentis occidisse: sed hunc mitem erga amicos, modicum voluptatum, uno matrimonio, certis liberis egisse, neque minus proeliatorem, etiam si temeritas afuerit praepeditusque sit perculsas tot victoriis Germanias servitio premere. quod si solus arbiter rerum, si iure et nomine regio fuisset, tanto promptius adsecuturum gloriam militiae quantum clementia, temperantia, ceteris bonis artibus praestitisset. corpus antequam cremaretur nudatum in foro Antiochensium, qui locus sepulturae destinabatur, praetuleritne veneficii signa parum constitit; nam ut quis misericordia in Germanicum et praesumpta suspicione aut favore in Pisonem pronior, diversi interpretabantur.

There was then a consultation among the legates, and any other senators who were present, who should be set over Syria. And, the rest having striven moderately, between Vibius Marsus and Gnaeus Sentius it was long sought: then Marsus yielded to Sentius, the older and the more keenly contending. And he sent to the city a woman named Martina, infamous for poisonings in that province and very dear to Plancina, at the demand of Vitellius and Veranius and the rest, who were drawing up the charges and the accusation as against persons already received as defendants.

Consultatum inde inter legatos quique alii senatorum aderant quisnam Syriae praeficeretur. et ceteris modice nisis, inter Vibium Marsum et Cn. Sentium diu quaesitum: dein Marsus seniori et acrius tendenti Sentio concessit. isque infamem veneficiis ea in provincia et Plancinae percaram nomine Martinam in urbem misit, postulantibus Vitellio ac Veranio ceterisque qui crimina et accusationem tamquam adversus receptos iam reos instruebant.

But Agrippina, though wearied with grief and sick in body, yet impatient of all that delayed her revenge, boards the fleet with the ashes of Germanicus and her children, all pitying her, that a woman foremost in nobility, lately wont to be seen, in a most beautiful marriage, amid those who revered and congratulated her, now bore the funeral relics in her bosom, uncertain of revenge, anxious for herself, and by her ill-starred fertility so often exposed to fortune. Meanwhile a messenger reaches Piso at the island of Cos that Germanicus had died. Receiving it without restraint, he slays victims, visits the temples, neither moderating his own joy himself, while Plancina grew the more insolent, who then for the first time changed the mourning for her lost sister into a joyful dress.

At Agrippina, quamquam defessa luctu et corpore aegro, omnium tamen quae ultionem morarentur intolerans ascendit classem cum cineribus Germanici et liberis, miserantibus cunctis quod femina nobilitate princeps, pulcherrimo modo matrimonio inter venerantis gratantisque aspici solita, tunc feralis reliquias sinu ferret, incerta ultionis, anxia sui et infelici fecunditate fortunae totiens obnoxia. Pisonem interim apud Coum insulam nuntius adsequitur excessisse Germanicum. quo intemperanter accepto caedit victimas, adit templa, neque ipse gaudium moderans et magis insolescente Plancina, quae luctum amissae sororis tum primum laeto cultu mutavit.

Centurions flocked to him and reminded him that the legions’ goodwill was ready for him: let him resume the province taken from him unlawfully and now vacant. So, as he debated what should be done, his son Marcus Piso held that he must hasten to the city: nothing inexpiable had yet been committed, and weak suspicions or the emptiness of rumor were not to be greatly dreaded. His discord with Germanicus was perhaps worthy of hatred, not of punishment; and by the loss of the province satisfaction had been given his enemies. But if he returned, Sentius resisting, civil war would begin; nor would the centurions and soldiers hold to his side, among whom the fresh memory of their commander, and the love deeply fixed for the Caesars, would prevail.

Adfluebant centuriones monebantque prompta illi legionum studia: repeteret provinciam non iure ablatam et vacuam. igitur quid agendum consultanti M. Piso filius properandum in urbem censebat: nihil adhuc inexpiabile admissum neque suspiciones imbecillas aut inania famae pertimescenda. discordiam erga Germanicum odio fortasse dignam, non poena; et ademptione provinciae satis factum inimicis. quod si regrederetur, obsistente Sentio civile bellum incipi; nec duraturos in partibus centuriones militesque apud quos recens imperatoris sui memoria et penitus infixus in Caesares amor praevaleret.

On the other side Domitius Celer, of his most intimate friendship, argued that the chance must be used: Piso, not Sentius, had been set over Syria; to him the fasces and the praetor’s authority, to him the legions had been given. If anything hostile threatened, who would more justly oppose arms than he who had received the authority of a legate and his own instructions? Time, too, must be left to rumors, in which they grow old: most often the innocent are unequal to a recent ill-will. But if he held the army, increased his forces, many things that cannot be foreseen would by chance fall out for the better. "Or are we hastening to put in with the ashes of Germanicus, that the wailing of Agrippina and an ignorant crowd may, at the first rumor, hurry you off unheard and undefended? You have the privity of Augusta, you have the Caesar’s favor, but in secret; and none mourn the death of Germanicus more ostentatiously than those who most rejoice at it."

Contra Domitius Celer, ex intima eius amicitia, disseruit utendum eventu: Pisonem, non Sentium Syriae praepositum; huic fascis et ius praetoris, huic legiones datas. si quid hostile ingruat, quem iustius arma oppositurum quam qui legati auctoritatem et propria mandata acceperit? relinquendum etiam rumoribus tempus quo senescant: plerumque innocentis recenti invidiae imparis. at si teneat exercitum, augeat viris, multa quae provideri non possint fortuito in melius casura. ’an festinamus cum Germanici cineribus adpellere, ut te inauditum et indefensum planctus Agrippinae ac vulgus imperitum primo rumore rapiant? est tibi Augustae conscientia, est Caesaris favor, sed in occulto; et perisse Germanicum nulli iactantius maerent quam qui maxime laetantur.’

With no great effort Piso, ready for bold courses, is drawn over to this opinion, and, sending letters to Tiberius, accuses Germanicus of luxury and arrogance; and that he himself, driven out that room might be opened for revolution, had resumed the care of the army with the same fidelity with which he had held it. At the same time he orders Domitius, put on board a trireme, to avoid the coastline and to make for Syria over the open sea, past the islands. The deserters who flocked to him he marshals into companies, arms the camp-followers, and, the ships being carried over to the mainland, intercepts a detachment of recruits going to Syria, writes to the chieftains of the Cilicians to aid him with auxiliaries—young Piso being no sluggard in the offices of war, although he had been against undertaking it.

Haud magna mole Piso promptus ferocibus in sententiam trahitur missisque ad Tiberium epistulis incusat Germanicum luxus et superbiae; seque pulsum, ut locus rebus novis patefieret, curam exercitus eadem fide qua tenuerit repetivisse. simul Domitium impositum triremi vitare litorum oram praeterque insulas lato mari pergere in Syriam iubet. concurrentis desertores per manipulos componit, armat lixas traiectisque in continentem navibus vexillum tironum in Syriam euntium intercipit, regulis Cilicum ut se auxiliis iuvarent scribit, haud ignavo ad ministeria belli iuvene Pisone, quamquam suscipiendum bellum abnuisset.

So, as they coasted along Lycia and Pamphylia, meeting the ships that carried Agrippina, both sides, hostile, at first made ready their arms: then, from mutual fear, it went no further than wrangling, and Vibius Marsus announced to Piso that he should come to Rome to plead his cause. He mockingly answered that he would be there when the praetor who was to try the poisoning cases had appointed a day for defendant and accusers. Meanwhile Domitius, having put in at Laodicea, a city of Syria, when he sought the winter quarters of the sixth legion, because he thought it the fittest for revolutionary designs, is forestalled by the legate Pacuvius. This Sentius discloses to Piso by letter, and warns him not to tempt the camp with corrupters, nor the province with war. And those whom he had found mindful of Germanicus or hostile to his enemies he draws together, repeatedly urging the greatness of the dead commander and that the commonwealth was being assailed by arms; and he leads a strong force, prepared for battle.

Igitur oram Lyciae ac Pamphyliae praelegentes, obviis navibus quae Agrippinam vehebant, utrimque infensi arma primo expediere: dein mutua formidine non ultra iurgium processum est, Marsusque Vibius nuntiavit Pisoni Romam ad dicendam causam veniret. ille eludens respondit adfuturum ubi praetor qui de veneficiis quaereret reo atque accusatoribus diem prodixisset. interim Domitius Laodiciam urbem Syriae adpulsus, cum hiberna sextae legionis peteret, quod eam maxime novis consiliis idoneam rebatur, a Pacuvio legato praevenitur. id Sentius Pisoni per litteras aperit monetque ne castra corruptoribus, ne provinciam bello temptet. quosque Germanici memores aut inimicis eius adversos cognoverat, contrahit, magnitudinem imperatoris identidem ingerens et rem publicam armis peti; ducitque validam manum et proelio paratam.

Nor did Piso, though his enterprises were falling out otherwise, omit the safest of present courses, but seizes a strongly fortified fort of Cilicia named Celenderis; for, the deserters being mingled in, and the recruit lately intercepted, and his own and Plancina’s slaves, and the Cilician auxiliaries which the chieftains had sent, he had marshaled them to the number of a legion. And he protested that he, the Caesar’s legate, was being barred from the province which the Caesar had given him, not by the legions (for he came at their summons) but by Sentius, cloaking a private hatred with false charges. Let them stand in line; the soldiers would not fight when they had seen Piso, once called father by them, the stronger if right were the issue, not weak if arms. Then before the defenses of the fort he deploys his companies on a steep and precipitous hill; for the rest is girt by the sea. Against him the veterans, drawn up in ranks and with reserves: on the one side the harshness of the soldiers, on the other of the ground, but not their spirit, not their hope, nor even their weapons, except rustic ones or such as were hastily got ready for the sudden need. When they came to close quarters, there was no longer doubt than while the Roman cohorts were struggling up to the level: the Cilicians turn their backs and shut themselves in the fort.

Nec Piso, quamquam coepta secus cadebant, omisit tutissima e praesentibus, sed castellum Ciliciae munitum admodum, cui nomen Celenderis, occupat; nam admixtis desertoribus et tirone nuper intercepto suisque et Plancinae servitiis auxilia Cilicum quae reguli miserant in numerum legionis composuerat. Caesarisque se legatum testabatur provincia quam is dedisset arceri, non a legionibus (earum quippe accitu venire), sed a Sentio privatum odium falsis criminibus tegente. consisterent in acie, non pugnaturis militibus ubi Pisonem ab ipsis parentem quondam appellatum, si iure ageretur, potiorem, si armis, non invalidum vidissent. tum pro munimentis castelli manipulos explicat colle arduo et derupto; nam cetera mari cinguntur. contra veterani ordinibus ac subsidiis instructi: hinc militum, inde locorum asperitas, sed non animus, non spes, ne tela quidem nisi agrestia aut subitum in usum properata. ut venere in manus, non ultra dubitatum quam dum Romanae cohortes in aequum eniterentur: vertunt terga Cilices seque castello claudunt.

Meanwhile Piso tried in vain to assail the fleet that was waiting not far off; and, returning, and before the walls, now by striking himself, now by calling on individuals by name, summoning them with rewards, he began a mutiny, and had so far stirred them that the standard-bearer of the sixth legion carried his standard over to him. Then Sentius ordered the horns and trumpets to sound, the earthwork to be assailed, the ladders raised, and the readiest men to mount, others to discharge from engines spears, stones, and firebrands. At last, his obstinacy overcome, Piso begged that, his arms being surrendered, he might remain in the fort while the Caesar was consulted to whom he should commit Syria. The terms were not received, nor was anything granted but ships and a safe journey to the city.

Interim Piso classem haud procul opperientem adpugnare frustra temptavit; regressusque et pro muris, modo semet adflictando, modo singulos nomine ciens, praemiis vocans, seditionem coeptabat, adeoque commoverat ut signifer legionis sextae signum ad eum transtulerit. tum Sentius occanere cornua tubasque et peti aggerem, erigi scalas iussit ac promptissimum quemque succedere, alios tormentis hastas saxa et faces ingerere. tandem victa pertinacia Piso oravit ut traditis armis maneret in castello, dum Caesar cui Syriam permitteret consulitur. non receptae condiciones nec aliud quam naves et tutum in urbem iter concessum est.

But at Rome, after Germanicus’s illness became widely known, and all things, as from afar, were reported aggravated for the worse, there were grief, anger, and complaints broke out. For this, forsooth, he had been banished to the ends of the earth; for this the province had been entrusted to Piso; this the secret conversations of Augusta with Plancina had wrought. The elders had spoken truly indeed about Drusus: the citizen-like dispositions of sons were displeasing to those who reigned, and they had been cut off for no other cause than that they had purposed to embrace the Roman people in equal right, with liberty restored. The report of his death so inflamed these talks of the crowd that, before any edict of the magistrates, before any decree of the Senate, a cessation of business being taken up, the forums were deserted, the houses shut. Everywhere were silences and groans, nothing composed for display; and although they did not abstain from the tokens of mourners, they grieved the more deeply in their hearts. By chance traders who had left Syria while Germanicus was still living brought gladder news of his health. At once it was believed, at once spread abroad: as each man met another, however lightly he had heard it, he passed it on to others, and they, heaped up with joy, to more. They run about the city, they force open the doors of the temples; the night helped their credulity, and affirmation was the readier amid the darkness. Nor did Tiberius oppose the falsehoods until they should vanish with time and interval: and the people grieved the more keenly, as though he had been snatched away a second time.

At Romae, postquam Germanici valetudo percrebuit cunctaque ut ex longinquo aucta in deterius adferebantur, dolor ira, et erumpebant questus. ideo nimirum in extremas terras relegatum, ideo Pisoni permissam provinciam; hoc egisse secretos Augustae cum Plancina sermones. vera prorsus de Druso seniores locutos: displicere regnantibus civilia filiorum ingenia, neque ob aliud interceptos quam quia populum Romanum aequo iure complecti reddita libertate agitaverint. hos vulgi sermones audita mors adeo incendit ut ante edictum magistratuum, ante senatus consultum sumpto iustitio desererentur fora, clauderentur domus. passim silentia et gemitus, nihil compositum in ostentationem; et quamquam neque insignibus lugentium abstinerent, altius animis maerebant. forte negotiatores vivente adhuc Germanico Syria egressi laetiora de valetudine eius attulere. statim credita, statim vulgata sunt: ut quisque obvius, quamvis leviter audita in alios atque illi in plures cumulata gaudio transferunt. cursant per urbem, moliuntur templorum foris; iuvat credulitatem nox et promptior inter tenebras adfirmatio. nec obstitit falsis Tiberius donec tempore ac spatio vanescerent: et populus quasi rursum ereptum acrius doluit.

Honors, as each was strong in love for Germanicus or in invention, were devised and decreed: that his name be sung in the Salian hymn; that curule chairs be set up in the places of the Augustal priests, and over them oaken crowns; that at the circus games his ivory image go in front; that no man be made flamen or augur in Germanicus’s place save of the Julian house. Arches were added at Rome and by the bank of the Rhine and on Mount Amanus in Syria, with an inscription of his exploits and that he had met death for the commonwealth. A tomb at Antioch, where he was cremated; a tribunal at Epidaphne, in the place where he had ended his life. Of the statues, or of the places in which he should be honored, no one could easily reckon the number. When a shield of gold, notable in size, was proposed for him among the founders of eloquence, Tiberius asserted that he would dedicate one of the usual kind and equal to the rest: for eloquence was not distinguished by rank, and it was glory enough if he were reckoned among the old writers. The equestrian order named after Germanicus the block of seats which was called the juniors’, and ordained that the squadrons should follow his image on the Ides of July. Most of these things remain: some were at once omitted, or age has effaced them.

Honores ut quis amore in Germanicum aut ingenio validus reperti decretique: ut nomen eius Saliari carmine caneretur; sedes curules sacerdotum Augustalium locis superque eas querceae coronae statuerentur; ludos circensis eburna effigies praeiret neve quis flamen aut augur in locum Germanici nisi gentis Iuliae crearetur. arcus additi Romae et apud ripam Rheni et in monte Syriae Amano cum inscriptione rerum gestarum ac mortem ob rem publicam obisse. sepulchrum Antiochiae ubi crematus, tribunal Epidaphnae quo in loco vitam finierat. statuarum locorumve in quis coleretur haud facile quis numerum inierit. cum censeretur clipeus auro et magni- tudine insignis inter auctores eloquentiae, adseveravit Tiberius solitum paremque ceteris dicaturum: neque enim eloquentiam fortuna discerni et satis inlustre si veteres inter scriptores haberetur. equester ordo cuneum Germanici appellavit qui iuniorum dicebatur, instituitque uti turmae idibus Iuliis imaginem eius sequerentur. pleraque manent: quaedam statim omissa sunt aut vetustas oblitteravit.

But while the grief was still fresh, Germanicus’s sister Livia, married to Drusus, was at once delivered of two of the male sex. This rare and joyful thing, even in modest households, affected the prince with such joy that he did not refrain from boasting before the senators that to no Roman of the same rank before had a twin progeny been born: for he turned all things, even the fortuitous, to glory. But to the people, at such a time, this too brought grief, as though Drusus, increased with children, the more oppressed the house of Germanicus.

Ceterum recenti adhuc maestitia soror Germanici Livia, nupta Druso, duos virilis sexus simul enixa est. quod rarum laetumque etiam modicis penatibus tanto gaudio principem adfecit ut non temperaverit quin iactaret apud patres nulli ante Romanorum eiusdem fastigii viro geminam stirpem editam: nam cuncta, etiam fortuita, ad gloriam vertebat. sed populo tali in tempore id quoque dolorem tulit, tamquam auctus liberis Drusus domum Germanici magis urgeret.

In the same year the licentiousness of women was checked by grave decrees of the Senate, and it was provided that no woman whose grandfather or father or husband had been a Roman knight should make gain by her body. For Vistilia, born of a praetorian family, had advertised her license of vice before the aediles, by a custom received among the ancients, who believed there was punishment enough against the unchaste in the very profession of the disgrace. Of Titidius Labeo, too, Vistilia’s husband, account was demanded why, in a wife manifestly guilty, he had omitted the revenge of the law. And as he pleaded that the sixty days given for deliberation had not yet passed, it seemed enough to decide about Vistilia; and she was banished to the island of Seriphos. There was action too about expelling the Egyptian and Jewish rites, and a decree of the senators was made that four thousand of the freedman class, tainted with that superstition, who were of suitable age, be carried to the island of Sardinia to suppress brigandage there, and, if they perished from the harshness of the climate, a cheap loss; the rest were to quit Italy unless they had laid aside their profane rites before a fixed day.

Eodem anno gravibus senatus decretis libido feminarum coercita cautumque ne quaestum corpore faceret cui avus aut pater aut maritus eques Romanus fuisset. nam Vistilia praetoria familia genita licentiam stupri apud aedilis vulgaverat, more inter veteres recepto, qui satis poenarum adversum impudicas in ipsa professione flagitii credebant. exactum et a Titidio Labeone Vistiliae marito cur in uxore delicti manifesta ultionem legis omisisset. atque illo praetendente sexaginta dies ad consultandum datos necdum praeterisse, satis visum de Vistilia statuere; eaque in insulam Seriphon abdita est. actum et de sacris Aegyptiis Iudaicisque pellendis factumque patrum consultum ut quattuor milia libertini generis ea superstitione infecta quis idonea aetas in insulam Sardiniam veherentur, coercendis illic latrociniis et, si ob gravitatem caeli interissent, vile damnum; ceteri cederent Italia nisi certam ante diem profanos ritus exuissent.

After this the Caesar brought forward the choosing of a virgin in the place of Occia, who for fifty-seven years had presided over the rites of Vesta with the utmost sanctity; and he gave thanks to Fonteius Agrippa and Domitius Pollio that, by offering their daughters, they vied in duty toward the commonwealth. Pollio’s daughter was preferred, for no other cause than that her mother remained in the same marriage; for Agrippa had diminished his house by a divorce. And the Caesar consoled the one passed over with a dowry of a million sesterces.

Post quae rettulit Caesar capiendam virginem in locum Occiae, quae septem et quinquaginta per annos summa sanctimonia Vestalibus sacris praesederat; egitque grates Fonteio Agrippae et Domitio Pollioni quod offerendo filias de officio in rem publicam certarent. praelata est Pollionis filia, non ob aliud quam quod mater eius in eodem coniugio manebat; nam Agrippa discidio domum imminuerat. et Caesar quamvis posthabitam decies sestertii dote solatus est.

The plebs complaining of the savagery of the grain prices, he fixed the price of grain that the buyer should pay, and that he himself would add two sesterces to the dealers for each peck. Nor yet on that account did he assume the title of Father of his Country, offered him before too; and he sharply rebuked those who had called his occupations divine and himself master. Whence speech was straitened and slippery under a prince who feared liberty and hated flattery.

Saevitiam annonae incusante plebe statuit frumento pretium quod emptor penderet, binosque nummos se additurum negotiatoribus in singulos modios. neque tamen ob ea parentis patriae delatum et antea vocabulum adsumpsit, acerbeque increpuit eos qui divinas occupationes ipsumque dominum dixerant. unde angusta et lubrica oratio sub principe qui libertatem metuebat adulationem oderat.

I find among the writers and senators of those same times that a letter from Adgandestrius, chief of the Chatti, was read in the Senate, in which he promised the death of Arminius if poison were sent to accomplish the killing, and that the answer was that the Roman people avenged itself on its enemies not by treachery nor by stealth, but openly and in arms. By which glory Tiberius matched himself with the old commanders who had forbidden, and disclosed, the poison against king Pyrrhus. But Arminius, the Romans withdrawing and Maroboduus driven out, aiming at kingship, had the liberty of his countrymen against him, and, assailed by arms, while he fought with varying fortune, fell by the treachery of his kinsmen: the liberator beyond doubt of Germany, and one who challenged the Roman people not in its beginnings, as other kings and leaders, but at the height of its empire; in battles of doubtful event, in war unconquered. He completed thirty-seven years of life, twelve of power, and is still sung among the barbarian nations, unknown to the annals of the Greeks, who admire only their own, not so famous among the Romans, while we extol the old and are careless of the recent.

Reperio apud scriptores senatoresque eorundem temporum Adgandestrii principis Chattorum lectas in senatu litteras, quibus mortem Arminii promittebat si patrandae neci venenum mitteretur, responsumque esse non fraude neque occultis, sed palam et armatum populum Romanum hostis suos ulcisci. qua gloria aequabat se Tiberius priscis imperatoribus qui venenum in Pyrrum regem vetuerant prodiderantque. ceterum Arminius abscedentibus Romanis et pulso Maroboduo regnum adfectans libertatem popularium adversam habuit, petitusque armis cum varia fortuna certaret, dolo propinquorum cecidit: liberator haud dubie Germaniae et qui non primordia populi Romani, sicut alii reges ducesque, sed florentissi- mum imperium lacessierit, proeliis ambiguus, bello non victus. septem et triginta annos vitae, duodecim potentiae explevit, caniturque adhuc barbaras apud gentis, Graecorum annalibus ignotus, qui sua tantum mirantur, Romanis haud perinde celebris, dum vetera extollimus recentium incuriosi.

With no break in her voyage over the wintry sea, Agrippina is carried to the island of Corcyra, which lies over against the shores of Calabria. There she spends a few days composing her spirit, violent in grief and unschooled in endurance. Meanwhile, when her coming was heard of, every closest friend and most of the soldiers—all who had served their campaigns under Germanicus—and many strangers besides from the neighboring towns, some thinking it a duty to the princeps, more following them, rushed to the town of Brundisium, the quickest and safest landfall for one sailing. And as soon as the fleet was first sighted out at sea, not only the harbor and the nearest waters but the walls and the rooftops, and wherever one could look furthest, were filled with a crowd of mourners asking one another whether to receive her, as she stepped ashore, in silence or with some cry. Nor was it well enough settled what suited the moment, when the fleet drew slowly in, with no brisk plying of oars, as is usual, but everything composed to sorrow. When, with her two children, holding the funeral urn, she stepped from the ship and fixed her eyes upon the ground, there was one groan from all; nor could you have told apart the near from the strangers, the wailing of men or of women—except that those who met them, fresh in their grief, outdid Agrippina’s company, worn out by their long mourning.

Nihil intermissa navigatione hiberni maris Agrippina Corcyram insulam advehitur, litora Calabriae contra sitam. illic paucos dies componendo animo insumit, violenta luctu et nescia tolerandi. interim adventu eius audito intimus quisque amicorum et plerique militares, ut quique sub Germanico stipendia fecerant, multique etiam ignoti vicinis e municipiis, pars officium in principem rati, plures illos secuti, ruere ad oppidum Brundisium, quod naviganti celerrimum fidissimumque adpulsu erat. atque ubi primum ex alto visa classis, complentur non modo portus et proxima maris sed moenia ac tecta, quaque longissime prospectari poterat, maerentium turba et rogitantium inter se silentione an voce aliqua egredientem exciperent. neque satis constabat quid pro tempore foret, cum classis paulatim successit, non alacri, ut adsolet, remigio sed cunctis ad tristitiam compositis. postquam duobus cum liberis, feralem urnam tenens, egressa navi defixit oculos, idem omnium gemitus; neque discerneres proximos alienos, virorum feminarumve planctus, nisi quod comitatum Agrippinae longo maerore fessum obvii et recentes in dolore antibant.

Caesar had sent two praetorian cohorts, with the order added that the magistrates of Calabria and of Apulia and of Campania should render the last offices to the memory of his son. So the ashes were borne on the shoulders of tribunes and centurions; before them went the standards unadorned, the fasces reversed; and wherever they passed through the colonies, the commons in black and the knights in their state robes burned, according to the wealth of each place, garments, perfumes, and the other solemnities of funerals. Even those whose towns lay off the route nonetheless came to meet them, and, setting up victims and altars to the Manes of the dead, attested their grief with tears and outcries. Drusus went forward as far as Tarracina, with Claudius his brother and the children of Germanicus who had been in the city. The consuls Marcus Valerius and Marcus Aurelius—for they had now entered upon their magistracy—and the Senate and a great part of the people filled the road, scattered and weeping each as he pleased; for flattery was absent, since all knew that Tiberius could ill conceal his gladness at the death of Germanicus.

Miserat duas praetorias cohortis Caesar, addito ut magistratus Calabriae Apulique et Campani suprema erga memoriam filii sui munera fungerentur. igitur tribunorum centurionumque umeris cineres portabantur; praecedebant incompta signa, versi fasces; atque ubi colonias transgrederentur, atrata plebes, trabeati equites pro opibus loci vestem odores aliaque funerum sollemnia cremabant. etiam quorum diversa oppida, tamen obvii et victimas atque aras dis Manibus statuentes lacrimis et conclamationibus dolorem testabantur. Drusus Tarracinam progressus est cum Claudio fratre liberisque Germanici, qui in urbe fuerant. consules M. Valerius et M. Aurelius (iam enim magistratum occeperant) et senatus ac magna pars populi viam complevere, disiecti et ut cuique libitum flentes; aberat quippe adulatio, gnaris omnibus laetam Tiberio Germanici mortem male dissimulari.

Tiberius and Augusta kept from public view, thinking it beneath their majesty to lament openly, or fearing that, with all eyes scrutinizing their faces, they would be caught out as false. His mother Antonia I find recorded, neither by the authors of these events nor in the daily register of proceedings, to have performed any notable office—although, besides Agrippina and Drusus and Claudius, the rest of the kindred too are set down by name: whether she was hindered by ill health, or whether her spirit, overcome by grief, could not bear to look upon the greatness of the evil. I should more readily believe that she was held back by Tiberius and Augusta, who did not leave the house, so that their grief might seem equal, and that by the mother’s example the grandmother too and the uncle might be thought to be kept within.

Tiberius atque Augusta publico abstinuere, inferius maiestate sua rati si palam lamentarentur, an ne omnium oculis vultum eorum scrutantibus falsi intellegerentur. matrem Antoniam non apud auctores rerum, non diurna actorum scriptura reperio ullo insigni officio functam, cum super Agrippinam et Drusum et Claudium ceteri quoque consanguinei nominatim perscripti sint, seu valetudine praepediebatur seu victus luctu animus magnitudinem mali perferre visu non toleravit. facilius crediderim Tiberio et Augusta, qui domo non excedebant, cohibitam, ut par maeror et matris exemplo avia quoque et patruus attineri viderentur.

The day on which the remains were carried into the tomb of Augustus was now desolate with silence, now restless with weeping; the city’s streets were full, torches blazed across the Field of Mars. There the soldier under arms, the magistrate without his insignia, the people by their tribes kept crying that the commonwealth had fallen, that no hope was left—more readily and openly than to let one believe they were mindful of those who ruled. Yet nothing pierced Tiberius more than the ardor of men kindled toward Agrippina, when they called her the glory of the fatherland, the sole blood of Augustus, the one surviving example of the old time, and, turning to heaven and the gods, prayed that her offspring might be kept whole and outlive their enemies.

Dies quo reliquiae tumulo Augusti inferebantur modo per silentium vastus, modo ploratibus inquies; plena urbis itinera, conlucentes per campum Martis faces. illic miles cum armis, sine insignibus magistratus, populus per tribus concidisse rem publicam, nihil spei reliquum clamitabant, promptius apertiusque quam ut meminisse imperitantium crederes. nihil tamen Tiberium magis penetravit quam studia hominum accensa in Agrippinam, cum decus patriae, solum Augusti sanguinem, unicum antiquitatis specimen appellarent versique ad caelum ac deos integram illi subolem ac superstitem iniquorum precarentur.

There were those who missed the pomp of a public funeral, and set against it what Augustus had done, honorable and magnificent, for Drusus the father of Germanicus. For he himself, in the harshest of the winter, had gone all the way to Ticinum, and, not leaving the body, had entered the city together with it; the images of the Claudii and Julii were ranged about the bier; he was wept for in the Forum, praised from the Rostra, all that the ancestors had devised or later ages had invented heaped upon him: but to Germanicus had not fallen even the customary honors owed to any noble. Granted that his body, because of the length of the journey, had been cremated as it might be in foreign lands: but the more distinctions should fittingly have been paid him afterward, the more the first chance had denied. His brother had gone but one day’s road to meet him, his uncle not even as far as the gate. Where were those institutions of the ancients—the effigy set out upon the couch, the songs studied to the memory of valor, the eulogies and tears, or at least the imitations of grief?

Fuere qui publici funeris pompam requirerent compararentque quae in Drusum patrem Germanici honora et magnifica Augustus fecisset. ipsum quippe asperrimo hiemis Ticinum usque progressum neque abscedentem a corpore simul urbem intravisse; circumfusas lecto Claudiorum Iuliorumque imagines; defletum in foro, laudatum pro rostris, cuncta a maioribus reperta aut quae posteri invenerint cumulata: at Germanico ne solitos quidem et cuicumque nobili debitos honores contigisse. sane corpus ob longinquitatem itinerum externis terris quoquo modo crematum: sed tanto plura decora mox tribui par fuisse quanto prima fors negavisset. non fratrem nisi unius diei via, non patruum saltem porta tenus obvium. ubi illa veterum instituta, propositam toro effigiem, meditata ad memoriam virtutis carmina et laudationes et lacrimas vel doloris imitamenta?

This was known to Tiberius; and, to press down the talk of the crowd, he warned by edict that many illustrious Romans had died for the commonwealth, none honored with so burning a longing; and that this was a fine thing both for himself and for all, if a measure were set to it. For the same things did not become leading men and an imperial people as became modest households or communities. Mourning had suited fresh grief, and consolations had been drawn from sorrow; but the mind must now be brought back to firmness, as once the deified Julius, his only daughter lost, as the deified Augustus, his grandsons snatched away, had put their sadness out of sight. There was no need of older examples—how often the Roman people had borne with constancy the slaughter of armies, the death of generals, noble families utterly lost. Princes are mortal; the commonwealth is everlasting. Therefore let them resume their accustomed observances, and—since the spectacle of the Megalesian games was at hand—take up their pleasures again as well.

Gnarum id Tiberio fuit; utque premeret vulgi sermones, monuit edicto multos inlustrium Romanorum ob rem publicam obisse, neminem tam flagranti desiderio celebratum. idque et sibi et cunctis egregium si modus adiceretur. non enim eadem decora principibus viris et imperatori populo quae modicis domibus aut civitatibus. convenisse recenti dolori luctum et ex maerore solacia; sed referendum iam animum ad firmitudinem, ut quondam divus Iulius amissa unica filia, ut divus Augustus ereptis nepotibus abstruserint tristitiam. nil opus vetustioribus exemplis, quotiens populus Romanus cladis exercituum, interitum ducum, funditus amissas nobilis familias constanter tulerit. principes mortalis, rem publicam aeternam esse. proin repeterent sollemnia, et quia ludorum Megalesium spectaculum suberat, etiam voluptates resumerent.

Then, the suspension of public business laid aside, men returned to their duties, and Drusus set out for the armies of Illyricum, with the spirits of all raised to the seeking of vengeance from Piso, and with frequent complaint that meanwhile he was roaming through the pleasant regions of Asia and Achaia, and by an arrogant and crafty delay was overturning the proofs of his crimes. For it had been put about that Martina—infamous for poisonings, sent, as I have said, by Gnaeus Sentius—had died a sudden death at Brundisium, and that poison had been hidden in a knot of her hair, with no signs found on her body of a self-inflicted death.

Tum exuto iustitio reditum ad munia, et Drusus Illyricos ad exercitus profectus est, erectis omnium animis petendae e Pisone ultionis et crebro questu, quod vagus interim per amoena Asiae atque Achaiae adroganti et subdola mora scelerum probationes subverteret. nam vulgatum erat missam, ut dixi, a Cn. Sentio famosam veneficiis Martinam subita morte Brundisii extinctam, venenumque nodo crinium eius occultatum nec ulla in corpore signa sumpti exitii reperta.

But Piso, having sent his son ahead into the city with instructions by which to soften the princeps, made for Drusus, whom he hoped to find not so much fierce at his brother’s death as the kinder toward himself, his rival removed. Tiberius, to display an impartial judgment, received the young man courteously and increased him with the generosity customary toward the sons of noble families. Drusus replied to Piso that, if the things being bandied about were true, his own place in the grief would be foremost: but that he would rather they were false and empty, and that to no one should Germanicus’s death be fatal. This he said openly, with all secrecy avoided; nor was it doubted that the words had been prescribed to him by Tiberius, since one otherwise unsubtle and easy in his youth now used an old man’s arts.

At Piso praemisso in urbem filio datisque mandatis per quae principem molliret ad Drusum pergit, quem haud fratris interitu trucem quam remoto aemulo aequiorem sibi sperabat. Tiberius quo integrum iudicium ostentaret, exceptum comiter iuvenem sueta erga filios familiarum nobilis liberalitate auget. Drusus Pisoni, si vera forent quae iacerentur, praecipuum in dolore suum locum respondit: sed malle falsa et inania nec cuiquam mortem Germanici exitiosam esse. haec palam et vitato omni secreto; neque dubitabantur praescripta ei a Tiberio, cum incallidus alioqui et facilis iuventa senilibus tum artibus uteretur.

Piso, having crossed the Dalmatian sea and left his ships at Ancona, came through Picenum and soon by the Flaminian Way to overtake a legion that was being led from Pannonia to the city and then to the garrison of Africa: and this matter was worked up by rumors—how on the march and the road he had repeatedly shown himself to the soldiers. From Narnia, whether to avoid suspicion or because the plans of the fearful are uncertain, he was carried down the Nar and soon the Tiber, and increased the anger of the crowd, because he had brought his ship to land at the tomb of the Caesars, and, in broad day and with the bank crowded, he himself with a great train of clients, and Plancina with her escort of women, advanced with cheerful faces. Among the provocations of resentment was his house, overhanging the Forum, decked out as for a festival, and a banquet and feasting, and—since the place was so frequented—nothing concealed.

Piso Delmatico mari tramisso relictisque apud Anconam navibus per Picenum ac mox Flaminiam viam adsequitur legionem, quae e Pannonia in urbem, dein praesidio Africae ducebatur: eaque res agitata rumoribus ut in agmine atque itinere crebro se militibus ostentavisset. ab Narnia, vitandae suspicionis an quia pavidis consilia in incerto sunt, Nare ac mox Tiberi devectus auxit vulgi iras, quia navem tumulo Caesarum adpulerat dieque et ripa frequenti, magno clientium agmine ipse, feminarum comi- tatu Plancina et vultu alacres incessere. fuit inter inritamenta invidiae domus foro imminens festa ornatu conviviumque et epulae et celebritate loci nihil occultum.

On the next day Fulcinius Trio prosecuted Piso before the consuls. Against this Vitellius and Veranius and the rest who had accompanied Germanicus pressed their claim, that Trio had no part in it; and that they themselves would come forward not as accusers but as informers of the facts and as witnesses, to carry out Germanicus’s charge. He, abandoning the prosecution on that count, obtained leave to accuse the earlier life; and the princeps was asked to take up the inquiry. To this not even the defendant objected, fearing the partisanship of the people and the senators: whereas Tiberius, he reckoned, was strong in despising rumors and bound up in his mother’s complicity; and truths, or things believed for the worse, were more easily distinguished by a single judge, while hatred and ill-will held sway among the many. The weight of the inquiry did not escape Tiberius, nor by what report he himself was being torn apart. So, with a few of his intimates called in, he hears the threats of the accusers and on the other side the entreaties, and remits the case whole to the Senate.

Postera die Fulcinius Trio Pisonem apud consules postulavit. contra Vitellius ac Veranius ceterique Germanicum comitati tendebant, nullas esse partis Trioni; neque se accusatores sed rerum indices et testis mandata Germanici perlaturos. ille dimissa eius causae delatione, ut priorem vitam accusaret obtinuit, petitumque est a principe cognitionem exciperet. quod ne reus quidem abnuebat, studia populi et patrum metuens: contra Tiberium spernendis rumoribus validum et conscientiae matris innexum esse; veraque aut in deterius credita iudice ab uno facilius discerni, odium et invidiam apud multos valere. haud fallebat Tiberium moles cognitionis quaque ipse fama distraheretur. igitur paucis familiarium adhibitis minas accusantium et hinc preces audit integramque causam ad senatum remittit.

And meanwhile Drusus, returning from Illyricum—although the senators had decreed that, on account of the recovery of Maroboduus and the things done the previous summer, he should enter in ovation—deferred the honor and entered the city. After this, when the defendant sought as his patrons Lucius Arruntius, Publius Vinicius, Asinius Gallus, Aeserninus Marcellus, and Sextus Pompeius, and these excused themselves on various grounds, Manius Lepidus and Lucius Piso and Livineius Regulus stood by him, the whole state on edge—how great the loyalty of Germanicus’s friends, what confidence the defendant had; whether Tiberius could sufficiently restrain and press down his feelings. Never at any other time did the people more keenly allow itself either secret speech against the princeps or a suspicious silence.

Atque interim Drusus rediens Illyrico, quamquam patres censuissent ob receptum Maroboduum et res priore aestate gestas ut ovans iniret, prolato honore urbem intravit. post quae reo L. Arruntium, P. Vinicium, Asinium Gallum, Aeserninum Marcellum, Sex. Pompeium patronos petenti iisque diversa excusantibus M’. Lepidus et L. Piso et Livineius Regulus adfuere, arrecta omni civitate, quanta fides amicis Germanici, quae fiducia reo; satin cohiberet ac premeret sensus suos Tiberius. haud alias intentior populus plus sibi in principem occultae vocis aut suspicacis silentii permisit.

On the day of the Senate Caesar delivered a speech of studied moderation. Piso had been his father’s legate and friend, and had been given by himself, on the Senate’s authority, as a helper to Germanicus for the administration of affairs in the East. Whether there he had embittered the young man by insolence and quarreling, and had rejoiced at his death, or had cut him off by crime, must be judged with open minds. ’For if a legate has cast off the bounds of his duty and his obedience toward his commander, and has rejoiced at that man’s death and at my grief, I shall hate him and set him apart from my house, and avenge private enmities without the force of a princeps: but if a crime comes to light such as ought to be punished in the killing of any mortal whatever, then do you indeed grant just consolations both to the children of Germanicus and to us, his parents. And at the same time weigh this: whether Piso handled the armies in a turbulent and seditious way, whether the soldiers’ goodwill was courted by intrigue, whether the province was sought back by arms—or whether the accusers have spread these things abroad falsely and exaggerated; for with their excessive zeal I am justly angry. For to what end was it to strip the body bare and let it be handled before the eyes of the crowd, and to spread abroad even among foreigners that he had been carried off by poison—if these matters are still uncertain and to be examined? I weep for my son, indeed, and shall always weep: but I neither forbid the defendant to bring forward everything by which his innocence may be supported, or, if there was any wrongdoing in Germanicus, it may be convicted; and I beg you not, because the cause is bound up with my grief, to take the charges laid for proven. If kinship of blood or his own loyalty has given anyone as patrons, help the man in his peril, each as far as he is strong in eloquence and in care: to the same labor, the same steadfastness, I urge the accusers. This one thing only shall we have granted to Germanicus beyond the laws, that the inquiry into his death is conducted in the senate-house rather than in the forum, before the Senate rather than before jurors: in all else let it be handled with equal restraint. Let no one regard Drusus’s tears, no one my sorrow, nor any adverse things invented against us.’

Die senatus Caesar orationem habuit meditato tem- peramento. patris sui legatum atque amicum Pisonem fuisse adiutoremque Germanico datum a se auctore senatu rebus apud Orientem administrandis. illic contumacia et certaminibus asperasset iuvenem exituque eius laetatus esset an scelere extinxisset, integris animis diiudicandum. ’nam si legatus officii terminos, obsequium erga imperatorem exuit eiusdemque morte et luctu meo laetatus est, odero seponamque a domo mea et privatas inimicitias non vi principis ulciscar: sin facinus in cuiuscumque mortalium nece vindicandum detegitur, vos vero et liberos Germanici et nos parentes iustis solaciis adficite. simulque illud reputate, turbide et seditiose tractaverit exercitus Piso, quaesita sint per ambitionem studia militum, armis repetita provincia, an falsa haec in maius vulgaverint accusatores, quorum ego nimiis studiis iure suscenseo. nam quo pertinuit nudare corpus et contrectandum vulgi oculis permittere differrique etiam per externos tamquam veneno interceptus esset, si incerta adhuc ista et scrutanda sunt? defleo equidem filium meum semperque deflebo: sed neque reum prohibeo quo minus cuncta proferat, quibus innocentia eius sublevari aut, si qua fuit iniquitas Germanici, coargui possit, vosque oro ne, quia dolori meo causa conexa est, obiecta crimina pro adprobatis accipiatis. si quos propinquus sanguis aut fides sua patronos dedit, quantum quisque eloquentia et cura valet, iuvate periclitantem: ad eundem laborem, eandem constantiam accusatores hortor. id solum Germanico super leges praestiterimus, quod in curia potius quam in foro, apud senatum quam apud iudices de morte eius anquiritur: cetera pari modestia tractentur. nemo Drusi lacrimas, nemo maestitiam meam spectet, nec si qua in nos adversa finguntur.’

Thereupon two days were appointed for laying the charges, and it was settled that, after a space of six days interposed, the defendant should be defended over three days. Then Fulcinius begins with matters old and empty—that Spain had been governed with self-seeking and greed; which, even if the defendant cleared the recent charges, was no conviction of guilt, nor, if he were held by graver offenses, was acquittal earned by the defense of it. After him Servaeus and Veranius and Vitellius, with like zeal—and Vitellius with much eloquence—charged that out of hatred for Germanicus and a passion for revolution Piso had so corrupted the common soldiery, through license and through injuries to the allies, that he was called Father of the Legions by the worst of them; that, on the other hand, he had raged against every best man, especially against the companions and friends of Germanicus; and last, that he had destroyed the man himself by spells and poison; thence the unspeakable rites and sacrifices of himself and Plancina, the commonwealth assailed by arms, and that, to be brought to trial at all, he had been defeated in the field.

Exim biduum criminibus obiciendis statuitur utque sex dierum spatio interiecto reus per triduum defenderetur. tum Fulcinius vetera et inania orditur, ambitiose avareque habitam Hispaniam; quod neque convictum noxae reo si recentia purgaret, neque defensum absolutioni erat si teneretur maioribus flagitiis. post quem Servaeus et Veranius et Vitellius consimili studio et multa eloquentia Vitellius obiecere odio Germanici et rerum novarum studio Pisonem vulgus militum per licentiam et sociorum iniurias eo usque conrupisse ut parens legionum a deterrimis appellaretur; contra in optimum quemque, maxime in comites et amicos Germanici saevisse; postremo ipsum devotionibus et veneno peremisse; sacra hinc et immolationes nefandas ipsius atque Plancinae, petitam armis rem publicam, utque reus agi posset, acie victum.

The defense faltered on the rest; for he could deny neither the courting of the soldiery, nor the province’s being made over to every worst man, nor even the insults against his commander: the charge of poison alone he seemed to have washed away, which not even the accusers firmly established—alleging that at a dinner of Germanicus, with Piso reclining above him, the food had been tainted by his own hands. For it seemed absurd that, among another’s slaves, in the sight of so many bystanders, with Germanicus himself present, he should have dared this; and the defendant offered his household and demanded that the servants be put to the torture. But the judges were implacable on different grounds—Caesar because war had been brought upon a province, the Senate because it never sufficiently believed that Germanicus had perished without treachery. They kept demanding that the letters be produced, which Tiberius no less than Piso refused. At the same time the cries of the people were heard before the senate-house: they would not keep their hands off him if he escaped the senators’ votes. And they had dragged Piso’s images to the Gemonian Steps and were tearing them apart, had they not by the princeps’s order been protected and put back. So he was placed in a litter and led off by a tribune of the praetorian cohort, while rumor varied whether the guard that followed was for his safety or to exact his death.

Defensio in ceteris trepidavit; nam neque ambitionem militarem neque provinciam pessimo cuique obnoxiam, ne contumelias quidem adversum imperatorem infitiari poterat: solum veneni crimen visus est diluisse, quod ne accusatores quidem satis firmabant, in convivio Germanici, cum super eum Piso discumberet, infectos manibus eius cibos arguentes. quippe absurdum videbatur inter aliena servitia et tot adstantium visu, ipso Germanico coram, id ausum; offerebatque familiam reus et ministros in tormenta flagitabat. sed iudices per diversa implacabiles erant, Caesar ob bellum provinciae inlatum, senatus numquam satis credito sine fraude Germanicum interisse.scripsissent expostulantes, quod haud minus Tiberius quam Piso abnuere. simul populi ante curiam voces audiebantur: non temperaturos manibus si patrum sententias evasisset. effigiesque Pisonis traxerant in Gemonias ac divellebant, ni iussu principis protectae repositaeque forent. igitur inditus lecticae et a tribuno praetoriae cohortis deductus est vario rumore custos saluti an mortis exactor sequeretur.

Plancina shared the same ill-will, but had greater favor; and so it was held doubtful how far Caesar might be allowed against her. And she herself, while Piso’s hopes hung in the middle, kept promising to be the partner of whatever fortune, and, if it should so fall out, the companion of his ruin: but when, by the secret entreaties of Augusta, she had obtained pardon, she began little by little to draw apart from her husband and to divide her defense. When the defendant grasped that this was fatal to himself, doubting whether to try further, at his sons’ urging he hardens his resolve and enters the Senate again; and, having endured the renewed accusation, the hostile voices of the senators, everything adverse and savage, he was terrified by nothing more than that he saw Tiberius without pity, without anger, obstinate and shut up, lest he be broken through by any feeling. Carried back home, as though he were planning his defense for the next day, he writes a few words, seals them, and hands them to a freedman; then he performs the usual care of his body. Then, late in the night, his wife having left the bedroom, he ordered the doors shut; and at first light he was found with his throat pierced, a sword lying on the ground.

Eadem Plancinae invidia, maior gratia; eoque ambiguum habebatur quantum Caesari in eam liceret. atque ipsa, donec mediae Pisoni spes, sociam se cuiuscumque fortunae et si ita ferret comitem exitii promittebat: ut secretis Augustae precibus veniam obtinuit, paulatim segregari a marito, dividere defensionem coepit. quod reus postquam sibi exitiabile intellegit, an adhuc experiretur dubitans, hortantibus filiis durat mentem senatumque rursum ingreditur; redintegratamque accusationem, infensas patrum voces, adversa et saeva cuncta perpessus, nullo magis exterritus est quam quod Tiberium sine miseratione, sine ira, obstinatum clausumque vidit, ne quo adfectu perrumperetur. relatus domum, tamquam defensionem in posterum meditaretur, pauca conscribit obsignatque et liberto tradit; tum solita curando corpori exequitur. dein multam post noctem, egressa cubiculo uxore, operiri foris iussit; et coepta luce perfosso iugulo, iacente humi gladio, repertus est.

I remember hearing from my elders that a document was often seen in Piso’s hands which he himself never made public; but that his friends kept asserting it contained letters of Tiberius and instructions against Germanicus, and that he was resolved to produce them before the senators and to charge the princeps, had he not been deluded by Sejanus through empty promises; and that he had not died by his own will but by a sent assassin. Neither of these would I affirm: yet I ought not to conceal what was told by those who lasted into my own youth. Caesar, his face bent into sorrow, complained to the Senate that ill-will against himself had been courted by such a death, and with frequent questions inquired how Piso had passed his last day and night. And when the other answered most things wisely, some rather imprudently, he reads out a note composed by Piso in roughly this manner: ’Overwhelmed by the conspiracy of my enemies and the ill-will of a false charge, since there is nowhere any place for my truth and innocence, I call the immortal gods to witness that I have lived, Caesar, in good faith toward you, and with no other piety toward your mother; and I beg you to take thought for my children, of whom Gnaeus Piso is bound to no fortune of mine, whatever it be, since he has spent all this time in the city, while Marcus Piso dissuaded me from returning to Syria. And would that I had yielded to my young son rather than he to his old father. The more earnestly therefore do I pray that he, guiltless, may not pay the penalty of my own depravity. By forty-five years of obedience, by the colleagueship of the consulship, once approved by the deified Augustus your father and a friend to you, and about to ask nothing after this, I ask the safety of my unhappy son.’ About Plancina he added nothing.

Audire me memini ex senioribus visum saepius inter manus Pisonis libellum quem ipse non vulgaverit; sed amicos eius dictitavisse, litteras Tiberii et mandata in Germanicum contineri, ac destinatum promere apud patres principemque arguere, ni elusus a Seiano per vana promissa foret; nec illum sponte extinctum verum immisso percussore. quorum neutrum adseveraverim: neque tamen occulere debui narratum ab iis qui nostram ad iuventam duraverunt. Caesar flexo in maestitiam ore suam invidiam tali morte quaesitam apud senatum crebrisque interrogationibus exquirit qualem Piso diem supremum noctemque exegisset. atque illo pleraque sapienter quaedam inconsultius respondente, recitat codicillos a Pisone in hunc ferme modum compositos: ’conspiratione inimicorum et invidia falsi criminis oppressus, quatenus veritati et innocentiae meae nusquam locus est, deos inmortalis testor vixisse me, Caesar, cum fide adversum te neque alia in matrem tuam pietate; vosque oro liberis meis consulatis, ex quibus Cn. Piso qualicumque fortunae meae non est adiunctus, cum omne hoc tempus in urbe egerit, M. Piso repetere Syriam dehortatus est. atque utinam ego potius filio iuveni quam ille patri seni cessisset. eo impensius precor ne meae pravitatis poenas innoxius luat. per quinque et quadraginta annorum obsequium, per collegium consulatus quondam divo Augusto parenti tuo probatus et tibi amicus nec quicquam post haec rogaturus salutem infelicis filii rogo.’ de Plancina nihil addidit.

After this Tiberius cleared the young man of the charge of civil war—since a son could not have refused his father’s orders—pitying at the same time the nobility of the house, and even Piso’s own heavy fall, however he had deserved it. For Plancina he spoke with shame and disgrace, holding out his mother’s entreaties—against whom the secret complaints of every best man burned the more. So it was lawful, then, for a grandmother to look upon, to address, to snatch from the Senate the murderess of her grandson. What the laws secured for all citizens had alone not fallen to Germanicus. By the voice of Vitellius and Veranius Caesar had been mourned; by the emperor and Augusta, Plancina had been defended. Let her, then, turn her poisons and her arts, so happily tried, against Agrippina, against her children, and sate that excellent grandmother and uncle with the blood of a most wretched house. Two days were consumed over this likeness of an inquiry, with Tiberius urging Piso’s sons to protect their mother. And when accusers and witnesses pleaded in rivalry, with no one answering, pity grew rather than ill-will. The first asked his opinion, the consul Aurelius Cotta—for when Caesar laid the matter, the magistrates discharged that duty too—proposed that Piso’s name be erased from the calendar, part of his goods confiscated, part granted to his son Gnaeus Piso, who should change his forename; that Marcus Piso, stripped of his rank and given five million sesterces, be banished for ten years, Plancina’s safety being conceded on account of Augusta’s entreaties.

Post quae Tiberius adulescentem crimine civilis belli purgavit, patris quippe iussa nec potuisse filium detrectare, simul nobilitatem domus, etiam ipsius quoquo modo meriti gravem casum miseratus. pro Plancina cum pudore et flagitio disseruit, matris preces obtendens, in quam optimi cuiusque secreti questus magis ardescebant. id ergo fas aviae interfectricem nepotis adspicere, adloqui, eripere senatui. quod pro omnibus civibus leges obtineant uni Germanico non contigisse. Vitellii et Veranii voce defletum Caesarem, ab imperatore et Augusta defensam Plancinam. proinde venena et artes tam feliciter expertas verteret in Agrippinam, in liberos eius, egregiamque aviam ac patruum sanguine miserrimae domus exsatiaret. biduum super hac imagine cognitionis absumptum, urgente Tiberio liberos Pisonis matrem uti tuerentur. et cum accusatores ac testes certatim perorarent respondente nullo, miseratio quam invidia augebatur. primus sententiam rogatus Aurelius Cotta consul (nam referente Caesare magistratus eo etiam munere fungebantur) nomen Pisonis radendum fastis censuit, partem bonorum publicandam, pars ut Cn. Pisoni filio concederetur isque praenomen mutaret; M. Piso exuta dignitate et accepto quinquagies sestertio in decem annos relegaretur, concessa Plancinae incolumitate ob preces Augustae.

Many things in that proposal were softened by the princeps: that Piso’s name should not be struck from the calendar, since those of Mark Antony, who had made war on the fatherland, and of Iullus Antonius, who had violated the house of Augustus, remained. And he exempted Marcus Piso from the disgrace and granted him his father’s goods, being firm enough, as I have often recorded, against money, and then the more placable from shame at Plancina’s acquittal. And likewise, when Valerius Messalinus proposed that a golden statue be set up in the temple of Mars the Avenger, and Caecina Severus an altar to Vengeance, he forbade it, declaring repeatedly that such things were consecrated for foreign victories, but that domestic ills must be covered over in sadness. Messalinus had added that thanks should be rendered to Tiberius and Augusta and Antonia and Agrippina and Drusus for the avenging of Germanicus, and had omitted any mention of Claudius. And Messalinus indeed Lucius Asprenas asked, in the Senate’s presence, whether he had passed him over on purpose; and only then was the name of Claudius added. To me, the more I turn over events recent or old, the more the mockeries of mortal affairs present themselves in every undertaking. For by repute, by hope, by veneration, all men were marked out for empire rather than he whom fortune was keeping hidden to be the future princeps.

Multa ex ea sententia mitigata sunt a principe: ne nomen Pisonis fastis eximeretur, quando M. Antonii qui bellum patriae fecisset, Iulli Antonii qui domum Augusti violasset, manerent. et M. Pisonem ignominiae exemit concessitque ei paterna bona, satis firmus, ut saepe memoravi, adversum pecuniam et tum pudore absolutae Plancinae placabilior. atque idem, cum Valerius Messalinus signum aureum in aede Martis Vltoris, Caecina Severus aram ultioni statuendam censuissent, prohibuit, ob externas ea victorias sacrari dictitans, domestica mala tristitia operienda. addiderat Messalinus Tiberio et Augustae et Antoniae et Agrippinae Drusoque ob vindictam Germanici gratis agendas omiseratque Claudii mentionem. et Messalinum quidem L. Asprenas senatu coram percontatus est an prudens praeterisset; ac tum demum nomen Claudii adscriptum est. mihi quanto plura recentium seu veterum revolvo tanto magis ludibria rerum mortalium cunctis in negotiis obversantur. quippe fama spe veneratione potius omnes destinabantur imperio quam quem futurum principem fortuna in occulto tenebat.

A few days later Caesar moved the Senate that priesthoods be conferred on Vitellius and Veranius and Servaeus: to Fulcinius, promising his vote toward honors, he warned not to ruin his eloquence by violence. This was the end of avenging Germanicus’s death—a matter bandied about with varying rumor not only among the men then living but in later times as well. So far are the greatest matters ambiguous, while some hold whatever they have heard, however come by, for established fact, and others turn truths into their opposite, and each grows with posterity. But Drusus, having gone out of the city to renew the auspices, soon entered in ovation. And a few days after, his mother Vipsania died, alone of all Agrippa’s children with a gentle death: for the rest, it is plain or believed, were destroyed by the sword or by poison or by starvation.

Paucis post diebus Caesar auctor senatui fuit Vitellio atque Veranio et Servaeo sacerdotia tribuendi: Fulcinio suffragium ad honores pollicitus monuit ne facundiam violentia praecipitaret. is finis fuit ulciscenda Germanici morte, non modo apud illos homines qui tum agebant etiam secutis temporibus vario rumore iactata. adeo maxima quaeque ambigua sunt, dum alii quoquo modo audita pro compertis habent, alii vera in contrarium vertunt, et gliscit utrumque posteritate. at Drusus urbe egressus repetendis auspiciis mox ovans introiit. paucosque post dies Vipsania mater eius excessit, una omnium Agrippae liberorum miti obitu: nam ceteros manifestum ferro vel creditum est veneno aut fame extinctos.

In the same year Tacfarinas, whom I have recorded as routed by Camillus the summer before, renews the war in Africa, first with roving raids and, because of his swiftness, unavenged; then he razes villages and drags off heavy plunder; at last, not far from the river Pagyda, he beset a Roman cohort. Decrius commanded the fort, vigorous of hand, practiced in soldiering, and reckoning that siege a disgrace. Having exhorted his men, that he might make a chance of battle in the open, he draws up his line before the camp. And when at the first charge the cohort was driven back, he runs forward, ready, amid the weapons to meet the fleeing, and rails at the standard-bearers that a Roman soldier should turn his back to raw recruits and deserters; at the same time he takes wounds, and, though his eye was pierced through, he set his face full against the enemy and did not give up the fight until, abandoned by his own, he fell.

Eodem anno Tacfarinas, quem priore aestate pulsum a Camillo memoravi, bellum in Africa renovat, vagis primum populationibus et ob pernicitatem inultis, dein vicos excindere, trahere gravis praedas; postremo haud procul Pagyda flumine cohortem Romanam circumsedit. praeerat castello Decrius impiger manu, exercitus militia et illam obsidionem flagitii ratus. is cohortatus milites, ut copiam pugnae in aperto faceret aciem pro castris instruit. primoque impetu pulsa cohorte promptus inter tela occursat fugientibus, increpat signiferos quod inconditis aut desertoribus miles Romanus terga daret; simul exceptat vulnera et quamquam transfosso oculo adversum os in hostem intendit neque proelium omisit donec desertus suis caderet.

When this was learned by Lucius Apronius (for he had succeeded Camillus), more anxious at his men’s disgrace than at the enemy’s glory, by a deed rare in that age and drawn from old memory, he had every tenth man of the dishonored cohort, picked by lot, beaten to death with the rod. And so much was gained by severity that a detachment of veterans, no more than five hundred in number, routed those same forces of Tacfarinas when they attacked a garrison named Thala. In that fight Helvius Rufus, a common soldier, won the honor of having saved a citizen, and was presented by Apronius with neck-chains and a spear. Caesar added the civic crown, complaining—more than offended—that Apronius had not, by his proconsul’s right, bestowed that too. But Tacfarinas, the Numidians dismayed and spurning sieges, scatters the war, giving way where he was pressed and again wheeling at their backs. And while that was the barbarian’s method, he mocked the baffled and wearied Roman with impunity: after he turned aside to the coastal regions, hampered by plunder he clung to a standing camp, and Apronius Caesianus, sent by his father with cavalry and auxiliary cohorts, to whom he had added the swiftest of the legions, makes a successful battle against the Numidians and drives them into the desert.

Quae postquam L. Apronio (nam Camillo successerat) comperta, magis dedecore suorum quam gloria hostis anxius, raro ea tempestate et e vetere memoria facinore decumum quemque ignominiosae cohortis sorte ductos fusti necat. tantumque severitate profectum ut vexillum veteranorum, non amplius quingenti numero, easdem Tacfarinatis copias praesidium cui Thala nomen adgressas fude- rint. quo proelio Rufus Helvius gregarius miles servati civis decus rettulit donatusque est ab Apronio torquibus et hasta. Caesar addidit civicam coronam, quod non eam quoque Apronius iure proconsulis tribuisset questus magis quam offensus. sed Tacfarinas perculsis Numidis et obsidia aspernantibus spargit bellum, ubi instaretur cedens ac rursum in terga remeans. et dum ea ratio barbaro fuit, inritum fessumque Romanum impune ludificabatur: postquam deflexit ad maritimos locos, inligatus praeda stativis castris adhaerebat, missu patris Apronius Caesianus cum equite et cohortibus auxiliariis, quis velocissimos legionum addiderat, prosperam adversum Numidas pugnam facit pellitque in deserta.

But at Rome Lepida—who besides the glory of the Aemilii had Lucius Sulla and Gnaeus Pompeius for great-grandfathers—was charged with having feigned a childbirth by Publius Quirinius, rich and childless. There were added adulteries, poisonings, and inquiry made through the Chaldeans against the house of Caesar, her brother Manius Lepidus defending the accused. Quirinius, still hostile after the divorce he had pronounced, had added pity even to a woman however infamous and guilty. One could not easily have made out the mind of the princeps in that inquiry: so did he turn about and mingle the signs of anger and of clemency. Having first begged the Senate that charges of treason not be handled, he soon enticed Marcus Servilius, of the consulars, and other witnesses to bring forward the very things he had seemed to wish thrown out. And likewise he transferred Lepida’s slaves, who were held in military custody, to the consuls, and would not suffer them to be questioned under torture about matters that touched his own house. He also exempted Drusus, consul-designate, from speaking his opinion first; which some thought constitutional—that there be no necessity for the rest to agree—while certain men dragged it toward cruelty: for he would not have yielded except for the duty of condemning.

At Romae Lepida, cui super Aemiliorum decus L. Sulla et Cn. Pompeius proavi erant, defertur simulavisse partum ex P. Quirinio divite atque orbo. adiciebantur adulteria venena quaesitumque per Chaldaeos in domum Caesaris, defendente ream Manio Lepido fratre. Quirinius post dictum repudium adhuc infensus quamvis infami ac nocenti miserationem addiderat. haud facile quis dispexerit illa in cognitione mentem principis: adeo vertit ac miscuit irae et clementiae signa. deprecatus primo senatum ne maiestatis crimina tractarentur, mox M. Servilium e consularibus aliosque testis inlexit ad proferenda quae velut reicere voluerat. idemque servos Lepidae, cum militari custodia haberentur, transtulit ad consules neque per tormenta interrogari passus est de iis quae ad domum suam pertinerent. exemit etiam Drusum consulem designatum dicendae primo loco sententiae; quod alii civile rebantur, ne ceteris adsentiendi necessitas fieret, quidam ad saevitiam trahebant: neque enim cessurum nisi damnandi officio.

Lepida, on the days of the games that had interrupted the inquiry, entered the theater with women of rank, and, with tearful lamentation calling on her ancestors and Pompey himself—whose monuments these were and whose images stood by—stirred so much pity that men, dissolved in tears, kept crying out savage and cursing things against Quirinius, to whose old age and childlessness and most obscure house she was being handed over—she once destined as wife to Lucius Caesar and as daughter-in-law to the deified Augustus. Then by the torture of the slaves her crimes were laid bare, and the motion of Rubellius Blandus was carried, by which she was barred from water and fire. To this Drusus assented, although others had proposed more mildly. Soon, for the sake of Scaurus, who had begotten a daughter by her, it was granted that her goods not be confiscated. Then at last Tiberius disclosed that it had been established for him, even from Publius Quirinius’s slaves, that Lepida had sought his death by poison.

Lepida ludorum diebus qui cognitionem intervene- rant theatrum cum claris feminis ingressa, lamentatione flebili maiores suos ciens ipsumque Pompeium, cuius ea monimenta et adstantes imagines visebantur, tantum misericordiae permovit ut effusi in lacrimas saeva et detestanda Quirinio clamitarent, cuius senectae atque orbitati et obscurissimae domui destinata quondam uxor L. Caesari ac divo Augusto nurus dederetur. dein tormentis servorum patefacta sunt flagitia itumque in sententiam Rubelli Blandi a quo aqua atque igni arcebatur. huic Drusus adsensit quamquam alii mitius censuissent. mox Scauro, qui filiam ex ea genuerat, datum ne bona publicarentur. tum demum aperuit Tiberius compertum sibi etiam ex P. Quirinii servis veneno eum a Lepida petitum.

The reverses of illustrious houses—for at no great interval the Calpurnii had lost Piso, the Aemilii Lepida—were relieved by Decimus Silanus, restored to the Junian family. I shall recount his case in few words. As the deified Augustus’s fortune was strong in public affairs, so at home it was unprosperous, on account of the unchastity of his daughter and his granddaughter, whom he drove from the city, and punished their adulterers with death or flight. For, calling a fault common between men and women by the grave name of violated religion and outraged majesty, he went beyond the clemency of the ancients and his own laws. But I shall record the ends of others, together with the rest of that age, if, having accomplished what I have set out to do, I prolong my life to further cares. Decimus Silanus, the adulterer of Augustus’s granddaughter, although nothing harsher was done to him than to be barred from Caesar’s friendship, understood that exile was being pointed out, and did not dare, until Tiberius’s rule, to entreat the Senate and the princeps—relying on the power of his brother Marcus Silanus, who excelled by his conspicuous nobility and eloquence. But Tiberius answered Silanus, as he gave thanks before the senators, that he too was glad his brother had returned from a long sojourn abroad, and that this was lawfully allowed because the man had been driven out by no decree of the Senate, by no law: that for himself, however, his father’s grievances against him stood whole, and that by Silanus’s return what Augustus had willed was not undone. Thereafter he lived in the city but obtained no offices.

Inlustrium domuum adversa (etenim haud multum distanti tempore Calpurnii Pisonem, Aemilii Lepidam amiserant) solacio adfecit D. Silanus Iuniae familiae redditus. casum eius paucis repetam. ut valida divo Augusto in rem publicam fortuna ita domi improspera fuit ob impudicitiam filiae ac neptis quas urbe depulit, adulterosque earum morte aut fuga punivit. nam culpam inter viros ac feminas vulgatam gravi nomine laesarum religionum ac violatae maiestatis appellando clementiam maiorum suasque ipse leges egrediebatur. sed aliorum exitus simul cetera illius aetatis memorabo si effectis in quae tetendi plures ad curas vitam produxero. D. Silanus in nepti Augusti adulter, quamquam non ultra foret saevitum quam ut amicitia Caesaris prohiberetur, exilium sibi demonstrari intellexit, nec nisi Tiberio imperitante deprecari senatum ac principem ausus est M. Silani fratris potentia, qui per insignem nobilitatem et eloquentiam praecellebat. sed Tiberius gratis agenti Silano patribus coram respondit se quoque laetari quod frater eius e peregrinatione longinqua revertisset, idque iure licitum quia non senatus consulto non lege pulsus foret: sibi tamen adversus eum integras parentis sui offensiones neque reditu Silani dissoluta quae Augustus voluisset. fuit posthac in urbe neque honores adeptus est.

It was then brought forward concerning the tempering of the Papia Poppaea law, which the aged Augustus had enacted after the Julian bills, to sharpen the penalties of the unmarried and to swell the treasury. Nor for that were marriages and the rearing of children any more frequent, childlessness prevailing: but the multitude of those in peril kept growing, since every house was undermined by the interpretations of informers; and as before it had labored under crimes, so now it labored under laws. This matter prompts me to discourse more deeply on the beginnings of law and by what stages it has come to this boundless number and variety of statutes.

Relatum dein de moderanda Papia Poppaea, quam senior Augustus post Iulias rogationes incitandis caelibum poenis et augendo aerario sanxerat. nec ideo coniugia et educationes liberum frequentabantur praevalida orbitate: ceterum multitudo periclitantium gliscebat, cum omnis domus delatorum interpretationibus subverteretur, utque antehac flagitiis ita tunc legibus laborabatur. ea res admonet ut de principiis iuris et quibus modis ad hanc multitudinem infinitam ac varietatem legum perventum sit altius disseram.

The most ancient of mortals, with as yet no evil lust, lived without reproach, without crime, and therefore without punishment or restraints. Nor was there need of rewards, when honorable things were sought of their own nature; and where they desired nothing against custom, they were forbidden nothing through fear. But after equality was cast off, and ambition and force came in place of restraint and modesty, masteries arose, and among many peoples remained forever. Some, at once or after they had wearied of kings, preferred laws. These at first, while men’s minds were still rude, were simple; and fame celebrated most those of the Cretans, which Minos laid down, those of the Spartans, which Lycurgus, and soon those—more elaborate now and more numerous—which Solon wrote out for the Athenians. To us Romulus had ruled as he pleased: then Numa bound the people with religious observances and divine law, and certain things were devised by Tullus and Ancus. But the chief sanctioner of laws was Servius Tullius, whom even kings obeyed.

Vetustissimi mortalium, nulla adhuc mala libidine, sine probro, scelere eoque sine poena aut coercitionibus agebant. neque praemiis opus erat cum honesta suopte ingenio peterentur; et ubi nihil contra morem cuperent, nihil per metum vetabantur. at postquam exui aequalitas et pro modestia ac pudore ambitio et vis incedebat, provenere dominationes multosque apud populos aeternum mansere. quidam statim aut postquam regum pertaesum leges maluerunt. hae primo rudibus hominum animis simplices erant; maximeque fama celebravit Cretensium, quas Minos, Spartanorum, quas Lycurgus, ac mox Atheniensibus quaesitiores iam et plures Solo perscripsit. nobis Romulus ut libitum imperitaverat: dein Numa religionibus et divino iure populum devinxit, repertaque quaedam a Tullo et Anco. sed praecipuus Servius Tullius sanctor legum fuit quis etiam reges obtemperarent.

Tarquin being driven out, the people, against the factions of the senators, devised many things for the guarding of liberty and the strengthening of concord, and decemvirs were created, and—what was excellent anywhere being gathered—the Twelve Tables were composed, the end of equal law. For the laws that followed, though sometimes against evildoers for an offense, were more often carried by violence, amid the discord of the orders, and for the gaining of unlawful honors, or the driving out of distinguished men, and for other perverse ends. Hence the Gracchi and the Saturnini, disturbers of the plebs, and no lesser a largesse-giver in the Senate’s name, Drusus; the allies corrupted by hope or mocked by the veto. And not even in the Italian war, soon the civil, was there any ceasing to enact many and diverse things, until Lucius Sulla the dictator, having abolished or reversed the earlier laws and added more, secured a quiet in that matter for no long time, since at once came the turbulent bills of Lepidus, and not much later the license restored to the tribunes of stirring up the people whichever way they would. And now inquiries were brought not only against the community but against single men, and, the commonwealth being most corrupt, the laws were most numerous.

Pulso Tarquinio adversum patrum factiones multa populus paravit tuendae libertatis et firmandae concordiae, creatique decemviri et accitis quae usquam egregia compositae duodecim tabulae, finis aequi iuris. nam secutae leges etsi aliquando in maleficos ex delicto, saepius tamen dissensione ordinum et apiscendi inlicitos honores aut pellendi claros viros aliaque ob prava per vim latae sunt. hinc Gracchi et Saturnini turbatores plebis nec minor largitor nomine senatus Drusus; corrupti spe aut inlusi per intercessionem socii. ac ne bello quidem Italico, mox civili omissum quin multa et diversa sciscerentur, donec L. Sulla dictator abolitis vel conversis prioribus, cum plura addidisset, otium eius rei haud in longum paravit, statim turbidis Lepidi rogationibus neque multo post tribunis reddita licentia quoquo vellent populum agitandi. iamque non modo in commune sed in singulos homines latae quaestiones, et corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.

Then Gnaeus Pompeius, chosen consul for the third time to correct morals, and heavier in his remedies than the offenses were, the author and at once the subverter of his own laws, lost by arms what by arms he was protecting. Thereafter, for twenty years, came continuous discord—no custom, no law; the worst deeds went unpunished, and many honorable men were ruined. At last, in his sixth consulship, Caesar Augustus, secure in his power, abolished what he had ordered as triumvir, and gave us the laws by which we might live under peace and a princeps. From then the bonds were sharper, guardians were set over us, and by the Papia Poppaea law men were drawn on by rewards, so that, if the privileges of parenthood were forgone, the people, as the parent of all, should hold the vacant inheritances. But they pressed in more deeply, and had laid hold of the city and Italy and whatever of citizens was anywhere, and the standing of many was destroyed. And terror was held over all, had not Tiberius, to set a remedy, drawn by lot five of the consulars, five of the ex-praetors, and as many of the rest of the Senate, before whom most of the law’s knots, untied, were a moderate relief for the present.

Tum Cn. Pompeius, tertium consul corrigendis moribus delectus et gravior remediis quam delicta erant suarumque legum auctor idem ac subversor, quae armis tuebatur armis amisit. exim continua per viginti annos discordia, non mos, non ius; deterrima quaeque impune ac multa honesta exitio fuere. sexto demum consulatu Caesar Augustus, potentiae securus, quae triumviratu iusserat abolevit deditque iura quis pace et principe uteremur. acriora ex eo vincla, inditi custodes et lege Papia Poppaea praemiis inducti ut, si a privilegiis parentum cessaretur, velut parens omnium populus vacantia teneret. sed altius penetrabant urbemque et Italiam et quod usquam civium corripuerant, multorumque excisi status. et terror omnibus intentabatur ni Tiberius statuendo remedio quinque consularium, quinque e praetoriis, totidem e cetero senatu sorte duxisset apud quos exsoluti plerique legis nexus modicum in praesens levamentum fuere.

About the same time he commended to the senators Nero, one of Germanicus’s children, who had now entered young manhood, and asked—not without the laughter of his hearers—that he be released from the duty of holding the office of the Twenty Men, and that he seek the quaestorship five years earlier than the laws allowed. He alleged that the same things had been decreed for himself and his brother at Augustus’s request. But neither would I doubt that there were then men who secretly mocked such entreaties: and yet the Caesars’ rise to eminence was then beginning, the old custom was more before men’s eyes, and the bond of stepsons with a stepfather was lighter than that of a grandfather toward a grandson. A pontificate is added, and on the day he first entered the forum a largess was given to a plebs very glad that it now beheld Germanicus’s stock grown to manhood. The joy was then increased by the marriage of Nero and Julia, Drusus’s daughter. And as this was received with favoring rumor, so it was received with adverse minds that Sejanus was being designated father-in-law to the son of Claudius. He seemed to have defiled the nobility of the family, and to have raised up Sejanus, already suspect of an excessive hope, beyond his station.

Per idem tempus Neronem e liberis Germanici iam ingressum iuventam commendavit patribus, utque munere capessendi vigintiviratus solveretur et quinquennio maturius quam per leges quaesturam peteret non sine inrisu audientium postulavit. praetendebat sibi atque fratri decreta eadem petente Augusto. sed neque tum fuisse dubitaverim qui eius modi preces occulti inluderent: ac tamen initia fastigii Caesaribus erant magisque in oculis vetus mos, et privignis cum vitrico levior necessitudo quam avo adversum nepotem. additur pontificatus et quo primum die forum ingressus est congiarium plebi admodum laetae quod Germanici stirpem iam puberem aspiciebat. auctum dehinc gaudium nuptiis Neronis et Iuliae Drusi filiae. utque haec secundo rumore ita adversis animis acceptum quod filio Claudii socer Seianus destinaretur. polluisse nobilitatem familiae videbatur suspectumque iam nimiae spei Seianum ultra extulisse.

At the year’s end there passed from life the distinguished men Lucius Volusius and Sallustius Crispus. Volusius’s family was old, yet had not gone beyond the praetorship: he himself brought in the consulship, and discharged the censorial power too in choosing the decuries of the knights, and was the first accumulator of the wealth by which that house flourished immensely. Crispus, sprung of equestrian rank, Gaius Sallustius—the most flourishing author of Roman history—adopted into his name as his sister’s grandson. And he, though the approach to the gaining of honors lay open, in rivalry of Maecenas, without senatorial rank, outstripped in power many who had won triumphs and consulships, differing from the institution of the ancients in elegance and refinement, and nearer to luxury in his abundance and affluence. Yet beneath lay a vigor of mind equal to vast affairs, the keener the more he made a show of sleep and idleness. So, while Maecenas was unhurt, he was next; soon foremost, the man on whom the emperors’ secrets rested, and privy to the killing of Agrippa Postumus; in advanced age he held the appearance of the princeps’s friendship rather than its force. And the same had befallen Maecenas—it being the fate of power rarely to be everlasting—or else satiety takes hold, either of the rulers when they have granted everything, or of these men when there is now nothing left to desire.

Fine anni concessere vita insignes viri L. Volusius et Sallustius Crispus. Volusio vetus familia neque tamen praeturam egressa: ipse consulatum intulit, censoria etiam potestate legendis equitum decuriis functus, opumque quis domus illa immensum viguit primus adcumulator. Crispum equestri ortum loco C. Sallustius, rerum Romanarum florentissimus auctor, sororis nepotem in nomen adscivit. atque ille, quamquam prompto ad capessendos honores aditu, Maecenatem aemulatus sine dignitate senatoria multos triumphalium consulariumque potentia antiit, diversus a veterum instituto per cultum et munditias copiaque et affluentia luxu propior. suberat tamen vigor animi ingentibus negotiis par, eo acrior quo somnum et inertiam magis osten- tabat. igitur incolumi Maecenate proximus, mox praecipuus, cui secreta imperatorum inniterentur, et interficiendi Postumi Agrippae conscius, aetate provecta speciem magis in amicitia principis quam vim tenuit. idque et Maecenati acciderat, fato potentiae raro sempiternae, an satias capit aut illos cum omnia tribuerunt aut hos cum iam nihil reliquum est quod cupiant.

There follows the fourth consulship of Tiberius, the second of Drusus, notable for the colleagueship of father and son. For three years before, the same honor of Germanicus with Tiberius had been neither welcome to the uncle nor so closely joined by nature. At that year’s beginning Tiberius withdrew into Campania, as if to strengthen his health, gradually meditating a long and continuous absence—or that, his father removed, Drusus alone might fill the duties of the consulship. And by chance a small affair, advanced to a great contest, furnished the young man material for winning favor. Domitius Corbulo, an ex-praetor, complained to the Senate about Lucius Sulla, a noble youth, that at a gladiatorial show he had not yielded him his place. For Corbulo there were his age, ancestral custom, and the zeal of the elders: against him strove Mamercus Scaurus and Lucius Arruntius and other kinsmen of Sulla. And they contended in speeches, and the examples of the ancestors were recalled, who had branded the irreverence of youth with grave decrees, until Drusus discoursed in a way fit to calm tempers; and satisfaction was given to Corbulo through Mamercus, who was at once Sulla’s uncle and stepfather, and the most copious of the orators of that age. The same Corbulo, crying out that very many roads through Italy were broken and impassable through the fraud of contractors and the negligence of magistrates, willingly took on the execution of that business; which was held not so much of public use as ruinous to many, against whose money and good name he raged with condemnations and the auction-spear.

Sequitur Tiberi quartus, Drusi secundus consulatus, patris atque filii collegio insignis. nam triennio ante Germanici cum Tiberio idem honor neque patruo laetus neque natura tam conexus fuerat. eius anni principio Tiberius quasi firmandae valetudini in Campaniam concessit, longam et continuam absentiam paulatim meditans, sive ut amoto patre Drusus munia consulatus solus impleret. ac forte parva res magnum ad certamen progressa praebuit iuveni materiem apiscendi favoris. Domitius Corbulo praetura functus de L. Sulla nobili iuvene questus est apud senatum quod sibi inter spectacula gladiatorum loco non decessisset. pro Corbulone aetas, patrius mos, studia seniorum erant: contra Mamercus Scaurus et L. Arruntius aliique Sullae propinqui nitebantur. certabantque orationibus et memorabantur exempla maiorum qui iuventutis inreverentiam gravibus decretis notavissent, donec Drusus apta temperandis animis disseruit; et satisfactum Corbuloni per Mamercum qui patruus simul ac vitricus Sullae et oratorum ea aetate uberrimus erat. idem Corbulo plurima per Italiam itinera fraude mancipum et incuria magistratuum interrupta et impervia clamitando, executionem eius negotii libens suscepit; quod haud perinde publice usui habitum quam exitiosum multis quorum in pecuniam atque famam damnationibus et hasta saeviebat.

And not much later, having sent letters to the Senate, Tiberius made known that Africa was again stirred by an inroad of Tacfarinas, and that by the judgment of the senators a proconsul must be chosen, skilled in war, sound of body, and equal to the war. Sextus Pompeius, seizing this as an occasion for working up his hatred against Marcus Lepidus, accused him as slothful, needy, and a disgrace to his ancestors, and therefore to be removed even from the allotment of Asia—the Senate against him, which judged Lepidus mild rather than cowardly, and held that his ancestral straits, and a nobility lived without reproach, were to be counted to his honor and not his shame. So he was sent into Asia, and concerning Africa it was decreed that Caesar should choose to whom it must be entrusted.

Neque multo post missis ad senatum litteris Tiberius motam rursum Africam incursu Tacfarinatis docuit, iudicioque patrum deligendum pro consule gnarum militiae, corpore validum et bello suffecturum. quod initium Sex. Pompeius agitandi adversus Marcum Lepidum odii nanctus, ut socordem, inopem et maioribus suis dedecorum eoque etiam Asiae sorte depellendum incusavit, adverso senatu qui Lepidum mitem magis quam ignavum, paternas ei angustias et nobilitatem sine probro actam honori quam ignominiae habendam ducebat. igitur missus in Asiam et de Africa decretum ut Caesar legeret cui mandanda foret.

Amid these things Severus Caecina moved that no magistrate to whom a province had fallen should be accompanied by his wife, first repeating at length that he had a wife in harmony with him, who had borne him six children, and that what he proposed for the public he had kept at home, having confined her within Italy, although he himself had completed forty campaigns in various provinces. For not without reason had it once been resolved that women should not be dragged among the allies or foreign nations: there was in a train of women that which by luxury delays peace, by timidity war, and which turns a Roman column into the likeness of a barbarian march. Not only was the sex weak and unequal to hardships, but, if license were present, savage, scheming, greedy of power; they walked among the soldiers, had the centurions at their beck; lately a woman had presided over the drilling of the cohorts, the maneuvers of the legions. Let them consider for themselves that, whenever any men were charged with extortion, the more was laid against the wives: to these the worst of the provincials at once attached themselves; by these business was taken up and transacted; the comings-forth of two were courted, there were two headquarters—and the more obstinate and overbearing the women’s orders, who, once constrained by the Oppian and other laws, now, the bonds loosed, governed households, forums, and even armies.

Inter quae Severus Caecina censuit ne quem magistratum cui provincia obvenisset uxor comitaretur, multum ante repetito concordem sibi coniugem et sex partus enixam, seque quae in publicum statueret domi servavisse, cohibita intra Italiam, quamquam ipse pluris per provincias quadraginta stipendia explevisset. haud enim frustra placitum olim ne feminae in socios aut gentis externas traherentur: inesse mulierum comitatui quae pacem luxu, bellum formidine morentur et Romanum agmen ad similitudinem barbari incessus convertant. non imbecillum tantum et imparem laboribus sexum sed, si licentia adsit, saevum, ambitiosum, potestatis avidum; incedere inter milites, habere ad manum centuriones; praesedisse nuper feminam exercitio cohortium, decursu legionum. cogitarent ipsi quotiens repetundarum aliqui arguerentur plura uxoribus obiectari: his statim adhaerescere deterrimum quemque provincialium, ab his negotia suscipi, transigi; duorum egressus coli, duo esse praetoria, pervicacibus magis et impotentibus mulierum iussis quae Oppiis quondam aliisque legibus constrictae nunc vinclis exolutis domos, fora, iam et exercitus regerent.

These things were heard with the assent of a few: more raised a clamor that nothing had been laid before them on the matter, and that Caecina was no fit censor of so great a question. Soon Valerius Messalinus, whose father was Messala and in whom there was an image of his father’s eloquence, replied that much of the old harshness had been changed for the better and the happier; for the city was not, as once, besieged by wars, nor were the provinces hostile. And a few things were conceded to the needs of women, which burdened not even their husbands’ households, far less the allies; the rest they shared in common with their husbands, and in that was no hindrance to peace. To wars, plainly, men must go girded: but to those returning after toil, what relief more honorable than a wife’s? But certain women had slipped into ambition or greed. What of it? Were not most of the magistrates themselves liable to various lusts? Yet not for that was no one sent to a province. Husbands had often been corrupted by their wives’ depravities: were then all the unmarried sound? The Oppian laws had once pleased, when the times of the commonwealth so demanded: something was afterward remitted and softened, because it was expedient. In vain was our own slackness transferred to other names: for the fault is the man’s, if a woman exceeds her measure. Moreover, because of the weak character of one or another, it was wrong to tear from husbands the partnership of good fortune and bad. At the same time the sex, naturally weak, would be deserted and exposed to its own luxury and to others’ lusts. With a guard present, marriages scarcely remained unharmed: what would happen if for several years they were blotted out as if by divorce? Let them so meet the things that were done amiss elsewhere as to remember the scandals of the city. Drusus added a few words about his own marriage; for princes must often go to the far parts of the empire. How often had the deified Augustus traveled to West and East with Livia for companion! He too had set out for Illyricum, and, if it so served, would go to other nations—but not always with an even mind, if he were torn from a most beloved wife and the mother of so many of their common children. Thus Caecina’s motion was foiled.

Paucorum haec adsensu audita: plures obturbabant neque relatum de negotio neque Caecinam dignum tantae rei censorem. mox Valerius Messalinus, cui parens Mes- sala ineratque imago paternae facundiae, respondit multa duritiae veterum in melius et laetius mutata; neque enim, ut olim, obsideri urbem bellis aut provincias hostilis esse. et pauca feminarum necessitatibus concedi quae ne coniugum quidem penatis, adeo socios non onerent; cetera promisca cum marito nec ullum in eo pacis impedimentum. bella plane accinctis obeunda: sed revertentibus post laborem quod honestius quam uxorium levamentum? at quasdam in ambitionem aut avaritiam prolapsas. quid? ipsorum magistratuum nonne plerosque variis libidinibus obnoxios? non tamen ideo neminem in provinciam mitti. corruptos saepe pravitatibus uxorum maritos: num ergo omnis caelibes integros? placuisse quondam Oppias leges, sic temporibus rei publicae postulantibus: remissum aliquid postea et mitigatum, quia expedierit. frustra nostram ignaviam alia ad vocabula transferri: nam viri in eo culpam si femina modum excedat. porro ob unius aut alterius imbecillum animum male eripi maritis consortia rerum secundarum adversarumque. simul sexum natura invalidum deseri et exponi suo luxu, cupidinibus alienis. vix praesenti custodia manere inlaesa coniugia: quid fore si per pluris annos in modum discidii oblitterentur? sic obviam irent iis quae alibi peccarentur ut flagitiorum urbis meminissent. addidit pauca Drusus de matrimonio suo; nam principibus adeunda saepius longinqua imperii. quoties divum Augustum in Occidentem atque Orientem meavisse comite Livia! se quoque in Illyricum profectum et, si ita conducat, alias ad gentis iturum, haud semper aequo animo si ab uxore carissima et tot communium liberorum parente divelleretur. sic Caecinae sententia elusa.

And on the next day of the Senate Tiberius, by a letter, after obliquely chiding the senators for referring all their cares to the princeps, named Manius Lepidus and Junius Blaesus, of whom one was to be chosen proconsul of Africa. Then the words of both were heard, Lepidus excusing himself the more earnestly, when he pleaded his bodily health, the age of his children, his daughter of marriageable years—and there was understood too what he kept silent, that Blaesus was the uncle of Sejanus and therefore the stronger. Blaesus answered with the appearance of refusing, but neither with the same firmness, and he was helped by the consenting voices of flatterers.

Et proximo senatus die Tiberius per litteras, castigatis oblique patribus quod cuncta curarum ad principem reicerent, M’. Lepidum et Iunium Blaesum nominavit ex quis pro consule Africae legeretur. tum audita amborum verba, intentius excusante se Lepido, cum valetudinem corporis, aetatem liberum, nubilem filiam obtenderet, intellegereturque etiam quod silebat, avunculum esse Seiani Blaesum atque eo praevalidum. respondit Blaesus specie recusantis sed neque eadem adseveratione et consensu adulantium adiutus est.

Then there came to the surface a thing that was being covered by the inward complaints of many. For license was advancing, for every worst man, of stirring up reproach and ill-will against the good with impunity, by snatching up an image of Caesar; and freedmen too, and slaves, when they leveled voices or hands at patron or master, were dreaded of their own accord. So Gaius Cestius, a senator, argued that princes were indeed in the likeness of gods, but that not even by the gods were any but just prayers of suppliants heard, nor did anyone flee to the Capitol or other temples of the city to use that refuge as an aid to crimes. The laws were abolished and utterly overturned, when in the forum, on the threshold of the senate-house, reproaches and threats were leveled at him by Annia Rufilla, whom he had got convicted of fraud before a judge, and he himself dared not try the law because of the emperor’s image set against him. Others clamored round with things not unlike, and some more atrocious, and they begged Drusus to give an example of vengeance, until he ordered her summoned, convicted, and held in the public prison.

Exim promptum quod multorum intimis questibus tegebatur. incedebat enim deterrimo cuique licentia impune probra et invidiam in bonos excitandi arrepta imagine Caesaris; libertique etiam ac servi, patrono vel domino cum voces, cum manus intentarent, ultro metuebantur. igitur C. Cestius senator disseruit principes quidem instar deorum esse, sed neque a diis nisi iustas supplicum preces audiri neque quemquam in Capitolium aliave urbis templa perfugere ut eo subsidio ad flagitia utatur. abolitas leges et funditus versas, ubi in foro, in limine curiae ab Annia Rufilla, quam fraudis sub iudice damnavisset, probra sibi et minae intendantur, neque ipse audeat ius experiri ob effigiem imperatoris oppositam. haud dissimilia alii et quidam atrociora circumstrepebant, precabanturque Drusum daret ultionis exemplum, donec accitam convictamque attineri publica custodia iussit.

And Considius Aequus and Caelius Cursor, Roman knights, were punished—on the princeps’s initiative and by decree of the Senate—because with feigned charges of treason they had attacked the praetor Magius Caecilianus. Both things were turned to the praise of Drusus: that, with him moving about in the city among the gatherings and conversations of men, his father’s secret counsels were softened. Nor did luxury so displease in the young man: better that he bend himself to this, drawing out the day with buildings and the night with banquets, than that, alone and called off by no pleasures, he should practice a gloomy vigilance and evil cares.

Et Considius Aequus et Caelius Cursor equites Romani quod fictis maiestatis criminibus Magium Caecilianum praetorem petivissent auctore principe ac decreto senatus puniti. utrumque in laudem Drusi trahebatur: ab eo in urbe inter coetus et sermones hominum obversante secreta patris mitigari. neque luxus in iuvene adeo displicebat: huc potius intenderet, diem aedificationibus noctem conviviis traheret, quam solus et nullis voluptatibus avocatus maestam vigilantiam et malas curas exerceret.

For neither Tiberius nor the accusers grew weary. And Ancharius Priscus had prosecuted Caesius Cordus, proconsul of Crete, for extortion, with a charge of treason added, which was then the supplement of all accusations. Caesar dragged Antistius Vetus, of the leading men of Macedonia, acquitted of adultery, back—after rebuking the judges—to plead a charge of treason, as a turbulent man and mixed up in the designs of Rhescuporis, at the season when, Cotys being killed, he had rolled war against us. So the defendant was barred from water and fire, and it was added that he be held on an island convenient to neither Macedonia nor Thrace. For Thrace, the realm being divided between Rhoemetalces and the children of Cotys—whose guardian, on account of their infancy, was Trebellenus Rufus—was at discord through the insolence of our rule, and, blaming Rhoemetalces no less than Trebellenus, left its people’s wrongs unavenged. The Coelaletae, the Odrysae, and the Dii, strong nations, took up arms, under different leaders and equal among themselves through their obscurity; which was the cause that they did not coalesce into a fierce war. Part disturb the parts at hand; others cross Mount Haemus to stir up remote peoples; the most, and most disciplined, besiege the king and the city of Philippopolis, founded by Philip of Macedon.

Non enim Tiberius, non accusatores fatiscebant. et Ancharius Priscus Caesium Cordum pro consule Cretae postulaverat repetundis, addito maiestatis crimine, quod tum omnium accusationum complementum erat. Caesar Antistium Veterem e primoribus Macedoniae, absolutum adulterii, increpitis iudicibus ad dicendam maiestatis causam retraxit, ut turbidum et Rhescuporidis consiliis permixtum, qua tempestate Cotye interfecto bellum adversus nos volverat. igitur aqua et igni interdictum reo, adpositumque ut teneretur insula neque Macedoniae neque Thraeciae opportuna. nam Thraecia diviso imperio in Rhoemetalcen et liberos Cotyis, quis ob infantiam tutor erat Trebellenus Rufus, insolentia nostri discors agebat neque minus Rhoemetalcen quam Trebellenum incusans popularium iniurias inultas sinere. Coelaletae Odrusaeque et Dii, validae nationes, arma cepere, ducibus diversis et paribus inter se per ignobilitatem; quae causa fuit ne in bellum atrox coalescerent. pars turbant praesentia, alii montem Haemum transgrediuntur ut remotos populos concirent; plurimi ac maxime compositi regem urbemque Philippopolim, a Macedone Philippo sitam, circumsidunt.

When these things were known to Publius Vellaeus (he commanded the nearest army), he sends his cavalry of the wings and the light cohorts against those who, plundering or roving to gather reinforcements, were scattered, and himself leads the main body of foot to break the siege. And all was done prosperously at once: the ravagers cut down, dissension arising among the besiegers, and a timely sortie of the king and the coming of the legion. Nor would it be fitting to call it a battle-line or a fight, in which men half-armed and straggling were butchered without our blood.

Quae ubi cognita P. Vellaeo (is proximum exercitum praesidebat), alarios equites ac levis cohortium mittit in eos qui praedabundi aut adsumendis auxiliis vagabantur, ipse robur peditum ad exolvendum obsidium ducit. simulque cuncta prospere acta, caesis populatoribus et dissensione orta apud obsidentis regisque opportuna eruptione et adventu legionis. neque aciem aut proelium dici decuerit in quo semermi ac palantes trucidati sunt sine nostro sanguine.

In the same year the communities of the Gauls attempted a rebellion, because of the magnitude of their debt; of which the keenest goader, among the Treviri, was Julius Florus, and among the Aedui Julius Sacrovir. Both had nobility, and the good deeds of their ancestors, and therefore Roman citizenship granted long before, when that was rare and the reward of valor only. These, in secret conferences, every fiercest spirit being taken in, or those for whom, through want and fear, there was the greatest compulsion to sin out of their own crimes, arrange that Florus should rouse the Belgae, Sacrovir the nearer Gauls. So through their meeting-places and gatherings they discoursed seditiously of the continuance of the tributes, the weight of usury, the savagery and arrogance of their governors, and that the soldiery was at discord on hearing of Germanicus’s death. It was an excellent time for recovering liberty, if they themselves would but reflect how flourishing they were, how poor Italy, how unwarlike the city’s plebs, how nothing was strong in the armies except what was foreign.

Eodem anno Galliarum civitates ob magnitudinem aeris alieni rebellionem coeptavere, cuius extimulator acerrimus inter Treviros Iulius Florus, apud Aeduos Iulius Sacrovir. nobilitas ambobus et maiorum bona facta eoque Romana civitas olim data, cum id rarum nec nisi virtuti pretium esset. ii secretis conloquiis, ferocissimo quoque adsumpto aut quibus ob egestatem ac metum ex flagitiis maxima peccandi necessitudo, componunt Florus Belgas, Sacrovir propiores Gallos concire. igitur per conciliabula et coetus seditiosa disserebant de continuatione tributorum, gravitate faenoris, saevitia ac superbia praesidentium, et discordare militem audito Germanici exitio. egregium resumendae libertati tempus, si ipsi florentes quam inops Italia, quam inbellis urbana plebes, nihil validum in exercitibus nisi quod externum, cogitarent.

Scarcely any community was untouched by the seeds of that movement: but the first to break out were the Andecavi and the Turoni. Of these the Andecavi the legate Acilius Aviola checked, calling out the cohort that held the garrison at Lugdunum. The Turoni were crushed by legionary soldiers whom Visellius Varro, legate of Lower Germany, had sent, under the same Aviola as leader, and with certain leading men of the Gauls who brought aid in order to disguise their disaffection and bring it out the more in season. Sacrovir too was conspicuous, fighting bareheaded for the Romans to display, as he claimed, his valor: but the captives alleged that he had offered himself to be recognized so that he might not be assailed with weapons. Consulted about him, Tiberius scorned the information, and by his hesitation fed the war.

Haud ferme ulla civitas intacta seminibus eius motus fuit: sed erupere primi Andecavi ac Turoni. quorum Andecavos Acilius Aviola legatus excita cohorte quae Lugduni praesidium agitabat coercuit. Turoni legionario milite quem Visellius Varro inferioris Germaniae legatus miserat oppressi eodem Aviola duce et quibusdam Galliarum primoribus, qui tulere auxilium quo dissimularent defectionem magisque in tempore efferrent. spectatus et Sacrovir intecto capite pugnam pro Romanis ciens ostentandae, ut ferebat, virtutis: sed captivi ne incesseretur telis adgnoscendum se praebuisse arguebant. consultus super eo Tiberius aspernatus est indicium aluitque dubitatione bellum.

Meanwhile Florus presses on his designs, and tries to lure a squadron of cavalry which, raised from the Treviri, was kept under our service and discipline, to begin the war by cutting down the Roman traders; and a few of the horsemen were corrupted, but the most stayed in their duty. The other crowd of debtors or clients took up arms; and they were making for the wooded passes named the Ardennes, when the legions—which Visellius and Gaius Silius had set against them by opposite marches from either army—barred them off. And Julius Indus, of the same community, at odds with Florus and the more eager on that account to do good service, sent ahead with a picked band, scattered the still-disordered multitude. Florus baffled the victors with uncertain hiding-places, and at last, when he saw the soldiers who had occupied the avenues of escape, fell by his own hand. And that was the end of the Treviran rising.

Interim Florus insistere destinatis, pellicere alam equitum, quae conscripta e Treviris militia disciplinaque nostra habebatur, ut caesis negotiatoribus Romanis bellum inciperet; paucique equitum corrupti, plures in officio mansere. aliud vulgus obaeratorum aut clientium arma cepit; petebantque saltus quibus nomen Arduenna, cum legiones utroque ab exercitu, quas Visellius et C. Silius adversis itineribus obiecerant, arcuerunt. praemissusque cum delecta manu Iulius Indus e civitate eadem, discors Floro et ob id navandae operae avidior, inconditam multitudinem adhuc disiecit. Florus incertis latebris victores frustratus, postremo visis militibus, qui effugia insederant, sua manu cecidit. isque Trevirici tumultus finis.

Among the Aedui a greater mass of trouble arose, the wealthier the community and the more remote any force to crush it. Augustodunum, the capital of the people, Sacrovir had occupied with armed cohorts, to attach the noblest offspring of the Gauls, busied there with liberal studies, and by that pledge their parents and kinsmen; at the same time he distributes to the youth arms secretly forged. There were forty thousand: a fifth part of them with legionary arms, the rest with hunting-spears and knives and the other weapons of hunters. There are added, from the slaves, men destined for the gladiatorial school, who in the fashion of the nation had a continuous covering of iron: they call them cruppellarii, unfit for dealing blows, impenetrable to receiving them. These forces were swelled by the neighboring communities, with a consent not yet open, yet with zeal ready man by man, and by the rivalry of the Roman commanders, between whom it was disputed, each demanding the war for himself. Soon Varro, weak with age, gave way to the vigorous Silius.

Apud Aeduos maior moles exorta quanto civitas opulentior et comprimendi procul praesidium. Augustodunum caput gentis armatis cohortibus Sacrovir occupaverat ut nobilissimam Galliarum subolem, liberalibus studiis ibi operatam, et eo pignore parentes propinquosque eorum adiungeret; simul arma occulte fabricata iuventuti dispertit. quadraginta milia fuere, quinta sui parte legionariis armis, ceteri cum venabulis et cultris quaeque alia venantibus tela sunt. adduntur e servitiis gladiaturae destinati quibus more gentico continuum ferri tegimen: cruppellarios vocant, inferendis ictibus inhabilis, accipiendis impenetrabilis. augebantur eae copiae vicinarum civitatum ut nondum aperta consensione, ita viritim promptis studiis, et certamine ducum Romanorum, quos inter ambigebatur utroque bellum sibi poscente. mox Varro invalidus senecta vigenti Silio concessit.

But at Rome it was believed that not only the Treviri and the Aedui but sixty-four communities of the Gauls had revolted, the Germans taken into alliance, the Spains wavering—everything, as is the way of rumor, believed greater than it was. The best men grieved out of care for the commonwealth: many, from hatred of the present and a craving for change, rejoiced even at their own perils, and railed at Tiberius for spending his pains, amid so great a stirring of affairs, on the documents of accusers. Was Sacrovir, then, to be a defendant on a charge of treason in the Senate? Men had arisen at last who would check those bloody letters with arms. Even war was a good exchange for a wretched peace. He, all the more deliberately composed into an air of security, with neither place nor face changed, conducted himself through those days as was his custom—whether out of loftiness of mind, or because he had learned that the matters were moderate and lighter than the rumors made them.

At Romae non Treviros modo et Aeduos sed quattuor et sexaginta Galliarum civitates descivisse, adsumptos in societatem Germanos, dubias Hispanias, cuncta, ut mos famae, in maius credita. optumus quisque rei publicae cura maerebat: multi odio praesentium et cupidine mutationis suis quoque periculis laetabantur increpabantque Tiberium quod in tanto rerum motu libellis accusatorum insumeret operam. an Sacrovirum maiestatis crimine reum in senatu fore? extitisse tandem viros qui cruentas epistulas armis cohiberent. miseram pacem vel bello bene mutari. tanto impensius in securitatem compositus, neque loco neque vultu mutato, sed ut solitum per illos dies egit, altitudine animi, an compererat modica esse et vulgatis leviora.

Meanwhile Silius, advancing with two legions, his auxiliary force sent ahead, lays waste the cantons of the Sequani who, at the edge of their territory and bordering the Aedui, were allied and in arms with them. Soon he makes for Augustodunum in a swift column, the standard-bearers vying with one another, the common soldier too clamoring that he would wait neither for his accustomed rest nor for the spaces of the nights: let them only see and be seen by the enemy; that was enough for victory. At the twelfth milestone Sacrovir and his forces appeared in open ground. In front he had stationed the iron-clad men, on the wings the cohorts, in the rear the half-armed. He himself, among the foremost on a splendid horse, rode up, recalling the old glories of the Gauls and the reverses they had brought upon the Romans; how fair was liberty for the victors, how much more intolerable servitude for the once more conquered.

Interim Silius cum legionibus duabus incedens praemissa auxiliari manu vastat Sequanorum pagos qui finium extremi et Aeduis contermini sociique in armis erant. mox Augustodunum petit propero agmine, certantibus inter se signiferis, fremente etiam gregario milite, ne suetam requiem, ne spatia noctium opperiretur: viderent modo adversos et aspicerentur; id satis ad victoriam. duodecimum apud lapidem Sacrovir copiaeque patentibus locis apparuere. in fronte statuerat ferratos, in cornibus cohortis, a tergo semermos. ipse inter primores equo insigni adire, memorare veteres Gallorum glorias quaeque Romanis adversa intulissent; quam decora victoribus libertas, quanto intolerantior servitus iterum victis.

These words did not last long, nor fall on glad ears: for the battle-line of the legions was drawing near, and the townsmen, disordered and ignorant of war, were not equal in eyes or ears to the task. Silius, on the other side, although his presumed hope had taken away the grounds for exhortation, kept crying nonetheless that it was a shame to the men themselves that the conquerors of the Germanies should be led against Gauls as if against an enemy. ’Lately one cohort routed the rebel Turoni, one squadron the Treviri, a few troops of this very army the Sequani. Conquer the Aedui—the richer in money, the more steeped in pleasures, the more unwarlike for that—and spare them as they flee.’ At this there was a vast shout, and the cavalry poured round, and the infantry charged the front, nor was there delay at the flanks. The iron-clad men brought a little delay, their plates holding out against javelins and swords; but the soldiers, snatching up axes and mattocks, as if breaking through a wall, hacked at the coverings and the bodies; some with poles or forks threw the inert mass down, and as they lay, with no effort to rise, they were left as if lifeless. Sacrovir made first for Augustodunum, then, in fear of being surrendered, to a nearby villa with his most faithful. There by his own hand, the rest by mutual blows, they died: the villa set on fire above them cremated them all.

Non diu haec nec apud laetos: etenim propinquabat legionum acies, inconditique ac militiae nescii oppidani neque oculis neque auribus satis competebant. contra Silius, etsi praesumpta spes hortandi causas exemerat, clamitabat tamen pudendum ipsis quod Germaniarum victores adversum Gallos tamquam in hostem ducerentur. ’una nuper cohors rebellem Turonum, una ala Trevirum, paucae huius ipsius exercitus turmae profligavere Sequanos. quanto pecunia dites et voluptatibus opulentos tanto magis imbellis Aeduos evincite et fugientibus consulite.’ ingens ad ea clamor et circumfudit eques frontemque pedites invasere, nec cunctatum apud latera. paulum morae attulere ferrati, restantibus lamminis adversum pila et gladios; set miles correptis securibus et dolabris, ut si murum perrumperet, caedere tegmina et corpora; quidam trudibus aut furcis inertem molem prosternere, iacentesque nullo ad resurgendum nisu quasi exanimes linquebantur. Sacrovir primo Augustodunum, dein metu deditionis in villam propinquam cum fidissimis pergit. illic sua manu, reliqui mutuis ictibus occidere: incensa super villa omnis cremavit.

Then at last Tiberius wrote to the Senate that the war had arisen and been finished; and he neither took from nor added to the truth, but said that his legates had prevailed by loyalty and valor, he himself by his counsels. At the same time he appended the reasons why neither he nor Drusus had set out for that war, extolling the magnitude of the empire, and that it was not seemly for princes, if one community or another were disturbed, to leave the city, whence the governance of all things proceeds. Now, since he would not be thought to be led by fear, he would go to view and settle the situation. The senators decreed vows for his return, supplications, and other honors. Cornelius Dolabella alone, while preparing to outdo the rest, advanced into an absurd flattery, proposing that he enter the city in ovation from Campania. So there followed a letter of Caesar’s, in which he declared himself not so empty of glory that, after the fiercest nations subdued, so many triumphs in his youth accepted or scorned, he should now, an older man, seek the hollow reward of a journey about the suburbs.

Tum demum Tiberius ortum patratumque bellum senatu scripsit; neque dempsit aut addidit vero, sed fide ac virtute legatos, se consiliis superfuisse. simul causas cur non ipse, non Drusus profecti ad id bellum forent, adiunxit, magnitudinem imperii extollens, neque decorum principibus, si una alterave civitas turbetomissa urbe, unde in omnia regimen. nunc quia non metu ducatur iturum ut praesentia spectaret componeretque. decrevere patres vota pro reditu eius supplicationesque et alia decora. solus Dolabella Cornelius dum antire ceteros parat absurdam in adulationem progressus, censuit ut ovans e Campania urbem introiret. igitur secutae Caesaris litterae quibus se non tam vacuum gloria praedicabat ut post ferocissimas gentis perdomitas, tot receptos in iuventa aut spretos triumphos, iam senior peregrinationis suburbanae inane praemium peteret.

About the same time he asked of the Senate that the death of Sulpicius Quirinius be attended by a public funeral. Quirinius had nothing to do with the old and patrician family of the Sulpicii, being sprung from the municipality of Lanuvium: but, energetic in soldiering and in keen services, he had won the consulship under the deified Augustus, and soon, the strongholds of the Homonadenses through Cilicia having been stormed, the insignia of a triumph; and he was given as governor to Gaius Caesar while he held Armenia. He had also courted Tiberius, then living at Rhodes: which Tiberius now disclosed in the Senate, praising the services done to himself and accusing Marcus Lollius, whom he charged as the author of Gaius Caesar’s perversity and quarrels. But to the rest the memory of Quirinius was not glad, on account of the perils aimed, as I have recorded, at Lepida, and his sordid and over-powerful old age.

Sub idem tempus ut mors Sulpicii Quirini publicis exequiis frequentaretur petivit a senatu. nihil ad veterem et patriciam Sulpiciorum familiam Quirinius pertinuit, ortus apud municipium Lanuvium: sed impiger militiae et acribus ministeriis consulatum sub divo Augusto, mox expugnatis per Ciliciam Homonadensium castellis insignia triumphi adeptus, datusque rector G. Caesari Armeniam optinenti. Tiberium quoque Rhodi agentem coluerat: quod tunc patefecit in senatu, laudatis in se officiis et incusato M. Lollio, quem auctorem Gaio Caesari pravitatis et discordiarum arguebat. sed ceteris haud laeta memoria Quirini erat ob intenta, ut memoravi, Lepidae pericula sordidamque et praepotentem senectam.

At the year’s end Clutorius Priscus, a Roman knight—who, after a celebrated poem in which he had mourned the last days of Germanicus, had been presented with money by Caesar—a delator seized upon, charging that during Drusus’s illness he had composed a piece which, if Drusus had died, would be published for a greater reward. This Clutorius had read, out of vainglory, in the house of Publius Petronius, before Petronius’s mother-in-law Vitellia and many illustrious women. When the informer appeared, the rest being terrified into giving testimony, Vitellia alone asserted that she had heard nothing. But more credit was given to those who pressed for his ruin, and by the motion of Haterius Agrippa, consul-designate, the ultimate penalty was pronounced against the defendant.

Fine anni Clutorium Priscum equitem Romanum, post celebre carmen quo Germanici suprema defleverat, pecunia donatum a Caesare, corripuit delator, obiectans aegro Druso composuisse quod, si extinctus foret, maiore praemio vulgaretur. id Clutorius in domo P. Petronii socru eius Vitellia coram multisque inlustribus feminis per vaniloquentiam legerat. ut delator extitit, ceteris ad dicendum testimonium exterritis, sola Vitellia nihil se audivisse adseveravit. sed arguentibus ad perniciem plus fidei fuit, sententiaque Haterii Agrippae consulis designati indictum reo ultimum supplicium.

On the contrary, Manius Lepidus began in this manner: ’If, conscript fathers, we look to this one thing—with how wicked a voice Clutorius Priscus has polluted his own mind and the ears of men—neither prison nor noose, nor even the tortures of slaves, would suffice against him. But if outrages and crimes are without measure, while the moderation of the princeps and the examples of our ancestors and your own temper the penalties and the remedies, and distinguish the vain from the criminal, words from evil deeds, there is room for a sentence by which neither shall this man’s offense go unpunished, nor shall we repent of our clemency and our severity alike. I have often heard our princeps complain if anyone, by taking his own death, had forestalled his mercy. Clutorius’s life is still untouched; spared, he will go into no peril for the commonwealth, nor, killed, into an example. His pursuits, full of madness, are also empty and unstable; nor would you fear anything grave and serious from a man who, the betrayer of his own outrages, worms his way not into the minds of men but of silly women. Yet let him leave the city and, his goods lost, be barred from water and fire: which I propose just as if he were held by the law of treason.’

Contra M’. Lepidus in hunc modum exorsus est: ’si, patres conscripti, unum id spectamus, quam nefaria voce Clutorius Priscus mentem suam et auris hominum polluerit, neque carcer neque laqueus, ne serviles quidem cruciatus in eum suffecerint. sin flagitia et facinora sine modo sunt, suppliciis ac remediis principis moderatio maiorumque et vestra exempla temperant et vana a scelestis, dicta a maleficiis differunt, est locus sententiae per quam neque huic delictum impune sit et nos clementiae simul ac severitatis non paeniteat. saepe audivi principem nostrum conquerentem si quis sumpta morte misericordiam eius praevenisset. vita Clutorii in integro est, qui neque servatus in periculum rei publicae neque interfectus in exemplum ibit. studia illi ut plena vaecordiae, ita inania et fluxa sunt; nec quicquam grave ac serium ex eo metuas qui suorum ipse flagitiorum proditor non virorum animis sed muliercularum adrepit. cedat tamen urbe et bonis amissis aqua et igni arceatur: quod perinde censeo ac si lege maiestatis teneretur.’

Of the consulars, Rubellius Blandus alone assented to Lepidus: the rest followed Agrippa’s motion, and Priscus was led to prison and at once put to death. This Tiberius rebuked before the Senate with his usual ambiguities, extolling the loyalty of those who avenged even slight wrongs to the princeps so sharply, deprecating such headlong punishment of words, praising Lepidus and not blaming Agrippa. So a decree of the Senate was made that the decrees of the fathers should not be carried to the treasury before the tenth day, and that this span of life be prolonged for the condemned. But the Senate had no liberty to repent, nor was Tiberius softened by the interval of time.

Solus Lepido Rubellius Blandus e consularibus adsensit: ceteri sententiam Agrippae secuti, ductusque in carcerem Priscus ac statim exanimatus. id Tiberius solitis sibi ambagibus apud senatum incusavit, cum extolleret pietatem quamvis modicas principis iniurias acriter ulciscentium, deprecaretur tam praecipitis verborum poenas, laudaret Lepidum neque Agrippam argueret. igitur factum senatus consultum ne decreta patrum ante diem decimum ad aerarium deferrentur idque vitae spatium damnatis prorogaretur. sed non senatui libertas ad paenitendum erat neque Tiberius interiectu temporis mitigabatur.

Gaius Sulpicius and Decimus Haterius, the consuls, follow—a year untroubled in foreign affairs, at home suspected of a severity against the luxury that had burst out to an immense degree toward everything on which money is squandered. But other expenditures, however heavier, were mostly concealed by hiding the prices; it was the apparatus of the belly and gluttony, spread abroad in continual talk, that had raised concern lest a princeps of old-fashioned thrift take it up too harshly. For, Gaius Bibulus beginning, the other aediles too had argued that the sumptuary law was spurned, that forbidden prices of provisions were increased day by day and could not be stayed by moderate remedies; and the senators, when consulted, had referred the whole matter, untouched, to the princeps. But Tiberius, having often weighed with himself whether such profuse desires could be checked, whether the checking would bring more harm to the commonwealth, how unbecoming it was to lay hands on what he could not obtain, or, if retained, would demand the disgrace and infamy of illustrious men—at last composed a letter to the Senate, the sense of which was to this effect.

C. Sulpicius D. Haterius consules sequuntur, inturbidus externis rebus annus, domi suspecta severitate adversum luxum qui immensum proruperat ad cuncta quis pecunia prodigitur. sed alia sumptuum quamvis graviora dissimulatis plerumque pretiis occultabantur; ventris et ganeae paratus adsiduis sermonibus vulgati fecerant curam ne princeps antiquae parsimoniae durius adverteret. nam incipiente C. Bibulo ceteri quoque aediles disseruerant, sperni sumptuariam legem vetitaque utensilium pretia augeri in dies nec mediocribus remediis sisti posse, et consulti patres integrum id negotium ad principem distulerant. sed Tiberius saepe apud se pensitato an coerceri tam profusae cupidines possent, num coercitio plus damni in rem publicam ferret, quam indecorum adtrectare quod non obtineret vel retentum ignominiam et infamiam virorum inlustrium posceret, postremo litteras ad senatum composuit quarum sententia in hunc modum fuit.

’In other matters perhaps, conscript fathers, it would be more expedient that I be questioned in your presence and say what I judge to be for the commonwealth: in this report it was better that my eyes be withdrawn, lest, while you marked out the faces and the fear of the individual men who might be charged with shameful luxury, I too should see them and as it were catch them in the act. But if the strenuous men, the aediles, had taken counsel with me beforehand, I do not know whether I would have advised them rather to leave alone these strong and full-grown vices than to achieve this—that it become plain to what outrages we are unequal. But they indeed have discharged their duty, as I would wish the other magistrates too to fulfill their functions: for me, however, it is neither honorable to be silent nor easy to speak out, because I do not sustain the part of aedile or praetor or consul. Something greater and loftier is demanded of a princeps; and while each man draws to himself the credit for things rightly done, the resentment for all men’s faults falls on one. For what shall I first set about to forbid and cut back to the ancient manner? The boundless spaces of villas? The number and the nationalities of slave households? The weight of silver and gold? The marvels of bronze and painted panels? Garments worn in common by men and women, and those things peculiar to women, on account of whose gems our money is transferred to foreign or hostile nations?’

’Ceteris forsitan in rebus, patres conscripti, magis expediat me coram interrogari et dicere quid e re publica censeam: in hac relatione subtrahi oculos meos melius fuit, ne, denotantibus vobis ora ac metum singulorum qui pudendi luxus arguerentur, ipse etiam viderem eos ac velut deprenderem. quod si mecum ante viri strenui, aediles, consilium habuissent, nescio an suasurus fuerim omittere potius praevalida et adulta vitia quam hoc adsequi, ut palam fieret quibus flagitiis impares essemus. sed illi quidem officio functi sunt, ut ceteros quoque magistratus sua munia implere velim: mihi autem neque honestum silere neque proloqui expeditum, quia non aedilis aut praetoris aut consulis partis sustineo. maius aliquid et excelsius a principe postulatur; et cum recte factorum sibi quisque gratiam trahant, unius invidia ab omnibus peccatur. quid enim primum prohibere et priscum ad morem recidere adgrediar? villarumne infinita spatia? familiarum numerum et nationes? argenti et auri pondus? aeris tabularumque miracula? promiscas viris et feminis vestis atque illa feminarum propria, quis lapidum causa pecuniae nostrae ad externas aut hostilis gentis transferuntur?

’Nor am I unaware that these things are blamed in banquets and circles, and that a measure is demanded: but if anyone should sanction a law and appoint penalties, those same men will cry out that the state is being overturned, that ruin is being prepared for every most splendid man, that no one is free of the charge. And yet not even diseases of the body, old and long grown, do you check except by hard and harsh means: a mind corrupted and corrupting alike, sick and inflamed, must be quenched with remedies no lighter than the lusts with which it blazes. So many laws devised by our ancestors, so many that the deified Augustus passed—those abolished by forgetfulness, these, what is more shameful, by contempt—have made luxury the more secure. For if you desire what is not yet forbidden, you may fear lest it be forbidden: but once you have overstepped the forbidden with impunity, there is no longer either fear or shame. Why, then, did thrift once prevail? Because each man governed himself, because we were citizens of one city; nor were the incitements the same while we held dominion within Italy. By foreign victories we learned to consume the goods of others, by civil ones our own. How trifling is this of which the aediles warn! How light it must be held, if you regard the rest! But, by Hercules, no one reports that Italy needs foreign aid, that the life of the Roman people is daily tossed about over the uncertainties of sea and storms. And unless the resources of the provinces come to the aid of masters and slaves and fields, our own groves, forsooth, and our own villas will protect us. This care, conscript fathers, the princeps sustains; this, neglected, will drag the commonwealth down utterly. For the rest, the cure must be within each man’s mind: let shame change us for the better, the poor by necessity, the rich by satiety. Or if any of the magistrates promises such industry and severity that he can go to meet the evil, him I both praise and confess that a part of my labors is lifted off: but if they wish to accuse the vices, and then, when they have won the glory of it, make enmities and leave them to me, believe me, conscript fathers, that I too am not greedy of quarrels; which, since I undertake them—grave and often unjust—for the commonwealth’s sake, I justly deprecate when they are empty and idle and of use to neither me nor you.’

’Nec ignoro in conviviis et circulis incusari ista et modum posci: set si quis legem sanciat, poenas indicat, idem illi civitatem verti, splendidissimo cuique exitium parari, neminem criminis expertem clamitabunt. atqui ne corporis quidem morbos veteres et diu auctos nisi per dura et aspera coerceas: corruptus simul et corruptor, aeger et flagrans animus haud levioribus remediis restinguendus est quam libidinibus ardescit. tot a maioribus repertae leges, tot quas divus Augustus tulit, illae oblivione, hae, quod flagitiosius est, contemptu abolitae securiorem luxum fecere. nam si velis quod nondum vetitum est, timeas ne vetere: at si prohibita impune transcenderis, neque metus ultra neque pudor est. cur ergo olim parsimonia pollebat? quia sibi quisque moderabatur, quia unius urbis cives eramus; ne inritamenta quidem eadem intra Italiam dominantibus. externis victoriis aliena, civilibus etiam nostra consumere didicimus. quantulum istud est de quo aediles admonent! quam, si cetera respicias, in levi habendum! at hercule nemo refert quod Italia externae opis indiget, quod vita populi Romani per incerta maris et tempestatum cotidie volvitur. ac nisi provinciarum copiae et dominis et servitiis et agris subvenerint, nostra nos scilicet nemora nostraeque villae tuebuntur. hanc, patres conscripti, curam sustinet princeps; haec omissa funditus rem publicam trahet. reliquis intra animum medendum est: nos pudor, pauperes necessitas, divites satias in melius mutet. aut si quis ex magistratibus tantam industriam ac severitatem pollicetur ut ire obviam queat, hunc ego et laudo et exonerari laborum meorum partem fateor: sin accusare vitia volunt, dein, cum gloriam eius rei adepti sunt, simultates faciunt ac mihi relinquunt, credite, patres conscripti, me quoque non esse offensionum avidum; quas cum gravis et plerumque iniquas pro re publica suscipiam, inanis et inritas neque mihi aut vobis usui futuras iure deprecor.’

Caesar’s letter heard, the aediles were released from such a charge; and the luxury of the table, practiced with profuse expense for a hundred years, from the end of the Actian war to the arms by which Servius Galba obtained power, gradually fell out of use. It pleases me to seek the causes of that change. Once the rich families of the nobility, or those distinguished by renown, slid into ruin through their zeal for magnificence. For it was then still permitted to court the plebs, the allies, and kingdoms, and to be courted; and as each man was conspicuous in wealth, in his house, in his establishment, the more illustrious he was held in name and in clientèle. After savagery raged with slaughters, and greatness of fame was ruin, the rest turned to wiser courses. At the same time new men from the municipalities and colonies and even the provinces, frequently admitted into the Senate, brought in their domestic thrift; and although by fortune or industry most reached a moneyed old age, the earlier spirit yet remained. But the chief author of the stricter manner was Vespasian, himself of old-fashioned dress and diet. Thence came compliance toward the princeps and a love of emulation stronger than the penalty of the laws and fear. Unless perhaps there is in all things a kind of cycle, so that, as the seasons turn, so do morals; nor were all things better among our forebears, but our own age too has borne much praise and many arts to be imitated by posterity. But let these rivalries with our ancestors in what is honorable endure for us.

Auditis Caesaris litteris remissa aedilibus talis cura; luxusque mensae a fine Actiaci belli ad ea arma quis Servius Galba rerum adeptus est per annos centum pro- fusis sumptibus exerciti paulatim exolevere. causas eius mutationis quaerere libet. dites olim familiae nobilium aut claritudine insignes studio magnificentiae prolabebantur. nam etiam tum plebem socios regna colere et coli licitum; ut quisque opibus domo paratu speciosus per nomen et clientelas inlustrior habebatur. postquam caedibus saevitum et magnitudo famae exitio erat, ceteri ad sapientiora convertere. simul novi homines e municipiis et coloniis atque etiam provinciis in senatum crebro adsumpti domesticam parsimoniam intulerunt, et quamquam fortuna vel industria plerique pecuniosam ad senectam pervenirent, mansit tamen prior animus. sed praecipuus adstricti moris auctor Vespasianus fuit, antiquo ipse cultu victuque. obsequium inde in principem et aemulandi amor validior quam poena ex legibus et metus. nisi forte rebus cunctis inest quidam velut orbis, ut quem ad modum temporum vices ita morum vertantur; nec omnia apud priores meliora, sed nostra quoque aetas multa laudis et artium imitanda posteris tulit. verum haec nobis in maiores certamina ex honesto maneant.

Tiberius, having won a reputation for moderation because he had checked the encroaching accusers, sends a letter to the Senate in which he sought the tribunician power for Drusus. That title of the highest eminence Augustus devised, so as not to assume the name of king or dictator, and yet to stand pre-eminent over all other commands by some appellation. He then chose Marcus Agrippa as partner in that power, and, when he died, Tiberius Nero, so that there should be no uncertainty about a successor. Thus, he thought, were the wicked hopes of others restrained; at the same time he trusted in Nero’s modesty and his own greatness. By that precedent Tiberius now advanced Drusus to the summit, though, while Germanicus was unharmed, he had held the judgment between the two entire. But at the beginning of the letter, having besought the gods to prosper his counsels for the commonwealth, he reported moderate things about the young man’s character, not exaggerated into falsehood. He had a wife and three children, and was of the age at which he himself had once been called by the deified Augustus to undertake this office. And not now in haste, but after experience taken over eight years—seditions suppressed, wars settled—a triumphant man and twice consul was being taken as the partner of a known labor.

Tiberius, fama moderationis parta quod ingruentis accusatores represserat, mittit litteras ad senatum quis potestatem tribuniciam Druso petebat. id summi fastigii vocabulum Augustus repperit, ne regis aut dictatoris nomen adsumeret ac tamen appellatione aliqua cetera imperia praemineret. Marcum deinde Agrippam socium eius potestatis, quo defuncto Tiberium Neronem delegit ne successor in incerto foret. sic cohiberi pravas aliorum spes rebatur; simul modestiae Neronis et suae magnitudini fidebat. quo tunc exemplo Tiberius Drusum summae rei admovit, cum incolumi Germanico integrum inter duos iudicium tenuisset. sed principio litterarum veneratus deos ut consilia sua rei publicae prosperarent, modica de moribus adulescentis neque in falsum aucta rettulit. esse illi coniugem et tres liberos eamque aetatem qua ipse quondam a divo Augusto ad capessendum hoc munus vocatus sit. neque nunc propere sed per octo annos capto experimento, compressis seditionibus, compositis bellis, triumphalem et bis consulem noti laboris participem sumi.

The senators had anticipated the speech in their minds, whereby the flattery was the more studied. Yet nothing was found except that they decreed images of the princes, altars of the gods, temples and arches, and the other usual things—save that Marcus Silanus, out of an insult to the consulship, sought honor for the princes, and proposed as his sentence that on public or private monuments, for the record of the times, the names not of the consuls but of those who held the tribunician power be inscribed. But Quintus Haterius, when he had proposed that that day’s decrees of the Senate be fixed up in golden letters in the senate-house, was made a laughing-stock—an old man who would gain only the infamy of the foulest flattery.

Praeceperant animis orationem patres quo quaesitior adulatio fuit. nec tamen repertum nisi ut effigies principum, aras deum, templa et arcus aliaque solita censerent, nisi quod M. Silanus ex contumelia consulatus honorem principibus petivit dixitque pro sententia ut publicis privatisve monimentis ad memoriam temporum non consulum nomina praescriberentur, sed eorum qui tribuniciam potestatem gererent. at Q. Haterius cum eius diei senatus consulta aureis litteris figenda in curia censuisset deridiculo fuit senex foedissimae adulationis tantum infamia usurus.

Among these things, the province of Africa being prolonged for Junius Blaesus, Servius Maluginensis, the flamen of Jupiter, demanded that he hold Asia by lot, asserting that it was vainly bruited that the flamens of Jupiter were not permitted to leave Italy, and that his own right was no other than that of the flamens of Mars and of Quirinus: moreover, if these had governed provinces, why was it forbidden to the flamens of Jupiter? There were no decrees of the people about it, nothing to be found in the books of ceremonies. The pontiffs had often performed the rites of Jupiter, if the flamen were hindered by ill health or a public function. For seventy-five years after the death of Cornelius Merula no one had been substituted, and yet the rites had not ceased. But if for so many years one could go without being created, with no damage to the rites, how much more easily would he be away for a single year’s proconsular command? Of old, by private enmities, it had been brought about that they were forbidden by the chief pontiffs to go to the provinces: now, by the gift of the gods, the supreme pontiff was also the supreme of men, liable to no rivalry, no hatred or private affections.

Inter quae provincia Africa Iunio Blaeso prorogata, Servius Maluginensis flamen Dialis ut Asiam sorte haberet postulavit, frustra vulgatum dictitans non licere Dialibus egredi Italia neque aliud ius suum quam Martialium Quirinaliumque flaminum: porro, si hi duxissent provincias, cur Dialibus id vetitum? nulla de eo populi scita, non in libris caerimoniarum reperiri. saepe pontifices Dialia sacra fecisse si flamen valetudine aut munere publico impediretur. quinque et septuaginta annis post Cornelii Merulae caedem neminem suffectum neque tamen cessavisse religiones. quod si per tot annos possit non creari nullo sacrorum damno, quanto facilius afuturum ad unius anni proconsulare imperium? privatis olim simultatibus effectum ut a pontificibus maximis ire in provincias prohiberentur: nunc deum munere summum pontificum etiam summum hominum esse, non aemulationi, non odio aut privatis adfectionibus obnoxium.

Against these arguments, when the augur Lentulus and others debated variously, it came to this, that they should await the opinion of the supreme pontiff. Tiberius, deferring the inquiry into the flamen’s right, tempered the ceremonies decreed on account of Drusus’s tribunician power, expressly censuring the insolence of Silanus’s motion and the golden letters against ancestral custom. Drusus’s letter too was read out, and, though bent toward modesty, was taken for most arrogant. To this had all things sunk, that not even a young man, having received so great an honor, would approach the gods of the city, enter the Senate, or at least begin his auspices on his native soil. War, forsooth, or a distant region detained him—when at that very moment he was traversing the shores and lakes of Campania. So was the ruler of the human race being schooled; this the first thing he learned from his father’s counsels. The old emperor might well grudge the sight of his citizens and plead his weary age and the labors he had performed: but for Drusus, what hindrance was there except arrogance?

Adversus quae cum augur Lentulus aliique varie dissererent, eo decursum est ut pontificis maximi sententiam opperirentur. Tiberius dilata notione de iure flaminis decretas ob tribuniciam Drusi potestatem caerimonias temperavit, nominatim arguens insolentiam sententiae aureasque litteras contra patrium morem. recitatae et Drusi epistulae quamquam ad modestiam flexae pro superbissimis accipiuntur. huc decidisse cuncta ut ne iuvenis quidem tanto honore accepto adiret urbis deos, ingrederetur senatum, auspicia saltem gentile apud solum inciperet. bellum scilicet aut diverso terrarum distineri, litora et lacus Campaniae cum maxime peragrantem. sic imbui rectorem generis humani, id primum e paternis consiliis discere. sane gravaretur aspectum civium senex imperator fessamque aetatem et actos labores praetenderet: Druso quod nisi ex adrogantia impedimentum?

But Tiberius, while securing the force of the principate to himself, offered the Senate an image of antiquity by sending the petitions of the provinces to the examination of the fathers. For throughout the Greek cities the license and impunity of establishing sanctuaries was growing; the temples were filled with the worst of the slaves; by the same refuge debtors against their creditors, and men suspected of capital crimes, were harbored; nor was any authority strong enough to check the seditions of a people that protected the outrages of men as the ceremonies of the gods. So it was resolved that the communities send their charters and their envoys. And some, what they had falsely usurped, gave up of their own accord; many trusted in old superstitions, or in services to the Roman people. And great was the spectacle of that day, on which the Senate examined the benefactions of our ancestors, the compacts of allies, the decrees even of kings who had been powerful before Roman might, and the religions of the very deities—free, as once, to confirm or to alter what it would.

Sed Tiberius, vim principatus sibi firmans, imaginem antiquitatis senatui praebebat postulata provinciarum ad disquisitionem patrum mittendo. crebrescebat enim Graecas per urbes licentia atque impunitas asyla statuendi; complebantur templa pessimis servitiorum; eodem subsidio obaerati adversum creditores suspectique capitalium criminum receptabantur, nec ullum satis validum imperium erat coercendis seditionibus populi flagitia hominum ut caerimonias deum protegentis. igitur placitum ut mitterent civitates iura atque legatos. et quaedam quod falso usurpaverant sponte omisere; multae vetustis superstitioni- bus aut meritis in populum Romanum fidebant. magnaque eius diei species fuit quo senatus maiorum beneficia, sociorum pacta, regum etiam qui ante vim Romanam valuerant decreta ipsorumque numinum religiones introspexit, libero, ut quondam, quid firmaret mutaretve.

First of all the Ephesians came forward, recounting that Diana and Apollo were not, as the vulgar believed, born on Delos: there was among them the river Cenchreus and the grove Ortygia, where Latona, heavy with her childbearing and leaning on an olive-tree (which even now remains), had brought forth those deities; and that by the gods’ command the grove was consecrated, and that Apollo himself there, after the Cyclopes were slain, had escaped the wrath of Jove. Then Father Liber, victor in war, had pardoned the suppliant Amazons who had occupied the altar. Thence the ceremony of the temple had been increased by the grant of Hercules, when he held Lydia, nor was its right diminished under the dominion of the Persians; afterward the Macedonians, then we, had preserved it.

Primi omnium Ephesii adiere, memorantes non, ut vulgus crederet, Dianam atque Apollinem Delo genitos: esse apud se Cenchreum amnem, lucum Ortygiam, ubi Latonam partu gravidam et oleae, quae tum etiam maneat, adnisam edidisse ea numina, deorumque monitu sacratum nemus, atque ipsum illic Apollinem post interfectos Cyclopas Iovis iram vitavisse. mox Liberum patrem, bello victorem, supplicibus Amazonum quae aram insiderant ignovisse. auctam hinc concessu Herculis, cum Lydia poteretur, caerimoniam templo neque Persarum dicione deminutum ius; post Macedonas, dein nos servavisse.

Next to these the Magnetes relied on the establishments of Lucius Scipio and Lucius Sulla, of whom the one, when Antiochus had been driven out, the other, when Mithridates, had honored the fidelity and valor of the Magnetes, that the sanctuary of Diana Leucophryne should be an inviolable refuge. After these the people of Aphrodisias and of Stratonicea brought forward a decree of the dictator Caesar for their old services to his party, and a recent one of the deified Augustus—praised because they had endured the irruption of the Parthians with their constancy toward the Roman people unchanged. But the city of Aphrodisias maintained the cult of Venus, that of Stratonicea of Jupiter and Trivia. The Hierocaesarians set forth from a deeper antiquity a Persian Diana among them, a shrine dedicated by King Cyrus; and there were recalled the names of Perpenna, of Isauricus, and many other commanders who had granted the same sanctity not only to the temple but to two miles around. Next the Cyprians, concerning three shrines, of which the most ancient its founder Aerias had set up to the Paphian Venus, then his son Amathus to the Amathusian Venus, and Teucer, a fugitive from his father Telamon’s wrath, to Jove of Salamis.

Proximi hos Magnetes L. Scipionis et L. Sullae constitutis nitebantur, quorum ille Antiocho, hic Mithridate pulsis fidem atque virtutem Magnetum decoravere, uti Dianae Leucophrynae perfugium inviolabile foret. Aphrodisienses posthac et Stratonicenses dictatoris Caesaris ob vetusta in partis merita et recens divi Augusti decretum adtulere, laudati quod Parthorum inruptionem nihil mutata in populum Romanum constantia pertulissent. sed Aphrodisiensium civitas Veneris, Stratonicensium Iovis et Triviae religionem tuebantur. altius Hierocaesarienses exposuere, Persicam apud se Dianam, delubrum rege Cyro dicatum; et memorabantur Perpennae, Isaurici multaque alia imperatorum nomina qui non modo templo sed duobus milibus passuum eandem sanctitatem tribuerant. exim Cy- prii tribus de delubris, quorum vetustissimum Paphiae Veneri auctor Ae+rias, post filius eius Amathus Veneri Amathusiae et Iovi Salaminio Teucer, Telamonis patris ira profugus, posuissent.

The embassies of other communities too were heard. The senators, wearied by their number, and because it was contested with partisanship, permitted the consuls to examine the right and, if any inequity were involved, to refer the matter whole again to the Senate. Beyond the communities I have mentioned, the consuls reported that at Pergamum an asylum of Aesculapius had been established; the rest relied on beginnings obscure through age. For the Smyrnaeans cited an oracle of Apollo, by whose command they had dedicated a temple to Venus Stratonicis; the Tenians a verse of the same god, by which they were bidden to consecrate a statue and a shrine to Neptune. Nearer at hand were the Sardians: that was a gift of the victor Alexander. No less did the Milesians rely on King Darius; but the worship of both was of venerating Diana or Apollo. The Cretans too made petition, for a statue of the deified Augustus. And decrees of the Senate were made, by which, with much honor, a limit was nonetheless prescribed; and they were ordered to fix up bronze tablets in the temples themselves, to be hallowed to memory, and not, under the show of religion, to slide into ambition.

Auditae aliarum quoque civitatium legationes. quorum copia fessi patres, et quia studiis certabatur, consulibus permisere ut perspecto iure, et si qua iniquitas involveretur, rem integram rursum ad senatum referrent. consules super eas civitates quas memoravi apud Pergamum Aesculapii compertum asylum rettulerunt: ceteros obscuris ob vetustatem initiis niti. nam Zmyrnaeos oraculum Apollinis, cuius imperio Stratonicidi Veneri templum dicaverint, Tenios eiusdem carmen referre, quo sacrare Neptuni effigiem aedemque iussi sint. propiora Sardianos: Alexandri victoris id donum. neque minus Milesios Dareo rege niti; set cultus numinum utrisque Dianam aut Apollinem venerandi. petere et Cretenses simulacro divi Augusti. factaque senatus consulta quis multo cum honore modus tamen praescribebatur, iussique ipsis in templis figere aera sacrandam ad memoriam, neu specie religionis in ambitionem delaberentur.

About the same time the dangerous illness of Julia Augusta made for the princeps a necessity of a hastened return to the city, the concord between mother and son being as yet sincere, or their hatreds hidden. For not long before, when Julia, not far from the theater of Marcellus, was dedicating a statue to the deified Augustus, she had inscribed Tiberius’s name after her own; and he was believed to have stored this up, as beneath the majesty of a princeps, with a grave and dissembled offense. But then thanksgivings to the gods and great games were decreed by the Senate, which the pontiffs and the augurs and the Fifteen Men, together with the Seven Men and the Augustal companions, should hold. Lucius Apronius had proposed that the fetials too should preside over those games. Caesar spoke against it, distinguishing the right of the priesthoods and citing precedents: for never had the fetials had this dignity. The Augustals had been added because theirs was the priesthood proper to that house on whose behalf the vows were being paid.

Sub idem tempus Iuliae Augustae valetudo atrox necessitudinem principi fecit festinati in urbem reditus, sincera adhuc inter matrem filiumque concordia sive occultis odiis. neque enim multo ante, cum haud procul theatro Marcelli effigiem divo Augusto Iulia dicaret, Tiberi nomen suo postscripserat, idque ille credebatur ut inferius maiestate principis gravi et dissimulata offensione abdidisse. set tum supplicia dis ludique magni ab senatu decernuntur, quos pontifices et augures et quindecimviri septemviris simul et sodalibus Augustalibus ederent. censuerat L. Apro- nius ut fetiales quoque iis ludis praesiderent. contra dixit Caesar, distincto sacerdotiorum iure et repetitis exemplis: neque enim umquam fetialibus hoc maiestatis fuisse. ideo Augustalis adiectos quia proprium eius domus sacerdotium esset pro qua vota persolverentur.

I have not undertaken to follow out the opinions delivered, except such as were notable for their honor or marked by their disgrace, which I reckon the chief office of annals—that virtues not be passed over in silence, and that for crooked words and deeds there be a fear from posterity and infamy. But those times were so tainted and sordid with flattery that not only the leading men of the state, whose distinction had to be protected by compliance, but all the consulars, a great part of those who had held the praetorship, and many even of the back-bench senators rose up in rivalry and proposed foul and excessive things. It is handed down to memory that Tiberius, whenever he left the senate-house, was wont to say in Greek words to this effect: ’O men ready for slavery!’ Evidently even he, who would not have public liberty, was wearied by so abject a patience in those who served.

Exequi sententias haud institui nisi insignis per honestum aut notabili dedecore, quod praecipuum munus annalium reor ne virtutes sileantur utque pravis dictis factisque ex posteritate et infamia metus sit. ceterum tempora illa adeo infecta et adulatione sordida fuere ut non modo primores civitatis, quibus claritudo sua obsequiis protegenda erat, sed omnes consulares, magna pars eorum qui praetura functi multique etiam pedarii senatores certatim exsurgerent foedaque et nimia censerent. memoriae proditur Tiberium, quoties curia egrederetur, Graecis verbis in hunc modum eloqui solitum ’o homines ad servitutem paratos!’ scilicet etiam illum qui libertatem publicam nollet tam proiectae servientium patientiae taedebat.

Gradually thereafter they passed from things unseemly to things deadly. Gaius Silanus, proconsul of Asia, prosecuted by the allies for extortion—Mamercus Scaurus of the consulars, Junius Otho the praetor, and Bruttedius Niger the aedile seize upon at once, and charge with having violated the divinity of Augustus and scorned the majesty of Tiberius, Mamercus flinging out ancient precedents: Lucius Cotta accused by Scipio Africanus, Servius Galba by Cato the Censor, Publius Rutilius by Marcus Scaurus. As though Scipio and Cato avenged such things, or that very Scaurus whom Mamercus—the reproach of his ancestors—was dishonoring, his own great-grandfather, by his infamous work! Junius Otho’s old trade had been to keep a writing-school: then, made a senator by Sejanus’s power, he polluted his obscure beginnings with shameless ventures. Bruttedius, abounding in honorable arts, and, if he kept the straight road, bound for every most brilliant height, was goaded by a haste, while he makes ready to outstrip his equals, then his superiors, and at last his own hopes: which has dragged down many even good men, who, scorning what is slow yet safe, hasten after the premature, even at the cost of ruin.

Paulatim dehinc ab indecoris ad infesta transgrediebantur. C. Silanum pro consule Asiae repetundarum a sociis postulatum Mamercus Scaurus e consularibus, Iunius Otho praetor, Bruttedius Niger aedilis simul corripiunt obiectantque violatum Augusti numen, spretam Tiberii maiestatem, Mamercus antiqua exempla iaciens, L. Cottam a Scipione Africano, Servium Galbam a Catone censorio, P. Rutilium a M. Scauro accusatos. videlicet Scipio et Cato talia ulciscebantur aut ille Scaurus, quem proavum suum obprobrium maiorum Mamercus infami opera dehonestabat. Iunio Othoni litterarium ludum exercere vetus ars fuit: mox Seiani potentia senator obscura initia impudentibus ausis propolluebat. Bruttedium artibus honestis copiosum et, si rectum iter pergeret, ad clarissima quaeque iturum festinatio extimulabat, dum aequalis, dein superiores, postremo suasmet ipse spes antire parat: quod multos etiam bonos pessum dedit, qui spretis quae tarda cum securitate praematura vel cum exitio properant.

Gellius Publicola and Marcus Paconius swelled the number of the accusers—the one Silanus’s quaestor, the other his legate. Nor was it doubted that the defendant was held guilty of cruelty and of extorted moneys: but many things were heaped on, perilous even to the innocent, since, against so many senators arrayed against him, against the most eloquent men of all Asia—chosen for that very purpose to accuse—he answered alone, unskilled in pleading, and in that personal fear which weakens even practiced eloquence, while Tiberius did not refrain from pressing him with voice and look, because he himself most frequently put questions, and it was not granted to refute or evade them, and often there had even to be confession, lest he had asked in vain. The public agent had also taken Silanus’s slaves by purchase, that they might be questioned under torture. And, lest any of his connections should help the man in his peril, charges of treason were slipped in—a chain and a compulsion of silence. So, after asking for an interval of a few days, he abandoned his own defense, having ventured a note to Caesar in which he had mixed resentment and entreaties.

Auxere numerum accusatorum Gellius Publicola et M. Paconius, ille quaestor Silani, hic legatus. nec dubium habebatur saevitiae captarumque pecuniarum teneri reum: sed multa adgerebantur etiam insontibus periculosa, cum super tot senatores adversos facundissimis totius Asiae eoque ad accusandum delectis responderet solus et orandi nescius, proprio in metu qui exercitam quoque eloquentiam debilitat, non temperante Tiberio quin premeret voce vultu, eo quod ipse creberrime interrogabat, neque refellere aut eludere dabatur, ac saepe etiam confitendum erat ne frustra quaesivisset. servos quoque Silani ut tormentis interrogarentur actor publicus mancipio acceperat. et ne quis necessariorum iuvaret periclitantem maiestatis crimina subdebantur, vinclum et necessitas silendi. igitur petito paucorum dierum interiectu defensionem sui deseruit, ausis ad Caesarem codicillis quibus invidiam et preces miscuerat.

Tiberius, that what he was preparing against Silanus might be received the more excusably under a precedent, orders the memoranda of the deified Augustus concerning Volesus Messala, likewise proconsul of Asia, and the decree of the Senate made against him, to be read out. Then he asks Lucius Piso for his opinion. He, after much preface about the clemency of the princeps, proposed that Silanus be barred from water and fire, and himself banished to the island of Gyarus. The rest the same, except that Gnaeus Lentulus said that Silanus’s maternal goods, since he was born of Atia as parent, should be set apart and restored to his son, Tiberius assenting.

Tiberius quae in Silanum parabat quo excusatius sub exemplo acciperentur, libellos divi Augusti de Voleso Messala eiusdem Asiae pro consule factumque in eum senatus consultum recitari iubet. tum L. Pisonem sententiam rogat. ille multum de clementia principis praefatus aqua atque igni Silano interdicendum censuit ipsumque in insulam Gyarum relegandum. eadem ceteri, nisi quod Cn. Lentulus separanda Silani materna bona, quippe Atia parente geniti, reddendaque filio dixit, adnuente Tiberio.

But Cornelius Dolabella, while pursuing flattery further, after reviling the character of Gaius Silanus, added that no man scandalous in life and covered with infamy should be allotted a province, and that the princeps should adjudge it. For offenses were punished by the laws: how much milder for the men themselves, how much better for the allies, to provide that no wrong be done? Against this Caesar discoursed: he was not indeed ignorant of what was bruited about Silanus, but one must not decide from rumor. Many in the provinces had acted contrary to the hope or fear there had been of them: some were roused to better things by the greatness of affairs, others grew dull. Nor could a princeps embrace all things by his own knowledge, nor was it expedient that he be drawn by another’s intrigue. For this reason laws were established against deeds done, because the future is uncertain. So it was instituted by the ancestors: that, if offenses had gone before, penalties should follow. Let them not overturn things wisely devised and always approved: princes had burdens enough, power enough too. Rights were diminished whenever power swelled, nor should command be used where one could proceed by the laws. The rarer popularity was with Tiberius, the gladder the minds with which it was received. And he, skilled in moderation when he was not driven by his own anger, added that the island of Gyarus was harsh and without human cultivation: let them grant, to the Junian family and to a man once of their own order, that he withdraw rather to Cythnus. This his sister Torquata too, a virgin of old-fashioned sanctity, sought. Into this opinion the division was made.

At Cornelius Dolabella dum adulationem longius sequitur increpitis C. Silani moribus addidit ne quis vita probrosus et opertus infamia provinciam sortiretur, idque princeps diiudicaret. nam a legibus delicta puniri: quanto fore mitius in ipsos, melius in socios, provideri ne peccaretur? adversum quae disseruit Caesar: non quidem sibi ignara quae de Silano vulgabantur, sed non ex rumore statuendum. multos in provinciis contra quam spes aut metus de illis fuerit egisse: excitari quosdam ad meliora magnitudine rerum, hebescere alios. neque posse principem sua scientia cuncta complecti neque expedire ut ambitione aliena trahatur. ideo leges in facta constitui quia futura in incerto sint. sic a maioribus institutum ut, si antissent delicta, poenae sequerentur. ne verterent sapienter reperta et semper placita: satis onerum principibus, satis etiam potentiae. minui iura quotiens gliscat potestas, nec utendum imperio ubi legibus agi possit. quanto rarior apud Tiberium popularitas tanto laetioribus animis accepta. atque ille prudens moderandi, si propria ira non impelleretur, addidit insulam Gyarum immitem et sine cultu hominum esse: darent Iuniae familiae et viro quondam ordinis eiusdem ut Cythnum potius concederet. id sororem quoque Silani Torquatam, priscae sanctimoniae virginem, expetere. in hanc sententiam facta discessio.

Afterward the Cyrenaeans were heard, and, Ancharius Priscus accusing, Caesius Cordus is condemned for extortion. Lucius Ennius, a Roman knight, charged with treason for having turned an image of the princeps to the common use of silver, Caesar forbade to be received among the defendants—Ateius Capito openly objecting, as if for liberty’s sake. For the power of deciding ought not to be torn from the fathers, nor so great a misdeed held unpunished. Let him be slow in his own grievance: let him not be lavish with the wrongs of the commonwealth. Tiberius understood these things as they were rather than as they were spoken, and persisted in his veto. Capito was the more marked with infamy because, knowing of human and divine right, he had dishonored an excellent public reputation and his good arts at home.

Post auditi Cyrenenses et accusante Anchario Prisco Caesius Cordus repetundarum damnatur. L. Ennium equitem Romanum, maiestatis postulatum quod effigiem principis promiscum ad usum argenti vertisset, recipi Caesar inter reos vetuit, palam aspernante Ateio Capitone quasi per libertatem. non enim debere eripi patribus vim statuendi neque tantum maleficium impune habendum. sane lentus in suo dolore esset: rei publicae iniurias ne largiretur. intellexit haec Tiberius, ut erant magis quam ut dicebantur, perstititque intercedere. Capito insignitior infamia fuit quod humani divinique iuris sciens egregium publicum et bonas domi artes dehonestavisset.

Then a religious scruple arose, in what temple the offering should be placed which the Roman knights had vowed for Augusta’s health to Equestrian Fortune: for although there were many shrines of that goddess in the city, none was of such a surname. It was found that there was a temple at Antium so styled, and that all the ceremonies in the Italian towns, and the temples and the images of the deities, were of Roman right and dominion. So the offering is placed at Antium. And since religious matters were being handled, Caesar produced the lately deferred answer against Servius Maluginensis, the flamen of Jupiter, and read out the decree of the pontiffs: that, whenever ill health had assailed the flamen of Jupiter, he might, at the judgment of the supreme pontiff, be absent more than two nights, provided not on days of public sacrifice nor more than twice in the same year; which, established when Augustus was princeps, showed well enough that an annual absence and the administration of provinces was not conceded to the flamens of Jupiter. And the example of Lucius Metellus, supreme pontiff, was recalled, who had detained the flamen Aulus Postumius. So the lot of Asia was conferred on the consular next after Maluginensis.

Incessit dein religio quonam in templo locandum foret donum quod pro valetudine Augustae equites Romani voverant equestri Fortunae: nam etsi delubra eius deae multa in urbe, nullum tamen tali cognomento erat. repertum est aedem esse apud Antium quae sic nuncuparetur, cunctasque caerimonias Italicis in oppidis templaque et numinum effigies iuris atque imperii Romani esse. ita donum apud Antium statuitur. et quoniam de religionibus tractabatur, dilatum nuper responsum adversus Servium Maluginensem flaminem Dialem prompsit Caesar recitavitque decretum pontificum, quotiens valetudo adversa flaminem Dialem incessisset, ut pontificis maximi arbitrio plus quam binoctium abesset, dum ne diebus publici sacrificii neu saepius quam bis eundem in annum; quae principe Augusto constituta satis ostendebant annuam absentiam et provinciarum administrationem Dialibus non concedi. memorabaturque L. Metelli pontificis maximi exemplum qui Aulum Postumium flaminem attinuisset. ita sors Asiae in eum qui consularium Maluginensi proximus erat conlata.

In the same days Lepidus asked of the Senate that he might strengthen and adorn at his own expense the basilica of Paulus, a monument of the Aemilii. There was even then public munificence in the custom; nor had Augustus forbidden Taurus, Philippus, Balbus to confer the spoils of the enemy, or their overflowing wealth, on the adornment of the city and the glory of posterity. By that example Lepidus, though moderate in money, renewed his ancestral glory. But the theater of Pompey, consumed by a chance fire, Caesar promised to rebuild, because no one of the family was sufficient for the restoring, the name of Pompey nonetheless remaining. At the same time he extolled Sejanus with praises, as though by his labor and vigilance so great a violence had stood within a single loss; and the senators decreed a statue to Sejanus, to be placed by the theater of Pompey. And not much later Caesar, when he raised Junius Blaesus, proconsul of Africa, with the insignia of a triumph, said that he gave this to the honor of Sejanus, whose uncle Blaesus was. And yet Blaesus’s achievements were worthy of such a distinction.

Isdem diebus Lepidus ab senatu petivit ut basilicam Pauli, Aemilia monimenta, propria pecunia firmaret ornaretque. erat etiam tum in more publica munificentia; nec Augustus arcuerat Taurum, Philippum, Balbum hostilis exuvias aut exundantis opes ornatum ad urbis et posterum gloriam conferre. quo tum exemplo Lepidus, quamquam pecuniae modicus, avitum decus recoluit. at Pompei theatrum igne fortuito haustum Caesar extructurum pollicitus est eo quod nemo e familia restaurando sufficeret, manente tamen nomine Pompei. simul laudibus Seianum extulit tamquam labore vigilantiaque eius tanta vis unum intra damnum stetisset; et censuere patres effigiem Seiano quae apud theatrum Pompei locaretur. neque multo post Caesar, cum Iunium Blaesum pro consule Africae triumphi insignibus attolleret, dare id se dixit honori Seiani, cuius ille avunculus erat. ac tamen res Blaesi dignae decore tali fuere.

For Tacfarinas, though more than once driven off, his reinforcements repaired through the heart of Africa, had come to such arrogance that he sent envoys to Tiberius and demanded outright a seat for himself and his army, or threatened an inextricable war. At no other time, they say, did Caesar grieve more at an affront to himself and the Roman people, than that a deserter and brigand should act in the manner of an enemy. Not even to Spartacus—when, after the disasters of so many consular armies, he was burning an unavenged Italy, though the commonwealth was tottering under the vast wars of Sertorius and Mithridates—had it been granted that he be received into trust by a compact: much less, at the most beautiful pinnacle of the Roman people, should the bandit Tacfarinas be bought off by peace and a concession of lands. He gives Blaesus the charge: to lure the rest, indeed, to the hope of laying down their arms without harm, but to get hold of the leader himself by whatever means. And many were taken back under that pardon. Soon the war was waged against the arts of Tacfarinas in no dissimilar fashion.

Nam Tacfarinas, quamquam saepius depulsus, reparatis per intima Africae auxiliis huc adrogantiae venerat ut legatos ad Tiberium mitteret sedemque ultro sibi atque exercitui suo postularet aut bellum inexplicabile minitaretur. non alias magis sua populique Romani contumelia indoluisse Caesarem ferunt quam quod desertor et praedo hostium more ageret. ne Spartaco quidem post tot consularium exercituum cladis inultam Italiam urenti, quamquam Sertorii atque Mithridatis ingentibus bellis labaret res publica, datum ut pacto in fidem acciperetur; nedum pulcherrimo populi Romani fastigio latro Tacfarinas pace et concessione agrorum redimeretur. dat negotium Blaeso ceteros quidem ad spem proliceret arma sine noxa ponendi, ipsius autem ducis quoquo modo poteretur. et recepti ea venia plerique. mox adversum artes Tacfarinatis haud dissimili modo belligeratum.

For, because that man, unequal in the strength of an army but better at thieving, would attack and slip away in scattered bands and at the same time try ambushes, three lines of advance, and as many columns, are prepared. Of these Cornelius Scipio, the legate, was in charge, where the plundering ran toward the Leptitani and the refuges of the Garamantes; on another side, lest the cantons of the Cirtenses be harried unpunished, Blaesus’s son led his own band; in the center, with picked men, setting forts and works in suitable places, the commander himself had made everything strait and hostile to the enemy, because, whichever way they inclined, some part of the Roman soldiery was in front, on the flank, and often at the rear; and many in this way were cut down or surrounded. Then he scatters the threefold army into more bands and sets over them centurions of proven valor. Nor, as had been the custom, when summer was over did he draw back his forces or settle them in the winter-quarters of the old province, but, as if on the threshold of war, with forts disposed, through light troops and men knowing the wastes, he kept driving Tacfarinas—who shifted his huts—from place to place, until, his brother captured, he withdrew, more hastily, however, than was useful for the allies, leaving men through whom the war might rise again. But Tiberius, interpreting it as finished, granted this too to Blaesus, that he be saluted as imperator by the legions—the old honor toward commanders who, the commonwealth being well managed, were acclaimed by the joy and impulse of a victorious army; and there were several imperators at once, nor above the equality of the rest. Augustus too had conceded that title to some, and now Tiberius to Blaesus for the last time.

Nam quia ille robore exercitus impar, furandi melior, pluris per globos incursaret eluderetque et insidias simul temptaret, tres incessus, totidem agmina parantur. ex quis Cornelius Scipio legatus praefuit qua praedatio in Leptitanos et suffugia Garamantum; alio latere, ne Cirtensium pagi impune traherentur, propriam manum Blaesus filius duxit: medio cum delectis, castella et munitiones idoneis locis imponens, dux ipse arta et infensa hostibus cuncta fecerat, quia, quoquo inclinarent, pars aliqua militis Romani in ore, in latere et saepe a tergo erat; multique eo modo caesi aut circumventi. tunc tripertitum exercitum pluris in manus dispergit praeponitque centuriones virtutis expertae. nec, ut mos fuerat, acta aestate retrahit copias aut in hibernaculis veteris provinciae componit, sed ut in limine belli dispositis castellis per expeditos et solitudinum gnaros mutantem mapalia Tacfarinatem proturbabat, donec fratre eius capto regressus est, properantius tamen quam ex utilitate sociorum, relictis per quos resurgeret bellum. sed Tiberius pro confecto interpretatus id quoque Blaeso tribuit ut imperator a legionibus salutaretur, prisco erga duces honore qui bene gesta re publica gaudio et impetu victoris exercitus conclamabantur; erantque plures simul imperatores nec super ceterorum aequalitatem. concessit quibusdam et Augustus id vocabulum ac tunc Tiberius Blaeso postremum.

There died in that year the illustrious men Asinius Saloninus—distinguished by his grandfathers Marcus Agrippa and Asinius Pollio, and by his brother Drusus, and marked out as Caesar’s grandson-in-law—and Ateius Capito, of whom I have spoken, who had reached the foremost place in the state by civil studies, but had a centurion of Sulla’s for a grandfather and a praetor for a father. Augustus had hastened his consulship, so that by the dignity of that magistracy he might outstrip Antistius Labeo, who excelled in the same arts. For that age bore two ornaments of peace at once: but Labeo, of incorrupt independence and therefore the more celebrated in fame; Capito’s compliance toward those in power was the more approved. To the one, because he stopped within the praetorship, commendation arose out of the injury; to the other, because he attained the consulship, hatred out of envy.

Obiere eo anno viri inlustres Asinius Saloninus, Marco Agrippa et Pollione Asinio avis, fratre Druso insignis Caesarique progener destinatus, et Capito Ateius, de quo memoravi, principem in civitate locum studiis civilibus adsecutus, sed avo centurione Sullano, patre praetorio. consulatum ei adceleraverat Augustus ut Labeonem Antistium isdem artibus praecellentem dignatione eius magistratus antiret. namque illa aetas duo pacis decora simul tulit: sed Labeo incorrupta libertate et ob id fama celebratior, Capitonis obsequium dominantibus magis probabatur. illi quod praeturam intra stetit commendatio ex iniuria, huic quod consulatum adeptus est odium ex invidia oriebatur.

And Junia, in the sixty-fourth year after the battle of Philippi, completed her last day, born of Cato as her uncle, wife of Gaius Cassius, sister of Marcus Brutus. Her will was much rumored among the crowd, because, in her great wealth, when she had named almost all the nobles with honor, she omitted Caesar. Which was taken in a civil spirit, nor did he forbid that her funeral be graced with a eulogy from the Rostra and the other solemnities. The images of twenty most illustrious families were borne before her—the Manlii, the Quinctii, and other names of the same nobility. But Cassius and Brutus shone out for the very reason that their effigies were not to be seen.

Et Iunia sexagesimo quarto post Philippensem aciem anno supremum diem explevit, Catone avunculo genita, C. Cassii uxor, M. Bruti soror. testamentum eius multo apud vulgum rumore fuit, quia in magnis opibus cum ferme cunctos proceres cum honore nominavisset Caesarem omisit. quod civiliter acceptum neque prohibuit quo minus laudatione pro rostris ceterisque sollemnibus funus cohonestaretur. viginti clarissimarum familiarum imagines antelatae sunt, Manlii, Quinctii aliaque eiusdem nobilitatis nomina. sed praefulgebant Cassius atque Brutus eo ipso quod effigies eorum non visebantur.

In the consulship of Gaius Asinius and Gaius Antistius it was the ninth year for Tiberius of a commonwealth settled and a house flourishing (for he counted Germanicus’s death among his prosperities), when fortune suddenly began to throw all into confusion—and he himself to grow savage, or to lend his strength to those who were. The beginning and the cause lay with Aelius Sejanus, prefect of the praetorian cohorts, of whose power I have spoken above: now I shall unfold his origin, his character, and by what crime he went to snatch a tyranny. Born at Vulsinii, his father Seius Strabo, a Roman knight, and in his early youth a follower of Gaius Caesar, grandson of the deified Augustus—not without a report that he had sold his body for lust to the rich and prodigal Apicius—he soon bound Tiberius to himself by various arts, so far that, dark to all others, he made him toward himself alone unguarded and uncovered; not so much by cleverness (for by the same arts he was overcome) as by the gods’ anger against the Roman state, whose flourishing and whose fall were equal in his work. His body was tolerant of toils, his spirit daring; a concealer of himself, an accuser of others; flattery and arrogance side by side; outwardly a composed modesty, within a supreme lust for attaining the highest, and for that’s sake now largesse and luxury, more often industry and vigilance—no less harmful whenever they are feigned for the winning of a throne.

C. Asinio C. Antistio consulibus nonus Tiberio annus erat compositae rei publicae, florentis domus (nam Germanici mortem inter prospera ducebat), cum repente turbare fortuna coepit, saevire ipse aut saevientibus viris praebere. initium et causa penes Aelium Seianum cohortibus praetoriis praefectum cuius de potentia supra memoravi: nunc originem, mores, et quo facinore dominationem raptum ierit expediam. genitus Vulsiniis patre Seio Strabone equite Romano, et prima iuventa Gaium Caesarem divi Augusti nepotem sectatus, non sine rumore Apicio diviti et prodigo stuprum veno dedisse, mox Tiberium variis artibus devinxit adeo ut obscurum adversum alios sibi uni incautum intectumque efficeret, non tam sollertia (quippe isdem artibus victus est) quam deum ira in rem Romanam, cuius pari exitio viguit ceciditque. corpus illi laborum tolerans, animus audax; sui obtegens, in alios criminator; iuxta adulatio et superbia; palam compositus pudor, intus summa apiscendi libido, eiusque causa modo largitio et luxus, saepius in- dustria ac vigilantia, haud minus noxiae quotiens parando regno finguntur.

The force of the prefecture, modest before, he heightened by gathering into one camp the cohorts scattered through the city, so that they should take their orders all at once, and that, by their number and strength and by the sight of one another, confidence should arise in themselves, and dread in the rest. He pretended that the soldier ran riot when dispersed; that, if anything sudden befell, help could be brought with greater force all together; and that they would act more strictly if a rampart were set up far from the city’s allurements. When the camp was finished, he crept little by little into the soldiers’ minds, approaching them, addressing them; he chose the centurions and tribunes himself. Nor did he abstain from senatorial canvassing, adorning his clients with honors or with provinces—Tiberius being compliant, and so inclined that he celebrated him as the partner of his labors not only in conversations but before the senators and the people, and allowed his images to be honored in the theaters and forums and among the headquarters of the legions.

Vim praefecturae modicam antea intendit, dispersas per urbem cohortis una in castra conducendo, ut simul imperia acciperent numeroque et robore et visu inter se fiducia ipsis, in ceteros metus oreretur. praetendebat lascivire militem diductum; si quid subitum ingruat, maiore auxilio pariter subveniri; et severius acturos si vallum statuatur procul urbis inlecebris. ut perfecta sunt castra, inrepere paulatim militaris animos adeundo, appellando; simul centuriones ac tribunos ipse deligere. neque senatorio ambitu abstinebat clientes suos honoribus aut provinciis ornandi, facili Tiberio atque ita prono ut socium laborum non modo in sermonibus, sed apud patres et populum celebraret colique per theatra et fora effigies eius interque principia legionum sineret.

But the house full of Caesars—a son in his manhood, grandsons grown—brought delay to his desires; and because to seize so many at once by force was unsafe, treachery demanded intervals between the crimes. It pleased him, nonetheless, to take the more hidden road and to begin with Drusus, against whom he was carried by a fresh anger. For Drusus, impatient of a rival and somewhat hot of temper, in a quarrel that chanced to arise had aimed his hand at Sejanus, and, as the other resisted, had struck him in the face. So, with everything weighed, the readiest course seemed to him to turn to Drusus’s wife Livia—she who was the sister of Germanicus, of an unlovely shape in the beginning of her age, but soon excelling in beauty. Her, as if inflamed with love, he lured into adultery, and, after he had gained the first outrage (nor would a woman, her chastity lost, refuse other things), he urged her to the hope of marriage, a partnership in the throne, and the killing of her husband. And she—whose great-uncle was Augustus, whose father-in-law Tiberius, who had children by Drusus—defiled herself and her ancestors and her posterity with a municipal adulterer, that for things honorable and present she might wait on things shameful and uncertain. Eudemus, Livia’s friend and physician, is taken into the conspiracy, frequent in their secret meetings under the cover of his art. Sejanus drives his wife Apicata, by whom he had begotten three children, from his house, lest she be suspected by his mistress. But the magnitude of the deed brought fear, postponements, and at times conflicting counsels.

Ceterum plena Caesarum domus, iuvenis filius, nepotes adulti moram cupitis adferebant; et quia vi tot simul corripere intutum dolus intervalla scelerum poscebat. placuit tamen occultior via et a Druso incipere, in quem recenti ira ferebatur. nam Drusus impatiens aemuli et animo commotior orto forte iurgio intenderat Seiano manus et contra tendentis os verberaverat. igitur cuncta temptanti promptissimum visum ad uxorem eius Liviam convertere, quae soror Germanici, formae initio aetatis indecorae, mox pulchritudine praecellebat. hanc ut amore incensus adulterio pellexit, et postquam primi flagitii potitus est (neque femina amissa pudicitia alia abnuerit), ad coniugii spem, consortium regni et necem mariti impulit. atque illa, cui avunculus Augustus, socer Tiberius, ex Druso liberi, seque ac maiores et posteros municipali adultero foedabat ut pro honestis et praesentibus flagitiosa et incerta expectaret. sumitur in conscientiam Eudemus, amicus ac medicus Liviae, specie artis frequens secretis. pellit domo Seianus uxorem Apicatam, ex qua tres liberos genuerat, ne paelici suspectaretur. sed magnitudo facinoris metum, prolationes, diversa interdum consilia adferebat.

Meanwhile, at the year’s beginning, Drusus, one of Germanicus’s children, took the toga of manhood, and what the Senate had decreed for his brother Nero was repeated. Caesar added a speech with much praise of his son, that he showed a father’s benevolence toward his brother’s children. For Drusus, though it be hard for power and concord to dwell in the same place, was held fair toward the young men, or at least not hostile. Thereupon the old and often-feigned design of setting out for the provinces is brought up again. The emperor pleaded the multitude of veterans and that the armies must be filled up by levies: for the volunteer soldier was lacking, and, even if he were at hand, did not act with the same valor and discipline, because for the most part it is the poor and the vagrant who take up soldiering of their own accord. And he ran over in brief the number of the legions and which provinces they guarded. Which I too think I ought to set out: what Roman strength was then in arms, which kings were allies, how much more narrowly the empire was ruled.

Interim anni principio Drusus ex Germanici liberis togam virilem sumpsit quaeque fratri eius Neroni decreverat senatus repetita. addidit orationem Caesar multa cum laude filii sui quod patria benevolentia in fratris liberos foret. nam Drusus, quamquam arduum sit eodem loci potentiam et concordiam esse, aequus adulescentibus aut certe non adversus habebatur. exim vetus et saepe simulatum proficiscendi in provincias consilium refertur. multitudinem veteranorum praetexebat imperator et dilectibus supplendos exercitus: nam voluntarium militem deesse, ac si suppeditet, non eadem virtute ac modestia agere, quia plerumque inopes ac vagi sponte militiam sumant. percensuitque cursim numerum legionum et quas provincias tutarentur. quod mihi quoque exequendum reor, quae tunc Romana copia in armis, qui socii reges, quanto sit angustius imperitatum.

Italy on both seas two fleets guarded, at Misenum and at Ravenna, and the nearest shore of Gaul beaked ships, which Augustus, captured in the victory at Actium, had sent to the town of Forum Julii with a strong body of rowers. But the chief strength was beside the Rhine—a common protection against Germans and Gauls—eight legions. The Spains, lately subdued, were held by three. The Moors king Juba had received as a gift of the Roman people. The rest of Africa two legions kept, and an equal number Egypt; then, from the start of Syria as far as the river Euphrates, all that is enclosed in that vast bend of lands, was held in check by four legions, with the Iberian and the Albanian for neighbors and other kings who are shielded by our greatness against foreign empires. And Thrace Rhoemetalces and the children of Cotys held; the bank of the Danube two legions in Pannonia, two in Moesia kept, as many being stationed in Dalmatia, which, by the position of the region, were at their backs, and, if Italy should demand sudden aid, could be summoned from no great distance—although the city was garrisoned by its own soldiery, three urban and nine praetorian cohorts, levied for the most part from Etruria and Umbria, or from old Latium and the colonies of ancient Rome. And at suitable points of the provinces there were allied triremes and squadrons of cavalry and auxiliary cohorts, and of force not much inferior to these: but to follow them out was uncertain, since by the use of the moment they moved hither and thither, swelled in number, and were sometimes diminished.

Italiam utroque mari duae classes, Misenum apud et Ravennam, proximumque Galliae litus rostratae naves praesidebant, quas Actiaca victoria captas Augustus in oppidum Foroiuliense miserat valido cum remige. sed praecipuum robur Rhenum iuxta, commune in Germanos Gallosque subsidium, octo legiones erant. Hispaniae recens perdomitae tribus habebantur. Mauros Iuba rex acceperat donum populi Romani. cetera Africae per duas legiones parique numero Aegyptus, dehinc initio ab Syriae usque ad flumen Euphraten, quantum ingenti terrarum sinu ambitur, quattuor legionibus coercita, accolis Hibero Albanoque et aliis regibus qui magnitudine nostra proteguntur adversum externa imperia. et Thraeciam Rhoemetalces ac liberi Cotyis, ripamque Danuvii legionum duae in Pannonia, duae in Moesia attinebant, totidem apud Delmatiam locatis, quae positu regionis a tergo illis, ac si repentinum auxilium Italia posceret, haud procul accirentur, quamquam insideret urbem proprius miles, tres urbanae, novem praetoriae cohortes, Etruria ferme Vmbriaque delectae aut vetere Latio et coloniis antiquitus Romanis. at apud idonea provinciarum sociae triremes alaeque et auxilia cohortium, neque multo secus in iis virium: sed persequi incertum fuit, cum ex usu temporis huc illuc mearent, gliscerent numero et aliquando minuerentur.

It would be fitting, I think, to review the other parts of the commonwealth too, and by what means they were managed up to that day, since that year brought the beginning of Tiberius’s principate changed for the worse. First, then, public business, and the greatest affairs of private men, were handled before the senators, and leave was given to the leading men to debate; and when they slipped into flattery, he himself restrained them. He bestowed offices with regard to the nobility of ancestors, the renown of military service, the illustrious arts of peace, so that it was clear enough that no others were preferable. The consuls had their own dignity, the praetors theirs; the power of the lesser magistrates too was exercised; and the laws, if the inquiry into treason were excepted, were in good use. But the grain and the moneyed tributes, and the rest of the public revenues, were managed by companies of Roman knights. His own affairs Caesar entrusted to each most approved man, some unknown to him by repute; and once taken up they were held without limit, since most grew old in the same business. The plebs, indeed, was wearied by a sharp dearth of grain, but in that there was no fault from the princeps: nay, he met the barrenness of the lands or the roughness of the sea, as far as he could by expense and diligence. And he provided that the provinces should not be disturbed by new burdens, and that they should bear the old without the greed or cruelty of magistrates: floggings of bodies, confiscations of goods, were absent. Caesar’s estates throughout Italy were few, his slaves modest, his household within a few freedmen; and if ever he had a dispute with private men, there was the forum and the law.

Congruens crediderim recensere ceteras quoque rei publicae partis, quibus modis ad eam diem habitae sint, quoniam Tiberio mutati in deterius principatus initium ille annus attulit. iam primum publica negotia et privatorum maxima apud patres tractabantur, dabaturque primoribus disserere et in adulationem lapsos cohibebat ipse; mandabatque honores, nobilitatem maiorum, claritudinem militiae, inlustris domi artes spectando, ut satis constaret non alios potiores fuisse. sua consulibus, sua praetoribus species; minorum quoque magistratuum exercita potestas; legesque, si maiestatis quaestio eximeretur, bono in usu. at frumenta et pecuniae vectigales, cetera publicorum fructuum societatibus equitum Romanorum agitabantur. res suas Caesar spectatissimo cuique, quibusdam ignotis ex fama mandabat, semelque adsumpti tenebantur prorsus sine modo, cum plerique isdem negotiis insenescerent. plebes acri quidem annona fatigabatur, sed nulla in eo culpa ex principe: quin infecunditati terrarum aut asperis maris obviam iit, quantum impendio diligentiaque poterat. et ne provinciae novis oneribus turbarentur utque vetera sine avaritia aut crudelitate magistratuum tolerarent providebat: corporum verbera, ademptiones bonorum aberant. rari per Italiam Caesaris agri, modesta servitia, intra paucos libertos domus; ac si quando cum privatis disceptaret, forum et ius.

All this—not, indeed, by a courteous manner, but rough and for the most part feared—he nonetheless maintained, until by Drusus’s death it was overturned: for while Drusus survived, these things remained, because Sejanus, his power still beginning, wished to be known by good counsels, and a punisher was feared—not one who hid his hatred, but who often complained that, with the son unharmed, another was called helper of the empire. And how much was left until he be called colleague? The first hopes of mastery are on a steep height: once you have entered upon it, supporters and ministers are at hand. Already the prefect’s camp was built at his own prompting, the soldiers given into his hand; his image was seen on the monuments of Gnaeus Pompey; he would have grandsons in common with the family of the Drusi: thereafter one must pray for his modesty, that he be content. Such things he flung out neither rarely nor before few, and even his secrets, his wife corrupted, were betrayed.

Quae cuncta non quidem comi via sed horridus ac plerumque formidatus retinebat tamen, donec morte Drusi verterentur: nam dum superfuit mansere, quia Seianus incipiente adhuc potentia bonis consiliis notescere volebat, et ultor metuebatur non occultus odii set crebro querens incolumi filio adiutorem imperii alium vocari. et quantum superesse ut collega dicatur? primas dominandi spes in arduo: ubi sis ingressus, adesse studia et ministros. extructa iam sponte praefecti castra, datos in manum milites; cerni effigiem eius in monimentis Cn. Pompei; communis illi cum familia Drusorum fore nepotes: precandam post haec modestiam ut contentus esset. neque raro neque apud paucos talia iaciebat, et secreta quoque eius corrupta uxore prodebantur.

So Sejanus, thinking he must make haste, chooses a poison by whose gradual creeping a chance sickness might be counterfeited. It was given to Drusus through the eunuch Lygdus, as was learned eight years later. But Tiberius, through all the days of his illness—whether from no fear, or to display his firmness of mind—even when he was dead and not yet buried, entered the senate-house. And the consuls sitting on a common seat, by way of a show of mourning, he reminded of their honor and place, and, when the Senate broke into tears, he raised them up, his groan mastered, with a continuous speech at once: he was not, indeed, ignorant that he could be reproached for having come before the eyes of the Senate in so fresh a grief; scarcely were the addresses of kinsmen endured, scarcely was the daylight looked upon, by most who mourned. Nor were they to be condemned for weakness: he, however, had sought stronger consolations from the embrace of the commonwealth. And, pitying the extreme old age of Augusta, the still tender years of his grandsons, and his own declining age, he asked that Germanicus’s children, the sole relief of present ills, be brought in. The consuls went out, and, having heartened the youths with words and led them in, set them before Caesar. Taking them by the hand, ’Conscript fathers,’ he said, ’these boys, bereft of their father, I gave over to their uncle, and begged him, though he had offspring of his own, to cherish and raise them no otherwise than his own blood, and to fashion them for himself and for posterity. Drusus snatched away, I turn my prayers to you, and before the gods and the fatherland I adjure you: receive, guide the great-grandsons of Augustus, sprung of the most illustrious ancestors; fulfill your part and mine. These, Nero and Drusus, are in a parent’s place to you. So are you born that your good and your ill belong to the commonwealth.’

Igitur Seianus maturandum ratus deligit venenum quo paulatim inrepente fortuitus morbus adsimularetur. id Druso datum per Lygdum spadonem, ut octo post annos cognitum est. ceterum Tiberius per omnis valetudinis eius dies, nullo metu an ut firmitudinem animi ostentaret, etiam defuncto necdum sepulto, curiam ingressus est. consulesque sede vulgari per speciem maestitiae sedentis honoris locique admonuit, et effusum in lacrimas senatum victo gemitu simul oratione continua erexit: non quidem sibi ignarum posse argui quod tam recenti dolore subierit oculos senatus: vix propinquorum adloquia tolerari, vix diem aspici a plerisque lugentium. neque illos imbecillitatis damnandos: se tamen fortiora solacia e complexu rei publicae petivisse. miseratusque Augustae extremam senectam, rudem adhuc nepotum et vergentem aetatem suam, ut Germanici liberi, unica praesentium malorum levamenta, inducerentur petivit. egressi consules firmatos adloquio adulescentulos deductosque ante Caesarem statuunt. quibus adprensis ’patres conscripti, hos’ inquit ’orbatos parente tradidi patruo ipsorum precatusque sum, quamquam esset illi propria suboles, ne secus quam suum sanguinem foveret attolleret, sibique et posteris conformaret. erepto Druso preces ad vos converto disque et patria coram obtestor: Augusti pronepotes, clarissimis maioribus genitos, suscipite regite, vestram meamque vicem explete. hi vobis, Nero et Druse, parentum loco. ita nati estis ut bona malaque vestra ad rem publicam pertineant.’

These words were heard with great weeping and then with auspicious prayers; and had he set a limit to his speech, he would have filled the minds of his hearers with pity and glory for himself: but, falling back into the empty things so often mocked—about restoring the commonwealth, and that the consuls, or someone else, should take up the governance—he took away credit even from what was true and honorable. To the memory of Drusus the same things were decreed as for Germanicus, with many added, as later flattery is wont. The funeral was most notable for the procession of images, when the origin of the Julian gens, Aeneas, and all the kings of the Albans, and Romulus the founder of the city, then the Sabine nobility, Attus Clausus, and the rest of the Claudii were beheld in long order.

Magno ea fletu et mox precationibus faustis audita; ac si modum orationi posuisset, misericordia sui gloriaque animos audientium impleverat: ad vana et totiens inrisa revolutus, de reddenda re publica utque consules seu quis alius regimen susciperent, vero quoque et honesto fidem dempsit. memoriae Drusi eadem quae in Germanicum decernuntur, plerisque additis, ut ferme amat posterior adulatio. funus imaginum pompa maxime inlustre fuit, cum origo Iuliae gentis Aeneas omnesque Albanorum reges et conditor urbis Romulus, post Sabina nobilitas, Attus Clausus ceteraeque Claudiorum effigies longo ordine spectarentur.

In handing down the death of Drusus I have reported what is recorded by the most numerous and most trustworthy authorities: but I would not omit a rumor of those same times, so strong that it has not yet faded. Livia, corrupted to the crime, had bound to herself by lust the spirit of the eunuch Lygdus too, since by age and beauty he was dear to his master and among the foremost attendants; then, when among the confederates the place and time of the poisoning had been arranged, he reached such a pitch of audacity that he turned it about, and, charging Drusus by a secret information with poisoning his father, warned Tiberius to avoid the draught that should first be offered him as he dined with his son. Caught by that trick, the old man, after he had entered the banquet, took the cup and handed it to Drusus; and as the other, unaware, drank it down with a young man’s heedlessness, the suspicion was increased, as though, through fear and shame, he were inflicting on himself the death he had contrived for his father.

In tradenda morte Drusi quae plurimis maximaeque fidei auctoribus memorata sunt rettuli: set non omiserim eorundem temporum rumorem validum adeo ut nondum exolescat. corrupta ad scelus Livia Seianum Lygdi quoque spadonis animum stupro vinxisse, quod is aetate atque forma carus domino interque primores ministros erat; deinde inter conscios ubi locus veneficii tempusque composita sint, eo audaciae provectum ut verteret et occulto indicio Drusum veneni in patrem arguens moneret Tiberium vitandam potionem quae prima ei apud filium epulanti offerretur. ea fraude captum senem, postquam convivium inierat, exceptum poculum Druso tradidisse; atque illo ignaro et iuveniliter hauriente auctam suspicionem, tamquam metu et pudore sibimet inrogaret mortem quam patri struxerat.

These things, bandied about by the crowd, beyond that they are confirmed by no sure authority, you could readily refute. For who, of even middling prudence—much less Tiberius, exercised in such great affairs—would offer destruction to an unheard son, and that by his own hand and with no road back to repentance? Why would he not rather torture the minister of the poison, seek out the author, and use against an only son, convicted of no prior outrage, that hesitation and delay he showed even toward strangers? But because Sejanus was held the deviser of all crimes, out of Caesar’s excessive love for him and the hatred of all others toward both, even fabulous and monstrous things were believed, rumor being always more atrocious about the deaths of those in power. Besides, the order of the crime, betrayed by Sejanus’s wife Apicata, was laid bare by the torture of Eudemus and Lygdus. Nor did any writer arise so hostile as to charge it upon Tiberius, although they sought out and pressed everything else. My reason for handing down and disproving the rumor was, by a clear example, to drive off false hearsay, and to ask of those into whose hands our work shall come not to prefer things divulged and incredible, greedily received, to truths not corrupted into the marvelous.

Haec vulgo iactata super id quod nullo auctore certo firmantur prompte refutaveris. quis enim mediocri prudentia, nedum Tiberius tantis rebus exercitus, inaudito filio exitium offerret, idque sua manu et nullo ad paenitendum regressu? quin potius ministrum veneni excruciaret, auctorem exquireret, insita denique etiam in extraneos cunctatione et mora adversum unicum et nullius ante flagitii compertum uteretur? sed quia Seianus facinorum omnium repertor habebatur, ex nimia caritate in eum Caesaris et ceterorum in utrumque odio quamvis fabulosa et immania credebantur, atrociore semper fama erga dominantium exitus. ordo alioqui sceleris per Apicatam Seiani proditus tormentis Eudemi ac Lygdi patefactus est. neque quisquam scriptor tam infensus extitit ut Tiberio obiectaret, cum omnia alia conquirerent intenderentque. mihi tradendi arguendique rumoris causa fuit ut claro sub exemplo falsas auditiones depellerem peteremque ab iis quorum in manus cura nostra venerit ne divulgata atque incredibilia avide accepta veris neque in miraculum corruptis antehabeant.

But while Tiberius praised his son from the Rostra, the Senate and people put on the bearing and voices of mourners more by pretense than willingly, and secretly rejoiced that the house of Germanicus was reviving. Which beginning of favor, and the mother Agrippina ill-concealing her hope, hastened its ruin. For Sejanus, when he sees Drusus’s death unavenged on the murderers, without public grief, grown fierce in crime—and, because the first attempts had succeeded—turns over with himself by what means he might overthrow the children of Germanicus, whose succession was not in doubt. And poison could not be scattered among the three, the loyalty of their guards being remarkable and Agrippina’s chastity impenetrable. So he assails her obstinacy, stirs up Augusta’s old hatred and Livia’s fresh complicity, that they might charge before Caesar that she, proud in her fertility and propped on the people’s zeal, was gaping after mastery. And this through cunning slanderers, among whom he had chosen Julius Postumus—through his adultery with Mutilia Prisca among the grandmother’s intimates, and most apt for his designs, because Prisca, powerful in Augusta’s mind, made the old woman, by her very nature anxious for power, unable to be at peace with her daughter-in-law. Agrippina’s nearest connections too were enticed by wicked talk to goad on her swollen spirits.

Ceterum laudante filium pro rostris Tiberio senatus populusque habitum ac voces dolentum simulatione magis quam libens induebat, domumque Germanici revirescere occulti laetabantur. quod principium favoris et mater Agrippina spem male tegens perniciem adceleravere. nam Seianus ubi videt mortem Drusi inultam interfectoribus, sine maerore publico esse, ferox scelerum et, quia prima provenerant, volutare secum quonam modo Germanici liberos perverteret, quorum non dubia successio. neque spargi venenum in tres poterat, egregia custodum fide et pudicitia Agrippinae impenetrabili. igitur contumaciam eius insectari, vetus Augustae odium, recentem Liviae conscientiam exagitare, ut superbam fecunditate, subnixam popularibus studiis inhiare dominationi apud Caesarem arguerent. atque haec callidis criminatoribus, inter quos delegerat Iulium Postumum, per adulterium Mutiliae Priscae inter intimos aviae et consiliis suis peridoneum, quia Prisca in animo Augustae valida anum suapte natura potentiae anxiam insociabilem nurui efficiebat. Agrippinae quoque proximi inliciebantur pravis sermonibus tumidos spiritus perstimulare.

But Tiberius, with no relaxation of his care for affairs, taking business for consolation, handled the law of citizens and the petitions of allies; and on his initiative decrees of the Senate were made that the community of Cibyra in Asia, and of Aegium in Achaia, shaken by an earthquake, should be relieved by a remission of tribute for three years. And Vibius Serenus, proconsul of Further Spain, condemned for public violence, was deported, for the atrocity of his character, to the island of Amorgus. Carsidius Sacerdos, charged with having aided the enemy Tacfarinas with grain, is acquitted, and of the same charge Gaius Gracchus. Him, a mere infant, his father Sempronius had carried into exile, his companion, to the island of Cercina. There, grown up among outcasts and men ignorant of the liberal arts, he afterward supported himself by trading sordid wares through Africa and Sicily; nor yet did he escape the perils of a great fortune. And had not Aelius Lamia and Lucius Apronius, who had held Africa, protected him in his innocence, he would have been dragged off by the renown of his ill-starred family and his father’s misfortunes.

At Tiberius nihil intermissa rerum cura, negotia pro solaciis accipiens, ius civium, preces sociorum tractabat; factaque auctore eo senatus consulta ut civitati Cibyraticae apud Asiam, Aegiensi apud Achaiam, motu terrae labefactis, subveniretur remissione tributi in triennium. et Vibius Serenus pro consule ulterioris Hispaniae de vi publica damnatus ob atrocitatem morum in insulam Amorgum deportatur. Carsidius Sacerdos, reus tamquam frumento hostem Tacfarinatem iuvisset, absolvitur, eiusdemque criminis C. Gracchus. hunc comitem exilii admodum infantem pater Sempronius in insulam Cercinam tulerat. illic adultus inter extorris et liberalium artium nescios, mox per Africam ac Siciliam mutando sordidas merces sustentabatur; neque tamen effugit magnae fortunae pericula. ac ni Aelius Lamia et L. Apronius qui Africam obtinuerant insontem protexissent, claritudine infausti generis et paternis adversis foret abstractus.

That year too had embassies of Greek communities, the Samians for the temple of Juno, the Coans for that of Aesculapius asking that the ancient right of asylum be confirmed. The Samians relied on a decree of the Amphictyons, whose was the chief judgment in all matters, at the season when the Greeks, having founded cities through Asia, held the seacoast. Nor was the antiquity among the Coans unlike, and there was added a merit from the place: for they had taken Roman citizens into the temple of Aesculapius, when, by order of King Mithridates, they were being butchered throughout all the islands and cities of Asia. Then, after various and oftener-vain complaints of the praetors, Caesar at last brought up the matter of the players’ insolence: many things were attempted by them seditiously against the public, foully through private houses; the Oscan farce, once a most trifling delight of the crowd, had come to such a pitch of outrages and of violence that it must be checked by the authority of the senators. The players were then expelled from Italy.

Is quoque annus legationes Graecarum civitatium habuit, Samiis Iunonis, Cois Aesculapii delubro vetustum asyli ius ut firmaretur petentibus. Samii decreto Amphictyonum nitebantur, quis praecipuum fuit rerum omnium iudicium, qua tempestate Graeci conditis per Asiam urbibus ora maris potiebantur. neque dispar apud Coos antiquitas, et accedebat meritum ex loco: nam civis Romanos templo Aesculapii induxerant, cum iussu regis Mithridatis apud cunctas Asiae insulas et urbes trucidarentur. variis dehinc et saepius inritis praetorum questibus, postremo Caesar de immodestia histrionum rettulit: multa ab iis in publicum seditiose, foeda per domos temptari; Oscum quondam ludicrum, levissimae apud vulgum oblectationis, eo flagitiorum et virium venisse ut auctoritate patrum coercendum sit. pulsi tum histriones Italia.

The same year afflicts Caesar with another grief too, by the extinguishing of one of the twin children of Drusus, and no less by the death of a friend. He was Lucilius Longus, the partner of all his sad and glad hours, and the one of the senators who was his companion in the Rhodian retreat. So, although he was a new man, the senators decreed him a censor’s funeral and a statue in the Forum of Augustus at the public expense—before whom even then all matters were handled, so far that Lucilius Capito, procurator of Asia, accused by the province, pleaded his cause, with great asseveration of the princeps that he had given him no jurisdiction except over slaves and the household moneys: that if he had usurped a praetor’s power and used the hands of soldiers, his orders had been scorned in that; let them hear the allies. So the defendant, the matter examined, is condemned. For which vengeance, and because the year before vengeance had been taken on Gaius Silanus, the cities of Asia decreed a temple to Tiberius and his mother and the Senate. And it was permitted to build it; and Nero gave thanks for that cause to the senators and to his grandfather, amid the glad emotions of the hearers, who, in fresh memory of Germanicus, thought it was he they beheld, he they heard. And there were in the young man a modesty and a beauty worthy of a princely man, the more pleasing for the known hatreds of Sejanus toward him on account of his peril.

Idem annus alio quoque luctu Caesarem adficit alterum ex geminis Drusi liberis extinguendo, neque minus morte amici. is fuit Lucilius Longus, omnium illi tristium laetorumque socius unusque e senatoribus Rhodii secessus comes. ita quamquam novo homini censorium funus, effigiem apud forum Augusti publica pecunia patres decrevere, apud quos etiam tum cuncta tractabantur, adeo ut procurator Asiae Lucilius Capito accusante provincia causam dixerit, magna cum adseveratione principis non se ius nisi in servitia et pecunias familiares dedisse: quod si vim praetoris usurpasset manibusque militum usus foret, spreta in eo mandata sua: audirent socios. ita reus cognito negotio damnatur. ob quam ultionem et quia priore anno in C. Silanum vindicatum erat, decrevere Asiae urbes templum Tiberio matrique eius ac senatui. et permissum statuere; egitque Nero grates ea causa patribus atque avo, laetas inter audientium adfectiones qui recenti memoria Germanici illum aspici, illum audiri rebantur. aderantque iuveni modestia ac forma principe viro digna, notis in eum Seiani odiis ob periculum gratiora.

About the same time, on the choosing of a flamen of Jupiter in place of the deceased Servius Maluginensis, and at once on a new law to be proposed, Caesar discoursed. For patricians born of parents wedded by confarreatio were named three at once, of whom one was chosen, by the ancient custom; nor was there, as of old, that abundance, the practice of confarreation being given up, or kept among few (and he brought forward several causes of the matter, the chief lying in the carelessness of men and women; there was added the difficulties of the ceremony itself, which were of set purpose avoided)—and because he who attained that flaminate, and she who passed into the flamen’s hand, went out from the paternal right. So it must be remedied by a decree of the Senate or by a law, just as Augustus had bent certain things from that rough antiquity to present use. So, religious matters being handled, it pleased them that nothing be changed in the institution of the flamens: but a law was passed by which the flamen of Jupiter’s wife should be in her husband’s power for the sake of the rites, but in other things act by the common right of women. And the son of Maluginensis was substituted for his father. And, that the dignity of the priesthoods might grow and their own spirit be readier to undertake the ceremonies, it was decreed to the maiden Cornelia, who was being taken in the place of Scantia, two million sesterces, and that, whenever Augusta entered the theater, she should sit among the seats of the Vestals.

Sub idem tempus de flamine Diali in locum Servi Maluginensis defuncti legendo, simul roganda nova lege disseruit Caesar. nam patricios confarreatis parentibus genitos tres simul nominari, ex quis unus legeretur, vetusto more; neque adesse, ut olim, eam copiam, omissa confarreandi adsuetudine aut inter paucos retenta (pluresque eius rei causas adferebat, potissimam penes incuriam virorum feminarumque; accedere ipsius caerimoniae difficultates quae consulto vitarentur) et quoniam exiret e iure patrio qui id flamonium apisceretur quaeque in manum flaminis conveniret. ita medendum senatus decreto aut lege, sicut Augustus quaedam ex horrida illa antiquitate ad praesentem usum flexisset. igitur tractatis religionibus placitum instituto flaminum nihil demutari: sed lata lex qua flaminica Dialis sacrorum causa in potestate viri, cetera promisco feminarum iure ageret. et filius Maluginensis patri suffectus. utque glisceret dignatio sacerdotum atque ipsis promptior animus foret ad capessendas caerimonias decretum Corneliae virgini, quae in locum Scantiae capiebatur, sestertium viciens, et quotiens Augusta theatrum introisset ut sedes inter Vestalium consideret.

In the consulship of Cornelius Cethegus and Visellius Varro, the pontiffs, and after their example the other priests, when they undertook vows for the safety of the princeps, commended Nero and Drusus too to the same gods—not so much from affection for the young men as from flattery, which, in corrupt morals, is alike perilous whether it is wholly absent or where it is excessive. For Tiberius, never gentle toward the house of Germanicus, then indeed grieved impatiently that the youths were set equal to his own old age, and, the pontiffs being summoned, asked whether they had granted this to Agrippina’s prayers or her threats. And they indeed, though they denied it, were lightly censured; for a great part were of his own kin or the leading men of the state: but in the Senate he warned by a speech, for the future, that no one should, by premature honors, lift the impressionable minds of the young to arrogance. For Sejanus was pressing, and charged that the state was split as in civil war: there were those who called themselves of Agrippina’s party, and, unless it were resisted, there would be more; nor was there any other remedy for the growing discord than that one or two of the most forward be brought down.

Cornelio Cethego Visellio Varrone consulibus pontifices eorumque exemplo ceteri sacerdotes, cum pro incolumitate principis vota susciperent, Neronem quoque et Drusum isdem dis commendavere, non tam caritate iuvenum quam adulatione, quae moribus corruptis perinde anceps, si nulla et ubi nimia est. nam Tiberius haud umquam domui Germanici mitis, tum vero aequari adulescentes senectae suae impatienter indoluit accitosque pontifices percontatus est num id precibus Agrippinae aut minis tribuissent. et illi quidem, quamquam abnuerent, modice perstricti; etenim pars magna e propinquis ipsius aut primores civitatis erant: ceterum in senatu oratione monuit in posterum ne quis mobilis adulescentium animos praematuris honoribus ad superbiam extolleret. instabat quippe Seianus incusabatque diductam civitatem ut civili bello: esse qui se partium Agrippinae vocent, ac ni resistatur, fore pluris; neque aliud gliscentis discordiae remedium quam si unus alterve maxime prompti subverterentur.

For which cause he assails Gaius Silius and Titius Sabinus. Germanicus’s friendship was ruinous to both; to Silius the more, because, the commander of a huge army for seven years, and, having won triumphal distinctions in Germany, victor in the war of Sacrovir, the greater the mass with which he fell, the more dread was scattered upon others. Most believed the offense increased by his own intemperance, immoderately boasting that his soldiery had stood firm in obedience when others slid into mutinies, and that the empire would not have remained to Tiberius had those legions too had a desire for revolution. By such words, Caesar reckoned, his own fortune was undone, and he himself unequal to so great a service. For benefits are welcome only so long as they seem capable of being repaid: when they have far outrun that, hatred is rendered in place of gratitude.

Qua causa C. Silium et Titium Sabinum adgreditur. amicitia Germanici perniciosa utrique, Silio et quod ingentis exercitus septem per annos moderator partisque apud Germaniam triumphalibus Sacroviriani belli victor, quanto maiore mole procideret, plus formidinis in alios dispergebatur. credebant plerique auctam offensionem ipsius intemperantia, immodice iactantis suum militem in obsequio duravisse cum alii ad seditiones prolaberentur; neque mansurum Tiberio imperium si iis quoque legionibus cupido novandi fuisset. destrui per haec fortunam suam Caesar imparemque tanto merito rebatur. nam beneficia eo usque laeta sunt dum videntur exolvi posse: ubi multum antevenere pro gratia odium redditur.

Silius had a wife, Sosia Galla, hateful to the princeps for her affection toward Agrippina. It pleased them to seize on these, Sabinus being put off to a later time; and the consul Varro was let loose, who, holding out his father’s enmities, gratified Sejanus’s hatreds by his own disgrace. The defendant begging a short delay, until the accuser should leave the consulship, Caesar opposed it: for it was usual for magistrates to appoint a day for private men; nor must the consul’s right be infringed, on whose vigilance it rested that the commonwealth take no harm. It was proper to Tiberius to cover crimes lately devised with ancient words. So, with much asseveration, as though either Silius were dealt with by the laws, or Varro were a consul, or that were a commonwealth, the senators are compelled to meet, the defendant silent—or, if he began a defense, not concealing by whose anger he was pressed. His complicity in Sacrovir’s war, long dissembled, his victory befouled by greed, and his wife as partner were charged. Nor without doubt did they stick on charges of extortion; but the whole was conducted as an inquiry into treason, and Silius forestalled the impending condemnation by a voluntary end.

Erat uxor Silio Sosia Galla, caritate Agrippinae invisa principi. hos corripi dilato ad tempus Sabino placitum, immissusque Varro consul qui paternas inimicitias obtendens odiis Seiani per dedecus suum gratificabatur. precante reo brevem moram, dum accusator consulatu abiret, adversatus est Caesar: solitum quippe magistratibus diem privatis dicere: nec infringendum consulis ius, cuius vigiliis niteretur ne quod res publica detrimentum caperet. proprium id Tiberio fuit scelera nuper reperta priscis verbis obtegere. igitur multa adseveratione, quasi aut legibus cum Silio ageretur aut Varro consul aut illud res publica esset, coguntur patres, silente reo, vel si defensionem coeptaret, non occultante cuius ira premeretur. conscientia belli Sacrovir diu dissimulatus, victoria per avaritiam foedata et uxor socia arguebantur. nec dubie repetundarum criminibus haerebant, sed cuncta quaestione maiestatis exercita, et Silius imminentem damnationem voluntario fine praevertit.

Yet his goods were savaged—not that the moneys be restored to the tributaries, of whom no one demanded them, but the liberality of Augustus was torn away, what was claimed for the fiscus being reckoned item by item. That was Tiberius’s first diligence toward another’s money. Sosia is driven into exile, by the motion of Asinius Gallus, who had proposed that part of the goods be confiscated, part left to the children. Against this Manius Lepidus granted a quarter to the accusers, as the law required, the rest to the children. This Lepidus I find to have been, in those times, a grave and wise man: for he turned most things from the savage flatteries of others toward the better. Nor yet did he lack temperance, since he flourished with an even authority and favor with Tiberius. Whence I am compelled to doubt whether, by fate and the lot of birth, as in other things, so the inclination of princes toward these men, their offense toward those, lies—or whether there is something in our own counsels, and it is permitted to hold a course, between abrupt defiance and a deforming compliance, free of ambition and of perils. But Messalinus Cotta, of ancestors no less illustrious but of a different temper, proposed that it be provided by a decree of the Senate that magistrates, though themselves innocent and ignorant of another’s fault, be punished for the crimes of their wives in the provinces just as for their own.

Saevitum tamen in bona, non ut stipendiariis pecuniae redderentur, quorum nemo repetebat, sed liberalitas Augusti avulsa, computatis singillatim quae fisco petebantur. ea prima Tiberio erga pecuniam alienam diligentia fuit. Sosia in exilium pellitur Asinii Galli sententia, qui partem bonorum publicandam, pars ut liberis relinqueretur censuerat. contra M’. Lepidus quartam accusatoribus secundum necessitudinem legis, cetera liberis concessit. hunc ego Lepidum temporibus illis gravem et sapientem virum fuisse comperior: nam pleraque ab saevis adulationibus aliorum in melius flexit. neque tamen temperamenti egebat, cum aequabili auctoritate et gratia apud Tiberium viguerit. unde dubitare cogor fato et sorte nascendi, ut cetera, ita principum inclinatio in hos, offensio in illos, an sit aliquid in nostris consiliis liceatque inter abruptam contumaciam et deforme obsequium pergere iter ambitione ac periculis vacuum. at Messalinus Cotta haud minus claris maioribus sed animo diversus censuit cavendum senatus consulto, ut quamquam insontes magistratus et culpae alienae nescii provincialibus uxorum criminibus proinde quam suis plecterentur.

Then the matter of Calpurnius Piso, a noble and fierce man, was dealt with. For he, as I have related, had cried out in the Senate that he would leave the city because of the factions of the accusers, and, scorning the power of Augusta, had dared to drag Urgulania to court and to call her forth from the princeps’s house. These things Tiberius for the present took in a civil spirit: but in his mind, revolving his angers, even if the impulse of the offense had languished, the memory held strong. Quintus Granius accused Piso of a secret conversation held against majesty, and added that there was poison in his house and that he entered the senate-house girt with a sword. Which, as too atrocious to be true, was passed over; but for the rest, which were heaped up in number, the defendant was received, and not brought to an end, on account of a timely death. There was also a report about the exile Cassius Severus, who, of sordid origin and a maleficent life, but strong in pleading, had, through his immoderate enmities, brought it about that by the judgment of a sworn Senate he was removed to Crete; and there, by going on at the same things, he turned recent and old hatreds upon himself, and, stripped of his goods, forbidden fire and water, grew old on the rock of Seriphos.

Actum dehinc de Calpurnio Pisone, nobili ac feroci viro. is namque, ut rettuli, cessurum se urbe ob factiones accusatorum in senatu clamitaverat et spreta potentia Augustae trahere in ius Vrgulaniam domoque principis excire ausus erat. quae in praesens Tiberius civiliter habuit: sed in animo revolvente iras, etiam si impetus offensionis languerat, memoria valebat. Pisonem Q. Granius secreti sermonis incusavit adversum maiestatem habiti, adiecitque in domo eius venenum esse eumque gladio accinctum introire curiam. quod ut atrocius vero tramissum; ceterorum, quae multa cumulabantur, receptus est reus neque peractus ob mortem opportunam. relatum et de Cassio Severo exule, qui sordidae originis, maleficae vitae, sed orandi validus, per immodicas inimicitias ut iudicio iurati senatus Cretam amoveretur effecerat; atque illic eadem actitando recentia veteraque odia advertit, bonisque exutus, interdicto igni atque aqua, saxo Seripho consenuit.

About the same time Plautius Silvanus, a praetor, for uncertain causes hurled his wife Apronia headlong, and, dragged before Caesar by Lucius Apronius his father-in-law, answered with a troubled mind, as though he himself had been heavy with sleep and therefore unaware, and his wife had taken her death of her own accord. Without delay Tiberius goes into the house, sees the bedroom, in which the traces of one resisting and pushed were discerned. He refers it to the Senate, and, judges being assigned, Urgulania, Silvanus’s grandmother, sent a dagger to her grandson. Which was believed as if at the prompting of the princeps, because of Augusta’s friendship with Urgulania. The defendant, having vainly tried the steel, offered his veins to be opened. Soon Numantina, his former wife, charged with having cast madness upon her husband by spells and poisonings, is judged innocent.

Per idem tempus Plautius Silvanus praetor incertis causis Aproniam coniugem in praeceps iecit, tractusque ad Caesarem ab L. Apronio socero turbata mente respondit, tamquam ipse somno gravis atque eo ignarus, et uxor sponte mortem sumpsisset. non cunctanter Tiberius pergit in domum, visit cubiculum, in quo reluctantis et impulsae vestigia cernebantur. refert ad senatum, datisque iudici- bus Vrgulania Silvani avia pugionem nepoti misit. quod perinde creditum quasi principis monitu ob amicitiam Augustae cum Vrgulania. reus frustra temptato ferro venas praebuit exolvendas. mox Numantina, prior uxor eius, accusata iniecisse carminibus et veneficiis vaecordiam marito, insons iudicatur.

That year at last freed the Roman people from the long war against the Numidian Tacfarinas. For the earlier commanders, when they had believed their achievements enough to obtain the triumphal distinction, would leave the enemy alone; and now there were three laurelled statues in the city, and still Tacfarinas was ravaging Africa, increased by the auxiliaries of the Moors, who—Ptolemy, Juba’s son, being heedless in his youth—had exchanged the king’s freedmen and a slavish governance for war. He had as the receiver of his plunder and partner in plundering the king of the Garamantes—not that he marched with an army, but light forces were sent which from afar were reported greater than they were; and from the province itself, as each man was needy of fortune and turbulent of character, the more readily they rushed in, because Caesar, after the things done by Blaesus, as if there were now no enemies in Africa, had ordered the Ninth Legion to be brought back, nor had Publius Dolabella, proconsul of that year, dared to retain it, fearing the orders of the princeps more than the uncertainties of war.

Is demum annus populum Romanum longo adversum Numidam Tacfarinatem bello absolvit. nam priores duces, ubi impetrando triumphalium insigni sufficere res suas crediderant, hostem omittebant; iamque tres laureatae in urbe statuae et adhuc raptabat Africam Tacfarinas, auctus Maurorum auxiliis qui, Ptolemaeo Iubae filio iuventa incurioso, libertos regios et servilia imperia bello mutaverant. erat illi praedarum receptor ac socius populandi rex Garamantum, non ut cum exercitu incederet, sed missis levibus copiis quae ex longinquo in maius audiebantur; ipsaque e provincia ut quis fortunae inops, moribus turbidus, promptius ruebant, quia Caesar post res a Blaeso gestas quasi nullis iam in Africa hostibus reportari nonam legionem iusserat, nec pro consule eius anni P. Dolabella retinere ausus erat iussa principis magis quam incerta belli metuens.

So Tacfarinas, having spread the rumor that the Roman state was being torn apart by other nations too, and that for this reason it was gradually withdrawing from Africa, and that the rest could be surrounded if all who held liberty dearer than servitude bore down upon it, augments his forces, and, pitching camp, besieges the town of Thubuscum. But Dolabella, gathering what soldiers there were, by the terror of the Roman name and because the Numidians cannot withstand a line of infantry, at the first advance broke the siege and fortified the advantageous points; at the same time he beheads the chiefs of the Musulamii who were beginning a revolt. Then, because it had been learned through several expeditions against Tacfarinas that a roving enemy was not to be hunted by one heavy assault, he, calling out King Ptolemy with his people, prepares four columns, which were given to legates or tribunes; and chosen men of the Moors led the plundering bands: he himself was at hand to advise them all.

Igitur Tacfarinas disperso rumore rem Romanam aliis quoque ab nationibus lacerari eoque paulatim Africa decedere, ac posse reliquos circumveniri, si cuncti quibus libertas servitio potior incubuissent, auget viris positisque castris Thubuscum oppidum circumsidet. at Dolabella contracto quod erat militum, terrore nominis Romani et quia Numidae peditum aciem ferre nequeunt, primo sui incessu solvit obsidium locorumque opportuna permunivit; simul principes Musulamiorum defectionem coeptantis securi percutit. dein quia pluribus adversum Tacfarinatem expeditionibus cognitum non gravi nec uno incursu consectandum hostem vagum, excito cum popularibus rege Ptolemaeo quattuor agmina parat, quae legatis aut tribunis data; et praedatorias manus delecti Maurorum duxere: ipse consultor aderat omnibus.

Not much later it is reported that the Numidians had settled, their huts pitched, at a half-ruined fort once burned by themselves, called Auzea, trusting in the place because it was shut in by vast woods round about. Then the light cohorts and squadrons, ignorant in which direction they were being led, are hurried on at a swift pace. And at once the day began, and with the blare of trumpets and a savage shout they were upon the barbarians, half-asleep, the Numidians’ horses hobbled or straying through scattered pastures. On the Roman side the foot were massed, the troops drawn up, all foreseen for battle: to the enemy, on the contrary, all unaware, there were no arms, no order, no plan, but in the manner of cattle they were dragged, slaughtered, taken. The soldier, embittered by the memory of his toils, and against men who had so often eluded the longed-for battle, each glutted himself with vengeance and blood. It is passed along through the maniples that all should hunt down Tacfarinas, known by so many battles: there would be no rest from the war but with the leader slain. But he, his guards cut down about him and his son already bound, and the Romans pouring in on every side, by rushing upon the weapons escaped captivity by a death not unavenged; and that was the end set to the fighting.

Nec multo post adfertur Numidas apud castellum semirutum, ab ipsis quondam incensum, cui nomen Auzea, positis mapalibus consedisse, fisos loco quia vastis circum saltibus claudebatur. tum expeditae cohortes alaeque quam in partem ducerentur ignarae cito agmine rapiuntur. simulque coeptus dies et concentu tubarum ac truci clamore aderant semisomnos in barbaros, praepeditis Numidarum equis aut diversos pastus pererrantibus. ab Romanis confertus pedes, dispositae turmae, cuncta proelio provisa: hostibus contra omnium nesciis non arma, non ordo, non consilium, sed pecorum modo trahi occidi capi. infensus miles memoria laborum et adversum eludentis optatae totiens pugnae se quisque ultione et sanguine explebant. differtur per manipulos, Tacfarinatem omnes notum tot proeliis consectentur: non nisi duce interfecto requiem belli fore. at ille deiectis circum stipatoribus vinctoque iam filio et effusis undique Romanis ruendo in tela captivitatem haud inulta morte effugit; isque finis armis impositus.

To Dolabella, who sought them, Tiberius refused the triumphal honors, deferring to Sejanus, lest the glory of Blaesus his uncle grow dim. But neither was Blaesus the more illustrious for it, and the honor denied to Dolabella heightened his glory: for with a smaller army he had carried off notable captives, the slaying of the leader, and the fame of a war finished. There followed too envoys of the Garamantes, rarely seen in the city, whom the people—stricken by the killing of Tacfarinas, but conscious of no guilt—had sent to make satisfaction to the Roman people. Then, Ptolemy’s zeal through that war being recognized, an honor was revived from an old custom, and one of the senators was sent to give him an ivory scepter and an embroidered toga, the ancient gifts of the fathers, and to call him king and ally and friend.

Dolabellae petenti abnuit triumphalia Tiberius, Seiano tribuens, ne Blaesi avunculi eius laus obsolesceret. sed neque Blaesus ideo inlustrior et huic negatus honor gloriam intendit: quippe minore exercitu insignis captivos, caedem ducis bellique confecti famam deportarat. sequebantur et Garamantum legati, raro in urbe visi, quos Tacfarinate caeso perculsa gens set culpae nescia ad satis facien- dum populo Romano miserat. cognitis dehinc Ptolemaei per id bellum studiis repetitus ex vetusto more honos missusque e senatoribus qui scipionem eburnum, togam pictam, antiqua patrum munera, daret regemque et socium atque amicum appellaret.

The same summer, chance crushed the seeds of a slave war stirring through Italy. The author of the tumult was Titus Curtisius, once a soldier of a praetorian cohort, who first by clandestine meetings at Brundisium and the neighboring towns, then by openly posted bills, called to liberty the rough and fierce slaves of the far-off pastures—when, as if by the gods’ gift, three biremes put in for the use of those plying that sea. And there was in those same regions the quaestor Cutius Lupus, to whom the cattle-paths had fallen by old custom as his province: he, deploying a force of marines, broke up the conspiracy just as it was beginning. And the tribune Staius, sent in haste by Caesar with a strong band, dragged the leader himself and his boldest associates to the city, already alarmed at the multitude of slave households, which was swelling immeasurably, while the freeborn plebs grew fewer by the day.

Eadem aestate mota per Italiam servilis belli semina fors oppressit. auctor tumultus T. Curtisius, quondam praetoriae cohortis miles, primo coetibus clandestinis apud Brundisium et circumiecta oppida, mox positis propalam libellis ad libertatem vocabat agrestia per longinquos saltus et ferocia servitia, cum velut munere deum tres biremes adpulere ad usus commeantium illo mari. et erat isdem regionibus Cutius Lupus quaestor, cui provincia vetere ex more calles evenerant: is disposita classiariorum copia coeptantem cum maxime coniurationem disiecit. missusque a Caesare propere Staius tribunus cum valida manu ducem ipsum et proximos audacia in urbem traxit, iam trepidam ob multitudinem familiarum quae gliscebat immensum, minore in dies plebe ingenua.

Under the same consuls, an atrocious example of misery and savagery: the father defendant, the son accuser (the name of each Vibius Serenus) were led into the Senate. Dragged back from exile and covered with filth and squalor, and then bound in chains, the father is matched against his pleading son. The young man, in much elegance, with a brisk face, was at once informer and witness, telling of snares laid for the princeps, of men sent into Gaul to stir up war; and he added that Caecilius Cornutus, an ex-praetor, had furnished money; who, from weariness of his anxieties and because peril was held the same as ruin, hastened death upon himself. But the defendant, on the contrary, with spirit nowise broken, turning upon his son, shook his chains and called the avenging gods to give him back, for his part, his exile, where he might live far from such ways, but that punishments should one day follow his son. And he asserted that Cornutus was innocent and had been frightened by a falsehood; and that this was easy to understand, if others were named: for he had not, with a single partner, plotted the murder of the princeps and revolution.

Isdem consulibus miseriarum ac saevitiae exemplum atrox, reus pater, accusator filius (nomen utrique Vibius Serenus) in senatum inducti sunt. ab exilio retractus inluvieque ac squalore obsitus et tum catena vinctus pater oranti filio comparatur. adulescens multis munditiis, alacri vultu, structas principi insidias, missos in Galliam concitores belli index idem et testis dicebat, adnectebatque Caecilium Cornutum praetorium ministravisse pecuniam; qui taedio curarum et quia periculum pro exitio habebatur mortem in se festinavit. at contra reus nihil infracto animo obversus in filium quatere vincla, vocare ultores deos ut sibi quidem redderent exilium ubi procul tali more ageret, filium autem quandoque supplicia sequerentur. adseverabatque innocentem Cornutum et falso exterritum; idque facile intellectu si proderentur alii: non enim se caedem principis et res novas uno socio cogitasse.

Then the accuser names Gnaeus Lentulus and Seius Tubero, to Caesar’s great shame, when the leading men of the state, his own intimate friends—Lentulus in the last extremity of age, Tubero of a failing body—were summoned on a charge of armed tumult and of throwing the commonwealth into confusion. But these indeed were at once cleared: the father’s slaves were questioned under torture, and the questioning turned out against the accuser, who, crazed by his crime, and at the same time terrified by the rumor of the crowd, threatening the cudgel and the rock, or the penalties of parricides, withdrew from the city. And dragged back from Ravenna, he is forced to carry through the accusation, Tiberius not concealing his old hatred against the exile Serenus. For after the condemnation of Libo, Serenus had reproached Caesar by letter that his own zeal alone had been without fruit, and had added some things too defiantly to be safe before haughty ears, more prone to take offense. These Caesar brought up eight years later, charging the intervening time in various ways, even though the tortures had, through the slaves’ obstinacy, turned out contrary.

Tum accusator Cn. Lentulum et Seium Tuberonem nominat, magno pudore Caesaris, cum primores civitatis, intimi ipsius amici, Lentulus senectutis extremae, Tubero defecto corpore, tumultus hostilis et turbandae rei publicae accerserentur. sed hi quidem statim exempti: in patrem ex servis quaesitum et quaestio adversa accusatori fuit. qui scelere vaecors, simul vulgi rumore territus robur et saxum aut parricidarum poenas minitantium, cessit urbe. ac retractus Ravenna exequi accusationem adigitur, non occultante Tiberio vetus odium adversum exulem Serenum. nam post damnatum Libonem missis ad Caesarem litteris exprobraverat suum tantum studium sine fructu fuisse, addideratque quaedam contumacius quam tutum apud auris superbas et offensioni proniores. ea Caesar octo post annos rettulit, medium tempus varie arguens, etiam si tormenta pervicacia servorum contra evenissent.

Then, opinions being delivered that Serenus be punished in the manner of the ancestors, he interposed, to soften the ill-will. When Asinius Gallus proposed that he be shut up on Gyarus or Donusa, that too he rejected, observing that both islands lacked water, and that the means of life must be given to one to whom life was granted. So Serenus is carried back to Amorgus. And because Cornutus had fallen by his own hand, there was a motion to abolish the rewards of accusers if anyone charged with treason should have deprived himself of life before the judgment was completed. And it was going toward that opinion, had not Caesar, more harshly and against his own custom, openly complained on behalf of the accusers that the laws would be made void, the commonwealth brought to the brink: let them rather subvert the laws than remove their guardians. Thus informers—a class of men devised for the public ruin, and never sufficiently checked even by penalties—were lured on by rewards.

Dictis dein sententiis ut Serenus more maiorum puniretur, quo molliret invidiam, intercessit. Gallus Asinius cum Gyaro aut Donusa claudendum censeret, id quoque aspernatus est, egenam aquae utramque insulam referens dandosque vitae usus cui vita concederetur. ita Serenus Amorgum reportatur. et quia Cornutus sua manu ceciderat, actum de praemiis accusatorum abolendis, si quis maiestatis postulatus ante perfectum iudicium se ipse vita privavisset. ibaturque in eam sententiam ni durius con- traque morem suum palam pro accusatoribus Caesar inritas leges, rem publicam in praecipiti conquestus esset: subverterent potius iura quam custodes eorum amoverent. sic delatores, genus hominum publico exitio repertum et ne poenis quidem umquam satis coercitum, per praemia eliciebantur.

Into these things, so constant and so grievous, a modest gladness is interposed: that Gaius Cominius, a Roman knight, convicted of a scurrilous poem against himself, Caesar pardoned at the prayers of his brother, who was a senator. The more wonderful was it held that, knowing the better course and what fame attended clemency, he preferred the harsher. For he did not err through dullness; nor is it hidden when the deeds of emperors are celebrated out of truth, when out of a counterfeit gladness. Indeed he himself, otherwise composed and as if wrestling with his words, spoke more freely and readily whenever he came to a man’s aid. But Publius Suillius, once Germanicus’s quaestor, when he was being barred from Italy, convicted of having taken money for deciding a case, he proposed should be removed to an island, with such vehemence of feeling that he bound himself by an oath that it was for the commonwealth. This, harshly received at the time, soon turned to his praise when Suillius returned; whom the following age saw over-powerful, venal, and long prosperous, never well, in the friendship of the emperor Claudius. The same penalty is fixed upon Catus Firmius, a senator, as having attacked his sister with false charges of treason. Catus, as I have related, had lured Libo into snares, then crushed him by his information. Mindful of that service, Tiberius—though pleading other grounds—deprecated his exile: that he should not be expelled from the Senate he did not oppose.

His tam adsiduis tamque maestis modica laetitia intericitur, quod C. Cominium equitem Romanum, probrosi in se carminis convictum, Caesar precibus fratris qui senator erat concessit. quo magis mirum habebatur gnarum meliorum et quae fama clementiam sequeretur tristiora malle. neque enim socordia peccabat; nec occultum est, quando ex veritate, quando adumbrata laetitia facta imperatorum celebrentur. quin ipse, compositus alias et velut eluctantium verborum, solutius promptiusque eloquebatur quotiens subveniret. at P. Suillium quaestorem quondam Germanici, cum Italia arceretur convictus pecuniam ob rem iudicandam cepisse, amovendum in insulam censuit, tanta contentione animi ut iure iurando obstringeret e re publica id esse. quod aspere acceptum ad praesens mox in laudem vertit regresso Suillio; quem vidit sequens aetas praepotentem, venalem et Claudii principis amicitia diu prospere, numquam bene usum. eadem poena in Catum Firmium senatorem statuitur, tamquam falsis maiestatis criminibus sororem petivisset. Catus, ut rettuli, Libonem inlexerat insidiis, deinde indicio perculerat. eius operae memor Tiberius sed alia praetendens exilium deprecatus est: quo minus senatu pelleretur non obstitit.

Most of the things I have related, and shall relate, may perhaps seem small and trivial to record—I am not unaware: but no one will compare our annals with the writing of those who composed the old affairs of the Roman people. Vast wars, the stormings of cities, kings routed and captured, or, if ever they turned to internal matters, the discords of consuls against tribunes, agrarian and grain laws, the contests of plebs and aristocracy—these they recorded with a free range: ours is a cramped and inglorious labor; for the peace was unmoved or but moderately disturbed, the affairs of the city were mournful, and the princeps careless of extending the empire. Yet it will not have been without use to look into those things, trivial at first sight, from which the movements of great affairs often arise.

Pleraque eorum quae rettuli quaeque referam parva forsitan et levia memoratu videri non nescius sum: sed nemo annalis nostros cum scriptura eorum contenderit qui veteres populi Romani res composuere. ingentia illi bella, expugnationes urbium, fusos captosque reges, aut si quando ad interna praeverterent, discordias consulum adversum tribunos, agrarias frumentariasque leges, plebis et optimatium certamina libero egressu memorabant: nobis in arto et inglorius labor; immota quippe aut modice lacessita pax, maestae urbis res et princeps proferendi imperi incuriosus erat. non tamen sine usu fuerit introspicere illa primo aspectu levia ex quis magnarum saepe rerum motus oriuntur.

For all nations and cities are ruled by the people, or by the leading men, or by single men: a form of commonwealth selected from these and combined is easier to praise than to bring about, or, if it comes about, cannot be lasting. So, as once, when the plebs was strong, or when the fathers prevailed, the nature of the crowd had to be known, and by what means it might be temperately handled, and those who had most thoroughly learned the dispositions of the Senate and the aristocracy were held shrewd in their times and wise; so, the state being changed, and the Roman thing being nothing other than if one man rule, it will have been to the purpose that these things be gathered and handed down, because few distinguish the honorable from the worse, the useful from the harmful, by their own prudence, while the more are taught by the outcomes of others. But, as they are profitable, so they bring the least delight. For the situations of peoples, the varieties of battles, the glorious deaths of generals hold and refresh the reader’s mind: we string together savage orders, continuous accusations, treacherous friendships, the ruin of the innocent, and the same causes of destruction, with an obvious sameness of matter, and satiety. Then, while ancient writers had few to detract from them, nor does it concern anyone whether you have more gladly exalted the Carthaginian or the Roman battle-lines: but the descendants of many who under Tiberius’s rule underwent punishment or disgrace remain. And though the families themselves be now extinct, you will find those who, from a likeness of character, think the misdeeds of others charged against themselves. Even glory and virtue have their enemies, as censuring their opposites too closely. But I return to my undertaking.

Nam cunctas nationes et urbes populus aut primores aut singuli regunt: delecta ex iis et consociata rei publicae forma laudari facilius quam evenire, vel si evenit, haud diuturna esse potest. igitur ut olim plebe valida, vel cum patres pollerent, noscenda vulgi natura et quibus modis temperanter haberetur, senatusque et optimatium ingenia qui maxime perdidicerant, callidi temporum et sapientes credebantur, sic converso statu neque alia re Romana quam si unus imperitet, haec conquiri tradique in rem fuerit, quia pauci prudentia honesta ab deterioribus, utilia ab noxiis discernunt, plures aliorum eventis docentur. ceterum ut profutura, ita minimum oblectationis adferunt. nam situs gentium, varietates proeliorum, clari ducum exitus retinent ac redintegrant legentium animum: nos saeva iussa, continuas accusationes, fallaces amicitias, perniciem innocentium et easdem exitii causas coniungimus, obvia rerum similitudine et satietate. tum quod antiquis scriptoribus rarus obtrectator, neque refert cuiusquam Punicas Romanasne acies laetius extuleris: at multorum qui Tiberio regente poenam vel infamias subiere posteri manent. utque familiae ipsae iam extinctae sint, reperies qui ob similitudinem morum aliena malefacta sibi obiectari putent. etiam gloria ac virtus infensos habet, ut nimis ex propinquo diversa arguens. sed ad inceptum redeo.

In the consulship of Cornelius Cossus and Asinius Agrippa, Cremutius Cordus is prosecuted on a new charge, then heard for the first time: that, having published his annals and praised Marcus Brutus, he had called Gaius Cassius the last of the Romans. The accusers were Satrius Secundus and Pinarius Natta, clients of Sejanus. That was deadly to the defendant, and Caesar received his defense with a grim countenance, which Cremutius, resolved to leave his life, began in this manner: ’My words, conscript fathers, are arraigned: so innocent am I of deeds. But neither are these against the princeps or the princeps’s parent, whom the law of treason embraces: I am said to have praised Brutus and Cassius, whose deeds, though very many have composed them, no one has recorded without honor. Titus Livius, pre-eminent above all in eloquence and good faith, extolled Gnaeus Pompey with such praises that Augustus called him a Pompeian; and that did not hinder their friendship. Scipio, Afranius, this very Cassius, this Brutus—nowhere does he name them brigands and parricides, the terms now imposed, but often as illustrious men. Asinius Pollio’s writings hand down a distinguished memory of the same men; Messala Corvinus used to proclaim Cassius his commander: and both flourished in wealth and honors. To Marcus Cicero’s book in which he raised Cato to the heavens, what else did the dictator Caesar reply than an oration written in answer, as before judges? Antony’s letters, Brutus’s harangues, contain reproaches against Augustus—false indeed, but with much bitterness; the poems of Bibaculus and Catullus, stuffed with insults to the Caesars, are read: but the deified Julius himself, the deified Augustus himself, both bore those things and let them be—whether more from moderation or from wisdom I could not easily say. For things despised fade away: if you grow angry, they seem acknowledged.

Cornelio Cosso Asinio Agrippa consulibus Cremutius Cordus postulatur novo ac tunc primum audito crimine, quod editis annalibus laudatoque M. Bruto C. Cassium Romanorum ultimum dixisset. accusabant Satrius Secundus et Pinarius Natta, Seiani clientes. id perniciabile reo et Caesar truci vultu defensionem accipiens, quam Cremutius relinquendae vitae certus in hunc modum exorsus est: ’verba mea, patres conscripti, arguuntur: adeo factorum innocens sum. sed neque haec in principem aut principis parentem, quos lex maiestatis amplectitur: Brutum et Cassium laudavisse dicor, quorum res gestas cum plurimi composuerint, nemo sine honore memoravit. Titus Livius, eloquentiae ac fidei praeclarus in primis, Cn. Pompeium tantis laudibus tulit ut Pompeianum eum Augustus appellaret; neque id amicitiae eorum offecit. Scipionem, Afranium, hunc ipsum Cassium, hunc Brutum nusquam latrones et parricidas, quae nunc vocabula imponuntur, saepe ut insignis viros nominat. Asinii Pollionis scripta egregiam eorundem memoriam tradunt; Messala Corvinus imperatorem suum Cassium praedicabat: et uterque opibusque atque honoribus perviguere. Marci Ciceronis libro quo Catonem caelo aequavit, quid aliud dictator Caesar quam rescripta oratione velut apud iudices respondit? Antonii epistulae Bruti contiones falsa quidem in Augustum probra set multa cum acerbitate habent; carmina Bibaculi et Catulli referta contumeliis Caesarum leguntur: sed ipse divus Iulius, ipse divus Augustus et tulere ista et reliquere, haud facile dixerim, moderatione magis an sapientia. namque spreta exolescunt: si irascare, adgnita videntur.

I do not touch on the Greeks, whose not only liberty but even license went unpunished; or, if anyone took notice, he avenged words with words. But it was most of all free, and without a detractor, to set forth concerning those whom death had exempted from hatred or favor. For am I, with Cassius and Brutus in arms and holding the fields of Philippi, inflaming the people through harangues to civil war? Or do not they, slain seventy years ago, just as they are known by their images, which not even the victor abolished, so retain a part of their memory among writers? To each man posterity repays his own honor; nor will there be lacking, if condemnation falls upon me, those who will remember not only Cassius and Brutus but me as well.’ Then, having left the Senate, he ended his life by abstinence. The senators decreed that his books be burned by the aediles: but they remained, hidden and republished. The more it pleases one to mock the dullness of those who believe that by present power the memory even of a following age can be extinguished. For, on the contrary, the authority of punished talents grows, nor have foreign kings, or those who have used the same savagery, gotten anything but disgrace for themselves and glory for them.

Non attingo Graecos, quorum non modo libertas, etiam libido impunita; aut si quis advertit, dictis dicta ultus est. sed maxime solutum et sine obtrectatore fuit prodere de iis quos mors odio aut gratiae exemisset. num enim armatis Cassio et Bruto ac Philippensis campos optinentibus belli civilis causa populum per contiones incendo? an illi quidem septuagesimum ante annum perempti, quo modo imaginibus suis noscuntur, quas ne victor quidem abolevit, sic partem memoriae apud scriptores retinent? suum cuique decus posteritas rependit; nec deerunt, si damnatio ingruit, qui non modo Cassii et Bruti set etiam mei meminerint.’ egressus dein senatu vitam abstinentia finivit. libros per aedilis cremandos censuere patres: set manserunt, occultati et editi. quo magis socordiam eorum inridere libet qui praesenti potentia credunt extingui posse etiam sequentis aevi memoriam. nam contra punitis ingeniis gliscit auctoritas, neque aliud externi reges aut qui eadem saevitia usi sunt nisi dedecus sibi atque illis gloriam peperere.

But the year was so continuous in the prosecuting of defendants that, on the days of the Latin festival, when Drusus, prefect of the city, had mounted the tribunal for the sake of taking the auspices, Calpurnius Salvianus approached him against Sextus Marius: which, openly rebuked by Caesar, was the cause of exile for Salvianus. There was charged publicly against the Cyziceni a neglect of the ceremonies of the deified Augustus, with crimes of violence against Roman citizens added. And they lost the liberty they had earned in the war of Mithridates, when, besieged, they had repelled the king no less by their own constancy than by the protection of Lucullus. But Fonteius Capito, who had governed Asia as proconsul, is acquitted, it being established that the charges against him were trumped up by Vibius Serenus. Nor yet was that any harm to Serenus, whom public hatred made the safer: for the more unsparing an accuser, the more he was as it were sacrosanct; it was the trivial and obscure who were visited with penalties.

Ceterum postulandis reis tam continuus annus fuit ut feriarum Latinarum diebus praefectum urbis Drusum, auspicandi gratia tribunal ingressum, adierit Calpurnius Salvianus in Sextum Marium: quod a Caesare palam increpitum causa exilii Salviano fuit. obiecta publice Cyzicenis incuria caerimoniarum divi Augusti, additis violentiae criminibus adversum civis Romanos. et amisere libertatem, quam bello Mithridatis meruerant, circumsessi nec minus sua constantia quam praesidio Luculli pulso rege. at Fonteius Capito, qui pro consule Asiam curaverat, absolvitur, comperto ficta in eum crimina per Vibium Serenum. neque tamen id Sereno noxae fuit, quem odium publicum tutiorem faciebat. nam ut quis destrictior accusator, velut sacrosanctus erat: leves ignobiles poenis adficiebantur.

About the same time Further Spain, by envoys sent to the Senate, begged that, after the example of Asia, it might build a shrine to Tiberius and his mother. On which occasion Caesar—otherwise strong in spurning honors, and thinking he must answer those by whose rumor he was charged with having bent toward ambition—began a speech of this kind: ’I know, conscript fathers, that my constancy has been missed by many, because I did not oppose the cities of Asia when they lately sought this same thing. So I shall at once disclose both the defense of my earlier silence and what I have determined for the future. Since the deified Augustus had not forbidden a temple to be set up to himself and to the city of Rome at Pergamum—I who observe all his deeds and words in the place of law—I followed the now-approved precedent the more readily because the veneration of the Senate was joined to my own worship. But just as to have accepted it once may have its excuse, so to be consecrated, through all the provinces, in the likeness of deities, is ambitious and arrogant; and the honor of Augustus will vanish if it is made common by indiscriminate flatteries.

Per idem tempus Hispania ulterior missis ad senatum legatis oravit ut exemplo Asiae delubrum Tiberio matrique eius extrueret. qua occasione Caesar, validus alioqui spernendis honoribus et respondendum ratus iis quorum rumore arguebatur in ambitionem flexisse, huiusce modi orationem coepit: ’scio, patres conscripti, constantiam meam a plerisque desideratam quod Asiae civitatibus nuper idem istud petentibus non sim adversatus. ergo et prioris silentii defensionem et quid in futurum statuerim simul aperiam. cum divus Augustus sibi atque urbi Romae templum apud Pergamum sisti non prohibuisset, qui omnia facta dictaque eius vice legis observem, placitum iam exemplum promptius secutus sum quia cultui meo veneratio senatus adiungebatur. ceterum ut semel recepisse veniam habuerit, ita per omnis provincias effigie numinum sacrari ambitiosum, superbum; et vanescet Augusti honor si promiscis adulationibus vulgatur.

’For myself, conscript fathers, I both call you to witness and wish posterity to remember that I am mortal, that I discharge the offices of men, and hold it enough if I fill the foremost place; who will pay enough and more than enough to my memory if they believe me worthy of my ancestors, provident of your affairs, steadfast in dangers, not fearful of offenses for the public good. These are the temples I would have in your minds, these the fairest and most lasting images. For those built of stone, if the judgment of posterity turns to hatred, are scorned as sepulchres. Therefore I pray the allies and the citizens and the very gods—the latter, that to the end of my life they grant me a mind quiet and understanding of human and divine right; the former, that, whenever I depart, they attend my deeds and the fame of my name with praise and kindly remembrances.’ And he persisted thereafter, even in private conversations, in spurning such worship of himself. Which some interpreted as modesty, many as diffidence, certain men as a degenerate spirit: for the best of mortals (they said) desire the highest things; thus Hercules and Liber among the Greeks, and Quirinus among us, were added to the number of the gods; better had Augustus done, who hoped for it. The rest is at once at hand for princes: one thing must be sought insatiably, a prosperous memory of oneself; for in the contempt of fame, the virtues are contemned.

Ego me, patres conscripti, mortalem esse et hominum officia fungi satisque habere si locum principem impleam et vos testor et meminisse posteros volo; qui satis superque memoriae meae tribuent, ut maioribus meis dignum, rerum vestrarum providum, constantem in periculis, offensionum pro utilitate publica non pavidum credant. haec mihi in animis vestris templa, hae pulcherrimae effigies et mansurae. nam quae saxo struuntur, si iudicium posterorum in odium vertit, pro sepulchris spernuntur. proinde socios civis et deos ipsos precor, hos ut mihi ad finem usque vitae quietam et intellegentem humani divinique iuris mentem duint, illos ut, quandoque concessero, cum laude et bonis recordationibus facta atque famam nominis mei prosequantur.’ perstititque posthac secretis etiam sermonibus aspernari talem sui cultum. quod alii modestiam, multi, quia diffideret, quidam ut degeneris animi interpretabantur. optumos quippe mortalium altissima cupere: sic Herculem et Liberum apud Graecos, Quirinum apud nos deum numero additos: melius Augustum, qui speraverit. cetera principibus statim adesse: unum insatiabiliter parandum, prosperam sui memoriam; nam contemptu famae contemni virtutes.

But Sejanus, made heedless by excessive fortune and inflamed besides by a woman’s desire—Livia pressing for the promised marriage—composes a note to Caesar: for it was then the custom to approach him in writing, even when he was present. Its form was such: that by the goodwill of his father Augustus, and soon by the very many judgments of Tiberius, he had grown so used that he carried his hopes and prayers not to the gods sooner than to the ears of the princes. And he had never prayed for the splendor of honors: he preferred the watches and the toils, like one of the soldiers, for the safety of the emperor. And yet he had attained the fairest thing—to be thought worthy of a marriage-tie with Caesar: hence the beginning of his hope. And since he had heard that Augustus, in bestowing his daughter, had taken some thought even of Roman knights, so, if a husband for Livia were sought, let him bear in mind a friend who would enjoy only the glory of the connection. For he did not put off the duties laid upon him: he reckoned it enough that his house be strengthened against the unjust offenses of Agrippina, and that for his children’s sake; for, as to himself, his life would be ample and to spare, which he had completed with such a princeps.

At Seianus nimia fortuna socors et muliebri insuper cupidine incensus, promissum matrimonium flagitante Livia, componit ad Caesarem codicillos: moris quippe tum erat quamquam praesentem scripto adire. eius talis forma fuit: benevolentia patris Augusti et mox plurimis Tiberii iudiciis ita insuevisse ut spes votaque sua non prius ad deos quam ad principum auris conferret. neque fulgorem honorum umquam precatum: excubias ac labores ut unum e militibus pro incolumitate imperatoris malle. ac tamen quod pulcherrimum adeptum, ut coniunctione Caesaris dignus crederetur: hinc initium spei. et quoniam audiverit Augustum in conlocanda filia non nihil etiam de equitibus Romanis consultavisse, ita, si maritus Liviae quaereretur, haberet in animo amicum sola necessitudinis gloria usurum. non enim exuere imposita munia: satis aestimare firmari domum adversum iniquas Agrippinae offensiones, idque liberorum causa; nam sibi multum superque vitae fore, quod tali cum principe explevisset.

To this Tiberius, having praised Sejanus’s loyalty and lightly run over his own benefits to him, when he had asked for time as if for a full deliberation, added: that for other mortals their counsels rested on what they thought to their own advantage; that the lot of princes was different, for whom the chief matters must be directed toward fame. Therefore he did not run to that which was ready to be answered—that Livia herself could decide whether she ought to marry after Drusus, or to endure within the same household; she had a mother and a grandmother, counselors nearer to her. He would act more frankly: first about the enmities of Agrippina, which would blaze far more fiercely if a marriage with Livia split, as it were into parties, the house of the Caesars. Even as it was, the women’s rivalry broke out, and by that discord his grandsons were torn: what if the contest were heightened by such a match? ’For you are mistaken, Sejanus, if you think you will remain in the same rank, and that Livia, who has been wedded to Gaius Caesar, and then to Drusus, will so dispose her mind as to grow old with a Roman knight. Even if I allowed it, do you think those will endure it who saw her brother, her father, our ancestors in the highest commands? You wish, indeed, to halt within your station: but those magistrates and leading men who break in upon you against your will, and consult you on all matters, openly say that you have long since passed beyond the equestrian summit and far outstripped my father’s friendships, and through envy of you they reproach me too. But, you will say, Augustus thought of giving his daughter to a Roman knight. Wonderful, by Hercules, if, while he was being torn into every care and foresaw that the man would be raised immeasurably above others whom he had so exalted by such a tie, he had Gaius Proculeius and certain others in his talk, men of notable tranquillity of life, mixed in no public affairs. But if we are moved by Augustus’s hesitation, how much stronger is it that he gave her to Marcus Agrippa, then to me? And I, in friendship, have not concealed these things: but I shall oppose neither your designs nor Livia’s. What I myself have turned over in my mind, and by what further ties I am preparing to bind you to me, I shall forbear for the present to relate: this only I shall disclose, that nothing is so lofty that those virtues of yours and your spirit toward me do not deserve it, and, when the time is given, whether in the Senate or in an assembly, I shall not keep silent.’

Ad ea Tiberius laudata pietate Seiani suisque in eum beneficiis modice percursis, cum tempus tamquam ad integram consultationem petivisset, adiunxit: ceteris mortalibus in eo stare consilia quid sibi conducere putent; principum diversam esse sortem quibus praecipua rerum ad famam derigenda. ideo se non illuc decurrere, quod promptum rescriptu, posse ipsam Liviam statuere, nubendum post Drusum an in penatibus isdem tolerandum haberet; esse illi matrem et aviam, propiora consilia. simplicius acturum, de inimicitiis primum Agrippinae, quas longe acrius arsuras si matrimonium Liviae velut in partis domum Caesarum distraxisset. sic quoque erumpere aemulationem feminarum, eaque discordia nepotes suos convelli: quid si intendatur certamen tali coniugio? ’falleris enim, Seiane, si te mansurum in eodem ordine putas, et Liviam, quae G. Caesari, mox Druso nupta fuerit, ea mente acturam ut cum equite Romano senescat. ego ut sinam, credisne passuros qui fratrem eius, qui patrem maioresque nostros in summis imperiis videre? vis tu quidem istum intra locum sistere: sed illi magistratus et primores, qui te invitum perrumpunt omnibusque de rebus consulunt, excessisse iam pridem equestre fastigium longeque antisse patris mei amicitias non occulti ferunt perque invidiam tui me quoque incusant. at enim Augustus filiam suam equiti Romano tradere meditatus est. mirum hercule, si cum in omnis curas distraheretur immensumque attolli provideret quem coniunctione tali super alios extulisset, C. Proculeium et quosdam in sermonibus habuit insigni tranquillitate vitae, nullis rei publicae negotiis permixtos. sed si dubitatione Augusti movemur, quanto validius est quod Marco Agrippae, mox mihi conlocavit? atque ego haec pro amicitia non occultavi: ceterum neque tuis neque Liviae destinatis adversabor. ipse quid intra animum volutaverim, quibus adhuc necessitudinibus immiscere te mihi parem, omittam ad praesens referre: id tantum aperiam, nihil esse tam excelsum quod non virtutes istae tuusque in me animus mereantur, datoque tempore vel in senatu vel in contione non reticebo.’

Again Sejanus, fearing now not about the marriage but more deeply, deprecates the silent burden of suspicions, the rumor of the crowd, the gathering ill-will. And lest by barring the constant gatherings at his house he should break his own power, or by receiving them give a handle to his slanderers, he turned to this: to impel Tiberius to live his life far from Rome in pleasant places. For he foresaw much: that the approaches and, for the most part, the letters would be in his own hand, since they passed by soldiers; that soon Caesar, his old age now declining and softened by the seclusion of the place, would the more easily hand over the duties of empire; and that ill-will toward himself would be lessened, the crowd of those paying their respects taken away, while, the empty trappings removed, his true power would be increased. So little by little he rails at the business of the city, the throngs of the people, the multitude of those flocking in, extolling with praises quiet and solitude, in which were no vexations and offenses, and the chief affairs were handled best.

Rursum Seianus non iam de matrimonio sed altius metuens tacita suspicionum, vulgi rumorem, ingruentem invidiam deprecatur. ac ne adsiduos in domum coetus arcendo infringeret potentiam aut receptando facultatem criminantibus praeberet, huc flexit ut Tiberium ad vitam procul Roma amoenis locis degendam impelleret. multa quippe providebat: sua in manu aditus litterarumque magna ex parte se arbitrum fore, cum per milites commearent; mox Caesarem vergente iam senecta secretoque loci mollitum munia imperii facilius tramissurum: et minui sibi invidiam adempta salutantum turba sublatisque inanibus veram potentiam augeri. igitur paulatim negotia urbis, populi adcursus, multitudinem adfluentium increpat, extollens laudibus quietem et solitudinem quis abesse taedia et offensiones ac praecipua rerum maxime agitari.

And it chanced that an inquiry held in those days about Votienus Montanus, a man of celebrated talent, drove the already-wavering Tiberius to believe that the gatherings of the senators must be avoided, and the voices which, often true and weighty, were thrust at him to his face. For, Votienus being prosecuted for insults uttered against Caesar, the witness Aemilius, of the military men, while in his zeal to prove all things he reports everything, and, though amid the clamoring, strives with great asseveration, Tiberius heard the reproaches by which he was secretly lacerated, and was so stricken that he kept crying out he would clear himself either at once or in the inquiry, and was with difficulty calmed by the prayers of those nearest and the flattery of all. And Votienus indeed was visited with the penalties of treason: Caesar, the more obstinately embracing the harshness charged against him toward defendants, punished with exile Aquilia, accused of adultery with Varius Ligur, although Lentulus Gaetulicus, consul-designate, had condemned her under the Julian law; and Apidius Merula, because he had not sworn to the acts of the deified Augustus, he struck from the senatorial roll.

Ac forte habita per illos dies de Votieno Montano, celebris ingenii viro, cognitio cunctantem iam Tiberium perpulit ut vitandos crederet patrum coetus vocesque quae plerumque verae et graves coram ingerebantur. nam postulato Votieno ob contumelias in Caesarem dictas, testis Aemilius e militaribus viris, dum studio probandi cuncta refert et quamquam inter obstrepentis magna adseveratione nititur, audivit Tiberius probra quis per occultum lacerabatur, adeoque perculsus est ut se vel statim vel in cognitione purgaturum clamitaret precibusque proximorum, adulatione omnium aegre componeret animum. et Votienus quidem maiestatis poenis adfectus est: Caesar obiectam sibi adversus reos inclementiam eo pervicacius amplexus, Aquiliam adulterii delatam cum Vario Ligure, quamquam Lentulus Gaetulicus consul designatus lege Iulia damnasset, exilio punivit Apidiumque Merulam quod in acta divi Augusti non iuraverat albo senatorio erasit.

Then were heard embassies of the Lacedaemonians and the Messenians about the right to the temple of Diana Limnatis, which the Lacedaemonians affirmed had been dedicated by their own ancestors and on their own soil, by the memory of the annals and the songs of the bards, but taken from them by the arms of Philip of Macedon, with whom they had warred, and afterward restored by the judgment of Gaius Caesar and Marcus Antonius. The Messenians, on the contrary, brought forward the ancient division of the Peloponnese among the descendants of Hercules, and that the Denthaliate land, in which that shrine stood, had fallen to their king; and that monuments of the matter carved in stone and in ancient bronze remained. But if they were summoned to the testimonies of bards and annals, theirs were more and weightier; nor had Philip judged by his power, but from the truth: the same was the judgment of King Antigonus, the same of the commander Mummius; so the Milesians, when the arbitration was publicly committed to them; and last, Atidius Geminus, praetor of Achaia, had so decreed. Thus it was granted in favor of the Messenians. And the Segestans demanded that the temple of Venus on Mount Eryx, fallen through age, be restored, recounting the known tale of its origin, pleasing to Tiberius. He undertook the charge willingly, as a kinsman. Then the prayers of the Massilians were dealt with, and the precedent of Publius Rutilius approved; for, expelled by the laws, the Smyrnaeans had made him their citizen. By which right Vulcacius Moschus, an exile received among the Massilians, had left his goods to their commonwealth as to his fatherland.

Auditae dehinc Lacedaemoniorum et Messeniorum legationes de iure templi Dianae Limnatidis, quod suis a maioribus suaque in terra dicatum Lacedaemonii firmabant annalium memoria vatumque carminibus, sed Macedonis Philippi cum quo bellassent armis ademptum ac post C. Caesaris et M. Antonii sententia redditum. contra Messenii veterem inter Herculis posteros divisionem Peloponnesi protulere, suoque regi Denthaliatem agrum in quo id delubrum cessisse; monimentaque eius rei sculpta saxis et aere prisco manere. quod si vatum, annalium ad testimonia vocentur, pluris sibi ac locupletiores esse; neque Philippum potentia sed ex vero statuisse: idem regis Antigoni, idem imperatoris Mummii iudicium; sic Milesios permisso publice arbitrio, postremo Atidium Geminum praetorem Achaiae decrevisse. ita secundum Messenios datum. et Segestani aedem Veneris montem apud Erycum, vetustate dilapsam, restaurari postulavere, nota memorantes de origine eius et laeta Tiberio. suscepit curam libens ut consanguineus. tunc tractatae Massiliensium preces probatumque P. Rutilii exemplum; namque eum legibus pulsum civem sibi Zmyrnaei addiderant. quo iure Vulcacius Moschus exul in Massiliensis receptus bona sua rei publicae eorum et patriae reliquerat.

There died that year the noble men Gnaeus Lentulus and Lucius Domitius. To Lentulus, besides the consulship and triumphal honors over the Getae, his well-borne poverty had been a glory, then great wealth innocently won and modestly held. Domitius was distinguished by a father powerful at sea in the civil war, until he mingled with Antony’s party, then with Caesar’s; his grandfather had fallen on the field of Pharsalus for the aristocracy. He himself was chosen to be given in marriage the younger Antonia, daughter of Octavia, and afterward crossed the river Elbe with an army, penetrating further into Germany than any before him, and for those deeds obtained the insignia of a triumph. There died too Lucius Antonius, of much renown of birth but unprosperous. For, his father Iullus Antonius having been punished with death for adultery with Julia, Augustus had set him aside, a mere stripling, his sister’s grandson, in the community of Massilia, where under the show of studies the name of exile might be covered. Yet honor was paid him at his death, and his bones were borne into the tomb of the Octavii by a decree of the Senate.

Obiere eo anno viri nobiles Cn. Lentulus et L. Domitius. Lentulo super consulatum et triumphalia de Getis gloriae fuerat bene tolerata paupertas, dein magnae opes innocenter partae et modeste habitae. Domitium decoravit pater civili bello maris potens, donec Antonii partibus, mox Caesaris misceretur. avus Pharsalica acie pro optumatibus ceciderat. ipse delectus cui minor Antonia, Octavia genita, in matrimonium daretur, post exercitu flumen Albim transcendit, longius penetrata Germania quam quisquam priorum, easque ob res insignia triumphi adeptus est. obiit et L. Antonius, multa claritudine generis sed improspera. nam patre eius Iullo Antonio ob adulterium Iuliae morte punito hunc admodum adulescentulum, sororis nepotem, seposuit Augustus in civitatem Massiliensem ubi specie studiorum nomen exilii tegeretur. habitus tamen supremis honor ossaque tumulo Octaviorum inlata per decretum senatus.

Under the same consuls an atrocious deed was committed in Nearer Spain by a certain rustic of the Termestine nation. He, attacking unawares on the road the praetor of the province, Lucius Piso—careless because of the peace—dealt him a death-wound with a single blow; and, escaping by the swiftness of his horse, after he had reached the wooded places, let his horse go and, through steep and trackless ground, baffled his pursuers. Nor did he long escape detection: for, the horse seized and led through the nearest villages, it was learned whose it was. And when, being found, he was driven by torture to name his accomplices, he cried out in a loud voice, in his native tongue, that he was questioned in vain: let his comrades stand by and look on; no force of pain would be so great as to draw out the truth. And the same man, when on the next day he was dragged back to the questioning, tore himself from his guards with such effort and dashed his head against a rock that he died on the spot. But Piso is held to have been slain by the treachery of the Termestini; for he was exacting money embezzled from the public funds more sharply than the barbarians could endure.

Isdem consulibus facinus atrox in citeriore Hispania admissum a quodam agresti nationis Termestinae. is praetorem provinciae L. Pisonem, pace incuriosum, ex improviso in itinere adortus uno vulnere in mortem adfecit; ac pernicitate equi profugus, postquam saltuosos locos attigerat, dimisso equo per derupta et avia sequentis frustratus est. neque diu fefellit: nam prenso ductoque per proximos pagos equo cuius foret cognitum. et repertus cum tormentis edere conscios adigeretur, voce magna sermone patrio frustra se interrogari clamitavit: adsisterent socii ac spectarent; nullam vim tantam doloris fore ut veritatem eliceret. idemque cum postero ad quaestionem retraheretur, eo nisu proripuit se custodibus saxoque caput adflixit ut statim exanimaretur. sed Piso Termestinorum dolo caesus habetur; quippe pecunias e publico interceptas acrius quam ut tolerarent barbari cogebat.

In the consulship of Lentulus Gaetulicus and Gaius Calvisius, triumphal distinctions were decreed to Poppaeus Sabinus for crushing the Thracian peoples, who, on the heights of the mountains, lived in wildness and the more fiercely for it. The cause of the rising, over and above the temper of the men, was that they spurned to endure levies and to give every strongest man to our soldiery; nor were they wont to obey even their own kings except at their pleasure, or, if they sent auxiliaries, to set their own leaders over them, and to make war only against their neighbors. And then a rumor had arisen that they would be broken up and, mingled with other nations, dragged into distant lands. But before they began arms, they sent envoys to recall their friendship and obedience, and that these would abide if they were tried by no new burden: but if servitude were proclaimed to them as to the conquered, they had iron and youth and a spirit ready for liberty or for death. At the same time they pointed to their forts set on crags, and their parents and wives gathered there, and threatened a war entangled, arduous, and bloody.

Lentulo Gaetulico C. Calvisio consulibus decreta triumphi insignia Poppaeo Sabino contusis Thraecum gentibus, qui montium editis incultu atque eo ferocius agitabant. causa motus super hominum ingenium, quod pati dilectus et validissimum quemque militiae nostrae dare aspernabantur, ne regibus quidem parere nisi ex libidine soliti, aut si mitterent auxilia, suos ductores praeficere nec nisi adversum accolas belligerare. ac tum rumor incesserat fore ut disiecti aliisque nationibus permixti diversas in terras traherentur. sed antequam arma inciperent, misere legatos amicitiam obsequiumque memoraturos, et mansura haec si nullo novo onere temptarentur: sin ut victis servitium indiceretur, esse sibi ferrum et iuventutem et promptum libertati aut ad mortem animum. simul castella rupibus indita conlatosque illuc parentes et coniuges ostentabant bellumque impeditum arduum cruentum minitabantur.

But Sabinus, until he should gather his army into one, gave mild answers; and after Pomponius Labeo came from Moesia with a legion, and King Rhoemetalces with auxiliaries of his countrymen who had not changed their loyalty, he added the force at hand and marched against the enemy, now massed in the narrows of the wooded passes. Some, more daring, were seen on the open hills, whom the Roman commander, advancing in line of battle, drove off without difficulty, with moderate bloodshed of the barbarians because of their nearby refuges. Soon, his camp fortified on the spot, with a strong band he seizes a narrow mountain, continuous by an even ridge as far as the next fort, which a great force, armed or untrained, was guarding. At the same time he sends picked archers against the fiercest, who, in the fashion of their nation, were leaping before the rampart with songs and dances. These, while they assailed from afar, made frequent and unavenged wounds: advancing nearer, they were thrown into confusion by a sudden sally, and were taken up by the support of a Sugambrian cohort, which the Roman had drawn up not far off—ready for dangers, and no less fierce in the din of its songs and arms.

At Sabinus, donec exercitus in unum conduceret, datis mitibus responsis, postquam Pomponius Labeo e Moesia cum legione, rex Rhoemetalces cum auxiliis popularium qui fidem non mutaverant, venere, addita praesenti copia ad hostem pergit, compositum iam per angustias saltuum. quidam audentius apertis in collibus visebantur, quos dux Romanus acie suggressus haud aegre pepulit sanguine barbarorum modico ob propinqua suffugia. mox castris in loco communitis valida manu montem occupat angustum et aequali dorso continuum usque ad proximum castellum quod magna vis armata aut incondita tuebatur. simul in ferocissimos, qui ante vallum more gentis cum carminibus et tripudiis persultabant, mittit delectos sagittariorum. ii dum eminus grassabantur crebra et inulta vulnera fecere: propius incedentes eruptione subita turbati sunt receptique subsidio Sugambrae cohortis, quam Romanus promptam ad pericula nec minus cantuum et armorum tumultu trucem haud procul instruxerat.

The camp was then shifted close to the enemy, the Thracians whom I have recorded as having been with us being left at the earlier works. And they were permitted to lay waste, to burn, to drag off plunder, provided the ravaging were kept within daylight and they passed the night safe and watchful in camp. This was at first observed: soon, turned to luxury and grown rich with spoils, they abandoned their posts, sinking down in the wantonness of feasting, or in sleep and wine. So the enemy, having learned of their negligence, prepare two columns, by the one of which the plunderers should be assailed, while the others attacked the Roman camp—not in hope of taking it, but that, with shouting and weapons, each intent on his own danger, they should not catch the sound of the other battle. Darkness besides was chosen, to increase the dread. But those who tried the rampart of the legions are easily repelled; the Thracian auxiliaries, terrified by the sudden onset, since part lay close to the works and more were straying outside, were cut down the more savagely as they were reproached as deserters and traitors bearing arms for their own and their fatherland’s enslavement.

Translata dehinc castra hostem propter, relictis apud priora munimenta Thraecibus, quos nobis adfuisse memoravi. iisque permissum vastare, urere, trahere praedas, dum populatio lucem intra sisteretur noctemque in castris tutam et vigilem capesserent. id primo servatum: mox versi in luxum et raptis opulenti omittere stationes, lascivia epularum aut somno et vino procumbere. igitur hostes incuria eorum comperta duo agmina parant quorum altero populatores invaderentur, alii castra Romana adpugnarent, non spe capiendi sed ut clamore, telis suo quisque periculo intentus sonorem alterius proelii non acciperet. tenebrae insuper delectae augendam ad formidinem. sed qui vallum legionum temptabant facile pelluntur; Thraecum auxilia repentino incursu territa, cum pars munitionibus adiacerent, plures extra palarentur, tanto infensius caesi quanto perfugae et proditores ferre arma ad suum patriaeque servitium incusabantur.

On the next day Sabinus displayed his army on level ground, in case the barbarians, made eager by the night’s success, should dare a battle. And after they would not come down from the fort or the connected hills, he began a blockade by means of the garrisons he was already conveniently fortifying; then, weaving a ditch and a breastwork, he enclosed a circuit of four miles; then little by little, to cut off their water and fodder, he drew in the barriers and ringed them more narrowly; and a mound was built, from which stones, spears, and fires might be thrown against the now-near enemy. But nothing wearied them so much as thirst, since a huge multitude of warriors and non-combatants had but one spring left; and at the same time the cattle, shut up nearby in the barbarian manner, were dying from want of fodder; the bodies of men whom wounds, whom thirst had carried off lay close by; and everything was polluted with gore, with stench, with contact.

Postera die Sabinus exercitum aequo loco ostendit, si barbari successu noctis alacres proelium auderent. et postquam castello aut coniunctis tumulis non degrediebantur, obsidium coepit per praesidia quae opportune iam muniebat; dein fossam loricamque contexens quattuor milia passuum ambitu amplexus est; tum paulatim ut aquam pabulumque eriperet contrahere claustra artaque circumdare; et struebatur agger unde saxa hastae ignes propinquum iam in hostem iacerentur. sed nihil aeque quam sitis fatigabat, cum ingens multitudo bellatorum im- bellium uno reliquo fonte uterentur; simulque armenta, ut mos barbaris, iuxta clausa egestate pabuli exanimari; adiacere corpora hominum quos vulnera, quos sitis peremerat; pollui cuncta sanie odore contactu.

And to their disordered fortunes the worst evil was added—discord, some preparing for surrender, others for death and mutual blows among themselves; and there were those who counseled not an unavenged destruction but a sally. Nor were the lowborn alone of these differing opinions, but among the leaders Dinis, advanced in age and taught by long experience the force and the clemency of Rome, kept arguing that arms must be laid down—the one remedy for the afflicted—and was the first to surrender himself with his wife and children to the victor: there followed those weak in age or sex, and such as had a greater desire for life than for glory. But the youth were divided between Tarsa and Turesis. To both the resolve was to die with their liberty, but Tarsa, crying that a swift end must be made and hope and fear broken off together, gave the example by plunging the steel into his breast; nor were there lacking those who met death in the same way. Turesis with his band awaits the night—our commander not unaware. So the posts were strengthened with denser companies; and night was coming on, dreadful with a storm, and the enemy, with confused shouting, now through a vast silence, had made the besiegers uncertain, when Sabinus went round, exhorting them not to lay themselves open, by ambiguous sounds or a feigned quiet, to the chance of those lying in wait, but each to keep his own post unmoved and not to hurl his weapons in vain.

Rebusque turbatis malum extremum discordia accessit, his deditionem aliis mortem et mutuos inter se ictus parantibus; et erant qui non inultum exitium sed eruptionem suaderent. neque ignobiles tantum his diversi sententiis, verum e ducibus Dinis, provectus senecta et longo usu vim atque clementiam Romanam edoctus, ponenda arma, unum adflictis id remedium disserebat, primusque se cum coniuge et liberis victori permisit: secuti aetate aut sexu imbecilli et quibus maior vitae quam gloriae cupido. at iuventus Tarsam inter et Turesim distrahebatur. utrique destinatum cum libertate occidere, sed Tarsa properum finem, abrumpendas pariter spes ac metus clamitans, dedit exemplum demisso in pectus ferro; nec defuere qui eodem modo oppeterent. Turesis sua cum manu noctem opperitur haud nescio duce nostro. igitur firmatae stationes densioribus globis; et ingruebat nox nimbo atrox, hostisque clamore turbido, modo per vastum silentium, incertos obsessores effecerat, cum Sabinus circumire, hortari, ne ad ambigua sonitus aut simulationem quietis casum insidiantibus aperirent, sed sua quisque munia servarent immoti telisque non in falsum iactis.

Meanwhile the barbarians, charging down in troops, now hurl against the rampart hand-thrown stones, fire-hardened stakes, and lopped timber, now fill the ditches with brushwood and hurdles and lifeless bodies; some, having beforehand fashioned bridges and ladders, bring them up to the bulwarks and grasp them, drag them down, and struggle hand to hand against those resisting. The soldier, on the other side, dislodges them with weapons, thrusts them off with his shield-boss, rolls down wall-javelins and heaped masses of stones. To these the hope of a won victory, and, if they yielded, a more conspicuous disgrace; to those, their last safety now, and, standing by most of them, their mothers and wives, whose laments add courage. Night was opportune to some for daring, to others for dread; uncertain blows, unforeseen wounds; the ignorance of their own and the enemy, and voices echoed back by the windings of the mountain as if from the rear, had so confounded everything that the Romans abandoned certain works as though broken through. Nor yet did the enemy get through, save very few: the rest, the most forward cast down or wounded, as the daylight now came on they thrust up to the summit of the fort, where at last surrender was compelled. And the nearest places were received by the inhabitants’ own will: the rest were saved from being subdued by force or siege by the premature and savage winter of Mount Haemus.

Interea barbari catervis decurrentes nunc in vallum manualia saxa, praeustas sudes, decisa robora iacere, nunc virgultis et cratibus et corporibus exanimis complere fossas, quidam pontis et scalas ante fabricati inferre propugnaculis eaque prensare, detrahere et adversum resistentis comminus niti. miles contra deturbare telis, pellere umbonibus, mu- ralia pila, congestas lapidum molis provolvere. his partae victoriae spes et si cedant insignitius flagitium, illis extrema iam salus et adsistentes plerisque matres et coniuges earumque lamenta addunt animos. nox aliis in audaciam, aliis ad formidinem opportuna; incerti ictus, vulnera improvisa; suorum atque hostium ignoratio et montis anfractu repercussae velut a tergo voces adeo cuncta miscuerant ut quaedam munimenta Romani quasi perrupta omiserint. neque tamen pervasere hostes nisi admodum pauci: ceteros, deiecto promptissimo quoque aut saucio, adpetente iam luce trusere in summa castelli ubi tandem coacta deditio. et proxima sponte incolarum recepta: reliquis quo minus vi aut obsidio subigerentur praematura montis Haemi et saeva hiems subvenit.

But at Rome, the princeps’s house being stirred, that the train of the future destruction aimed at Agrippina might begin, Claudia Pulchra, her cousin, is prosecuted, with Domitius Afer for accuser. He, fresh from the praetorship, modest in rank and eager to grow famous by any deed whatever, charged her with unchastity, with Furnius as adulterer, with poisonings against the princeps and with spells. Agrippina, always fierce, and then inflamed by her kinswoman’s peril too, goes to Tiberius, and chanced to find him sacrificing to his father. From which beginning of complaint she said that it was not for the same man to slay victims to the deified Augustus and to persecute his posterity. The divine spirit had not been transfused into mute images: she was the true likeness, sprung of heavenly blood, and understood the danger; she took on the mourning weeds. In vain was Pulchra put forward, whose sole cause of ruin was that she had, with utter folly, chosen Agrippina for her devotion, forgetting Sosia, afflicted for the same. These words drew out a rare utterance from his hidden breast, and, taking hold of her, he warned her with a Greek verse that she was not wronged because she did not reign. Pulchra and Furnius are condemned. Afer was added to the foremost of the orators, his talent now divulged, and Caesar’s asseveration following, by which he called him eloquent by his own right. Afterward, in taking up accusations or defending the accused, his reputation for eloquence was happier than that for character, except that extreme age took much even from his eloquence, while with a wearied mind he kept his impatience of silence.

At Romae commota principis domo, ut series futuri in Agrippinam exitii inciperet Claudia Pulchra sobrina eius postulatur accusante Domitio Afro. is recens praetura, modicus dignationis et quoquo facinore properus clarescere, crimen impudicitiae, adulterum Furnium, veneficia in principem et devotiones obiectabat. Agrippina semper atrox, tum et periculo propinquae accensa, pergit ad Tiberium ac forte sacrificantem patri repperit. quo initio invidiae non eiusdem ait mactare divo Augusto victimas et posteros eius insectari. non in effigies mutas divinum spiritum transfusum: se imaginem veram, caelesti sanguine ortam, intellegere discrimen, suscipere sordis. frustra Pulchram praescribi cui sola exitii causa sit quod Agrippinam stulte prorsus ad cultum delegerit oblita Sosiae ob eadem adflictae. audita haec raram occulti pectoris vocem elicuere, correptamque Graeco versu admonuit non ideo laedi quia non regnaret. Pulchra et Furnius damnantur. Afer pri- moribus oratorum additus, divulgato ingenio et secuta adseveratione Caesaris qua suo iure disertum eum appellavit. mox capessendis accusationibus aut reos tutando prosperiore eloquentiae quam morum fama fuit, nisi quod aetas extrema multum etiam eloquentiae dempsit, dum fessa mente retinet silentii impatientiam.

But Agrippina, stubborn in her anger and entangled in a sickness of body, when Caesar came to visit her, after long and silent weeping, then began with resentment and entreaties: that he should relieve her solitude, give her a husband; her youth was still fit, and there was for the virtuous no other solace than from marriage; there were in the state those who would deign to receive the wife of Germanicus and his children. But Caesar, not ignorant how much was sought from the commonwealth’s standpoint, yet, lest he show offense or fear, left her without an answer though she pressed. This—not handed down by the writers of annals—I found in the memoirs of the younger Agrippina, daughter, who, mother of the emperor Nero, recorded for posterity her own life and the fortunes of her people.

At Agrippina pervicax irae et morbo corporis implicata, cum viseret eam Caesar, profusis diu ac per silentium lacrimis, mox invidiam et preces orditur: subveniret solitudini, daret maritum; habilem adhuc iuventam sibi neque aliud probis quam ex matrimonio solacium; esse in civitate,Germanici coniugem ac liberos eius recipere dignarentur. sed Caesar non ignarus quantum ex re publica peteretur, ne tamen offensionis aut metus manifestus foret sine responso quamquam instantem reliquit. id ego, a scriptoribus annalium non traditum, repperi in commentariis Agrippinae filiae quae Neronis principis mater vitam suam et casus suorum posteris memoravit.

But Sejanus struck the grieving and unforeseeing woman more deeply, sending men who, under the show of friendship, should warn her that poison was prepared for her, and that her father-in-law’s banquets must be avoided. And she, ignorant of dissemblings, when she reclined beside him, was not to be bent in face or speech, and touched no food, until Tiberius noticed—by chance, or because he had heard. And, to test it the more sharply, praising the fruit as it was set out, he handed it with his own hand to his daughter-in-law. Suspicion was thereby increased in Agrippina, and, untouched by her lips, she passed it to the slaves. Nor yet did Tiberius’s word follow openly, but, turned to his mother, he said it was no wonder if he had determined something rather severe against one by whom he was accused of poisoning. Hence the rumor that her destruction was being prepared, and that the emperor did not dare it openly, but that a secret was being sought for the deed’s accomplishment.

Ceterum Seianus maerentem et improvidam altius perculit, immissis qui per speciem amicitiae monerent paratum ei venenum, vitandas soceri epulas. atque illa simulationum nescia, cum propter discumberet, non vultu aut sermone flecti, nullos attingere cibos, donec advertit Tiberius, forte an quia audiverat; idque quo acrius experiretur, poma, ut erant adposita, laudans nurui sua manu tradidit. aucta ex eo suspicio Agrippinae et intacta ore servis tramisit. nec tamen Tiberii vox coram secuta, sed obversus ad matrem non mirum ait si quid severius in eam statuisset a qua veneficii insimularetur. inde rumor parari exitium neque id imperatorem palam audere, secretum ad perpetrandum quaeri.

But Caesar, to turn aside the talk, attended the Senate frequently, and for several days heard the envoys of Asia disputing in which city the temple should be set up. Eleven cities contended, with equal ambition, of differing strength. With little difference among themselves they recounted the antiquity of their stock, their zeal for the Roman people through the wars of Perseus and Aristonicus and other kings. But the Hypaepeni and Trallians, together with the Laodiceans and Magnetes, were passed over as too weak; not even the Ilians—though they cited Troy as the mother of Rome—prevailed save by the glory of their antiquity. There was a little hesitation because the Halicarnassians asserted that for twelve hundred years their seats had not shaken with any earthquake, and that the temple’s foundations were on living rock. The Pergamenes (they relied on this very thing) were thought to have already obtained enough by the temple to Augustus set up there. The Ephesians and Milesians were judged to have engrossed their cities, the one with the cult of Apollo, the other of Diana. So it was deliberated between the Sardians and the Smyrnaeans. The Sardians read out a decree of Etruria, as kinsmen: for Tyrrhenus and Lydus, sons of King Atys, had, on account of their numbers, divided the nation; Lydus had settled in his fathers’ lands, to Tyrrhenus it was given to found new seats; and from the leaders’ names the appellations were given, to the one through Asia, to the other in Italy; and the wealth of the Lydians was further increased by peoples sent into Greece, which afterward took its name from Pelops. At the same time they recalled the letters of commanders, and the treaties struck with us in the war of the Macedonians, and the abundance of their rivers, the temperateness of their climate, and the rich lands around.

Sed Caesar quo famam averteret adesse frequens senatui legatosque Asiae ambigentis quanam in civitate templum statueretur pluris per dies audivit. undecim urbes certabant, pari ambitione, viribus diversae. neque multum distantia inter se memorabant de vetustate generis, studio in populum Romanum per bella Persi et Aristonici aliorumque regum. verum Hypaepeni Trallianique Laodicenis ac Magnetibus simul tramissi ut parum validi; ne Ilienses quidem, cum parentem urbis Romae Troiam referrent, nisi antiquitatis gloria pollebant. paulum addubitatum quod Halicarnasii mille et ducentos per annos nullo motu terrae nutavisse sedes suas vivoque in saxo fundamenta templi adseveraverant. Pergamenos (eo ipso nitebantur) aede Augusto ibi sita satis adeptos creditum. Ephesii Milesiique, hi Apollinis, illi Dianae caerimonia occupavisse civitates visi. ita Sardianos inter Zmyrnaeosque deliberatum. Sardiani decretum Etruriae recitavere ut consanguinei: nam Tyrrhenum Lydumque Atye rege genitos ob multitudinem divisisse gentem; Lydum patriis in terris resedisse, Tyrrheno datum novas ut conderet sedes; et ducum e nominibus indita vocabula illis per Asiam, his in Italia; auctamque adhuc Lydorum opulentiam missis in Graeciam populis cui mox a Pelope nomen. simul litteras imperatorum et icta nobiscum foedera bello Macedonum ubertatemque fluminum suorum, temperiem caeli ac ditis circum terras memorabant.

But the Smyrnaeans, having recalled their antiquity—whether Tantalus, sprung of Jove, or Theseus, himself too of divine stock, or one of the Amazons had founded them—passed on to those things in which they most trusted, their services toward the Roman people: a naval force sent not only to foreign wars but to those endured in Italy; and that they had been the first to set up a temple to the city of Rome, in the consulship of Marcus Porcius, when the affairs of the Roman people were already great, yet not raised to the summit, the Punic city still standing and strong kings throughout Asia. At the same time they brought forward Lucius Sulla as witness, that, when the army was in a most grievous crisis through the harshness of the winter and the scarcity of clothing, and this had been announced to Smyrna in the assembly, all who stood by had stripped the coverings from their bodies and sent them to our legions. So, being asked their opinion, the senators preferred the Smyrnaeans. And Vibius Marsus proposed that to Manius Lepidus, to whom that province had fallen, a deputy be assigned over the regular number to take charge of the temple. And because Lepidus himself, out of modesty, declined to choose, Valerius Naso of the ex-praetors was sent by lot.

At Zmyrnaei repetita vetustate, seu Tantalus Iove ortus illos, sive Theseus divina et ipse stirpe, sive una Amazonum condidisset, transcendere ad ea, quis maxime fidebant, in populum Romanum officiis, missa navali copia non modo externa ad bella sed quae in Italia tolerabantur; seque primos templum urbis Romae statuisse, M. Porcio consule, magnis quidem iam populi Romani rebus, nondum tamen ad summum elatis, stante adhuc Punica urbe et validis per Asiam regibus. simul L. Sullam testem adferebant, gravissimo in discrimine exercitus ob asperitatem hiemis et penuriam vestis, cum id Zmyrnam in contionem nuntiatum foret, omnis qui adstabant detraxisse corpori tegmina nostrisque legionibus misisse. ita rogati sententiam patres Zmyrnaeos praetulere. censuitque Vibius Marsus ut M’. Lepido, cui ea provincia obvenerat, super numerum legaretur qui templi curam susciperet. et quia Lepidus ipse deligere per modestiam abnuebat, Valerius Naso e praetoriis sorte missus est.

Amid these things, his plan long meditated and often deferred, Caesar at last withdrew into Campania, under the pretext of dedicating temples—to Jupiter at Capua, to Augustus at Nola—but resolved to live far from the city. The cause of his retirement, although, following most authorities, I have referred it to the arts of Sejanus, yet, because after that man’s killing he continued six years more in equal seclusion, I am for the most part moved to ask whether it be truer to refer it to himself, hiding by his retreats the savagery and lust which he betrayed by his deeds. There were those who believed that in his old age even the appearance of his body was a shame to him: for he had a lankness and stooping height, a head bald of hair, an ulcerous face, and one mostly spotted with plasters; and at Rhodes, in his retirement, he had grown used to shun gatherings and to hide his pleasures. It is handed down also that he was driven out by his mother’s domineering, whom he spurned as a partner in mastery, yet could not put off, since he had received that very mastery as her gift. For Augustus had hesitated whether to set Germanicus, his sister’s grandson and praised by all, over the Roman state, but, overcome by his wife’s prayers, had adopted Germanicus to Tiberius, and Tiberius to himself. And this Augusta kept reproaching, kept demanding back.

Inter quae diu meditato prolatoque saepius consilio tandem Caesar in Campaniam, specie dedicandi templa apud Capuam Iovi, apud Nolam Augusto, sed certus procul urbe degere. causam abscessus quamquam secutus plurimos auctorum ad Seiani artes rettuli, quia tamen caede eius patrata sex postea annos pari secreto coniunxit, plerumque permoveor num ad ipsum referri verius sit, saevitiam ac libidinem cum factis promeret, locis occultantem. erant qui crederent in senectute corporis quoque habitum pudori fuisse: quippe illi praegracilis et incurva proceritas, nudus capillo vertex, ulcerosa facies ac plerumque medicaminibus interstincta; et Rhodi secreto vitare coetus, recondere voluptates insuerat. traditur etiam matris impotentia extrusum quam dominationis sociam aspernabatur neque depellere poterat, cum dominationem ipsam donum eius accepisset. nam dubitaverat Augustus Germanicum, sororis nepotem et cunctis laudatum, rei Romanae imponere, sed precibus uxoris evictus Tiberio Germanicum, sibi Tiberium adscivit. idque Augusta exprobrabat, reposcebat.

His departure was made with a scanty retinue: one senator of consular rank, Cocceius Nerva, learned in the law; one Roman knight of distinction besides Sejanus, Curtius Atticus; the rest endowed with liberal studies, for the most part Greeks, by whose talk he might be lightened. Men skilled in the heavens declared that Tiberius had quitted Rome under such a movement of the stars that return was denied him—which was the cause of ruin to many, who conjectured and broadcast that his end was near; for they did not foresee a chance so incredible, that for eleven years he would willingly forgo his country. Soon it was made plain how narrow is the boundary between the art and the false, and with what obscurity truths are veiled: for that he would not return to the city was not said by chance; of the rest they knew nothing, since in the neighboring countryside, or on the shore, and often hugging the very walls of the city, he filled out his extreme old age.

Profectio arto comitatu fuit: unus senator consulatu functus, Cocceius Nerva, cui legum peritia, eques Romanus praeter Seianum ex inlustribus Curtius Atticus, ceteri liberalibus studiis praediti, ferme Graeci, quorum sermonibus levaretur. ferebant periti caelestium iis motibus siderum excessisse Roma Tiberium ut reditus illi negaretur. unde exitii causa multis fuit properum finem vitae coniectantibus vulgantibusque; neque enim tam incredibilem casum providebant ut undecim per annos libens patria careret. mox patuit breve confinium artis et falsi veraque quam obscuris tegerentur. nam in urbem non regressurum haud forte dictum: ceterorum nescii egere, cum propinquo rure aut litore et saepe moenia urbis adsidens extremam senectam compleverit.

And by chance in those days a doubtful peril offered to Caesar swelled an empty rumor and furnished him with grounds why he should trust the more in the friendship and constancy of Sejanus. They were dining in a villa called the Cave, between the Amyclanian sea and the Fundane hills, in a natural grotto. Its mouth, the rocks suddenly slipping, crushed certain attendants: hence terror upon all and the flight of those who were keeping the banquet. Sejanus, hanging over Caesar on knee and face and hands, set himself against the falling stones, and was found in that posture by the soldiers who had come to the rescue. Greater from that time, and though he counseled ruinous things he was heard with trust, as one not anxious for himself. And he played the part of judge against the stock of Germanicus, men being suborned to take on the names of accusers and chiefly to harry Nero, next in the succession; who, though of a modest youth, yet for the most part forgot what the present moment counseled, while by freedmen and clients, hurried to grasp power, he was goaded to show himself erect and confident of spirit: this the Roman people wished, the armies desired, nor would Sejanus dare against it—Sejanus, who now insulted alike the old man’s patience and the young man’s sloth.

Ac forte illis diebus oblatum Caesari anceps periculum auxit vana rumoris praebuitque ipsi materiem cur amicitiae constantiaeque Seiani magis fideret. vescebantur in villa cui vocabulum Speluncae mare Amunclanum inter et Fundanos montis nativo in specu. eius os lapsis repente saxis obruit quosdam ministros: hinc metus in omnis et fuga eorum qui convivium celebrabant. Seianus genu vultuque et manibus super Caesarem suspensus opposuit sese incidentibus atque habitu tali repertus est a militibus qui subsidio venerant. maior ex eo et quamquam exitiosa suaderet ut non sui anxius cum fide audiebatur. adsimulabatque iudicis partis adversum Germanici stirpem, subditis qui accusatorum nomina sustinerent maximeque insectarentur Neronem proximum successioni et, quamquam modesta iuventa, plerumque tamen quid in praesentiarum conduceret oblitum, dum a libertis et clientibus, apiscendae potentiae properis, extimulatur ut erectum et fidentem animi ostenderet: velle id populum Romanum, cupere exercitus, neque ausurum contra Seianum qui nunc patientiam senis et segnitiam iuvenis iuxta insultet.

To him, hearing these and the like, there came indeed no depraved design, but now and then defiant and unconsidered words broke out, which the appointed watchers, having caught and exaggerated them, reported, and—Nero being granted no leave to defend himself—diverse shapes of anxiety arose besides. For one would shun meeting him; some, his greeting returned, would at once turn away; very many would break off a conversation begun, while the partisans of Sejanus stood by, persisting and mocking. Tiberius indeed met him grim, or smiling falsely with his face: whether the youth spoke or kept silence, there was a charge from his silence, from his speech. Not even night was secure, since his wife laid bare his wakings, his sleeps, his sighs to her mother Livia, and she to Sejanus; who drew also Nero’s brother Drusus into his party, the hope of the first place held out to him if he should remove the elder in years and already tottering. Drusus’s savage temper, over and above his greed of power and the hatreds usual among brothers, was inflamed by envy that their mother Agrippina was the readier toward Nero. Yet Sejanus did not so cherish Drusus but that against him too he was meditating the seeds of a future ruin, knowing him over-fierce and the more open to treachery.

Haec atque talia audienti nihil quidem pravae cogitationis, sed interdum voces procedebant contumaces et inconsultae, quas adpositi custodes exceptas auctasque cum deferrent neque Neroni defendere daretur, diversae insuper sollicitudinum formae oriebantur. nam alius occursum eius vitare, quidam salutatione reddita statim averti, plerique inceptum sermonem abrumpere, insistentibus contra inridentibusque qui Seiano fautores aderant. enimvero Tiberius torvus aut falsum renidens vultu: seu loqueretur seu taceret iuvenis, crimen ex silentio, ex voce. ne nox quidem secura, cum uxor vigilias somnos suspiria matri Liviae atque illa Seiano patefaceret; qui fratrem quoque Neronis Drusum traxit in partis, spe obiecta principis loci si priorem aetate et iam labefactum demovisset. atrox Drusi ingenium super cupidinem potentiae et solita fratribus odia accendebatur invidia quod mater Agrippina promptior Neroni erat. neque tamen Seianus ita Drusum fovebat ut non in eum quoque semina futuri exitii meditaretur, gnarus praeferocem et insidiis magis opportunum.

At the year’s end departed men of mark: Asinius Agrippa, of ancestors more illustrious than ancient, and by his life not unworthy of them; and Quintus Haterius, of a senatorial family, of an eloquence celebrated while he lived—the monuments of his genius are not equally retained. For he flourished by impulse rather than by care; and as the meditation and toil of others gathers strength for the future, so that melodious and flowing quality of Haterius was extinguished together with himself.

Fine anni excessere insignes viri Asinius Agrippa, claris maioribus quam vetustis vitaque non degener, et Q. Haterius, familia senatoria, eloquentiae quoad vixit celebratae: monimenta ingeni eius haud perinde retinentur. scilicet impetu magis quam cura vigebat; utque aliorum meditatio et labor in posterum valescit, sic Haterii canorum illud et profluens cum ipso simul extinctum est.

In the consulship of Marcus Licinius and Lucius Calpurnius an unforeseen calamity equaled the havoc of mighty wars: its beginning and its end stood forth at once. For an amphitheater having been begun at Fidena by one Atilius, of freedman’s stock, that he might hold a show of gladiators, he neither sank the foundations on solid ground nor bound the wooden frame above with firm joinings, as one who had sought that business not from abundance of money nor from municipal ambition but for a sordid profit. There flowed in the eager for such things, under Tiberius’s rule kept far from pleasures, male and female sex, every age, the more freely for the nearness of the place; whence the destruction was the heavier, the mass packed close, then wrenched apart, while it collapsed inward or poured out upon the exterior, dragging headlong and burying an immense throng of mortals, intent on the spectacle or standing round about. And those indeed whom the first onset of the collapse had dashed to death escaped, as in such a lot, from torment: more to be pitied were those whom, a part of the body torn away, life had not yet deserted; who by day with their eyes, by night with howls and groans, knew their wives or their children. Now the rest, roused by report, this one bewailed a brother, that a kinsman, another his parents. Even those whose friends or kin were absent for a different cause yet trembled; and, it not being ascertained whom that violence had stricken, the wider was the dread from the uncertainty.

M. Licinio L. Calpurnio consulibus ingentium bellorum cladem aequavit malum improvisum: eius initium simul et finis extitit. nam coepto apud Fidenam amphitheatro Atilius quidam libertini generis, quo spectaculum gladiatorum celebraret, neque fundamenta per solidum subdidit neque firmis nexibus ligneam compagem superstruxit, ut qui non abundantia pecuniae nec municipali ambitione sed in sordidam mercedem id negotium quaesivisset. adfluxere avidi talium, imperitante Tiberio procul voluptatibus habiti, virile ac muliebre secus, omnis aetas, ob propinquitatem loci effusius; unde gravior pestis fuit, conferta mole, dein convulsa, dum ruit intus aut in exteriora effunditur immensamque vim mortalium, spectaculo intentos aut qui circum adstabant, praeceps trahit atque operit. et illi quidem quos principium stragis in mortem adflixerat, ut tali sorte, cruciatum effugere: miserandi magis quos abrupta parte corporis nondum vita deseruerat; qui per diem visu, per noctem ululatibus et gemitu coniuges aut liberos noscebant. iam ceteri fama exciti, hic fratrem, propinquum ille, alius parentes lamentari. etiam quorum diversa de causa amici aut necessarii aberant, pavere tamen; nequedum comperto quos illa vis perculisset, latior ex incerto metus.

When they began to clear away the buried, there was a rush to the lifeless, of men embracing them, kissing them; and often a contest, if a confused face but a like form or age had made room for error among those that strove to recognize. Fifty thousand persons were maimed or crushed in that disaster; and it was provided for the future by a decree of the Senate that no one should give a gladiatorial show whose substance was less than four hundred thousand sesterces, nor an amphitheater be raised save on ground of proven firmness. Atilius was driven into exile. For the rest, in the wake of the fresh disaster the houses of the great stood open, dressings and physicians furnished on every side, and the city through those days, though of mournful aspect, was like in its usages to the institutions of the ancients, who after great battles sustained the wounded with bounty and with care.

Vt coepere dimoveri obruta, concursus ad exanimos complectentium, osculantium; et saepe certamen si confusior facies sed par forma aut aetas errorem adgnoscentibus fecerat. quinquaginta hominum milia eo casu debilitata vel obtrita sunt; cautumque in posterum senatus consulto ne quis gladiatorium munus ederet cui minor quadringentorum milium res neve amphitheatrum imponeretur nisi solo firmitatis spectatae. Atilius in exilium actus est. ceterum sub recentem cladem patuere procerum domus, fomenta et medici passim praebiti, fuitque urbs per illos dies quamquam maesta facie veterum institutis similis, qui magna post proelia saucios largitione et cura sustentabant.

Not yet had that calamity faded when a violence of fire afflicted the city beyond the wont, the Caelian hill being burnt up; and men called it a deadly year, and said that the prince’s design of absence had been taken up under adverse omens—the way of the crowd, dragging chance things to a fault—had not Caesar gone to meet it by distributing moneys according to the measure of each man’s loss. And thanks were rendered him in the Senate by the illustrious, and by report among the people, because without canvassing or the prayers of intimates he had aided with his munificence even the unknown and those summoned of his own accord. There were added proposals that the Caelian hill should for the future be called the Augustan, since, while all around blazed, the effigy of Tiberius alone, set in the house of the senator Junius, had remained inviolate. They said this had befallen of old to Claudia Quinta, and that her statue, twice escaping the force of the flames, their ancestors had consecrated at the temple of the Mother of the Gods. The Claudii were holy and accepted of the divinities, and the ceremony of the place ought to be augmented in which the gods had shown so great an honor toward the prince.

Nondum ea clades exoleverat cum ignis violentia urbem ultra solitum adfecit, deusto monte Caelio; feralemque annum ferebant et ominibus adversis susceptum principi consilium absentiae, qui mos vulgo, fortuita ad culpam trahentes, ni Caesar obviam isset tribuendo pecunias ex modo detrimenti. actaeque ei grates apud senatum ab inlustribus famaque apud populum, quia sine ambitione aut proximorum precibus ignotos etiam et ultro accitos munificentia iuverat. adduntur sententiae ut mons Caelius in posterum Augustus appellaretur, quando cunctis circum flagrantibus sola Tiberii effigies sita in domo Iunii senatoris inviolata mansisset. evenisse id olim Claudiae Quintae eiusque statuam vim ignium bis elapsam maiores apud aedem matris deum consecravisse. sanctos acceptosque numinibus Claudios et augendam caerimoniam loco in quo tantum in principem honorem di ostenderint.

It will not be amiss to relate that this hill was in antiquity surnamed Querquetulanus, because it was thick and fruitful with such a wood of oaks, and was soon styled Caelius after Caeles Vibenna, who, as leader of an Etruscan nation, when he had brought aid, received that seat from Tarquinius Priscus, or whoever else of the kings gave it: for writers disagree in this. The rest is not doubtful—that those great forces dwelt also through the level ground and near the Forum, whence the Tuscan quarter was named from the appellation of the newcomers.

Haud fuerit absurdum tradere montem eum antiquitus Querquetulanum cognomento fuisse, quod talis silvae frequens fecundusque erat, mox Caelium appellitatum a Caele Vibenna, qui dux gentis Etruscae cum auxilium tulisset sedem eam acceperat a Tarquinio Prisco, seu quis alius regum dedit: nam scriptores in eo dissentiunt. cetera non ambigua sunt, magnas eas copias per plana etiam ac foro propinqua habitavisse, unde Tuscum vicum e vocabulo advenarum dictum.

But as the zeal of the great and the bounty of the prince had brought solace against mischances, so the force of the accusers, greater day by day and more hostile, raged without relief; and Domitius Afer had seized upon Varus Quintilius, rich and near of kin to Caesar—Afer, the condemner of his mother Claudia Pulchra, none wondering that, long needy and having ill-used the prize lately won, he girded himself for more outrages. That Publius Dolabella had stood forth as a partner of the delation was a marvel, since, of illustrious ancestors and linked to Varus, he went to ruin his own nobility, his own blood. Yet the Senate withstood it and judged that the emperor must be awaited, which was the one refuge from the pressing evils for the moment.

Sed ut studia procerum et largitio principis adversum casus solacium tulerant, ita accusatorum maior in dies et infestior vis sine levamento grassabatur; corripueratque Varum Quintilium, divitem et Caesari propinquum, Domitius Afer, Claudiae Pulchrae matris eius condemnator, nullo mirante quod diu egens et parto nuper praemio male usus plura ad flagitia accingeretur. Publium Dolabellam socium delationis extitisse miraculo erat, quia claris maioribus et Varo conexus suam ipse nobilitatem, suum sanguinem perditum ibat. restitit tamen senatus et opperiendum imperatorem censuit, quod unum urgentium malorum suffugium in tempus erat.

But Caesar, the temples through Campania dedicated, although he had warned by edict that no one should break in upon his repose, and the concourse of the townsfolk was kept off by soldiers posted about, yet, loathing the municipalities and colonies and all things set on the mainland, hid himself away in the island of Capreae, parted by a strait of three miles from the extremities of the Surrentine promontory. Its solitude pleased him most, I should readily believe, since the sea around is harborless and scarce for moderate vessels affords a few shelters; nor could any put in but with the watchman’s knowledge. The temper of the sky in winter is mild, a mountain set against it whereby the cruel winds are barred; the summer, turned to the west wind and with the open main all round, most delightful; and it looked out upon a most beautiful bay, before Vesuvius the mountain, kindling, changed the face of the place. Report hands down that the Greeks held it, and that Capreae was inhabited by the Teleboi. But at that time Tiberius had settled in with the names and piles of twelve villas, as much hidden now in luxury and an evil idleness as he had once been intent upon the public cares. For there remained his rashness of suspicion and of belief, which Sejanus, wont to feed it even in the city, the more keenly disturbed, his plots against Agrippina and Nero now no longer hidden. Soldiers set over them entered up their messages, their visits, their open and secret doings as if in a chronicle; and men were even suborned to advise them to flee to the armies of Germany, or, in the most frequented part of the Forum, to embrace the effigy of the deified Augustus and call people and Senate to their aid. And these things, scorned by them, were cast up against them as though they had been preparing them.

At Caesar dedicatis per Campaniam templis, quamquam edicto monuisset ne quis quietem eius inrumperet, concursusque oppidanorum disposito milite prohiberentur, perosus tamen municipia et colonias omniaque in continenti sita Capreas se in insulam abdidit trium milium freto ab extremis Surrentini promunturii diiunctam. solitudinem eius placuisse maxime crediderim, quoniam importuosum circa mare et vix modicis navigiis pauca subsidia; neque adpulerit quisquam nisi gnaro custode. caeli temperies hieme mitis obiectu montis quo saeva ventorum arcentur; aestas in favonium obversa et aperto circum pelago peramoena; prospectabatque pulcherrimum sinum, antequam Vesuvius mons ardescens faciem loci verteret. Graecos ea tenuisse Capreasque Telebois habitatas fama tradit. sed tum Tiberius duodecim villarum nominibus et molibus insederat, quanto intentus olim publicas ad curas tanto occultiores in luxus et malum otium resolutus. manebat quippe suspicionum et credendi temeritas quam Seianus augere etiam in urbe suetus acrius turbabat non iam occultis adversum Agrippinam et Neronem insidiis. quis additus miles nuntios, introitus, aperta secreta velut in annalis referebat, ultroque struebantur qui monerent perfugere ad Germaniae exercitus vel celeberrimo fori effigiem divi Augusti amplecti populumque ac senatum auxilio vocare. eaque spreta ab illis, velut pararent, obiciebantur.

In the consulship of Junius Silanus and Silius Nerva a foul beginning of the year came on, an illustrious Roman knight, Titius Sabinus, being dragged to prison for his friendship with Germanicus: for he had not ceased to pay every honor to his wife and children, a follower at home, a companion in public, after so many clients the one left, and therefore praised among the good and a weight upon the unjust. This man Latinius Latiaris, Porcius Cato, Petilius Rufus, and Marcus Opsius, men of praetorian rank, set upon, from a lust for the consulship, to which there was no access save through Sejanus, and Sejanus’s good will was not won but by crime. It was arranged among themselves that Latiaris, who by a slight acquaintance touched Sabinus, should weave the snare, the rest be present as witnesses, then begin the accusation. So Latiaris first threw out chance conversations, soon praised his constancy, that he had not, like the rest, deserted in its affliction the house whose friend he had been in its flowering; at the same time he spoke honorably of Germanicus, pitying Agrippina. And after Sabinus—as the minds of mortals are soft in calamity—poured forth tears and joined complaints, more boldly now he loads Sejanus with savagery, with arrogance, with his hopes; he abstains not from reviling even Tiberius; and those talks, as though they had shared forbidden things, made a show of close friendship. And now of his own accord Sabinus sought out Latiaris, kept coming to his house, and brought his griefs to him as to the most trusty of men.

Iunio Silano et Silio Nerva consulibus foedum anni principium incessit tracto in carcerem inlustri equite Romano Titio Sabino ob amicitiam Germanici: neque enim omiserat coniugem liberosque eius percolere, sectator domi, comes in publico, post tot clientes unus eoque apud bonos laudatus et gravis iniquis. hunc Latinius Latiaris, Porcius Cato, Petilius Rufus, M. Opsius praetura functi adgrediuntur, cupidine consulatus ad quem non nisi per Seianum aditus; neque Seiani voluntas nisi scelere quaerebatur. compositum inter ipsos ut Latiaris, qui modico usu Sabinum contingebat, strueret dolum, ceteri testes adessent, deinde accusationem inciperent. igitur Latiaris iacere fortuitos primum sermones, mox laudare constantiam quod non, ut ceteri, florentis domus amicus adflictam deseruisset; simul honora de Germanico, Agrippinam miserans, disserebat. et postquam Sabinus, ut sunt molles in calamitate mortalium animi, effudit lacrimas, iunxit questus, audentius iam onerat Seianum, saevitiam, superbiam, spes eius; ne in Tiberium quidem convicio abstinet; iique sermones tamquam vetita miscuissent speciem artae amicitiae fecere. ac iam ultro Sabinus quaerere Latiarem, ventitare domum, dolores suos quasi ad fidissimum deferre.

Those whom I have named take counsel by what means these things might be received in the hearing of more. For the appearance of solitude must be kept in the place where they came together; and if they should stand behind the doors, there was fear of being seen, of a noise, or of a suspicion chance-arisen. Between the roof and the ceiling three senators thrust themselves away in a hiding-place no less base than the fraud was detestable, and laid their ear to the holes and chinks. Meanwhile Latiaris, having found Sabinus in public, as though about to tell him things newly learned, drags him home and into a bedchamber, and heaps up things past and pressing, of which there was abundance enough, and new terrors besides. The other says the same, and at greater length, since griefs, the sadder they are, once they have burst forth are the more hardly held in. Thereupon the accusation was hastened, and by a letter sent to Caesar they themselves narrated the order of the fraud and their own disgrace. Never was the state more anxious and full of dread, screening itself against its nearest; meetings, conversations, ears known and unknown were shunned; even mute and lifeless things, roof and walls, were eyed all round with suspicion.

Consultant quos memoravi quonam modo ea plurium auditu acciperentur. nam loco in quem coibatur servanda solitudinis facies; et si pone foris adsisterent, metus visus, sonitus aut forte ortae suspicionis erat. tectum inter et laquearia tres senatores haud minus turpi latebra quam detestanda fraude sese abstrudunt, foraminibus et rimis aurem admovent. interea Latiaris repertum in publico Sabinum, velut recens cognita narraturus, domum et in cubiculum trahit praeteritaque et instantia, quorum adfatim copia, ac novos terrores cumulat. eadem ille et diutius, quanto maesta, ubi semel prorupere, difficilius reticentur. properata inde accusatio missisque ad Caesarem litteris ordinem fraudis suumque ipsi dedecus narravere. non alias magis anxia et pavens civitas, tegens adversum proximos; congressus, conloquia, notae ignotaeque aures vitari; etiam muta atque inanima, tectum et parietes circumspectabantur.

But Caesar, having in a letter offered prayers for the solemnities of the year’s beginning on the Kalends of January, turned to Sabinus, charging that certain of his freedmen had been corrupted and that he himself had been aimed at, and demanded vengeance not obscurely. Nor was there delay but it was decreed; and the condemned man was dragged off, crying out, so far as he could struggle with his garment drawn over him and his throat gripped, that thus the year was begun, that these were the victims falling for Sejanus. Wherever he turned his eyes, wherever his words fell, there was flight and emptiness, the streets and forums deserted. And some returned and showed themselves again, in dread of the very thing they had feared. For what day was empty of punishment, when amid the sacred rites and the vows, at a season when it was the custom to abstain even from profane words, chains and the noose were brought in? Not unwittingly had Tiberius incurred so great a hatred: it was a sought and meditated thing, that nothing might be thought to hinder the new magistrates from opening the prison as they opened the shrines and the altars. There followed besides a letter giving thanks that they had punished a man hostile to the commonwealth, with the addition that his own life was full of alarm and the snares of his enemies suspected, none being named; nor yet was it doubted that it was aimed at Nero and Agrippina.

Sed Caesar sollemnia incipientis anni kalendis Ianuariis epistula precatus vertit in Sabinum, corruptos quosdam libertorum et petitum se arguens, ultionemque haud obscure poscebat. nec mora quin decerneretur; et trahebatur damnatus, quantum obducta veste et adstrictis faucibus niti poterat, clamitans sic inchoari annum, has Seiano victimas cadere. quo intendisset oculos, quo verba acciderent, fuga vastitas, deseri itinera fora. et quidam regrediebantur ostentabantque se rursum id ipsum paventes quod timuissent. quem enim diem vacuum poena ubi inter sacra et vota, quo tempore verbis etiam profanis abstineri mos esset, vincla et laqueus inducantur? non imprudentem Tiberium tantam invidiam adisse: quaesitum meditatumque, ne quid impedire credatur quo minus novi magistratus, quo modo delubra et altaria, sic carcerem recludant. secutae insuper litterae grates agentis quod hominem infensum rei publicae punivissent, adiecto trepi- dam sibi vitam, suspectas inimicorum insidias, nullo nominatim compellato; neque tamen dubitabatur in Neronem et Agrippinam intendi.

Were it not my settled purpose to refer each matter to its own year, my mind was eager to run ahead and at once record the ends which Latinus and Opsius and the other devisers of that villainy met—not only after Gaius Caesar got the mastery of affairs, but with Tiberius yet safe, who, as he would not have the ministers of his crimes overthrown by others, so for the most part, sated and with fresh ones offering themselves for the same service, struck down the old and over-burdensome: but these and the other punishments of the guilty we shall hand down in their time. Then Asinius Gallus, to whose children Agrippina was aunt, gave his opinion that the prince should be asked to confess his fears to the Senate and suffer them to be removed. None of his virtues, as he reckoned them, did Tiberius prize so much as dissimulation: the more grievously did he take it that what he kept pressed down should be laid open. But Sejanus mollified him, not from love of Gallus but to await the prince’s hesitations, knowing him slow in deliberation and, once he had burst forth, wont to join atrocious deeds to grim words. About the same time Julia met her death, whom, convicted of adultery, Augustus had condemned as his granddaughter and cast out onto the island of Trimerum, not far from the Apulian shores. There for twenty years she endured exile, sustained by the help of Augusta, who, when she had by stealth overthrown the flourishing stepchildren, made open show of compassion toward the afflicted.

Ni mihi destinatum foret suum quaeque in annum referre, avebat animus antire statimque memorare exitus quos Latinus atque Opsius ceterique flagitii eius repertores habuere, non modo postquam Gaius Caesar rerum potitus est sed incolumi Tiberio, qui scelerum ministros ut perverti ab aliis nolebat, ita plerumque satiatus et oblatis in eandem operam recentibus veteres et praegravis adflixit: verum has atque alias sontium poenas in tempore trademus. tum censuit Asinius Gallus, cuius liberorum Agrippina matertera erat, petendum a principe ut metus suos senatui fateretur amoverique sineret. nullam aeque Tiberius, ut rebatur, ex virtutibus suis quam dissimulationem diligebat: eo aegrius accepit recludi quae premeret. sed mitigavit Seianus, non Galli amore verum ut cunctationes principis opperiretur, gnarus lentum in meditando, ubi prorupisset, tristibus dictis atrocia facta coniungere. Per idem tempus Iulia mortem obiit, quam neptem Augustus convictam adulterii damnaverat proieceratque in insulam Trimerum, haud procul Apulis litoribus. illic viginti annis exilium toleravit Augustae ope sustentata, quae florentis privignos cum per occultum subvertisset, misericordiam erga adflictos palam ostentabat.

In the same year the Frisii, a people across the Rhine, threw off the peace, more from our greed than from any impatience of obedience. Drusus had laid on them a moderate tribute, suited to the narrowness of their means, that they should render ox-hides for military uses, no one having attended with any care to their toughness or their measure, until Olennius, of the chief centurions, set over the governing of the Frisii, chose out the hides of wild oxen, to whose pattern they were to be received. This, hard for other nations too, was the more grievously borne among the Germans, whose forests are teeming with huge beasts, but their home herds are slight. And at first they gave up the oxen themselves, soon their fields, last the bodies of wives or children into slavery. Hence anger and complaints, and, after no relief was given, a remedy from war. The soldiers stationed for the tribute were seized and fixed to the gibbet; Olennius forestalled their fury by flight, received into a fort whose name is Flevum; and a band of citizens and allies not to be despised guarded the shores of the Ocean there.

Eodem anno Frisii, transrhenanus populus, pacem exuere, nostra magis avaritia quam obsequii impatientes. tributum iis Drusus iusserat modicum pro angustia rerum, ut in usus militaris coria boum penderent, non intenta cuiusquam cura quae firmitudo, quae mensura, donec Olennius e primipilaribus regendis Frisiis impositus terga urorum delegit quorum ad formam acciperentur. id aliis quoque nationibus arduum apud Germanos difficilius tolerabatur, quis ingentium beluarum feraces saltus, modica domi armenta sunt. ac primo boves ipsos, mox agros, postremo corpora coniugum aut liberorum servitio tradebant. hinc ira et questus et postquam non subveniebatur remedium ex bello. rapti qui tributo aderant milites et patibulo adfixi: Olennius infensos fuga praevenit receptus castello cui nomen Flevum; et haud spernenda illic civium sociorumque manus litora Oceani praesidebat.

When this was learned by Lucius Apronius, propraetor of Lower Germany, he summoned the standards of the legions from the upper province and picked men of the foot and horse of the auxiliaries, and bringing both armies down the Rhine at once led them against the Frisii, the siege of the fort being now raised and the rebels gone off to defend their own. So he made firm the nearest tidal flats with mounds and bridges for bringing across the heavier column, and meanwhile, fords being found, ordered the squadron of the Canninefates and what German foot served among us to go round the enemy’s rear; who, already drawn up in line, drove back the allied troops and the legionary cavalry sent for support. Then three light cohorts, and again two, and, an interval put between, the allied horse were sent in: strong enough had they fallen on together, but coming at intervals they neither added steadiness to the disordered and were swept away by the panic of the fleeing. To Cethegus Labeo, legate of the fifth legion, he handed over what was left of the auxiliaries. And he, his men’s case being doubtful and himself drawn into hazard, by messengers sent implored the strength of the legions. The men of the fifth burst forth before the rest, and in a sharp fight, the enemy driven off, recovered the cohorts and squadrons spent with wounds. Nor did the Roman commander go to avenge them or bury the bodies, though many of the tribunes and prefects and distinguished centurions had fallen. Soon it was learned from deserters that nine hundred of the Romans had been finished off in a grove which they call Baduhenna’s, the fight drawn out into the next day, and that another band of four hundred, having seized the villa of one Cruptorix, once a stipendiary, when treachery was feared, had fallen by mutual blows.

Quod ubi L. Apronio inferioris Germaniae pro praetore cognitum, vexilla legionum e superiore provincia peditumque et equitum auxiliarium delectos accivit ac simul utrumque exercitum Rheno devectum Frisiis intulit, soluto iam castelli obsidio et ad sua tutanda degressis rebellibus. igitur proxima aestuaria aggeribus et pontibus traducendo graviori agmini firmat, atque interim repertis vadis alam Canninefatem et quod peditum Germanorum inter nostros merebat circumgredi terga hostium iubet, qui iam acie compositi pellunt turmas socialis equitesque legionum subsidio missos. tum tres leves cohortes ac rursum duae, dein tempore interiecto alarius eques immissus: satis validi si simul incubuissent, per intervallum adventantes neque constantiam addiderant turbatis et pavore fugientium auferebantur. Cethego Labeoni legato quintae legionis quod reliquum auxiliorum tradit. atque ille dubia suorum re in anceps tractus missis nuntiis vim legionum implorabat. prorumpunt quintani ante alios et acri pugna hoste pulso recipiunt cohortis alasque fessas vulneribus. neque dux Romanus ultum iit aut corpora humavit, quamquam multi tribunorum praefectorumque et insignes centuriones cecidissent. mox compertum a transfugis nongentos Romanorum apud lucum quem Baduhennae vocant pugna in posterum extracta confectos, et aliam quadringentorum manum occupata Cruptorigis quondam stipendiari villa, postquam proditio metuebatur, mutuis ictibus procubuisse.

Thereafter the Frisian name was renowned among the Germans, Tiberius dissembling the losses lest he commit the war to anyone. Nor had the Senate any care in this, whether the empire’s bounds were being dishonored: an inward dread had seized their minds, for which a remedy was sought in flattery. So, although they were consulted upon matters quite other, they decreed an altar to Clemency, an altar to Friendship, and effigies of Caesar and Sejanus round about, and with frequent prayers begged them to grant the chance of being seen. Yet they did not come down into the city or the places near the city: enough it seemed to leave the island and be seen in the nearest part of Campania. Thither came the fathers, the knights, a great part of the plebs, anxious about Sejanus, access to whom, the harder it was, was the more prepared for by canvassing and by a share in his counsels. It was well established that his arrogance was increased as he gazed on that foul servitude in the open: for at Rome men are used to coming and going, and from the greatness of the city it is uncertain on what business each is bound; there, lying in the field or on the shore, with no distinction night and day alike, they endured the favor or the disdain of the doorkeepers, until that too was forbidden; and they returned to the city in dread, those whom he had deigned neither a word nor a look, and some ill-elated, over whom hung the grievous end of an ill-starred friendship.

Clarum inde inter Germanos Frisium nomen, dissimulante Tiberio damna ne cui bellum permitteret. neque senatus in eo cura an imperii extrema dehonestarentur: pavor internus occupaverat animos cui remedium adulatione quaerebatur. ita quamquam diversis super rebus consulerentur, aram clementiae, aram amicitiae effigiesque circum Caesaris ac Seiani censuere crebrisque precibus efflagitabant visendi sui copiam facerent. non illi tamen in urbem aut propinqua urbi degressi sunt: satis visum omittere insulam et in proximo Campaniae aspici. eo venire patres, eques, magna pars plebis, anxii erga Seianum cuius durior congressus atque eo per ambitum et societate consiliorum parabatur. satis constabat auctam ei adrogantiam foedum illud in propatulo servitium spectanti; quippe Romae sueti discursus et magnitudine urbis incertum quod quisque ad negotium pergat: ibi campo aut litore iacentes nullo discrimine noctem ac diem iuxta gratiam aut fastus ianitorum perpetiebantur donec id quoque vetitum: et revenere in urbem trepidi quos non sermone, non visu dignatus erat, quidam male alacres quibus infaustae amicitiae gravis exitus imminebat.

For the rest, Tiberius, when he had given his granddaughter Agrippina, born of Germanicus, in marriage in the presence of Gnaeus Domitius, ordered the nuptials to be celebrated in the city. In Domitius, over and above the antiquity of his stock, he had chosen blood near to the Caesars; for he could point to Octavia as his grandmother and through her to Augustus as his great-uncle.

Ceterum Tiberius neptem Agrippinam Germanico ortam cum coram Cn. Domitio tradidisset, in urbe cele- brari nuptias iussit. in Domitio super vetustatem generis propinquum Caesaribus sanguinem delegerat; nam is aviam Octaviam et per eam Augustum avunculum praeferebat.

In the consulship of Rubellius and Fufius, each of whom bore the surname Geminus, Julia Augusta met her death, at an extreme old age, of a nobility most illustrious through the Claudian family and by adoption into the Livian and Julian houses. Her first marriage and her children were with Tiberius Nero, who, a fugitive in the Perusine war, returned to the city when peace had been struck between Sextus Pompeius and the triumvirs. Thereupon Caesar, from a lust for her beauty, took her from her husband—it is uncertain whether against her will—so hasty that, not even an interval being given for her delivery, he brought her under his own roof with child. She bore no offspring afterward, but, knit to the blood of Augustus through the union of Agrippina and Germanicus, she had great-grandchildren in common with him. In the sanctity of her household she kept to the ancient manner; affable beyond what was approved in the women of old; an imperious mother, a compliant wife, and well attuned to the arts of her husband and the dissimulation of her son. Her funeral was modest, her will long without effect. She was praised from the Rostra by Gaius Caesar, her great-grandson, who soon got the mastery of affairs.

Rubellio et Fufio consulibus, quorum utrique Geminus cognomentum erat, Iulia Augusta mortem obiit, aetate extrema, nobilitatis per Claudiam familiam et adoptione Liviorum Iuliorumque clarissimae. primum ei matrimonium et liberi fuere cum Tiberio Nerone, qui bello Perusino profugus pace inter Sex. Pompeium ac triumviros pacta in urbem rediit. exim Caesar cupidine formae aufert marito, incertum an invitam, adeo properus ut ne spatio quidem ad enitendum dato penatibus suis gravidam induxerit. nullam posthac subolem edidit sed sanguini Augusti per coniunctionem Agrippinae et Germanici adnexa communis pronepotes habuit. sanctitate domus priscum ad morem, comis ultra quam antiquis feminis probatum, mater impotens, uxor facilis et cum artibus mariti, simulatione filii bene composita. funus eius modicum, testamentum diu inritum fuit. laudata est pro rostris a G. Caesare pronepote qui mox rerum potitus est.

But Tiberius, in that he had failed in the last offices to his mother, with no change in the pleasantness of his life, excused himself by letter on the greatness of his affairs, and the honors largely decreed to her memory by the Senate he curtailed as though out of modesty, very few being accepted, with the addition that no celestial worship should be decreed: such, he said, had been her own preference. Nay more, in a part of the same letter he railed at feminine friendships, glancing obliquely at the consul Fufius. He had flourished by Augusta’s favor, apt at alluring the minds of women, a wit too, and wont to mock Tiberius with bitter pleasantries, of which, with the over-powerful, the memory is long.

At Tiberius, quod supremis in matrem officiis defuisset, nihil mutata amoenitate vitae, magnitudinem negotiorum per litteras excusavit honoresque memoriae eius ab senatu large decretos quasi per modestiam imminuit, paucis admodum receptis et addito ne caelestis religio decerneretur: sic ipsam maluisse. quin et parte eiusdem epistulae increpuit amicitias muliebris, Fufium consulem oblique perstringens. is gratia Augustae floruerat, aptus adliciendis feminarum animis, dicax idem et Tiberium acerbis facetiis inridere solitus quarum apud praepotentis in longum memoria est.

For the rest, from that time the mastery was already sheer and pressing: for while Augusta lived there had been still a refuge, since in Tiberius an obsequiousness toward his mother was inveterate, and Sejanus did not dare to outrun the parent’s authority: but now, as though loosed from the reins, they broke out, and a letter was sent against Agrippina and Nero, which the crowd believed had long since been brought and held back by Augusta: for it was read out not long after her death. The words held a studied harshness: yet it was not arms, not a zeal for revolution, that he charged upon his grandson, but the loves of youths and unchastity. Against his daughter-in-law he dared not even invent that, but arraigned the arrogance of her tongue and her defiant spirit, amid the great dread and silence of the Senate, until a few men, who had no hope from honesty—and public ills are dragged by individuals into occasions for favor—demanded that it be referred, Cotta Messalinus the readiest, with an atrocious motion. But by the other leading men, and most of all by the magistrates, there was trembling: for Tiberius, though he had inveighed in hatred, had left all else ambiguous.

Ceterum ex eo praerupta iam et urgens dominatio: nam incolumi Augusta erat adhuc perfugium, quia Tiberio inveteratum erga matrem obsequium neque Seianus audebat auctoritati parentis antire: tunc velut frenis exoluti proruperunt missaeque in Agrippinam ac Neronem litterae quas pridem adlatas et cohibitas ab Augusta credidit vulgus: haud enim multum post mortem eius recitatae sunt. verba inerant quaesita asperitate: sed non arma, non rerum novarum studium, amores iuvenum et impudicitiam nepoti obiectabat. in nurum ne id quidem confingere ausus, adrogantiam oris et contumacem animum incusavit, magno senatus pavore ac silentio, donec pauci quis nulla ex honesto spes (et publica mala singulis in occasionem gratiae trahuntur) ut referretur postulavere, promptissimo Cotta Messalino cum atroci sententia. sed aliis a primoribus maximeque a magistratibus trepidabatur: quippe Tiberius etsi infense invectus cetera ambigua reliquerat.

There was in the Senate one Junius Rusticus, chosen by Caesar for the drawing up of the Fathers’ proceedings, and on that account believed to look into his meditations. He, by some fatal impulse—for he had given no specimen of firmness before—or by a perverse cleverness, while, forgetful of the impending, he dreads the uncertain, thrust himself in among the hesitating and warned the consuls not to begin the motion; and he argued that the greatest things turn on the slightest moments: it might one day be a matter of repentance to the old man, the destruction of the house of Germanicus. At the same time the people, bearing the effigies of Agrippina and Nero, stood about the Curia, and with auspicious omens for Caesar kept crying that the letter was false and that, the prince unwilling, ruin was being aimed at his house. Thus nothing grievous was done that day. There were circulated also, under the names of consulars, fictitious motions against Sejanus, very many men exercising in secret, and the more wantonly for that, the license of their wits. Hence his anger the more violent, and matter for accusation: the prince’s grief scorned by the Senate, the people gone over; new harangues now heard and read, new decrees of the Fathers: what was left but that they should take up the sword and choose for their leaders and emperors those whose images they had followed as standards?

Fuit in senatu Iunius Rusticus, componendis patrum actis delectus a Caesare eoque meditationes eius introspicere creditus. is fatali quodam motu (neque enim ante specimen constantiae dederat) seu prava sollertia, dum imminentium oblitus incerta pavet, inserere se dubitantibus ac monere consules ne relationem inciperent; disserebatque brevibus momentis summa verti: posse quandoque domus Germanici exitium paenitentiae esse seni. simul populus effigies Agrippinae ac Neronis gerens circumsistit curiam faustisque in Caesarem ominibus falsas litteras et principe invito exitium domui eius intendi clamitat. ita nihil triste illo die patratum. ferebantur etiam sub nominibus consularium fictae in Seianum sententiae, exercentibus plerisque per occultum atque eo procacius libidinem ingeniorum. unde illi ira violentior et materies criminandi: spretum dolorem principis ab senatu, descivisse populum; audiri iam et legi novas contiones, nova patrum consulta: quid reliquum nisi ut caperent ferrum et, quorum imagines pro vexillis secuti forent, duces imperatoresque deligerent?

Therefore Caesar, the reproaches against his grandson and daughter-in-law renewed and the plebs rebuked by edict, complaining before the Fathers that by the fraud of a single senator the imperial majesty had been publicly mocked, yet demanded that all things be left entire to himself. Nor was it deliberated further—not, indeed, that they should decree the extreme penalties (for that was forbidden), but they testified that they stood ready for vengeance and were held back by the prince’s restraining hand.

Igitur Caesar repetitis adversum nepotem et nurum probris increpitaque per edictum plebe, questus apud patres quod fraude unius senatoris imperatoria maiestas elusa publice foret, integra tamen sibi cuncta postulavit. nec ultra deliberatum quo minus non quidem extrema decernerent (id enim vetitum), sed paratos ad ultionem vi principis impediri testarentur

Forty-four speeches were delivered upon that matter, of which a few were from fear, the more from habit...\ "I judged that it would bring shame upon me or odium upon Sejanus. Fortune is turned, and he indeed who had taken the man as colleague and son-in-law forgives himself: the rest, whom through disgraces they fostered, they now hound with crime. Whether it be the more wretched to be accused for a friendship or to accuse a friend, I would not distinguish. I will make trial of no man’s cruelty or clemency, but, a free man and approved to myself, I will forestall the peril. I beseech you to keep the memory of me not in mourning but in gladness, reckoning me too among those who by a noble end escaped the public miseries."

Quattuor et quadraginta orationes super ea re habitae, ex quis ob metum paucae, plures adsuetudine ’mihi pudorem aut Seiano invidiam adlaturum censui. versa est fortuna et ille quidem qui collegam et generum adsciverat sibi ignoscit: ceteri quem per dedecora fovere cum scelere insectantur. miserius sit ob amicitiam accusari an amicum accusare haud discreverim. non crudelitatem, non clementiam cuiusquam experiar sed liber et mihi ipsi probatus antibo periculum. vos obtestor ne memoriam nostri per maerorem quam laeti retineatis, adiciendo me quoque iis qui fine egregio publica mala effugerunt.’

Then, as he had a mind to stand by each, to address him, holding some back and dismissing others, he used up a part of the day; and, with a great throng still about him and all gazing on his undaunted face, when they believed there was time to spare for his last moments, he fell upon the sword which he had hidden in his bosom. Nor did Caesar pursue him, dead, with any charges or reproaches, though against Blaesus he had heaped up much that was foul.

Tunc singulos, ut cuique adsistere, adloqui animus erat, retinens aut dimittens partem diei absumpsit, multoque adhuc coetu et cunctis intrepidum vultum eius spectantibus, cum superesse tempus novissimis crederent, gladio quem sinu abdiderat incubuit. neque Caesar ullis criminibus aut probris defunctum insectatus est, cum in Blaesum multa foedaque incusavisset.

Thereupon report was made of Publius Vitellius and Pomponius Secundus. Informers charged the former with having offered the locks of the treasury, over which he was prefect, and the military money, to a revolution; against the latter it was urged by Considius, a man of praetorian rank, that he had the friendship of Aelius Gallus, who, when Sejanus was punished, had fled to the gardens of Pomponius as to a most faithful protection. Nor was there other help to the imperiled than in the steadfastness of their brothers, who stood forth as sureties. Soon Vitellius, weighed down by the frequent adjournments and by hope and fear alike, asked, under pretext of his studies, for a penknife, and with a light cut to his veins made an end of his life through anguish of mind. But Pomponius, of much elegance of manners and of an illustrious genius, while he bore his adverse fortune with an even temper, outlived Tiberius.

Relatum inde de P. Vitellio et Pomponio Secundo. illum indices arguebant claustra aerarii, cui praefectus erat, et militarem pecuniam rebus novis obtulisse; huic a Considio praetura functo obiectabatur Aelii Galli amicitia, qui punito Seiano in hortos Pomponii quasi fidissimum ad subsidium perfugisset. neque aliud periclitantibus auxilii quam in fratrum constantia fuit qui vades extitere. mox crebris prolationibus spem ac metum iuxta gravatus Vitellius petito per speciem studiorum scalpro levem ictum venis intulit vitamque aegritudine animi finivit. at Pomponius multa morum elegantia et ingenio inlustri, dum adversam fortunam aequus tolerat, Tiberio superstes fuit.

It was resolved thereafter that the rest of Sejanus’s children should be visited with punishment, although the plebs’s anger was now fading and most were softened by the earlier executions. So they are carried to prison, the boy understanding what impended, the girl so unknowing that she repeatedly asked for what fault and whither she was being dragged; she would do so no more, she said, and could be admonished with a child’s whipping. The authors of that time hand down that, because it was held unheard-of for a virgin to be visited with the triumviral punishment, she was forced beside the noose by the executioner; then, their throats crushed, those bodies of that tender age were cast out upon the Gemonian Stairs.

Placitum posthac ut in reliquos Seiani liberos adverteretur, vanescente quamquam plebis ira ac plerisque per priora supplicia lenitis. igitur portantur in carcerem, filius imminentium intellegens, puella adeo nescia ut crebro interrogaret quod ob delictum et quo traheretur; neque facturam ultra et posse se puerili verbere moneri. tradunt temporis eius auctores, quia triumvirali supplicio adfici virginem inauditum habebatur, a carnifice laqueum iuxta compressam; exim oblisis faucibus id aetatis corpora in Gemonias abiecta.

About the same time Asia and Achaia were terrified by a rumor sharp rather than lasting, that Drusus, the son of Germanicus, had been seen among the Cyclades islands and soon on the mainland. And there was a youth of no dissimilar age, recognized as it were by certain of Caesar’s freedmen; and by guile those attending him drew on the ignorant by the fame of the name and by the Greeks’ minds, ready for things new and marvelous: for they feigned, and at once believed, that, escaped from custody, he was making for his father’s armies, and would invade Egypt or Syria. Already he was thronged by a concourse of the young, already by public enthusiasms, glad in the present and in the hope of empty things, when this was heard by Poppaeus Sabinus: he, then intent on Macedonia, had charge of Achaia too. So, to outrun the matter whether true or false, hurrying past the Toronaean and Thermaean gulfs, then Euboea an island of the Aegean sea and the Piraeus on the Attic shore, then the Corinthian coast and the narrows of the Isthmus, he wins clear; and, entering by the other sea Nicopolis, a Roman colony, there at last he learns that, questioned more shrewdly who he was, the man had said that he was born of Marcus Silanus, and that, many of his followers having slipped away, he had gone aboard a ship as though making for Italy. And he wrote this to Tiberius; nor have we learned further the origin or the end of the affair.

Per idem tempus Asia atque Achaia exterritae sunt acri magis quam diuturno rumore, Drusum Germanici filium apud Cycladas insulas mox in continenti visum. et erat iuvenis haud dispari aetate, quibusdam Caesaris libertis velut adgnitus; per dolumque comitantibus adliciebantur ignari fama nominis et promptis Graecorum animis ad nova et mira: quippe elapsum custodiae pergere ad paternos exercitus, Aegyptum aut Syriam invasurum, fingebant simul credebantque. iam iuventutis concursu, iam publicis studiis frequentabatur, laetus praesentibus et inanium spe, cum auditum id Poppaeo Sabino: is Macedoniae tum intentus Achaiam quoque curabat. igitur quo vera seu falsa antiret Toronaeum Thermaeumque sinum praefestinans, mox Euboeam Aegaei maris insulam et Piraeum Atticae orae, dein Corinthiense litus angustiasque Isthmi evadit; marique alio Nicopolim Romanam coloniam ingressus, ibi demum cognoscit sollertius interrogatum quisnam foret dixisse M. Silano genitum et multis sectatorum dilapsis ascendisse navem tamquam Italiam peteret. scripsitque haec Tiberio neque nos originem finemve eius rei ultra comperimus.

At the year’s end the long-swollen discord of the consuls broke out. For Trio, ready at taking up enmities and practiced in the Forum, had obliquely taxed Regulus as slack in crushing the ministers of Sejanus: the other, who save when provoked kept to his moderation, not only beat back his colleague but dragged him, as guilty of the conspiracy, to inquiry. And though many of the Fathers besought them to lay aside hatreds that would go on to destruction, they remained hostile and threatening until they went out of office.

Exitu anni diu aucta discordia consulum erupit. nam Trio, facilis capessendis inimicitiis et foro exercitus, ut segnem Regulum ad opprimendos Seiani ministros oblique perstrinxerat: ille nisi lacesseretur modestiae retinens non modo rettudit collegam sed ut noxium coniurationis ad disquisitionem trahebat. multisque patrum orantibus ponerent odia in perniciem itura, mansere infensi ac minitantes donec magistratu abirent.

Gnaeus Domitius and Camillus Scribonianus had entered upon the consulship, when Caesar, the strait that flows between Capreae and Surrentum crossed, was coasting along Campania, doubtful whether he would enter the city, or—since he had resolved against it—feigning the appearance of one about to come. And often, coming down to the neighborhood, the gardens by the Tiber being visited, he sought again the rocks and the solitude of the sea, in shame at the crimes and lusts with which he had blazed so unbridled that in a king’s fashion he polluted free-born youth with debaucheries. Nor was it beauty alone and comely bodies, but in some a modest boyhood, in others the images of their ancestors, that he had for a spur to desire. And then first were found names unknown before, of and, from the foulness of the place and the manifold submission; and slaves were set in charge to seek them out and drag them in, gifts for the willing, threats against the refusing, and if a kinsman or a parent held one back, force and rape and the working of their own pleasure as upon captives.

Cn. Domitius et Camillus Scribonianus consulatum inierant, cum Caesar tramisso quod Capreas et Sur- rentum interluit freto Campaniam praelegebat, ambiguus an urbem intraret, seu, quia contra destinaverat, speciem venturi simulans. et saepe in propinqua degressus, aditis iuxta Tiberim hortis, saxa rursum et solitudinem maris repetiit pudore scelerum et libidinum quibus adeo indomitis exarserat ut more regio pubem ingenuam stupris pollueret. nec formam tantum et decora corpora set in his modestam pueritiam, in aliis imagines maiorum incitamentum cupidinis habebat. tuncque primum ignota antea vocabula reperta sunt sellariorum et spintriarum ex foeditate loci ac multiplici patientia; praepositique servi qui conquirerent pertraherent, dona in promptos, minas adversum abnuentis, et si retinerent propinquus aut parens, vim raptus suaque ipsi libita velut in captos exercebant.

But at Rome, at the year’s beginning, as though Livia’s outrages had been newly learned and not also lately punished, atrocious motions were spoken even against her effigies and her memory, and that the goods of Sejanus, taken from the treasury, should be driven into the fisc—as though it mattered. The Scipios and the Silani and the Cassii proposed these things in nearly the same words, or a little altered, with much asseveration, when suddenly Togonius Gallus, while he thrusts his own obscurity in among great names, is heard with derision. For he begged the prince to choose senators, of whom twenty, drawn by lot and girt with the sword, should, whenever he entered the Curia, defend his safety. He had believed, forsooth, a letter of his demanding one of the consuls as a guard, that he might come safe from Capreae to the city. Tiberius, however, wont to mingle mockeries with serious things, gave thanks for the good will of the Fathers: but which could be passed over, which chosen? always the same, or others by turns? men who had run through their honors, or the young? private men, or those from the magistracies? what spectacle, moreover, would there be of men taking up swords on the threshold of the Curia? nor was his life worth so much if it must be shielded by arms. These things he said against Togonius, moderating his words and so as to urge nothing beyond the quashing of the motion.

At Romae principio anni, quasi recens cognitis Liviae flagitiis ac non pridem etiam punitis, atroces sententiae dicebantur in effigies quoque ac memoriam eius et bona Seiani ablata aerario ut in fiscum cogerentur, tamquam referret. Scipiones haec et Silani et Cassii isdem ferme aut paulum immutatis verbis adseveratione multa censebant, cum repente Togonius Gallus, dum ignobilitatem suam magnis nominibus inserit, per deridiculum auditur. nam principem orabat deligere senatores ex quis viginti sorte ducti et ferro accincti, quoties curiam inisset, salutem eius defenderent. crediderat nimirum epistulae subsidio sibi alterum ex consulibus poscentis ut tutus a Capreis urbem peteret. Tiberius tamen, ludibria seriis permiscere solitus, egit grates benevolentiae patrum: sed quos omitti posse, quos deligi? semperne eosdem an subinde alios? et honoribus perfunctos an iuvenes, privatos an e magistratibus? quam deinde speciem fore sumentium in limine curiae gladios? neque sibi vitam tanti si armis tegenda foret. haec adversus Togonium verbis moderans neque ut ultra abolitionem sententiae suaderet.

But Junius Gallio, who had proposed that the praetorians, their terms of service completed, should obtain the right of sitting in the fourteen rows, he rebuked violently, as though questioning him to his face what he had to do with the soldiers, who ought to receive neither the words of the emperor nor rewards save from the emperor. He had found out, surely, what the deified Augustus had not foreseen: or rather was it discord and sedition sought by a satellite of Sejanus, by which he might drive untrained minds, under the name of an honor, to corrupt the discipline of the service? This was the prize Gallio bore for his meditated flattery: expelled at once from the Curia, then from Italy; and because he was charged with being likely to bear his exile easily, Lesbos being chosen, a noble and pleasant island, he is dragged back to the city and kept under guard in the houses of the magistrates. By the same letter Caesar struck down Sextius Paconianus, a man of praetorian rank, to the great joy of the Fathers, a bold and mischievous man, prying into the secrets of all, and chosen by Sejanus, by whose aid the snare was being made ready for Gaius Caesar. When this was laid open, the hatreds long conceived broke out, and the extreme penalty was being decreed, had he not professed to give information.

At Iunium Gallionem qui censuerat ut praetoriani actis stipendiis ius apiscerentur in quattuordecim ordinibus sedendi violenter increpuit, velut coram rogitans quid illi cum militibus quos neque dicta imperatoris neque praemia nisi ab imperatore accipere par esset. repperisse prorsus quod divus Augustus non providerit: an potius discordiam et seditionem a satellite Seiani quaesitam, qua rudis animos nomine honoris ad corrumpendum militiae morem propelleret? hoc pretium Gallio meditatae adulationis tulit, statim curia, deinde Italia exactus; et quia incusabatur facile toleraturus exilium delecta Lesbo, insula nobili et amoena, retrahitur in urbem custoditurque domibus magistratuum. isdem litteris Caesar Sextium Paconianum praetorium perculit magno patrum gaudio, audacem maleficum, omnium secreta rimantem delectumque ab Seiano cuius ope dolus G. Caesari pararetur. quod postquam patefactum prorupere concepta pridem odia et summum supplicium decernebatur ni professus indicium foret.

But when he came to Latinius Latiaris, accuser and accused, alike hated, afforded a most welcome spectacle. Latiaris, as I have related, had once been chief in the circumventing of Titius Sabinus and now was first in paying the penalty. Amid these things Haterius Agrippa fell upon the consuls of the prior year, why, their mutual accusation once aimed, they were now silent: fear surely and the consciousness of guilt were held as a compact; but the Fathers must not keep silent what they had heard. Regulus answered that the time for vengeance was at hand, and that he would pursue it in the prince’s presence; Trio, that the rivalry between colleagues, and whatever in their discord they had thrown out, were better blotted out. Agrippa pressing, Sanquinius Maximus, of the consulars, begged the Senate not to augment the emperor’s cares with bitternesses sought out besides: he himself sufficed for the appointing of remedies. So safety was won for Regulus and a deferral of ruin for Trio. Haterius was the more hated because, sodden with sleep or lustful vigils, and through his sloth fearing no prince however cruel, he plotted destruction for illustrious men amid gluttony and debauchery.

Vt vero Latinium Latiarem ingressus est, accusator ac reus iuxta invisi gratissimum spectaculum praebebantur. Latiaris, ut rettuli, praecipuus olim circumveniendi Titii Sabini et tunc luendae poenae primus fuit. inter quae Haterius Agrippa consules anni prioris invasit, cur mutua accusatione intenta nunc silerent: metum prorsus et noxae conscientiam pro foedere haberi; at non patribus reticenda quae audivissent. Regulus manere tempus ultionis seque coram principe executurum; Trio aemulationem inter collegas et si qua discordes iecissent melius oblitterari respondit. Vrgente Agrippa Sanquinius Maximus e consularibus oravit senatum ne curas imperatoris conquisitis insuper acerbitatibus augerent: sufficere ipsum statuendis remediis. sic Regulo salus et Trioni dilatio exitii quaesita. Haterius invisior fuit quia somno aut libidinosis vigiliis marcidus et ob segnitiam quamvis crudelem principem non metuens inlustribus viris perniciem inter ganeam ac stupra meditabatur.

Next Cotta Messalinus, the author of every most savage motion and therefore of an inveterate odium, as soon as the chance was given is accused of many things against Gaius Caesar, as of an incestuous manhood, and that, feasting among the priests on Augusta’s birthday, he had called it a ninth-day funeral banquet; and that, complaining of the power of Manius Lepidus and Lucius Arruntius, with whom he was disputing over a money matter, he had added: "Them indeed the Senate will protect, but me my little Tiberius." All which he was being convicted of by the chief men of the state, and, as they pressed, he appealed to the emperor. Nor much later a letter is brought in, in which, by way of a defense, the beginning of the friendship between himself and Cotta recalled and his frequent good offices mentioned, he demanded that words perversely wrenched, and the freedom of dinner-table talk, should not be drawn into a charge.

Exim Cotta Messalinus, saevissimae cuiusque sententiae auctor eoque inveterata invidia, ubi primum facultas data arguitur pleraque in C. Caesarem quasi incestae virilitatis, et cum die natali Augustae inter sacerdotes epularetur, novendialem eam cenam dixisse; querensque de potentia M’. Lepidi ac L. Arruntii, cum quibus ob rem pecuniariam disceptabat, addidisse: ’illos quidem senatus, me autem tuebitur Tiberiolus meus.’ quae cuncta a primoribus civitatis revincebatur iisque instantibus ad imperatorem provocavit. nec multo post litterae adferuntur quibus in modum defensionis, repetito inter se atque Cottam amicitiae principio crebrisque eius officiis commemoratis, ne verba prave detorta neu convivalium fabularum simplicitas in crimen duceretur postulavit.

Notable seemed the opening of that letter of Caesar’s; for he began with these words: "What I should write to you, Fathers of the Senate, or how I should write, or what I should not write at all at this time—may the gods and goddesses destroy me more wretchedly than I feel myself perishing day by day, if I know." So far had his own crimes and outrages turned to his own punishment. Nor in vain was the most excellent in wisdom wont to affirm that, if the minds of tyrants were laid open, lacerations and blows might be seen; since, as bodies are torn by stripes, so the spirit is rent by cruelty, by lust, by evil counsels. For neither fortune nor his solitudes protected Tiberius from confessing the torments of his breast and his own punishments.

Insigne visum est earum Caesaris litterarum initium; nam his verbis exorsus est: ’quid scribam vobis, patres conscripti, aut quo modo scribam aut quid omnino non scribam hoc tempore, di me deaeque peius perdant quam perire me cotidie sentio, si scio.’ adeo facinora atque flagitia sua ipsi quoque in supplicium verterant. neque frustra praestantissimus sapientiae firmare solitus est, si recludantur tyrannorum mentes, posse aspici laniatus et ictus, quando ut corpora verberibus, ita saevitia, libidine, malis consultis animus dilaceretur. quippe Tiberium non fortuna, non solitudines protegebant quin tormenta pectoris suasque ipse poenas fateretur.

Then, power being given the Fathers of deciding concerning the senator Caecilianus, who had brought forward very much against Cotta, it was resolved that the same penalty be laid on as upon Aruseius and Sanquinius, the accusers of Lucius Arruntius: than which nothing more honorable befell Cotta, who, noble indeed but needy through luxury and infamous for outrages, was now equaled in the dignity of vengeance with the most blameless arts of Arruntius. After this Quintus Servaeus and Minucius Thermus were brought in, Servaeus a man of praetorian rank and once a companion of Germanicus, Minucius of equestrian standing, both having held Sejanus’s friendship modestly; whence the greater pity for them. On the contrary Tiberius, denouncing them as foremost in crimes, reminded Gaius Cestius the father to tell the Senate what he had written to himself, and Cestius took up the accusation. This was the most pernicious thing those times bore, when the leading men of the Senate practiced even the basest delations, some openly, many in secret; nor could you tell strangers from kin, friends from the unknown, what was sudden or what obscure with age: alike in the Forum, at a banquet, upon whatever matter they had spoken, men were arraigned, as each hastened to forestall another and mark out a defendant, some for their own protection, the more as if infected by a sickness and a contagion. But Minucius and Servaeus, condemned, went over to the informers. And there were dragged into the same lot Julius Africanus, of the Santones, a Gallic state, and Seius Quadratus: his origin I have not found. Nor am I unaware that by most writers the perils and punishments of many are passed over, while they tire of the abundance, or fear that what had been excessive and gloomy to themselves should touch with a like weariness those that should read: to me many things worth the knowing have come, though uncelebrated by others.

Tum facta patribus potestate statuendi de Caeciliano senatore qui plurima adversum Cottam prompserat, placitum eandem poenam inrogari quam in Aruseium et Sanquinium, accusatores L. Arruntii: quo non aliud honorificentius Cottae evenit, qui nobilis quidem set egens ob luxum, per flagitia infamis, sanctissimis Arruntii artibus dignitate ultionis aequabatur. Q. Servaeus posthac et Minucius Thermus inducti, Servaeus praetura functus et quondam Germanici comes, Minucius equestri loco, modeste habita Seiani amicitia; unde illis maior miseratio. contra Tiberius praecipuos ad scelera increpans admonuit C. Cestium patrem dicere senatui quae sibi scripsisset, suscepitque Cestius accusationem. quod maxime exitiabile tulere illa tempora, cum primores senatus infimas etiam delationes exercerent, alii propalam, multi per occultum; neque discerneres alienos a coniunctis, amicos ab ignotis, quid repens aut vetustate obscurum: perinde in foro, in convivio, quaqua de re locuti incusabantur, ut quis praevenire et reum destinare properat, pars ad subsidium sui, plures infecti quasi valetudine et contactu. sed Minucius et Servaeus damnati indicibus accessere. tractique sunt in casum eundem Iulius Africanus e Santonis Gallica civitate, Seius Quadratus: originem non repperi. neque sum ignarus a plerisque scriptoribus omissa multorum pericula et poenas, dum copia fatiscunt aut quae ipsis nimia et maesta fuerant ne pari taedio lecturos adficerent verentur: nobis pleraque digna cognitu obvenere, quamquam ab aliis incelebrata.

For at that season, when the rest had falsely cast off the friendship of Sejanus, a Roman knight, Marcus Terentius, on that account accused, dared to embrace it, beginning before the Senate in this manner: "For my fortune it would perhaps be less expedient to acknowledge the charge than to deny it: but however the matter shall fall, I will confess both that I was a friend of Sejanus, and that I sought to be one, and that, when I had attained it, I rejoiced. I had seen him colleague of his father in governing the praetorian cohorts, soon discharging the offices of the city and of the soldiery at once. His kinsmen and connections were augmented with honors; as each was most intimate with Sejanus, so was he the stronger for Caesar’s friendship: those, on the contrary, to whom he was hostile were harried by fear and degradation. Nor do I take any man for an example: all of us who had no share in his last design I will defend at the hazard of myself alone. For it was not Sejanus of Vulsinii, but a part of the Claudian and Julian house, which he had occupied by his alliance—your son-in-law, Caesar, the partner of your consulship, taking up your offices in the commonwealth—that we were courting. It is not for us to weigh whom above the rest, and for what causes, you exalt: to you the gods have given the supreme judgment of affairs, to us the glory of obedience is left. We look, besides, at what is held before our eyes: who has wealth and honors from you, who the greatest power of helping or harming—which no one will deny that Sejanus had. To search out the hidden feelings of a prince, and whatever more secretly he prepares, is unlawful and perilous: nor would you thereby attain it. Do not, Fathers of the Senate, reckon up the last day of Sejanus, but his sixteen years. We venerated even Satrius and Pomponius; to be known to his freedmen and his doorkeepers too was reckoned a fine thing. What then? shall this defense be granted undistinguished and promiscuous? Nay, let it be divided by just bounds. Let snares against the commonwealth, counsels of murder against the emperor, be punished: as for friendship and good offices, the same end shall absolve both you, Caesar, and us."

Nam ea tempestate qua Seiani amicitiam ceteri falso exuerant ausus est eques Romanus M. Terentius, ob id reus, amplecti, ad hunc modum apud senatum ordiendo: ’fortunae quidem meae fortasse minus expediat adgnoscere crimen quam abnuere: sed utcumque casura res est, fatebor et fuisse me Seiano amicum et ut essem expetisse et postquam adeptus eram laetatum. videram collegam patris regendis praetoriis cohortibus, mox urbis et militiae munia simul obeuntem. illius propinqui et adfines honoribus augebantur; ut quisque Seiano intimus ita ad Caesaris amicitiam validus: contra quibus infensus esset, metu ac sordibus conflictabantur. nec quemquam exemplo adsumo: cunctos qui novissimi consilii expertes fuimus meo unius discrimine defendam. non enim Seianum Vulsiniensem set Claudiae et Iuliae domus partem, quas adfinitate occupaverat, tuum, Caesar, generum, tui consulatus socium, tua officia in re publica capessentem colebamus. non est nostrum aestimare quem supra ceteros et quibus de causis extollas: tibi summum rerum iudicium di dedere, nobis obsequii gloria relicta est. spectamus porro quae coram habentur, cui ex te opes honores, quis plurima iuvandi nocendive potentia, quae Seiano fuisse nemo negaverit. abditos principis sensus et si quid occultius parat exquirere inlicitum, anceps: nec ideo adsequare. ne, patres conscripti, ultimum Seiani diem sed sedecim annos cogitaveritis. etiam Satrium atque Pomponium venerabamur; libertis quoque ac ianitoribus eius notescere pro magnifico accipiebatur. quid ergo? indistincta haec defensio et promisca dabitur? immo iustis terminis dividatur. insidiae in rem publicam, consilia caedis adversum imperatorem puniantur: de amicitia et officiis idem finis et te, Caesar, et nos absolverit.’

The firmness of the speech, and that one had been found to utter what all were turning in their minds, availed so far that his accusers, with the addition of what they had offended before, were punished with exile or death. There followed thereupon a letter of Tiberius against Sextus Vistilius, a man of praetorian rank, whom, very dear to his brother Drusus, he had transferred into his own cohort. The cause of offense in Vistilius was either that he had composed certain things against Gaius Caesar as unchaste, or that a fiction was believed. And on that account, forbidden the prince’s table, when with an aged hand he had tried the sword, he binds up his veins; and having begged by a written note, at a harsh reply he loosed them again. In a heap from that time Annius Pollio, Appius Silanus, together with Scaurus Mamercus and Sabinus Calvisius, are charged with treason, and Vinicianus was added to his father Pollio—men of illustrious birth, and some of the highest honors. And the Fathers had trembled (for how few of so many illustrious men were without affinity or friendship to them?), had not Celsus, tribune of an urban cohort, then among the informers, taken Appius and Calvisius out of the danger. Caesar deferred the cause of Pollio and Vinicianus and Scaurus, that he himself with the Senate might inquire into it, some grim marks being set upon Scaurus.

Constantia orationis et quia repertus erat qui efferret quae omnes animo agitabant eo usque potuere ut accusatores eius, additis quae ante deliquerant, exilio aut morte multarentur. Secutae dehinc Tiberii litterae in Sex. Vistilium praetorium, quem Druso fratri percarum in cohortem suam transtulerat. causa offensionis Vistilio fuit, seu composuerat quaedam in Gaium Caesarem ut impudicum, sive ficto habita fides. atque ob id convictu principis prohibitus cum senili manu ferrum temptavisset, obligat venas; precatusque per codicillos, immiti rescripto venas resolvit. acervatim ex eo Annius Pollio, Appius Silanus Scauro Mamerco simul ac Sabino Calvisio maiestatis postulantur, et Vinicianus Pollioni patri adiciebatur, clari genus et quidam summis honoribus. contremuerantque patres (nam quotus quisque adfinitatis aut amicitiae tot inlustrium virorum expers erat?), ni Celsus urbanae cohortis tribunus, tum inter indices, Appium et Calvisium discrimini exemisset. Caesar Pollionis ac Viniciani Scaurique causam ut ipse cum senatu nosceret distulit, datis quibusdam in Scaurum tristibus notis.

Not even the women were exempt from peril. Because they could not be charged with seizing the commonwealth, they were arraigned for their tears; and an aged woman, Vitia, mother of Fufius Geminus, was put to death because she had wept her son’s death. These things before the Senate: nor otherwise before the prince are Vescularius Flaccus and Julius Marinus driven to death, of his oldest intimates, who had followed him to Rhodes and were inseparable at Capreae—Vescularius the go-between in the snares against Libo; with Marinus a partner Sejanus had crushed Curtius Atticus. The more gladly was it received that their own precedents had recoiled upon the contrivers. About the same time Lucius Piso the pontiff, a rare thing in such fame, died by fate, the voluntary author of no servile motion and, as often as necessity pressed, wisely moderate. That his father was a censor I have recorded; his age advanced to the eightieth year; he had earned triumphal honor in Thrace. But his chief glory was from this, that, prefect of the city of late, he marvelously tempered a continuous power, the more grievous for the unfamiliarity of obedience.

Ne feminae quidem exsortes periculi. quia occupandae rei publicae argui non poterant, ob lacrimas incusabantur; necataque est anus Vitia, Fufii Gemini mater, quod filii necem flevisset. haec apud senatum: nec secus apud principem Vescularius Flaccus ac Iulius Marinus ad mortem aguntur, e vetustissimis familiarium, Rhodum secuti et apud Capreas individui, Vescularius insidiarum in Libonem internuntius; Marino participe Seianus Curtium Atticum oppresserat. quo laetius acceptum sua exempla in consultores recidisse. Per idem tempus L. Piso pontifex, rarum in tanta claritudine, fato obiit, nullius servilis sententiae sponte auctor et quoties necessitas ingrueret sapienter moderans. patrem ei censorium fuisse memoravi; aetas ad octogesimum annum processit; decus triumphale in Thraecia meruerat. sed praecipua ex eo gloria quod praefectus urbi recens continuam potestatem et insolentia parendi graviorem mire temperavit.

For formerly, the kings, and soon the magistrates, having gone from home, lest the city be without command one was chosen for the time who should render justice and meet sudden things; and they say that by Romulus, Denter Romulius, after by Tullus Hostilius, Numa Marcius, and by Tarquinius Superbus, Spurius Lucretius, were set in charge. Then the consuls used to commit it; and a likeness of it endures, as often as, on account of the Latin festival, one is set over to discharge the consular office. For the rest, Augustus in the civil wars set Cilnius Maecenas, of the equestrian order, over all things at Rome and in Italy: soon, having got the mastery, on account of the greatness of the people and the slow aid of the laws, he took from the consulars one to curb the slaves and that part of the citizens which is turbulent unless it fear force. And first Messala Corvinus received that power, and within a few days laid down its end, as though ignorant how to wield it; then Statilius Taurus, though of advanced age, bore it excellently; then Piso, for twenty years equally approved, was honored with a public funeral by decree of the Senate.

Namque antea profectis domo regibus ac mox magistratibus, ne urbs sine imperio foret in tempus deligebatur qui ius redderet ac subitis mederetur; feruntque ab Romulo Dentrem Romulium, post ab Tullo Hostilio Numam Marcium et ab Tarquinio Superbo Spurium Lucretium impositos. dein consules mandabant; duratque simulacrum quoties ob ferias Latinas praeficitur qui consulare munus usurpet. ceterum Augustus bellis civilibus Cilnium Maecenatem equestris ordinis cunctis apud Romam atque Italiam praeposuit: mox rerum potitus ob magnitudinem populi ac tarda legum auxilia sumpsit e consularibus qui coerceret servitia et quod civium audacia turbidum, nisi vim metuat. primusque Messala Corvinus eam potestatem et paucos intra dies finem accepit quasi nescius exercendi; tum Taurus Statilius, quamquam provecta aetate, egregie toleravit; dein Piso viginti per annos pariter probatus publico funere ex decreto senatus celebratus est.

Report was made thereupon to the Fathers by Quintilianus, tribune of the plebs, concerning a book of the Sibyl, which Caninius Gallus, one of the Fifteen, had demanded should be received among the other writings of the same prophetess, with a decree of the Senate on the matter. This being done by a division, Caesar sent a letter mildly rebuking the tribune, ignorant of the ancient custom through his youth. Gallus he reproached because, an old man versed in the lore and the ceremonies, before the opinion of the college—not, as is the wont, the verse being read and weighed by the masters—he had transacted it before a thin Senate. At the same time he reminded them that, because many vain things were being circulated under a famous name, Augustus had appointed within what day they should be brought to the urban praetor, and that it should not be lawful to hold them privately. Which had been decreed by the ancestors too, after the Capitol was burnt in the Social war, the verses of the Sibyl—whether one or more there were—being sought at Samos, at Ilium, at Erythrae, through Africa too and Sicily and the Italic colonies, and the business given to the priests to discern, so far as by human means they could, the true. So then too that book is submitted to the cognizance of the Fifteen.

Relatum inde ad patres a Quintiliano tribuno plebei de libro Sibullae, quem Caninius Gallus quindecimvirum recipi inter ceteros eiusdem vatis et ea de re senatus consultum postulaverat. quo per discessionem facto misit litteras Caesar, modice tribunum increpans ignarum antiqui moris ob iuventam. Gallo exprobrabat quod scientiae caerimoniarumque vetus incerto auctore ante sententiam collegii, non, ut adsolet, lecto per magistros aestimatoque carmine, apud infrequentem senatum egisset. simul commonefecit, quia multa vana sub nomine celebri vulgabantur, sanxisse Augustum quem intra diem ad praetorem urbanum deferrentur neque habere privatim liceret. quod a maioribus quoque decretum erat post exustum sociali bello Capitolium, quaesitis Samo, Ilio, Erythris, per Africam etiam ac Siciliam et Italicas colonias carminibus Sibullae, una seu plures fuere, datoque sacerdotibus negotio quantum humana ope potuissent vera discernere. igitur tunc quoque notioni quindecimvirum is liber subicitur.

Under the same consuls, by the heaviness of the corn-supply it came near to sedition, and many things, for several days, were demanded in the theater more licentiously than was wont against the emperor. Moved by this, he rebuked the magistrates and the Fathers that they had not curbed the people by the public authority, and added from what provinces, and how much greater than Augustus, he was conveying the supply of grain. So, for the chastising of the plebs, a decree of the Senate was framed with the ancient severity, and the consuls proclaimed it no less sharply. His own silence was taken not as civic, as he had believed, but as pride.

Isdem consulibus gravitate annonae iuxta seditionem ventum multaque et pluris per dies in theatro licentius efflagitata quam solitum adversum imperatorem. quis commotus incusavit magistratus patresque quod non publica auctoritate populum coercuissent addiditque quibus ex provinciis et quanto maiorem quam Augustus rei frumentariae copiam advectaret. ita castigandae plebi compositum senatus consultum prisca severitate neque segnius consules edixere. silentium ipsius non civile, ut crediderat, sed in superbiam accipiebatur.

At the year’s end Geminius, Celsus, and Pompeius, Roman knights, fell on a charge of conspiracy; of whom Geminius, through prodigality of wealth and softness of life, was a friend of Sejanus, but to nothing serious. And Julius Celsus the tribune, in chains, stretching the loosened chain and casting it about him in the opposite direction, broke his own neck. But to Rubrius Fabatus, as though, the Roman cause being despaired of, he were fleeing to the mercy of the Parthians, guards were assigned. He indeed, found near the strait of Sicily and dragged back by a centurion, could bring forward no probable causes for his far wandering: yet he remained safe, more by forgetfulness than by clemency.

Fine anni Geminius, Celsus, Pompeius, equites Romani, cecidere coniurationis crimine; ex quis Geminius prodigentia opum ac mollitia vitae amicus Seiano, nihil ad serium. et Iulius Celsus tribunus in vinclis laxatam catenam et circumdatam in diversum tendens suam ipse cervicem perfregit. at Rubrio Fabato, tamquam desperatis rebus Romanis Parthorum ad misericordiam fugeret, custodes additi. sane is repertus apud fretum Siciliae retractusque per centurionem nullas probabilis causas longinquae peregrinationis adferebat: mansit tamen incolumis oblivione magis quam clementia.

In the consulship of Servius Galba and Lucius Sulla, Caesar, having long sought out whom he should appoint as husbands for his granddaughters, since the maidens’ age was now pressing, chose Lucius Cassius and Marcus Vinicius. Vinicius was of a municipal stock: sprung at Cales, his father and grandfather consulars, the rest of his family equestrian, of a mild nature and a polished eloquence. Cassius was of a plebeian family at Rome, but ancient and honored, and, brought up under his father’s severe discipline, was commended more often by his easiness than by his industry. To him Tiberius joins Drusilla, to Vinicius Julia, both born of Germanicus, and writes to the Senate on the matter with a light compliment to the young men. Then, the causes of his absence rendered—very vague ones—he turned to graver matters and the offenses begun on the commonwealth’s account, and asked that Macro the prefect, and a few of the tribunes and centurions, might enter with him whenever he should go into the Curia. And though a decree of the Senate was made, lavishly and without prescription of rank or number, not even the roofs of the city—so far was he from ever approaching the public council—did he enter, going about his country for the most part by devious ways and turning aside from it.

Ser. Galba L. Sulla consulibus diu quaesito quos neptibus suis maritos destinaret Caesar, postquam instabat virginum aetas, L. Cassium, M. Vinicium legit. Vinicio oppidanum genus: Calibus ortus, patre atque avo consularibus, cetera equestri familia erat, mitis ingenio et comptae facundiae. Cassius plebeii Romae generis, verum antiqui honoratique, et severa patris disciplina eductus facilitate saepius quam industria commendabatur. huic Drusillam, Vinicio Iuliam Germanico genitas coniungit superque ea re senatui scribit levi cum honore iuvenum. dein redditis absentiae causis admodum vagis flexit ad graviora et offensiones ob rem publicam coeptas, utque Macro praefectus tribunorumque et centurionum pauci secum introirent quoties curiam ingrederetur petivit. factoque large et sine praescriptione generis aut numeri senatus consulto ne tecta quidem urbis, adeo publicum consilium numquam adiit, deviis plerumque itineribus ambiens patriam et declinans.

Meanwhile a great force of accusers burst in upon those who kept increasing their moneys by usury against the law of the dictator Caesar, by which there is provision concerning the measure of lending and possessing within Italy—a law long disused, because the public good is postponed to private convenience. Surely usury was an old evil at Rome and a most frequent cause of seditions and discords, and on that account was curbed even in ancient and less corrupt manners. For first by the Twelve Tables it was ordained that no one should practice usury beyond one-twelfth, when before it was driven at the caprice of the rich; then by a tribunician bill it was reduced to one twenty-fourth; at last lending at interest was forbidden. And by many plebiscites a stand was made against the frauds which, so often repressed, sprang up again through marvelous arts. But then Gracchus the praetor, to whom that inquiry had fallen, overborne by the multitude of those imperiled, referred it to the Senate, and the Fathers, in alarm—for not one was free from such guilt—sought pardon from the prince; and he conceding, a year and six months were given over and above, within which each should set his household accounts in order according to the bidding of the law.

Interea magna vis accusatorum in eos inrupit qui pecunias faenore auctitabant adversum legem dictatoris Caesaris qua de modo credendi possidendique intra Italiam cavetur, omissam olim, quia privato usui bonum publicum postponitur. sane vetus urbi faenebre malum et seditionum discordiarumque creberrima causa eoque cohibebatur antiquis quoque et minus corruptis moribus. nam primo duodecim tabulis sanctum ne quis unciario faenore amplius exerceret, cum antea ex libidine locupletium agitaretur; dein rogatione tribunicia ad semuncias redactum, postremo vetita versura. multisque plebi scitis obviam itum fraudibus quae toties repressae miras per artes rursum oriebantur. sed tum Gracchus praetor, cui ea quaestio evenerat, multitudine periclitantium subactus rettulit ad senatum, trepidique patres (neque enim quisquam tali culpa vacuus) veniam a principe petivere; et concedente annus in posterum sexque menses dati quis secundum iussa legis rationes familiaris quisque componerent.

Hence a scarcity of ready money, the debts of all stirred at once, and because, with so many condemned and their goods sold off, coined silver was held back in the fisc or the treasury. To this the Senate had prescribed that each should lay out two parts of his loaned money in lands through Italy. But the creditors called in the whole, nor was it seemly for those called upon to lessen their credit. So at first a running-about and prayers, then a din at the praetor’s tribunal; and the very things sought as a remedy—selling and buying—were turned to the contrary, because the usurers had hoarded all their money to buy up lands. Cheapness following the abundance of selling, the deeper a man was in debt the harder he sold off, and many were rolled headlong from their fortunes; the overthrow of the estate hurled dignity and fame to the ground, until Caesar brought help, a hundred million sesterces being laid out through the banks and the chance of borrowing made without interest for three years, if the debtor had given security to the people in double the amount in landed estates. So credit was restored, and by degrees private creditors too were found. Nor was the buying of lands carried on according to the form of the decree of the Senate—sharp in its beginnings, as such things mostly are, careless in the end.

Hinc inopia rei nummariae, commoto simul omnium aere alieno, et quia tot damnatis bonisque eorum divenditis signatum argentum fisco vel aerario attinebatur. ad hoc senatus praescripserat, duas quisque faenoris partis in agris per Italiam conlocaret. sed creditores in solidum appellabant nec decorum appellatis minuere fidem. ita primo concursatio et preces, dein strepere praetoris tribunal, eaque quae remedio quaesita, venditio et emptio, in contrarium mutari quia faeneratores omnem pecuniam mercandis agris condiderant. copiam vendendi secuta vilitate, quanto quis obaeratior, aegrius distrahebant, multique fortunis provolvebantur; eversio rei familiaris dignitatem ac famam praeceps dabat, donec tulit opem Caesar disposito per mensas milies sestertio factaque mutuandi copia sine usuris per triennium, si debitor populo in duplum praediis cavisset. sic refecta fides et paulatim privati quoque creditores reperti. neque emptio agrorum exercita ad formam senatus consulti, acribus, ut ferme talia, initiis, incurioso fine.

Then the earlier fears return, treason being charged on Considius Proculus; who, with no alarm celebrating his birthday, is snatched into the Curia and at once condemned and slain, and his sister Sancia is interdicted from water and fire, Quintus Pomponius the accuser. He, of a restless temper, pretended that he did these and the like that, favor won with the prince, he might relieve the perils of his brother Pomponius Secundus. Exile too is decreed against Pompeia Macrina, whose husband Argolicus and father-in-law Laco, of the chief men of the Achaeans, Caesar had stricken down. Her father too, an illustrious Roman knight, and her brother of praetorian rank, when condemnation pressed, killed themselves. It had been made a charge that Gnaeus Magnus had held Theophanes of Mytilene, their great-grandfather, among his intimates, and that Greek flattery had bestowed celestial honors on Theophanes dead.

Dein redeunt priores metus postulato maiestatis Considio Proculo; qui nullo pavore diem natalem celebrans raptus in curiam pariterque damnatus interfectusque, et sorori eius Sanciae aqua atque igni interdictum accusante Q. Pomponio. is moribus inquies haec et huiusce modi a se factitari praetendebat ut parta apud principem gratia periculis Pomponii Secundi fratris mederetur. etiam in Pompeiam Macrinam exilium statuitur cuius maritum Argolicum socerum Laconem e primoribus Achaeorum Caesar adflixerat. pater quoque inlustris eques Romanus ac frater praetorius, cum damnatio instaret, se ipsi interfecere. datum erat crimini quod Theophanen Mytilenaeum proavum eorum Cn. Magnus inter intimos habuisset, quodque defuncto Theophani caelestis honores Graeca adulatio tribuerat.

After these Sextus Marius, the richest of the Spains, is denounced for having debauched his daughter, and is cast from the Tarpeian rock. And, lest it be held doubtful that the greatness of his money had turned to his ruin, his copper-mines and gold-mines, though confiscated, Tiberius set apart for himself. And, provoked by the executions, he ordered all who were held in prison, accused of association with Sejanus, to be killed. There lay an immense slaughter, of every sex, every age, the illustrious, the obscure, scattered or heaped up. Nor was it permitted to kinsmen or friends to stand by, to weep over them, nor even to look at them long, but guards set round, intent on each one’s grief, attended the rotting bodies, until they were dragged into the Tiber, where, floating or driven to the banks, no one burned, no one touched them. The fellowship of human lot had been cut off by the force of fear, and, the more savagery swelled, the more was pity barred.

Post quos Sex. Marius Hispaniarum ditissimus defertur incestasse filiam et saxo Tarpeio deicitur. ac ne dubium haberetur magnitudinem pecuniae malo vertisse, aerarias aurariasque eius, quamquam publicarentur, sibimet Tiberius seposuit. inritatusque suppliciis cunctos qui carcere attinebantur accusati societatis cum Seiano necari iubet. iacuit immensa strages, omnis sexus, omnis aetas, inlustres ignobiles, dispersi aut aggerati. neque propinquis aut amicis adsistere, inlacrimare, ne visere quidem diutius dabatur, sed circumiecti custodes et in maerorem cuiusque intenti corpora putrefacta adsectabantur, dum in Tiberim traherentur ubi fluitantia aut ripis adpulsa non cremare quisquam, non contingere. interciderat sortis humanae commercium vi metus, quantumque saevitia glisceret, miseratio arcebatur.

About the same time Gaius Caesar, a companion to his grandfather departing for Capreae, took Claudia, daughter of Marcus Silanus, in marriage, hiding a monstrous spirit under a crafty modesty: at the condemnation of his mother, at the destruction of his brothers, no word broke from him; whatever face Tiberius had put on, with a like mien, with words not much differing. Whence soon the witty saying of Passienus the orator grew current, that there never was a better slave nor a worse master. I would not omit a presage of Tiberius concerning Servius Galba, then consul; whom, summoned and sounded with diverse conversations, he at last addressed in Greek words to this effect, "You too, Galba, shall one day taste of empire"—signifying a late and brief power, by the knowledge of the Chaldean art, for the acquiring of which he had had leisure at Rhodes and Thrasyllus for a master, whose skill he had tested in this fashion.

Sub idem tempus G. Caesar, discedenti Capreas avo comes, Claudiam, M. Silani filiam, coniugio accepit, immanem animum subdola modestia tegens, non damnatione matris, non exitio fratrum rupta voce; qualem diem Tiberius induisset, pari habitu, haud multum distantibus verbis. unde mox scitum Passieni oratoris dictum percrebuit neque meliorem umquam servum neque deteriorem dominum fuisse. Non omiserim praesagium Tiberii de Servio Galba tum consule; quem accitum et diversis sermonibus pertemptatum postremo Graecis verbis in hanc sententiam adlocutus est ’et tu, Galba, quandoque degustabis imperium,’ seram ac brevem potentiam significans, scientia Chaldaeorum artis, cuius apiscendae otium apud Rhodum, magistrum Thrasullum habuit, peritiam eius hoc modo expertus.

Whenever he would consult upon such a matter, he used a high part of the house and the privity of a single freedman. He, ignorant of letters, of a strong body, went before, through pathless and broken places (for the house overhangs the rocks), the man whose art Tiberius had resolved to try, and, as he came back, if a suspicion of vanity or of frauds had arisen, hurled him into the sea below, that no betrayer of the secret might survive. So Thrasyllus, led up by the same crags, after he had stirred his questioner, skillfully laying open the empire for him and the future, is asked whether he had ascertained his own natal hour too, what year, what manner of day he then had. He, the positions of the stars and their distances measured out, first hesitates, then grows afraid, and, the more he looked within, the more, trembling with wonder and fear, at last cries out that an ambiguous and almost final crisis was at hand for him. Then Tiberius, embracing him, congratulates him as foreknowing of perils and likely to be safe, and, taking what he had said in place of an oracle, keeps him among the most intimate of his friends.

Quoties super tali negotio consultaret, edita domus parte ac liberti unius conscientia utebatur. is litterarum ignarus, corpore valido, per avia ac derupta (nam saxis domus imminet) praeibat eum cuius artem experiri Tiberius statuisset et regredientem, si vanitatis aut fraudum suspicio incesserat, in subiectum mare praecipitabat ne index arcani existeret. igitur Thrasullus isdem rupibus inductus postquam percontantem commoverat, imperium ipsi et futura sollerter patefaciens, interrogatur an suam quoque genitalem horam comperisset, quem tum annum, qualem diem haberet. ille positus siderum ac spatia dimensus haerere primo, dein pavescere, et quantum introspiceret magis ac magis trepidus admirationis et metus, postremo exclamat ambiguum sibi ac prope ultimum discrimen instare. tum complexus eum Tiberius praescium periculorum et incolumem fore gratatur, quaeque dixerat oracli vice accipiens inter intimos amicorum tenet.

But to me, hearing these and such things, the judgment is in doubt whether the affairs of mortals are rolled by fate and an unchangeable necessity, or by chance. For you will find the wisest of the ancients, and those who emulate their school, at variance, and in many an opinion implanted that neither our beginnings, nor our end, nor in fine men at all, are a care to the gods; therefore very often grievous things befall the good, and glad things the worse. Others, on the contrary, hold that fate indeed accords with events, but not from wandering stars, but at the first principles and connections of natural causes; and yet they leave us the choosing of a life, which, once you have chosen, there is a fixed order of what impends. Nor are the evils or goods what the crowd thinks: many who seem to struggle with adversities are happy, but very many, though amid great wealth, are most wretched—if these bear a heavy fortune with constancy, those use prosperity unwisely. But from most mortals it is not taken away that the things to come are appointed from each man’s first birth; yet some fall out otherwise than was said, through the fallacies of those who utter what they do not know: thus is the credit of the art corrupted, of which both the ancient age and ours has borne clear proofs. For the empire of Nero, foretold by the son of this same Thrasyllus, shall be recorded in its time, that I may not now stray too far from my undertaking.

Sed mihi haec ac talia audienti in incerto iudicium est fatone res mortalium et necessitate immutabili an forte volvantur. quippe sapientissimos veterum quique sectam eorum aemulantur diversos reperies, ac multis insitam opinionem non initia nostri, non finem, non denique homines dis curae; ideo creberrime tristia in bonos, laeta apud deteriores esse. contra alii fatum quidem congruere rebus putant, sed non e vagis stellis, verum apud principia et nexus naturalium causarum; ac tamen electionem vitae nobis relinquunt, quam ubi elegeris, certum imminentium ordinem. neque mala vel bona quae vulgus putet: multos qui conflictari adversis videantur beatos, at plerosque quamquam magnas per opes miserrimos, si illi gravem fortunam constanter tolerent, hi prospera inconsulte utantur. ceterum plurimis mortalium non eximitur quin primo cuiusque ortu ventura destinentur, sed quaedam secus quam dicta sint cadere fallaciis ignara dicentium: ita corrumpi fidem artis cuius clara documenta et antiqua aetas et nostra tulerit. quippe a filio eiusdem Thrasulli praedictum Neronis imperium in tempore memorabitur, ne nunc incepto longius abierim.

Under the same consuls the death of Asinius Gallus is made public, who, that he had been carried off by want of food, was beyond doubt, but whether of his own will or by necessity was held uncertain. And Caesar, asked whether he allowed him to be buried, did not blush to permit it, and even to blame the chances that had taken off the accused before he was convicted to his face: as if, in a space of three years, there had been wanting time for a consular old man, the father of so many consulars, to undergo his trial. Then Drusus is extinguished, when he had kept himself alive to the ninth day with pitiable nourishment, chewing the stuffing of his couch. Some have handed down that it had been prescribed to Macro, if arms were attempted by Sejanus, to bring the young man out of custody (for he was held in the Palace) and set him as leader over the people. Soon, because a rumor was going about that Caesar would be reconciled to his daughter-in-law and grandson, he chose savagery rather than repentance.

Isdem consulibus Asinii Galli mors vulgatur, quem egestate cibi peremptum haud dubium, sponte vel necessitate incertum habebatur. consultusque Caesar an sepeliri sineret, non erubuit permittere ultroque incusare casus qui reum abstulissent antequam coram convinceretur: scilicet medio triennio defuerat tempus subeundi iudicium consulari seni, tot consularium parenti. Drusus deinde extinguitur, cum se miserandis alimentis, mandendo e cubili tomento, nonum ad diem detinuisset. tradidere quidam praescriptum fuisse Macroni, si arma ab Seiano temptarentur, extractum custodiae iuvenem (nam in Palatio attinebatur) ducem po- pulo imponere. mox, quia rumor incedebat fore ut nuru ac nepoti conciliaretur Caesar, saevitiam quam paenitentiam maluit.

Nay more, inveighing against the dead man, he objected the shame of his body, a spirit deadly to his own and hostile to the commonwealth, and ordered the record of his deeds and words, written down day by day, to be read out—than which nothing seemed more atrocious: that for so many years there had stood by men to catch his look, his groans, even his hidden murmur, and that his grandfather had been able to hear it, to read it, to bring it forth in public, scarcely finds belief, were it not that the letters of the centurion Attius and the freedman Didymus bore the names of slaves, as each had struck or terrified Drusus going out of his chamber. The centurion too had added his own words, full of savagery, as though something fine, and the cries of the dying man, by which at first, as in madness, he imprecated deadly things on Tiberius, soon, when he was without hope of life, studied and composed curses: that, as he had filled his daughter-in-law and his brother’s son and grandsons and his whole house with slaughters, so he should pay the penalty to the name and race of his ancestors and to posterity. The Fathers indeed broke in with a show of detestation: but dread pierced them, and wonder, that a man once crafty and obscure in covering his crimes had come to this pitch of confidence as to display, the walls as it were drawn apart, his grandson under the centurion’s lash, amid the blows of slaves, vainly begging the last sustenance of life.

Quin et invectus in defunctum probra corporis, exitiabilem in suos, infensum rei publicae animum obiecit recitarique factorum dictorumque eius descripta per dies iussit, quo non aliud atrocius visum: adstitisse tot per annos, qui vultum, gemitus, occultum etiam murmur exciperent, et potuisse avum audire, legere, in publicum promere vix fides, nisi quod Attii centurionis et Didymi liberti epistulae servorum nomina praeferebant, ut quis egredientem cubiculo Drusum pulsaverat, exterruerat. etiam sua verba centurio saevitiae plena, tamquam egregium, vocesque deficientis adiecerat, quis primo quasi per dementiam funesta Tiberio, mox, ubi exspes vitae fuit, meditatas compositasque diras imprecabatur, ut, quem ad modum nurum filiumque fratris et nepotes domumque omnem caedibus complevisset, ita poenas nomini generique maiorum et posteris exolveret. obturbabant quidem patres specie detestandi: sed penetrabat pavor et admiratio, callidum olim et tegendis sceleribus obscurum huc confidentiae venisse ut tamquam dimotis parietibus ostenderet nepotem sub verbere centurionis, inter servorum ictus extrema vitae alimenta frustra orantem.

Not yet had that grief grown stale, when of Agrippina it was heard—whom, sustained by hope after Sejanus was killed, I suppose to have lived on, and, after nothing of the savagery was relaxed, to have perished of her own will; unless, food being refused, an end was feigned that might seem self-chosen. And indeed Tiberius blazed out with most foul calumnies, charging unchastity and Asinius Gallus as her adulterer, and that by his death she had been driven to a weariness of life. But Agrippina, impatient of equality, greedy of mastery, had put off the vices of women for the cares of men. On the same day, Caesar added, on which two years before Sejanus had paid the penalty, she died—and this he flung out to be handed to memory, and boasted that she had not been strangled with a noose nor cast onto the Gemonian Stairs. Thanks were rendered for it, and it was decreed that on the eighteenth day before the Kalends of November, the day of both deaths, a gift should through all years be consecrated to Jupiter.

Nondum is dolor exoleverat, cum de Agrippina auditum, quam interfecto Seiano spe sustentatam provixisse reor, et postquam nihil de saevitia remittebatur, voluntate extinctam, nisi si negatis alimentis adsimulatus est finis qui videretur sponte sumptus. enimvero Tiberius foedissimis criminationibus exarsit, impudicitiam arguens et Asinium Gallum adulterum, eiusque morte ad taedium vitae compul- sam. sed Agrippina aequi impatiens, dominandi avida, virilibus curis feminarum vitia exuerat. eodem die defunctam, quo biennio ante Seianus poenas luisset, memoriaeque id prodendum addidit Caesar iactavitque quod non laqueo strangulata neque in Gemonias proiecta foret. actae ob id grates decretumque ut quintum decimum kal. Novembris, utriusque necis die, per omnis annos donum Iovi sacraretur.

Not much after Cocceius Nerva, continually with the prince, knowing of all law divine and human, his estate whole, his body unharmed, took the resolution of dying. When this was known to Tiberius, he sat by him, asked the causes, added prayers, confessed at last that it would be heavy to his conscience, heavy to his fame, if the nearest of his friends should flee from life with no reasons for dying. Nerva, turning away from the talk, joined to it abstinence from food. Those who knew his thoughts reported that, the nearer he looked upon the ills of the commonwealth, in anger and fear, while he was whole, while untouched, he had willed an honorable end. For the rest, the ruin of Agrippina—scarcely credible—dragged Plancina with it. Once married to Gnaeus Piso and openly glad at Germanicus’s death, when Piso fell she had been defended by Augusta’s prayers and no less by the enmities of Agrippina. When hatred and favor ceased, justice prevailed; and, sought by charges not unknown, she paid by her own hand a penalty late rather than undeserved.

Haud multo post Cocceius Nerva, continuus principi, omnis divini humanique iuris sciens, integro statu, corpore inlaeso, moriendi consilium cepit. quod ut Tiberio cognitum, adsidere, causas requirere, addere preces, fateri postremo grave conscientiae, grave famae suae, si proximus amicorum nullis moriendi rationibus vitam fugeret. aversatus sermonem Nerva abstinentiam cibi coniunxit. ferebant gnari cogitationum eius, quanto propius mala rei publicae viseret, ira et metu, dum integer, dum intemptatus, honestum finem voluisse. Ceterum Agrippinae pernicies, quod vix credibile, Plancinam traxit. nupta olim Cn. Pisoni et palam laeta morte Germanici, cum Piso caderet, precibus Augustae nec minus inimicitiis Agrippinae defensa erat. ut odium et gratia desiere, ius valuit; petitaque criminibus haud ignotis sua manu sera magis quam immerita supplicia persolvit.

The city being funereal with so many mournings, part of the grief was that Julia, daughter of Drusus and once the wife of Nero, married into the house of Rubellius Blandus, whose grandfather many remembered as a Roman knight of Tibur. At the year’s end the death of Aelius Lamia was honored with a censor’s funeral, who, released at last from the show of administering Syria, had been prefect of the city. His birth was noble, his old age vigorous; and the province not granted him had added to his dignity. Then, Flaccus Pomponius, propraetor of Syria, being dead, a letter of Caesar’s is read out, in which he blamed every excellent man, fit for the governing of armies, for refusing that charge, and said that he himself was driven by that necessity to prayers, through which some of the consulars might be forced to take up provinces—forgetting that Arruntius was being held back, now for the tenth year, from going into Spain. In the same year died also Manius Lepidus, of whose moderation and wisdom I have set down enough in the earlier books. Nor need his nobility be longer shown: for the Aemilian race is fruitful of good citizens, and even those of the same family who lived with corrupt morals lived nonetheless in illustrious fortune.

Tot luctibus funesta civitate pars maeroris fuit quod Iulia Drusi filia, quondam Neronis uxor, denupsit in domum Rubellii Blandi, cuius avum Tiburtem equitem Romanum plerique meminerant. extremo anni mors Aelii Lamiae funere censorio celebrata, qui administrandae Syriae imagine tandem exolutus urbi praefuerat. genus illi decorum, vivida senectus; et non permissa provincia dignationem addiderat. exim Flacco Pomponio Syriae pro praetore defuncto recitantur Caesaris litterae, quis incusabat egregium quemque et regendis exercitibus idoneum abnuere id munus seque ea necessitudine ad preces cogi per quas consularium aliqui capessere provincias adigerentur, oblitus Arruntium ne in Hispaniam pergeret decimum iam annum attineri. obiit eodem anno et M’. Lepidus de cuius moderatione atque sapientia in prioribus libris satis conlocavi. neque nobilitas diutius demonstranda est: quippe Aemilium genus fecundum bonorum civium, et qui eadem familia corruptis moribus, inlustri tamen fortuna egere.

In the consulship of Paulus Fabius and Lucius Vitellius, after a long compass of ages, the bird phoenix came into Egypt, and gave to the most learned of the natives and of the Greeks matter for much discoursing upon the marvel. The things on which they agree, and the more that are doubtful but not absurd to know, it is worth while to bring forth. That this creature is sacred to the Sun, and in its face and the markings of its feathers differs from other birds, those agree who have portrayed its form: of the number of its years the accounts vary. Most commonly reported is a span of five hundred; there are those who assert that fourteen hundred and sixty-one are interposed, and that the former birds, under the reigns of Sesosis first, after of Amasis, then of Ptolemy who reigned third of the Macedonians, flew to the city named Heliopolis, with a great escort of other birds marveling at the new shape. But antiquity indeed is obscure: between Ptolemy and Tiberius there were fewer than two hundred and fifty years. Whence some have believed this phoenix false and not from the lands of the Arabs, and to have done nothing of what ancient memory has confirmed. For, the number of years completed, when death draws near, it builds a nest in its own land and pours upon it a generative power, from which a young one arises; and the first care of the grown bird is the burying of its father—and that not rashly, but, a weight of myrrh taken up and tried over a long journey, when it is equal to the burden, equal to the passage, it takes up its father’s body and carries it to the altar of the Sun and there consumes it. These things are uncertain and swollen with fable: but that the bird is sometimes seen in Egypt is not doubted.

Paulo Fabio L. Vitellio consulibus post longum saeculorum ambitum avis phoenix in Aegyptum venit praebuitque materiem doctissimis indigenarum et Graecorum multa super eo miraculo disserendi. de quibus congruunt et plura ambigua, sed cognitu non absurda promere libet. sacrum Soli id animal et ore ac distinctu pinnarum a ceteris avibus diversum consentiunt qui formam eius effinxere: de numero annorum varia traduntur. maxime vulgatum quingentorum spatium: sunt qui adseverent mille quadringentos sexaginta unum interici, prioresque alites Sesoside primum, post Amaside dominantibus, dein Ptolemaeo, qui ex Macedonibus tertius regnavit, in civitatem cui Heliopolis nomen advolavisse, multo ceterarum volucrum comitatu novam faciem mirantium. sed antiquitas quidem obscura: inter Ptolemaeum ac Tiberium minus ducenti quinquaginta anni fuerunt. unde non nulli falsum hunc phoenicem neque Arabum e terris credidere, nihilque usurpavisse ex his quae vetus memoria firmavit. confecto quippe annorum numero, ubi mors propinquet, suis in terris struere nidum eique vim genitalem adfundere ex qua fetum oriri; et primam adulto curam sepeliendi patris, neque id temere sed sublato murrae pondere temptatoque per longum iter, ubi par oneri, par meatui sit, subire patrium corpus inque Solis aram perferre atque adolere. haec incerta et fabulosis aucta: ceterum aspici aliquando in Aegypto eam volucrem non ambigitur.

But at Rome, the slaughter being continuous, Pomponius Labeo, whom I have related to have governed Moesia, poured out his blood through severed veins; and his wife Paxaea emulated him. For the fear of the executioner made such deaths ready, and because the condemned, their goods confiscated, were forbidden burial, the bodies of those who decided about themselves were buried, their wills stood—the price of haste. But Caesar, a letter sent to the Senate, discoursed that it had been the custom of the ancestors, whenever they broke off friendships, to forbid the house and to set that as the end of favor: this he had repeated in Labeo’s case, and that he, because he was pressed for the ill administering of his province and for other charges, had veiled his guilt by odium, his wife terrified in vain, who, though guilty, had yet been free of peril. Then Mamercus Scaurus is again arraigned, distinguished in nobility and in the pleading of causes, in his life shameful. Nothing did the friendship of Sejanus harm him, but the hatred of Macro, no less strong for destruction, undid him—Macro, who practiced the same arts more secretly, and had laid an information about the plot of a tragedy written by Scaurus, with verses added that might be bent against Tiberius: but by Servilius and Cornelius, his accusers, adultery with Livia and the rites of the magi were objected. Scaurus, as was worthy of the old Aemilii, forestalled his condemnation, his wife Sextia urging him, who was the incitement of his death and a partaker in it.

At Romae caede continua Pomponius Labeo, quem praefuisse Moesiae rettuli, per abruptas venas sanguinem effudit; aemulataque est coniunx Paxaea. nam promptas eius modi mortes metus carnificis faciebat, et quia damnati publicatis bonis sepultura prohibebantur, eorum qui de se statuebant humabantur corpora, manebant testamenta, pretium festinandi. sed Caesar missis ad senatum litteris disseruit morem fuisse maioribus, quoties dirimerent amicitias, interdicere domo eumque finem gratiae ponere: id se repetivisse in Labeone, atque illum, quia male administratae provinciae aliorumque criminum urgebatur, culpam invidia velavisse, frustra conterrita uxore, quam etsi nocentem periculi tamen expertem fuisse. Mamercus dein Scaurus rursum postulatur, insignis nobilitate et orandis causis, vita probrosus. nihil hunc amicitia Seiani, sed labefecit haud minus validum ad exitia Macronis odium, qui easdem artes occultius exercebat detuleratque argumentum tragoediae a Scauro scriptae, additis versibus qui in Tiberium flecterentur: verum ab Servilio et Cornelio accusatoribus adulterium Liviae, magorum sacra obiectabantur. Scaurus, ut dignum veteribus Aemiliis, damnationem antiit, hortante Sextia uxore, quae incitamentum mortis et particeps fuit.

And yet the accusers, if occasion fell out, were visited with penalties, as Servilius and Cornelius, infamous for Scaurus’s ruin, because they had taken money from Varius Ligus for dropping the delation, were removed to islands, interdicted from fire and water. And Abudius Ruso, who had held the aedileship, while he stirs up peril for Lentulus Gaetulicus, under whom he had commanded a legion, because Gaetulicus had destined Sejanus’s son as his son-in-law, is himself condemned and driven from the city. Gaetulicus at that time had charge of the legions of Upper Germany, and had won a marvelous love, of lavish clemency, moderate in severity, and, through his father-in-law Lucius Apronius, not unwelcome even to the nearest army. Whence a persistent report that he had dared to send a letter to Caesar: that his affinity with Sejanus had been begun not of his own will but by the counsel of Tiberius; that he could be deceived as well as Tiberius, and that the same error ought not to be held without fraud for the one and for ruin to the others. His own loyalty was whole, and would so remain, if he were assailed by no snares: a successor he would receive no otherwise than as a notice of death. Let them strike, as it were, a compact, by which the prince should hold the rest of affairs, he himself retain his province. These things, marvelous though they were, drew credit from this, that he alone of all the connections of Sejanus remained safe and in much favor—Tiberius reflecting that the public hatred was upon himself, that his age was at its extreme, and that his affairs stood by fame rather than by force.

Ac tamen accusatores, si facultas incideret, poenis adficiebantur, ut Servilius Corneliusque perdito Scauro fa- mosi, quia pecuniam a Vario Ligure omittendae delationis ceperant, in insulas interdicto igni atque aqua demoti sunt. et Abudius Ruso functus aedilitate, dum Lentulo Gaetulico, sub quo legioni praefuerat, periculum facessit quod is Seiani filium generum destinasset, ultro damnatur atque urbe exigitur. Gaetulicus ea tempestate superioris Germaniae legiones curabat mirumque amorem adsecutus erat, effusae clementiae, modicus severitate et proximo quoque exercitui per L. Apronium socerum non ingratus. unde fama constans ausum mittere ad Caesarem litteras, adfinitatem sibi cum Seiano haud sponte sed consilio Tiberii coeptam; perinde se quam Tiberium falli potuisse, neque errorem eundem illi sine fraude, aliis exitio habendum. sibi fidem integram et, si nullis insidiis peteretur, mansuram; successorem non aliter quam indicium mortis accepturum. firmarent velut foedus, quo princeps ceterarum rerum poteretur, ipse provinciam retineret. haec, mira quamquam, fidem ex eo trahebant quod unus omnium Seiani adfinium incolumis multaque gratia mansit, reputante Tiberio publicum sibi odium, extremam aetatem magisque fama quam vi stare res suas.

In the consulship of Gaius Cestius and Marcus Servilius, noble Parthians came to the city, the king Artabanus not knowing. He, through fear of Germanicus faithful to the Romans, fair to his own, soon took up arrogance toward us, savagery toward his people, trusting in the wars which he had waged with success against the surrounding nations, and despising the old age of Tiberius as unarmed, and greedy of Armenia, over which, the king Artaxias being dead, he set Arsaces the oldest of his children, with an insult added, and men sent to demand back the treasure left by Vonones in Syria and Cilicia; at the same time he kept flinging out, in vaunting and threats, the old boundaries of the Persians and the Macedonians, and that he would invade what had been held by Cyrus and after by Alexander. But the strongest author of sending secret messengers among the Parthians was Sinnaces, of a distinguished family and wealth to match, and next to him Abdus, of manhood taken from him. That is not despised among the barbarians, and even carries power. These, with other chief men taken in, because they could set no one of the Arsacid race over the supreme power, most having been killed by Artabanus or being not yet grown, demanded Phraates, son of king Phraates, from Rome: there was need only of a name and an author—Caesar willingly granting that the stock of Arsaces should be seen on the bank of the Euphrates.

C. Cestio M. Servilio consulibus nobiles Parthi in urbem venere, ignaro rege Artabano. is metu Germanici fidus Romanis, aequabilis in suos, mox superbiam in nos, saevitiam in popularis sumpsit, fretus bellis quae secunda adversum circumiectas nationes exercuerat, et senectutem Tiberii ut inermem despiciens avidusque Armeniae, cui defuncto rege Artaxia Arsacen liberorum suorum veterrimum imposuit, addita contumelia et missis qui gazam a Vonone relictam in Syria Ciliciaque reposcerent; simul veteres Persarum ac Macedonum terminos seque invasurum possessa Cyro et post Alexandro per vaniloquentiam ac minas iacie- bat. sed Parthis mittendi secretos nuntios validissimus auctor fuit Sinnaces, insigni familia ac perinde opibus, et proximus huic Abdus ademptae virilitatis. non despectum id apud barbaros ultroque potentiam habet. ii adscitis et aliis primoribus, quia neminem gentis Arsacidarum summae rei imponere poterant, interfectis ab Artabano plerisque aut nondum adultis, Phraaten regis Phraatis filium Roma poscebant: nomine tantum et auctore opus sponte Caesaris ut genus Arsacis ripam apud Euphratis cerneretur.

This was Tiberius’s wish: he adorns Phraates and equips him for his father’s eminence, holding to his settled course, to contrive foreign affairs by counsels and craft, to keep arms afar. Meanwhile, the snares being known, Artabanus is now slowed by fear, now fired by desire of vengeance. And among barbarians hesitation is servile, to do at once seems kingly: yet utility prevailed, that he should bind Abdus, summoned to a feast under the show of friendship, with a slow poison, and delay Sinnaces by dissimulation and gifts and meanwhile by business. And Phraates, in Syria, while, the Roman manner laid aside to which through so many years he had grown used, he takes up the institutions of the Parthians, unequal to his fathers’ customs, was carried off by disease. But Tiberius did not lay aside his undertakings: he chooses Tiridates, of the same blood, as a rival to Artabanus, and for the recovery of Armenia the Iberian Mithridates, and reconciles him to his brother Pharasmanes, who held the native kingdom; and over all that was being prepared in the East he set Lucius Vitellius. Of that man I am not unaware that there was a sinister report in the city, and that many foul things are recorded; but in the governing of provinces he acted with ancient virtue. Returning thence, and, through dread of Gaius Caesar and intimacy with Claudius changed to a base servitude, he is held among posterity for a pattern of flatterer’s disgrace, and his first acts gave way to his last, and a shameful old age blotted out the good of his youth.

Cupitum id Tiberio: ornat Phraaten accingitque paternum ad fastigium, destinata retinens, consiliis et astu res externas moliri, arma procul habere. interea cognitis insidiis Artabanus tardari metu, modo cupidine vindictae inardescere. et barbaris cunctatio servilis, statim exequi regium videtur: valuit tamen utilitas, ut Abdum specie amicitiae vocatum ad epulas lento veneno inligaret, Sinnacen dissimulatione ac donis, simul per negotia moraretur. et Phraates apud Syriam dum omisso cultu Romano, cui per tot annos insueverat, instituta Parthorum sumit, patriis moribus impar morbo absumptus est. sed non Tiberius omisit incepta: Tiridaten sanguinis eiusdem aemulum Artabano reciperandaeque Armeniae Hiberum Mithridaten deligit conciliatque fratri Pharasmani, qui gentile imperium obtinebat; et cunctis quae apud Orientem parabantur L. Vitellium praefecit. eo de homine haud sum ignarus sinistram in urbe famam, pleraque foeda memorari; ceterum regendis provinciis prisca virtute egit. unde regressus et formidine G. Caesaris, familiaritate Claudii turpe in servitium mutatus exemplar apud posteros adulatorii dedecoris habetur, cesseruntque prima postremis, et bona iuventae senectus flagitiosa oblitteravit.

But of the petty kings, Mithridates first urged Pharasmanes to aid his attempts by guile and force, and corrupters were found who by much gold drove the servants of Arsaces to the crime; at the same time the Iberians burst into Armenia with great forces and gain possession of the city of Artaxata. When this was known to Artabanus, he makes ready his son Orodes as avenger; gives him the forces of the Parthians, sends men to raise auxiliaries for hire: on the other side Pharasmanes joins the Albani to himself, summons the Sarmatians, whose sceptre-bearers, gifts received on both sides, in their nation’s fashion put on opposite parts. But the Iberians, masters of the country, pour the Sarmatian by the Caspian way swiftly out upon the Armenians. But those who came to the Parthians were easily kept off, since the enemy had closed the other approaches, and the one remaining, between the sea and the extreme mountains of the Albani, the summer hindered, because the shallows are filled by the blasts of the etesian winds: the winter south wind rolls back the waves, and, the strait driven inward, the shoals of the shores are laid bare.

At ex regulis prior Mithridates Pharasmanem perpulit dolo et vi conatus suos iuvare, repertique corruptores ministros Arsacis multo auro ad scelus cogunt; simul Hiberi magnis copiis Armeniam inrumpunt et urbe Artaxata potiuntur. quae postquam Artabano cognita, filium Oroden ultorem parat; dat Parthorum copias, mittit qui auxilia mercede facerent: contra Pharasmanes adiungere Albanos, accire Sarmatas, quorum sceptuchi utrimque donis acceptis more gentico diversa induere. sed Hiberi locorum potentes Caspia via Sarmatam in Armenios raptim effundunt. at qui Parthis adventabant, facile arcebantur, cum alios incessus hostis clausisset, unum reliquum mare inter et extremos Albanorum montis aestas impediret, quia flatibus etesiarum implentur vada: hibernus auster revolvit fluctus pulsoque introrsus freto brevia litorum nudantur.

Meanwhile Pharasmanes, increased by his ally, kept calling Orodes—destitute of allies—to battle, and, on his refusing, assailing him, riding up to his camp, infesting his forage; and often, in the manner of a siege, he girt him with outposts, until the Parthians, unused to insults, beset their king and demanded battle. And in horse alone is their strength: Pharasmanes was strong in foot too. For the Iberians and Albani, dwelling in wooded places, were the more inured to hardness and endurance; and they say they sprang from the Thessalians, at the time when Jason, after Medea was carried off and children begotten from her, returned to the empty palace of Aeetes and the void Colchians. And they celebrate many things of his name, and the oracle of Phrixus; nor would any sacrifice a ram, believing that it had carried Phrixus—whether that was an animal or the figurehead of a ship. For the rest, the line drawn up on both sides, the Parthian discoursed of the empire of the East, the renown of the Arsacids, and on the other hand the base Iberian with his hireling soldier; Pharasmanes that they were untouched by Parthian mastery, and the greater things they sought, the more glory the victors would carry, or, if they turned their backs, the more disgrace and peril; and at the same time he showed his own bristling line, and the Median columns painted with gold—here men, there booty.

Interim Oroden sociorum inopem auctus auxilio Pharasmanes vocare ad pugnam et detrectantem incessere, adequitare castris, infensare pabula; ac saepe in modum obsidii stationibus cingebat, donec Parthi contumeliarum insolentes circumsisterent regem, poscerent proelium. atque illis sola in equite vis: Pharasmanes et pedite valebat. nam Hiberi Albanique saltuosos locos incolentes duritiae patientiaeque magis insuevere; feruntque se Thessalis ortos, qua tempestate Iaso post avectam Medeam genitosque ex ea liberos inanem mox regiam Aeetae vacuosque Colchos repetivit. multaque de nomine eius et oraclum Phrixi celebrant; nec quisquam ariete sacrificaverit, credito vexisse Phrixum, sive id animal seu navis insigne fuit. ceterum derecta utrimque acie Parthus imperium Orientis, claritudinem Arsacidarum contraque ignobilem Hiberum mercen- nario milite disserebat; Pharasmanes integros semet a Parthico dominatu, quanto maiora peterent, plus decoris victores aut, si terga darent, flagitii atque periculi laturos; simul horridam suorum aciem, picta auro Medorum agmina, hinc viros, inde praedam ostendere.

But indeed among the Sarmatians it was not the one voice of the leader: each man spurs himself on, that they should not let the battle go by arrows: by a charge and at close quarters they must forestall it. Hence the varied appearances of the combatants, since the Parthian, used to pursue or to flee with equal art, kept drawing apart his squadrons, sought room for his shots, while the Sarmatians, the bow laid aside—in which they are of briefer strength—rushed on with pikes and swords; now, after the manner of a cavalry fight, the alternations of front and rear, sometimes, as in a locked battle-line, they pushed and were pushed with bodies and the impact of arms. And now the Albani and Iberians too gripped, dragged down, made the battle doubtful for the foe, whom the horse from above and the foot with nearer wounds were harassing. Amid this Pharasmanes and Orodes, while they stand by the brave or relieve the wavering, conspicuous and therefore known to each other, with shout, weapons, and horses charge together, Pharasmanes the more pressingly; for he drove a wound through the helmet. Nor could he repeat it, borne past on his horse, and the bravest of the guards protecting the wounded man: yet the rumor of his slaying, falsely believed, terrified the Parthians, and they yielded the victory.

Enimvero apud Sarmatas non una vox ducis: se quisque stimulant ne pugnam per sagittas sinerent: impetu et comminus praeveniendum. variae hinc bellantium species, cum Parthus sequi vel fugere pari arte suetus distraheret turmas, spatium ictibus quaereret, Sarmatae omisso arcu, quo brevius valent, contis gladiisque ruerent; modo equestris proelii more frontis et tergi vices, aliquando ut conserta acies corporibus et pulsu armorum pellerent pellerentur. iamque et Albani Hiberique prensare, detrudere, ancipitem pugnam hostibus facere, quos super eques et propioribus vulneribus pedites adflictabant. inter quae Pharasmanes Orodesque, dum strenuis adsunt aut dubitantibus subveniunt, conspicui eoque gnari, clamore telis equis concurrunt, instantius Pharasmanes; nam vulnus per galeam adegit. nec iterare valuit, praelatus equo et fortissimis satellitum protegentibus saucium: fama tamen occisi falso credita exterruit Parthos victoriamque concessere.

Soon Artabanus went to avenge it with the whole mass of his kingdom. By skill of the ground it was better fought by the Iberians; nor for that would he withdraw, had not Vitellius, his legions drawn together, and a rumor planted as though he would invade Mesopotamia, made a dread of a Roman war. Then Armenia was abandoned and Artabanus’s fortunes overturned, Vitellius alluring his people to desert a king savage in peace and ruinous in the issues of his battles. So Sinnaces, whom I have before mentioned as hostile, draws over his father Abdagaeses and others, partners of the secret counsel and then, by continual disasters, the readier for defection, those flowing in little by little who, subjected more by fear than by good will, when authors were found had taken heart. Nor was anything now left to Artabanus but such of foreigners as were about his body as guards, each an exile from his own seat, with no understanding of the good nor care for the evil, but kept for hire, ministers to crime. With these taken up, he hastened his flight into the far parts bordering on Scythia, in hope of aid, because he was knit by affinity to the Hyrcanians and Carmanians: and meanwhile, he thought, the Parthians, fair to the absent, fickle to the present, might be changed to repentance.

Mox Artabanus tota mole regni ultum iit. peritia locorum ab Hiberis melius pugnatum; nec ideo abscedebat, ni contractis legionibus Vitellius et subdito rumore tamquam Mesopotamiam invasurus metum Romani belli fecisset. tum omissa Armenia versaeque Artabani res, inliciente Vitellio desererent regem saevum in pace et adversis proeliorum exitiosum. igitur Sinnaces, quem antea infensum memoravi, patrem Abdagaesen aliosque occultos consilii et tunc continuis cladibus promptiores ad defectionem trahit, ad- fluentibus paulatim qui metu magis quam benevolentia subiecti repertis auctoribus sustulerant animum. nec iam aliud Artabano reliquum quam si qui externorum corpori custodes aderant, suis quisque sedibus extorres, quis neque boni intellectus neque mali cura sed mercede aluntur ministri sceleribus. his adsumptis in longinqua et contermina Scythiae fugam maturavit, spe auxilii, quia Hyrcanis Carmaniisque per adfinitatem innexus erat: atque interim posse Parthos absentium aequos, praesentibus mobilis, ad paenitentiam mutari.

But Vitellius, Artabanus a fugitive and the minds of the people bent toward a new king, having urged Tiridates to lay hold of what was made ready, leads the strength of the legions and allies to the bank of the Euphrates. As they sacrificed, when the one gave a suovetaurilia in the Roman manner, the other had adorned a horse to appease the river, the dwellers near reported that the Euphrates, by no force of rains, of its own accord and immensely was rising, and at the same time, with whitening foam, was curving its circles in the fashion of a diadem—an augury of a prosperous crossing. Some more shrewdly interpreted that the beginnings of the attempt would be favorable but not lasting, because of the things portended by earth or sky the credit is surer, while the unstable nature of rivers at once shows omens and snatches them away. But, a bridge of ships made and the army carried over, first Ornospades came into the camp with many thousands of horse, once an exile and, when Tiberius was finishing the Dalmatic war, no inglorious helper, and on that account presented with Roman citizenship, soon, the king’s friendship regained, in much honor with him, prefect of the plains which, flowed round by the Euphrates and the Tigris, famous rivers, have received the name of Mesopotamia. And not much after Sinnaces augments the forces, and Abdagaeses, the pillar of the party, adds the treasure and the royal apparatus. Vitellius, thinking it enough to have displayed the Roman arms, admonishes Tiridates and the chief men—the one to remember his grandfather Phraates and Caesar his fosterer and whatever was fair on either side, the others to keep their obedience to the king, their reverence toward us, and each his own honor and faith. Then with the legions he returned into Syria.

At Vitellius profugo Artabano et flexis ad novum regem popularium animis, hortatus Tiridaten parata capessere, robur legionum sociorumque ripam ad Euphratis ducit. sacrificantibus, cum hic more Romano suovetaurilia daret, ille equum placando amni adornasset, nuntiavere accolae Euphraten nulla imbrium vi sponte et immensum attolli, simul albentibus spumis in modum diadematis sinuare orbis, auspicium prosperi transgressus. quidam callidius interpretabantur initia conatus secunda neque diuturna, quia eorum quae terra caelove portenderentur certior fides, fluminum instabilis natura simul ostenderet omina raperetque. sed ponte navibus effecto tramissoque exercitu primus Ornospades multis equitum milibus in castra venit, exul quondam et Tiberio, cum Delmaticum bellum conficeret, haud inglorius auxiliator eoque civitate Romana donatus, mox repetita amicitia regis multo apud eum honore, praefectus campis qui Euphrate et Tigre inclutis amnibus circumflui Mesopotamiae nomen acceperunt. neque multo post Sinnaces auget copias, et columen partium Abdagaeses gazam et paratus regios adicit. Vitellius ostentasse Romana arma satis ratus monet Tiridaten primoresque, hunc, Phraatis avi et altoris Caesaris quaeque utrubique pulchra meminerit, illos, obsequium in regem, reverentiam in nos, decus quisque suum et fidem retinerent. exim cum legionibus in Syriam remeavit.

What was done in two summers I have joined together, that the mind might rest from domestic ills; for, although it was now the third year after the killing of Sejanus, neither time, nor prayers, nor satiety—the things that are wont to soften others—mitigated Tiberius, but he punished things uncertain or wiped out as if most grievous and recent. In that fear Fulcinius Trio, not enduring the accusers pressing upon him, in his last tablets composed many atrocious things against Macro and the chief of Caesar’s freedmen, and against the prince himself a mind dissolved by age and, in his continual withdrawal, as it were an exile. These, hidden by his heirs, Tiberius ordered to be read out, displaying his tolerance of another’s freedom and a contempt of his own ill fame—or, long ignorant of Sejanus’s crimes, he now preferred that whatever was spoken, in any way, be made public, and that, by reproaches at least, he should come to know the truth, which flattery hinders. In the same days Granius Marcianus, a senator, charged with treason by Gaius Gracchus, laid violent hands on his life, and Tarius Gratianus, of praetorian rank, was condemned under the same law to the extreme penalty.

Quae duabus aestatibus gesta coniunxi quo requiesceret animus a domesticis malis; non enim Tiberium, quamquam triennio post caedem Seiani, quae ceteros mollire solent, tempus preces satias mitigabant, quin incerta vel abolita pro gravissimis et recentibus puniret. eo metu Fulcinius Trio ingruentis accusatores haud perpessus supremis tabulis multa et atrocia in Macronem ac praecipuos libertorum Caesaris composuit, ipsi fluxam senio mentem et continuo abscessu velut exilium obiectando. quae ab heredibus occultata recitari Tiberius iussit, patientiam libertatis alienae ostentans et contemptor suae infamiae, an scelerum Seiani diu nescius mox quoquo modo dicta vulgari malebat veritatisque, cui adulatio officit, per probra saltem gnarus fieri. isdem diebus Granius Marcianus senator, a C. Graccho maiestatis postulatus, vim vitae suae attulit, Tariusque Gratianus praetura functus lege eadem extremum ad supplicium damnatus.

Nor unlike were the ends of Trebellenus Rufus and Sextius Paconianus: for Trebellenus fell by his own hand, Paconianus was strangled in prison for the verses there made against the prince. These things Tiberius received not parted by the sea, as once, nor through far messengers, but hard by the city, so that on the same day, or with a night interposed, he might write back to the letters of the consuls, as if looking upon the blood waving through the houses, or the hands of the executioners. At the year’s end Poppaeus Sabinus departed life, of modest origin, who by the friendship of princes had attained the consulship and triumphal honor and was set over the greatest provinces for four-and-twenty years—for no eminent skill, but because he was equal to affairs and not above them.

Nec dispares Trebelleni Rufi et Sextii Paconiani exitus: nam Trebellenus sua manu cecidit, Paconianus in carcere ob carmina illic in principem factitata strangulatus est. haec Tiberius non mari, ut olim, divisus neque per longinquos nuntios accipiebat, sed urbem iuxta, eodem ut die vel noctis interiectu litteris consulum rescriberet, quasi aspiciens undantem per domos sanguinem aut manus carnificum. fine anni Poppaeus Sabinus concessit vita, modicus originis, principum amicitia consulatum ac triumphale decus adeptus maximisque provinciis per quattuor et viginti annos impositus, nullam ob eximiam artem sed quod par negotiis neque supra erat.

Quintus Plautius and Sextus Papinius follow as consuls. In that year, that Lucius Aruseius and others were visited with death was not, through the habit of evils, marked as atrocious; but it terrified that Vibulenus Agrippa, a Roman knight, when the accusers had finished pleading, in the very Curia drank poison drawn from his bosom, and, sinking down and dying, by the hurried hands of the lictors was snatched to prison, and his throat, now lifeless, was wrung with the noose. Not even Tigranes, once master of Armenia and then a defendant, escaped the punishments of citizens by his royal name. But Gaius Galba, a consular, and the two Blaesi fell by a voluntary end—Galba, forbidden by grim letters of Caesar’s to draw lots for a province: as for the Blaesi, the priesthoods destined for them while their house was whole, he had, when it was shaken, put off, and then bestowed on others as vacant; which they understood as a token of death, and carried it out. And Aemilia Lepida, whom I have related to have been married to the young Drusus, having harried her husband with frequent charges, though abominable, yet went unpunished while her father Lepidus survived: afterward she is seized by informers for an adulterous slave, nor was there any doubt of the disgrace: so, the defense given up, she set an end to her life.

Quintus Plautius Sex. Papinius consules sequuntur. eo anno neque quod L. Aruseiusmorte adfecti forent, adsuetudine malorum ut atrox advertebatur, sed exterruit quod Vibulenus Agrippa eques Romanus, cum perorassent accusatores, in ipsa curia depromptum sinu venenum hausit prolapsusque ac moribundus festinatis lictorum manibus in carcerem raptus est faucesque iam exanimis laqueo vexatae. ne Tigranes quidem, Armenia quondam potitus ac tunc reus, nomine regio supplicia civium effugit. at C. Galba consularis et duo Blaesi voluntario exitu cecidere, Galba tristibus Caesaris litteris provinciam sortiri prohibitus: Blaesis sacerdotia, integra eorum domo destinata, convulsa distulerat, tunc ut vacua contulit in alios; quod signum mortis intellexere et executi sunt. et Aemilia Lepida, quam iuveni Druso nuptam rettuli, crebris criminibus maritum insectata, quamquam intestabilis, tamen impunita agebat, dum superfuit pater Lepidus: post a delatoribus corripitur ob servum adulterum, nec dubitabatur de flagitio: ergo omissa defensione finem vitae sibi posuit.

About the same time the nation of the Cietae, subject to the Cappadocian Archelaus, because they were being driven to render their goods after our manner and to endure tributes, withdrew into the heights of the Taurus mountain, and by the nature of the ground defended themselves against the king’s unwarlike forces, until Marcus Trebellius, a legate sent by Vitellius the governor of Syria with four thousand legionaries and chosen auxiliaries, girt with works two hills which the barbarians had occupied (the lesser is named Cadra, the other Davara) and forced to the sword those who dared to break out, the rest to surrender by thirst. But Tiridates, the Parthians willing, received Nicephorium and Anthemusias and the other cities which, founded by Macedonians, bear Greek names, and Halus and Artemita, Parthian towns, those vying in gladness who, execrating Artabanus, reared among the Scythians for his savagery, hoped for the kindly nature of Tiridates trained in Roman arts.

Per idem tempus Clitarum natio Cappadoci Archelao subiecta, quia nostrum in modum deferre census, pati tributa adigebatur, in iuga Tauri montis abscessit locorumque ingenio sese contra imbellis regis copias tutabatur, donec M. Trebellius legatus, a Vitellio praeside Syriae cum quattuor milibus legionariorum et delectis auxiliis missus, duos collis quos barbari insederant (minori Cadra, alteri Davara nomen est) operibus circumdedit et erumpere ausos ferro, ceteros siti ad deditionem coegit. At Tiridates volentibus Parthis Nicephorium et Anthemusiada ceterasque urbes, quae Macedonibus sitae Graeca vocabula usurpant, Halumque et Artemitam Parthica oppida recepit, certantibus gaudio qui Artabanum Scythas inter eductum ob saevitiam execrati come Tiridatis ingenium Romanas per artes sperabant.

Most flattery the Seleucenes put on, a powerful city, walled round and not corrupted into barbarism but keeping to its founder Seleucus. Three hundred, chosen for wealth or wisdom, are as a senate; the people has its own force. And whenever they act in concord, the Parthian is scorned: when they have fallen out, while each, against his rivals, calls in aid, the one summoned to a part grows strong against all. This had lately happened, Artabanus reigning, who handed the plebs over to the chief men for his own advantage: for the rule of the people is near to liberty, the mastery of a few nearer to a king’s caprice. Then they extol Tiridates, coming, with the honors of the old kings and those which a recent age has more lavishly devised; at the same time they poured reproaches on Artabanus, an Arsacid by his mother’s stock, in the rest degenerate. Tiridates hands over the affairs of Seleucia to the people. Soon, taking counsel on what day he should take up the solemnities of the kingdom, he receives letters of Phraates and Hiero, who held the most powerful prefectures, praying for a short delay. And it was resolved to await the preeminent men, and meanwhile Ctesiphon, the seat of empire, was sought: but when they kept putting it off from day to day, before many and approving witnesses Surena, in his country’s fashion, bound Tiridates with the royal emblem.

Plurimum adulationis Seleucenses induere, civitas potens, saepta muris neque in barbarum corrupta sed conditoris Seleuci retinens. trecenti opibus aut sapientia delecti ut senatus, sua populo vis. et quoties concordes agunt, spernitur Parthus: ubi dissensere, dum sibi quisque contra aemulos subsidium vocant, accitus in partem adversum omnis valescit. id nuper acciderat Artabano regnante, qui plebem primoribus tradidit ex suo usu: nam populi imperium iuxta libertatem, paucorum dominatio regiae libidini propior est. tum adventantem Tiridaten extollunt veterum regum honoribus et quos recens aetas largius invenit; simul probra in Artabanum fundebant, materna origine Arsaciden, cetera degenerem. Tiridates rem Seleucensem populo permittit. mox consultans quonam die sollemnia regni capesseret, litteras Phraatis et Hieronis qui validissimas praefecturas obtinebant accipit, brevem moram precantium. placitumque opperiri viros praepollentis, atque interim Ctesiphon sedes imperii petita: sed ubi diem ex die prolatabant, multis coram et adprobantibus Surena patrio more Tiridaten insigni regio evinxit.

And had he at once made for the interior and the other nations, the hesitation of the wavering would have been crushed and all would have yielded into one: but by sitting down before a fort, into which Artabanus had carried his money and his concubines, he gave space for the casting off of the pacts. For Phraates and Hiero, and any others who had not honored the day chosen for taking the diadem, part through fear, some through envy of Abdagaeses, who then held the court and the new king, turned to Artabanus; and he was found among the Hyrcanians, beset with filth and getting his food by the bow. And at first, terrified as though a snare were prepared, when assurance was given that they had come to restore his mastery, he is raised in spirit and asks what the sudden change was. Then Hiero rails at the boyhood of Tiridates, and that the empire was not in the hands of an Arsacid, but an empty name with a man unwarlike through foreign softness, the power being in the house of Abdagaeses.

Ac si statim interiora ceterasque nationes petivisset, oppressa cunctantium dubitatio et omnes in unum cedebant: adsidendo castellum, in quod pecuniam et paelices Artabanus contulerat, dedit spatium exuendi pacta. nam Phraates et Hiero et si qui alii delectum capiendo diademati diem haut concelebraverant, pars metu, quidam invidia in Abdagaesen qui tum aula et novo rege potiebatur ad Artabanum vertere; isque in Hyrcanis repertus est, inluvie obsitus et alimenta arcu expediens. ac primo tamquam dolus pararetur territus, ubi data fides reddendae dominationi venisse, adlevatur animum et quae repentina mutatio exquirit. tum Hiero pueritiam Tiridatis increpat, neque penes Arsaciden imperium sed inane nomen apud imbellem externa mollitia, vim in Abdagaesis domo.

He felt, old in reigning, that they did not feign hatred in their love. Nor delaying further than while he stirred up the auxiliaries of the Scythians, he goes on in haste, forestalling the cunning of his foes and the repentance of his friends; nor had he put off his squalor, that he might draw the crowd by pity. No fraud, no prayers, nothing was left undone by which he might allure the doubtful, confirm the ready. And now he was approaching the neighborhood of Seleucia with a great band, when Tiridates, struck at once by the rumor and by Artabanus himself, was torn between counsels—whether to go against him, or to draw out the war by delay. To those whom battle and hastened hazards pleased, they argue that men scattered and weary with the length of the journey had not even in spirit coalesced enough for obedience, being but lately his betrayers and enemies, whom they now again cherish. But Abdagaeses thought they must go back into Mesopotamia, that, the river set against them, the Armenians and Elymaeans and the rest meanwhile roused in their rear, increased by allied forces and what the Roman commander should have sent, they might try fortune. That opinion prevailed, because the greatest authority was with Abdagaeses and Tiridates was a coward toward perils. But the departure had the look of flight; and, the beginning made by the Arab nation, the rest go off to their homes or into the camp of Artabanus, until Tiridates, carried back into Syria with a few, freed them all from the shame of betrayal.

Sensit vetus regnandi falsos in amore odia non fingere. nec ultra moratus quam dum Scytharum auxilia conciret, pergit properus et praeveniens inimicorum astus, amicorum paenitentiam; neque exuerat paedorem ut vulgum miseratione adverteret. non fraus, non preces, nihil omissum quo ambiguos inliceret, prompti firmarentur. iamque multa manu propinqua Seleuciae adventabat, cum Tiridates simul fama atque ipso Artabano perculsus distrahi consiliis, iret contra an bellum cunctatione tractaret. quibus proelium et festinati casus placebant, disiectos et longinquitate itineris fessos ne animo quidem satis ad obsequium coaluisse disserunt, proditores nuper hostesque eius quem rursum foveant. verum Abdagaeses regrediendum in Mesopotamiam censebat, ut amne obiecto, Armeniis interim Elymaeisque et ceteris a tergo excitis, aucti copiis socialibus et quas dux Romanus misisset fortunam temptarent. ea sententia valuit, quia plurima auctoritas penes Abdagaesen et Tiridates ignavus ad pericula erat. sed fugae specie discessum; ac principio a gente Arabum facto ceteri domos abeunt vel in castra Artabani, donec Tiridates cum paucis in Syriam revectus pudore proditionis omnis exolvit.

The same year afflicted the city with a grave fire, the part of the Circus that adjoins the Aventine being burnt up, and the Aventine itself; which loss Caesar turned to glory, the prices of the houses and tenements being paid out. A hundred million sesterces was laid out in that munificence, the more acceptable to the crowd as, sparing in his own private buildings, he reared not even publicly more than two works, a temple to Augustus and a stage for Pompey’s theater; and these, when finished, whether from a contempt of display or through old age, he did not dedicate. But for the valuing of each man’s loss, four husbands of Caesar’s granddaughters were chosen—Gnaeus Domitius, Cassius Longinus, Marcus Vinicius, Rubellius Blandus—and by the consuls’ nomination Publius Petronius was added. And, according to each man’s wit, honors were sought out and decreed for the prince; which he passed over or accepted is uncertain, on account of the near end of his life. For not long after the last consuls of Tiberius, Gnaeus Acerronius and Gaius Pontius, entered upon office, the power of Macro now excessive, who, never neglecting the favor of Gaius Caesar, fostered it more keenly day by day, and had driven, after the death of Claudia (whom I have related to have been married to him), his own wife Ennia, by feigning love, to allure the young man and bind him by a pact of marriage—he refusing nothing, provided he should attain the mastery; for, though of an agitated temper, he had nonetheless thoroughly learned dissimulation in his grandfather’s bosom.

Idem annus gravi igne urbem adficit, deusta parte circi quae Aventino contigua, ipsoque Aventino; quod damnum Caesar ad gloriam vertit exolutis domuum et insularum pretiis. milies sestertium in munificentia ea conlocatum, tanto acceptius in vulgum, quanto modicus privatis aedificationibus ne publice quidem nisi duo opera struxit, templum Augusto et scaenam Pompeiani theatri; eaque perfecta, contemptu ambitionis an per senectutem, haud dedicavit. sed aestimando cuiusque detrimento quattuor progeneri Caesaris, Cn. Domitius, Cassius Longinus, M. Vinicius, Rubellius Blandus delecti additusque nominatione consulum P. Petronius. et pro ingenio cuiusque quaesiti decretique in principem honores; quos omiserit receperitve in incerto fuit ob propinquum vitae finem. neque enim multo post supremi Tiberio consules, Cn. Acerronius C. Pontius, magistratum occepere, nimia iam potentia Macronis, qui gratiam G. Caesaris numquam sibi neglectam acrius in dies fovebat impuleratque post mortem Claudiae, quam nuptam ei rettuli, uxorem suam Enniam imitando amorem iuvenem inlicere pactoque matrimonii vincire, nihil abnuentem, dum dominationis apisceretur; nam etsi commotus ingenio simulationum tamen falsa in sinu avi perdidicerat.

This was known to the prince, and therefore he hesitated about handing on the commonwealth—first among his grandsons, of whom the one born of Drusus was the nearer in blood and affection, but had not yet entered on puberty, while Germanicus’s son had the strength of youth, the people’s favor, and that, with his grandfather, was a cause of hatred. Of Claudius too, as he pondered—because he was of settled age and desirous of the good arts—his impaired mind stood in the way. But if a successor were sought outside the house, he feared that the memory of Augustus, that the name of the Caesars, might be turned to mockeries and insults: for to him the favor of the present was not so much a care as ambition toward posterity. Soon, uncertain of mind, his body wearied, he left to fate the decision to which he was unequal, yet with words let fall by which he might be understood as foreseeing the future; for he reproached Macro, in no hidden riddle, that he was deserting the setting sun and looking to the rising; and to Gaius Caesar, a talk having chanced to arise in which he mocked Lucius Sulla, he foretold that he would have all the vices of Sulla and none of his virtue. At the same time, with frequent tears embracing the younger of his grandsons, the other’s countenance being fierce, "You will kill this boy," he said, "and another you." But, his health growing worse, he omitted nothing of his lusts, feigning firmness in his endurance, and wont to mock the arts of physicians, and those who, after the thirtieth year of their age, needed another’s counsel to distinguish what was useful or hurtful to their own body.

Gnarum hoc principi, eoque dubitavit de tradenda re publica, primum inter nepotes, quorum Druso genitus sanguine et caritate propior, sed nondum pubertatem ingressus, Germanici filio robur iuventae, vulgi studia, eaque apud avum odii causa. etiam de Claudio agitanti, quod is composita aetate bonarum artium cupiens erat, imminuta mens eius obstitit. sin extra domum successor quaereretur, ne memoria Augusti, ne nomen Caesarum in ludibria et contumelias verterent metuebat: quippe illi non perinde curae gratia praesentium quam in posteros ambitio. mox incertus animi, fesso corpore consilium cui impar erat fato permisit, iactis tamen vocibus per quas intellegeretur providus futurorum; namque Macroni non abdita ambage occidentem ab eo deseri, orientem spectari exprobravit, et G. Caesari, forte orto sermone L. Sullam inridenti, omnia Sullae vitia et nullam eiusdem virtutem habiturum praedixit. simul crebris cum lacrimis minorem ex nepotibus complexus, truci alterius vultu, ’occides hunc tu’ inquit ’et te alius.’ sed gravescente valetudine nihil e libidinibus omittebat, in patientia firmitudinem simulans solitusque eludere medicorum artes atque eos qui post tricesimum aetatis annum ad internoscenda corpori suo utilia vel noxia alieni consilii indigerent.

Meanwhile at Rome the seeds were being sown of slaughters to come even after Tiberius. Laelius Balbus had charged Acutia, once the wife of Publius Vitellius, with treason; she condemned, when a reward was being decreed to the accuser, Junius Otho, tribune of the plebs, interposed his veto, whence hatred between them, and soon ruin for Otho. Then Albucilla, infamous for the loves of many, who had been married to Satrius Secundus, the informer of the conspiracy, is denounced for impiety toward the prince; and there were linked, as accomplices and her adulterers, Gnaeus Domitius, Vibius Marsus, Lucius Arruntius. Of the renown of Domitius I have spoken above; Marsus too was distinguished by ancient honors and illustrious studies. But the records sent to the Senate bore that Macro had presided over the questioning of witnesses and the torture of the slaves, and the absence of any letters of the emperor against them gave a suspicion that, the prince being feeble and perhaps unaware, most things were feigned on account of Macro’s known enmities toward Arruntius.

Interim Romae futuris etiam post Tiberium caedibus semina iaciebantur. Laelius Balbus Acutiam, P. Vitellii quondam uxorem, maiestatis postulaverat; qua damnata cum praemium accusatori decerneretur, Iunius Otho tribunus plebei intercessit, unde illis odia, mox Othoni exitium. dein multorum amoribus famosa Albucilla, cui matrimonium cum Satrio Secundo coniurationis indice fuerat, defertur impietatis in principem; conectebantur ut conscii et adulteri eius Cn. Domitius, Vibius Marsus, L. Arruntius. de claritudine Domitii supra memoravi; Marsus quoque vetustis honoribus et inlustris studiis erat. sed testium interrogationi, tormentis servorum Macronem praesedisse commentarii ad senatum missi ferebant, nullaeque in eos imperatoris litterae suspicionem dabant, invalido ac fortasse ignaro ficta pleraque ob inimicitias Macronis notas in Arruntium.

So Domitius, meditating a defense, Marsus as though he had resolved on starvation, prolonged their lives: Arruntius, when his friends urged delay and putting-off, answered that the same things were not seemly for all: he had enough of age, and nothing else to repent of than that he had borne an anxious old age amid mockeries and perils, long hated by Sejanus, now by Macro, always by some one of the powerful, not by his fault but as one impatient of villainies. Surely the few days to the prince’s end might be escaped: but how should he escape the youth of him who impended? Or, when Tiberius, after so great an experience of affairs, has been overturned and changed by the force of mastery, would Gaius Caesar—his boyhood scarce finished, ignorant of all things or nourished on the worst—take up better courses, with Macro for a guide, who, chosen as the worse to crush Sejanus, had harassed the commonwealth with more crimes? He foresaw now a harsher servitude, and therefore fled at once from things past and things impending. Saying these things in the manner of a prophet, he opened his veins. What follows will be a proof that Arruntius did well to use death. Albucilla, by an ineffectual stroke wounded by herself, is by order of the Senate carried to prison. The ministers of her debaucheries—Carsidius Sacerdos, of praetorian rank, to be deported to an island; Pontius Fregellanus, to lose his senatorial order; and the same penalties are decreed against Laelius Balbus—this last indeed by men rejoicing, because Balbus was held of savage eloquence, ready against the innocent.

Igitur Domitius defensionem meditans, Marsus tamquam inediam destinavisset, produxere vitam: Arruntius, cunctationem et moras suadentibus amicis, non eadem om- nibus decora respondit: sibi satis aetatis neque aliud paenitendum quam quod inter ludibria et pericula anxiam senectam toleravisset, diu Seiano, nunc Macroni, semper alicui potentium invisus, non culpa sed ut flagitiorum impatiens. sane paucos ad suprema principis dies posse vitari: quem ad modum evasurum imminentis iuventam? an, cum Tiberius post tantam rerum experientiam vi dominationis convulsus et mutatus sit, G. Caesarem vix finita pueritia, ignarum omnium aut pessimis innutritum, meliora capessiturum Macrone duce, qui ut deterior ad opprimendum Seianum delectus plura per scelera rem publicam conflictavisset? prospectare iam se acrius servitium eoque fugere simul acta et instantia. haec vatis in modum dictitans venas resolvit. documento sequentia erunt bene Arruntium morte usum. Albucilla inrito ictu ab semet vulnerata iussu senatus in carcerem fertur. stuprorum eius ministri, Carsidius Sacerdos praetorius ut in insulam deportaretur, Pontius Fregellanus amitteret ordinem senatorium, et eaedem poenae in Laelium Balbum decernuntur, id quidem a laetantibus, quia Balbus truci eloquentia habebatur, promptus adversum insontis.

In the same days Sextus Papinius, of a consular family, chose a sudden and shapeless end, his body flung headlong. The cause was referred to his mother, who, long ago repudiated, had by flatteries and luxury driven the young man to things whose escape he could find only by death. So, accused in the Senate, although she rolled at the knees of the Fathers and long pleaded the common grief and the weaker spirit of women under such a calamity, and other things sad and pitiable to the same sorrow, she was nonetheless forbidden the city for ten years, until her younger son should pass out of the slipperiness of youth.

Isdem diebus Sex. Papinius consulari familia repentinum et informem exitum delegit, iacto in praeceps corpore. causa ad matrem referebatur, quae pridem repudiata adsentationibus atque luxu perpulisset iuvenem ad ea quorum effugium non nisi morte inveniret. igitur accusata in senatu, quamquam genua patrum advolveretur luctumque communem et magis imbecillum tali super casu feminarum animum aliaque in eundem dolorem maesta et miseranda diu ferret, urbe tamen in decem annos prohibita est, donec minor filius lubricum iuventae exiret.

Now Tiberius’s body, now his strength, but not yet his dissimulation, was deserting him: the same rigor of mind; intent in speech and look, with a sought affability he now and then covered his manifest decline. And, the places oftener changed, he settled at last at the promontory of Misenum, in a villa of which Lucius Lucullus had once been master. There that he was drawing near his last was discovered in this manner. There was a physician distinguished in his art, by name Charicles, not indeed wont to govern the prince’s health, but to furnish the abundance of his counsel. He, as if departing on his own affairs, and under the show of duty taking his hand, touched the beat of his veins. Nor did he deceive him: for Tiberius—it is uncertain whether offended, and the more for that pressing down his anger—orders the banquet to be renewed and reclines beyond his wont, as though paying honor to a departing friend. Charicles nonetheless affirmed to Macro that the breath was slipping and would not last beyond two days. From then all was hurried—by conferences among those present, by messengers to the legates and the armies. On the seventeenth day before the Kalends of April, his breath cut off, he was believed to have fulfilled his mortality; and, in a great concourse of those who came to congratulate, Gaius Caesar was going forth to take up the first beginnings of empire, when suddenly it is brought word that voice and sight were returning to Tiberius, and that men were being called to bring food for the reviving of his faintness. Hence panic upon all, and the rest scattered this way and that, each feigning grief or ignorance; Caesar, fixed in silence, from the highest hope awaited the worst. Macro, undaunted, orders the old man to be smothered under a heap of clothing thrown upon him, and that they depart from the threshold. So Tiberius ended, in the seventy-eighth year of his age.

Iam Tiberium corpus, iam vires, nondum dissimulatio deserebat: idem animi rigor; sermone ac vultu intentus quaesita interdum comitate quamvis manifestam defectionem tegebat. mutatisque saepius locis tandem apud promunturium Miseni consedit in villa cui L. Lucullus quondam dominus. illic eum adpropinquare supremis tali modo compertum. erat medicus arte insignis, nomine Charicles, non quidem regere valetudines principis solitus, consilii tamen copiam praebere. is velut propria ad negotia digrediens et per speciem officii manum complexus pulsum venarum attigit. neque fefellit: nam Tiberius, incertum an offensus tantoque magis iram premens, instaurari epulas iubet discumbitque ultra solitum, quasi honori abeuntis amici tribueret. Charicles tamen labi spiritum nec ultra biduum duraturum Macroni firmavit. inde cuncta conloquiis inter praesentis, nuntiis apud legatos et exercitus festinabantur. septimum decimum kal. Aprilis interclusa anima creditus est mortalitatem explevisse; et multo gratantum concursu ad capienda imperii primordia G. Caesar egrediebatur, cum repente adfertur redire Tiberio vocem ac visus vocarique qui recreandae defectioni cibum adferrent. pavor hinc in omnis, et ceteri passim dispergi, se quisque maestum aut nescium fingere; Caesar in silentium fixus a summa spe novissima expectabat. Macro intrepidus opprimi senem iniectu multae vestis iubet discedique ab limine. sic Tiberius finivit octavo et septuagesimo aetatis anno.

His father was Nero, and on both sides his origin was of the Claudian race, although his mother passed by adoptions into the Livian and soon the Julian family. His fortunes from earliest infancy were doubtful; for, an exile, he followed his proscribed father, and, when he entered the house of Augustus as a stepson, he struggled with many rivals, while Marcellus and Agrippa, soon Gaius and Lucius Caesar, flourished; his brother Drusus too was in the more prosperous love of the citizens. But most of all he walked on slippery ground when he received Julia in marriage, tolerating or declining his wife’s unchastity. Then, returned from Rhodes, he held the prince’s empty house for twelve years, soon the arbitration of the Roman state for nearly three-and-twenty. His character too had its diverse seasons: excellent in life and fame while he was a private man or in commands under Augustus; secret and crafty in feigning virtues while Germanicus and Drusus survived; the same, mixed of good and evil, while his mother was alive; abominable in his savagery, but with his lusts concealed, while he loved or feared Sejanus: at the last he broke out into crimes and disgraces alike, when, shame and fear removed, he used only his own nature.

Pater ei Nero et utrimque origo gentis Claudiae, quamquam mater in Liviam et mox Iuliam familiam adoptionibus transierit. casus prima ab infantia ancipites; nam proscriptum patrem exul secutus, ubi domum Augusti privignus introiit, multis aemulis conflictatus est, dum Marcellus et Agrippa, mox Gaius Luciusque Caesares viguere; etiam frater eius Drusus prosperiore civium amore erat. sed maxime in lubrico egit accepta in matrimonium Iulia, impudicitiam uxoris tolerans aut declinans. dein Rhodo regressus vacuos principis penatis duodecim annis, mox rei Romanae arbitrium tribus ferme et viginti obtinuit. morum quoque tempora illi diversa: egregium vita famaque quoad privatus vel in imperiis sub Augusto fuit; occultum ac subdolum fingendis virtutibus donec Germanicus ac Drusus superfuere; idem inter bona malaque mixtus incolumi matre; intestabilis saevitia sed obtectis libidinibus dum Seianum dilexit timuitve: postremo in scelera simul ac dedecora prorupit postquam remoto pudore et metu suo tantum ingenio utebatur.

...\ for she believed that Valerius Asiaticus, twice consul, had once been her adulterer, and at the same time, gaping after his gardens, which he, begun by Lucullus, was setting off with notable magnificence, she lets loose Suillius to accuse them both. There is joined Sosibius, the tutor of Britannicus, to warn Claudius, under a show of good will, to beware a force and a wealth hostile to princes: that Asiaticus, the chief author of killing Gaius Caesar, had not feared to confess it in an assembly of the Roman people and to seek the glory of the deed unbidden; famous thereby in the city, and the report spread through the provinces, he was preparing a journey to the German armies, since, born at Vienna and propped by many and strong connections, he had it ready to stir up his native tribes. But Claudius, scrutinizing nothing further, with hurried soldiers, as though to crush a war, sent Crispinus, prefect of the praetorian guard; by whom he was found at Baiae and, chains put on, dragged to the city.

*nam Valerium Asiaticum, bis consulem, fuisse quondam adulterum eius credidit, pariterque hortis inhians, quos ille a Lucullo coeptos insigni magnificentia extollebat, Suillium accusandis utrisque immittit. adiungitur Sosibius Britannici educator qui per speciem benevolentiae moneret Claudium cavere vim atque opes principibus infensas: praecipuum auctorem Asiaticum interficiendi G. Caesaris non extimuisse contione in populi Romani fateri gloriamque facinoris ultro petere; clarum ex eo in urbe, didita per provincias fama parare iter ad Germanicos exercitus, quando genitus Viennae multisque et validis propinquitatibus subnixus turbare gentilis nationes promptum haberet. at Claudius nihil ultra scrutatus citis cum militibus tamquam opprimendo bello Crispinum praetorii praefectum misit, a quo repertus est apud Baias vinclisque inditis in urbem raptus.

Nor was the resource of the Senate granted him: he is heard within a bedchamber, Messalina present, and Suillius charging the corruption of soldiers, whom by money and debauchery he alleged to be bound to every outrage; then the adultery of Poppaea; last, the softness of his body. At which the accused, breaking silence, burst out and said, "Ask, Suillius, your own sons: they will confess that I am a man." And entering on his defense, Claudius being moved in greater measure, he drew tears even from Messalina. To wash these away, going out of the chamber, she warns Vitellius not to let the accused slip: she herself hastens to the destruction of Poppaea, men being suborned who by the terror of prison should drive her to a voluntary death—Caesar so ignorant that a few days after, her husband Scipio dining with him, he asked why he had reclined without his wife, and the other answered that she had fulfilled her fate.

Neque data senatus copia: intra cubiculum auditur, Messalina coram et Suillio corruptionem militum, quos pecunia et stupro in omne flagitium obstrictos arguebat, exim adulterium Poppaeae, postremum mollitiam corporis obiectante. ad quod victo silentio prorupit reus et ’interroga’ inquit, ’Suilli, filios tuos: virum esse me fatebuntur.’ ingressusque defensionem, commoto maiorem in modum Claudio, Messalinae quoque lacrimas excivit. quibus abluendis cubiculo egrediens monet Vitellium ne elabi reum sineret: ipsa ad perniciem Poppaeae festinat, subditis qui terrore carceris ad voluntariam mortem propellerent, adeo ignaro Caesare ut paucos post dies epulantem apud se maritum eius Scipionem percontaretur cur sine uxore discubuisset, atque ille functam fato responderet.

But, as he deliberated about the acquittal of Asiaticus, Vitellius, weeping, having recalled the antiquity of their friendship and how they had together paid court to Antonia, the prince’s mother, then running through Asiaticus’s services to the commonwealth and his recent campaign against Britain, and whatever else seemed apt to win pity, granted him the free choice of his death; and Claudius’s words followed to the same clemency. When some thereafter urged starvation and a gentle end, Asiaticus says he declines the favor: and, the exercises to which he was used taken up, his body bathed, having feasted merrily, after he had said that he would more honorably have perished by the craft of Tiberius or the onset of Gaius Caesar than fall by a woman’s fraud and the unchaste mouth of Vitellius, he opened his veins—having first looked upon the pyre and ordered it to be moved to another spot, lest the shadiness of the trees be lessened by the heat of the fire: so much composure was in his last hour.

Sed consultanti super absolutione Asiatici flens Vitellius, commemorata vetustate amicitiae utque Antoniam principis matrem pariter observavissent, dein percursis Asiatici in rem publicam officiis recentique adversus Britanniam militia, quaeque alia conciliandae misericordiae videbantur, liberum mortis arbitrium ei permisit; et secuta sunt Claudii verba in eandem clementiam. hortantibus dehinc quibusdam inediam et lenem exitum, remittere beneficium Asiaticus ait: et usurpatis quibus insueverat exercitationibus, lauto corpore, hilare epulatus, cum se honestius calliditate Tiberii vel impetu G. Caesaris periturum dixisset quam quod fraude muliebri et impudico Vitellii ore caderet, venas exolvit, viso tamen ante rogo iussoque transferri partem in aliam ne opacitas arborum vapore ignis minueretur: tantum illi securitatis novissimae fuit.

The Fathers are summoned after this, and Suillius goes on to add as defendants illustrious Roman knights, whose surname was Petra. But the cause of their death was from this, that they had lent their house for the meetings of Mnester and Poppaea. Yet it was a vision of nocturnal rest that was objected to one of them, as though he had seen Claudius bound with a corn-ear crown, the ears turned backward, and by that image had foretold the heaviness of the corn-supply. Some have handed down that a vine-crown of whitening leaves was seen, and that he had so interpreted it, that, autumn declining, the death of the prince was shown. This is not doubted, that by some dream or other ruin was brought upon himself and his brother. Fifteen hundred thousand sesterces and the insignia of the praetorship were decreed to Crispinus. Vitellius added a million sesterces for Sosibius, because by his precepts he helped Britannicus, Claudius by his counsels. Scipio too, asked his opinion, said, "Since I feel the same about Poppaea’s misdeeds as all do, suppose me to say the same as all"—an elegant balancing between conjugal love and senatorial necessity.

Vocantur post haec patres, pergitque Suillius addere reos equites Romanos inlustris, quibus Petra cognomentum. at causa necis ex eo quod domum suam Mnesteris et Poppaeae congressibus praebuissent. verum nocturnae quietis species alteri obiecta, tamquam vidisset Claudium spicea corona evinctum spicis retro conversis, eaque imagine gravitatem annonae praedixisset. quidam pampineam coronam albentibus foliis visam atque ita interpretatum tradidere, vergente autumno mortem principis ostendi. illud haud ambigitur, qualicumque insomnio ipsi fratrique perniciem adlatam. sestertium quindecies et insignia praeturae Crispino decreta. adiecit Vitellius sestertium decies Sosibio, quod Britannicum praeceptis, Claudium consiliis iuvaret. rogatus sententiam et Scipio, ’cum idem’ inquit ’de admissis Poppaeae sentiam quod omnes, putate me idem dicere quod omnes,’ eleganti temperamento inter coniugalem amorem et senatoriam necessitatem.

Continuous thereafter and savage in accusing defendants was Suillius, and many emulators of his boldness; for the prince, drawing to himself all the functions of laws and magistrates, had laid open the matter for plunder. Nor was anything of public merchandise so venal as the perfidy of advocates, so that Samius, a distinguished Roman knight, four hundred thousand sesterces given to Suillius and his collusion known, fell upon the sword in his house. So, when Gaius Silius, consul designate—of whose power and ruin I shall speak in its time—was beginning, the Fathers rise and demand the Cincian law, by which it is anciently provided that no one should take money or a gift for pleading a cause.

Continuus inde et saevus accusandis reis Suillius multique audaciae eius aemuli; nam cuncta legum et magistratuum munia in se trahens princeps materiam praedandi patefecerat. nec quicquam publicae mercis tam venale fuit quam advocatorum perfidia, adeo ut Samius, insignis eques Romanus, quadringentis nummorum milibus Suillio datis et cognita praevaricatione ferro in domo eius incubuerit. igitur incipiente C. Silio consule designato, cuius de potentia et exitio in tempore memorabo, consurgunt patres legemque Cinciam flagitant, qua cavetur antiquitus ne quis ob causam orandam pecuniam donumve accipiat.

Then, those for whom that affront was being prepared protesting, Silius, at variance with Suillius, pressed on sharply, recalling the examples of the old orators, who had thought fame and posterity the rewards of eloquence. Otherwise the fairest, and the chief of the good arts, was being defiled by sordid services; not even good faith remained whole where the greatness of the gains was looked to. But if cases were conducted for no man’s hire, they would be fewer: now enmities, accusations, hatreds and wrongs were fostered, so that, as the force of diseases brings fees to physicians, so the corruption of the forum should bring money to advocates. Let them remember Asinius, Messala, and of more recent men Arruntius and Aeserninus: advanced to the highest places by an uncorrupted life and eloquence. The consul designate so speaking, others agreeing, a motion was being prepared by which they should be held under the law of extortion, when Suillius and Cossutianus and the rest, who saw not a trial—since they were manifest offenders—but a penalty being set, gather round Caesar, deprecating their past deeds.

Deinde obstrepentibus iis quibus ea contumelia parabatur, discors Suillio Silius acriter incubuit, veterum oratorum exempla referens qui famam et posteros praemia eloquentiae cogitavissent. pulcherrimam alioquin et bonarum artium principem sordidis ministeriis foedari; ne fidem quidem integram manere ubi magnitudo quaestuum spectetur. quod si in nullius mercedem negotia agantur pauciora fore: nunc inimicitias accusationes, odia et iniurias foveri, ut quo modo vis morborum pretia medentibus, sic fori tabes pecuniam advocatis ferat. meminissent Asinii, Messalae ac recentiorum Arruntii et Aesernini: ad summa provectos incorrupta vita et facundia. talia dicente consule designato, consentientibus aliis, parabatur sententia qua lege repetundarum tenerentur, cum Suillius et Cossutianus et ceteri qui non iudicium, quippe in manifestos, sed poenam statui videbant, circumsistunt Caesarem ante acta deprecantes.

And after he assented, they begin to plead: who was that man of such great arrogance as to presume in hope on the eternity of his fame? A support for use and affairs was being prepared, lest anyone, through lack of advocates, be at the mercy of the powerful. Nor yet did eloquence come gratis: domestic cares were laid aside, that a man might bend himself to others’ business. Many supported life by soldiering, some by the tilling of fields: nothing was sought by anyone whose fruit he had not first foreseen. Easily had Asinius and Messala, stuffed with the rewards of the wars between Antony and Augustus, or the heirs of rich families, Aeserninus and Arruntius, put on a great spirit. They had examples ready to hand, for what great fees Publius Clodius or Gaius Curio were wont to harangue. They were moderate senators, who, the commonwealth being quiet, sought no emoluments but those of peace. Let him think of the plebs, which shines by the toga: the rewards of studies removed, studies too would perish. The prince, reckoning these things less seemly but not said in vain, set a limit to the taking of moneys, up to ten thousand sesterces, beyond which men should be held under the law of extortion.

Et postquam adnuit, agere incipiunt: quem illum tanta superbia esse ut aeternitatem famae spe praesumat? usui et rebus subsidium praeparari ne quis inopia advocatorum potentibus obnoxius sit. neque tamen eloquentiam gratuito contingere: omitti curas familiaris ut quis se alienis negotiis intendat. multos militia, quosdam exercendo agros tolerare vitam: nihil a quoquam expeti nisi cuius fructus ante providerit. facile Asinium et Messalam, inter Antonium et Augustum bellorum praemiis refertos, aut ditium familiarum heredes Aeserninos et Arruntios magnum animum induisse. prompta sibi exempla, quantis mercedibus P. Clodius aut C. Curio contionari soliti sint. se modicos senatores qui quieta re publica nulla nisi pacis emolumenta peterent. cogitaret plebem quae toga enitesceret: sublatis studiorum pretiis etiam studia peritura. ut minus decora haec, ita haud frustra dicta princeps ratus, capiendis pecuniis posuit modum usque ad dena sestertia quem egressi repetundarum tenerentur.

About the same time Mithridates, whom I have recorded to have ruled the Armenians and to have been bound by order of Gaius Caesar, by the advice of Claudius returned into his kingdom, trusting in the resources of Pharasmanes. That king of the Iberians, and likewise the brother of Mithridates, reported that the Parthians were at discord and the supreme things of empire in doubt, the lesser held without care. For Gotarzes, among very many cruelties, had prepared the death of his brother Artabanus and of his wife and son, whence dread among the rest, and they summoned Vardanes. He, as he was ready for great daring, in two days invades three thousand stadia and drives out the unaware and terrified Gotarzes; nor does he delay to seize the nearest prefectures, the Seleucenes alone refusing his mastery. Against whom, as deserters of his father too, inflamed by anger rather than for present advantage, he is entangled in the siege of a strong city, fortified by the defense of an interposed river, by a wall, and by supplies. Meanwhile Gotarzes, increased by the resources of the Dahae and the Hyrcanians, renews the war, and Vardanes, forced to give up Seleucia, pitched his camp on the Bactrian plains.

Sub idem tempus Mithridates, quem imperitasse Armeniis iussuque G. Caesaris vinctum memoravi, monente Claudio in regnum remeavit, fisus Pharasmanis opibus. is rex Hiberis idemque Mithridatis frater nuntiabat discordare Parthos summaque imperii ambigua, minora sine cura haberi. nam Gotarzes inter pleraque saeva necem fratri Artabano coniugique ac filio eius paraverat, unde metus in ceteros, et accivere Vardanen. ille, ut erat magnis ausis promptus, biduo tria milia stadiorum invadit ignarumque et exterritum Gotarzen proturbat; neque cunctatur quin proximas praefecturas corripiat, solis Seleucensibus dominationem eius abnuentibus. in quos ut patris sui quoque defectores ira magis quam ex usu praesenti accensus, implicatur obsidione urbis validae et munimentis obiecti amnis muroque et commeatibus firmatae. interim Gotarzes Daharum Hyrcanorumque opibus auctus bellum renovat, coactusque Vardanes omittere Seleuciam Bactrianos apud campos castra contulit.

Then, the forces of the East drawn apart and uncertain to which side they should incline, a chance was given to Mithridates of seizing Armenia, by the force of the Roman soldier for the storming of the heights of the forts, while at the same time the Iberian army ranged over the plains. For the Armenians did not resist, Demonax the prefect, who had dared battle, being routed. A little hesitation was brought by Cotys, king of Lesser Armenia, certain of the nobles turning thither; then, checked by a letter of Caesar’s, all flowed toward Mithridates, more savage than was fitting for a new kingdom. But the Parthian commanders, when they were preparing battle, suddenly throw out a treaty, the snares of their countrymen being known which Gotarzes laid open to his brother; and meeting at first hesitatingly, then, right hands joined, before the altars of the gods they pledged to avenge the fraud of their enemies and to yield to each other. And Vardanes seemed the fitter for retaining the kingdom: but Gotarzes, that no rivalry might arise, withdrew deep into Hyrcania. And to Vardanes, returning, Seleucia is surrendered, in the seventh year after its defection, not without disgrace to the Parthians, whom a single city had so long baffled.

Tunc distractis Orientis viribus et quonam inclinarent incertis, casus Mithridati datus est occupandi Armeniam, vi militis Romani ad excindenda castellorum ardua, simul Hibero exercitu campos persultante. nec enim restitere Armenii, fuso qui proelium ausus erat Demonacte praefecto. paululum cunctationis attulit rex minoris Armeniae Cotys, versis illuc quibusdam procerum; dein litteris Caesaris coercitus, et cuncta in Mithridaten fluxere, atrociorem quam novo regno conduceret. at Parthi imperatores cum pugnam pararent, foedus repente iaciunt cognitis popularium insidiis quas Gotarzes fratri patefecit; congressique primo cunctanter, dein complexi dextras apud altaria deum pepigere fraudem inimicorum ulcisci atque ipsi inter se concedere. potiorque Vardanes visus retinendo regno: at Gotarzes ne quid aemulationis existeret penitus in Hyrcaniam abiit. regressoque Vardani deditur Seleucia septimo post defectionem anno, non sine dedecore Parthorum quos una civitas tam diu eluserat.

Then he visited the strongest prefectures; and he was eager to recover Armenia, had he not been restrained by Vibius Marsus, the legate of Syria, threatening war. And meanwhile Gotarzes, in repentance for the kingdom he had conceded, and the nobility calling him—to whom servitude in peace is harder—draws together forces. And on this side a march was made against him to the river Erindes; in the crossing of which, much contested, Vardanes prevailed, and by prosperous battles subdued the intervening nations as far as the river Sindes, which divides the Dahae and the Arii. There a limit was set to his successes: for the Parthians, though victors, spurned a distant campaign. So, monuments built up by which he attested his power, and that tribute had been won from those nations by no Arsacid before him, he returns in great glory, and thereby the fiercer and more intolerable to his subjects; who, by a guile composed beforehand, killed him off his guard and intent on the hunt, within his early youth, but in renown among few of the old kings, had he sought love among his people as much as fear among his enemies. By the death of Vardanes the affairs of the Parthians were thrown into confusion, amid those doubtful whom they should receive into the kingdom. Many inclined to Gotarzes, some to Meherdates, the offspring of Phraates, given to us as a hostage: then Gotarzes prevailed; and, master of the palace, by his savagery and luxury he drove the Parthians to send secret prayers to the Roman prince, by which they begged that Meherdates be permitted to his father’s eminence.

Exim validissimas praefecturas invisit; et reciperare Armeniam avebat, ni a Vibio Marso, Syriae legato, bellum minitante cohibitus foret. atque interim Gotarzes paenitentia concessi regni et vocante nobilitate, cui in pace durius servitium est, contrahit copias. et hinc contra itum ad amnem Erinden; in cuius transgressu multum certato pervicit Vardanes, prosperisque proeliis medias nationes subegit ad flumen Sinden, quod Dahas Ariosque disterminat. ibi modus rebus secundis positus: nam Parthi quamquam victores longinquam militiam aspernabantur. igitur extructis monimentis, quibus opes suas testabatur nec cuiquam ante Arsacidarum tributa illis de gentibus parta, regreditur ingens gloria atque eo ferocior et subiectis intolerantior; qui dolo ante composito incautum venationique intentum interfecere, primam intra iuventam, sed claritudine paucos inter senum regum, si perinde amorem inter popularis quam metum apud hostis quaesivisset. nece Vardanis turbatae Parthorum res inter ambiguos quis in regnum acciperetur. multi ad Gotarzen inclinabant, quidam ad Meherdaten prolem Phraatis, obsidio nobis datum: dein praevaluit Gotarzes; potitusque regiam per saevitiam ac luxum adegit Parthos mittere ad principem Romanum occultas preces, quis permitti Meherdaten patrium ad fastigium orabant.

Under the same consuls the Secular Games were beheld, in the eight-hundredth year after the founding of Rome, the sixty-fourth after Augustus had given them. The reckonings of each prince I pass over, having related them enough in the books in which I composed the affairs of the emperor Domitian. For he too gave Secular Games, and at those I was present the more attentively, endowed with the quindecimviral priesthood and then praetor; which I report not from boastfulness but because that charge belonged of old to the college of the Fifteen, and the magistrates chiefly discharged the offices of the ceremonies. Claudius sitting at the Circensian games, when noble boys entered on the equestrian sport of Troy, and among them Britannicus the emperor’s son and Lucius Domitius, soon adopted into the empire and the surname of Nero, the keener favor of the plebs toward Domitius was received in the place of a presage. And it was put about that serpents had attended his infancy in the fashion of guards—a fabulous tale, likened to foreign marvels: for he himself, by no means a disparager of himself, was wont to relate that one snake only had been seen in his chamber.

Isdem consulibus ludi saeculares octingentesimo post Romam conditam, quarto et sexagesimo quam Augustus ediderat, spectati sunt. utriusque principis rationes praetermitto, satis narratas libris quibus res imperatoris Domitiani composui. nam is quoque edidit ludos saecularis iisque intentius adfui sacerdotio quindecimvirali praeditus ac tunc praetor; quod non iactantia refero sed quia collegio quindecimvirum antiquitus ea cura et magistratus potissimum exequebantur officia caerimoniarum. sedente Claudio circensibus ludis, cum pueri nobiles equis ludicrum Troiae inirent interque eos Britannicus imperatore genitus et L. Domitius adoptione mox in imperium et cognomentum Neronis adscitus, favor plebis acrior in Domitium loco praesagii acceptus est. vulgabaturque adfuisse infantiae eius dracones in modum custodum, fabulosa et externis miraculis adsimilata: nam ipse, haudquaquam sui detractor, unam omnino anguem in cubiculo visam narrare solitus est.

But the inclination of the people survived from the memory of Germanicus, of whom that was the remaining male offspring; and pity for his mother Agrippina was augmented by the savagery of Messalina, who, always hostile and now the more stirred, was kept by a new and almost frenzied love from contriving charges and accusers. For toward Gaius Silius, the fairest of the Roman youth, she had so blazed up that she drove Junia Silana, a noble woman, from his marriage and possessed the unencumbered adulterer. Nor was Silius ignorant of the outrage or the peril: but, certain of destruction if he refused, and with some hope of escaping detection, together with great rewards, he held it for a solace to cover the future and to enjoy the present. She, not stealthily but with a great train, kept coming to his house, clung to him as he went out, lavished wealth and honors; finally, as though fortune were already transferred, the slaves, the freedmen, the equipage of a prince were seen at the adulterer’s.

Verum inclinatio populi supererat ex memoria Germanici, cuius illa reliqua suboles virilis; et matri Agrippinae miseratio augebatur ob saevitiam Messalinae, quae semper infesta et tunc commotior quo minus strueret crimina et accusatores novo et furori proximo amore distinebatur. nam in C. Silium, iuventutis Romanae pulcherrimum, ita exarserat ut Iuniam Silanam, nobilem feminam, matrimonio eius exturbaret vacuoque adultero poteretur. neque Silius flagitii aut periculi nescius erat: sed certo si abnueret exitio et non nulla fallendi spe, simul magnis praemiis, operire futura et praesentibus frui pro solacio habebat. illa non furtim sed multo comitatu ventitare domum, egressibus adhaerescere, largiri opes honores; postremo, velut translata iam fortuna, servi liberti paratus principis apud adulterum visebantur.

But Claudius, ignorant of his own marriage and discharging the censorial functions, rebuked with severe edicts the theatrical license of the people, because it had cast reproaches on Publius Pomponius, a consular (he gave verses to the stage), and on illustrious women. And, a law passed, he curbed the savagery of creditors, that they should not lend money at interest to sons of families against their parents’ death. And he brought into the city the springs of water led down from the Simbruine hills. And he added and made public new forms of letters, having found out that Greek lettering too was not begun and completed at once.

At Claudius matrimonii sui ignarus et munia censoria usurpans, theatralem populi lasciviam severis edictis increpuit, quod in Publium Pomponium consularem (is carmina scaenae dabat) inque feminas inlustris probra iecerat. et lege lata saevitiam creditorum coercuit, ne in mortem parentum pecunias filiis familiarum faenori darent. fontisque aquarum Simbruinis collibus deductos urbi intulit. ac novas litterarum formas addidit vulgavitque, comperto Graecam quoque litteraturam non simul coeptam absolutamque.

First the Egyptians, by the figures of animals, used to represent the senses of the mind (those most ancient monuments of human memory are seen impressed on stones), and they claim themselves the inventors of letters; thence the Phoenicians, because they were strongest at sea, brought them into Greece and won the glory, as though they had discovered what they had received. For there is a report that Cadmus, carried by a fleet of Phoenicians, was the author of that art to the still-rude peoples of the Greeks. Some relate that Cecrops the Athenian, or Linus the Theban, and in Trojan times Palamedes the Argive, found sixteen forms of letters, soon others, and chiefly Simonides, the rest. But in Italy the Etruscans learned from the Corinthian Demaratus, the Aborigines from the Arcadian Evander; and the form of the Latin letters is what was in the oldest of the Greeks. But with us too there were few at first, then they were added. By which example Claudius added three letters, which, in use while he reigned, after fallen into oblivion, are seen even now in the public bronze affixed throughout the forums and temples for the plebiscites.

Primi per figuras animalium Aegyptii sensus mentis effingebant (ea antiquissima monimenta memoriae humanae impressa saxis cernuntur), et litterarum semet inventores perhibent; inde Phoenicas, quia mari praepollebant, intulisse Graeciae gloriamque adeptos, tamquam reppererint quae acceperant. quippe fama est Cadmum classe Phoenicum vectum rudibus adhuc Graecorum populis artis eius auctorem fuisse. quidam Cecropem Atheniensem vel Linum Thebanum et temporibus Troianis Palamedem Argivum memorant sedecim litterarum formas, mox alios ac praecipuum Simoniden ceteras repperisse. at in Italia Etrusci ab Corinthio Demarato, Aborigines Arcade ab Evandro didicerunt; et forma litteris Latinis quae veterrimis Graecorum. sed nobis quoque paucae primum fuere, deinde additae sunt. quo exemplo Claudius tres litteras adiecit, quae usui imperi- tante eo, post oblitteratae, aspiciuntur etiam nunc in aere publico dis plebiscitis per fora ac templa fixo.

He then referred to the Senate concerning the college of haruspices, that the most ancient discipline of Italy should not, through sloth, fall into decay: often, in adverse times of the commonwealth, they had been summoned, by whose admonition the ceremonies were renewed and for the future more rightly kept; and the chief men of Etruria, of their own accord or at the urging of the Roman fathers, had retained the knowledge and propagated it in their families: which now was done more slackly through the public indifference toward the good arts, and because foreign superstitions were gaining strength. And all things indeed were glad for the present, but thanks must be rendered to the kindness of the gods, lest the rites of sacred things, cultivated amid doubtful seasons, should in prosperity be forgotten. A decree of the Senate was made thereon, that the pontiffs should consider what of the haruspices’ lore was to be retained and confirmed.

Rettulit deinde ad senatum super collegio haruspicum, ne vetustissima Italiae disciplina per desidiam exolesceret: saepe adversis rei publicae temporibus accitos, quorum monitu redintegratas caerimonias et in posterum rectius habitas; primoresque Etruriae sponte aut patrum Romanorum impulsu retinuisse scientiam et in familias propagasse: quod nunc segnius fieri publica circa bonas artes socordia, et quia externae superstitiones valescant. et laeta quidem in praesens omnia, sed benignitati deum gratiam referendam, ne ritus sacrorum inter ambigua culti per prospera oblitterarentur. factum ex eo senatus consultum, viderent pontifices quae retinenda firmandaque haruspicum.

In the same year the nation of the Cherusci sought a king from Rome, having lost their nobles through internal wars and one only remaining of the royal stock, who was kept in the city, by name Italicus. His father’s line was from Flavus, brother of Arminius, his mother from Actumerus, chief of the Chatti; he himself comely in form and trained in arms and horses after his fathers’ manner and ours. So Caesar, having augmented him with money, attendants added, exhorts him to take up with a great spirit his ancestral honor: that he, the first sprung at Rome, and not a hostage but a citizen, was going forth to a foreign realm. And at first his coming was glad to the Germans, and because, imbued with no discords, he carried himself with equal zeal toward all, he was celebrated, courted—now putting on affability and temperance, hateful to none, more often drunkenness and lusts, pleasing to barbarians. And now among those nearest, now further off, he was growing famous, when those who had flourished by factions, suspecting his power, withdraw to the neighboring peoples and bear witness that the old liberty of Germany was being taken away and the Roman power rising. Was there indeed no one born in those same lands to fill the chief place, unless the offspring of the spy Flavus were raised above all? In vain was Arminius cited: whose son, had he come, grown up on hostile soil, into the kingdom, might have been dreaded, tainted with the food, the slavery, the dress, with all things foreign: but if Italicus had his father’s mind, no other had wielded arms more bitterly against his country and the household gods than that man’s parent.

Eodem anno Cheruscorum gens regem Roma petivit, amissis per interna bella nobilibus et uno reliquo stirpis regiae, qui apud urbem habebatur nomine Italicus. paternum huic genus e Flavo fratre Arminii, mater ex Actumero principe Chattorum erat; ipse forma decorus et armis equisque in patrium nostrumque morem exercitus. igitur Caesar auctum pecunia, additis stipatoribus, hortatur gentile decus magno animo capessere: illum primum Romae ortum nec obsidem, sed civem ire externum ad imperium. ac primo laetus Germanis adventus atque eo quod nullis discordiis imbutus pari in omnis studio ageret celebrari, coli, modo comitatem et temperantiam, nulli invisa, saepius vinolentiam ac libidines, grata barbaris, usurpans. iamque apud proximos, iam longius clarescere, cum potentiam eius suspectantes qui factionibus floruerant discedunt ad con- terminos populos ac testificantur adimi veterem Germaniae libertatem et Romanas opes insurgere. adeo neminem isdem in terris ortum qui principem locum impleat, nisi exploratoris Flavi progenies super cunctos attollatur? frustra Arminium praescribi: cuius si filius hostili in solo adultus in regnum venisset, posse extimesci, infectum alimonio servitio cultu, omnibus externis: at si paterna Italico mens esset, non alium infensius arma contra patriam ac deos penatis quam parentem eius exercuisse.

By these and the like words they gathered great forces, nor were those who followed Italicus fewer. For he kept urging that he had not burst in upon the unwilling but had been summoned, since he surpassed the rest in nobility: let them try his valor, whether he showed himself worthy of his uncle Arminius, his grandfather Actumerus. Nor was his father a cause of shame, in that he had never abandoned the faith toward the Romans taken up with the Germans’ own consent. The name of liberty was falsely held out by those who, degenerate in private, ruinous in public, had no hope but through discords. The crowd, eager, applauded him; and in a great battle among the barbarians the king was victor, then, by prosperous fortune slipping into arrogance, was driven out and again restored by the resources of the Langobardi, and through glad and adverse fortunes kept harassing the Cheruscan state.

His atque talibus magnas copias coegere, nec pauciores Italicum sequebantur. non enim inrupisse ad invitos sed accitum memorabat, quando nobilitate ceteros anteiret: virtutem experirentur, an dignum se patruo Arminio, avo Actumero praeberet. nec patrem rubori, quod fidem adversus Romanos volentibus Germanis sumptam numquam omisisset. falso libertatis vocabulum obtendi ab iis qui privatim degeneres, in publicum exitiosi, nihil spei nisi per discordias habeant. adstrepebat huic alacre vulgus; et magno inter barbaros proelio victor rex, dein secunda fortuna ad superbiam prolapsus pulsusque ac rursus Langobardorum opibus refectus per laeta per adversa res Cheruscas adflictabat.

About the same time the Chauci, with no dissension at home and made eager by the death of Sanquinius, while Corbulo was approaching, overran Lower Germany under the leadership of Gannascus, who, a Canninefas by nation, having earned auxiliary pay, then a deserter, with light vessels, bent on plunder, was wasting chiefly the coast of the Gauls, not unaware that they were rich and unwarlike. But Corbulo, entering the province with great care and soon glory—of which that campaign was the beginning—drove the triremes by the channel of the Rhine, the rest of the ships, as each was handy, through the estuaries and ditches; and, the enemy’s skiffs sunk and Gannascus driven out, when the present matters were sufficiently composed, the legions, slothful at works and toil and delighting in pillage, he led back to the old discipline, that no one should depart from the column nor join battle except when ordered. The pickets, the watches, the day and night duties were carried on under arms; and they say a soldier was punished with death because he was digging at the rampart ungirt, and another because girt only with a dagger. Which things, excessive and uncertain whether falsely flung about, yet drew their origin from the severity of the leader; and you may know him intent and inexorable toward great offenses, in whom so much harshness even against trifles was believed.

Per idem tempus Chauci nulla dissensione domi et morte Sanquinii alacres, dum Corbulo adventat, inferiorem Germaniam incursavere duce Gannasco, qui natione Canninefas, auxiliare stipendium meritus, post transfuga, levibus navigiis praedabundus Gallorum maxime oram vastabat, non ignarus ditis et imbellis esse. at Corbulo provinciam ingres- sus magna cum cura et mox gloria, cui principium illa militia fuit, triremis alveo Rheni, ceteras navium, ut quaeque habiles, per aestuaria et fossas adegit; luntribusque hostium depressis et exturbato Gannasco, ubi praesentia satis composita sunt, legiones operum et laboris ignavas, populationibus laetantis, veterem ad morem reduxit, ne quis agmine decederet nec pugnam nisi iussus iniret. stationes vigiliae, diurna nocturnaque munia in armis agitabantur; feruntque militem quia vallum non accinctus, atque alium quia pugione tantum accinctus foderet, morte punitos. quae nimia et incertum an falso iacta originem tamen e severitate ducis traxere; intentumque et magnis delictis inexorabilem scias cui tantum asperitatis etiam adversus levia credebatur.

But that terror affected the soldiers and the enemy in opposite ways: we increased our valor, the barbarians broke their fierceness. And the nation of the Frisii, hostile or ill-faithful after a rebellion begun with the disaster of Lucius Apronius, having given hostages, settled in the fields marked out by Corbulo: he likewise imposed a senate, magistrates, laws. And lest they should cast off his orders, he fortified a garrison, sending men to lure the greater Chauci to surrender, and at the same time to attack Gannascus by guile. Nor were the snares ineffectual or base against a deserter and violator of faith. But by his killing the minds of the Chauci were stirred, and Corbulo was furnishing the seeds of rebellion, as the report was glad among most, so among some sinister. Why was he provoking the enemy? Adverse things would fall upon the commonwealth: but if he had acted prosperously, a distinguished man was a thing of dread to peace and too heavy for an indolent prince. So Claudius so forbade new force in the Germanies that he ordered the garrisons to be withdrawn to the near side of the Rhine.

Ceterum is terror milites hostisque in diversum adfecit: nos virtutem auximus, barbari ferociam infregere. et natio Frisiorum, post rebellionem clade L. Apronii coeptam infensa aut male fida, datis obsidibus consedit apud agros a Corbulone descriptos: idem senatum, magistratus, leges imposuit. ac ne iussa exuerent praesidium immunivit, missis qui maiores Chaucos ad deditionem pellicerent, simul Gannascum dolo adgrederentur. nec inritae aut degeneres insidiae fuere adversus transfugam et violatorem fidei. sed caede eius motae Chaucorum mentes, et Corbulo semina rebellionis praebebat, ut laeta apud plerosque, ita apud quosdam sinistra fama. cur hostem conciret? adversa in rem publicam casura: sin prospere egisset, formidolosum paci virum insignem et ignavo principi praegravem. igitur Claudius adeo novam in Germanias vim prohibuit ut referri praesidia cis Rhenum iuberet.

Corbulo was already constructing a camp on hostile soil when that letter is delivered to him. He, at the sudden thing, although many things were poured upon him at once—fear from the emperor, contempt from the barbarians, mockery among the allies—saying nothing else than "Happy the Roman leaders of old," gave the signal for retreat. Yet, that the soldier might shed his idleness, he carried a ditch of three-and-twenty miles’ space between the Meuse and the Rhine, by which the uncertainties of the Ocean might be avoided. Yet Caesar granted him the insignia of a triumph, though he had refused him a war. Nor much after Curtius Rufus obtains the same honor, who in the Mattiac territory had opened pits for the seeking of veins of silver; whence the gain was slight and not for long: but for the legions there was toil with loss, to dig channels and to work below ground what in the open is heavy. Worn down by which, the soldier, and because in many provinces like things were endured, composes a secret letter in the name of the armies, praying the emperor to bestow triumphal honors beforehand on those to whom he was about to entrust armies.

Iam castra in hostili solo molienti Corbuloni eae litterae redduntur. ille re subita, quamquam multa simul offunderentur, metus ex imperatore, contemptio ex barbaris, ludibrium apud socios, nihil aliud prolocutus quam ’beatos quondam duces Romanos,’ signum receptui dedit. ut tamen miles otium exueret, inter Mosam Rhenumque trium et viginti milium spatio fossam perduxit, qua incerta Oceani vitarentur. insignia tamen triumphi indulsit Caesar, quamvis bellum negavisset. Nec multo post Curtius Rufus eundem honorem adipiscitur, qui in agro Mattiaco recluserat specus quaerendis venis argenti; unde tenuis fructus nec in longum fuit: at legionibus cum damno labor, effodere rivos, quaeque in aperto gravia, humum infra moliri. quis subactus miles, et quia pluris per provincias similia tolerabantur, componit occultas litteras nomine exercituum, precantium imperatorem, ut, quibus permissurus esset exercitus, triumphalia ante tribueret.

Of the origin of Curtius Rufus, whom some have reported born of a gladiator, I would neither put forth falsehoods nor am I ashamed to pursue the truth. After he grew up, a follower of the quaestor to whom Africa had fallen, while in the town of Adrumetum he passed his time alone in the porticoes empty through the midday, a female shape beyond human measure was presented to him, and a voice heard: "You are he, Rufus, who shall come into this province as proconsul." Lifted by such an omen into hope, and going down to the city, by the largess of his friends, together with a keen wit, he attains the quaestorship, and soon, among noble candidates, the praetorship by the prince’s vote, when Tiberius had veiled the disgrace of his birth with these words: "Curtius Rufus seems to me born of himself." A long old age after this, and toward his superiors of a grim flattery, arrogant to his inferiors, difficult among his equals, he held consular command, the insignia of a triumph, and finally Africa; and there, dying, he fulfilled the fated presage.

De origine Curtii Rufi, quem gladiatore genitum quidam prodidere, neque falsa prompserim et vera exequi pudet. postquam adolevit, sectator quaestoris, cui Africa obtigerat, dum in oppido Adrumeto vacuis per medium diei porticibus secretus agitat, oblata ei species muliebris ultra modum humanum et audita est vox ’tu es, Rufe, qui in hanc provinciam pro consule venies.’ tali omine in spem sublatus degressusque in urbem largitione amicorum, simul acri ingenio quaesturam et mox nobilis inter candidatos praeturam principis suffragio adsequitur, cum hisce verbis Tiberius dedecus natalium eius velavisset: ’Curtius Rufus videtur mihi ex se natus.’ longa post haec senecta, et adversus superiores tristi adulatione, adrogans minoribus, inter pares difficilis, consulare imperium, triumphi insignia ac postremo Africam obtinuit; atque ibi defunctus fatale praesagium implevit.

Meanwhile at Rome, with no causes openly nor afterward known, Gnaeus Nonius, a Roman knight, is found girt with a sword in the throng of those greeting the prince. For after he was torn by tortures, he did not deny about himself, but did not give up accomplices—whether there were any to hide is uncertain. Under the same consuls Publius Dolabella proposed that a spectacle of gladiators should be celebrated every year at the cost of those who attained the quaestorship. Among the ancestors that had been a reward of virtue, and it was permitted to all citizens, if they trusted in good arts, to seek the magistracies; nor was even age distinguished, but that they entered on the consulship and dictatorships in their first youth. But the quaestors were instituted while the kings still reigned, as the curiate law repeated by Lucius Brutus shows. And the power of choosing remained with the consuls, until the people should commit that honor too. And first were created Valerius Potitus and Aemilius Mamercus, in the sixty-third year after the Tarquins were driven out, that they might attend the military business. Then, affairs swelling, two were added to take charge at Rome: soon the number was doubled, Italy now tributary and the revenues of the provinces accruing: afterward, by Sulla’s law, twenty were created for the replenishing of the Senate, to which he had handed over the courts. And although the knights had recovered the courts, the quaestorship was nonetheless granted gratuitously, according to the dignity of the candidates or the easiness of those bestowing it, until by Dolabella’s motion it was, as it were, put up for sale.

Interea Romae, nullis palam neque cognitis mox causis, Cn. Nonius eques Romanus ferro accinctus reperitur in coetu salutantum principem. nam postquam tormentis dilaniabatur, de se non infitiatus conscios non edidit, incertum an occultans. Isdem consulibus P. Dolabella censuit spectaculum gladiatorum per omnis annos celebrandum pecunia eorum qui quaesturam adipiscerentur. apud maiores virtutis id praemium fuerat, cunctisque civium, si bonis artibus fiderent, licitum petere magistratus; ac ne aetas quidem distinguebatur quin prima iuventa consulatum et dictaturas inirent. sed quaestores regibus etiam tum imperantibus instituti sunt, quod lex curiata ostendit ab L. Bruto repetita. mansitque consulibus potestas deligendi, donec eum quoque honorem populus mandaret. creatique primum Valerius Potitus et Aemilius Mamercus sexagesimo tertio anno post Tarquinios exactos, ut rem militarem comitarentur. dein gliscentibus negotiis duo additi qui Romae curarent: mox duplicatus numerus, stipendiaria iam Italia et accedentibus provinciarum vectigalibus: post lege Sullae viginti creati supplendo senatui, cui iudicia tradiderat. et quamquam equites iudicia reciperavissent, quaestura tamen ex dignitate candidatorum aut facilitate tribuentium gratuito concedebatur, donec sententia Dolabellae velut venundaretur.

In the consulship of Aulus Vitellius and Lucius Vipstanus, when the replenishing of the Senate was being agitated, and the chief men of that Gaul which is called Long-Haired, having long since obtained treaties and Roman citizenship, sought the right of acquiring honors in the city, there was much and varied rumor on the matter. And it was contended before the prince with diverse zeals by those asserting that Italy was not so sick as to be unable to supply a senate to its own city. Of old the natives had sufficed for peoples of one blood, nor did they repent of the old commonwealth. Nay, even now examples were cited which the Roman character by its ancient manners had brought forth to virtue and glory. Was it too little that the Veneti and Insubres had burst into the Curia, unless a crowd of foreigners were brought in like a captivity? What honor would be left to the surviving nobles, or to any poor senator from Latium? Those rich men would fill up everything, whose grandfathers and great-grandfathers, leaders of hostile nations, had cut down our armies with steel and force, and had besieged the deified Julius at Alesia. These were recent things: what if the memory should arise of those who, beneath the Capitol and the citadel of Rome, had perished by the hands of those same men? Let them enjoy, by all means, the name of citizenship: the insignia of the Fathers, the decorations of the magistracies, let them not make common.

A. Vitellio L. Vipstano consulibus cum de supplendo senatu agitaretur primoresque Galliae, quae Comata appellatur, foedera et civitatem Romanam pridem adsecuti, ius adipiscendorum in urbe honorum expeterent, multus ea super re variusque rumor. et studiis diversis apud principem certabatur adseverantium non adeo aegram Italiam ut senatum suppeditare urbi suae nequiret. suffecisse olim indigenas consanguineis populis nec paenitere veteris rei publicae. quin adhuc memorari exempla quae priscis moribus ad virtutem et gloriam Romana indoles prodiderit. an parum quod Veneti et Insubres curiam inruperint, nisi coetus alienigenarum velut captivitas inferatur? quem ultra honorem residuis nobilium, aut si quis pauper e Latio senator foret? oppleturos omnia divites illos, quorum avi proavique hostilium nationum duces exercitus nostros ferro vique ceciderint, divum Iulium apud Alesiam obsederint. recentia haec: quid si memoria eorum moreretur qui sub Capitolio et arce Romana manibus eorundem perissent satis: fruerentur sane vocabulo civitatis: insignia patrum, decora magistratuum ne vulgarent.

Unmoved by these and the like, the prince both at once spoke against them, and, the Senate summoned, began thus: "My ancestors, of whom the most ancient, Clausus, of Sabine origin, was at once received into the Roman citizenship and into the families of the patricians, exhort me to use like counsels in administering the commonwealth, by transferring hither whatever has anywhere been excellent. For I am not unaware that the Julii were summoned from Alba, the Coruncanii from Camerium, the Porcii from Tusculum, and—not to search out old things—that men were called into the Senate from Etruria and Lucania and all Italy, and finally that Italy itself was extended to the Alps, so that not only single men one by one, but lands and nations, should coalesce into our name. Then was there solid quiet at home, and we flourished against foreign things, when the Transpadanes were received into citizenship, when, under the show of legions settled throughout the world, the strongest of the provincials being added, the wearied empire was succored. Do we repent that the Balbi crossed over from Spain, and men no less distinguished from Narbonese Gaul? Their descendants remain, nor do they yield to us in love toward this fatherland. What else was ruin to the Lacedaemonians and Athenians, though they prevailed in arms, but that they kept off the conquered as foreigners? But our founder Romulus so prevailed in wisdom that he held very many peoples on the same day as enemies, then as citizens. Strangers have reigned over us: to entrust magistracies to the sons of freedmen is not, as very many are deceived, a sudden thing, but was repeatedly done by the earlier people. But we fought with the Senones: forsooth the Volsci and Aequi never drew up a battle-line against us. We were taken by the Gauls: but we also gave hostages to the Etruscans and went under the yoke of the Samnites. And yet, if you review all the wars, none was finished in a shorter space than that against the Gauls: thence continuous and faithful peace. Now, mingled with us in manners, arts, and connections, let them bring in their gold and wealth rather than possess it apart. All things, Fathers of the Senate, which are now believed most ancient, were new: plebeian magistrates after the patricians, Latin after the plebeian, those of the other Italian nations after the Latin. This too will grow old, and what today we defend by examples will be among the examples."

His atque talibus haud permotus princeps et statim contra disseruit et vocato senatu ita exorsus est: ’maiores mei, quorum antiquissimus Clausus origine Sabina simul in civitatem Romanam et in familias patriciorum adscitus est, hortantur uti paribus consiliis in re publica capessenda, transferendo huc quod usquam egregium fuerit. neque enim ignoro Iulios Alba, Coruncanios Camerio, Porcios Tusculo, et ne vetera scrutemur, Etruria Lucaniaque et omni Italia in senatum accitos, postremo ipsam ad Alpis promotam ut non modo singuli viritim, sed terrae, gentes in nomen nostrum coalescerent. tunc solida domi quies et adversus externa floruimus, cum Transpadani in civitatem recepti, cum specie deductarum per orbem terrae legionum additis provincialium validissimis fesso imperio subventum est. num paenitet Balbos ex Hispania nec minus insignis viros e Gallia Narbonensi transivisse? manent posteri eorum nec amore in hanc patriam nobis concedunt. quid aliud exitio Lacedaemoniis et Atheniensibus fuit, quamquam armis pollerent, nisi quod victos pro alienigenis arcebant? at conditor nostri Romulus tantum sapientia valuit ut plerosque populos eodem die hostis, dein civis habuerit. advenae in nos regnaverunt: libertinorum filiis magistratus mandare non, ut plerique falluntur, repens, sed priori populo factitatum est. at cum Senonibus pugnavimus: scilicet Vulsci et Aequi numquam adversam nobis aciem instruxere. capti a Gallis sumus: sed et Tuscis obsides dedimus et Samnitium iugum subiimus. ac tamen, si cuncta bella recenseas, nullum breviore spatio quam adversus Gallos confectum: continua inde ac fida pax. iam moribus artibus adfinitatibus nostris mixti aurum et opes suas inferant potius quam separati habeant. omnia, patres conscripti, quae nunc vetustissima creduntur, nova fuere: plebeii magistratus post patricios, Latini post plebeios, ceterarum Italiae gentium post Latinos. inveterascet hoc quoque, et quod hodie exemplis tuemur, inter exempla erit.’

A decree of the Fathers following the prince’s speech, the Aedui first obtained the right of senators in the city. This was granted to an ancient treaty, and because they alone of the Gauls use the name of brotherhood with the Roman people. In the same days Caesar enrolled among the number of the patricians every oldest senator, or those whose parents had been illustrious, few now remaining of the families which Romulus had called the greater and Lucius Brutus the lesser houses, those too being exhausted which the dictator Caesar by the Cassian law and the prince Augustus by the Saenian had chosen up; and these functions, glad for the commonwealth, were entered upon by the censor with much joy. Anxious by what means he should expel from the Senate men infamous for disgraces, he applied a mild and newly devised method rather than one of ancient severity, by advising each to deliberate with himself about himself and to seek the right of laying aside his order: easy would be the indulgence for that; and he would propose the expelled and the excused together, so that the judgment of the censors and the shame of those yielding voluntarily, mingled, might soften the ignominy. For which Vipstanus the consul proposed that Claudius should be called the father of the Senate: for the surname of father of the country was common; new services to the commonwealth must be honored with unusual titles: but he himself restrained the consul as too flattering. And he closed the lustrum, in which were counted of citizens five million nine hundred and eighty-four thousand and seventy-two. And that was the end of his ignorance toward his own house: not much after he was driven to learn and to punish his wife’s outrages, that thereafter he should blaze up into an incestuous marriage.

Orationem principis secuto patrum consulto primi Aedui senatorum in urbe ius adepti sunt. datum id foederi antiquo et quia soli Gallorum fraternitatis nomen cum populo Romano usurpant. Isdem diebus in numerum patriciorum adscivit Caesar vetustissimum quemque e senatu aut quibus clari parentes fuerant, paucis iam reliquis familiarum, quas Romulus maiorum et L. Brutus minorum gentium appellaverant, exhaustis etiam quas dictator Caesar lege Cassia et princeps Augustus lege Saenia sublegere; laetaque haec in rem publicam munia multo gaudio censoris inibantur. famosos probris quonam modo senatu depelleret anxius, mitem et recens repertam quam ex severitate prisca rationem adhibuit, monendo secum quisque de se consultaret peteretque ius exuendi ordinis: facilem eius rei veniam; et motos senatu excusatosque simul propositurum ut iudicium censorum ac pudor sponte cedentium permixta ignominiam mollirent. ob ea Vipstanus consul rettulit patrem senatus appellandum esse Claudium: quippe promiscum patris patriae cognomentum; nova in rem publicam merita non usitatis vocabulis honoranda: sed ipse cohibuit consulem ut nimium adsentantem. condiditque lustrum quo censa sunt civium quinquagies novies centena octoginta quattuor milia septuaginta duo. isque illi finis inscitiae erga domum suam fuit: haud multo post flagitia uxoris noscere ac punire adactus est ut deinde ardesceret in nuptias incestas.

Now Messalina, turned by the easiness of her adulteries to unknown lusts, was running into excess, when Silius too—whether by a fatal madness, or thinking the very perils a remedy for the impending perils—urged that dissimulation be broken off: for they had not come to the point of waiting for the prince’s old age. To the innocent, harmless counsels; for manifest outrages, help must be sought from boldness. They had accomplices fearing the like. He himself was unmarried, childless, ready for marriage and for adopting Britannicus. The same power would remain to Messalina, with security added, if they forestalled Claudius, who, as he was incautious against snares, so was hasty in anger. These words were received slackly, not from love toward her husband, but lest Silius, having attained the highest, should spurn his paramour and weigh at its true price a crime approved amid hazards. Yet she coveted the name of marriage, for the greatness of the infamy, which is the last pleasure of the prodigal. And, waiting no longer than until Claudius set out for Ostia for the sake of a sacrifice, she celebrates all the solemnities of a wedding.

Iam Messalina facilitate adulteriorum in fastidium versa ad incognitas libidines profluebat, cum abrumpi dissimulationem etiam Silius, sive fatali vaecordia an imminentium periculorum remedium ipsa pericula ratus, urgebat: quippe non eo ventum ut senectam principis opperirentur. insontibus innoxia consilia, flagitiis manifestis subsidium ab audacia petendum. adesse conscios paria metuentis. se caelibem, orbum, nuptiis et adoptando Britannico paratum. mansuram eandem Messalinae potentiam, addita securitate, si praevenirent Claudium, ut insidiis incautum, ita irae properum. segniter eae voces acceptae, non amore in maritum, sed ne Silius summa adeptus sperneret adulteram scelusque inter ancipitia probatum veris mox pretiis aestimaret. nomen tamen matrimonii concupivit ob magnitudinem infamiae cuius apud prodigos novissima voluptas est. nec ultra expectato quam dum sacrificii gratia Claudius Ostiam proficisceretur, cuncta nuptiarum sollemnia celebrat.

I am not unaware that it will seem fabulous that any mortals had so much security in a city aware of all things and silent about nothing—much more that a consul designate, with the prince’s wife, on an appointed day, witnesses called to seal the contract, came together as if for the begetting of children; that she heard the words of the auspices, took her place, sacrificed before the gods; that there was a reclining among the guests, kisses, embraces, in fine a night passed in conjugal license. But nothing have I composed for the sake of the marvel; rather I shall hand down things heard and written by my elders.

Haud sum ignarus fabulosum visum iri tantum ullis mortalium securitatis fuisse in civitate omnium gnara et nihil reticente, nedum consulem designatum cum uxore principis, praedicta die, adhibitis qui obsignarent, velut suscipiendorum liberorum causa convenisse, atque illam audisse auspicum verba, subisse, sacrificasse apud deos; discubitum inter convivas, oscula complexus, noctem denique actam licentia coniugali. sed nihil compositum miraculi causa, verum audita scriptaque senioribus tradam.

So the prince’s household had shuddered, and most of all those in whose hands was power and, if things were overturned, dread, murmured now no longer in secret conversations but openly: while an actor had insulted the prince’s bedchamber, disgrace indeed had been brought, but ruin had stood far off; now a young noble, of dignified beauty, of vigorous mind, and with the near consulship, was girding himself to a greater hope—for it was not hidden what remained after such a marriage. Without doubt fear crept in as they reflected on Claudius, dull and bound to his wife, and the many deaths perpetrated at Messalina’s order: yet again the very facility of the emperor gave confidence that, if they prevailed by the atrocity of the charge, she might be crushed, condemned before she was even accused; but the crisis turned on this—whether her defense were heard, and whether his ears were closed even to her confessing.

Igitur domus principis inhorruerat, maximeque quos penes potentia et, si res verterentur, formido, non iam secretis conloquiis, sed aperte fremere, dum histrio cubiculum principis insultaverit, dedecus quidem inlatum, sed excidium procul afuisse: nunc iuvenem nobilem dignitate formae, vi mentis ac propinquo consulatu maiorem ad spem accingi; nec enim occultum quid post tale matrimonium superesset. subibat sine dubio metus reputantis hebetem Claudium et uxori devinctum multasque mortes iussu Messalinae patratas: rursus ipsa facilitas imperatoris fiduciam dabat, si atrocitate criminis praevaluissent, posse opprimi damnatam ante quam ream; sed in eo discrimen verti, si defensio audiretur, utque clausae aures etiam confitenti forent.

And at first Callistus, already related by me concerning the killing of Gaius Caesar, and Narcissus the contriver of the Appian murder, and Pallas, in the most flagrant favor at that time, debated whether by secret threats they should drive Messalina from her love of Silius, dissembling all else. Then, fearing lest they be dragged of their own accord to ruin, they desist—Pallas through cowardice, Callistus, expert in a former court too, that power is more safely held by cautious than by sharp counsels: Narcissus persisted, changing this only, that by no word should he make her aware beforehand of the charge or the accuser. He himself, intent on his opportunities, Caesar’s stay at Ostia being long, drove two paramours, to whose embraces he was most accustomed, by largess and promises and by showing greater power if the wife were cast down, to undertake the delation.

Ac primo Callistus, iam mihi circa necem G. Caesaris narratus, et Appianae caedis molitor Narcissus flagrantissimaque eo in tempore gratia Pallas agitavere, num Messalinam secretis minis depellerent amore Silii, cuncta alia dissimulantes. dein metu ne ad perniciem ultro traherentur, desistunt, Pallas per ignaviam, Callistus prioris quoque regiae peritus et potentiam cautis quam acribus consiliis tutius haberi: perstitit Narcissus, solum id immutans ne quo sermone praesciam criminis et accusatoris faceret. ipse ad occasiones intentus, longa apud Ostiam Caesaris mora, duas paelices, quarum is corpori maxime insueverat, largitione ac promissis et uxore deiecta plus potentiae ostentando perpulit delationem subire.

Thereupon Calpurnia (that was the paramour’s name), when secret access was given, falling at Caesar’s knees, cries out that Messalina has married Silius; at the same time she asks Cleopatra, who stood by awaiting this, whether she had learned it, and, she nodding, demands that Narcissus be summoned. He, begging pardon for the past, that he had dissembled to him the Vettii and the Plautii, says he will not now object the adulteries either, lest he should ask back the house, the slaves, and the rest of the appointments of fortune. Nay, let him enjoy these, but let him give back his wife and break the marriage tablets. "Or do you know of your divorce?" he said. "For the marriage of Silius the people, the Senate, and the soldiers have seen; and unless you act quickly, the husband holds the city."

Exim Calpurnia (id paelici nomen), ubi datum secretum, genibus Caesaris provoluta nupsisse Messalinam Silio exclamat; simul Cleopatram, quae id opperiens adstabat, an comperisset interrogat, atque illa adnuente cieri Narcissum postulat. is veniam in praeteritum petens quod ei Vettios, Plautios dissimulavisset, nec nunc adulteria obiecturum ait, ne domum servitia et ceteros fortunae paratus reposceret. frueretur immo his set redderet uxorem rumperetque tabulas nuptialis. ’an discidium’ inquit ’tuum nosti? nam matrimonium Silii vidit populus et senatus et miles; ac ni propere agis, tenet urbem maritus.’

Then he summons each chief of his friends, and first questions Turranius, prefect of the corn-supply, then Lusius Geta, set over the praetorians. These confessing, the rest clamor round in rivalry, that he should go into the camp, make fast the praetorian cohorts, take thought for safety before vengeance. It is sufficiently agreed that Claudius was so overcome with panic that he asked again and again whether he himself were master of the empire, whether Silius were a private man. But Messalina, never more dissolute in luxury, autumn full grown, was celebrating through the house a mock vintage. The presses were being plied, the vats flowing; and women girt with skins were bounding about like sacrificers or maddened Bacchae; she herself, her hair streaming, brandishing a thyrsus, and beside her Silius bound with ivy, wearing the buskins, tossing his head, while a wanton chorus clamored around. They say that Vettius Valens, in his wantonness having climbed a very tall tree, answered those asking what he saw, that there was a fierce storm from Ostia—whether that appearance had begun, or a chance word turned into a presage.

Tum potissimum quemque amicorum vocat, primumque rei frumentariae praefectum Turranium, post Lusium Getam praetorianis impositum percontatur. quis fatentibus certatim ceteri circumstrepunt, iret in castra, firmaret praetorias cohortis, securitati ante quam vindictae consuleret. satis constat eo pavore offusum Claudium ut identidem interrogaret an ipse imperii potens, an Silius privatus esset. at Messalina non alias solutior luxu, adulto autumno simulacrum vindemiae per domum celebrabat. urgeri prela, fluere lacus; et feminae pellibus accinctae adsultabant ut sacrificantes vel insanientes Bacchae; ipsa crine fluxo thyrsum quatiens, iuxtaque Silius hedera vinctus, gerere cothurnos, iacere caput, strepente circum procaci choro. ferunt Vettium Valentem lascivia in praealtam arborem conisum, interrogantibus quid aspiceret, respondisse tempestatem ab Ostia atrocem, sive coeperat ea species, seu forte lapsa vox in praesagium vertit.

Meanwhile not rumor but messengers from every side come in, who brought word that all was known to Claudius and that he was coming, ready for vengeance. So Messalina goes off into the Lucullan gardens, Silius, dissembling his fear, to the duties of the forum. The rest slipping away here and there, centurions came up, and chains were put on, as each was found in public or in hiding. Messalina, however, although adverse things took away counsel, set herself not slothfully to go to meet him and be seen by her husband—a help she had often had—and sent that Britannicus and Octavia should go into their father’s embrace. And she begged Vibidia, the oldest of the Vestal virgins, to approach the ears of the pontifex maximus and entreat clemency. And meanwhile, with three companions in all—so sudden was that solitude—having measured the space of the city on foot, in a vehicle by which the refuse of the gardens is carried off she enters the Ostian road, with no man’s pity, because the deformity of her outrages prevailed.

Non rumor interea, sed undique nuntii incedunt, qui gnara Claudio cuncta et venire promptum ultioni adferrent. igitur Messalina Lucullianos in hortos, Silius dissimulando metu ad munia fori digrediuntur. ceteris passim dilabentibus adfuere centuriones, inditaque sunt vincla, ut quis reperiebatur in publico aut per latebras. Messalina tamen, quamquam res adversae consilium eximerent, ire obviam et aspici a marito, quod saepe subsidium habuerat, haud segniter intendit misitque ut Britannicus et Octavia in complexum patris pergerent. et Vibidiam, virginum Vestalium vetustissimam, oravit pontificis maximi auris adire, clementiam expetere. atque interim, tribus omnino comitantibusid repente solitudinis eratspatium urbis pedibus emensa, vehiculo, quo purgamenta hortorum eripiuntur, Ostiensem viam intrat nulla cuiusquam misericordia quia flagitiorum deformitas praevalebat.

There was no less trembling on Caesar’s side: for they did not sufficiently trust Geta, prefect of the praetorians, fickle alike to honest things or base. Therefore Narcissus, taking up those whom the same fear moved, affirms that there is no other hope of Caesar’s safety than if he transferred the soldiers’ command for that one day to one of the freedmen, and offers himself to undertake it. And lest, while he is carried into the city, he be turned to repentance by Lucius Vitellius and Largus Caecina, he demands a seat in the same carriage and is taken in.

Trepidabatur nihilo minus a Caesare: quippe Getae praetorii praefecto haud satis fidebant, ad honesta seu prava iuxta levi. ergo Narcissus, adsumptis quibus idem metus, non aliam spem incolumitatis Caesaris adfirmat quam si ius militum uno illo die in aliquem libertorum transferret, seque offert suscepturum. ac ne, dum in urbem vehitur, ad paenitentiam a L. Vitellio et Largo Caecina mutaretur, in eodem gestamine sedem poscit adsumiturque.

Frequent thereafter was the report that, amid the prince’s diverse utterances—now railing at his wife’s outrages, now turned back to the memory of the marriage and the infancy of his children—Vitellius spoke nothing else than "O the deed! O the crime!" Narcissus indeed pressed him to open his riddles and give a clear account: but not for that did he prevail, but that he answered things suspended and inclining whichever way they were being led, and by his example Largus Caecina used the same. And now Messalina was in sight and kept crying out that he should hear the mother of Octavia and Britannicus, when the accuser clamored against her, recounting Silius and the marriage; at the same time he handed over the tablets, the indices of her lusts, by which he turned away Caesar’s eyes. Nor much after, as he entered the city, the common children were presented to him, had not Narcissus ordered them removed. Vibidia he could not drive off but that with much resentment she demanded that the wife should not, undefended, be given to ruin. So he answered that the prince would hear her, and there would be opportunity of washing away the charge: let the virgin go meanwhile and take up the sacred rites.

Crebra post haec fama fuit, inter diversas principis voces, cum modo incusaret flagitia uxoris, aliquando ad memoriam coniugii et infantiam liberorum revolveretur, non aliud prolocutum Vitellium quam ’o facinus! o scelus!’ instabat quidem Narcissus aperire ambages et veri copiam facere: sed non ideo pervicit quin suspensa et quo ducerentur inclinatura responderet exemploque eius Largus Caecina uteretur. et iam erat in aspectu Messalina clamitabatque audiret Octaviae et Britannici matrem, cum obstrepere accusator, Silium et nuptias referens; simul codicillos libidinum indices tradidit, quis visus Caesaris averteret. nec multo post urbem ingredienti offerebantur communes liberi, nisi Narcissus amoveri eos iussisset. Vibidiam depellere nequivit quin multa cum invidia flagitaret ne indefensa coniunx exitio daretur. igitur auditurum principem et fore diluendi criminis facultatem respondit: iret interim virgo et sacra capesseret.

Marvelous amid these things was the silence of Claudius, Vitellius like one ignorant: all obeyed the freedman. He orders the adulterer’s house to be thrown open and the emperor to be led thither. And first, in the vestibule, he points out the effigy of Silius’s father, abolished by a decree of the Senate; then whatever ancestral things of the Nerones and Drusi had passed as the price of the disgrace. And he brings the prince, enraged and bursting into threats, into the camp, an assembly of the soldiers being prepared; before whom, Narcissus prompting, he made few words: for, though his grief was just, shame hindered it. Continuous thereafter was the shout of the cohorts demanding the names and the punishment of the guilty; and Silius, brought to the tribunal, attempted neither defense nor delay, begging that his death be hastened. With the same constancy he orders that illustrious Roman knights too, and Titius Proculus, given by Silius as a guardian to Messalina and now offering information, and Vettius Valens, who confessed, and Pompeius Urbicus and Saufeius Trogus, of the accomplices, be handed over to punishment. Decrius Calpurnianus too, prefect of the watch, Sulpicius Rufus, procurator of the games, Juncus Vergilianus, a senator, were visited with the same penalty.

Mirum inter haec silentium Claudi, Vitellius ignaro propior: omnia liberto oboediebant. patefieri domum adulteri atque illuc deduci imperatorem iubet. ac primum in vestibulo effigiem patris Silii consulto senatus abolitam demonstrat, tum quidquid avitum Neronibus et Drusis in pretium probri cessisse. incensumque et ad minas erumpentem castris infert, parata contione militum; apud quos praemonente Narcisso pauca verba fecit: nam etsi iustum dolorem pudor impediebat. continuus dehinc cohortium clamor nomina reorum et poenas flagitantium; admotusque Silius tribunali non defensionem, non moras temptavit, precatus ut mors acceleraretur. eadem constantia et inlustres equites Romani et Titium Proculum, custodem a Silio Messalinae datum et indicium offerentem, Vettium Valentem confessum et Pompeium Vrbicum ac Saufeium Trogum ex consciis tradi ad supplicium iubet. Decrius quoque Calpurnianus vigilum praefectus, Sulpicius Rufus ludi procurator, Iuncus Vergilianus senator eadem poena adfecti.

Mnester alone brought delay, rending his garment and crying out that Caesar should look on the marks of the lashes, should remember the words by which he had given himself, subject to Messalina’s orders: to others the fault was from largess or the greatness of hope, to him from necessity; nor would any have perished sooner than he, had Silius got the mastery. Caesar, moved by these things and inclined to pity, the freedmen drove on, lest, so many illustrious men killed, an actor be spared: whether he had sinned so greatly of his own will or by compulsion mattered nothing. Not even the defense of Traulus Montanus, a Roman knight, was received. He, of modest youth but distinguished in body, summoned unbidden, had within one night been thrust out by Messalina, with equal caprices toward desire and disgust. Death is remitted to Suillius Caesoninus and Plautius Lateranus, to the latter on account of the eminent merit of his uncle: Caesoninus was protected by his vices, as having, in that most foul gathering, endured the part of a woman.

Solus Mnester cunctationem attulit, dilaniata veste clamitans aspiceret verberum notas, reminisceretur vocis, qua se obnoxium iussis Messalinae dedisset: aliis largitione aut spei magnitudine, sibi ex necessitate culpam; nec cuiquam ante pereundum fuisse si Silius rerum poteretur. commotum his et pronum ad misericordiam Caesarem perpulere liberti ne tot inlustribus viris interfectis histrioni consuleretur: sponte an coactus tam magna peccavisset, nihil referre. ne Trauli quidem Montani equitis Romani defensio recepta est. is modesta iuventa, sed corpore insigni, accitus ultro noctemque intra unam a Messalina proturbatus erat, paribus lasciviis ad cupidinem et fastidia. Suillio Caesonino et Plautio Laterano mors remittitur, huic ob patrui egregium meritum: Caesoninus vitiis protectus est, tamquam in illo foedissimo coetu passus muliebria.

Meanwhile Messalina, in the Lucullan gardens, was prolonging her life, composing prayers, with some hope and at times with anger: so much of arrogance did she bear even amid her last extremities. And had not Narcissus hastened her killing, ruin would have turned upon the accuser. For Claudius, returned home and soothed by a timely feast, when he grew warm with wine, orders men to go and announce to the poor woman (this word, they say, he used) that she should be present the next day to plead her cause. When this was heard, and his anger languished, his love returned, and, if they delayed, the near night and the memory of the marriage-chamber were feared, Narcissus bursts out and gives orders to the centurions and the tribune who was present to carry out the killing: thus the emperor commanded. A guard and exactor of the deed, Euodus, one of the freedmen, is assigned; and he, hastening ahead into the gardens, found her stretched on the ground, her mother Lepida sitting by, who, not in concord with her flourishing daughter, had been overcome to pity by her last necessities, and was urging her not to await the executioner: her life had passed, and nothing was to be sought but a decent death. But in a mind corrupted by lusts nothing honorable was present; and tears and idle laments were drawn out, when by the onrush of the comers the doors were struck, and the tribune stood by in silence, but the freedman reviling her with many and servile reproaches.

Interim Messalina Lucullianis in hortis prolatare vitam, componere preces, non nulla spe et aliquando ira: tantum inter extrema superbiae gerebat. ac ni caedem eius Narcissus properavisset, verterat pernicies in accusatorem. nam Claudius domum regressus et tempestivis epulis delenitus, ubi vino incaluit, iri iubet nuntiarique miserae (hoc enim verbo usum ferunt) dicendam ad causam postera die adesset. quod ubi auditum et languescere ira, redire amor ac, si cunctarentur, propinqua nox et uxorii cubiculi memoria timebantur, prorumpit Narcissus denuntiatque centurionibus et tribuno, qui aderat, exequi caedem: ita imperatorem iubere. custos et exactor e libertis Euodus datur; isque raptim in hortos praegressus repperit fusam humi, adsidente matre Lepida, quae florenti filiae haud concors supremis eius necessitatibus ad miserationem evicta erat suadebatque ne percussorem opperiretur: transisse vitam neque aliud quam morti decus quaerendum. sed animo per libidines corrupto nihil honestum inerat; lacrimaeque et questus inriti ducebantur, cum impetu venientium pulsae fores adstititque tribunus per silentium, at libertus increpans multis et servilibus probris.

Then first she looked into her fortune and took the steel, which, vainly applying to her throat or her breast in her trembling, she is run through by the tribune’s stroke. The body was granted to her mother. And it was announced to Claudius, feasting, that Messalina had perished, no distinction made whether by her own or another’s hand. Nor did he inquire, but called for a cup and went on with the wonted observances of the feast. Not even in the following days did he give signs of hatred or joy, of anger or sadness, in fine of any human affection, not when he beheld the rejoicing accusers, not when he beheld his grieving children. And the Senate aided his forgetfulness of her by decreeing that her name and her effigies should be removed from private and public places. To Narcissus were decreed the quaestorian insignia—the lightest thing for his disdain, when he carried himself above Pallas and Callistus: honorable things indeed, but from which the worst would arise...

Tunc primum fortunam suam introspexit ferrumque accepit, quod frustra iugulo aut pectori per trepidationem admovens ictu tribuni transigitur. corpus matri concessum. nuntiatumque Claudio epulanti perisse Messalinam, non distincto sua an aliena manu. nec ille quaesivit, poposcitque poculum et solita convivio celebravit. ne secutis quidem diebus odii gaudii, irae tristitiae, ullius denique humani adfectus signa dedit, non cum laetantis accusatores aspiceret, non cum filios maerentis. iuvitque oblivionem eius senatus censendo nomen et effigies privatis ac publicis locis demovendas. decreta Narcisso quaestoria insignia, levissimum fastidii eius, cum super Pallantem et Callistum ageret, honesta quidem, sed ex quis deterrima orerentur.

The prince’s house being convulsed by the killing of Messalina, a contest arose among the freedmen, who should choose a wife for Claudius, impatient of a celibate life and subject to the rule of wives. Nor with less canvassing had the women blazed up: each pressed her own nobility, beauty, wealth, and displayed herself worthy of so great a marriage. But it was most debated between Lollia Paulina, daughter of Marcus Lollius the consular, and Julia Agrippina, born of Germanicus: to the latter Pallas, to the former Callistus were partisans; but Aelia Paetina, of the family of the Tuberones, was fostered by Narcissus. He himself, ready now this way, now that, as he had heard each of those advising, calls the disputants into council and orders them to bring forth their opinions and add their reasons.

Caede Messalinae convulsa principis domus, orto apud libertos certamine, quis deligeret uxorem Claudio, caelibis vitae intoleranti et coniugum imperiis obnoxio. nec minore ambitu feminae exarserant: suam quaeque nobilitatem formam opes contendere ac digna tanto matrimonio ostentare. sed maxime ambigebatur inter Lolliam Paulinam M. Lollii consularis et Iuliam Agrippinam Germanico genitam: huic Pallas, illi Callistus fautores aderant; at Aelia Paetina e familia Tuberonum Narcisso fovebatur. ipse huc modo, modo illuc, ut quemque suadentium audierat, promptus, discordantis in consilium vocat ac promere sententiam et adicere rationes iubet.

Narcissus discoursed of the old marriage, of the daughter common to them (for Antonia was born of Paetina), of nothing new in his household if a wonted wife returned, who would by no means look upon Britannicus and Octavia, the nearest pledges to her own, with a stepmother’s hatreds. Callistus, that she had been disapproved by a long divorce, and, if taken back again, would for that very reason be arrogant; and far more rightly was Lollia brought in, since she had borne no children, free from rivalry and ready to be in a parent’s place to the stepchildren. But Pallas praised this most in Agrippina, that she drew with her the grandson of Germanicus, wholly worthy of an emperor’s fortune: let him join a noble stock and the posterity of the Julian and Claudian families, lest a woman of proven fecundity, of unbroken youth, should carry the renown of the Caesars into another house.

Narcissus vetus matrimonium, filiam communem (nam Antonia ex Paetina erat), nihil in penatibus eius novum disserebat, si sueta coniunx rediret, haudquaquam novercalibus odiis visura Britannicum, Octaviam, proxima suis pignora. Callistus improbatam longo discidio, ac si rursum adsumeretur, eo ipso superbam; longeque rectius Lolliam induci, quando nullos liberos genuisset, vacuam aemulatione et privignis parentis loco futuram. at Pallas id maxime in Agrippina laudare quod Germanici nepotem secum traheret, dignum prorsus imperatoria fortuna: stirpem nobilem et familiae Iuliae Claudiaeque posteros coniungeret, ne femina expertae fecunditatis, integra iuventa, claritudinem Caesarum aliam in domum ferret.

These counsels prevailed, aided by the allurements of Agrippina: by coming frequently to him under the show of kinship, she so entices her uncle that, preferred above the rest and not yet his wife, she already wielded a wife’s power. For when she was sure of her own marriage, she set about contriving greater things, and labored at the nuptials of Domitius, whom she had borne of Gnaeus Ahenobarbus, and of Octavia, Caesar’s daughter; which could not be perpetrated without crime, because Caesar had betrothed Octavia to Lucius Silanus, and had brought forward the young man—illustrious in other things too—by the notable insignia of triumphal honor and the magnificence of a gladiatorial show, to the favor of the crowd. But nothing seemed hard in the mind of a prince who had no judgment, no hatred, save what was put in and bidden.

Praevaluere haec adiuta Agrippinae inlecebris: ad eum per speciem necessitudinis crebro ventitando pellicit patruum ut praelata ceteris et nondum uxor potentia uxoria iam uteretur. nam ubi sui matrimonii certa fuit, struere maiora nuptiasque Domitii, quem ex Cn. Ahenobarbo genuerat, et Octaviae Caesaris filiae moliri; quod sine scelere perpetrari non poterat, quia L. Silano desponderat Octaviam Caesar iuvenemque et alia clarum insigni triumphalium et gladiatorii muneris magnificentia protulerat ad studia vulgi. sed nihil arduum videbatur in animo principis, cui non iudicium, non odium erat nisi indita et iussa.

So Vitellius, covering servile deceits under the name of a censor and a provider against the impending masteries, that he might prepare favor with Agrippina, entangles himself in her counsels, brings charges against Silanus, whose sister—comely indeed and forward, Junia Calvina—had not long before been Vitellius’s daughter-in-law. Hence the beginning of the accusation; and he drew the brothers’ love, not incestuous but unguarded, to infamy. And Caesar lent his ears, the readier to receive suspicions against his son-in-law through love of his daughter. But Silanus, ignorant of the snares and by chance praetor that year, is suddenly, by an edict of Vitellius, moved from the senatorial order, although the Senate had long been read and the lustrum closed. At the same time Claudius broke off the affinity, and Silanus was forced to abjure his magistracy, and the remaining day of the praetorship was conferred on Eprius Marcellus.

Igitur Vitellius, nomine censoris servilis fallacias obtegens ingruentiumque dominationum provisor, quo gratiam Agrippinae pararet, consiliis eius implicari, ferre crimina in Silanum, cuius sane decora et procax soror, Iunia Calvina, haud multum ante Vitellii nurus fuerat. hinc initium accusationis; fratrumque non incestum, sed incustoditum amorem ad infamiam traxit. et praebebat Caesar auris, accipiendis adversus generum suspicionibus caritate filiae promptior. at Silanus insidiarum nescius ac forte eo anno praetor, repente per edictum Vitellii ordine senatorio movetur, quamquam lecto pridem senatu lustroque condito. simul adfinitatem Claudius diremit, adactusque Silanus eiurare magistratum, et reliquus praeturae dies in Eprium Marcellum conlatus est.

In the consulship of Gaius Pompeius and Quintus Veranius the marriage agreed between Claudius and Agrippina was now strengthened by rumor, now by their unlawful love; nor did they yet dare to celebrate the solemnities of a wedding, there being no precedent of a brother’s daughter brought into an uncle’s house: nay, it was incest, and it was feared, if it were scorned, that it might burst out into a public evil. Nor was the hesitation laid aside before Vitellius undertook to perpetrate it by his arts. And having asked Caesar whether he would yield to the people’s commands, to the Senate’s authority, when the other answered that he was one of the citizens and unequal to their consensus, he bids him wait within the palace. He himself enters the Curia, and, protesting that the highest interest of the commonwealth was at stake, demands leave to speak before the others, and begins: the gravest labors of the prince, by which he grasps the world, needed supports, that, free from domestic care, he might take counsel for the common good. And what more honorable solace for a censorial mind than to take a wife, partner in prosperous and doubtful things, to whom he might hand his inmost thoughts, his little children—a man not used to luxury or pleasures, but who from his first youth had obeyed the laws.

C. Pompeio Q. Veranio consulibus pactum inter Claudium et Agrippinam matrimonium iam fama, iam amore inlicito firmabatur; necdum celebrare sollemnia nuptiarum audebant, nullo exemplo deductae in domum patrui fratris filiae: quin et incestum ac, si sperneretur, ne in malum publicum erumperet metuebatur. nec ante omissa cunctatio quam Vitellius suis artibus id perpetrandum sumpsit. percontatusque Caesarem an iussis populi, an auctoritati senatus cederet, ubi ille unum se civium et consensui imparem respondit, opperiri intra palatium iubet. ipse curiam ingreditur, summamque rem publicam agi obtestans veniam dicendi ante alios exposcit orditurque: gravissimos principis labores, quis orbem terrae capessat, egere adminiculis ut domestica cura vacuus in commune consulat. quod porro honestius censoriae mentis levamentum quam adsumere coniugem, prosperis dubiisque sociam, cui cogitationes intimas, cui parvos liberos tradat, non luxui aut voluptatibus adsuefactus, sed qui prima ab iuventa legibus obtemperavisset.

After he had sent these things before in a favorable speech, and much assent of the Fathers followed, taking up his beginning again—that since all urged the prince to marry, a woman ought to be chosen distinguished by nobility, by childbearing, by purity. Nor need it long be sought but that Agrippina excelled in the renown of her race: there was given by her a proof of fecundity, and honorable arts agreed in her. And this indeed was excellent, that by the providence of the gods a widow should be joined to a prince who had known only his own marriages. They had heard from their parents, themselves had seen, wives snatched off to the caprices of the Caesars: that was far from the present moderation. Nay rather, let a precedent be set by which an emperor should take a wife. But indeed marriages with brothers’ daughters were new to us: but among other nations they were customary, nor forbidden by any law; and marriages of first cousins, long unknown, with time added had grown frequent. Custom was accommodated as it was expedient, and this too would be among the things soon adopted.

Postquam haec favorabili oratione praemisit multaque patrum adsentatio sequebatur, capto rursus initio, quando maritandum principem cuncti suaderent, deligi oportere feminam nobilitate puerperiis sanctimonia insignem. nec diu anquirendum quin Agrippina claritudine generis anteiret: datum ab ea fecunditatis experimentum et congruere artes honestas. id vero egregium, quod provisu deum vidua iungeretur principi sua tantum matrimonia experto. audivisse a parentibus, vidisse ipsos abripi coniuges ad libita Caesarum: procul id a praesenti modestia. statueretur immo documentum, quo uxorem imperator acciperet. at enim nova nobis in fratrum filias coniugia: sed aliis gentibus sollemnia, neque lege ulla prohibita; et sobrinarum diu ignorata tempore addito percrebuisse. morem accommodari prout conducat, et fore hoc quoque in iis quae mox usurpentur.

There were not wanting those who would burst from the Curia, testifying in rivalry that, if Caesar delayed, they would act by force. A promiscuous multitude gathers and cries that the Roman people prayed the same. Nor did Claudius wait longer, but presents himself in the forum to those congratulating him, and, entering the Senate, demands a decree by which lawful marriages between uncles and brothers’ daughters should be established even for the future. Nor yet was there found but one desirer of such a marriage, Alledius Severus, a Roman knight, whom most reported to have been driven by favor toward Agrippina. From that time the state was turned, and all things obeyed a woman—not, like Messalina, mocking Roman affairs through wantonness. It was a tight and as it were a virile servitude: openly severity, and more often arrogance; nothing unchaste at home, unless it were expedient to her mastery. An immense lust for gold had a pretext, as though resources were being prepared for the realm.

Haud defuere qui certatim, si cunctaretur Caesar, vi acturos testificantes erumperent curia. conglobatur promisca multitudo populumque Romanum eadem orare clamitat. nec Claudius ultra expectato obvius apud forum praebet se gratantibus, senatumque ingressus decretum postulat quo iustae inter patruos fratrumque filias nuptiae etiam in posterum statuerentur. nec tamen repertus est nisi unus talis matrimonii cupitor, Alledius Severus eques Romanus, quem plerique Agrippinae gratia impulsum ferebant. versa ex eo civitas et cuncta feminae oboediebant, non per lasciviam, ut Messalina, rebus Romanis inludenti. adductum et quasi virile servitium: palam severitas ac saepius superbia; nihil domi impudicum, nisi dominationi expediret. cupido auri immensa obtentum habebat, quasi subsidium regno pararetur.

On the wedding-day Silanus took his own life, whether he had prolonged the hope of life to that point, or had chosen the day to augment the odium. His sister Calvina was driven from Italy. Claudius added that rites should be given, according to the laws of King Tullus, and expiations at the grove of Diana, by the pontiffs, all mocking that the penalties and procurations of incest should be sought out at that time. But Agrippina, that she might not be known only for evil deeds, obtains pardon of exile for Annaeus Seneca, together with a praetorship, reckoning it a glad thing in public on account of the renown of his studies, and that the boyhood of Domitius might grow up under such a master, and that they might use his counsels toward the hope of mastery, because Seneca was believed faithful to Agrippina through memory of the benefit and hostile to Claudius through resentment of the injury.

Die nuptiarum Silanus mortem sibi conscivit, sive eo usque spem vitae produxerat, seu delecto die augendam ad invidiam. Calvina soror eius Italia pulsa est. addidit Claudius sacra ex legibus Tulli regis piaculaque apud lucum Dianae per pontifices danda, inridentibus cunctis quod poenae procurationesque incesti id temporis exquirerentur. at Agrippina ne malis tantum facinoribus notesceret veniam exilii pro Annaeo Seneca, simul praeturam impetrat, laetum in publicum rata ob claritudinem studiorum eius, utque Domitii pueritia tali magistro adolesceret et consiliis eiusdem ad spem dominationis uterentur, quia Seneca fidus in Agrippinam memoria beneficii et infensus Claudio dolore iniuriae credebatur.

It was resolved thereafter to delay no longer, but they induce the consul-designate Mammius Pollio, by huge promises, to bring forth a motion by which Claudius should be entreated to betroth Octavia to Domitius—a thing not absurd for the age of both and likely to open the way to greater things. Pollio gives his opinion in words not unlike those of Vitellius lately; and Octavia is betrothed, and Domitius, over and above the former connection now a betrothed and a son-in-law, was made equal to Britannicus by his mother’s zeal, by the art of those by whom, on account of the accusation of Messalina, vengeance from the son was feared.

Placitum dehinc non ultra cunctari, sed designatum consulem Mammium Pollionem ingentibus promissis inducunt sententiam expromere, qua oraretur Claudius despondere Octaviam Domitio, quod aetati utriusque non absurdum et maiora patefacturum erat. Pollio haud disparibus verbis ac nuper Vitellius censet; despondeturque Octavia, ac super priorem necessitudinem sponsus iam et gener Domitius aequari Britannico studiis matris, arte eorum quis ob accusatam Messalinam ultio ex filio timebatur.

About the same time the legates of the Parthians, sent, as I have related, to seek Meherdates, enter the Senate and begin their commission in this manner: that they came not ignorant of the treaty, nor in defection from the family of the Arsacids, but to fetch the son of Vonones, the grandson of Phraates, against the mastery of Gotarzes, intolerable alike to the nobility and the plebs. Now brothers, now kinsmen, now those more remotely placed, were exhausted by slaughters; pregnant wives, little children were added, while, sluggish at home, ill-starred in wars, he covered his cowardice with cruelty. There was for them an old friendship, begun publicly with us, and aid must be given to allies, rivals of our strength and yielding through reverence. Therefore the children of kings were given as hostages, that, if the home rule grew wearisome, there might be a retreat to the prince and the Fathers, by whose manners a king, made familiar, might the better be received.

Per idem tempus legati Parthorum ad expetendum, ut rettuli, Meherdaten missi senatum ingrediuntur mandataque in hunc modum incipiunt: non se foederis ignaros nec defectione a familia Arsacidarum venire, set filium Vononis, nepotem Phraatis accersere adversus dominationem Gotarzis nobilitati plebique iuxta intolerandam. iam fratres, iam propinquos, iam longius sitos caedibus exhaustos; adici coniuges gravidas, liberos parvos, dum socors domi, bellis infaustus ignaviam saevitia tegat. veterem sibi ac publice coeptam nobiscum amicitiam, et subveniendum sociis virium aemulis cedentibusque per reverentiam. ideo regum obsides liberos dari ut, si domestici imperii taedeat, sit regressus ad principem patresque, quorum moribus adsuefactus rex melior adscisceretur.

When they had discoursed these and such things, Caesar begins a speech about the Roman eminence and the obedience of the Parthians, and equaled himself to the deified Augustus, recalling that a king had been sought from him—the memory of Tiberius being omitted, although he too had sent one. He added precepts (for Meherdates was present), that he should think not of mastery and slaves, but of a ruler and citizens, and take up clemency and justice, the more welcome as unknown to barbarians. Thence, turned to the legates, he extols with praises the foster-child of the city, of a modesty proved thus far: and yet the tempers of kings must be borne, nor were frequent changes of use. The Roman state had been carried thus far by a satiety of glory, that it wished quiet even for foreign nations. It was given thereafter to Gaius Cassius, who governed Syria, to lead the young man to the bank of the Euphrates.

Vbi haec atque talia dissertavere, incipit orationem Caesar de fastigio Romano Parthorumque obsequiis, seque divo Augusto adaequabat, petitum ab eo regem referens, omissa Tiberii memoria, quamquam is quoque miserat. addidit praecepta (etenim aderat Meherdates), ut non dominationem et servos, sed rectorem et civis cogitaret, clementiamque ac iustitiam, quanto ignota barbaris, tanto laetiora capesseret. hinc versus ad legatos extollit laudibus alumnum urbis, spectatae ad id modestiae: ac tamen ferenda regum ingenia neque usui crebras mutationes. rem Romanam huc satietate gloriae provectam ut externis quoque gentibus quietem velit. datum posthac C. Cassio, qui Syriae praeerat, deducere iuvenem ripam ad Euphratis.

At that time Cassius excelled the rest in knowledge of the laws: for the military arts, through peace, were unknown, and peace holds the industrious and the slothful on a level. And yet, so far as was given without war, he recalled the ancient custom, exercised the legions, with care and forethought acted just as if an enemy were pressing: so he was worthy of his ancestors and of the Cassian family, celebrated through those nations too. So, having summoned those by whose advice the king had been sought, and a camp pitched at Zeugma, where the river is most passable, after the illustrious Parthians and Acbarus king of the Arabs had come, he warns Meherdates that the keen impulses of barbarians grow languid by delay or change to perfidy: so let him press his undertakings. Which was scorned by the fraud of Acbarus, who held the young man, ignorant and thinking the highest fortune lay in luxury, for many days at the town of Edessa. And though Carenes summoned him and showed that affairs were ready, if they came swiftly, he sought not Mesopotamia at close hand, but by a bend Armenia, at that time inconvenient, because winter was beginning.

Ea tempestate Cassius ceteros praeminebat peritia legum: nam militares artes per otium ignotae, industriosque aut ignavos pax in aequo tenet. ac tamen quantum sine bello dabatur, revocare priscum morem, exercitare legiones, cura provisu perinde agere ac si hostis ingrueret: ita dignum maioribus suis et familia Cassia per illas quoque gentis celebrata. igitur excitis quorum de sententia petitus rex, positisque castris apud Zeugma, unde maxime pervius amnis, postquam inlustres Parthi rexque Arabum Acbarus advenerat, monet Meherdaten barbarorum impetus acris cunctatione languescere aut in perfidiam mutari: ita urgeret coepta. quod spretum fraude Acbari, qui iuvenem ignarum et summam fortunam in luxu ratum multos per dies attinuit apud oppidum Edessam. et vocante Carene promptasque res ostentante, si citi advenissent, non comminus Mesopotamiam, sed flexu Armeniam petivit, id temporis importunam, quia hiems occipiebat.

Then, wearied by snows and mountains, after they drew near the plains, they are joined to the forces of Carenes, and, the river Tigris crossed, pass through the Adiabeni, whose king Izates had openly put on the alliance of Meherdates, but inclined toward Gotarzes by secret and more faithful means. But the city Ninos, the most ancient seat of Assyria, was taken in passing, and a fort notable in fame, because there in the last battle between Darius and Alexander the power of the Persians had fallen. Meanwhile Gotarzes, at a mountain named Sanbulos, was undertaking vows to the gods of the place, with a special religion of Hercules, who, at a fixed time, warns the priests in sleep to set ready beside the temple horses equipped for the hunt. The horses, when they have received quivers laden with darts, wandering through the glades, return at last by night with empty quivers and much panting. Again the god shows in a nocturnal vision through what woods he has roamed, and the beasts are found strewn here and there.

Exim nivibus et montibus fessi, postquam campos propinquabant, copiis Carenis adiunguntur, tramissoque amne Tigri permeant Adiabenos, quorum rex Izates societatem Meherdatis palam induerat, in Gotarzen per occulta et magis fida inclinabat. sed capta in transitu urbs Ninos, vetustissima sedes Assyriae, et castellum insigne fama, quod postremo inter Darium atque Alexandrum proelio Persarum illic opes conciderant. interea Gotarzes apud montem, cui nomen Sanbulos, vota dis loci suscipie- bat, praecipua religione Herculis, qui tempore stato per quietem monet sacerdotes ut templum iuxta equos venatui adornatos sistant. equi ubi pharetras telis onustas accepere, per saltus vagi nocte demum vacuis pharetris multo cum anhelitu redeunt. rursum deus, qua silvas pererraverit, nocturno visu demonstrat, reperiunturque fusae passim ferae.

But Gotarzes, his army not yet sufficiently augmented, used the river Corma as a defense, and, although by taunts and messengers called to battle, kept weaving delays, changing his positions, and, corrupters sent, sought to buy off the enemy from their faith. Of whom Izates the Adiabenian, soon Acbarus of the Arabs, withdraw with their army, by their nation’s fickleness, and because it has been learned by experience that barbarians prefer to seek kings from Rome than to keep them. But Meherdates, stripped of strong auxiliaries, the betrayal of the rest suspected, resolved on the one thing left—to give the matter to chance and try it by battle. Nor did Gotarzes refuse the fight, fierce with his enemies diminished; and they clashed with great slaughter and a doubtful issue, until Carenes, having routed those before him and borne too far, an unbroken band hemmed in from the rear. Then, all hope lost, Meherdates, following the promises of Parraces, his father’s client, is vanquished by his guile and handed over to the victor. And he, reproaching him as not a kinsman nor of Arsaces’s race, but a foreigner and a Roman, his ears cut off, orders him to live—an exhibition of his clemency and a dishonor to us. Then Gotarzes died of disease, and Vonones, then governing the Medes, was summoned to the kingdom. To him nothing prosperous or adverse worth recording: he discharged a brief and inglorious reign, and the affairs of the Parthians were transferred to his son Vologeses.

Ceterum Gotarzes, nondum satis aucto exercitu, flumine Corma pro munimento uti, et quamquam per insectationes et nuntios ad proelium vocaretur, nectere moras, locos mutare et missis corruptoribus exuendam ad fidem hostis emercari. ex quis Izates Adiabeno, mox Acbarus Arabum cum exercitu abscedunt, levitate gentili, et quia experimentis cognitum est barbaros malle Roma petere reges quam habere. at Meherdates validis auxiliis nudatus, ceterorum proditione suspecta, quod unum reliquum, rem in casum dare proelioque experiri statuit. nec detrectavit pugnam Gotarzes deminutis hostibus ferox; concursumque magna caede et ambiguo eventu, donec Carenem profligatis obviis longius evectum integer a tergo globus circumveniret. tum omni spe perdita Meherdates, promissa Parracis paterni clientis secutus, dolo eius vincitur traditurque victori. atque ille non propinquum neque Arsacis de gente, sed alienigenam et Romanum increpans, auribus decisis vivere iubet, ostentui clementiae suae et in nos dehonestamento. dein Gotarzes morbo obiit, accitusque in regnum Vonones Medos tum praesidens. nulla huic prospera aut adversa quis memoraretur: brevi et inglorio imperio perfunctus est, resque Parthorum in filium eius Vologesen translatae.

But Mithridates of Bosporus, his power lost, a wanderer, after he had learned that Didius the Roman commander and the strength of the army had gone away, the young Cotys, raw in his youth, and a few of the cohorts with Julius Aquila, a Roman knight, being left in the new kingdom, both being scorned, stirs up the nations, allures deserters; at last, an army gathered, drives out the king of the Dandaridae and seizes his realm. When this was known, and he was held to be on the very point of invading Bosporus, Aquila and Cotys, distrusting their own forces, because Zorsines king of the Siraci had resumed hostilities, sought foreign favors themselves too, legates being sent to Eunones, who presided over the nation of the Aorsi. Nor was the alliance hard, they displaying the Roman power against the rebel Mithridates. So they agreed that Eunones should fight the cavalry battles, the Romans undertake the sieges of cities.

At Mithridates Bosporanus amissis opibus vagus, postquam Didium ducem Romanum roburque exercitus abisse cognoverat, relictos in novo regno Cotyn iuventa rudem et paucas cohortium cum Iulio Aquila equite Romano, spretis utrisque concire nationes, inlicere perfugas; postremo exercitu coacto regem Dandaridarum exturbat imperioque eius potitur. quae ubi cognita et iam iamque Bosporum invasurus habebatur, diffisi propriis viribus Aquila et Cotys, quia Zorsines Siracorum rex hostilia resumpserat, externas et ipsi gratias quaesivere missis legatis ad Eunonen qui Aorsorum genti praesidebat. nec fuit in arduo societas potentiam Romanam adversus rebellem Mithridaten ostentantibus. igitur pepigere, equestribus proeliis Eunones certaret, obsidia urbium Romani capesserent.

Then in ordered column they advance, whose front and rear the Aorsi, the middle the cohorts and the Bosporani in our arms protected. So the enemy was driven back, and they came to Soza, a town of the Dandarica, which, deserted by Mithridates on account of the doubtful minds of the people, it seemed good to hold, a garrison being left there. Thence they go on against the Siraci, and, the river Panda crossed, surround the city Uspe, set on high and fortified by walls and ditches, except that the walls were not of stone but of hurdles and wickerwork with earth between, and weak against the assailants; and towers drawn up higher harassed the besieged with torches and spears. And had not night broken off the battle, the storming begun and completed would have been within the same day.

Tunc composito agmine incedunt, cuius frontem et terga Aorsi, media cohortes et Bosporani tutabantur nostris in armis. sic pulsus hostis, ventumque Sozam, oppidum Dandaricae, quod desertum a Mithridate ob ambiguos popularium animos obtineri relicto ibi praesidio visum. exim in Siracos pergunt, et transgressi amnem Pandam circumveniunt urbem Vspen, editam loco et moenibus ac fossis munitam, nisi quod moenia non saxo sed cratibus et vimentis ac media humo adversum inrumpentis invalida erant; eductaeque altius turres facibus atque hastis turbabant obsessos. ac ni proelium nox diremisset, coepta patrataque expugnatio eundem intra diem foret.

The next day they sent legates, begging pardon for free persons: ten thousand of slaves they offered. Which the victors spurned, because to butcher the surrendered was savage, to surround so great a multitude with a guard hard: rather let them fall by the right of war, and the signal of slaughter was given to the soldiers who had got up by the ladders. By the destruction of the Uspenses fear was thrown into the rest, nothing being thought safe, when arms, fortifications, encumbered or lofty places, rivers and cities alike were broken through. So Zorsines, after he had long weighed whether to take thought for the extremities of Mithridates or for his ancestral kingdom, after his nation’s advantage prevailed, hostages given, prostrated himself before the effigy of Caesar, with great glory to the Roman army, which, bloodless and victorious, was known to have been three days’ march from the river Tanais. But on the return the fortune was unequal, because some of the ships, returning by sea, being carried to the shores of the Tauri, the barbarians surrounded, the prefect of a cohort and very many of the auxiliaries being killed.

Postero misere legatos, veniam liberis corporibus orantis: servitii decem milia offerebant. quod aspernati sunt victores, quia trucidare deditos saevum, tantam multitudinem custodia cingere arduum: belli potius iure caderent, datumque militibus qui scalis evaserant signum caedis. excidio Vspensium metus ceteris iniectus, nihil tutum ratis, cum arma, munimenta, impediti vel eminentes loci amnesque et urbes iuxta perrumperentur. igitur Zorsines, diu pensitato Mithridatisne rebus extremis an patrio regno consuleret, postquam praevaluit gentilis utilitas, datis obsidibus apud effigiem Caesaris procubuit, magna gloria exercitus Romani, quem incruentum et victorem tridui itinere afuisse ab amne Tanai constitit. sed in regressu dispar fortuna fuit, quia navium quasdam quae mari remeabant in litora Taurorum delatas circumvenere barbari, praefecto cohortis et plerisque auxiliarium interfectis.

Meanwhile Mithridates, with no aid in arms, deliberates whose pity he should try. His brother Cotys, once a traitor, then an enemy, was feared: of the Romans no one was present of such authority that his promises should be weighed as great. He turned to Eunones, not hostile from private hatreds, and strong by the friendship lately joined with us. So, his garb and countenance composed as far as possible to his present fortune, he enters the palace, and, prostrate at his knees, "Mithridates," he says, "sought by the Romans over land and sea through so many years, am here of my own will: use as you will the offspring of the great Achaemenes—the one thing my enemies have not taken from me."

Interea Mithridates nullo in armis subsidio consultat cuius misericordiam experiretur. frater Cotys, proditor olim, deinde hostis, metuebatur: Romanorum nemo id auctoritatis aderat ut promissa eius magni penderentur. ad Eunonen convertit, propriis odiis non infensum et recens coniuncta nobiscum amicitia validum. igitur cultu vultuque quam maxime ad praesentem fortunam comparato regiam ingreditur genibusque eius provolutus ’Mithridates’ inquit ’terra marique Romanis per tot annos quaesitus sponte adsum: utere, ut voles, prole magni Achaemenis, quod mihi solum hostes non abstulerunt.’

But Eunones, moved by the renown of the man, by the change of his fortunes, and by a prayer not ignoble, raises the suppliant and praises him that he had chosen the nation of the Aorsi and his own right hand for the seeking of pardon. At the same time he sends legates and a letter to Caesar in this manner: that the first friendship between the emperors of the Roman people and the kings of great nations was from a likeness of fortune; but that between himself and Claudius there was even a communion of victory. The ends of wars were excellent as often as they were transacted by pardon: thus from the conquered Zorsines nothing had been snatched. For Mithridates, since he deserved more heavily, he prayed not power nor a kingdom, but only that he should not be led in triumph nor pay the penalty with his head.

At Eunones claritudine viri, mutatione rerum et prece haud degeneri permotus, adlevat supplicem laudatque quod gentem Aorsorum, quod suam dextram petendae veniae delegerit. simul legatos litterasque ad Caesarem in hunc modum mittit: populi Romani imperatoribus, magnarum nationum regibus primam ex similitudine for- tunae amicitiam, sibi et Claudio etiam communionem victoriae esse. bellorum egregios finis quoties ignoscendo transigatur: sic Zorsini victo nihil ereptum. pro Mithridate, quando gravius mereretur, non potentiam neque regnum precari, sed ne triumpharetur neve poenas capite expenderet.

But Claudius, although mild toward foreign nobilities, hesitated nonetheless whether it were more right to receive the captive on a pact of safety or to demand him back by arms. On this side the grief of the injuries and the lust of vengeance drove him: but it was argued on the other that a war would be undertaken by a trackless route, on a harborless sea; and besides, fierce kings, wandering peoples, a soil destitute of crops, weariness from delay, dangers from haste, moderate praise to the victors and much infamy if they were driven off. Nay, let him seize what was offered and keep the exile, to whom, in his poverty, the longer his life, the more of punishment it would be. Moved by these things he wrote to Eunones that Mithridates indeed deserved the last examples, nor was force lacking to him to execute it: but so it had pleased the ancestors, that as much stubbornness against an enemy, so much beneficence toward suppliants, was to be used; for triumphs are won over peoples and kingdoms while they are entire.

At Claudius, quamquam nobilitatibus externis mitis, dubitavit tamen accipere captivum pacto salutis an repetere armis rectius foret. hinc dolor iniuriarum et libido vindictae adigebat: sed disserebatur contra suscipi bellum avio itinere, importuoso mari; ad hoc reges ferocis, vagos populos, solum frugum egenum, taedium ex mora, pericula ex properantia, modicam victoribus laudem ac multum infamiae, si pellerentur. quin adriperet oblata et servaret exulem, cui inopi quanto longiorem vitam, tanto plus supplicii fore. his permotus scripsit Eunoni, meritum quidem novissima exempla Mithridaten, nec sibi vim ad exequendum deesse: verum ita maioribus placitum, quanta pervicacia in hostem, tanta beneficentia adversus supplices utendum; nam triumphos de populis regnisque integris adquiri.

Mithridates, handed over thereafter and conveyed to Rome by Junius Cilo, procurator of Pontus, was reported to have discoursed before Caesar more fiercely than befitted his fortune, and a word of his was carried abroad among the crowd in these terms: "I am not sent back to you, but returned: or if you do not believe it, let me go and seek me." His countenance too remained undaunted, when, set among guards beside the Rostra, he was offered to the people’s gaze. Consular insignia are decreed to Cilo, praetorian to Aquila.

Traditus posthac Mithridates vectusque Romam per Iunium Cilonem, procuratorem Ponti, ferocius quam pro fortuna disseruisse apud Caesarem ferebatur, elataque vox eius in vulgum hisce verbis: ’non sum remissus ad te, sed reversus: vel si non credis, dimitte et quaere.’ vultu quoque interrito permansit, cum rostra iuxta custodibus circumdatus visui populo praeberetur. consularia insignia Ciloni, Aquilae praetoria decernuntur.

Under the same consuls Agrippina, fierce in hatred and hostile to Lollia because she had contended with her about the prince’s marriage, contrives charges and an accuser to object Chaldeans, magicians, and the consulting of the image of the Clarian Apollo about the emperor’s marriage. Thereupon Claudius, the defendant unheard, having prefaced much before the Senate about her renown—that she was born of the sister of Lucius Volusius, that Cotta Messalinus was her greater uncle, that she had once been married to Memmius Regulus (for of her marriage to Gaius Caesar he was deliberately silent)—added that she had counsels pernicious to the commonwealth and that the matter for crime must be taken from her: so, her goods confiscated, let her depart Italy. Thus five million sesterces out of her immense wealth were left to the exile. And Calpurnia, an illustrious woman, is overthrown, because the prince had praised her beauty, from no lust but in chance talk, whence Agrippina’s anger stopped short of the last extremities. Against Lollia a tribune is sent, by whom she should be driven to death. Condemned too under the law of extortion was Cadius Rufus, the Bithynians accusing.

Isdem consulibus atrox odii Agrippina ac Lolliae infensa, quod secum de matrimonio principis certavisset, molitur crimina et accusatorem qui obiceret Chaldaeos, magos interrogatumque Apollinis Clarii simulacrum super nuptiis imperatoris. exim Claudius inaudita rea multa de claritudine eius apud senatum praefatus, sorore L. Volusii genitam, maiorem ei patruum Cottam Messalinum esse, Memmio quondam Regulo nuptam (nam de G. Caesaris nuptiis consulto reticebat), addidit perniciosa in rem publicam consilia et materiem sceleri detrahendam: proin publicatis bonis cederet Italia. ita quinquagies sestertium ex opibus immensis exuli relictum. et Calpurnia inlustris femina pervertitur, quia formam eius laudaverat princeps, nulla libidine, sed fortuito sermone, unde ira Agrippinae citra ultima stetit. in Lolliam mittitur tribunus, a quo ad mortem adigeretur. damnatus et lege repetundarum Cadius Rufus accusantibus Bithynis.

To Narbonese Gaul, on account of its eminent reverence toward the Fathers, it was granted that the senators of that province might, without the prince’s opinion being sought, by the right by which Sicily was held, visit their own affairs. And the Ituraeans and Jews, their kings Sohaemus and Agrippa being dead, were added to the province of Syria. The augury of Safety, omitted for seventy-five years, it was resolved to renew and thereafter continue. And Caesar extended the pomerium of the city, by the ancient custom, by which it is granted to those who have enlarged the empire to extend also the bounds of the city. Yet the Roman commanders, although great nations had been subdued, had not used it save Lucius Sulla and the deified Augustus.

Galliae Narbonensi ob egregiam in patres reverentiam datum ut senatoribus eius provinciae non exquisita principis sententia, iure quo Sicilia haberetur, res suas invisere liceret. Ituraeique et Iudaei defunctis regibus Sohaemo atque Agrippa provinciae Syriae additi. Salutis augurium quinque et septuaginta annis omissum repeti ac deinde continuari placitum. et pomerium urbis auxit Caesar, more prisco, quo iis qui protulere imperium etiam terminos urbis propagare datur. nec tamen duces Romani, quamquam magnis nationibus subactis, usurpaverant nisi L. Sulla et divus Augustus.

The ambition or glory of the kings in this is variously reported: but the beginning of the founding, and what pomerium Romulus set, I reckon not absurd to know. So from the cattle-market, where we see the bronze image of a bull, because that kind of animal is put under the plow, a furrow for marking out the town was begun, so as to embrace the great altar of Hercules; thence, at fixed spaces, stones were interposed along the foot of the Palatine hill to the altar of Consus, soon the old curiae, then to the shrine of the Lares, thence the Roman forum; and the forum and the Capitol they believed were added to the city not by Romulus but by Titus Tatius. Soon the pomerium was augmented according to fortune. And what bounds Claudius then set are easy to know and written out in the public records.

Regum in eo ambitio vel gloria varie vulgata: sed initium condendi, et quod pomerium Romulus posuerit, noscere haud absurdum reor. igitur a foro boario, ubi aereum tauri simulacrum aspicimus, quia id genus animalium aratro subditur, sulcus designandi oppidi coeptus ut magnam Herculis aram amplecteretur; inde certis spatiis interiecti lapides per ima montis Palatini ad aram Consi, mox curias veteres, tum ad sacellum Larum, inde forum Romanum; forumque et Capitolium non a Romulo, sed a Tito Tatio additum urbi credidere. mox pro fortuna pomerium auctum. et quos tum Claudius terminos posuerit, facile cognitu et publicis actis perscriptum.

In the consulship of Gaius Antistius and Marcus Suillius the adoption into Domitius is hastened by the authority of Pallas, who, bound to Agrippina as the conciliator of the marriage and soon entangled in adultery with her, kept spurring Claudius to take thought for the commonwealth, to gird the boyhood of Britannicus with strength: so under the deified Augustus, although propped by grandsons, the stepsons had flourished; by Tiberius, over and above his own stock, Germanicus had been taken up: let him too gird himself with a young man who should take up a part of the cares. Won over by these things, he prefers Domitius, three years older, to his son, holding a speech before the Senate in the same fashion in which he had received it from the freedman. The skilled noted that no adoption was found before this among the patrician Claudii, and that they had endured unbroken from Attus Clausus.

C. Antistio M. Suillio consulibus adoptio in Domitium auctoritate Pallantis festinatur, qui obstrictus Agrippinae ut conciliator nuptiarum et mox stupro eius inligatus, stimulabat Claudium consuleret rei publicae, Britannici pueritiam robore circumdaret: sic apud divum Augustum, quamquam nepotibus subnixum, viguisse privignos; a Tiberio super propriam stirpem Germanicum adsumptum: se quoque accingeret iuvene partem curarum capessituro. his evictus triennio maiorem natu Domitium filio anteponit, habita apud senatum oratione eundem in quem a liberto acceperat modum. adnotabant periti nullam antehac adoptionem inter patricios Claudios reperiri, eosque ab Atto Clauso continuos duravisse.

For the rest, thanks were rendered to the prince, with a more studied flattery toward Domitius; and a law was carried by which he should pass into the Claudian family and the name of Nero. Agrippina too is augmented by the surname of Augusta. When these things were perpetrated, no one was so devoid of pity that the fortune of Britannicus did not afflict him with grief. Deserted little by little even of servile services, he turned the unseasonable offices of his stepmother to mockery, understanding their falsehood. For they say his nature was not dull, whether truly, or, commended by his perils, he retained the fame without the proof.

Ceterum actae principi grates, quaesitiore in Domitium adulatione; rogataque lex qua in familiam Claudiam et nomen Neronis transiret. augetur et Agrippina cognomento Augustae. quibus patratis nemo adeo expers misericordiae fuit quem non Britannici fortuna maerore adficeret. desolatus paulatim etiam servilibus ministeriis perintempestiva novercae officia in ludibrium vertebat, intellegens falsi. neque enim segnem ei fuisse indolem ferunt, sive verum, seu periculis commendatus retinuit famam sine experimento.

But Agrippina, that she might display her power to the allied nations too, obtains that veterans and a colony be settled in the town of the Ubii, in which she had been born, to which a name was given from her own appellation. And by chance it had happened that her grandfather Agrippa had received that nation, crossed over the Rhine, into protection. About the same time in Upper Germany there was alarm at the coming of the Chatti, plying their brigandage. Then Publius Pomponius the legate sends in the Vangiones and Nemetes, with allied horse added, warned to forestall the plunderers or, when they were scattered, to pour round them unforeseen. And the industry of the soldiers followed the leader’s counsel, and, divided into two columns, those who had taken the left route surrounded men lately returned and, having used their booty in luxury, heavy with sleep. The gladness was augmented because they had freed some from the Varian disaster from slavery, forty years after.

Sed Agrippina quo vim suam sociis quoque nationibus ostentaret in oppidum Vbiorum, in quo genita erat, veteranos coloniamque deduci impetrat, cui nomen inditum e vocabulo ipsius. ac forte acciderat ut eam gentem Rhenum transgressam avus Agrippa in fidem acciperet. Isdem temporibus in superiore Germania trepidatum adventu Chattorum latrocinia agitantium. dein P. Pomponius legatus auxiliaris Vangionas ac Nemetas, addito equite alario, immittit, monitos ut anteirent populatores vel dilapsis improvisi circumfunderentur. et secuta consilium ducis industria militum, divisique in duo agmina, qui laevum iter petiverant recens reversos praedaque per luxum usos et somno gravis circumvenere. aucta laetitia quod quosdam e clade Variana quadragesimum post annum servitio exemerant.

But those who had gone by the right and nearer short-cuts make more havoc upon the enemy who met them and dared a battle-line, and, laden with booty and fame, return to Mount Taunus, where Pomponius was waiting with the legions, in case the Chatti, from a lust of avenging, should offer the chance of a fight. They, fearing lest the Roman on one side, the Cherusci on the other, with whom they are eternally at discord, should surround them, sent legates to the city and hostages; and triumphal honor was decreed to Pomponius, a modest part of his fame among posterity, among whom the glory of his poems prevails.

At qui dextris et propioribus compendiis ierant, obvio hosti et aciem auso plus cladis faciunt, et praeda famaque onusti ad montem Taunum revertuntur, ubi Pomponius cum legionibus opperiebatur, si Chatti cupidine ulciscendi casum pugnae praeberent. illi metu ne hinc Romanus, inde Cherusci, cum quis aeternum discordant, circumgrederentur, legatos in urbem et obsides misere; decretusque Pomponio triumphalis honos, modica pars famae eius apud posteros in quis carminum gloria praecellit.

About the same time Vannius, set over the Suebi by Drusus Caesar, is driven from his kingdom—in the first age of his rule famous and acceptable to his people, soon, by length of time, changing into arrogance, and by the hatred of his neighbors, and at the same time encompassed by domestic discords. The authors were Vibilius, king of the Hermunduri, and Vangio and Sido, born of Vannius’s sister. Nor did Claudius, though often entreated, interpose arms between the contending barbarians, promising Vannius a safe refuge if he were driven out; and he wrote to Palpellius Hister, who governed Pannonia, to place a legion and auxiliaries chosen from the province itself along the bank, as a support for the conquered and a terror against the conquerors, lest, elated by fortune, they should disturb our peace too. For an innumerable force, the Lugii and other nations, was approaching, by report of a rich kingdom, which Vannius for thirty years had augmented by plunderings and tributes. His own band was foot, his horse from the Sarmatian Iazyges, unequal to the multitude of the enemy, and therefore he had resolved to defend himself in forts and protract the war.

Per idem tempus Vannius Suebis a Druso Caesare impositus pellitur regno, prima imperii aetate clarus acce- ptusque popularibus, mox diuturnitate in superbiam mutans et odio accolarum, simul domesticis discordiis circumventus. auctores fuere Vibilius Hermundurorum rex et Vangio ac Sido sorore Vannii geniti. nec Claudius, quamquam saepe oratus, arma certantibus barbaris interposuit, tutum Vannio perfugium promittens, si pelleretur; scripsitque Palpellio Histro, qui Pannoniam praesidebat, legionem ipsaque e provincia lecta auxilia pro ripa componere, subsidio victis et terrorem adversus victores, ne fortuna elati nostram quoque pacem turbarent. nam vis innumera, Lugii aliaeque gentes, adventabant, fama ditis regni, quod Vannius triginta per annos praedationibus et vectigalibus auxerat. ipsi manus propria pedites, eques e Sarmatis Iazugibus erat, impar multitudini hostium, eoque castellis sese defensare bellumque ducere statuerat.

But the Iazyges, impatient of a siege and wandering through the near plains, brought on the necessity of battle, because the Lugius and the Hermundurus had pressed in there. So Vannius, having come down from his forts, is routed in battle, although, amid his adverse fortune, praised because he both took part in the fight with his hand and received wounds on the front of his body. For the rest, he fled to the fleet waiting on the Danube; his clients soon followed and, lands received, were settled in Pannonia. The kingdom Vangio and Sido divided between them, of eminent faith toward us, but to their subjects—whether by their own or a slavish nature—of much affection while they were attaining their masteries, and of greater hatred after they had attained them.

Sed Iazuges obsidionis impatientes et proximos per campos vagi necessitudinem pugnae attulere, quia Lugius Hermundurusque illic ingruerant. igitur degressus castellis Vannius funditur proelio, quamquam rebus adversis laudatus quod et pugnam manu capessiit et corpore adverso vulnera excepit. ceterum ad classem in Danuvio opperientem perfugit; secuti mox clientes et acceptis agris in Pannonia locati sunt. regnum Vangio ac Sido inter se partivere, egregia adversus nos fide, subiectis, suone an servitii ingenio, dum adipiscerentur dominationes, multa caritate, et maiore odio, postquam adepti sunt.

But in Britain turbulent affairs received Publius Ostorius the propraetor, the enemy having poured into the territory of the allies the more violently because they did not think a new commander would go to meet them with an army unknown to him and winter begun. He, aware that fear or confidence is begotten by the first events, snatches up swift cohorts and, those who resisted being killed, pursuing the scattered, that they might not again be massed and a hostile and faithless peace allow rest neither to leader nor soldier, prepares to take arms from the suspected and to restrain all things by camps between the rivers Avona and Sabrina. Which the Iceni first refused, a strong nation and not crushed by battles, because they had joined our alliance willingly. And with these as authors the surrounding nations chose a place of battle hedged by a rustic rampart and with a narrow approach, that it might not be passable to horse. These fortifications the Roman leader, although he led allied forces without the strength of the legions, attempts to break through, and, the cohorts distributed, girds the squadrons of foot too for the work. Then, the signal given, they break through the rampart and throw into confusion the men hampered by their own barriers. And they, in the consciousness of rebellion and their escapes barred, did many and notable deeds: in which battle the legate’s son, Marcus Ostorius, earned the honor of a citizen saved.

At in Britannia P. Ostorium pro praetore turbidae res excepere, effusis in agrum sociorum hostibus eo violen- tius quod novum ducem exercitu ignoto et coepta hieme iturum obviam non rebantur. ille gnarus primis eventibus metum aut fiduciam gigni, citas cohortis rapit et caesis qui restiterant, disiectos consectatus, ne rursus conglobarentur infensaque et infida pax non duci, non militi requiem permitteret, detrahere arma suspectis cunctaque castris Avonam inter et Sabrinam fluvios cohibere parat. quod primi Iceni abnuere, valida gens nec proeliis contusi, quia societatem nostram volentes accesserant. hisque auctoribus circumiectae nationes locum pugnae delegere saeptum agresti aggere et aditu angusto, ne pervius equiti foret. ea munimenta dux Romanus, quamquam sine robore legionum socialis copias ducebat, perrumpere adgreditur et distributis cohortibus turmas quoque peditum ad munia accingit. tunc dato signo perfringunt aggerem suisque claustris impeditos turbant. atque illi conscientia rebellionis et obsaeptis effugiis multa et clara facinora fecere: qua pugna filius legati M. Ostorius servati civis decus meruit.

For the rest, by the disaster of the Iceni those were composed who wavered between war and peace, and the army was led against the Decangi. The fields were laid waste, booty driven off on every side, the enemy not daring a line, or, if they tried to harass the column from concealment, their guile being punished. And now it was come not far from the sea which looks upon the island of Hibernia, when discords arisen among the Brigantes drew back the leader, fixed in his resolve not to attempt new things unless the former were secured. And the Brigantes indeed, a few who were taking up arms being killed and pardon given to the rest, settled down: but the nation of the Silures was changed neither by harshness nor by clemency, but plied the war and must be pressed down by camps of the legions. That this might come the more readily, the colony Camulodunum, with a strong band of veterans, is settled in the captured fields, a support against the rebels and to imbue the allies with the duties of the laws.

Ceterum clade Icenorum compositi qui bellum inter et pacem dubitabant, et ductus in Decangos exercitus. vastati agri, praedae passim actae, non ausis aciem hostibus, vel si ex occulto carpere agmen temptarent, punito dolo. iamque ventum haud procul mari, quod Hiberniam insulam aspectat, cum ortae apud Brigantas discordiae retraxere ducem, destinationis certum, ne nova moliretur nisi prioribus firmatis. et Brigantes quidem, paucis qui arma coeptabant interfectis, in reliquos data venia, resedere: Silurum gens non atrocitate, non clementia mutabatur, quin bellum exerceret castrisque legionum premenda foret. id quo promptius veniret, colonia Camulodunum valida veteranorum manu deducitur in agros captivos, subsidium adversus rebellis et imbuendis sociis ad officia legum.

Thence they went against the Silures, who, over and above their own ferocity, trusted in the strength of Caratacus, whom many doubtful things, many prosperous, had exalted so that he excelled the rest of the British commanders. But then, superior by the craft of the ground, inferior in the force of soldiers, he transfers the war into the Ordovices, and, those added who feared our peace, tries the last cast, a place being taken for battle such that the approaches, the retreats, all things were inconvenient for us and for the better for his own, here by steep mountains, and, where they could be gently approached, he built up stones beforehand in the manner of a rampart: and a river flowed before with an uncertain ford, and bands of the armed had stationed themselves before the defenses.

Itum inde in Siluras, super propriam ferociam Carataci viribus confisos, quem multa ambigua, multa prospera extulerant ut ceteros Britannorum imperatores praemineret. sed tum astu locorum fraude prior, vi militum inferior, transfert bellum in Ordovicas, additisque qui pacem nostram metuebant, novissimum casum experitur, sumpto ad proelium loco, ut aditus abscessus, cuncta nobis importuna et suis in melius essent, hinc montibus arduis, et si qua clementer accedi poterant, in modum valli saxa praestruit: et praefluebat amnis vado incerto, catervaeque armatorum pro munimentis constiterant.

Besides this, the leaders of the tribes went round, exhorting, confirming spirits by lessening fear, by kindling hope and other incitements of war: but indeed Caratacus, flitting hither and thither, kept testifying that that day, that battle-line, would be the beginning either of recovering liberty or of eternal slavery; and he called the names of his ancestors, who had driven off the dictator Caesar, by whose valor, free from the axes and tributes, they kept the bodies of their wives and children unviolated. As he said these and such things, the crowd applauded, each binding himself by his nation’s religion that they would yield neither to weapons nor to wounds.

Ad hoc gentium ductores circumire hortari, firmare animos minuendo metu, accendenda spe aliisque belli incitamentis: enimvero Caratacus huc illuc volitans illum diem, illam aciem testabatur aut reciperandae libertatis aut servitutis aeternae initium fore; vocabatque nomina maiorum, qui dictatorem Caesarem pepulissent, quorum virtute vacui a securibus et tributis intemerata coniugum et liberorum corpora retinerent. haec atque talia dicenti adstrepere vulgus, gentili quisque religione obstringi, non telis, non vulneribus cessuros.

That alacrity stupefied the Roman leader; at the same time the interposed river, the added rampart, the overhanging ridges, nothing but what was savage and thronged with defenders, terrified him. But the soldier demanded battle, kept crying that all things were stormable by valor; and the prefects and tribunes, discoursing the like, sharpened the army’s ardor. Then Ostorius, having looked round what was impenetrable and what passable, leads on his eager men and crosses the river without difficulty. When it was come to the rampart, while the fight was with missiles, more wounds upon us and most of the slaughter arose: after, a testudo being made, the rude and shapeless heaps of stones were torn apart and the line was equal at close quarters, the barbarians withdraw to the ridges of the mountains. But thither too burst in the light-armed and the heavy soldier, the one assaulting with weapons, the other in close step, the ranks of the Britons being thrown into confusion on the other side, among whom there was no covering of breastplates or helmets; and if they resisted the auxiliaries, they were laid low by the swords and javelins of the legionaries; if they turned this way, by the broadswords and spears of the auxiliaries. It was a notable victory, and the wife and daughter of Caratacus were taken and his brothers received in surrender.

Obstupefecit ea alacritas ducem Romanum; simul obiectus amnis, additum vallum, imminentia iuga, nihil nisi atrox et propugnatoribus frequens terrebat. sed miles proelium poscere, cuncta virtute expugnabilia clamitare; praefectique et tribuni paria disserentes ardorem exercitus intendebant. tum Ostorius, circumspectis quae impenetrabilia quaeque pervia, ducit infensos amnemque haud difficulter evadit. ubi ventum ad aggerem, dum missilibus certabatur, plus vulnerum in nos et pleraeque caedes oriebantur: postquam facta testudine rudes et informes saxorum compages distractae parque comminus acies, decedere barbari in iuga montium. sed eo quoque inrupere ferentarius gravisque miles, illi telis adsultantes, hi conferto gradu, turbatis contra Britannorum ordinibus, apud quos nulla loricarum galearumve tegmina; et si auxiliaribus resisterent, gladiis ac pilis legionariorum, si huc verterent, spathis et hastis auxiliarium sternebantur. clara ea victoria fuit, captaque uxor et filia Carataci fratresque in deditionem accepti.

He himself, as adverse things are mostly unsafe, when he had sought the faith of Cartimandua, queen of the Brigantes, was bound and handed to the victors, in the ninth year after the war in Britain was begun. Whence his fame, carried beyond the islands and ranging over the nearest provinces, was celebrated through Italy too, and men were eager to see who he was that for so many years had scorned our power. Not even at Rome was the name of Caratacus ignoble; and Caesar, while he extolled his own honor, added glory to the conquered. For the people was summoned as to a notable spectacle: the praetorian cohorts stood in arms in the field that lies before the camp. Then, as the king’s little clients passed, the trappings and torques and whatever he had won in foreign wars were carried by, soon his brothers and wife and daughter, last he himself was displayed. The prayers of the rest were degenerate from fear: but not Caratacus, neither with downcast face nor with words seeking pity, when he stood by the tribunal, spoke in this manner:

Ipse, ut ferme intuta sunt adversa, cum fidem Cartimanduae reginae Brigantum petivisset, vinctus ac victoribus traditus est, nono post anno quam bellum in Britannia coeptum. unde fama eius evecta insulas et proximas provincias pervagata per Italiam quoque celebrabatur, avebantque visere, quis ille tot per annos opes nostras sprevisset. ne Romae quidem ignobile Carataci nomen erat; et Caesar dum suum decus extollit, addidit gloriam victo. vocatus quippe ut ad insigne spectaclum populus: stetere in armis praetoriae cohortes campo qui castra praeiacet. tunc incedentibus regiis clientulis phalerae torques quaeque bellis externis quaesiverat traducta, mox fratres et coniunx et filia, postremo ipse ostentatus. ceterorum preces degeneres fuere ex metu: at non Caratacus aut vultu demisso aut verbis misericordiam requirens, ubi tribunali adstitit, in hunc modum locutus est.

"If as great a moderation in prosperity had been mine as my nobility and fortune, I should have come into this city a friend rather than a captive, nor would you have disdained to receive into peace by treaty one sprung of illustrious ancestors and ruling over very many nations. My present lot, as it is shapeless to me, so is it magnificent to you. I had horses, men, arms, wealth: what wonder if I lost these unwillingly? For if you wish to rule over all, does it follow that all should accept slavery? If I had been at once surrendered and handed over, neither my fortune nor your glory would have become illustrious; and oblivion would follow my punishment: but if you preserve me unharmed, I shall be an eternal example of clemency." At which Caesar granted pardon to him and to his wife and brothers. And they, loosed from their chains, venerated Agrippina too, conspicuous not far off on another platform, with the same praises and thanks as the prince. New indeed and unwonted to the manners of the ancients, that a woman should preside over Roman standards: she herself bore herself a partner of the empire won by her ancestors.

’Si quanta nobilitas et fortuna mihi fuit, tanta rerum prosperarum moderatio fuisset, amicus potius in hanc urbem quam captus venissem, neque dedignatus esses claris maioribus ortum, plurimis gentibus imperitantem foedere in pacem accipere. praesens sors mea ut mihi informis, sic tibi magnifica est. habui equos viros, arma opes: quid mirum si haec invitus amisi? nam si vos omnibus imperitare vultis, sequitur ut omnes servitutem accipiant? si statim deditus traderer, neque mea fortuna neque tua gloria inclaruisset; et supplicium mei oblivio sequeretur: at si incolumem servaveris, aeternum exemplar clementiae ero.’ ad ea Caesar veniam ipsique et coniugi et fratribus tribuit. atque illi vinclis absoluti Agrippinam quoque, haud procul alio suggestu conspicuam, isdem quibus principem laudibus gratibusque venerati sunt. novum sane et moribus veterum insolitum, feminam signis Romanis praesidere: ipsa semet parti a maioribus suis imperii sociam ferebat.

The Fathers, summoned thereafter, discoursed much and magnificently about the captivity of Caratacus, nor was it less glorious than when Publius Scipio displayed Syphax, Lucius Paulus Perseus, and any others who showed bound kings to the Roman people. Triumphal insignia are decreed to Ostorius, his affairs being prosperous thus far, soon doubtful, whether, Caratacus removed, as though the war were finished, the soldiery among us was less intent, or the enemy, in pity for so great a king, blazed up the more keenly to vengeance. They surround the prefect of the camp and the legionary cohorts left to build forts among the Silures. And had not aid quickly come by messengers from the nearest forts, the surrounded forces would have lain in utter destruction: the prefect, however, and eight centurions, and the readiest of the maniples, fell. Nor much after they rout our men foraging and the squadrons sent to their aid.

Vocati posthac patres multa et magnifica super captivitate Carataci disseruere, neque minus id clarum quam quod Syphacem P. Scipio, Persen L. Paulus, et si qui alii vinctos reges populo Romano ostendere. censentur Ostorio triumphi insignia, prosperis ad id rebus eius, mox ambiguis, sive amoto Carataco, quasi debellatum foret, minus intenta apud nos militia fuit, sive hostes miseratione tanti regis acrius ad ultionem exarsere. praefectum castrorum et legionarias cohortis extruendis apud Siluras praesidiis relictas circumfundunt. ac ni cito nuntiis ex castellis proximis subventum foret copiarum obsidio occidione obcubuis- sent: praefectus tamen et octo centuriones ac promptissimus quisque e manipulis cecidere. nec multo post pabulantis nostros missasque ad subsidium turmas profligant.

Then Ostorius opposed light cohorts; nor for that did he stay the flight, had not the legions taken up the battle: by their strength the fight was equaled, then turned to our advantage. The enemy escaped with slight loss, because the day was declining. Frequent thereafter were the battles, and more often in the manner of brigandage, through glades, through marshes, as each man’s chance or valor led, rashly or with forethought, from anger or for booty, by order and sometimes with the leaders unaware. And especial was the stubbornness of the Silures, whom a word of the Roman commander, made public, kindled—that, as once the Sugambri were destroyed or transported into the Gauls, so the name of the Silures must be utterly extinguished. So they cut off two auxiliary cohorts plundering too incautiously through the greed of their prefects; and by lavishing spoils and captives they were drawing the other nations too into defection, when, worn out by a weariness of his cares, Ostorius departed life, to the joy of the enemy, as though a leader by no means to be despised, even if not a battle, yet at least the war, had consumed him.

Tum Ostorius cohortis expeditas opposuit; nec ideo fugam sistebat, ni legiones proelium excepissent: earum robore aequata pugna, dein nobis pro meliore fuit. effugere hostes tenui damno, quia inclinabat dies. crebra hinc proelia et saepius in modum latrocinii per saltus per paludes, ut cuique sors aut virtus, temere proviso, ob iram ob praedam, iussu et aliquando ignaris ducibus. ac praecipua Silurum pervicacia, quos accendebat vulgata imperatoris Romani vox, ut quondam Sugambri excisi aut in Gallias traiecti forent, ita Silurum nomen penitus extinguendum. igitur duas auxiliaris cohortis avaritia praefectorum incautius populantis intercepere; spoliaque et captivos largiendo ceteras quoque nationes ad defectionem trahebant, cum taedio curarum fessus Ostorius concessit vita, laetis hostibus, tamquam ducem haud spernendum etsi non proelium, at certe bellum absumpsisset.

But Caesar, the death of the legate known, lest the province be without a governor, appointed Aulus Didius in his stead. He, swiftly conveyed, yet found affairs not entire, the battle of the legion meanwhile being adverse, which Manlius Valens commanded; and the report of that thing was augmented among the enemy too, to terrify the coming leader, and by him augmenting what he had heard, that greater praise might be given for matters composed, and, if they had lasted, a juster pardon. The Silures had inflicted that loss too and ranged widely, until they were driven off by the arrival of Didius. But after Caratacus was taken, the foremost in knowledge of military affairs was Venutius, of the state of the Brigantes, as I have mentioned above, long faithful and defended by Roman arms while he held the queen Cartimandua in marriage; soon, a divorce arisen and at once a war, he had put on hostility even against us. But at first there was only contention among themselves, and Cartimandua by cunning arts intercepted the brother and kinsmen of Venutius. Thence the enemy, inflamed and stung by the disgrace lest they be subjected to a woman’s rule, a strong and chosen youth in arms invade her kingdom. Which was foreseen by us, and cohorts sent to aid made a sharp battle, of which, the beginning doubtful, the end was the gladder. Nor with unlike issue was it fought by the legion which Caesius Nasica commanded; for Didius, heavy with age and with a great abundance of honors, held it enough to act through subordinates and to keep off the enemy. These things, although done by two propraetors through several years, I have joined together, lest, divided, they avail less for their own memory: I return to the order of the times.

At Caesar cognita morte legati, ne provincia sine rectore foret, A. Didium suffecit. is propere vectus non tamen integras res invenit, adversa interim legionis pugna, cui Manlius Valens praeerat; auctaque et apud hostis eius rei fama, quo venientem ducem exterrerent, atque illo augente audita, ut maior laus compositis et, si duravissent, venia iustior tribueretur. Silures id quoque damnum intulerant lateque persultabant, donec adcursu Didii pellerentur. sed post captum Caratacum praecipuus scientia rei militaris Venutius, e Brigantum civitate, ut supra memoravi, fidusque diu et Romanis armis defensus, cum Cartimanduam reginam matrimonio teneret; mox orto discidio et statim bello etiam adversus nos hostilia induerat. sed primo tantum inter ipsos certabatur, callidisque Cartimandua artibus fratrem ac propinquos Venutii intercepit. inde accensi hostes, stimulante ignominia, ne feminae imperio subderentur, valida et lecta armis iuventus regnum eius invadunt. quod nobis praevisum, et missae auxilio cohortes acre proelium fecere, cuius initio ambiguo finis laetior fuit. neque dispari eventu pugnatum a legione, cui Caesius Nasica praeerat; nam Didius senectute gravis et multa copia honorum per ministros agere et arcere hostem satis habebat. haec, quamquam a duobus pro praetoribus pluris per annos gesta, coniunxi ne divisa haud perinde ad memoriam sui valerent: ad temporum ordinem redeo.

In the consulship of Tiberius Claudius (his fifth) and Servius Cornelius Orfitus, the manly toga was hastened for Nero, that he might seem fit for taking up the commonwealth. And Caesar yielded willingly to the flatteries of the Senate, that Nero in the twentieth year of his age should enter the consulship, and meanwhile, as designate, should hold proconsular command outside the city and be called prince of the youth. There was added in his name a donative to the soldier, a largess to the plebs. And at the circus games, which were given to acquire the favor of the crowd, Britannicus in the bordered toga, Nero in triumphal dress, were carried in procession: let the people behold the one in an emperor’s adornment, the other in a boy’s garb, and accordingly presume the fortune of each. At the same time those of the centurions and tribunes who pitied the lot of Britannicus were removed on feigned causes, and others under the show of an honor; even of the freedmen, if any was of uncorrupted faith, he is driven off on such an occasion. Meeting one another, Nero greeted Britannicus by name, the other Nero as Domitius. Which Agrippina, as a beginning of discord, reports with much complaint to her husband: the adoption was being scorned, and what the Fathers had voted, the people commanded, was being annulled within the household; and unless the perversity of such teachers, so hostile, were checked, it would burst out into a public ruin. Moved by these as it were charges, he visits with exile or death the best of his son’s tutors and sets over his custody men given by the stepmother.

Ti. Claudio quintum Servio Cornelio Orfito consulibus virilis toga Neroni maturata quo capessendae rei publicae habilis videretur. et Caesar adulationibus senatus libens cessit ut vicesimo aetatis anno consulatum Nero iniret atque interim designatus proconsulare imperium extra urbem haberet ac princeps iuventutis appellaretur. additum nomine eius donativum militi, congiarium plebei. et ludicro circensium, quod adquirendis vulgi studiis edebatur, Britannicus in praetexta, Nero triumphali veste travecti sunt: spectaret populus hunc decore imperatorio, illum puerili habitu, ac perinde fortunam utriusque praesumeret. simul qui centurionum tribunorumque sortem Britannici miserabantur, remoti fictis causis et alii per speciem honoris; etiam libertorum si quis incorrupta fide, depellitur tali occasione. obvii inter se Nero Britannicum nomine, ille Domitium salutavere. quod ut discordiae initium Agrippina multo questu ad maritum defert: sperni quippe adoptionem, quaeque censuerint patres, iusserit populus, intra penatis abrogari; ac nisi pravitas tam infensa docentium arceatur, eruptura in publicam perniciem. commotus his quasi criminibus optimum quemque educatorem filii exilio aut morte adficit datosque a noverca custodiae eius imponit.

Yet Agrippina did not yet dare to attempt the highest, unless Lusius Geta and Rufrius Crispinus were released from the charge of the praetorian cohorts, whom she believed mindful of Messalina and bound to her children. So, the wife asserting that the cohorts were being drawn apart by the canvassing of two men, and that, if they were ruled by one, the discipline would be the more intent, the command of the cohorts is transferred to Burrus Afranius, of eminent military fame, but aware by whose will he was set in charge. Her own eminence too Agrippina exalted higher: she entered the Capitol in a carriage, an honor anciently granted to the priests and sacred things, augmenting the veneration of a woman who, born of an emperor, sister of him who got the mastery, and wife and mother of emperors, is to this day a unique example. Amid these things her chief champion Vitellius, of the strongest favor, of extreme age (so uncertain are the affairs of the powerful), is seized by an accusation, Junius Lupus the senator informing. He objected the charges of treason and a lust for empire; and Caesar would have lent his ears, had he not been changed by Agrippina’s threats rather than prayers, so as to interdict the accuser from water and fire. Thus far Vitellius had wished.

Nondum tamen summa moliri Agrippina audebat, ni praetoriarum cohortium cura exolverentur Lusius Geta et Rufrius Crispinus, quos Messalinae memores et liberis eius devinctos credebat. igitur distrahi cohortis ambitu duorum et, si ab uno regerentur, intentiorem fore disciplinam adseverante uxore, transfertur regimen cohortium ad Burrum Afranium, egregiae militaris famae, gnarum tamen cuius sponte praeficeretur. suum quoque fastigium Agrippina extollere altius: carpento Capitolium ingredi, qui honos sacerdotibus et sacris antiquitus concessus venerationem augebat feminae, quam imperatore genitam, sororem eius qui rerum potitus sit et coniugem et matrem fuisse, unicum ad hunc diem exemplum est. inter quae praecipuus propugnator eius Vitellius, validissima gratia, aetate extrema (adeo incertae sunt potentium res) accusatione corripitur, deferente Iunio Lupo senatore. is crimina maiestatis et cupidinem imperii obiectabat; praebuissetque auris Caesar, nisi Agrippinae minis magis quam precibus mutatus esset, ut accusatori aqua atque igni interdiceret. hactenus Vitellius voluerat.

Many prodigies occurred that year. The Capitol was beset by ill-omened birds, houses were thrown down by frequent earthquakes, and, while fear spread wider, in the panic of the crowd the weaker were trampled; a scarcity of crops too, and a famine arising from it, was received as a prodigy. Nor were the complaints only secret, but they beset Claudius, as he rendered justice, with turbulent shouts, and, driving him to the farthest part of the forum, pressed him with violence, until by a band of soldiers he broke through the hostile crowd. Fifteen days’ food for the city, no more, was found to have remained, and by the great kindness of the gods and the mildness of the winter the extremity was relieved. But, by Hercules, once Italy carried supplies to the legions into far provinces, nor is it now troubled by barrenness, but we rather work Africa and Egypt, and the life of the Roman people has been committed to ships and to chances.

Multa eo anno prodigia evenere. insessum diris avibus Capitolium, crebris terrae motibus prorutae domus, ac dum latius metuitur, trepidatione vulgi invalidus quisque obtriti; frugum quoque egestas et orta ex eo fames in prodigium accipiebatur. nec occulti tantum questus, sed iura reddentem Claudium circumvasere clamoribus turbidis, pulsumque in extremam fori partem vi urgebant, donec militum globo infensos perrupit. quindecim dierum alimenta urbi, non amplius superfuisse constitit, magnaque deum benignitate et modestia hiemis rebus extremis subventum. at hercule olim Italia legionibus longinquas in provincias commeatus portabat, nec nunc infecunditate laboratur, sed Africam potius et Aegyptum exercemus, navibusque et casibus vita populi Romani permissa est.

In the same year a war arisen between the Armenians and Iberians was the cause of the gravest commotions between the Parthians too and the Romans. Over the nation of the Parthians ruled Vologeses, of a maternal origin from a Greek concubine, having obtained the kingdom by the concession of his brothers; the Iberians Pharasmanes held by ancient possession, the Armenians his brother Mithridates by our resources. There was a son of Pharasmanes, by name Radamistus, of comely stature, distinguished in bodily strength, and taught his fathers’ arts, of bright fame among the neighbors. He, that the modest kingdom of Iberia was held back by his father’s old age, kept boasting too fiercely and too often to hide his desire. So Pharasmanes, fearing a young man ready for power and girt with the favor of the people, his own years now declining, draws him to another hope and displays Armenia, recalling that, the Parthians driven out, it had been given by himself to Mithridates: but force must be deferred, and a guile preferable, by which they might crush him off his guard. So Radamistus, a discord against his father feigned, as though unequal to a stepmother’s hatreds, goes to his uncle, and, treated by him with much courtesy in the show of a child, allures the chief men of the Armenians to revolution, Mithridates being ignorant and moreover honoring him.

Eodem anno bellum inter Armenios Hiberosque exortum Parthis quoque ac Romanis gravissimorum inter se motuum causa fuit. genti Parthorum Vologeses imperitabat, materna origine ex paelice Graeca, concessu fratrum regnum adeptus; Hiberos Pharasmanes vetusta possessione, Armenios frater eius Mithridates obtinebat opibus nostris. erat Pharasmanis filius nomine Radamistus, decora proceritate, vi corporis insignis et patrias artis edoctus, claraque inter accolas fama. is modicum Hiberiae regnum senecta patris detineri ferocius crebriusque iactabat quam ut cupidinem occultaret. igitur Pharasmanes iuvenem potentiae promptum et studio popularium accinctum, vergentibus iam annis suis metuens, aliam ad spem trahere et Armeniam ostentare, pulsis Parthis datam Mithridati a semet memorando: sed vim differendam et potiorem dolum quo incautum opprimerent. ita Radamistus simulata adversus patrem discordia tamquam novercae odiis impar pergit ad patruum, multaque ab eo comitate in speciem liberum cultus primores Armeniorum ad res novas inlicit, ignaro et ornante insuper Mithridate.

Under the show of reconciliation taken up and returned to his father, he reports that what could be accomplished by fraud was ready, the rest must be carried out by arms. Meanwhile Pharasmanes feigns causes of war: that, as he fought against the king of the Albani and called the Romans to aid, his brother had opposed him, and that he would avenge that injury by his destruction; at the same time he handed over great forces to his son. He, by a sudden inroad, terrified and stripped of the plains, drove Mithridates into the fort of Gorneas, safe by its position and by a garrison of soldiers, over which Caelius Pollio was prefect, the centurion Casperius in command. Nothing is so unknown to barbarians as the engines and stratagems of sieges: but to us that part of warfare is most familiar. So Radamistus, the fortifications attempted in vain or with loss, begins a siege; and when force was scorned, he buys off the avarice of the prefect, Casperius protesting that an allied king, that Armenia the gift of the Roman people, should not be overturned by crime and money. At last, because Pollio held out the multitude of the enemy, Radamistus his father’s orders, a truce agreed, he withdraws, that, unless he should have deterred Pharasmanes from war, he might inform Ummidius Quadratus, governor of Syria, in what state Armenia was.

Reconciliationis specie adsumpta regressusque ad patrem, quae fraude confici potuerint, prompta nuntiat, cetera armis exequenda. interim Pharasmanes belli causas confingit: proelianti sibi adversus regem Albanorum et Romanos auxilio vocanti fratrem adversatum, eamque iniuriam excidio ipsius ultum iturum; simul magnas copias filio tradidit. ille inruptione subita territum exutumque campis Mithridaten compulit in castellum Gorneas, tutum loco ac praesidio militum, quis Caelius Pollio praefectus, centurio Casperius praeerat. nihil tam ignarum barbaris quam machinamenta et astus oppugnationum: at nobis ea pars militiae maxime gnara est. ita Radamistus frustra vel cum damno temptatis munitionibus obsidium incipit; et cum vis neglegeretur, avaritiam praefecti emercatur, obtestante Casperio, ne socius rex, ne Armenia donum populi Romani scelere et pecunia verterentur. postremo quia multitudinem hostium Pollio, iussa patris Radamistus obtendebant, pactus indutias abscedit, ut, nisi Pharasmanen bello absterruisset, Vmmidium Quadratum praesidem Syriae doceret quo in statu Armenia foret.

By the departure of the centurion, the prefect, as though released from a guard, urges Mithridates to ratify a treaty, recalling the union of the brothers and Pharasmanes the elder in age and the other names of kinship—that he had his daughter in marriage, that he himself was father-in-law to Radamistus: that the Iberians did not refuse peace, though for the moment the stronger; and that the perfidy of the Armenians was well known, nor any other resource than a fort destitute of supply: let him not prefer to try doubtful things by arms rather than bloodless terms. Mithridates hesitating at these, and the prefect’s counsels suspected, because he had polluted a royal concubine and was held venal to every lust, Casperius meanwhile makes his way to Pharasmanes and demands that the Iberians withdraw from the siege. He, openly answering uncertain and more often milder things, by secret messengers warns Radamistus to hasten the assault in any way. The price of the villainy is augmented, and Pollio by secret corruption drives the soldiers to demand peace and threaten that they would abandon the garrison. By which necessity Mithridates accepted a day and place for the treaty and goes out of the fort.

Digressu centurionis velut custode exolutus praefectus hortari Mithridaten ad sanciendum foedus, coniunctionem fratrum ac priorem aetate Pharasmanen et cetera necessitudinum nomina referens, quod filiam eius in matrimonio haberet, quod ipse Radamisto socer esset: non abnuere pacem Hiberos, quamquam in tempore validiores; et satis cognitam Armeniorum perfidiam, nec aliud subsidii quam castellum commeatu egenum: ne dubia tentare armis quam incruentas condiciones mallet. cunctante ad ea Mithridate et suspectis praefecti consiliis, quod paelicem regiam polluerat inque omnem libidinem venalis habebatur, Casperius interim ad Pharasmanen pervadit, utque Hiberi obsidio decedant expostulat. ille propalam incerta et saepius molliora respondens, secretis nuntiis monet Radamistum obpugnationem quoquo modo celerare. augetur flagitii merces, et Pollio occulta corruptione impellit milites ut pacem flagitarent seque praesidium omissuros minitarentur. qua necessitate Mithridates diem locumque foederi accepit castelloque egreditur.

And at first Radamistus, poured out into his embrace, feigns obsequiousness, calls him father-in-law and parent; he adds an oath that he would offer violence neither by steel nor by poison; at the same time he draws him into a neighboring grove, saying that the apparatus of a sacrifice was provided there, that peace might be confirmed with the gods as witnesses. It is a custom for kings, whenever they come into alliance, to clasp right hands and bind their thumbs together and tighten them with a knot: soon, when the blood has suffused itself into the extremities, by a light stroke they draw out the gore and lick it in turn. That treaty is held secret, as it were consecrated by mutual blood. But then he who was applying those bonds, feigning to have slipped, attacks the knees of Mithridates and prostrates him; and at once, by the onrush of many, chains are thrown on. And by a fetter—which is disgraceful to barbarians—he was dragged; soon, because the crowd held him under a hard rule, they leveled reproaches and lashes at him. And there were on the other hand those who pitied so great a change of fortune; and his wife, following with their little children, filled all things with lamentation. They are hidden in separate and covered vehicles, while the orders of Pharasmanes were sought out. To him the desire of the kingdom was stronger than brother and daughter, and his mind ready for crimes; yet he had regard for appearance, that he should not kill them before his face. And Radamistus, as though mindful of his oath, brings out neither steel nor poison against his sister and uncle, but, cast on the ground and covered with much heavy clothing, kills them. The sons too of Mithridates, because they had wept at the slaughter of their parents, were butchered.

Ac primo Radamistus in amplexus eius effusus simulare obsequium, socerum ac parentem appellare; adicit ius iurandum, non ferro, non veneno vim adlaturum; simul in lucum propinquum trahit, provisum illic sacrificii paratum dictitans, ut diis testibus pax firmaretur. mos est regibus, quoties in societatem coeant, implicare dextras pollicesque inter se vincire nodoque praestringere: mox ubi sanguis in artus se extremos suffuderit, levi ictu cruorem eliciunt atque invicem lambunt. id foedus arcanum habetur quasi mutuo cruore sacratum. sed tunc qui ea vincla admovebat, decidisse simulans genua Mithridatis invadit ipsumque prosternit; simulque concursu plurium iniciuntur catenae. ac compede, quod dedecorum barbaris, trahebatur; mox quia vulgus duro imperio habitum, probra ac verbera intentabat. et erant contra qui tantam fortunae commutationem misera- rentur; secutaque cum parvis liberis coniunx cuncta lamentatione complebat. diversis et contectis vehiculis abduntur, dum Pharasmanis iussa exquirerentur. illi cupido regni fratre et filia potior animusque sceleribus paratus; visui tamen consuluit, ne coram interficeret. et Radamistus, quasi iuris iurandi memor, non ferrum, non venenum in sororem et patruum expromit, sed proiectos in humum et veste multa gravique opertos necat. filii quoque Mithridatis quod caedibus parentum inlacrimaverant trucidati sunt.

But Quadratus, learning that Mithridates was betrayed and the kingdom held by his murderers, calls a council, sets forth what was done, and deliberates whether to avenge it. To a few the public honor was a care, the more discoursed safe things: every foreign crime was to be held with gladness; nay, the seeds of hatreds should be sown, as Roman princes had often offered that same Armenia under the show of largess for the disturbing of barbarian minds: let Radamistus possess his ill-gotten gains, while he was hated and infamous, since that was more to our advantage than if he had attained it with glory. This opinion was followed. Yet, lest they should seem to have approved the crime, and Caesar order otherwise, messengers were sent to Pharasmanes to withdraw from the Armenian borders and draw off his son.

At Quadratus cognoscens proditum Mithridaten et regnum ab interfectoribus obtineri, vocat consilium, docet acta et an ulcisceretur consultat. paucis decus publicum curae, plures tuta disserunt: omne scelus externum cum laetitia habendum; semina etiam odiorum iacienda, ut saepe principes Romani eandem Armeniam specie largitionis turbandis barbarorum animis praebuerint: poteretur Radamistus male partis, dum invisus infamis, quando id magis ex usu quam si cum gloria adeptus foret. in hanc sententiam itum. ne tamen adnuisse facinori viderentur et diversa Caesar iuberet, missi ad Pharasmanen nuntii ut abscederet a finibus Armeniis filiumque abstraheret.

There was a procurator of Cappadocia, Julius Paelignus, to be despised alike for the cowardice of his mind and the ridiculousness of his body, but very familiar to Claudius, when, once a private man, he had whiled away an idle leisure in the company of buffoons. This Paelignus, the auxiliaries of the provincials gathered, as though about to recover Armenia, while he plunders the allies rather than the enemy, by the withdrawal of his own men and the barbarians making inroads, destitute of a garrison, comes to Radamistus; and, overcome by his gifts, he even exhorts him to take up the royal emblem, and stands by, as he takes it, its author and attendant. When this was made known by foul report, lest the rest too be judged from Paelignus, Helvidius Priscus the legate is sent with a legion to take thought for the turbulent affairs as the time required. So, having swiftly crossed the Taurus mountain, when he had composed more by moderation than by force, he is ordered to return into Syria, lest a beginning of war against the Parthians arise.

Erat Cappadociae procurator Iulius Paelignus, ignavia animi et deridiculo corporis iuxta despiciendus, sed Claudio perquam familiaris, cum privatus olim conversatione scurrarum iners otium oblectaret. is Paelignus auxiliis provincialium contractis tamquam reciperaturus Armeniam, dum socios magis quam hostis praedatur, abscessu suorum et incursantibus barbaris praesidii egens ad Radamistum venit; donisque eius evictus ultro regium insigne sumere cohortatur sumentique adest auctor et satelles. quod ubi turpi fama divulgatum, ne ceteri quoque ex Paeligno coniectarentur, Helvidius Priscus legatus cum legione mittitur rebus turbidis pro tempore ut consuleret. igitur propere montem Taurum transgressus moderatione plura quam vi composuerat, cum rediret in Syriam iubetur ne initium belli adversus Parthos existeret.

For Vologeses, reckoning that a chance had come of invading Armenia, which, possessed by his ancestors, a foreign king held by villainy, draws together forces and prepares to lead his brother Tiridates into the kingdom, that no part of the house should be without rule. By the entry of the Parthians the Iberians were driven off without a battle, and the cities of the Armenians, Artaxata and Tigranocerta, accepted the yoke. Then a fierce winter, and too little provided supplies, and a pestilence arising from both, compel Vologeses to abandon the present enterprise. And Radamistus invaded Armenia, vacant again, more truculent than before, as against deserters and men ready to rebel in time. And they, although used to servitude, break off their patience and surround the palace in arms.

Nam Vologeses casum invadendae Armeniae obvenisse ratus, quam a maioribus suis possessam externus rex flagitio obtineret, contrahit copias fratremque Tiridaten deducere in regnum parat, ne qua pars domus sine imperio ageret. incessu Parthorum sine acie pulsi Hiberi, urbesque Armeniorum Artaxata et Tigranocerta iugum accepere. deinde atrox hiems et parum provisi commeatus et orta ex utroque tabes perpellunt Vologesen omittere praesentia. vacuamque rursus Armeniam Radamistus invasit, truculentior quam antea, tamquam adversus defectores et in tempore rebellaturos. atque illi quamvis servitio sueti patientiam abrumpunt armisque regiam circumveniunt.

Nor was there other resource to Radamistus than the swiftness of his horses, by which he carried off himself and his wife. But his wife, being pregnant, endured the first flight somehow, through fear of the enemy and love of her husband; afterward, by the continual haste, when her womb was shaken and her vitals quivered, she begs to be taken by an honorable death from the indignities of captivity. He at first embraces, lifts, encourages her, now admiring her courage, now sick with fear lest anyone should possess her, left behind. At last, by the violence of his love and not raw in crimes, he draws his scimitar, and, wounding her, drags her to the bank of the Araxes and gives her to the river, that even her body might be carried off: he himself, headlong, makes his way to the Iberians and his ancestral kingdom. Meanwhile shepherds noticed Zenobia (that was the woman’s name) breathing in a quiet shallow and manifestly alive, and, reckoning her not ignoble by the dignity of her form, bind up her wound, apply rustic remedies, and, her name and fortune known, carry her to the city of Artaxata; whence, brought by public care to Tiridates and kindly received, she was treated with royal honor.

Nec aliud Radamisto subsidium fuit quam pernicitas equorum, quis seque et coniugem abstulit. sed coniunx gravida primam utcumque fugam ob metum hostilem et mariti caritatem toleravit; post festinatione continua, ubi quati uterus et viscera vibrantur, orare ut morte honesta contumeliis captivitatis eximeretur. ille primo amplecti adlevare adhortari, modo virtutem admirans, modo timore aeger ne quis relicta poteretur. postremo violentia amoris et facinorum non rudis destringit acinacen vulneratamque ripam ad Araxis trahit, flumini tradit ut corpus etiam auferretur: ipse praeceps Hiberos ad patrium regnum per- vadit. interim Zenobiam (id mulieri nomen) placida in eluvie spirantem ac vitae manifestam advertere pastores, et dignitate formae haud degenerem reputantes obligant vulnus, agrestia medicamina adhibent cognitoque nomine et casu in urbem Artaxata ferunt; unde publica cura deducta ad Tiridaten comiterque excepta cultu regio habita est.

In the consulship of Faustus Sulla and Salvius Otho, Furius Scribonianus is driven into exile, as though he were searching out the prince’s end through Chaldeans. There was joined to the charge his mother Vibia, as impatient of her former lot (for she had been banished). Camillus, father of Scribonianus, had moved arms through Dalmatia; and that Caesar drew to his clemency, that he preserved a hostile stock a second time. Yet the exile had no long life thereafter: whether he was extinguished by a chance death or by poison, as each believed, so they put about. A decree of the Senate about expelling the astrologers from Italy, atrocious and ineffectual, was made. Praised thereafter in a speech of the prince were those who, on account of the straits of their estate, yielded their senatorial order of their own accord; and expelled were those who, by remaining, added impudence to poverty.

Fausto Sulla Salvio Othone consulibus Furius Scribonianus in exilium agitur, quasi finem principis per Chaldaeos scrutaretur. adnectebatur crimini Vibia mater eius, ut casus prioris (nam relegata erat) impatiens. pater Scriboniani Camillus arma per Dalmatiam moverat; idque ad clementiam trahebat Caesar, quod stirpem hostilem iterum conservaret. neque tamen exuli longa posthac vita fuit: morte fortuita an per venenum extinctus esset, ut quisque credidit, vulgavere. de mathematicis Italia pellendis factum senatus consultum atrox et inritum. laudati dehinc oratione principis qui ob angustias familiaris ordine senatorio sponte cederent, motique qui remanendo impudentiam paupertati adicerent.

Among these things he refers to the Fathers about the punishment of women who should be joined to slaves; and it is resolved that those who had so slipped down, the master ignorant, should be in slavery, but if he had consented, be held as freedwomen. To Pallas, whom Caesar had published as the inventor of that motion, the praetorian insignia and fifteen million sesterces were voted by the consul designate Barea Soranus. There was added by Scipio Cornelius that public thanks should be given, because, sprung from the kings of Arcadia, he postponed his most ancient nobility to the public good and suffered himself to be held among the prince’s ministers. Claudius asserted that Pallas, content with the honor, remained within his former poverty. And a decree of the Senate was fixed in public bronze, by which a freedman, possessor of three hundred million sesterces, was heaped with the praises of ancient frugality.

Inter quae refert ad patres de poena feminarum quae servis coniungerentur; statuiturque ut ignaro domino ad id prolapsae in servitute, sin consensisset, pro libertis haberentur. Pallanti, quem repertorem eius relationis ediderat Caesar, praetoria insignia et centies quinquagies sestertium censuit consul designatus Barea Soranus. additum a Scipione Cornelio grates publice agendas, quod regibus Arcadiae ortus veterrimam nobilitatem usui publico postponeret seque inter ministros principis haberi sineret. adseveravit Claudius contentum honore Pallantem intra priorem paupertatem subsistere. et fixum est aere publico senatus consultum quo libertinus sestertii ter milies possessor antiquae parsimoniae laudibus cumulabatur.

But his brother, surnamed Felix, did not act with equal moderation, long since set over Judaea and reckoning all misdeeds permitted to himself, propped by so great a power. Surely the Jews had given a show of commotion, a sedition having arisen, after, his killing being known, there was no obedience, and there remained a fear lest some of the princes should rule the same. And meanwhile Felix kindled offenses by untimely remedies, his rival to the worst Ventidius Cumanus, who held a part of the province, so divided that the nation of the Galilaeans obeyed the latter, the Samaritans Felix, long at discord and then, in contempt of their rulers, with their hatreds the less curbed. So they harried one another, sent in bands of robbers, laid ambushes, and sometimes met in battles, and carried off spoils and plunder to the procurators. And these at first rejoiced, soon, as the destruction swelled, when they had interposed the arms of soldiers, the soldiers were killed; and the province would have blazed in war, had not Quadratus, governor of Syria, come to the rescue. Nor was it long doubted, against the Jews who had burst out to the slaughter of soldiers, that they should pay penalties with their heads: Cumanus and Felix brought delay, because Claudius, the causes of the rebellion heard, had given the right of deciding even about the procurators. But Quadratus displayed Felix among the judges, received onto the tribunal, that the zeal of the accusers might be deterred; and Cumanus was condemned for the outrages which the two had committed, and quiet was restored to the province.

At non frater eius, cognomento Felix, pari moderatione agebat, iam pridem Iudaeae impositus et cuncta malefacta sibi impune ratus tanta potentia subnixo. sane praebuerant Iudaei speciem motus orta seditione, postquamcognita caede eius haud obtemperatum esset, manebat metus ne quis principum eadem imperitaret. atque interim Felix intempestivis remediis delicta accendebat, aemulo ad deterrima Ventidio Cumano, cui pars provinciae habebatur, ita divisis ut huic Galilaeorum natio, Felici Samaritae parerent, discordes olim et tum contemptu regentium minus coercitis odiis. igitur raptare inter se, immittere latronum globos, componere insidias et aliquando proeliis congredi, spoliaque et praedas ad procuratores referre. hique primo laetari, mox gliscente pernicie cum arma militum interiecissent, caesi milites; arsissetque bello provincia, ni Quadratus Syriae rector subvenisset. nec diu adversus Iudaeos, qui in necem militum proruperant, dubitatum quin capite poenas luerent: Cumanus et Felix cunctationem adferebant, quia Claudius causis rebellionis auditis ius statuendi etiam de procuratoribus dederat. sed Quadratus Felicem inter iudices ostentavit, receptum in tribunal, quo studia accusantium deterrerentur; damnatusque flagitiorum quae duo deliquerant Cumanus, et quies provinciae reddita.

Nor much after, the nations of the rustic Cilicians, whose surname is Cietae, often stirred at other times too, then under the leader Troxoborus seized the rough mountains with their camps, and thence, by a descent to the shores or cities, dared violence against the cultivators and townsmen, and mostly against merchants and shipowners. And the city of Anemurium was besieged, and the horsemen sent from Syria to its aid, with the prefect Curtius Severus, are thrown into confusion, because the hard places around, fit for foot for battle, did not allow a cavalry fight. Then Antiochus, king of that coast, by blandishments against the plebs, by fraud against the leader, when he had disjoined the forces of the barbarians, Troxoborus and a few chief men being killed, composed the rest by clemency.

Nec multo post agrestium Cilicum nationes, quibus Clitarum cognomentum, saepe et alias commotae, tunc Troxobore duce montis asperos castris cepere atque inde decursu in litora aut urbes vim cultoribus et oppidanis ac plerumque in mercatores et navicularios audebant. obsessaque civitas Anemuriensis, et missi e Syria in subsidium equites cum praefecto Curtio Severo turbantur, quod duri circum loci peditibusque ad pugnam idonei equestre proelium haud patiebantur. dein rex eius orae Antiochus blandimentis adversum plebem, fraude in ducem cum barbarorum copias dissociasset, Troxobore paucisque primoribus interfectis ceteros clementia composuit.

About the same time, the mountain between the Fucine lake and the river Liris having been pierced through, that the magnificence of the work might be seen by more, a naval battle is arrayed on the lake itself, as once Augustus, a pool built across the Tiber, had given one, but with light vessels and a smaller force. Claudius armed triremes and quadriremes and nineteen thousand men, the circuit hedged with rafts, that there might be no wandering escapes, yet embracing a space for the force of the rowing, the arts of the helmsmen, the charge of the ships, and the things usual in a battle. On the rafts had stood maniples and squadrons of the praetorian cohorts, with bulwarks set before them from which catapults and ballistas might be drawn. The rest of the lake the marines held in decked ships. The banks and hills and the heights of the mountains, in the fashion of a theater, an innumerable multitude filled, from the nearest towns and others from the city itself, from a desire of seeing or for duty to the prince. He himself in a notable general’s cloak, and not far off Agrippina in a gold-woven mantle, presided. The fight, although among the guilty, was with the spirit of brave men, and after many wounds they were exempted from slaughter.

Sub idem tempus inter lacum Fucinum amnemque Lirim perrupto monte, quo magnificentia operis a pluribus viseretur, lacu in ipso navale proelium adornatur, ut quondam Augustus structo trans Tiberim stagno, sed levibus navigiis et minore copia ediderat. Claudius triremis quadriremisque et undeviginti hominum milia armavit, cincto ratibus ambitu, ne vaga effugia forent, ac tamen spatium amplexus ad vim remigii, gubernantium artes, impetus navium et proelio solita. in ratibus praetoriarum cohortium manipuli turmaeque adstiterant, antepositis propugnaculis ex quis catapultae ballistaeque tenderentur. reliqua lacus classiarii tectis navibus obtinebant. ripas et collis montiumque edita in modum theatri multitudo innumera complevit, proximis e municipiis et alii urbe ex ipsa, visendi cupidine aut officio in principem. ipse insigni paludamento neque procul Agrippina chlamyde aurata praesedere. pugnatum quamquam inter sontis fortium virorum animo, ac post multum vulnerum occidioni exempti sunt.

But the spectacle finished, the channel of the waters was opened. The carelessness of the work was manifest, not sufficiently sunk to the bottom or middle of the lake. And, time being interposed, the channel was dug deeper, and, to draw together the multitude again, a spectacle of gladiators is given, bridges put in for a foot-battle. Nay, even a banquet set at the outflow of the lake afflicted all with great terror, because the force of the waters bursting out dragged the nearest, the further parts being convulsed, or men terrified by the crash and the noise. At the same time Agrippina, using the prince’s alarm, accuses the manager of the work, Narcissus, of greed and of plunder. Nor does he keep silence, but charges the woman’s want of restraint and her excessive hopes.

Sed perfecto spectaculo apertum aquarum iter. incuria operis manifesta fuit, haud satis depressi ad lacus ima vel media. eoque tempore interiecto altius effossi specus, et contrahendae rursum multitudini gladiatorum spectaculum editur, inditis pontibus pedestrem ad pugnam. quin et convivium effluvio lacus adpositum magna formidine cunctos adfecit, quia vis aquarum prorumpens proxima trahebat, convulsis ulterioribus aut fragore et sonitu exterritis. simul Agrippina trepidatione principis usa ministrum operis Narcissum incusat cupidinis ac praedarum. nec ille reticet, impotentiam muliebrem nimiasque spes eius arguens.

In the consulship of Decimus Junius and Quintus Haterius, Nero, sixteen years old, received Octavia, Caesar’s daughter, in marriage. And that he might shine by honest studies and the glory of eloquence, having taken up the cause of the people of Ilium, eloquently rehearsing that the Roman was descended from Troy, and that Aeneas was the author of the Julian stock, and other ancient things not far from fables, he obtains that the Ilians be freed from every public burden. By the same advocate, the colony of Bononia, consumed by fire, was relieved by a largess of ten million sesterces. To the Rhodians liberty was restored—often taken away or confirmed, according as they had deserved in foreign wars or offended at home by sedition; and to the Apamenes, convulsed by an earthquake, the tribute was remitted for five years.

D. Iunio Q. Haterio consulibus sedecim annos natus Nero Octaviam Caesaris filiam in matrimonium accepit. utque studiis honestis et eloquentiae gloria enitesceret, causa Iliensium suscepta Romanum Troia demissum et Iuliae stirpis auctorem Aeneam aliaque haud procul fabulis vetera facunde executus perpetrat, ut Ilienses omni publico munere solverentur. eodem oratore Bononiensi coloniae igni haustae subventum centies sestertii largitione. reddita Rhodiis libertas, adempta saepe aut firmata, prout bellis externis meruerant aut domi seditione deliquerant; tributumque Apamensibus terrae motu convulsis in quinquennium remissum.

But Claudius was driven to bring forth every most savage thing by the same arts of Agrippina, who overthrew Statilius Taurus, illustrious in wealth, gaping after his gardens, Tarquitius Priscus accusing. He, a legate of Taurus governing Africa with proconsular command, after they had returned, objected a few charges of extortion, but for the rest magical superstitions. Nor did the other endure longer a false accuser and unworthy degradations, but laid violent hands on his life before the sentence of the Senate. Tarquitius, however, was expelled from the Curia; which the Fathers, in hatred of the informer, carried through against the canvassing of Agrippina.

At Claudius saevissima quaeque promere adigebatur eiusdem Agrippinae artibus, quae Statilium Taurum opibus inlustrem hortis eius inhians pervertit accusante Tarquitio Prisco. legatus is Tauri Africam imperio proconsulari regentis, postquam revenerant, pauca repetundarum crimina, ceterum magicas superstitiones obiectabat. nec ille diutius falsum accusatorem, indignas sordis perpessus vim vitae suae attulit ante sententiam senatus. Tarquitius tamen curia exactus est; quod patres odio delatoris contra ambitum Agrippinae pervicere.

In the same year the prince’s voice was oftener heard, that an equal force was to be held in the matters judged by his procurators as if he himself had decided. And lest he should seem to have slipped by chance, it was provided by a decree of the Senate too, more fully and amply than before. For the deified Augustus had ordered that, before the knights who presided over Egypt, suit should be conducted by law and their decrees be held just as if Roman magistrates had established them; soon, through other provinces and in the city, very many things were granted that of old were tried by the praetors: Claudius handed over all the law, about which there had so often been contention by sedition or arms, when by the Sempronian bills the equestrian order was placed in possession of the courts, or again the Servilian laws restored the courts to the Senate, and Marius and Sulla once warred over it especially. But then the zeals of the orders were diverse, and what they had won availed publicly. Gaius Oppius and Cornelius Balbus were the first who, by Caesar’s resources, were able to handle the conditions of peace and the arbitraments of war. To recount the Matii and the Vedii and the other very powerful names of Roman knights thereafter would avail nothing, since Claudius made the freedmen whom he had set over his private estate equal to himself and to the laws.

Eodem anno saepius audita vox principis, parem vim rerum habendam a procuratoribus suis iudicatarum ac si ipse statuisset. ac ne fortuito prolapsus videretur, senatus quoque consulto cautum plenius quam antea et uberius. nam divus Augustus apud equestris qui Aegypto praesiderent lege agi decretaque eorum proinde haberi iusserat ac si magistratus Romani constituissent; mox alias per provincias et in urbe pleraque concessa sunt quae olim a praetoribus noscebantur: Claudius omne ius tradidit, de quo toties seditione aut armis certatum, cum Semproniis rogationibus equester ordo in possessione iudiciorum locaretur, aut rursum Serviliae leges senatui iudicia redderent, Mariusque et Sulla olim de eo vel praecipue bellarent. sed tunc ordinum diversa studia, et quae vicerant publice valebant. C. Oppius et Cornelius Balbus primi Caesaris opibus potuere condiciones pacis et arbitria belli tractare. Matios posthac et Vedios et cetera equitum Romanorum praevalida nomina referre nihil attinuerit, cum Claudius libertos quos rei familiari praefecerat sibique et legibus adaequaverit.

He then referred about granting immunity to the Coans, and recalled much about their antiquity: that the Argives, or Coeus the father of Latona, were the most ancient cultivators of the island; soon, by the coming of Aesculapius, the art of healing was brought in and was especially celebrated among his posterity, recounting the names of individuals and in what ages each had flourished. Nay, he even said that Xenophon, of whose knowledge he himself made use, was sprung from the same family, and that, at his prayers, it should be granted that the Coans, free from all tribute in the future, should cultivate the island as sacred and the minister only of the god. Nor is it doubted that many merits of the same toward the Roman people, and allied victories, could have been related: but Claudius, with his wonted facility, veiled with no outside aids what he had granted to one man.

Rettulit dein de immunitate Cois tribuenda multaque super antiquitate eorum memoravit: Argivos vel Coeum Latonae parentem vetustissimos insulae cultores; mox adventu Aesculapii artem medendi inlatam maximeque inter posteros eius celebrem fuisse, nomina singulorum referens et quibus quisque aetatibus viguissent. quin etiam dixit Xenophontem, cuius scientia ipse uteretur, eadem familia ortum, precibusque eius dandum ut omni tributo vacui in posterum Coi sacram et tantum dei ministram insulam colerent. neque dubium habetur multa eorundem in populum Romanum merita sociasque victorias potuisse tradi: set Claudius facilitate solita quod uni concesserat nullis extrinsecus adiumentis velavit.

But the Byzantines, leave to speak being given, when they deprecated the magnitude of their burdens before the Senate, recounted everything. Beginning from the treaty which they had struck with us at the time when we warred against the king of the Macedonians (on whom, as a degenerate, the name of Pseudophilippus was imposed), they recalled the forces sent thereafter against Antiochus, Perses, Aristonicus, and that Antonius had been aided in the pirate war, and what they had offered to Sulla or Lucullus or Pompey, soon their recent services to the Caesars, since they held those places convenient to leaders and armies passing by land and sea, and at the same time for the conveying of supplies.

At Byzantii data dicendi copia, cum magnitudinem onerum apud senatum deprecarentur, cuncta repetivere. orsi a foedere, quod nobiscum icerant, qua tempestate bellavimus adversus regem Macedonum, cui ut degeneri Pseudophilippi vocabulum impositum, missas posthac copias in Antiochum Persen Aristonicum et piratico bello adiutum Antonium memorabant, quaeque Sullae aut Lucullo aut Pompeio obtulissent, mox recentia in Caesares merita, quando ea loca insiderent quae transmeantibus terra marique ducibus exercitibusque, simul vehendo commeatu opportuna forent.

For in the narrowest divide between Europe and Asia the Greeks set Byzantium in the extremity of Europe, to whom, consulting the Pythian Apollo where they should found their city, the oracle was given that they should seek a seat opposite the land of the blind. By that riddle the Chalcedonians were pointed out, who, carried thither before and the usefulness of the place not foreseen, had chosen the worse. For Byzantium has a fertile soil and a fruitful sea, because the immense force of fish bursting out of the Pontus, and frightened by the slanting rocks beneath the waves, leaving the curve of the other shore, is carried to these harbors. Whence at first profitable and opulent; afterward, the magnitude of the burdens pressing, they begged an end or a measure, the prince striving for them, who reported that, lately wearied by the Thracian and Bosporan war, they ought to be helped. So the tributes were remitted for five years.

Namque artissimo inter Europam Asiamque divortio Byzantium in extrema Europa posuere Graeci, quibus Pythium Apollinem consulentibus, ubi conderent urbem, redditum oraculum est, quaererent sedem caecorum terris adversam. ea ambage Chalcedonii monstrabantur, quod priores illuc advecti, praevisa locorum utilitate, peiora legissent. quippe Byzantium fertili solo, fecundo mari, quia vis piscium immensa Pontum erumpens et obliquis subter undas saxis exterrita omisso alterius litoris flexu hos ad portus defertur. unde primo quaestuosi et opulenti; post magnitudine onerum urgente finem aut modum orabant, adnitente principe, qui Thraecio Bosporanoque bello recens fessos iuvandosque rettulit. ita tributa in quinquennium remissa.

In the consulship of Marcus Asinius and Manius Acilius, a change of affairs for the worse was known to be portended by frequent prodigies. The standards and tents of the soldiers blazed with celestial fire; on the pinnacle of the Capitol a swarm of bees settled; births of double-formed men, and the offspring of a sow brought forth that had the talons of hawks. It was numbered among the portents that the number of all the magistrates was diminished, a quaestor, an aedile, a tribune, a praetor, and a consul dying within a few months. But in chief alarm was Agrippina, fearing a word that Claudius, drunken, had let fall, that it was her fate to bear the outrages of her husbands and then to punish them; and she resolved to act and to hasten, having first destroyed Domitia Lepida on womanly causes. For Lepida, born of the younger Antonia, with Augustus for her great-uncle, the first cousin once removed of Agrippina, and the sister of her husband Gnaeus, believed her renown equal to her own. Nor did their beauty, age, wealth differ much; and, both unchaste, infamous, violent, they vied no less in vices than in whatever they had received from prosperous fortune. But indeed the keenest contest was whether the aunt or the mother should prevail with Nero: for Lepida bound the youthful mind by blandishments and largesses, while Agrippina, on the contrary, was grim and threatening, who could give her son empire but could not tolerate him ruling.

M. Asinio M’. Acilio consulibus mutationem rerum in deterius portendi cognitum est crebris prodigiis. signa ac tentoria militum igne caelesti arsere; fastigio Capitolii examen apium insedit; biformis hominum partus et suis fetum editum cui accipitrum ungues inessent. numerabatur inter ostenta deminutus omnium magistratuum numerus, quaestore, aedili, tribuno ac praetore et consule paucos intra mensis defunctis. sed in praecipuo pavore Agrippina, vocem Claudii, quam temulentus iecerat, fatale sibi ut coniugum flagitia ferret, dein puniret, metuens, agere et celerare statuit, perdita prius Domitia Lepida muliebribus causis, quia Lepida minore Antonia genita, avunculo Augusto, Agrippinae sobrina prior ac Gnaei mariti eius soror, parem sibi claritudinem credebat. nec forma aetas opes multum distabant; et utraque impudica, infamis, violenta, haud minus vitiis aemulabantur quam si qua ex fortuna prospera acceperant. enimvero certamen acerrimum, amita potius an mater apud Neronem praevaleret: nam Lepida blandimentis ac largitionibus iuvenilem animum devinciebat, truci contra ac minaci Agrippina, quae filio dare imperium, tolerare imperitantem nequibat.

For the rest, it was objected against her that she had assailed the prince’s wife by devotions, and that, the bands of her slaves through Calabria being too little curbed, she was disturbing the peace of Italy. For these things death was decreed, much against the opposition of Narcissus, who, suspecting Agrippina more and more, was reported to have declared among his intimates that ruin was certain for him, whether Britannicus or Nero got the mastery; but that Caesar had so deserved of him that he would spend his life for his use. Messalina and Silius had been convicted; there were again equal causes for accusing, if Nero ruled; with Britannicus as successor there was no fear for the prince: but by a stepmother’s snares the whole house was being shaken, with a greater disgrace than if he had kept silence about the unchastity of the former wife. Although not even unchastity was now wanting, Pallas being the adulterer, that none might doubt she held honor, modesty, body, all things cheaper than the throne. Saying these and such things, he kept embracing Britannicus, praying for the strength of his age as soon as might be, now to the gods, now to the youth himself stretching out his hands, that he should grow up, drive off his father’s enemies, and avenge his mother’s killers too.

Ceterum obiecta sunt quod coniugem principis devotionibus petivisset quodque parum coercitis per Calabriam servorum agminibus pacem Italiae turbaret. ob haec mors indicta, multum adversante Narcisso, qui Agrippinam magis magisque suspectans prompsisse inter proximos ferebatur certam sibi perniciem, seu Britannicus rerum seu Nero poteretur; verum ita de se meritum Caesarem, ut vitam usui eius impenderet. convictam Messalinam et Silium; pares iterum accusandi causas esse, si Nero imperitaret; Britannico successore nullum principi metum: at novercae insidiis domum omnem convelli, maiore flagitio quam si impudicitiam prioris coniugis reticuisset. quamquam ne impudicitiam quidem nunc abesse Pallante adultero, ne quis ambigat decus pudorem corpus, cuncta regno viliora habere. haec atque talia dictitans amplecti Britannicum, robur aetatis quam maturrimum precari, modo ad deos, modo ad ipsum tendere manus, adolesceret, patris inimicos depelleret, matris etiam interfectores ulcisceretur.

In so great a mass of cares he is seized by ill health, and, to restore his strength by the softness of the climate and the salubrity of the waters, goes to Sinuessa. Then Agrippina, long resolved on the crime and quick to the offered occasion, and not destitute of ministers, deliberated about the kind of poison, lest by a sudden and headlong deed the crime be betrayed; if she chose a slow and wasting one, lest Claudius, near his end and the guile understood, return to love of his son. Something choice pleased her, which should disturb the mind and defer death. There is chosen an artificer of such things, by name Locusta, lately condemned for poisoning and long held among the instruments of the realm. By that woman’s wit the venom was prepared, whose minister, of the eunuchs, was Halotus, wont to bring in the dishes and to test them by the taste.

In tanta mole curarum valetudine adversa corripitur, refovendisque viribus mollitia caeli et salubritate aquarum Sinuessam pergit. tum Agrippina, sceleris olim certa et oblatae occasionis propera nec ministrorum egens, de genere veneni consultavit, ne repentino et praecipiti facinus proderetur; si lentum et tabidum delegisset, ne admotus supremis Claudius et dolo intellecto ad amorem filii rediret. exquisitum aliquid placebat, quod turbaret mentem et mortem differret. deligitur artifex talium vocabulo Locusta, nuper veneficii damnata et diu inter instrumenta regni habita. eius mulieris ingenio paratum virus, cuius minister e spadonibus fuit Halotus, inferre epulas et explorare gustu solitus.

And all things soon became so well known that the writers of those times have handed down that the poison was infused into a delectable mushroom, and that the force of the drug was not at once perceived, whether through the prince’s sluggishness or his drunkenness; at the same time a loosened bowel seemed to have brought relief. So Agrippina, terrified, and, since the last things were feared, the resentment of the present scorned, calls in the foreseen privity of the physician Xenophon. He, as though he aided the efforts of one vomiting, is believed to have thrust down his throat a feather smeared with a swift poison, not unaware that the greatest crimes are begun with peril, accomplished with reward.

Adeoque cuncta mox pernotuere ut temporum illorum scriptores prodiderint infusum delectabili boleto venenum, nec vim medicaminis statim intellectam, socordiane an Claudii vinolentia; simul soluta alvus subvenisse videbatur. igitur exterrita Agrippina et, quando ultima timebantur, spreta praesentium invidia provisam iam sibi Xenophontis medici conscientiam adhibet. ille tamquam nisus evomentis adiuvaret, pinnam rapido veneno inlitam faucibus eius demisisse creditur, haud ignarus summa scelera incipi cum periculo, peragi cum praemio.

Meanwhile the Senate was being summoned, and the consuls and priests were uttering vows for the prince’s safety, when now, lifeless, he was covered with clothes and poultices, while the things were composed that were to confirm Nero’s empire. Now first Agrippina, as though overcome with grief and seeking consolations, held Britannicus in her embrace, called him the true image of his father’s face, and by various arts kept him from going out of the chamber. His sisters too, Antonia and Octavia, she detained, and had closed all the approaches with guards, and frequently gave out that the prince’s health was going toward the better, that the soldier might act in good hope and the prosperous time, by the warnings of the Chaldeans, might come.

Vocabatur interim senatus votaque pro incolumitate principis consules et sacerdotes nuncupabant, cum iam exanimis vestibus et fomentis obtegeretur, dum quae res forent firmando Neronis imperio componuntur. iam primum Agrippina, velut dolore victa et solacia conquirens, tenere amplexu Britannicum, veram paterni oris effigiem appellare ac variis artibus demorari ne cubiculo egrederetur. Antoniam quoque et Octaviam sorores eius attinuit, et cunctos aditus custodiis clauserat, crebroque vulgabat ire in melius valetudinem principis, quo miles bona in spe ageret tempusque prosperum ex monitis Chaldaeorum adventaret.

Then, at midday, on the third before the Ides of October, the doors of the palace suddenly thrown open, Nero, Burrus accompanying, goes out to the cohort which, by the custom of the service, is present on watch. There, the prefect prompting, received with auspicious cries, he is set in a litter. Some, they say, hesitated, looking back and asking where Britannicus was: soon, no one being an author to the contrary, they followed what was offered. And carried into the camp, Nero, having prefaced what suited the time, a donative promised after the example of his father’s largess, is hailed as emperor. The opinion of the soldiers was followed by the decrees of the Fathers, nor was there hesitation among the provinces. And celestial honors are decreed to Claudius, and the solemnity of his funeral celebrated just as for the deified Augustus, Agrippina emulating the magnificence of her great-grandmother Livia. His will, however, was not read out, lest the preferring of the stepson before the son should, by its injustice and odium, disturb the minds of the crowd.

Tunc medio diei tertium ante Idus Octobris, foribus palatii repente diductis, comitante Burro Nero egreditur ad cohortem, quae more militiae excubiis adest. ibi monente praefecto faustis vocibus exceptus inditur lecticae. dubitavisse quosdam ferunt, respectantis rogitantisque ubi Britannicus esset: mox nullo in diversum auctore quae offerebantur secuti sunt. inlatusque castris Nero et congruentia tempori praefatus, promisso donativo ad exemplum paternae largitionis, imperator consalutatur. sententiam militum secuta patrum consulta, nec dubitatum est apud provincias. caelestesque honores Claudio decernuntur et funeris sollemne perinde ac divo Augusto celebratur, aemulante Agrippina proaviae Liviae magnificentiam. testamentum tamen haud recitatum, ne antepositus filio privignus iniuria et invidia animos vulgi turbaret.

The first death in the new principate, that of Junius Silanus, proconsul of Asia, was prepared by the guile of Agrippina, Nero unaware—not because he had provoked his destruction by a violence of temper, slothful and despised by other masteries, so that Gaius Caesar was wont to call him "the golden sheep": but Agrippina, having contrived the killing of his brother Lucius Silanus, feared an avenger, the frequent talk of the crowd being that there ought to be preferred to Nero—scarcely out of boyhood and having got the empire by crime—a man of settled age, innocent, noble, and, what was then looked to, of the posterity of the Caesars: for Silanus too was a great-great-grandson of the deified Augustus. This was the cause of the killing. The ministers were Publius Celer, a Roman knight, and Helius, a freedman, set over the prince’s private estate in Asia. By these poison was given to the proconsul among the dishes, too openly to deceive. Nor with less haste was Narcissus, Claudius’s freedman, of whose quarrels against Agrippina I have related, driven to death by a harsh custody and the extremest necessity, the prince unwilling, with whose vices, still hidden, he wonderfully agreed in avarice and prodigality.

Prima novo principatu mors Iunii Silani proconsulis Asiae ignaro Nerone per dolum Agrippinae paratur, non quia ingenii violentia exitium inritaverat, segnis et dominationibus aliis fastiditus, adeo ut G. Caesar pecudem auream eum appellare solitus sit: verum Agrippina fratri eius L. Silano necem molita ultorem metuebat, crebra vulgi fama anteponendum esse vixdum pueritiam egresso Neroni et imperium per scelus adepto virum aetate composita, insontem, nobilem et, quod tunc spectaretur, e Caesarum posteris: quippe et Silanus divi Augusti abnepos erat. haec causa necis. ministri fuere P. Celer eques Romanus et Helius libertus, rei familiari principis in Asia impositi. ab his proconsuli venenum inter epulas datum est apertius quam ut fallerent. nec minus properato Narcissus Claudii libertus, de cuius iurgiis adversus Agrippinam rettuli, aspera custodia et necessitate extrema ad mortem agitur, invito principe, cuius abditis adhuc vitiis per avaritiam ac prodi gentiam mire congruebat.

And it would have gone on to slaughters, had not Afranius Burrus and Annaeus Seneca gone to meet it. These governors of the emperor’s youth, and—a rare thing in the partnership of power—in concord, by diverse arts equally prevailed, Burrus by military cares and severity of manners, Seneca by precepts of eloquence and an honorable affability, aiding each other in turn, that they might the more easily hold the slippery age of the prince, if he scorned virtue, by permitted pleasures. There was one contest for both, against the ferocity of Agrippina, who, blazing with all the lusts of an evil mastery, had on her side Pallas, by whose authorship Claudius had overthrown himself by the incestuous marriage and the fatal adoption. But neither was Nero’s nature below that of slaves, and Pallas, having exceeded the measure of a freedman by a grim arrogance, had stirred a weariness of himself. Yet openly all honors were heaped upon her, and to a tribune asking the watchword by the custom of the service, he gave "The best of mothers." There were decreed too by the Senate two lictors, the Claudian flaminate, and at the same time for Claudius a censor’s funeral and soon consecration.

Ibaturque in caedes, nisi Afranius Burrus et Annaeus Seneca obviam issent. hi rectores imperatoriae iuventae et (rarum in societate potentiae) concordes, diversa arte ex aequo pollebant, Burrus militaribus curis et severitate morum, Seneca praeceptis eloquentiae et comitate honesta, iuvantes in vicem, quo facilius lubricam principis aetatem, si virtutem aspernaretur, voluptatibus concessis retinerent. certamen utrique unum erat contra ferociam Agrippinae, quae cunctis malae dominationis cupidinibus flagrans habebat in partibus Pallantem, quo auctore Claudius nuptiis incestis et adoptione exitiosa semet perverterat. sed neque Neroni infra servos ingenium, et Pallas tristi adrogantia modum liberti egressus taedium sui moverat. propalam tamen omnes in eam honores cumulabantur, signumque more militiae petenti tribuno dedit Optimae matris. decreti et a senatu duo lictores, flamonium Claudiale, simul Claudio censorium funus et mox consecratio.

On the day of the funeral the prince began his eulogy, and while he enumerated the antiquity of the race, the consulships and triumphs of the ancestors, he himself and the rest were attentive; the commemoration too of the liberal arts, and that nothing grievous to the commonwealth had befallen from foreigners while he ruled, was heard with willing minds: after he bent to his providence and wisdom, no one could refrain from laughter, although the speech, composed by Seneca, displayed much polish, as that man had a pleasant genius and one accommodated to the ears of his time. The older men noted, to whom it is a leisure to compare old things and present, that Nero was the first of those who had got the mastery to need another’s eloquence. For the dictator Caesar was a rival of the greatest orators; and Augustus had a ready and flowing eloquence such as befitted a prince. Tiberius too was skilled in the art by which he weighed his words, then forcible in his thoughts or designedly ambiguous. Even the disturbed mind of Gaius Caesar did not corrupt his force of speaking. Nor in Claudius, whenever he discoursed things meditated, would you require elegance. Nero from his boyish years at once turned his lively mind to other things: to engrave, to paint, to practice songs or the management of horses; and sometimes, in composing verses, he showed that the elements of learning were in him.

Die funeris laudationem eius princeps exorsus est, dum antiquitatem generis, consulatus ac triumphos maiorum enumerabat, intentus ipse et ceteri; liberalium quoque artium commemoratio et nihil regente eo triste rei publicae ab externis accidisse pronis animis audita: postquam ad providentiam sapientiamque flexit, nemo risui temperare, quamquam oratio a Seneca composita multum cultus praeferret, ut fuit illi viro ingenium amoenum et temporis eius auribus accommodatum. adnotabant seniores, quibus otiosum est vetera et praesentia contendere, primum ex iis qui rerum potiti essent Neronem alienae facundiae eguisse. nam dictator Caesar summis oratoribus aemulus; et Augusto prompta ac profluens, quae deceret principem, eloquentia fuit. Tiberius artem quoque callebat qua verba expenderet, tum validus sensibus aut consulto ambiguus. etiam G. Caesaris turbata mens vim dicendi non corrupit. nec in Claudio, quoties meditata dissereret, elegantiam requireres. Nero puerilibus statim annis vividum animum in alia detorsit: caelare, pingere, cantus aut regimen equorum exercere; et aliquando carminibus pangendis inesse sibi elementa doctrinae ostendebat.

For the rest, the imitations of grief performed, having entered the Curia and prefaced about the authority of the Fathers and the consensus of the soldiers, he recounted the counsels and the examples for the excellent governing of empire, and that his youth was imbued with no civil wars or domestic discords; he brought no hatreds, no injuries, nor a lust for vengeance. Then he prescribed the form of the future principate, declining especially those things whose odium was lately ablaze. He would not be the judge of all affairs, that, accusers and defendants shut up within one house, the power of a few should range; nothing in his household would be venal or pervious to canvassing; his house and the commonwealth were distinct. Let the Senate keep its ancient functions; let Italy and the public provinces stand before the tribunals of the consuls: let them offer the access to the Fathers, he would take charge of the armies committed to him.

Ceterum peractis tristitiae imitamentis curiam ingressus et de auctoritate patrum et consensu militum praefatus, consilia sibi et exempla capessendi egregie imperii memora- vit, neque iuventam armis civilibus aut domesticis discordiis imbutam; nulla odia, nullas iniurias nec cupidinem ultionis adferre. tum formam futuri principatus praescripsit, ea maxime declinans quorum recens flagrabat invidia. non enim se negotiorum omnium iudicem fore, ut clausis unam intra domum accusatoribus et reis paucorum potentia grassaretur; nihil in penatibus suis venale aut ambitioni pervium; discretam domum et rem publicam. teneret antiqua munia senatus, consulum tribunalibus Italia et publicae provinciae adsisterent: illi patrum aditum praeberent, se mandatis exercitibus consulturum.

Nor was good faith wanting, and many things were established at the discretion of the Senate: that no one should be bought for the pleading of a cause by fee or gifts; that the quaestors-designate should have no necessity of giving gladiators. Which indeed, Agrippina opposing as though the acts of Claudius were being subverted, the Fathers carried, who were summoned to the Palace for that purpose, that she might stand by, doors added behind, parted by a curtain which barred the sight but did not take away the hearing. Nay, when the legates of the Armenians were pleading the cause of their nation before Nero, she was preparing to mount the emperor’s platform and preside together with him, had not Seneca, the rest being fixed with panic, admonished him to go to meet his approaching mother. So, under a show of filial duty, the disgrace was met.

Nec defuit fides, multaque arbitrio senatus constituta sunt: ne quis ad causam orandam mercede aut donis emeretur, ne designatis quaestoribus edendi gladiatores necessitas esset. quod quidem adversante Agrippina, tamquam acta Claudii subverterentur, obtinuere patres, qui in Palatium ob id vocabantur ut adstaret additis a tergo foribus velo discreta, quod visum arceret, auditus non adimeret. quin et legatis Armeniorum causam gentis apud Neronem orantibus escendere suggestum imperatoris et praesidere simul parabat, nisi ceteris pavore defixis Seneca admonuisset venienti matri occurreret. ita specie pietatis obviam itum dedecori.

At the year’s end it was brought, in turbulent rumors, that the Parthians had again broken out and were seizing Armenia, Radamistus being driven off—who, having often got possession of that kingdom, then a fugitive, then too had deserted the war. So in the city, greedy of talk, men kept asking how a prince scarce out of seventeen years could take up that burden or repel it, what aid there was in one who was ruled by a woman, whether even battles and the assaults of cities and the rest of war could be administered through tutors. Others, on the contrary, discoursed that it had fallen out better than if a Claudius, weak with age and sloth, were called to the toils of soldiering, likely to obey servile orders. Burrus, however, and Seneca were known by experience of many things; and how much was lacking to the emperor in strength, when in the eighteenth year of his age Gnaeus Pompey, in the nineteenth Caesar Octavian, had sustained civil wars? Most things in the highest fortune are carried on by auspices and counsels rather than by weapons and hands. He would plainly give a proof whether he used honest friends or otherwise, if, odium removed, he chose an excellent leader rather than a wealthy one propped by favor through canvassing.

Fine anni turbidis rumoribus prorupisse rursum Parthos et rapi Armeniam adlatum est, pulso Radamisto, qui saepe regni eius potitus, dein profugus, tum quoque bellum deseruerat. igitur in urbe sermonum avida, quem ad modum princeps vix septemdecim annos egressus suscipere eam molem aut propulsare posset, quod subsidium in eo qui a femina regeretur, num proelia quoque et obpugnationes urbium et cetera belli per magistros administrari possent, anquirebant. contra alii melius evenisse disserunt quam si invalidus senecta et ignavia Claudius militiae ad labores vocaretur, servilibus iussis obtemperaturus. Burrum tamen et Senecam multarum rerum experientia cognitos; et imperatori quantum ad robur deesse, cum octavo decimo aetatis anno Cn. Pompeius, nono decimo Caesar Octavianus civilia bella sustinuerint? pleraque in summa fortuna auspiciis et consiliis quam telis et manibus geri. daturum plane documentum honestis an secus amicis uteretur, si ducem amota invidia egregium quam si pecuniosum et gratia subnixum per ambitum deligeret.

These and such things being put about, Nero orders both that the youth sought through the nearest provinces be moved up to fill the legions of the East, and that the legions themselves be placed nearer Armenia, and that two old kings, Agrippa and Antiochus, make ready forces with which they might of their own accord enter the Parthian borders; at the same time that bridges be joined across the river Euphrates; and he commits Lesser Armenia to Aristobulus, the region of Sophene to Sohaemus, with the royal insignia. And a rival arose in time to Vologeses, his son Vardanes: and the Parthians withdrew from Armenia, as though deferring the war.

Haec atque talia vulgantibus, Nero et iuventutem proximas per provincias quaesitam supplendis Orientis legionibus admovere legionesque ipsas propius Armeniam conlocari iubet, duosque veteres reges Agrippam et Antiochum expedire copias quis Parthorum finis ultro intrarent; simul pontis per amnem Euphraten iungi; et minorem Armeniam Aristobulo, regionem Sophenen Sohaemo cum insignibus regiis mandat. exortusque in tempore aemulus Vologesi filius Vardanes: et abscessere Armenia Parthi, tamquam differrent bellum.

But before the Senate all things were celebrated as greater, by the motions of those who voted thanksgivings, and on the days of thanksgiving triumphal dress for the prince, and that he should enter the city in ovation, and an effigy of him of equal magnitude with that of Mars the Avenger and in the same temple—glad, beyond the wonted flattery, that he had set Domitius Corbulo over the retaining of Armenia, and a place seemed thrown open to virtues. The forces of the East are so divided that part of the auxiliaries with two legions should remain with the province of Syria and its legate Quadratus Ummidius, an equal number of citizens and allies be Corbulo’s, with the cohorts and squadrons added which wintered in Cappadocia. The allied kings were ordered to obey as the war required: but their zeals were the readier toward Corbulo. He, that he might press upon fame, which in new undertakings is strongest, the journey swiftly finished, had Quadratus to meet him at Aegeae, a city of Cilicia, who had advanced thither lest, if Corbulo entered Syria to receive the forces, he should turn the faces of all upon himself—a man huge in body, magnificent in words, and, over and above his experience and wisdom, strong even in the show of empty things.

Sed apud senatum omnia in maius celebrata sunt sententiis eorum qui supplicationes et diebus supplicationum vestem principi triumphalem, utque ovans urbem iniret, effigiemque eius pari magnitudine ac Martis Vltoris eodem in templo censuere, praeter suetam adulationem laeti quod Domitium Corbulonem retinendae Armeniae praeposuerat videbaturque locus virtutibus patefactus. copiae Orientis ita dividuntur, ut pars auxiliarium cum duabus legionibus apud provinciam Syriam et legatum eius Quadratum Vmmidium remaneret, par civium sociorumque numerus Corbuloni esset additis cohortibus alisque quae in Cappadocia hiemabant. socii reges prout bello conduceret parere iussi: sed studia eorum in Corbulonem promptiora erant. qui ut instaret famae, quae in novis coeptis validissima est, itinere propere confecto apud Aegeas civitatem Ciliciae obvium Quadratum habuit, illuc progressum, ne, si ad accipiendas copias Syriam intravisset Corbulo, omnium ora in se verteret, corpore ingens, verbis magnificis et super experientiam sapientiamque etiam specie inanium validus.

For the rest, each by messengers warned king Vologeses that he should prefer peace to war, and, hostages given, continue the reverence wonted to the earlier kings toward the Roman people. And Vologeses, whether to prepare a war at his convenience, or to remove under the name of hostages those suspected of rivalry, hands over the noblest of the family of the Arsacids. And the centurion Insteius, sent by Ummidius, received them, by chance having gone to the king first for that cause. When this was known to Corbulo, he orders Arrius Varus, prefect of a cohort, to go and recover the hostages. Hence a quarrel arisen between the prefect and the centurion, that they might not longer be a spectacle to foreigners, the arbitration of the matter was left to the hostages and the legates who led them. And they preferred Corbulo, fresh in glory and by a certain inclination even of the enemy. Whence discord between the leaders, Ummidius complaining that what he had accomplished by his counsels had been snatched away, Corbulo testifying on the contrary that the king had not turned to offering hostages until he himself, a leader chosen for the war, changed his hope to fear. Nero, to compose the rivals, ordered it to be published thus: that, on account of affairs prosperously done by Quadratus and Corbulo, laurel be added to the imperial fasces. These things, though they fell into the term of other consuls, I have joined together.

Ceterum uterque ad Vologesen regem nuntiis monebant, pacem quam bellum mallet datisque obsidibus solitam prioribus reverentiam in populum Romanum continuaret. et Vologeses, quo bellum ex commodo pararet, an ut aemulationis suspectos per nomen obsidum amoveret, tradit nobilissimos ex familia Arsacidarum. accepitque eos centurio Insteius ab Vmmidio missus, forte prior ea de causa adito rege. quod postquam Corbuloni cognitum est, ire praefectum cohortis Arrium Varum et reciperare obsides iubet. hinc ortum inter praefectum et centurionem iurgium ne diutius externis spectaculo esset, arbitrium rei obsidibus legatisque, qui eos ducebant, permissum. atque illi recentem gloria et inclinatione quadam etiam hostium Corbulonem praetulere. unde discordia inter duces, querente Vmmidio praerepta quae suis consiliis patravisset, testante contra Corbulone non prius conversum regem ad offerendos obsides quam ipse dux bello delectus spes eius ad metum mutaret. Nero quo componeret diversos sic evulgari iussit: ob res a Quadrato et Corbulone prospere gestas laurum fascibus imperatoriis addi. quae in alios consules egressa coniunxi.

In the same year Caesar sought from the Senate an effigy for his father Gnaeus Domitius, and consular insignia for Asconius Labeo, whom he had used as a guardian; and he forbade, against those offering, statues of solid silver or gold for himself. And although the Fathers had voted that the beginning of the year should start in the month of December, in which Nero was born, he retained the old religion of the Kalends of January for the beginning of the year. Nor were received among the accused Carrinas Celer, a senator, a slave accusing, or Julius Densus, of the equestrian order, to whom favor toward Britannicus was given as a charge.

Eodem anno Caesar effigiem Cn. Domitio patri et consularia insignia Asconio Labeoni, quo tutore usus erat, petivit a senatu; sibique statuas argento vel auro solidas adversus offerentis prohibuit. et quamquam censuissent patres ut principium anni inciperet mense Decembri, quo ortus erat Nero, veterem religionem kalendarum Ianuariarum inchoando anno retinuit. neque recepti sunt inter reos Carrinas Celer senator servo accusante aut Iulius Densus equester, cui favor in Britannicum crimini dabatur.

In the consulship of Claudius Nero and Lucius Antistius, when the magistrates swore to the acts of the princes, he forbade his colleague Antistius to swear to his own acts, with great praises of the Fathers, that a youthful spirit, raised by glory even in slight things, might continue greater. And there followed leniency toward Plautius Lateranus, whom, removed from his order for the adultery of Messalina, he restored to the Senate, binding himself to his own clemency by frequent speeches which Seneca, to testify how honorable were his precepts, or to display his genius, published by the prince’s voice.

Claudio Nerone L. Antistio consulibus cum in acta principum iurarent magistratus, in sua acta collegam Antistium iurare prohibuit, magnis patrum laudibus, ut iuvenilis animus levium quoque rerum gloria sublatus maiores continuaret. secutaque lenitas in Plautium Lateranum quem ob adulterium Messalinae ordine demotum reddidit senatui, clementiam suam obstringens crebris orationibus quas Seneca, testificando quam honesta praeciperet vel iactandi ingenii, voce principis vulgabat.

For the rest, the power of his mother being broken little by little, Nero slipped into a love of a freedwoman, whose name was Acte, having at the same time taken into his confidence Marcus Otho and Claudius Senecio, comely young men, of whom Otho was of a consular family, Senecio born of a father a freedman of Caesar’s. His mother unaware, then opposing in vain, she had crept in deeply through luxury and ambiguous secrecies, not even the older friends of the prince opposing, since a poor little woman satisfied the prince’s desires with injury to no one, when from his wife Octavia—noble indeed and of proven probity—he shrank, by some fate, or because forbidden things prevail; and it was feared lest he break out into the debauchery of illustrious women, if he were kept from that lust.

Ceterum infracta paulatim potentia matris delapso Nerone in amorem libertae, cui vocabulum Acte fuit, simul adsumptis in conscientiam M. Othone et Claudio Senecione, adulescentulis decoris, quorum Otho familia consulari, Senecio liberto Caesaris patre genitus. ignara matre, dein frustra obnitente, penitus inrepserat per luxum et ambigua secreta, ne senioribus quidem principis amicis adversantibus, muliercula nulla cuiusquam iniuria cupidines principis explente, quando uxore ab Octavia, nobili quidem et probitatis spectatae, fato quodam an quia praevalent inlicita, abhorrebat, metuebaturque ne in stupra feminarum inlustrium prorumperet, si illa libidine prohiberetur.

But Agrippina raged in womanly fashion at a freedwoman as a rival, a slave-girl for a daughter-in-law, and the like, nor would she wait for her son’s repentance or satiety, and the fouler the things she reproached, the more sharply she kindled him, until, overcome by the force of love, he cast off his obedience toward his mother and committed himself to Seneca, of whose intimates Annaeus Serenus had, by a pretense of love toward that same freedwoman, veiled the young man’s first desires and had lent his name, so that what the prince secretly bestowed on the little woman, he might openly seem to lavish. Then Agrippina, her arts turned about, attacks the youth by blandishments, offering rather her own chamber and bosom for the covering of what early age and the highest fortune sought: nay, she even confessed her untimely severity and handed over the abundance of her own wealth, which was not far from the imperial—as, having of late curbed her son too much, so now immoderately abasing herself. Which change neither deceived Nero, and his nearest friends feared and begged him to beware the snares of a woman always atrocious, and then also false. By chance in those days Caesar, having inspected the finery in which the wives and parents of princes had shone, chooses a robe and gems and sent them as a gift to his mother, with no parsimony, since he conferred first the choicest and most coveted by others. But Agrippina proclaims that her own adornments were not furnished by these, but that she was kept off from the rest, and that her son was dividing what he had wholly from herself.

Sed Agrippina libertam aemulam, nurum ancillam aliaque eundem in modum muliebriter fremere, neque paenitentiam filii aut satietatem opperiri, quantoque foediora exprobrabat, acrius accendere, donec vi amoris subactus exueret obsequium in matrem seque Senecae permitteret, ex cuius familiaribus Annaeus Serenus simulatione amoris adversus eandem libertam primas adulescentis cupidines velaverat praebueratque nomen, ut quae princeps furtim mulierculae tribuebat, ille palam largiretur. tum Agrippina versis artibus per blandimenta iuvenem adgredi, suum potius cubiculum ac sinum offerre contegendis quae prima aetas et summa fortuna expeterent: quin et fatebatur intempestivam severitatem et suarum opum, quae haud procul imperatoriis aberant, copias tradebat, ut nimia nuper coercendo filio, ita rursum intemperanter demissa. quae mutatio neque Neronem fefellit, et proximi amicorum metuebant orabantque cavere insidias mulieris semper atrocis, tum et falsae. forte illis diebus Caesar inspecto ornatu quo principum coniuges ac parentes effulserant, deligit vestem et gemmas misitque donum matri nulla parsimonia, cum praecipua et cupita aliis prior deferret. sed Agrippina non his instrui cultus suos, sed ceteris arceri proclamat et dividere filium quae cuncta ex ipsa haberet.

Nor were there wanting those who reported it for the worse. And Nero, hostile to those on whom the woman’s pride leaned, removes Pallas from the charge of affairs, in which, set by Claudius, he acted as it were the arbiter of the realm; and it was reported that, as he went down with a great multitude of followers, he had said, not absurdly, that Pallas was going to abjure his office. Surely Pallas had bargained that he should not be questioned about any deed in the past and that his accounts with the commonwealth should be even. After this Agrippina rushed headlong to terror and threats, nor did she abstain from the prince’s ears but that she testified that Britannicus was now grown, the true and worthy stock for taking up his father’s empire, which an engrafted and adoptive son wielded through injuries to his mother. She did not refuse that all the ills of the unhappy house should be laid open, her own marriage first, her own poisoning: this only had been provided by the gods and herself, that her stepson lived. She would go with him into the camp; let there be heard on this side the daughter of Germanicus, on the other the crippled Burrus and the exile Seneca, with a maimed hand and a professor’s tongue forsooth demanding the governance of the human race. At the same time she stretched out her hands, heaped reproaches, invoked the consecrated Claudius, the infernal shades of the Silani, and so many vain crimes.

Nec defuere qui in deterius referrent. et Nero infensus iis quibus superbia muliebris innitebatur, demovet Pallantem cura rerum quis a Claudio impositus velut arbitrium regni agebat; ferebaturque degrediente eo magna prosequentium multitudine non absurde dixisse, ire Pallantem ut eiuraret. sane pepigerat Pallas ne cuius facti in prae- teritum interrogaretur paresque rationes cum re publica haberet. praeceps posthac Agrippina ruere ad terrorem et minas, neque principis auribus abstinere quo minus testaretur adultum iam esse Britannicum, veram dignamque stirpem suscipiendo patris imperio quod insitus et adoptivus per iniurias matris exerceret. non abnuere se quin cuncta infelicis domus mala patefierent, suae in primis nuptiae, suum veneficium: id solum diis et sibi provisum quod viveret privignus. ituram cum illo in castra; audiretur hinc Germanici filia, inde debilis rursus Burrus et exul Seneca, trunca scilicet manu et professoria lingua generis humani regimen expostulantes. simul intendere manus, adgerere probra, consecratum Claudium, infernos Silanorum manis invocare et tot inrita facinora.

Disturbed by these things, and the day being near on which Britannicus completed his fourteenth year, Nero turned over with himself now his mother’s violence, now the youth’s own character, lately known by a slight proof indeed, by which, however, he had sought favor widely. On the festal days of Saturn, among other sports of his equals casting lots for a kingdom in play, that lot had fallen to Nero. So to the rest he gave commands various and not likely to bring a blush: when he ordered Britannicus to rise and, going into the midst, begin some song—hoping for a mockery from this, of a boy ignorant even of sober gatherings, much more of drunken ones—he steadily began a song by which it was signified that he had been cast out from his father’s seat and the highest things. Whence pity arose the more manifest, because night and wantonness had taken away dissimulation. Nero, the odium understood, intensified his hatred; and, Agrippina’s threats pressing, because he dared no charge nor openly to order his brother’s killing, he contrives secret things and orders poison to be prepared, the minister being Julius Pollio, tribune of a praetorian cohort, by whose charge was held the woman condemned under the name of poisoning, Locusta, of much fame for crimes. For that each one nearest to Britannicus should hold neither right nor faith of any weight had long since been provided. The first poison he received from his very tutors and passed it, his bowel being loosened, as too weak—or there was a tempering in it, that it should not at once rage. But Nero, impatient of a slow crime, threatened the tribune, ordered the punishment of the poisoner, that, while they regard rumor, while they prepare defenses, they were delaying his security. Then, they promising a killing as headlong as if he were pressed by steel, hard by Caesar’s chamber a venom is boiled down, of poisons before known, swift.

Turbatus his Nero et propinquo die quo quartum decimum aetatis annum Britannicus explebat, volutare secum modo matris violentiam, modo ipsius indolem, levi quidem experimento nuper cognitam, quo tamen favorem late quaesivisset. festis Saturno diebus inter alia aequalium ludicra regnum lusu sortientium evenerat ea sors Neroni. igitur ceteris diversa nec ruborem adlatura: ubi Britannico iussit exsurgeret progressusque in medium cantum aliquem inciperet, inrisum ex eo sperans pueri sobrios quoque convictus, nedum temulentos ignorantis, ille constanter exorsus est carmen, quo evolutum eum sede patria rebusque summis significabatur. unde orta miseratio manifestior, quia dissimulationem nox et lascivia exemerat. Nero intellecta invidia odium intendit; urgentibusque Agrippinae minis, quia nullum crimen neque iubere caedem fratris palam audebat, occulta molitur pararique venenum iubet, ministro Pollione Iulio praetoriae cohortis tribuno, cuius cura attinebatur damnata veneficii nomine Locusta, multa scelerum fama. nam ut proximus quisque Britannico neque fas neque fidem pensi haberet olim provisum erat. primum venenum ab ipsis educatoribus accepit tramisitque exoluta alvo parum validum, sive temperamentum inerat ne statim saeviret. sed Nero lenti sceleris impatiens minitari tribuno, iubere supplicium veneficae, quod, dum rumorem respiciunt, dum parant defensiones, securitatem morarentur. promittentibus dein tam praecipitem necem quam si ferro urgeretur, cubiculum Caesaris iuxta decoquitur virus cognitis antea venenis rapidum.

It was a custom for the children of princes to feed, sitting with other nobles of the same age, in the sight of their kinsmen, at a table their own and more sparing. There, Britannicus dining, because a chosen one of the servants tested his food and drink by tasting, lest the institution be omitted or the crime betrayed by the death of both, such a guile was found. A drink as yet harmless and very hot and tasted is handed to Britannicus; then, after, on account of its heat, he spurned it, in cold water the poison is poured, which so pervaded all his limbs that voice and breath alike were snatched away. There is trembling among those sitting round; the imprudent flee apart: but those of a deeper understanding stand fixed and gazing at Nero. He, as he was reclining and like one who knew nothing, says that this was usual, through the falling sickness by which Britannicus had been afflicted from his first infancy, and that his sight and senses would return little by little. But in Agrippina such panic, such consternation of mind, although it was pressed down in her face, flashed out that it was established she had been as ignorant as Octavia, Britannicus’s sister: for she understood that her last help was snatched from her and an example of parricide given. Octavia too, although of raw years, had learned to hide grief, affection, all feelings. So, after a brief silence, the gladness of the banquet was resumed.

Mos habebatur principum liberos cum ceteris idem aetatis nobilibus sedentis vesci in aspectu propinquorum propria et parciore mensa. illic epulante Britannico, quia cibos potusque eius delectus ex ministris gustu explorabat, ne omitteretur institutum aut utriusque morte proderetur scelus, talis dolus repertus est. innoxia adhuc ac praecalida et libata gustu potio traditur Britannico; dein, postquam fervore aspernabatur, frigida in aqua adfunditur venenum, quod ita cunctos eius artus pervasit ut vox pariter et spiritus raperentur. trepidatur a circumsedentibus, diffugiunt imprudentes: at quibus altior intellectus, resistunt defixi et Neronem intuentes. ille ut erat reclinis et nescio similis, solitum ita ait per comitialem morbum quo prima ab infantia adflictaretur Britannicus, et redituros paulatim visus sensusque. at Agrippinae is pavor, ea consternatio mentis, quamvis vultu premeretur, emicuit ut perinde ignaram fuisse atque Octaviam sororem Britannici consti- terit: quippe sibi supremum auxilium ereptum et parricidii exemplum intellegebat. Octavia quoque, quamvis rudibus annis, dolorem caritatem, omnis adfectus abscondere didicerat. ita post breve silentium repetita convivii laetitia.

The same night joined the killing of Britannicus and his pyre, a funeral apparatus having been provided before, which was modest. Yet he was buried in the Field of Mars amid such turbulent rains that the crowd believed the anger of the gods was portended against the deed, which even most men pardoned, reckoning the ancient discords of brothers and that a kingdom is unsharable. Most writers of those times hand down that for many days before his death Nero went to abuse the boyhood of Britannicus, so that now his death can seem neither premature nor savage, although it was hastened amid the sacred things of the table, not even time given for the embrace of his sisters, before the eyes of his enemy, upon that last blood of the Claudii, polluted by debauchery before poison. The haste of the obsequies Caesar defended by edict, recalling that it was so instituted by the ancestors, to withdraw bitter funerals from the eyes and not to detain them with eulogies or pomp. For the rest, that, his brother’s help lost, his remaining hopes were placed in the commonwealth, and that the more must the prince be cherished by the Fathers and the people who alone survived of a family born to the highest eminence.

Nox eadem necem Britannici et rogum coniunxit, proviso ante funebri paratu, qui modicus fuit. in campo tamen Martis sepultus est adeo turbidis imbribus, ut vulgus iram deum portendi crediderit adversus facinus cui plerique etiam hominum ignoscebant, antiquas fratrum discordias et insociabile regnum aestimantes. tradunt plerique eorum temporum scriptores crebris ante exitium diebus illusum isse pueritiae Britannici Neronem, ut iam non praematura neque saeva mors videri queat, quamvis inter sacra mensae, ne tempore quidem ad complexum sororum dato, ante oculos inimici properata sit in illum supremum Claudiorum sanguinem, stupro prius quam veneno pollutum. festinationem exequiarum edicto Caesar defendit, ita maioribus institutum referens, subtrahere oculis acerba funera neque laudationibus aut pompa detinere. ceterum et sibi amisso fratris auxilio reliquas spes in re publica sitas, et tanto magis fovendum patribus populoque principem qui unus superesset e familia summum ad fastigium genita.

Thereupon he augmented the most powerful of his friends with largess. Nor were there wanting those who reproached men professing gravity, that at that time they had divided houses and villas as it were a booty. Others believed that necessity was applied by the prince, conscious to himself of a crime and hoping for pardon, if he had bound the strongest by largesses. But his mother’s anger was softened by no munificence, but she embraced Octavia, held frequent secret meetings with friends, over and above her inborn avarice snatching moneys from every side as if for a reserve; received tribunes and centurions courteously, held in honor the names and virtues of the nobles, who even then survived, as though she sought a leader and a party. This was known to Nero, and he orders the military watches, which were kept for her of old as for the wife of an emperor, then as for a mother, and the Germans lately added as guards in the same honor, to depart. And lest she be thronged by a gathering of those greeting her, he separates the house and transfers his mother into that which had been Antonia’s, as often as he himself came thither, hedged by a throng of centurions and departing after a brief kiss.

Exim largitione potissimos amicorum auxit. nec defuere qui arguerent viros gravitatem adseverantis, quod domos villas id temporis quasi praedam divisissent. alii necessitatem adhibitam credebant a principe sceleris sibi conscio et veniam sperante, si largitionibus validissimum quemque obstrinxisset. at matris ira nulla munificentia leniri, sed amplecti Octaviam, crebra cum amicis secreta habere, super ingenitam avaritiam undique pecunias quasi in subsidium corripiens; tribunos et centuriones comiter excipere, nomina et virtutes nobilium, qui etiam tum supererant, in honore habere, quasi quaereret ducem et partis. cognitum id Neroni, excubiasque militaris, quae ut coniugi imperatoris olim, tum ut matri servabantur, et Germanos nuper eundem in honorem custodes additos degredi iubet. ac ne coetu salutantium frequentaretur, separat domum matremque transfert in eam quae Antoniae fuerat, quoties ipse illuc ventitaret, saeptus turba centurionum et post breve osculum digrediens.

Nothing of mortal things is so unstable and fleeting as the fame of a power not leaning on its own strength. At once Agrippina’s threshold was deserted: no one to console, no one to approach, save a few women, uncertain whether from love or hatred. Of whom was Junia Silana, whom, driven by Messalina from the marriage of Gaius Silius, I have related above, distinguished in birth, beauty, and wantonness, and long very dear to Agrippina—soon, secret offenses arisen between them, because Agrippina had deterred Sextius Africanus, a noble youth, from the marriage of Silana, repeatedly calling her unchaste and declining in years, not that she might set Africanus apart for herself, but lest by the wealth and childlessness of Silana a husband should get possession. She, the hope of vengeance offered, prepares accusers from her clients, Iturius and Calvisius, bringing not old and now oftener-heard things—that she mourned the death of Britannicus or made public the injuries of Octavia—but that she had destined Rubellius Plautus, by his maternal origin in an equal degree with Nero from the deified Augustus, to be raised to revolution, and by marriage with him and the empire to invade the commonwealth again. These things Iturius and Calvisius lay open to Atimetus, freedman of Domitia, Nero’s aunt; who, glad at what was offered (for between Agrippina and Domitia a hostile rivalry was carried on), impelled Paris the actor, himself too Domitia’s freedman, to go in haste and report the charge atrociously.

Nihil rerum mortalium tam instabile ac fluxum est quam fama potentiae non sua vi nixae. statim relictum Agrippinae limen: nemo solari, nemo adire praeter paucas feminas, amore an odio incertas. ex quibus erat Iunia Silana, quam matrimonio C. Sili a Messalina depulsam supra rettuli, insignis genere forma lascivia, et Agrippinae diu percara, mox occultis inter eas offensionibus, quia Sextium Africanum nobilem iuvenem a nuptiis Silanae deterruerat Agrippina, impudicam et vergentem annis dictitans, non ut Africanum sibi seponeret, sed ne opibus et orbitate Silanae maritus poteretur. illa spe ultionis oblata parat accusatores ex clientibus suis, Iturium et Calvisium, non vetera et saepius iam audita deferens, quod Britannici mortem lugeret aut Octaviae iniurias evulgaret, sed destinavisse eam Rubellium Plautum, per maternam originem pari ac Nero gradu a divo Augusto, ad res novas extollere coniugioque eius et imperio rem publicam rursus invadere. haec Iturius et Calvisius Atimeto, Domitiae Neronis amitae liberto, aperiuntqui laetus oblatis (quippe inter Agrippinam et Domitiam infensa aemulatio exercebatur) Paridem histrionem, libertum et ipsum Domitiae, impulit ire propere crimenque atrociter deferre.

The night was far advanced and was being drawn out for Nero through wine, when Paris enters, wont otherwise at that time to heighten the prince’s luxury, but then composed to mournfulness, and, the order of the information laid out, so terrifies the hearer that he resolved not only to kill his mother and Plautus, but even to remove Burrus from the prefecture, as advanced by Agrippina’s favor and rendering the return. Fabius Rusticus is the authority that tablets were written to Caecina Tuscus, the charge of the praetorian cohorts committed to him, but that by the help of Seneca the dignity was retained for Burrus: Pliny and Cluvius report that nothing was doubted about the prefect’s faith. Surely Fabius inclines to the praises of Seneca, by whose friendship he flourished. We, about to follow the consensus of the authorities, will hand down what they have reported differently under their own names. Nero, trembling and eager for the killing of his mother, could not be deferred before Burrus promised her death, if she were convicted of the crime: but that a defense must be granted to anyone, much more to a parent; and that accusers were not present, but the voice of one from a hostile house was brought; let him reflect on the darkness and the night kept awake in feasting and all things nearer to rashness and ignorance.

Provecta nox erat et Neroni per vinolentiam trahebatur, cum ingreditur Paris, solitus alioquin id temporis luxus principis intendere, sed tunc compositus ad maestitiam, expositoque indicii ordine ita audientem exterret ut non tantum matrem Plautumque interficere, sed Burrum etiam demovere praefectura destinaret tamquam Agrippinae gratia provectum et vicem reddentem. Fabius Rusticus auctor est scriptos esse ad Caecinam Tuscum codicillos, mandata ei praetoriarum cohortium cura, sed ope Senecae dignationem Burro retentam: Plinius et Cluvius nihil dubitatum de fide praefecti referunt; sane Fabius inclinat ad laudes Senecae, cuius amicitia floruit. nos consensum auctorum secuturi, quae diversa prodiderint sub nominibus ipsorum trademus. Nero trepidus et interficiendae matris avidus non prius differri potuit quam Burrus necem eius promitteret, si facinoris coargueretur: sed cuicumque, nedum parenti defensionem tribuendam; nec accusatores adesse, sed vocem unius ex inimica domo adferri: reputaret tenebras et vigilatam convivio noctem omniaque temeritati et inscitiae propiora.

The prince’s fear thus soothed, and day arisen, they go to Agrippina, that she might know the charges and dissolve them or pay the penalties. Burrus discharged that commission in Seneca’s presence; there were present also of the freedmen as witnesses of the conversation. Then by Burrus, after he had set out the charges and the authors, it was done menacingly. And Agrippina, mindful of her ferocity, "I do not wonder," she said, "that Silana, who has never brought forth a child, has the affections of mothers unknown to her; for children are not changed by parents as adulterers are by an unchaste woman. Nor, if Iturius and Calvisius, all their fortunes consumed, repay to an old woman the last service of undertaking an accusation, must I therefore submit to the infamy of parricide, or Caesar to its consciousness. For to Domitia’s enmities I would give thanks, if she vied with me in good will toward my Nero: but now through her concubine Atimetus and the actor Paris she composes as it were the fables of the stage. She was extolling the fishponds of her Baiae, when by my counsels the adoption and the proconsular right and the designation of the consulship and the rest were being prepared for the attaining of empire. Or let one stand forth who charges that the cohorts in the city were tampered with, that the faith of the provinces was shaken, in fine that slaves or freedmen were corrupted to crime. Could I have lived with Britannicus master of affairs? And if Plautus or any other shall get possession to judge the commonwealth, accusers forsooth are lacking to me, who object not words sometimes incautious through impatience of affection, but those crimes from which I cannot be absolved save by my son." Those present being moved and of their own accord soothing her spirit, she demands a conversation with her son, where she discoursed nothing for her innocence, as if she distrusted it, nor of her benefits, as if she reproached them, but obtained vengeance on the informers and rewards for her friends.

Sic lenito principis metu et luce orta itur ad Agrippinam ut nosceret obiecta dissolveretque vel poenas lueret. Burrus iis mandatis Seneca coram fungebatur; aderant et ex libertis arbitri sermonis. deinde a Burro, postquam crimina et auctores exposuit, minaciter actum. et Agrippina ferociae memor ’non miror’ inquit ’Silanam, num- quam edito partu, matrum adfectus ignotos habere; neque enim proinde a parentibus liberi quam ab impudica adulteri mutantur. nec si Iturius et Calvisius adesis omnibus fortunis novissimam suscipiendae accusationis operam anui rependunt, ideo aut mihi infamia parricidii aut Caesari conscientia subeunda est. nam Domitiae inimicitiis gratias agerem, si benevolentia mecum in Neronem meum certaret: nunc per concubinum Atimetum et histrionem Paridem quasi scaenae fabulas componit. Baiarum suarum piscinas extollebat, cum meis consiliis adoptio et proconsulare ius et designatio consulatus et cetera apiscendo imperio praepararentur. aut existat qui cohortis in urbe temptatas, qui provinciarum fidem labefactatam, denique servos vel libertos ad scelus corruptos arguat. vivere ego Britannico potiente rerum poteram? ac si Plautus aut quis alius rem publicam iudicaturus obtinuerit, desunt scilicet mihi accusatores qui non verba impatientia caritatis aliquando incauta, sed ea crimina obiciant quibus nisi a filio absolvi non possim.’ commotis qui aderant ultroque spiritus eius mitigantibus, conloquium filii exposcit, ubi nihil pro innocentia, quasi diffideret, nec de beneficiis, quasi exprobraret, disseruit, sed ultionem in delatores et praemia amicis obtinuit.

The prefecture of the corn-supply is granted to Faenius Rufus, the charge of the games which were being prepared by Caesar to Arruntius Stella, Egypt to Tiberius Balbillus. Syria was destined for Publius Anteius, but, eluded soon by various arts, he was at last retained in the city. But Silana was driven into exile; Calvisius too and Iturius are banished; on Atimetus punishment was inflicted, Paris being stronger with the prince’s lusts than to be visited with a penalty. Plautus for the present was passed over in silence.

Praefectura annonae Faenio Rufo, cura ludorum, qui a Caesare parabantur, Arruntio Stellae, Aegyptus Ti. Balbillo permittuntur. Syria P. Anteio destinata, set variis mox artibus elusus ad postremum in urbe retentus est. at Silana in exilium acta; Calvisius quoque et Iturius relegantur; de Atimeto supplicium sumptum, validiore apud libidines prin- cipis Paride quam ut poena adficeretur. Plautus ad praesens silentio transmissus est.

It is laid open thereafter that Pallas and Burrus had agreed that Cornelius Sulla, by the renown of his birth and his affinity to Claudius, to whom by the marriage of Antonia he was a son-in-law, should be called to the empire. The author of that accusation stood forth as one Paetus, notorious for working the auction of confiscations at the treasury, and then manifest of falsehood. Nor was Pallas’s innocence so welcome as his arrogance was heavy: for, his freedmen being named whom he had as accomplices, he answered that he had never signified anything at home save by a nod or a hand, or, if more were to be shown, had used writing, lest he share his voice. Burrus, although a defendant, gave his opinion among the judges. And exile was inflicted on the accuser, and the tablets were burned by which he was bringing back the obliterated names of the treasury.

Deferuntur dehinc consensisse Pallas ac Burrus ut Cornelius Sulla claritudine generis et adfinitate Claudii, cui per nuptias Antoniae gener erat, ad imperium vocaretur. eius accusationis auctor extitit Paetus quidam, exercendis apud aerarium sectionibus famosus et tum vanitatis manifestus. nec tam grata Pallantis innocentia quam gravis superbia fuit: quippe nominatis libertis eius quos conscios haberet respondit nihil umquam se domi nisi nutu aut manu significasse, vel si plura demonstranda essent, scripto usum ne vocem consociaret. Burrus quamvis reus inter iudices sententiam dixit. exiliumque accusatori inrogatum et tabulae exustae sunt quibus oblitterata aerarii nomina retrahebat.

At the year’s end the post of a cohort wont to attend the games is removed, that there might be a greater show of liberty, and that the soldier, not mingled with the theatrical license, might act the more uncorrupt, and the plebs give a proof whether, the guards removed, it would keep its modesty. The prince purified the city, by the response of the haruspices, because the temples of Jupiter and Minerva had been struck from heaven.

Fine anni statio cohortis adsidere ludis solita demovetur quo maior species libertatis esset, utque miles theatrali licentiae non permixtus incorruptior ageret et plebes daret experimentum an amotis custodibus modestiam retineret. urbem princeps lustravit ex responso haruspicum, quod Iovis ac Minervae aedes de caelo tactae erant.

In the consulship of Quintus Volusius and Publius Scipio there was quiet abroad, foul wantonness at home, in which Nero ranged the streets of the city and the brothels and the byways, composed in a slave’s dress to the disguise of himself, his companions snatching things exposed for sale and inflicting wounds on those they met, against men so ignorant that he himself too received blows and bore the marks on his face. Then, after it was well known that it was Caesar who ranged, and the injuries against distinguished men and women were augmented, and some, license once permitted, under the name of Nero with their own bands practiced the same unpunished, the night was passed in the manner of a captivity; and Julius Montanus, of the senatorial order but who had not yet taken up office, having met the prince by chance in the darkness, because he had sharply repelled him as he attempted violence, then, recognizing him, had begged pardon, as though he had reproached him, was driven to die. Nero, however, more fearful for the future, surrounded himself with soldiers and very many gladiators, who should suffer the modest and as it were private beginnings of brawls: if it were acted more strongly by the injured, they brought in arms. The license of the stage too, and the partisans of actors, he turned as it were into battles, by impunity and rewards, and himself, hidden and for the most part looking on openly, until, the people at discord and the terror of a graver commotion, no other remedy was found than that the actors should be driven from Italy and the soldier again attend the theater.

Q. Volusio P. Scipione consulibus otium foris, foeda domi lascivia, qua Nero itinera urbis et lupanaria et deverticula veste servili in dissimulationem sui compositus pererrabat, comitantibus qui raperent venditioni exposita et obviis vulnera inferrent, adversus ignaros adeo ut ipse quoque exciperet ictus et ore praeferret. deinde ubi Caesarem esse qui grassaretur pernotuit augebanturque iniuriae adversus viros feminasque insignis, et quidam permissa semel licentia sub nomine Neronis inulti propriis cum globis eadem exercebant, in modum captivitatis nox agebatur; Iuliusque Montanus senatorii ordinis, sed qui nondum honorem capessisset, congressus forte per tenebras cum principe, quia vi attemptantem acriter reppulerat, deinde adgnitum oraverat, quasi exprobrasset, mori adactus est. Nero tamen metuentior in posterum milites sibi et plerosque gladiatores circumdedit qui rixarum initia modica et quasi privata sinerent: si a laesis validius ageretur, arma inferebant. ludicram quoque licentiam et fautores histrionum velut in proelia convertit impunitate et praemiis atque ipse occultus et plerumque coram prospectans, donec discordi populo et gravioris motus terrore non aliud remedium repertum est quam ut histriones Italia pellerentur milesque theatro rursum adsideret.

About the same time it was acted in the Senate about the frauds of freedmen, and it was demanded that the right of recalling liberty against the ill-deserving be given to patrons. Nor were there wanting those who voted it. But the consuls, not daring to begin the motion, the prince unaware, yet wrote out the consensus of the Senate. He, whether he should be the author of the constitution—among a few and opposed to the opinion, some murmuring that the irreverence grown with liberty had broken out to this point, that they consulted whether they should act by force or by an equal right with their patrons, and even raised their hands in blows—impelled even those dissuading their own punishment. For what else was conceded to an injured patron than that he relegate his freedman beyond the hundredth milestone onto the coast of Campania? The other actions were promiscuous and equal: some weapon must be given which could not be scorned. Nor was it grievous for the freed to keep their liberty by the same obedience by which they had attained it: but those manifest of crimes were deservedly dragged back to servitude, that those whom benefits had not changed might be curbed by fear.

Per idem tempus actum in senatu de fraudibus libertorum efflagitatumque ut adversus male meritos revocandae libertatis ius patronis daretur. nec deerant qui censerent. sed consules relationem incipere non ausi ignaro principe, perscripsere tamen consensum senatus. ille an auctor constitutionis fieret, ut inter paucos et sententiae adversos, quibusdam coalitam libertate inreverentiam eo prorupisse frementibus vine an aequo cum patronis iure agerent, sententiam eorum consultarent ac verberibus manus ultro intenderent, impulere vel poenam suam dissuadentes. quid enim aliud laeso patrono concessum quam ut centesimum ultra lapidem in oram Campaniae libertum releget? ceteras actiones promiscas et pares esse: tribuendum aliquod telum quod sperni nequeat. nec grave manu missis per idem obsequium retinendi libertatem per quod adsecuti sint: at criminum manifestos merito ad servitutem retrahi, ut metu coerceantur quos beneficia non mutavissent.

It was argued on the contrary: that the fault of a few ought to be ruinous to themselves, nothing should be derogated from the right of all; for that body was widely spread. From it for the most part the tribes, the decuriae, the ministries to magistrates and priests, the cohorts too enrolled in the city; and very many of the knights, most senators, drew their origin from no other source: if the freedmen were separated, the scarcity of the freeborn would be manifest. Not in vain had the ancestors, when they divided the dignity of the orders, set liberty in common. Nay, even two kinds of manumission had been instituted, that a place might be left for repentance or a new benefit. Those whom the patron had not freed by the rod were held as if by a bond of servitude. Let each look upon merits and concede slowly what, once given, could not be taken away. This opinion prevailed, and Caesar wrote to the Senate that they should weigh the cause of freedmen privately, as often as they were accused by patrons: from the common right let them derogate nothing. Nor much after the freedman Paris was snatched from his aunt as if by civil law, not without infamy to the prince, by whose order the judgment of free birth had been perpetrated.

Disserebatur contra: paucorum culpam ipsis exitiosam esse debere, nihil universorum iuri derogandum; quippe late fusum id corpus. hinc plerumque tribus decurias, ministeria magistratibus et sacerdotibus, cohortis etiam in urbe conscriptas; et plurimis equitum, plerisque senatoribus non aliunde originem trahi: si separarentur libertini, manifestam fore penuriam ingenuorum. non frustra maiores, cum dignitatem ordinum dividerent, libertatem in communi posuisse. quin et manu mittendi duas species institutas ut relinqueretur paenitentiae aut novo beneficio locus. quos vindicta patronus non liberaverit, velut vinclo servitutis attineri. dispiceret quisque merita tardeque concederet quod datum non adimeretur. haec sententia valuit, scripsitque Caesar senatui, privatim expenderent causam libertorum, quoties a patronis arguerentur: in commune nihil derogarent. nec multo post ereptus amitae libertus Paris quasi iure civili, non sine infamia principis cuius iussu perpetratum ingenuitatis iudicium erat.

Nonetheless there remained a certain image of the commonwealth. For a contest arose between the praetor Vibullius and the tribune of the plebs Antistius, because the tribune had ordered the immoderate partisans of actors, led into chains by the praetor, to be released. The Fathers approved it, the license of Antistius being blamed. At the same time the tribunes were forbidden to forestall the right of praetors and consuls, or to summon from Italy those with whom suit could be conducted by law. Lucius Piso, consul-designate, added that they should punish nothing within their house by their power, and that the quaestors of the treasury should not enter in the public tablets a fine declared by them before four months; in the middle time it should be lawful to speak against it, and the consuls should decide about it. The power of the aediles too was curbed more tightly, and it was fixed how much pledge the curule, how much the plebeian, should take, or what penalty inflict. And Helvidius Priscus, tribune of the plebs, exercised his own contentions against Obultronius Sabinus, quaestor of the treasury, as though he augmented the right of the spear unmercifully against the poor. Then the prince transferred the charge of the public tablets from the quaestors to the prefects.

Manebat nihilo minus quaedam imago rei publicae. nam inter Vibullium praetorem et plebei tribunum Antistium ortum certamen, quod immodestos fautores histrionum et a praetore in vincla ductos tribunus omitti iussisset. comprobavere patres, incusata Antistii licentia. simul prohibiti tribuni ius praetorum et consulum praeripere aut vocare ex Italia cum quibus lege agi posset. addidit L. Piso designatus consul, ne quid intra domum pro potestate adverterent, neve multam ab iis dictam quaestores aerarii in publicas tabulas ante quattuor mensis referrent; medio temporis contra dicere liceret, deque eo consules statuerent. cohibita artius et aedilium potestas statutumque quantum curules, quantum plebei pignoris caperent vel poenae inrogarent. et Helvidius Priscus tribunus plebei adversus Obultronium Sabinum aerarii quaestorem contentiones proprias exercuit, tamquam ius hastae adversus inopes inclementer augeret. dein princeps curam tabularum publicarum a quaestoribus ad praefectos transtulit.

Variously held and often changed was the form of that matter. For Augustus permitted the Senate to choose the prefects; then, the canvassing of votes suspected, they were drawn by lot from the number of the praetors who should preside. Nor did that last long, because the lot strayed to the not sufficiently fit. Then Claudius again set quaestors over it and, lest through fear of offenses they should take counsel too slackly, promised them honors out of order: but the strength of age was lacking to those taking up that first magistracy. So Nero chose men who had discharged the praetorship and were approved by experience.

Varie habita ac saepe mutata eius rei forma. nam Augustus senatui permisit deligere praefectos; deinde ambitu suffragiorum suspecto, sorte ducebantur ex numero praetorum qui praeessent. neque id diu mansit, quia sors deerrabat ad parum idoneos. tunc Claudius quaestores rursum imposuit iisque, ne metu offensionum segnius consulerent, extra ordinem honores promisit: sed deerat robur aetatis eum primum magistratum capessentibus. igitur Nero praetura perfunctos et experientia probatos delegit.

Condemned under the same consuls was Vipsanius Laenas for avariciously holding the province of Sardinia. Acquitted of extortion was Cestius Proculus, the Cretans accusing. Clodius Quirinalis, because, as prefect of the rowers who were kept at Ravenna, he had afflicted Italy, as the lowest of nations, by luxury and savagery, forestalled his condemnation by poison. Caninius Rebilus, of the chief men in knowledge of laws and greatness of money, escaped the torments of an ailing old age by sending the blood through his veins, not believed sufficient for the constancy of taking death, being infamous for lusts in a womanly way. But Lucius Volusius departed with eminent fame, to whom there was a span of life of ninety-three years and chief wealth by good arts, and an unoffending friendship of so many emperors.

Damnatus isdem consulibus Vipsanius Laenas ob Sardiniam provinciam avare habitam. absolutus Cestius Proculus repetundarum, Cretensibus accusantibus. Clodius Quirinalis, quod praefectus remigum, qui Ravennae haberentur, velut infimam nationum Italiam luxuria saevitiaque adflictavisset, veneno damnationem anteiit. Caninius Rebilus, ex primoribus peritia legum et pecuniae magnitudine, cruciatus aegrae senectae misso per venas sanguine effugit, haud creditus sufficere ad constantiam sumendae mortis ob libidines muliebriter infamis. at L. Volusius egregia fama concessit, cui tres et nonaginta anni spatium vivendi praecipuaeque opes bonis artibus, inoffensa tot imperatorum amicitia fuit.

In the second consulship of Nero and the consulship of Lucius Piso, few things worthy of memory occurred, unless it please anyone to fill volumes with praising the foundations and beams with which Caesar had reared the mass of an amphitheater in the Field of Mars, when it has been found, according to the dignity of the Roman people, that illustrious things be committed to the annals, such things to the daily records of the city. For the rest, the colonies of Capua and Nuceria were strengthened by veterans added, and to the plebs a largess of four hundred sesterces apiece was given, and forty million sesterces were brought into the treasury to retain the people’s credit. The tax too of the twenty-fifth on slaves sold was remitted, more in show than in force, because, when the seller was ordered to pay it, it accrued to the buyers as part of the price. And Caesar proclaimed that no magistrate or procurator should, in the province which he held, give a spectacle of gladiators or wild beasts or any other show. For before, they afflicted their subjects no less by such largess than by snatching moneys, while they defend by canvassing what they had offended by caprice.

Nerone iterum L. Pisone consulibus pauca memoria digna evenere, nisi cui libeat laudandis fundamentis et trabibus, quis molem amphitheatri apud campum Martis Caesar extruxerat, volumina implere, cum ex dignitate populi Romani repertum sit res inlustris annalibus, talia diurnis urbis actis mandare. ceterum coloniae Capua atque Nuceria additis veteranis firmatae sunt, plebeique congiarium quadringeni nummi viritim dati, et sestertium quadringenties aerario inlatum est ad retinendam populi fidem. vectigal quoque quintae et vicesimae venalium mancipiorum remissum, specie magis quam vi, quia cum venditor pendere iuberetur, in partem pretii emptoribus adcrescebat. et edixit Caesar, ne quis magistratus aut procurator in provincia quam obtineret spectaculum gladiatorum aut ferarum aut quod aliud ludicrum ederet. nam ante non minus tali largitione quam corripiendis pecuniis subiectos adfligebant, dum quae libidine deliquerant ambitu propugnant.

A decree of the Senate too was made, for vengeance alike and security, that if anyone were killed by his own slaves, those too who, manumitted by will, had remained under the same roof, should pay the penalties among the slaves. Restored to his order was Lurius Varus, a consular, once stricken by charges of avarice. And Pomponia Graecina, a distinguished woman, married to Aulus Plautius, whom I have related to have triumphed in ovation over the Britons, and accused of a foreign superstition, was left to her husband’s judgment; and he, by the ancient institution, in the presence of kinsmen, held inquiry about the life and fame of his wife and pronounced her innocent. Long was the life of this Pomponia and continuous her sadness: for, after Julia, daughter of Drusus, killed by the guile of Messalina, for forty years she acted in no dress but mourning, in no mind but sad; and that, while Claudius ruled, went unpunished for her, soon turned to glory.

Factum et senatus consultum ultioni iuxta et securitati, ut si quis a suis servis interfectus esset, ii quoque qui testamento manu missi sub eodem tecto mansissent inter servos supplicia penderent. redditur ordini Lurius Varus consularis, avaritiae criminibus olim perculsus. et Pomponia Graecina insignis femina, A. Plautio, quem ovasse de Britannis rettuli, nupta ac superstitionis externae rea, mariti iudicio permissa; isque prisco instituto propinquis coram de capite famaque coniugis cognovit et insontem nuntiavit. longa huic Pomponiae aetas et continua tristitia fuit: nam post Iuliam Drusi filiam dolo Messalinae interfectam per quadraginta annos non cultu nisi lugubri, non animo nisi maesto egit; idque illi imperitante Claudio impune, mox ad gloriam vertit.

The same year had several defendants, of whom Publius Celer, accused by Asia, because Caesar could not acquit him, he protracted by old age until he met his death; for Celer, having killed, as I have recorded, the proconsul Silanus, by the greatness of the crime covered his other outrages. Cossutianus Capito the Cilicians had denounced, spotted and foul, and reckoning the same right for boldness in the province which he had exercised in the city; but, harassed by a persistent accusation, he at last gave up his defense and was condemned under the law of extortion. For Eprius Marcellus, from whom the Lycians demanded restitution, canvassing prevailed so far that some of his accusers were punished with exile, as though they had made peril for an innocent man.

Idem annus pluris reos habuit, quorum P. Celerem accusante Asia, quia absolvere nequibat Caesar, traxit, senecta donec mortem obiret; nam Celer interfecto, ut memoravi, Silano pro consule magnitudine sceleris cetera flagitia obtegebat. Cossutianum Capitonem Cilices detulerant maculosum foedumque et idem ius audaciae in provincia ratum quod in urbe exercuerat; sed pervicaci accusatione conflictatus postremo defensionem omisit ac lege repetundarum damnatus est. pro Eprio Marcello, a quo Lycii res repetebant, eo usque ambitus praevaluit ut quidam accusatorum eius exilio multarentur, tamquam insonti periculum fecissent.

In Nero’s third consulship Valerius Messala entered the consulship with him, whose great-grandfather, the orator Corvinus, had been the colleague of the deified Augustus, Nero’s great-great-grandfather, in that magistracy, as a few of the old now remembered. But the honor of the noble family was augmented by five hundred thousand sesterces offered for each year, by which Messala might support his blameless poverty. To Aurelius Cotta too and Haterius Antoninus the prince fixed a yearly sum, although they had dissipated their ancestral wealth through luxury. At the beginning of that year the war between the Parthians and Romans over the holding of Armenia, hitherto deferred with soft beginnings, is taken up sharply, because neither did Vologeses suffer his brother Tiridates to be without the kingdom given by himself or to hold it as the gift of another’s power, and Corbulo reckoned it worthy of the greatness of the Roman people to recover what was once won by Lucullus and Pompey. Besides this, the Armenians, of doubtful faith, invited both armies, nearer to the Parthians by the situation of their lands and the likeness of their manners, and mingled by intermarriages, and, liberty unknown, inclining thither rather toward servitude.

Nerone tertium consule simul iniit consulatum Valerius Messala, cuius proavum, oratorem Corvinum, divo Augusto, abavo Neronis, collegam in eo magistratu fuisse pauci iam senum meminerant. sed nobili familiae honor auctus est oblatis in singulos annos quingenis sestertiis quibus Messala paupertatem innoxiam sustentaret. Aurelio quoque Cottae et Haterio Antonino annuam pecuniam statuit princeps, quamvis per luxum avitas opes dissipassent. Eius anni principio mollibus adhuc initiis prolatatum inter Parthos Romanosque de obtinenda Armenia bellum acriter sumitur, quia nec Vologeses sinebat fratrem Tiridaten dati a se regni expertem esse aut alienae id potentiae donum habere, et Corbulo dignum magnitudine populi Romani rebatur parta olim a Lucullo Pompeioque recipere. ad hoc Armenii ambigua fide utraque arma invitabant, situ terrarum, similitudine morum Parthis propiores conubiisque permixti ac libertate ignota illuc magis ad servitium inclinantes.

But to Corbulo there was more of trouble against the cowardice of his soldiers than against the perfidy of the enemy: for the legions transferred from Syria, sluggish from a long peace, bore the duties of the camp most grievously. It was sufficiently established that there were in that army veterans who had not gone on a post, on watches, who beheld a rampart and ditch as new and marvelous things, without helmets, without breastplates, sleek and gain-seeking, their service spent through the towns. So, those dismissed who were of old age or ill health, he sought a supplement. And levies were held through Galatia and Cappadocia, and a legion was added from Germany with allied horse and the infantry of cohorts. And the whole army was kept under tents, although the winter was so fierce that, ice spread over, the ground gave no place for tents unless dug out. The limbs of many were frostbitten by the force of the cold, and some were killed amid the watches. And a soldier was noted who, carrying a bundle of wood, had his hands so frozen that, clinging to the burden, they fell off from the maimed arms. He himself, of light dress, his head uncovered, was frequent in the column, in the toils, showing praise to the strenuous, solace to the weak, an example to all. Thereafter, because through the hardness of the climate and the service many refused and deserted, a remedy was sought in severity. For not, as in other armies, did pardon attend a first and second offense, but he who had left the standards at once paid the penalty with his head. And that appeared by use salutary and better than mercy: for fewer deserted that camp than those in which there was pardon.

Sed Corbuloni plus molis adversus ignaviam militum quam contra perfidiam hostium erat: quippe Syria transmotae legiones, pace longa segnes, munia castrorum aegerrime tolerabant. satis constitit fuisse in eo exercitu veteranos qui non stationem, non vigilias inissent, vallum fossamque quasi nova et mira viserent, sine galeis, sine loricis, nitidi et quaestuosi, militia per oppida expleta. igitur dimissis quibus senectus aut valetudo adversa erat supplementum petivit. et habiti per Galatiam Cappadociamque dilectus, adiectaque ex Germania legio cum equitibus alariis et peditatu cohortium. retentusque omnis exercitus sub pellibus, quamvis hieme saeva adeo ut obducta glacie nisi effossa humus tentoriis locum non praeberet. ambusti multorum artus vi frigoris et quidam inter excubias exanimati sunt. adnotatusque miles qui fascem lignorum gestabat ita praeriguisse manus, ut oneri adhaerentes truncis brachiis deciderent. ipse cultu levi, capite intecto, in agmine, in laboribus frequens adesse, laudem strenuis, solacium invalidis, exemplum omnibus ostendere. dehinc quia duritia caeli militiaeque multi abnuebant deserebantque, remedium severitate quaesitum est. nec enim, ut in aliis exercitibus, primum alterumque delictum venia prosequebatur, sed qui signa reliquerat, statim capite poenas luebat. idque usu salubre et misericordia melius adparuit: quippe pauciores illa castra deseruere quam ea in quibus ignoscebatur.

Meanwhile Corbulo, the legions kept within the camp until spring grew, and the auxiliary cohorts disposed through suitable places, forewarns them not to be the first to dare battle: the charge of the garrisons he commits to Paccius Orfitus, who had discharged the honor of the first centurionate. He, although he had written that the barbarians were off guard and a chance of doing the business well was offered, is ordered to hold himself within the fortifications and await greater forces. But, the command broken, after a few squadrons had come from the nearest forts and through inexperience demanded battle, having engaged with the enemy he is routed. And terrified by his loss, those who ought to have brought aid returned each to his own camp in a panic flight. Which Corbulo took heavily, and, Paccius rebuked, he ordered the prefects and soldiers to pitch their tents outside the rampart; and they were held in that disgrace, nor released save by the prayers of the whole army.

Interim Corbulo legionibus intra castra habitis, donec ver adolesceret, dispositisque per idoneos locos cohortibus auxiliariis, ne pugnam priores auderent praedicit: curam praesidiorum Paccio Orfito primi pili honore perfuncto mandat. is quamquam incautos barbaros et bene gerendae rei casum offerri scripserat, tenere se munimentis et maiores copias opperiri iubetur. sed rupto imperio, postquam paucae e proximis castellis turmae advenerant pugnamque imperitia poscebant, congressus cum hoste funditur. et damno eius exterriti qui subsidium ferre debuerant sua quisque in castra trepida fuga rediere. quod graviter Corbulo accepit increpitumque Paccium et praefectos militesque tendere extra vallum iussit; inque ea contumelia detenti nec nisi precibus universi exercitus exoluti sunt.

But Tiridates, aided, over and above his own clienteles, by the help of his brother Vologeses, now not stealthily but openly infested Armenia with war, and laid waste those whom he reckoned faithful to us, and, if forces were led against him, eluded them, and, flitting hither and thither, terrified more by rumor than by battle. So Corbulo, long held in vain by a sought-for battle, and forced by the enemy’s example to carry the war about, distributes his force, that the legates and prefects should at once invade diverse places; at the same time he warns king Antiochus to make for the prefectures nearest him. For Pharasmanes, his son Radamistus having been killed as a traitor, that he might testify his faith to us, exercised the more readily his old hatred against the Armenians. And then first the Moschi, a nation allied to the Romans before others, were enticed and overran the pathless parts of Armenia. So the counsels of Tiridates were turned to the contrary, and he kept sending envoys to expostulate, in his own and the Parthians’ name, why, hostages lately given and friendship renewed which might open a place for new benefits too, he was being driven from the old possession of Armenia. For that reason Vologeses himself was not yet moved, because they preferred to act by cause rather than by force: but if there were persistence in war, valor and fortune would not be wanting to the Arsacids, now more than once tried by Roman disaster. To these Corbulo, it being sufficiently ascertained that Vologeses was detained by the defection of Hyrcania, persuades Tiridates to approach Caesar by prayers: a stable kingdom and bloodless affairs could fall to him, if, the distant and late hope laid aside, he followed the present and preferable.

At Tiridates super proprias clientelas ope Vologesi fratris adiutus, non furtim iam sed palam bello infensare Armeniam, quosque fidos nobis rebatur, depopulari, et si copiae contra ducerentur, eludere hucque et illuc volitans plura fama quam pugna exterrere. igitur Corbulo quaesito diu proelio frustra habitus et exemplo hostium circumferre bellum coactus, dispertit viris ut legati praefectique diversos locos pariter invaderent; simul regem Antiochum monet proximas sibi praefecturas petere. nam Pharasmanes interfecto filio Radamisto quasi proditore, quo fidem in nos testaretur vetus adversus Armenios odium promptius exercebat. tuncque primum inlecti Moschi, gens ante alias socia Romanis, avia Armeniae incursavit. ita consilia Tiridati in contrarium vertebant, mittebatque oratores qui suo Parthorumque nomine expostularent cur datis nuper obsidibus redintegrataque amicitia, quae novis quoque beneficiis locum aperiret, vetere Armeniae possessione depelleretur. ideo nondum ipsum Vologesen commotum, quia causa quam vi agere mallent: sin perstaretur in bello, non defore Arsacidis virtutem fortunamque saepius iam clade Romana expertam. ad ea Corbulo, satis comperto Vologesen defectione Hyrcaniae attineri, suadet Tiridati precibus Caesarem adgredi: posse illi regnum stabile et res incruentas contingere, si omissa spe longinqua et sera praesentem potioremque sequeretur.

It was resolved thereafter, because by messengers passing in turn nothing was effected toward the sum of peace, that a time and place be appointed for a conference of themselves. A guard of a thousand horse Tiridates said would be present for him: how much of soldiers of every kind should attend Corbulo he did not fix, provided that, breastplates and helmets laid aside, they came in the face of peace. To anyone of mortals, much more to an old and provident leader, the barbarian cunning would have been plain: for that reason a narrow number was limited on that side and a greater offered on this, that a snare might be prepared; for, if to a horseman trained in the use of arrows uncovered bodies were exposed, the multitude would avail nothing. Yet, the understanding dissembled, he answered that they would more rightly discourse about the things consulted for the public good in the presence of the whole armies; and he chose a place of which one part were hills gently rising for the receiving of the ranks of the foot, the other stretched into a plain for the deploying of the squadrons of horse. And on the appointed day Corbulo first set the allied cohorts and the auxiliaries of the kings before the wings, in the middle the sixth legion, into which he had mingled three thousand of the third, summoned by night from other camps, with one eagle, as though the same legion were seen. Tiridates, the day now declining, stood afar off, whence he could be seen rather than heard. So, without a meeting, the Roman leader orders the soldier to depart, each to his own camp.

Placitum dehinc, quia commeantibus in vicem nuntiis nihil in summam pacis proficiebatur, conloquio ipsorum tempus locumque destinari. mille equitum praesidium Tiridates adfore sibi dicebat: quantum Corbuloni cuiusque generis militum adsisteret, non statuere, dum positis loricis et galeis in faciem pacis veniretur. cuicumque mortalium, nedum veteri et provido duci, barbarae astutiae patuissent: ideo artum inde numerum finiri et hinc maiorem offerri ut dolus pararetur; nam equiti sagittarum usu exercito si detecta corpora obicerentur, nihil profuturam multitudinem. dissimulato tamen intellectu rectius de iis quae in publicum consulerentur totis exercitibus coram dissertaturos respondit; locumque delegit cuius pars altera colles erant clementer adsurgentes accipiendis peditum ordinibus, pars in planitiem porrigebatur ad explicandas equitum turmas. dieque pacto prior Corbulo socias cohortis et auxilia regum pro cornibus, medio sextam legionem constituit, cui accita per noctem aliis ex castris tria milia tertianorum permiscuerat, una cum aquila, quasi eadem legio spectaretur. Tiridates vergente iam die procul adstitit, unde videri magis quam audiri posset. ita sine congressu dux Romanus abscedere militem sua quemque in castra iubet.

The king, whether suspecting a fraud, because they went into several places at once, or to intercept our supplies coming from the Pontic sea and the town of Trapezus, departs hastily. But he could neither do violence to the supplies, because they were led through mountains beset by our garrisons, and Corbulo, lest a fruitless war be protracted and that he might force the Armenians to defend their own, prepares to destroy the forts, and takes for himself what was strongest in that prefecture, surnamed Volandum; the lesser ones he commits to Cornelius Flaccus the legate and Insteius Capito, prefect of the camp. Then, the fortifications surveyed and what was suitable for storming foreseen, he exhorts the soldiers to strip from their seats an enemy wandering and ready neither for peace nor battle, but confessing his perfidy and cowardice by flight, and to take thought alike for glory and for booty. Then, the army divided in four, he leads on these, massed into a testudo, for undermining the rampart, orders others to bring ladders to the walls, many to hurl torches and spears by engines. A place was assigned to the bullet-throwers and slingers, from which to whirl their shot at a distance, that no part might bring aid to those laboring, by an equal motion on all sides. Such then was the ardor of the contending army that within the third part of the day the walls were stripped of defenders, the bars of the gates overthrown, the fortifications taken by scaling, and all the grown men butchered, no soldier lost, very few wounded. And the unwarlike crowd was sold under the crown, the rest of the booty fell to the victors. With equal fortune the legate and prefect fared, and, three forts stormed in one day, the rest came into surrender, some by terror and others by the will of the inhabitants. Whence arose confidence to attack Artaxata, the head of the nation. Nor yet were the legions led by the nearest route, which, if they crossed the river Araxes, which washes the walls, by the bridge, would be given under a stroke: they crossed afar off and by broader shallows.

Rex sive fraudem suspectans, quia plura simul in loca ibatur, sive ut commeatus nostros Pontico mari et Trapezunte oppido adventantis interciperet, propere discedit. sed neque commeatibus vim facere potuit, quia per montis ducebantur praesidiis nostris insessos, et Corbulo, ne inritum bellum traheretur utque Armenios ad sua defendenda cogeret, excindere parat castella, sibique quod validissimum in ea praefectura, cognomento Volandum, sumit; minora Cornelio Flacco legato et Insteio Capitoni castrorum praefecto mandat. tum circumspectis munimentis et quae expugnationi idonea provisis, hortatur milites ut hostem vagum neque paci aut proelio paratum, sed perfidiam et ignaviam fuga confitentem exuerent sedibus gloriaeque pariter et praedae consulerent. tum quadripertito exercitu hos in testudinem conglobatos subruendo vallo inducit, alios scalas moenibus admovere, multos tormentis faces et hastas incutere iubet. libritoribus funditoribusque attributus locus, unde eminus glandes torquerent, ne qua pars subsidium laborantibus ferret pari undique motu. tantus inde ardor certantis exercitus fuit ut intra tertiam diei partem nudati propugnatoribus muri, obices portarum subversi, capta escensu munimenta omnesque puberes trucidati sint, nullo milite amisso, paucis admodum vulneratis. et imbelle vulgus sub corona venundatum, reliqua praeda victoribus cessit. pari fortuna legatus ac praefectus usi sunt, tribusque una die castellis expugnatis cetera terrore et alia sponte incolarum in deditionem veniebant. unde orta fiducia caput gentis Artaxata adgrediendi. nec tamen proximo itinere ductae legiones, quae si amnem Araxen, qui moenia adluit, ponte transgrederentur, sub ictum dabantur: procul et latioribus vadis transiere.

But Tiridates, from shame and fear—lest, if he yielded to the siege, no help should seem to be in himself, if he hindered it, he should entangle himself and his cavalry forces in difficult ground—resolved at last to show a battle-line, and, a day given, begin a battle, or by a pretense of flight prepare a place for fraud. So suddenly he pours round the Roman column, our leader not unaware, who had arrayed his army for the march and for battle alike. On the right flank the third legion, on the left the sixth marched, with chosen men of the tenth in the middle; the baggage received between the ranks, and a thousand horse guarded the rear, whom he had ordered to resist those pressing at close quarters but not to pursue the fleeing. On the wings went the foot-archers and the rest of the band of horse, the left wing drawn out more along the foot of the hills, so that, if the enemy had entered, he might be received by the front and the flank at once. Tiridates assaulted from the opposite side, not up to the cast of a weapon, but now threatening, now in the show of one trembling, if he could loosen the ranks and pursue them scattered. When nothing was loosened by rashness, and no more than a decurion of horse, advancing too boldly, was pierced by arrows and by his example confirmed the rest to obedience, the darkness now near, he withdrew.

At Tiridates pudore et metu, ne, si concessisset obsidioni, nihil opis in ipso videretur, si prohiberet, impeditis locis seque et equestris copias inligaret, statuit postremo ostendere aciem et dato die proelium incipere vel simulatione fugae locum fraudi parare. igitur repente agmen Romanum circumfundit, non ignaro duce nostro, qui viae pariter et pugnae composuerat exercitum. latere dextro tertia legio, sinistro sexta incedebat, mediis decimanorum delectis; recepta inter ordines impedimenta, et tergum mille equites tuebantur, quibus iusserat ut instantibus comminus resisterent, refugos non sequerentur. in cornibus pedes sagittarius et cetera manus equitum ibat, productiore cornu sinistro per ima collium, ut, si hostis intravisset, fronte simul et sinu exciperetur. adsultare ex diverso Tiridates, non usque ad ictum teli, sed tum minitans, tum specie trepidantis, si laxare ordines et diversos consectari posset. ubi nihil temeritate solutum, nec amplius quam decurio equitum audentius progressus et sagittis confixus ceteros ad obsequium exemplo firmaverat, propinquis iam tenebris abscessit.

And Corbulo, a camp marked out on the spot, debated whether to go on to Artaxata with the legions in light order by night and surround it with a siege, reckoning that Tiridates had withdrawn thither. Then, after the scouts brought word that the king’s journey was a long one, and it was uncertain whether the Medes or the Albani were being sought, he waits for daylight, and the light-armed were sent ahead to surround the walls meanwhile and begin the assault from a distance. But the townsmen, the gates voluntarily thrown open, gave themselves and their goods to the Romans, which brought safety to them: fire was let into Artaxata, and it was destroyed and leveled to the ground, because it could neither be held without a strong garrison on account of the greatness of the walls, nor was that of strength to us which might be divided for confirming a garrison and taking up the war; or, if it were left entire and unguarded, there was no use or glory in its having been taken. There is added a marvel as if offered by divine power: for all up to Artaxata had been bright with sun; what was girt by the walls was so suddenly covered with a black cloud and parted by flashes that it was believed to be given to destruction as by gods at enmity. For these things Nero was hailed as imperator, and by decree of the Senate thanksgivings were held, and statues and arches and continuous consulships to the prince, and that there be reckoned among the festal days the day on which the victory was won, on which it was announced, on which report was made about it, and other things to the same form are decreed, so far exceeding measure that Gaius Cassius, having assented to the rest of the honors, argued that, if thanks were rendered to the gods for the kindness of fortune, not even the whole year would suffice for the thanksgivings, and therefore the sacred and the business days ought to be divided, by which they might worship divine things and not hinder human.

Et Corbulo castra in loco metatus, an expeditis legionibus nocte Artaxata pergeret obsidioque circumdaret agitavit, concessisse illuc Tiridaten ratus. dein postquam exploratores attulere longinquum regis iter et Medi an Albani peterentur incertum, lucem opperitur, praemissaque levis armatura quae muros interim ambiret oppugnationemque eminus inciperet. sed oppidani portis sponte patefactis se suaque Romanis permisere, quod salutem ipsis tulit: Artaxatis ignis immissus deletaque et solo aequata sunt, quia nec teneri poterant sine valido praesidio ob magnitudinem moenium, nec id nobis virium erat quod firmando praesidio et capessendo bello divideretur, vel si integra et incustodita relinquerentur, nulla in eo utilitas aut gloria quod capta essent. adicitur miraculum velut numine oblatum: nam cuncta Artaxatis tenus sole inlustria fuere; quod moenibus cingebatur ita repente atra nube coopertum fulgoribusque discretum est ut quasi infensantibus deis exitio tradi crederetur. ob haec consalutatus imperator Nero, et senatus consulto supplicationes habitae, statuaeque et arcus et continui consulatus principi, utque inter festos referretur dies, quo patrata victoria, quo nuntiata, quo relatum de ea esset, aliaque in eandem formam decernuntur, adeo modum egressa ut C. Cassius de ceteris honoribus adsensus, si pro benignitate fortunae dis grates agerentur, ne totum quidem annum supplicationibus sufficere disseruerit, eoque oportere dividi sacros et negotiosos dies, quis divina colerent et humana non impedirent.

Then, tossed by various chances and having earned the hatreds of many, a defendant—yet not without odium to Seneca—is condemned. This was Publius Suillius, terrible and venal while Claudius ruled, and, by the change of times, not so cast down as his enemies desired, and one who preferred to seem guilty rather than a suppliant. For the sake of crushing him, it was believed, the decree of the Senate and the penalty of the Cincian law were revived against those who had pleaded causes for a price. Nor did Suillius abstain from complaint or reproach, free, over and above the ferocity of his temper, by his extreme old age, and railing at Seneca as hostile to the friends of Claudius, under whom he had borne a most just exile. At the same time he was wont, used to idle studies and the inexperience of the young, to envy those who exercised a living and uncorrupted eloquence in defending citizens. He himself had been Germanicus’s quaestor, the other the adulterer of his house. Was it to be reckoned more grievous to obtain the reward of honorable work by the litigant’s own will than to corrupt the bedchambers of princes’ women? By what wisdom, by what precepts of philosophers, had he procured three hundred million sesterces within four years of royal friendship? At Rome wills and the childless were caught as it were by his net, Italy and the provinces drained by an immense usury: but his own money had been sought by labor and was modest. He would endure the charge, the peril, all things rather, than submit his old dignity, won at home, to a sudden felicity.

Variis deinde casibus iactatus et multorum odia meritus reus haud tamen sine invidia Senecae damnatur. is fuit P. Suillius, imperitante Claudio terribilis ac venalis et mutatione temporum non quantum inimici cuperent demissus quique se nocentem videri quam supplicem mallet. eius opprimendi gratia repetitum credebatur senatus consultum poenaque Cinciae legis adversum eos qui pretio causas oravissent. nec Suillius questu aut exprobratione abstinebat, praeter ferociam animi extrema senecta liber et Senecam increpans infensum amicis Claudii, sub quo iustissimum exilium pertulisset. simul studiis inertibus et iuvenum imperitiae suetum livere iis qui vividam et incorruptam eloquentiam tuendis civibus exercerent. se quaestorem Germanici, illum domus eius adulterum fuisse. an gravius aestimandum sponte litigatoris praemium honestae operae adsequi quam corrumpere cubicula principum feminarum? qua sapientia, quibus philosophorum praeceptis intra quadriennium regiae amicitiae ter milies sestertium paravisset? Romae testamenta et orbos velut indagine eius capi, Italiam et provincias immenso faenore hauriri: at sibi labore quaesitam et modicam pecuniam esse. crimen, periculum, omnia potius toleraturum, quam veterem ac domi partam dignationem subitae felicitati submitteret.

Nor were there wanting those who reported these things in the same words, or turned to the worse, to Seneca. And accusers were found who denounced that the allies had been plundered when Suillius governed the province of Asia, and the embezzlement of public money. Soon, because they had obtained a year’s inquiry, it seemed shorter to begin with the city crimes, of which the witnesses were at hand. These, by the bitterness of his accusation, had thrust Quintus Pomponius to the necessity of a civil war, had driven Julia, daughter of Drusus, and Sabina Poppaea to death, and circumvented Valerius Asiaticus, Lusius Saturninus, Cornelius Lupus; columns now of Roman knights condemned, and all the savagery of Claudius they objected to Suillius. He defended that none of these had been undertaken of his own will, but that he had obeyed the prince, until Caesar checked that speech, reporting that he had found out from his father’s commentaries that no accusation of anyone had been forced by him. Then the orders of Messalina were held out and the defense tottered: for why had no other been chosen to give a voice to the raging unchaste woman? The ministers of atrocious things must be punished, when, the rewards of crimes attained, they assign the crimes themselves to others. So, a part of his goods taken away (for to his son and granddaughter a part was conceded, and even what they had received by the will of their mother or grandmother was exempted), he is driven to the Balearic islands, broken in spirit neither in the crisis itself nor after the condemnation; and it was reported that he bore that seclusion in a copious and soft life. When the accusers attacked his son Nerullinus through hatred of the father and charges of extortion, the prince interposed, as though vengeance were sufficiently satisfied.

Nec deerant qui haec isdem verbis aut versa in deterius Senecae deferrent. repertique accusatores direptos socios, cum Suillius provinciam Asiam regeret, ac publicae pecuniae peculatum detulerunt. mox, quia inquisitionem annuam impetraverant, brevius visum urbana crimina incipi, quorum obvii testes erant. ii acerbitate accusationis Q. Pomponium ad necessitatem belli civilis detrusum, Iuliam Drusi filiam Sabinamque Poppaeam ad mortem actas et Valerium Asiaticum, Lusium Saturninum, Cornelium Lupum circumventos; iam equitum Romanorum agmina damnata omnemque Claudii saevitiam Suillio obiectabant. ille nihil ex his sponte susceptum, sed principi paruisse defendebat, donec eam orationem Caesar cohibuit, compertum sibi referens ex commentariis patris sui nullam cuiusquam accusationem ab eo coactam. tum iussa Messalinae praetendi et labare defensio: cur enim neminem alium delectum qui saevienti impudicae vocem praeberet? puniendos rerum atrocium ministros, ubi pretia scelerum adepti scelera ipsa aliis delegent. igitur adempta bonorum parte (nam filio et nepti pars concedebatur eximebanturque etiam quae testamento matris aut aviae acceperant) in insulas Balearis pellitur, non in ipso discrimine, non post damnationem fractus animo; ferebaturque copiosa et molli vita secretum illud toleravisse. filium eius Nerullinum adgressis accusatoribus per invidiam patris et crimina repetundarum intercessit princeps tamquam satis expleta ultione.

About the same time Octavius Sagitta, tribune of the plebs, frantic with love of Pontia, a married woman, by huge gifts buys her adultery and soon that she should leave her husband, promising marriage with himself and bargaining for her nuptials. But when the woman was free, he weaves delays, alleges her father’s adverse will, and, the hope of a richer husband being found, casts off his promises. Octavius, on the contrary, now complains, now threatens, protesting his fame ruined, his money exhausted, finally committing his safety, which alone remained, to her arbitration. And after he was scorned, he asks one night for solace, by which, soothed, he might apply a measure in the future. A night is fixed, and Pontia commits the guard of the chamber to a maid in the secret. He, with one freedman, brings in a steel hidden in his clothing. Then, as is wont in love and anger, quarrels, prayers, reproach, satisfaction; and part of the darkness was set apart for lust; from which, as if inflamed, he runs through with the steel her fearing nothing, and frightens off with a wound the maid running up, and bursts from the chamber. The next day the killing was manifest, the slayer not doubtful; for it was proved that he had stayed with her. But the freedman professed that deed his own, that he had avenged his patron’s injuries; and he had moved some by the greatness of the example, until the maid, recovered from her wound, opened the truth. And, demanded before the consuls by the father of the slain woman, after he had gone out of the tribunate, he is condemned by the opinion of the Fathers and the law concerning assassins.

Per idem tempus Octavius Sagitta plebei tribunus, Pontiae mulieris nuptae amore vaecors, ingentibus donis adulterium et mox ut omitteret maritum emercatur, suum matrimonium promittens ac nuptias eius pactus. sed ubi mulier vacua fuit, nectere moras, adversam patris voluntatem causari repertaque spe ditioris coniugis promissa exuere. Octavius contra modo conqueri, modo minitari, famam perditam, pecuniam exhaustam obtestans, denique salutem, quae sola reliqua esset, arbitrio eius permittens. ac postquam spernebatur, noctem unam ad solacium poscit, qua delenitus modum in posterum adhiberet. statuitur nox, et Pontia consciae ancillae custodiam cubiculi mandat. ille uno cum liberto ferrum veste occultum infert. tum, ut adsolet in amore et ira, iurgia preces, exprobratio satisfactio; et pars tenebrarum libidini seposita; ex qua quasi incensus nihil metuentem ferro transverberat et adcurrentem ancillam vulnere absterret cubiculoque prorumpit. postera die manifesta caedes, haud ambiguus percussor; quippe mansitasse una convincebatur. sed libertus suum illud facinus profiteri, se patroni iniurias ultum esse; commoveratque quosdam magnitudine exempli, donec ancilla ex vulnere refecta verum aperuit. postulatusque apud consules a patre interfectae, postquam tribunatu abierat, sententia patrum et lege de sicariis condemnatur.

No less notable an unchastity that year made the beginning of great ills to the commonwealth. There was in the state Poppaea Sabina, born of Titus Ollius for a father, but she had taken the name of her maternal grandfather, by the illustrious memory of Poppaeus Sabinus, resplendent with consular and triumphal decoration; for Ollius, not yet having discharged his honors, the friendship of Sejanus overthrew. To this woman all other things were present except an honorable mind. For her mother, having surpassed the women of her age in beauty, had given her glory and form alike; her wealth was sufficient to the renown of her birth. Her speech was affable, her wit not absurd: she displayed modesty and used wantonness. Rare was her going out in public, and that with part of her face veiled, lest she sate the gaze, or because it so became her. She never spared her fame, not distinguishing husbands from adulterers; and, subject to no feeling of her own or another’s, where advantage was shown, thither she transferred her lust. So, while she lived in the marriage of Rufrius Crispinus, a Roman knight, of whom she had borne a son, Otho enticed her by his youth and luxury and because he was held the most flagrant in Nero’s friendship: nor was there delay but that marriage was joined to adultery.

Non minus insignis eo anno impudicitia magnorum rei publicae malorum initium fecit. erat in civitate Sabina Poppaea, T. Ollio patre genita, sed nomen avi materni sumpserat, inlustri memoria Poppaei Sabini, consulari et triumphali decore praefulgentis; nam Ollium honoribus nondum functum amicitia Seiani pervertit. huic mulieri cuncta alia fuere praeter honestum animum. quippe mater eius, aetatis suae feminas pulchritudine supergressa, gloriam pariter et formam dederat; opes claritudini generis sufficiebant. sermo comis nec absurdum ingenium: modestiam praeferre et lascivia uti. rarus in publicum egressus, idque velata parte oris, ne satiaret aspectum, vel quia sic decebat. famae numquam pepercit, maritos et adulteros non distinguens; neque adfectui suo aut alieno obnoxia, unde utilitas ostenderetur, illuc libidinem transferebat. igitur agentem eam in matrimonio Rufri Crispini equitis Romani, ex quo filium genuerat, Otho pellexit iuventa ac luxu et quia flagrantissimus in amicitia Neronis habebatur: nec mora quin adulterio matrimonium iungeretur.

Otho, whether incautious through love, praised his wife’s form and elegance before the prince, or to inflame him, and, if the same woman were possessed, that this bond too should add to his power. He was often heard, rising from Caesar’s banquet, saying that he indeed was going to her, that to him were granted nobility, beauty, the wishes of all and the joys of the happy. By these and such incitements no long delay is interposed, but, access obtained, Poppaea first by blandishments and arts grew strong, feigning herself unequal to her desire and captured by Nero’s beauty; soon, the prince’s love now keen, turning to arrogance, if she were held beyond one and another night, saying that she was married and could not give up her marriage, bound to Otho by a manner of life which no one equaled: that he was magnificent in spirit and in dress; there she beheld things worthy of the highest fortune: but that Nero, bound to a slave-girl concubine and the habit of Acte, had drawn from a servile cohabitation nothing but the abject and sordid. Otho is cast down from his wonted familiarity, then from meeting and company, and at last, lest he act as a rival in the city, is set over the province of Lusitania; where, up to the civil arms, he acted not according to his former infamy, but uprightly and chastely, wanton in leisure but more temperate in power.

Otho sive amore incautus laudare formam elegantiamque uxoris apud principem, sive ut accenderet ac, si eadem femina potirentur, id quoque vinculum potentiam ei adiceret. saepe auditus est consurgens e convivio Caesaris, se quidem ire ad illam, sibi concessam dictitans nobilitatem pulchritudinem, vota omnium et gaudia felicium. his atque talibus inritamentis non longa cunctatio interponitur, sed accepto aditu Poppaea primum per blandimenta et artes valescere, imparem cupidini se et forma Neronis captam simulans; mox acri iam principis amore ad superbiam vertens, si ultra unam alteramque noctem attineretur, nuptam esse se dictitans nec posse matrimonium amittere, devinctam Othoni per genus vitae quod nemo adaequaret: illum animo et cultu magnificum; ibi se summa fortuna digna visere: at Neronem, paelice ancilla et adsuetudine Actes devinctum, nihil e contubernio servili nisi abiectum et sordidum traxisse. deicitur familiaritate sueta, post congressu et comitatu Otho, et ad postremum, ne in urbe aemulatus ageret, provinciae Lusitaniae praeficitur; ubi usque ad civilia arma non ex priore infamia, sed integre sancteque egit, procax otii et potestatis temperantior.

Thus far Nero sought veils for his outrages and crimes. He suspected most of all Cornelius Sulla, drawing his sluggish nature into the contrary and interpreting him as crafty and a dissembler. Which fear Graptus, of Caesar’s freedmen, instructed by use and old age from Tiberius’s time onward in the house of princes, intensified by such a lie. The Mulvian bridge at that time was famous for nocturnal allurements; and Nero used to come thither, that he might play the more freely outside the city. So he falsely alleges that snares were set for him on his return along the Flaminian way and avoided by fate, since he returned by a different route to the Sallustian gardens, and that Sulla was the author of that guile, because by chance, as the prince’s servants returned, certain men, through the youthful license which then was exercised everywhere, had made an empty fear. Neither was any of Sulla’s slaves or clients recognized, and most of all his despised nature, capable of daring nothing, shrank from the charge: yet, as though he had been convicted, he is ordered to leave his country and be confined within the walls of Massilia.

Hactenus Nero flagitiis et sceleribus velamenta quaesivit. suspectabat maxime Cornelium Sullam, socors ingenium eius in contrarium trahens callidumque et simulatorem interpretando. quem metum Graptus ex libertis Caesaris, usu et senecta Tiberio abusque domum principum edoctus, tali mendacio intendit. pons Mulvius in eo tempore celebris nocturnis inlecebris erat; ventitabatque illuc Nero quo solutius urbem extra lasciviret. igitur regredienti per viam Flaminiam compositas insidias fatoque evitatas, quoniam diverso itinere Sallustianos in hortos remeaverit, auctoremque eius doli Sullam ementitur, quia forte redeuntibus ministris principis quidam per iuvenilem licentiam, quae tunc passim exercebatur, inanem metum fecerant. neque servorum quisquam neque clientium Sullae adgnitus, maximeque despecta et nullius ausi capax natura eius a crimine abhorrebat: proinde tamen quasi convictus esset cedere patria et Massiliensium moenibus coerceri iubetur.

Under the same consuls the embassies of the Puteolani were heard, which the order and the plebs had sent, diverse, to the Senate, the former blaming the violence of the multitude, the latter the avarice of the magistrates and of each chief man. And that sedition, advanced to stones and threats of fire, lest it provoke slaughter and arms, Gaius Cassius was chosen to apply a remedy. Because they did not endure his severity, at his own request the charge is transferred to the brothers Scribonii, a praetorian cohort given, by whose terror and the punishment of a few concord returned to the townsmen.

Isdem consulibus auditae Puteolanorum legationes quas diversas ordo plebs ad senatum miserant, illi vim multitudinis, hi magistratuum et primi cuiusque avaritiam increpantes. eaque seditio ad saxa et minas ignium progressa ne caedem et arma proliceret, C. Cassius adhibendo remedio delectus. quia severitatem eius non tolerabant, precante ipso ad Scribonios fratres ea cura transfertur, data cohorte praetoria cuius terrore et paucorum supplicio rediit oppidanis concordia.

I would not relate a most ordinary decree of the Senate, by which the state of the Syracusans was permitted to exceed the number fixed for giving gladiators, had not Paetus Thrasea spoken against it and given matter to detractors for blaming his opinion. For why, if he believed the commonwealth needed senatorial liberty, did he pursue things so slight? Why did he not advise or dissuade about war or peace, about revenues and laws, and the other things by which the Roman state is held together? It was permitted to the Fathers, whenever they had received the right of giving an opinion, to bring forth what they wished and to demand a motion on it. Or was this alone worthy of correction, that at Syracuse shows should be given too lavishly: the rest through all parts of the empire as excellent as if not Nero but Thrasea held their governance? But if the highest matters were passed over with the deepest dissimulation, how much more must one abstain from empty things? Thrasea, on the contrary, to his friends demanding a reason, answered that he was not ignorant of present things in correcting such decrees, but gave to the honor of the Fathers, that it might be made manifest that those who attended in mind even to the slightest things would not dissemble their care of great matters.

Non referrem vulgarissimum senatus consultum quo civitati Syracusanorum egredi numerum edendis gladiatoribus finitum permittebatur, nisi Paetus Thrasea contra dixisset praebuissetque materiem obtrectatoribus arguendae sententiae. cur enim, si rem publicam egere libertate senatoria crederet, tam levia consectaretur? quin de bello aut pace, de vectigalibus et legibus, quibusque aliis res Romana contineretur, suaderet dissuaderetve? licere patribus, quoties ius dicendae sententiae accepissent, quae vellent expromere relationemque in ea postulare. an solum emendatione dignum, ne Syracusis spectacula largius ederentur: cetera per omnis imperii partis perinde egregia quam si non Nero sed Thrasea regimen eorum teneret? quod si summa dissimulatione transmitterentur, quanto magis inanibus abstinendum? Thrasea contra, rationem poscentibus amicis, non praesentium ignarum respondebat eius modi consulta corrigere, sed patrum honori dare, ut manifestum fieret magnarum rerum curam non dissimulaturos qui animum etiam levissimis adverterent.

In the same year, the frequent demands of the people charging the immoderation of the publicans, Nero doubted whether he should order all the revenues to be remitted and give that fairest gift to the human race. But his impulse, his greatness of spirit much praised first, the senators restrained, teaching the dissolution of the empire if the fruits by which the commonwealth was sustained were diminished: for, the harbor-dues being removed, it would follow that the abolition of tributes be demanded. Most of the companies of revenue had been established by consuls and tribunes of the plebs while the liberty of the Roman people was even then keen; the rest were soon so provided that the reckoning of gains and the necessity of expenditures agreed with each other. The greeds of the publicans must plainly be tempered, lest, what had been borne through so many years without complaint, they turn to odium by new bitternesses.

Eodem anno crebris populi flagitationibus immodestiam publicanorum arguentis dubitavit Nero an cuncta vectigalia omitti iuberet idque pulcherrimum donum generi mortalium daret. sed impetum eius, multum prius laudata magnitudine animi, attinuere senatores, dissolutionem imperii docendo, si fructus quibus res publica sustineretur deminuerentur: quippe sublatis portoriis sequens ut tributorum abolitio expostularetur. plerasque vectigalium societates a consulibus et tribunis plebei constitutas acri etiam tum populi Romani libertate; reliqua mox ita provisa ut ratio quaestuum et necessitas erogationum inter se congrueret. temperandas plane publicanorum cupidines, ne per tot annos sine querela tolerata novis acerbitatibus ad invidiam verterent.

So the prince proclaimed that the laws of each public revenue, hidden up to that time, should be posted up; that they should not resume claims dropped beyond a year; that at Rome the praetor, through the provinces those who were propraetors or consuls, should render justice against the publicans out of order; that immunity be kept for the soldiers, except in those things which they carried on for sale; and other things quite equitable, which, kept for a short time, were then held in vain. Yet there remains the abolition of the fortieth and the fiftieth and what other names the publicans had invented for their unlawful exactions. The conveyance of grain among the overseas provinces was tempered, and it was established that ships should not be entered in the censuses of merchants and tribute paid for them.

Ergo edixit princeps ut leges cuiusque publici, occultae ad id tempus, proscriberentur; omissas petitiones non ultra annum resumerent; Romae praetor, per provincias qui pro praetore aut consule essent iura adversus publicanos extra ordinem redderent; militibus immunitas servaretur, nisi in iis quae veno exercerent; aliaque admodum aequa quae brevi servata dein frustra habita sunt. manet tamen abolitio quadragesimae quinquagesimaeque et quae alia exactionibus inlicitis nomina publicani invenerant. temperata apud transmarinas provincias frumenti subvectio, et ne censibus negotiatorum naves adscriberentur tributumque pro illis penderent constitutum.

Defendants from the province of Africa, who had held proconsular command there, Sulpicius Camerinus and Pompeius Silvanus, Caesar acquitted, Camerinus against private men and a few, objecting charges of savagery rather than of money seized: a great force of accusers had beset Silvanus and demanded time for summoning witnesses; the defendant at once demanded to be defended, and he prevailed by his wealthy childlessness and old age, which he prolonged beyond the life of those by whose canvassing he had escaped.

Reos ex provincia Africa, qui proconsulare imperium illic habuerant, Sulpicium Camerinum et Pompeium Silvanum absolvit Caesar, Camerinum adversus privatos et paucos, saevitiae magis quam captarum pecuniarum crimina obicientis: Silvanum magna vis accusatorum circumsteterat poscebatque tempus evocandorum testium; reus ilico defendi postulabat, valuitque pecuniosa orbitate et senecta quam ultra vitam eorum produxit quorum ambitu evaserat.

Quiet up to that time had been affairs in Germany, by the genius of the leaders, who, the insignia of a triumph being now made common, hoped for greater honor from it if they had continued the peace. Pompeius Paulinus and Lucius Vetus at that time were over the army. Yet, lest they keep the soldier idle, the former finished a dyke begun sixty-three years before by Drusus for the curbing of the Rhine, Vetus prepared to connect the Moselle and the Saône, a ditch made between the two, so that the forces, conveyed by sea, then up the Rhône and the Saône through that ditch, soon by the river Moselle into the Rhine, thence the Ocean, might run down, and, the difficulties of the journey removed, the shores of the West and the North might be made navigable to each other. Aelius Gracilis, legate of Belgica, envied the work, deterring Vetus from bringing legions into another province and courting the favor of the Gauls, repeatedly saying it was a thing of dread to the emperor—by which most often honorable attempts are forbidden.

Quietae ad id tempus res in Germania fuerant, ingenio ducum, qui pervulgatis triumphi insignibus maius ex eo decus sperabant si pacem continuavissent. Paulinus Pompeius et L. Vetus ea tempestate exercitui praeerant. ne tamen segnem militem attinerent, ille inchoatum ante tres et sexaginta annos a Druso aggerem coercendo Rheno absolvit, Vetus Mosellam atque Ararim facta inter utrumque fossa conectere parabat, ut copiae per mare, dein Rhodano et Arare subvectae per eam fossam, mox fluvio Mosella in Rhenum, exim Oceanum decurrerent, sublatisque itineris difficultatibus navigabilia inter se Occidentis Septentrionisque litora fierent. invidit operi Aelius Gracilis Belgicae legatus, deterrendo Veterem ne legiones alienae provinciae inferret studiaque Galliarum adfectaret, formidolosum id imperatori dictitans, quo plerumque prohibentur conatus honesti.

For the rest, by the continuous idleness of the armies a rumor arose that the right of leading against the enemy had been snatched from the legates. And on that the Frisii moved up their youth through the glades or marshes, their unwarlike age through the lakes, to the bank, and settled on the empty fields, set apart for the use of the soldiers, with Verritus and Malorix for authors, who ruled that nation as far as the Germans are ruled. And now they had fixed their homes, brought seed to the fields, and were tilling it as their ancestral soil, when Dubius Avitus, the province received from Paulinus, by threatening Roman force unless the Frisii withdrew into their old places or obtained a new seat from Caesar, induced Verritus and Malorix to undertake prayers. And, having set out for Rome, while they await Nero, intent on other cares, among the things shown to barbarians they entered Pompey’s theater, that they might behold the greatness of the people. There, in their leisure (for, ignorant, they took no pleasure in the shows), while they ask about the seating of the auditorium, the distinctions of the orders, who was a knight, where the senate was, they noticed certain men in foreign dress in the seats of the senators; and asking who they were, after they had heard that that honor was given to the legates of those nations which excelled in valor and Roman friendship, they cry out that no mortals were before the Germans in arms or faith, and go down and take their seat among the Fathers. Which was kindly received by the spectators, as the impulse of antiquity and a good emulation. Nero presented both with Roman citizenship, ordered the Frisii to depart the fields. And, they spurning it, the auxiliary horse, suddenly let in, brought necessity, those being taken or killed who had resisted too stubbornly.

Ceterum continuo exercituum otio fama incessit ereptum ius legatis ducendi in hostem. eoque Frisii iuventutem saltibus aut paludibus, imbellem aetatem per lacus admovere ripae agrosque vacuos et militum usui sepositos insedere, auctore Verrito et Malorige, qui nationem eam regebant in quantum Germani regnantur. iamque fixerant domos, semina arvis intulerant utque patrium solum exercebant, cum Dubius Avitus, accepta a Paulino provincia, minitando vim Romanam nisi abscederent Frisii veteres in locos aut novam sedem a Caesare impetrarent, perpulit Verritum et Malorigem preces suscipere. profectique Romam dum aliis curis intentum Neronem opperiuntur, inter ea quae barbaris ostentantur intravere Pompei theatrum, quo magnitudinem populi viserent. illic per otium (neque enim ludicris ignari oblectabantur) dum consessum caveae, discrimina ordinum, quis eques, ubi senatus percontantur, advertere quosdam cultu externo in sedibus senatorum; et quinam forent rogitantes, postquam audiverant earum gentium legatis id honoris datum quae virtute et amicitia Romana praecellerent, nullos mortalium armis aut fide ante Germanos esse exclamant degrediunturque et inter patres considunt. quod comiter a visentibus exceptum, quasi impetus antiqui et bona aemulatio. Nero civitate Romana ambos donavit, Frisios decedere agris iussit. atque illis aspernantibus auxiliaris eques repente immissus necessitatem attulit, captis caesisve qui pervicacius restiterant.

The same fields the Ampsivarii occupied, a nation stronger not only by their own force but by the pity of the adjoining peoples, because, driven from the Chauci and destitute of a seat, they begged a safe exile. And there was present to them one famous through those nations and faithful to us too, by name Boiocalus, recalling that he had been bound in the Cheruscan rebellion by order of Arminius, soon had earned pay under the leadership of Tiberius and Germanicus, and to a fifty years’ obedience added this too, that he subjected his nation to our sway. Why did so great a part of the plain lie idle, into which the flocks and herds of the soldiers might sometimes be sent across? Let them by all means keep retreats for their flocks amid the hunger of men, provided they did not prefer a wasteland and a solitude to friendly peoples. Those fields had once been the Chamavi’s, soon the Tubantes’, and after the Usipi’s. As heaven to the gods, so the lands had been given to the race of mortals; and what were vacant were common. Then, looking up at the sun and calling the other stars as if present, he asked whether they wished to behold an empty soil: rather let them pour the sea over it against the snatchers of lands.

Eosdem agros Ampsivarii occupavere, validior gens non modo sua copia, sed adiacentium populorum miseratione, quia pulsi a Chaucis et sedis inopes tutum exilium orabant. aderatque iis clarus per illas gentis et nobis quoque fidus nomine Boiocalus, vinctum se rebellione Cherusca iussu Arminii referens, mox Tiberio, Germanico ducibus stipendia meruisse, et quinquaginta annorum obsequio id quoque adiungere quod gentem suam dicioni nostrae subiceret. quo tantam partem campi iacere in quam pecora et armenta militum aliquando transmitterentur? servarent sane receptus gregibus inter hominum famem, modo ne vastitatem et solitudinem mallent quam amicos populos. Chamavorum quondam ea arva, mox Tubantum et post Vsiporum fuisse. sicuti caelum deis, ita terras generi mortalium datas; quaeque vacuae eas publicas esse. solem inde suspiciens et cetera sidera vocans quasi coram interrogabat vellentne contueri inane solum: potius mare superfunderent adversus terrarum ereptores.

And Avitus, moved by these things: the rule of the better must be endured; it had so pleased the gods whom they implored, that the arbitration should remain with the Romans, what they gave, what they took away, nor would they suffer other judges than themselves. These things he answered publicly to the Ampsivarii; to Boiocalus himself, on account of the memory of friendship, he would give fields. Which he, spurning as the price of treason, added, "Land may be wanting to us to live on; in which to die, it cannot be": and so, with minds hostile on both sides, they parted. They called the Bructeri, the Tencteri, and even the further nations as allies to war: Avitus, by a letter to Curtilius Mancia, legate of the upper army, that, the Rhine crossed, he should show arms in their rear, himself led the legions into the territory of the Tencteri, threatening destruction unless they disjoined their cause. So, these desisting, the Bructeri too, terrified by an equal fear; and the rest also deserting another’s perils, the nation of the Ampsivarii alone withdrew back to the Usipi and Tubantes. Driven from whose lands, when they had sought the Chatti, then the Cherusci, by a long wandering—guests, needy, enemies in another’s land—what was of their youth is cut down, the unwarlike age was divided as booty.

Et commotus his Avitus: patienda meliorum imperia; id dis quos implorarent placitum, ut arbitrium penes Romanos maneret quid darent quid adimerent, neque alios iudices quam se ipsos paterentur. haec in publicum Ampsivariis respondit, ipsi Boiocalo ob memoriam amicitiae daturum agros. quod ille ut proditionis pretium aspernatus addidit ’deesse nobis terra in vitam, in qua moriamur, non potest’: atque ita infensis utrimque animis discessum. illi Bructeros, Tencteros, ulteriores etiam nationes socias bello vocabant: Avitus scripto ad Curtilium Manciam superioris exercitus legatum, ut Rhenum transgressus arma a tergo ostenderet, ipse legiones in agrum Tencterum induxit, excidium minitans ni causam suam dissociarent. igitur absistentibus his pari metu exterriti Bructeri; et ceteris quoque aliena pericula deserentibus sola Ampsivariorum gens retro ad Vsipos et Tubantes concessit. quorum terris exacti cum Chattos, dein Cheruscos petissent, errore longo hospites, egeni, hostes in alieno quod iuventutis erat caeduntur, imbellis aetas in praedam divisa est.

The same summer there was a contest between the Hermunduri and Chatti in a great battle, while they drag by force a river productive of salt and bordering on both, over and above their lust of doing all things by arms, by an inborn religion that those places are nearest to heaven and the prayers of mortals nowhere more nearly heard by the gods. Thence, by the indulgence of the divinities, in that river and those woods salt is produced, not, as elsewhere among nations, by the wave drying up from the overflow of the sea, but poured over a heap of burning trees, congealed from elements contrary to each other, fire and water. But the war was prosperous to the Hermunduri, more ruinous to the Chatti, because the victors consecrated the opposing line to Mars and Mercury, by which vow horses, men, all things are given to slaughter. And the enemy’s threats indeed turned upon themselves. But the state of the Ubii, allied to us, was afflicted by an unforeseen ill. For fires put forth from the earth seized villas, fields, villages on every side, and were carried into the very walls of the lately founded colony. Nor could they be extinguished, not if rains fell, not by river-waters or any other moisture, until, from lack of a remedy and anger at the disaster, certain rustics threw stones from a distance, then, the flames resisting, having approached nearer, frightened them off, as wild beasts, by the stroke of clubs and other blows: at last they cast on coverings stripped from their bodies, the more profane and polluted by use, so much the more likely to press down the fire.

Eadem aestate inter Hermunduros Chattosque certatum magno proelio, dum flumen gignendo sale fecundum et conterminum vi trahunt, super libidinem cuncta armis agendi religione insita, eos maxime locos propinquare caelo precesque mortalium a deis nusquam propius audiri. inde indulgentia numinum illo in amne illisque silvis salem provenire, non ut alias apud gentis eluvie maris arescente unda, sed super ardentem arborum struem fusa ex contrariis inter se elementis, igne atque aquis, concretum. sed bellum Hermunduris prosperum, Chattis exitiosius fuit, quia victores diversam aciem Marti ac Mercurio sacravere, quo voto equi viri, cuncta occidioni dantur. et minae quidem hostiles in ipsos vertebant. sed civitas Vbiorum socia nobis malo improviso adflicta est. nam ignes terra editi villas arva vicos passim corripiebant ferebanturque in ipsa conditae nuper coloniae moenia. neque extingui poterant, non si imbres caderent, non fluvialibus aquis aut quo alio humore, donec inopia remedii et ira cladis agrestes quidam eminus saxa iacere, dein resistentibus flammis propius suggressi ictu fustium aliisque verberibus ut feras absterrebant: postremo tegmina corpori derepta iniciunt, quanto magis profana et usu polluta, tanto magis oppressura ignis.

In the same year the Ruminal tree in the comitium, which eight hundred and thirty years before had sheltered the infancy of Remus and Romulus, its boughs dead and its trunk drying, diminished, was held in the place of a prodigy, until it revived into new shoots.

Eodem anno Ruminalem arborem in comitio, quae octingentos et triginta ante annos Remi Romulique infantiam texerat, mortuis ramalibus et arescente trunco deminutam prodigii loco habitum est, donec in novos fetus revivesceret.

In the consulship of Gaius Vipstanus and Gaius Fonteius, Nero no longer put off the crime long meditated, his audacity grown solid by the age of his rule, and more aflame day by day with love of Poppaea, who, not hoping for marriage to herself and the divorce of Octavia while Agrippina was safe, kept arraigning the prince with frequent reproaches, sometimes through jests, and calling him a ward, who, subject to others’ orders, lacked not only empire but even liberty. For why was her marriage deferred? Her beauty forsooth displeased him, and her triumphal ancestors. Or her fecundity and her true heart? It was feared that as a wife she would at least lay open the injuries of the Fathers, the anger of the people against the arrogance and avarice of his mother. But if Agrippina could bear no daughter-in-law but one hostile to her son, let her herself be given back to the marriage of Otho: she would go to whatever land where she might rather hear of the emperor’s affronts than behold them, mingled with his perils. These and such things, penetrating by tears and the art of the adulteress, no one forbade, all desiring that the power of the mother be broken, and none believing that the hatred of the son would harden so far as to her killing.

Gaio Vipstano C. Fonteio consulibus diu meditatum scelus non ultra Nero distulit, vetustate imperii coalita audacia et flagrantior in dies amore Poppaeae, quae sibi matrimonium et discidium Octaviae incolumi Agrippina haud sperans crebris criminationibus, aliquando per facetias incusaret principem et pupillum vocaret, qui iussis alienis obnoxius non modo imperii sed libertatis etiam indigeret. cur enim differri nuptias suas? formam scilicet displicere et triumphalis avos. an fecunditatem et verum animum? timeri ne uxor saltem iniurias patrum, iram populi adversus superbiam avaritiamque matris aperiat. quod si nurum Agrippina non nisi filio infestam ferre posset, redderetur ipsa Othonis coniugio: ituram quoquo terrarum, ubi audiret potius contumelias imperatoris quam viseret periculis eius immixta. haec atque talia lacrimis et arte adulterae penetrantia nemo prohibebat, cupientibus cunctis infringi potentiam matris et credente nullo usque ad caedem eius duratura filii odia.

Cluvius hands down that Agrippina, in her ardor for retaining power, was carried so far that at midday, when at that time Nero grew warm with wine and feasting, she offered herself, oftener, adorned and ready for incest to the drunken man; and now that the nearest noted wanton kisses and the blandishments that foretell the outrage, Seneca on the contrary sought a help against the woman’s allurements from a woman, and Acte the freedwoman was let in, who, anxious at once for her own peril and for Nero’s infamy, should report that the incest was being made public, the mother boasting, and that the soldiers would not endure the rule of a profane prince. Fabius Rusticus relates that this was desired not by Agrippina but by Nero, and broken off by the craft of the same freedwoman. But what Cluvius reports, the other authorities too have handed down, and rumor inclines thither, whether Agrippina conceived in her mind so great a monstrousness, or the meditation of a new lust seemed the more credible in her who, in her girlish years, had admitted debauchery with Lepidus in the hope of mastery, and, with an equal desire, had stooped to the caprices of Pallas, and was trained to every outrage by her marriage with her uncle.

Tradit Cluvius ardore retinendae Agrippinam potentiae eo usque provectam ut medio diei, cum id temporis Nero per vinum et epulas incalesceret, offerret se saepius temulento comptam et incesto paratam; iamque lasciva oscula et praenuntias flagitii blanditias adnotantibus proximis, Senecam contra muliebris inlecebras subsidium a femina petivisse, immissamque Acten libertam quae simul suo periculo et infamia Neronis anxia deferret pervulgatum esse incestum gloriante matre, nec toleraturos milites profani principis imperium. Fabius Rusticus non Agrippinae sed Neroni cupitum id memorat eiusdemque libertae astu disiectum. sed quae Cluvius eadem ceteri quoque auctores prodidere, et fama huc inclinat, seu concepit animo tantum immanitatis Agrippina, seu credibilior novae libidinis meditatio in ea visa est quae puellaribus annis stuprum cum Lepido spe dominationis admiserat, pari cupidine usque ad libita Pallantis provoluta et exercita ad omne flagitium patrui nuptiis.

So Nero avoided her secret meetings, and praised her, as she withdrew into the gardens or the Tusculan or Antian estate, that she took up her leisure. At last, reckoning her too burdensome wherever she was held, he resolved to kill her, deliberating only thus far—whether by poison or steel or some other force. And at first poison pleased him. But if it were given amid the prince’s banquet, it could not be referred to chance, Britannicus having already so perished; and to tempt her servants seemed hard, a woman intent against snares by her experience of crimes; and she herself had fortified her body by taking antidotes beforehand. Steel and slaughter—how it should be hidden no one found; and he feared lest anyone chosen for so great a deed should spurn the orders. Anicetus, a freedman, offered his wit, prefect of the fleet at Misenum and a tutor of Nero’s boyhood and hateful to Agrippina by mutual hatreds. So he teaches that a ship could be contrived, part of which, loosened by art on the sea itself, would throw her out unaware: nothing was so capacious of accidents as the sea; and if she were cut off by a shipwreck, who would be so unjust as to assign to crime what the winds and waves had offended? The prince would add to her, dead, a temple and altars and the rest for the display of his filial duty.

Igitur Nero vitare secretos eius congressus, abscedentem in hortos aut Tusculanum vel Antiatem in agrum laudare quod otium capesseret. postremo, ubicumque haberetur, praegravem ratus interficere constituit, hactenus consultans, veneno an ferro vel qua alia vi. placuitque primo venenum. sed inter epulas principis si daretur, referri ad casum non poterat tali iam Britannici exitio; et ministros temptare arduum videbatur mulieris usu scelerum adversus insidias intentae; atque ipsa praesumendo remedia munierat corpus. ferrum et caedes quonam modo occultaretur nemo reperiebat; et ne quis illi tanto facinori delectus iussa sperneret metuebat. obtulit ingenium Anicetus libertus, classi apud Misenum praefectus et pueritiae Neronis educator ac mutuis odiis Agrippinae invisus. ergo navem posse componi docet cuius pars ipso in mari per artem soluta effunderet ignaram: nihil tam capax fortuitorum quam mare; et si naufragio intercepta sit, quem adeo iniquum ut sceleri adsignet quod venti et fluctus deliquerint? additurum principem defunctae templum et aras et cetera ostentandae pietati.

The cleverness pleased, aided also by the time, since he was frequenting the festal days of the Quinquatrus at Baiae. Thither he lures his mother, repeatedly saying that the irascibilities of parents must be borne and the mind appeased, that he might effect a rumor of reconciliation, and that Agrippina might receive it with the easy credulity of women toward joys. Coming thereafter, he received her, meeting her on the shore (for she was approaching from Antium), with his hand and embrace, and leads her to Bauli. That is the name of a villa which, between the promontory of Misenum and the Baian lake, is washed by a winding sea. There stood among the others a ship more adorned, as though that too were given to the mother’s honor: for she had been wont to be carried by a trireme and the rowing of the marines. And then she was invited to a banquet, that night might be applied for the hiding of the deed. It was sufficiently established that there had been a betrayer, and that Agrippina, the snares heard of—uncertain whether she believed them—was carried to Baiae in a litter. There a blandishment relieved her fear: she was kindly received and placed above himself. Now by many conversations, now in youthful familiarity Nero, and again drawn close, as though he shared serious things, the feast protracted into length, he escorts her departing, clinging more closely to her eyes and her breast, whether to fill out his pretense, or the last sight of his mother about to perish held even his savage spirit.

Placuit sollertia, tempore etiam iuta, quando Quinquatruum festos dies apud Baias frequentabat. illuc matrem elicit, ferendas parentium iracundias et placandum animum dictitans quo rumorem reconciliationis efficeret acciperetque Agrippina facili feminarum credulitate ad gaudia. venientem dehinc obvius in litora (nam Antio adventabat) excepit manu et complexu ducitque Baulos. id villae nomen est quae promunturium Misenum inter et Baianum lacum flexo mari adluitur. stabat inter alias navis ornatior, tamquam id quoque honori matris daretur: quippe sueverat triremi et classiariorum remigio vehi. ac tum invitata ad epulas erat ut occultando facinori nox adhiberetur. satis constitit extitisse proditorem et Agrippinam auditis insidiis, an crederet ambiguam, gestamine sellae Baias pervectam. ibi blandimentum sublevavit metum: comiter excepta superque ipsum conlocata. iam pluribus sermonibus modo familiaritate iuvenili Nero et rursus adductus, quasi seria consociaret, tracto in longum convictu, prosequitur abeuntem, artius oculis et pectori haerens, sive explenda simulatione, seu periturae matris supremus aspectus quamvis ferum animum retinebat.

A night bright with stars and quiet by a placid sea the gods offered, as if to convict the crime. Nor had the ship gone far, two of the number of her household accompanying Agrippina, of whom Crepereius Gallus stood not far from the helm, Acerronia, reclined over the feet of the lounging woman, recalled with joy the repentance of the son and the recovered favor of the mother, when, the signal given, the roof of the place, heavy with much lead, falls in, and Crepereius was crushed and at once killed: Agrippina and Acerronia were protected by the projecting sides of the couch, by chance stronger than to yield to the weight. Nor did the dissolution of the vessel follow, all being thrown into confusion, and because very many, ignorant, hindered even the accomplices. It seemed then to the rowers to lean to one side and so sink the ship: but neither was there among themselves a ready consensus for the sudden thing, and others, striving against it, gave the chance of a gentler casting into the sea. But Acerronia, imprudently, while she cries out that she is Agrippina and that aid should be brought to the prince’s mother, is finished off with poles and oars and what naval weapons chance had offered: Agrippina, silent and therefore the less recognized (yet she received one wound in the shoulder), by swimming, then by the meeting of small boats, was carried into the Lucrine lake and brought to her villa.

Noctem sideribus inlustrem et placido mari quietam quasi convincendum ad scelus dii praebuere. nec multum erat progressa navis, duobus e numero familiarium Agrippinam comitantibus, ex quis Crepereius Gallus haud procul gubernaculis adstabat, Acerronia super pedes cubitantis reclinis paenitentiam filii et reciperatam matris gratiam per gaudium memorabat, cum dato signo ruere tectum loci multo plumbo grave, pressusque Crepereius et statim exanimatus est: Agrippina et Acerronia eminentibus lecti parietibus ac forte validioribus quam ut oneri cederent protectae sunt. nec dissolutio navigii sequebatur, turbatis omnibus et quod plerique ignari etiam conscios impediebant. visum dehinc remigibus unum in latus inclinare atque ita navem submergere: sed neque ipsis promptus in rem subitam consensus, et alii contra nitentes dedere facultatem lenioris in mare iactus. verum Acerronia, imprudentia dum se Agrippinam esse utque subveniretur matri principis clamitat, contis et remis et quae fors obtulerat navalibus telis conficitur: Agrippina silens eoque minus adgnita (unum tamen vulnus umero excepit) nando, deinde occursu lenunculorum Lucrinum in lacum vecta villae suae infertur.

There, reflecting that for this she had been summoned by deceitful letters and held in special honor, and that the ship, near the shore, driven by no winds, dashed on no rocks, had fallen in its highest part like a land-machine; observing too the killing of Acerronia, at the same time looking on her own wound, she judged the only remedy of the snares to be if they were not understood; and she sent the freedman Agerinus to announce to her son that by the kindness of the gods and by his fortune she had escaped a grievous mishap; she begged that, however terrified by his mother’s peril, he should defer the care of visiting her; she had need for the present of quiet. And meanwhile, security feigned, she applies medicaments to her wound and poultices to her body; she orders the will of Acerronia to be sought out and her goods to be sealed—that alone not through pretense.

Illic reputans ideo se fallacibus litteris accitam et honore praecipuo habitam, quodque litus iuxta non ventis acta, non saxis impulsa navis summa sui parte veluti terrestre machinamentum concidisset; observans etiam Acerroniae necem, simul suum vulnus aspiciens, solum insidiarum remedium esse, si non intellegerentur; misitque libertum Agerinum qui nuntiaret filio benignitate deum et fortuna eius evasisse gravem casum; orare ut quamvis periculo matris exterritus visendi curam differret; sibi ad praesens quiete opus. atque interim securitate simulata medicamina vulneri et fomenta corpori adhibet; testamentum Acerroniae requiri bonaque obsignari iubet, id tantum non per simulationem.

But to Nero, awaiting messengers of the perpetrated deed, it is brought that she had escaped, wounded with a light stroke, and had undergone the crisis only so far that the author should not be doubted. Then, lifeless with panic and protesting that she would be present any moment, quick for vengeance, whether she armed the slaves or kindled the soldier, or made her way to the Senate and people, objecting the shipwreck and the wound and the killing of her friends: what help against that for himself? unless something from Burrus and Seneca; whom, rousing them, he had at once summoned, uncertain whether they had been aware even before. So a long silence of both, lest they dissuade in vain, or they believed it had come to this, that, unless Agrippina were forestalled, Nero must perish. Then Seneca, thus far the readier, looked back to Burrus and inquired whether the killing should be commanded to the soldier. He answered that the praetorians, bound to the whole house of the Caesars and mindful of Germanicus, would dare nothing atrocious against his offspring: let Anicetus perform his promises. He, nothing hesitating, demands the sum of the crime. At that word Nero professes that on that day empire was given to him and the author of so great a gift a freedman: let him go quickly and lead the readiest for the orders. He himself, having heard that a messenger of Agrippina’s, Agerinus, had come, of his own accord prepares the scene of a charge, and, while he delivers his message, throws a sword between his feet, then orders chains to be cast on him as if caught, that he might feign that his mother had contrived the destruction of the prince and, from shame at the crime detected, had of her own will taken death.

At Neroni nuntios patrati facinoris opperienti adfertur evasisse ictu levi sauciam et hactenus adito discrimine ne auctor dubitaretur. tum pavore exanimis et iam iamque adfore obtestans vindictae properam, sive servitia armaret vel militem accenderet, sive ad senatum et populum pervaderet, naufragium et vulnus et interfectos amicos obiciendo: quod contra subsidium sibi? nisi quid Burrus et Seneca; quos expergens statim acciverat, incertum an et ante gnaros. igitur longum utriusque silentium, ne inriti dissuaderent, an eo descensum credebant ut, nisi praeveniretur Agrippina, pereundum Neroni esset. post Seneca hactenus promptius ut respiceret Burrum ac sciscitaretur an militi imperanda caedes esset. ille praetorianos toti Caesarum domui obstrictos memoresque Germanici nihil adversus progeniem eius atrox ausuros respondit: perpetraret Anicetus promissa. qui nihil cunctatus poscit summam sceleris. ad eam vocem Nero illo sibi die dari imperium auctoremque tanti muneris libertum profitetur: iret propere duceretque promptissimos ad iussa. ipse audito venisse missu Agrippinae nuntium Agerinum, scaenam ultro criminis parat gladiumque, dum mandata perfert, abicit inter pedes eius, tum quasi deprehenso vincla inici iubet, ut exitium principis molitam matrem et pudore deprehensi sceleris sponte mortem sumpsisse confingeret.

Meanwhile, Agrippina’s peril being made public, as though it had happened by chance, each as he had heard it ran down to the shore. These climbed the projections of the moles, those the nearest skiffs; others waded into the sea as far as the body allowed; some stretched out their hands; with complaints, vows, and clamor of those asking diverse things or answering uncertain ones the whole shore was filled; an immense multitude flowed up with lights, and when it was well known that she was safe, they made ready to congratulate her, until they were scattered by the sight of an armed and threatening column. Anicetus surrounds the villa with a post, and, the door broken, drags off the slaves who met him, until he came to the doors of the chamber; by which a few stood, the rest terrified by the dread of those breaking in. In the chamber there was a modest light and one of the maids, Agrippina more and more anxious that no one came from her son, and not even Agerinus: the face of a glad thing would be other; now solitude and sudden noises and the signs of the extremest ill. As the maid was departing thereupon, "You too desert me," she said, and looks back at Anicetus, accompanied by Herculeius the trierarch and Obaritus a marine centurion: and, if he had come to visit her, let him report that she was recovered, but if to perpetrate a deed, she believed nothing about her son; no parricide had been commanded. The slayers stand round the couch, and first the trierarch struck her head with a club. Then, as the centurion was drawing his steel for the death, holding out her womb, "Strike the belly," she cried, and was finished off with many wounds.

Interim vulgato Agrippinae periculo, quasi casu evenisset, ut quisque acceperat, decurrere ad litus. hi molium obiectus, hi proximas scaphas scandere; alii quantum corpus sinebat vadere in mare; quidam manus protendere; questibus, votis, clamore diversa rogitantium aut incerta respondentium omnis ora compleri; adfluere ingens multitudo cum luminibus, atque ubi incolumem esse pernotuit, ut ad gratandum sese expedire, donec aspectu armati et minitantis agminis disiecti sunt. Anicetus villam statione circumdat refractaque ianua obvios servorum abripit, donec ad foris cubiculi veniret; cui pauci adstabant, ceteris terrore inrumpentium exterritis. cubiculo modicum lumen inerat et ancillarum una, magis ac magis anxia Agrippina quod nemo a filio ac ne Agerinus quidem: aliam fore laetae rei faciem; nunc solitudinem ac repentinos strepitus et extremi mali indicia. abeunte dehinc ancilla ’tu quoque me deseris’ prolocuta respicit Anicetum trierarcho Herculeio et Obarito centurione classiario comitatum: ac, si ad visendum venisset, refotam nuntiaret, sin facinus patraturus, nihil se de filio credere; non imperatum parricidium. circumsistunt lectum percussores et prior trierarchus fusti caput eius adflixit. iam in mortem centurioni ferrum destringenti protendens uterum ’ventrem feri’ exclamavit multisque vulneribus confecta est.

These things are reported by consensus. Whether Nero looked upon his mother dead and praised the form of her body, there are who have handed down, there are who deny. She was cremated the same night on a dining-couch and with mean obsequies; nor, while Nero held the mastery, was the ground heaped up or enclosed. Soon, by the care of her household, she received a slight tomb, near the Misenum road and the villa of Caesar the dictator, which, most lofty, looks down upon the bays beneath. The pyre kindled, a freedman of hers, surnamed Mnester, ran himself through with steel, uncertain whether from affection for his patroness or fear of destruction. This end of herself Agrippina had believed many years before, and had despised it. For to her consulting about Nero the Chaldeans answered that he would rule and would kill his mother; and she, "Let him kill," she said, "provided he rule."

Haec consensu produntur. aspexeritne matrem exanimem Nero et formam corporis eius laudaverit, sunt qui tradiderint, sunt qui abnuant. cremata est nocte eadem convivali lecto et exequiis vilibus; neque, dum Nero rerum potiebatur, congesta aut clausa humus. mox domesticorum cura levem tumulum accepit, viam Miseni propter et villam Caesaris dictatoris quae subiectos sinus editissima prospectat. accenso rogo libertus eius cognomento Mnester se ipse ferro transegit, incertum caritate in patronam an metu exitii. hunc sui finem multos ante annos crediderat Agrippina contempseratque. nam consulenti super Nerone responderunt Chaldaei fore ut imperaret matremque occideret; atque illa ’occidat’ inquit, ’dum imperet.’

But by Caesar, the crime at last perpetrated, its greatness was understood. The rest of the night, now fixed in silence, oftener starting up in panic and bereft of mind, he awaited the daylight as though it would bring destruction. And the flattery of the centurions and tribunes, by the prompting of Burrus, first confirmed him to hope, as they grasped his hand and congratulated him that he had escaped an unforeseen crisis and his mother’s deed. His friends thereupon went to the temples, and, the example begun, the nearest municipalities of Campania testified their gladness with victims and embassies: he himself, by a contrary pretense, was mournful and as if hostile to his own safety and weeping at his parent’s death. But because, as the faces of men, so the appearances of places are not changed, and the grievous sight of that sea and those shores kept presenting itself (and there were those who believed that the sound of a trumpet was heard on the hills round about and a wailing at the mother’s tomb), he withdrew to Naples and sent a letter to the Senate, the sum of which was that Agerinus, of Agrippina’s most intimate freedmen, had been found with a steel as an assassin, and that she had paid the penalty by her conscience, as though she had prepared the crime.

Sed a Caesare perfecto demum scelere magnitudo eius intellecta est. reliquo noctis modo per silentium defixus, saepius pavore exsurgens et mentis inops lucem opperiebatur tamquam exitium adlaturam. atque eum auctore Burro prima centurionum tribunorumque adulatio ad spem firmavit, prensantium manum gratantiumque quod discrimen improvisum et matris facinus evasisset. amici dehinc adire templa et coepto exemplo proxima Campaniae municipia victimis et legationibus laetitiam testari: ipse diversa simulatione maestus et quasi incolumitati suae infensus ac morti parentis inlacrimans. quia tamen non, ut hominum vultus, ita locorum facies mutantur, obversabaturque maris illius et litorum gravis aspectus (et erant qui crederent sonitum tubae collibus circum editis planctusque tumulo matris audiri), Neapolim concessit litterasque ad senatum misit quarum summa erat repertum cum ferro percussorem Agerinum, ex intimis Agrippinae libertis, et luisse eam poenas conscientia quasi scelus paravisset.

He added charges fetched from further back, that she had hoped for a partnership in the empire, and that the praetorian cohorts would swear to a woman’s words, and the same disgrace of the Senate and people; and, after she had been frustrated, hostile to the soldier and the Fathers and the plebs, she had dissuaded the donative and the largess and had contrived perils for illustrious men. With how great labor of his own had it been perpetrated that she should not break into the Curia, should not give answers to foreign nations. By an oblique attack on the Claudian times too he transferred all the outrages of that mastery onto his mother, reporting that she had been extinguished by the public fortune. For he even narrated the shipwreck: but who would be found so dull as to believe that it had been by chance? or that one man with a weapon had been sent by a shipwrecked woman to break through the cohorts and the fleets of the emperor? So now not Nero, whose monstrousness outran the complaints of all, but Seneca was in adverse rumor, because by such a speech he had written a confession.

Adiciebat crimina longius repetita, quod consortium imperii iuraturasque in feminae verba praetorias cohortis idemque dedecus senatus et populi speravisset, ac postquam frustra habita sit, infensa militi patribusque et plebi dissuasisset donativum et congiarium periculaque viris inlustribus struxisset. quanto suo labore perpetratum ne inrumperet curiam, ne gentibus externis responsa daret. temporum quoque Claudianorum obliqua insectatione cuncta eius dominationis flagitia in matrem transtulit, publica fortuna extinctam referens. namque et naufragium narrabat: quod fortuitum fuisse quis adeo hebes inveniretur ut crederet? aut a muliere naufraga missum cum telo unum qui cohortis et classis imperatoris perfringeret? ergo non iam Nero, cuius immanitas omnium questus antibat, sed Seneca adverso rumore erat quod oratione tali confessionem scripsisset.

Yet, by a marvelous contest of the chief men, thanksgivings are decreed at all the sacred couches, and that the Quinquatrus, on which the snares had been opened, be celebrated with yearly games; that a golden image of Minerva be set up in the Curia and beside it an effigy of the prince; that the birthday of Agrippina be among the unlawful days. Thrasea Paetus, wont to pass over the former flatteries in silence or with a brief assent, then went out of the Senate, and made for himself a cause of peril, gave to the rest no beginning of liberty. Prodigies too, frequent and idle, intervened: a woman brought forth a snake, and another was killed by a thunderbolt in the embrace of her husband; the sun too was suddenly obscured, and the fourteen regions of the city were struck from heaven. Which so befell without the care of the gods that Nero continued his empire and his crimes for many years after. For the rest, that he might aggravate the odium of his mother and, she being removed, testify his increased leniency, he restored to their ancestral seats the illustrious women Junia and Calpurnia, and the ex-praetors Valerius Capito and Licinius Gabolus, once driven out by Agrippina. He permitted too the ashes of Lollia Paulina to be brought back and a sepulcher to be built; and those whom he himself had lately banished, Iturius and Calvisius, he released from punishment. For Silana had died by fate, returned from a distant exile to Tarentum, Agrippina now tottering, by whose enmities she had fallen, or being softened.

Miro tamen certamine procerum decernuntur supplicationes apud omnia pulvinaria, utque Quinquatrus quibus apertae insidiae essent ludis annuis celebrarentur; aureum Minervae simulacrum in curia et iuxta principis imago statuerentur; dies natalis Agrippinae inter nefastos esset. Thrasea Paetus silentio vel brevi adsensu priores adulationes transmittere solitus exiit tum senatu ac sibi causam periculi fecit, ceteris libertatis initium non praebuit. prodigia quoque crebra et inrita intercessere: anguem enixa mulier et alia in concubitu mariti fulmine exanimata; iam sol repente obscu- ratus et tactae de caelo quattuordecim urbis regiones. quae adeo sine cura deum eveniebant ut multos post annos Nero imperium et scelera continuaverit. ceterum quo gravaret invidiam matris eaque demota auctam lenitatem suam testificaretur, feminas inlustris Iuniam et Calpurniam, praetura functos Valerium Capitonem et Licinium Gabolum sedibus patriis reddidit, ab Agrippina olim pulsos. etiam Lolliae Paulinae cineres reportari sepulcrumque extrui permisit; quosque ipse nuper relegaverat, Iturium et Calvisium poena exolvit. nam Silana fato functa erat, longinquo ab exilio Tarentum regressa labante iam Agrippina, cuius inimicitiis conciderat, vel mitigata.

Yet he hesitated in the towns of Campania, in what manner he should enter the city, anxious whether he would find the obedience of the Senate or the zeal of the plebs: on the contrary, every worst man—and no court was ever more fruitful of them—argued that the name of Agrippina was hateful and that the people’s favor had been kindled by her death: let him go undaunted and experience the veneration of himself in person; at the same time they demand to go before. And they find things readier than they had promised, the tribes coming to meet him, the Senate in festal dress, columns of wives and children arranged by sex and age, tiers of seats built up along the way he passed, in the manner in which triumphs are beheld. Hence, proud and the victor of the public servitude, he went up to the Capitol, paid his thanks, and poured himself out into all the lusts which, ill-curbed, the reverence of a mother, such as she was, had retarded.

Tamen cunctari in oppidis Campaniae, quonam modo urbem ingrederetur, an obsequium senatus, an studia plebis reperiret anxius: contra deterrimus quisque, quorum non alia regia fecundior extitit, invisum Agrippinae nomen et morte eius accensum populi favorem disserunt: iret intrepidus et venerationem sui coram experiretur; simul praegredi exposcunt. et promptiora quam promiserant inveniunt, obvias tribus, festo cultu senatum, coniugum ac liberorum agmina per sexum et aetatem disposita, extructos, qua incederet, spectaculorum gradus, quo modo triumphi visuntur. hinc superbus ac publici servitii victor Capitolium adiit, grates exolvit seque in omnis libidines effudit quas male coercitas qualiscumque matris reverentia tardaverat.

He had long had a craving to stand in a chariot and drive the four-horse team, and a no less squalid enthusiasm to sing to the lyre after the manner of the stage. To contend with horses, he would urge, was kingly and the constant practice of leaders of old, famed in the praises of bards and rendered as an honor to the gods. As for song, it was sacred to Apollo, and in such array did that foremost and prescient deity stand, not only in the cities of the Greeks but at the temples of Rome. Nor could it now be checked, when it seemed good to Seneca and Burrus to grant the one point, lest he prevail in both; and a space was enclosed in the Vatican valley in which he might drive the horses, the spectacle not open to all. Soon the Roman people are invited besides, and extol him with praises—as the crowd is, greedy for pleasures, and glad, if the princeps draws it the same way. But his shame, once published abroad, brought not satiety, as they had reckoned, but a spur. And thinking the disgrace softened if he defiled more men, he led down onto the stage the descendants of noble families, for sale through their poverty; whom, now that they have done with fate, I shall not record by name—the fault, I think, must be assigned to their ancestors. For the disgrace belongs also to him who paid out money for misdeeds rather than to prevent them. Known Roman knights too he forced, by enormous gifts, to promise their services in the arena—save that pay, from one with the power to command, carries the force of compulsion.

Vetus illi cupido erat curriculo quadrigarum insistere nec minus foedum studium cithara ludicrum in modum canere. concertare equis regium et antiquis ducibus factitatum memorabat idque vatum laudibus celebre et deorum honori datum. enimvero cantus Apollini sacros, talique ornatu adstare non modo Graecis in urbibus sed Romana apud templa numen praecipuum et praescium. nec iam sisti poterat, cum Senecae ac Burro visum ne utraque pervinceret alterum concedere. clausumque valle Vaticana spatium in quo equos regeret haud promisco spectaculo: mox ultro vocari populus Romanus laudibusque extollere, ut est vulgus cupiens voluptatum et, si eodem princeps trahat, laetum. ceterum evulgatus pudor non satietatem, ut rebantur, sed incitamentum attulit. ratusque dedecus molliri, si pluris foedasset, nobilium familiarum posteros egestate venalis in scaenam deduxit; quos fato perfunctos ne nominatim tradam, maioribus eorum tribuendum puto. nam et eius flagitium est qui pecuniam ob delicta potius dedit quam ne delinquerent. notos quoque equites Romanos operas arenae promittere subegit donis ingentibus, nisi quod merces ab eo qui iubere potest vim necessitatis adfert.

Yet, that he might not as yet be dishonored in a public theater, he set up games under the name of the Juvenalia, for which names were given in from every quarter. Neither nobility for any man, nor age, nor offices held was any hindrance to practicing the art of the Greek or the Latin actor, down to gestures and measures far from manly. Nay, even women of rank rehearsed unseemly parts; and by the grove which Augustus had planted round the basin for the mock sea-battle there were run up booths and cook-shops, and incitements to extravagance set out for sale. Doles of money were given, which the good spent of necessity, the dissolute for glory. From this point scandals and infamy swelled, nor did anything wrap more lusts about morals long since corrupt than that confluence of filth. Decency is scarcely kept even amid honorable arts; far less, among the contests of vices, could chastity or restraint or any trace of honest character be preserved. Last of all the man himself strides onto the stage, trying the lyre with much care and rehearsing beforehand with the voice-masters at his side. A cohort of soldiers had been brought up, centurions and tribunes, and Burrus grieving—and applauding. Then for the first time were enrolled Roman knights under the surname of the Augustani, conspicuous in youth and strength, some insolent by nature, others bent on the hope of power. These made days and nights ring with applause, hailing the looks and the voice of the princeps by the names of gods, and bore themselves as though made famous and honored through their merit.

Ne tamen adhuc publico theatro dehonestaretur, instituit ludos Iuvenalium vocabulo, in quos passim nomina data. non nobilitas cuiquam, non aetas aut acti honores impedimento, quo minus Graeci Latinive histrionis artem exercerent usque ad gestus modosque haud virilis. quin et feminae inlustres deformia meditari; extructaque apud nemus, quod navali stagno circumposuit Augustus, conventicula et cauponae et posita veno inritamenta luxui. dabanturque stipes quas boni necessitate, intemperantes gloria consumerent. inde gliscere flagitia et infamia, nec ulla moribus olim corruptis plus libidinum circumdedit quam illa conluvies. vix artibus honestis pudor retinetur, nedum inter certamina vitiorum pudicitia aut modestia aut quicquam probi moris reservaretur. postremus ipse scaenam incedit, multa cura temptans citharam et praemeditans adsistentibus phonascis. accesserat cohors militum, centuriones tribunique et maerens Burrus ac laudans. tuncque primum conscripti sunt equites Romani cognomento Augustianorum, aetate ac robore conspicui et pars ingenio procaces, alii in spem potentiae. ii dies ac noctes plausibus personare, formam principis vocemque deum vocabulis appellantes; quasi per virtutem clari honoratique agere.

Yet, lest only the theatrical arts of the emperor should become known, he affected a zeal for poetry too, drawing together men in whom there was some faculty of composition, not yet distinguished. These, after dining, would sit down together and string into connection verses brought in or invented on the spot, and fill out his own words, however thrown off—as the very character of the poems shows, flowing neither from a single rush of inspiration nor from one mouth. To the teachers of wisdom, too, he allotted time after the banquets, and took pleasure in the wrangling of men who maintained opposite views. Nor were there wanting those who, with grim mouth and face, desired to be looked at among the royal diversions.

Ne tamen ludicrae tantum imperatoris artes notescerent, carminum quoque studium adfectavit, contractis quibus aliqua pangendi facultas necdum insignis erat. hi cenati considere simul et adlatos vel ibidem repertos versus conectere atque ipsius verba quoquo modo prolata supplere, quod species ipsa carminum docet, non impetu et instinctu nec ore uno fluens. etiam sapientiae doctoribus tempus impertiebat post epulas, utque contraria adseverantium discordia frueretur. nec deerant qui ore vultuque tristi inter oblectamenta regia spectari cuperent.

About the same time, from a slight beginning, a savage slaughter arose between the colonists of Nuceria and of Pompeii at a gladiatorial show which Livineius Regulus—whose removal from the Senate I have related—was giving. For with small-town wantonness, hurling insults at one another in turn, then stones, and at last steel, they took up arms, the Pompeian populace being the stronger, in whose town the show was held. And so many of the Nucerians were carried to the city, their bodies maimed with wounds, and very many mourned the deaths of children or of parents. The trial of the affair the princeps committed to the Senate, the Senate to the consuls; and, the matter being referred back once more to the Fathers, the Pompeians were forbidden as a community to hold any assembly of that kind for ten years, and the associations they had set up against the laws were dissolved. Livineius, and the others who had stirred up the riot, were punished with exile.

Sub idem tempus levi initio atrox caedes orta inter colonos Nucerinos Pompeianosque gladiatorio spectaculo quod Livineius Regulus, quem motum senatu rettuli, edebat. quippe oppidana lascivia in vicem incessentes probra, dein saxa, postremo ferrum sumpsere, validiore Pompeianorum plebe, apud quos spectaculum edebatur. ergo deportati sunt in urbem multi e Nucerinis trunco per vulnera corpore, ac plerique liberorum aut parentum mortis deflebant. cuius rei iudicium princeps senatui, senatus consulibus permisit. et rursus re ad patres relata, prohibiti publice in decem annos eius modi coetu Pompeiani collegiaque quae contra leges instituerant dissoluta; Livineius et qui alii seditionem conciverant exilio multati sunt.

Removed from the Senate too was Pedius Blaesus, the Cyrenaeans accusing him of having violated the treasury of Aesculapius and corrupted the military levy by bribery and favoritism. The same Cyrenaeans prosecuted Acilius Strabo, who, invested with praetorian power, had been sent by Claudius as arbiter of the lands which, once the hereditary domain of King Apion and bequeathed, along with his kingdom, to the Roman people, the nearest holder in each case had seized, and which, through long license and wrongdoing, they leaned upon as though on law and equity. So, the lands being adjudged away from them, hatred arose against the judge; and the Senate answered that it did not know the instructions of Claudius and that the princeps must be consulted. Nero, while approving Strabo’s verdict, wrote that he came to the aid of the allies nonetheless, and conceded what had been usurped.

Motus senatu et Pedius Blaesus, accusantibus Cyrenensibus violatum ab eo thesaurum Aesculapii dilectumque militarem pretio et ambitione corruptum. idem Cyrenenses reum agebant Acilium Strabonem, praetoria potestate usum et missum disceptatorem a Claudio agrorum, quos regis Apionis quondam avitos et populo Romano cum regno relictos proximus quisque possessor invaserant, diutinaque licentia et iniuria quasi iure et aequo nitebantur. igitur abiudicatis agris orta adversus iudicem invidia; et senatus ignota sibi esse mandata Claudii et consulendum principem respondit. Nero probata Strabonis sententia se nihilo minus subvenire sociis et usurpata concedere scripsit.

There follow the deaths of illustrious men, Domitius Afer and Marcus Servilius, who had flourished in the highest honors and in much eloquence—the one by pleading causes, Servilius long renowned in the Forum, then for the writing-down of Roman history, and for an elegance of life which he made the more lustrous: a man as equal to Afer in talent as he was unlike him in character.

Sequuntur virorum inlustrium mortes, Domitii Afri et M. Servilii, qui summis honoribus et multa eloquentia viguerant, ille orando causas, Servilius diu foro, mox tradendis rebus Romanis celebris et elegantia vitae quam clariorem effecit, ut par ingenio, ita morum diversus.

In the consulship of Nero, for the fourth time, and of Cornelius Cossus, a quinquennial contest was established at Rome after the fashion of the Greek games, with report running both ways, as over almost everything new. For there were those who related that even Gnaeus Pompey had been blamed by the older men for having set up a permanent seat for the theater. For before that, games were wont to be given with hastily built tiers and a stage run up for the occasion; or, if you go back to still older times, the people watched standing, lest, were they to sit down in a theater, they should idle away whole days. The old usage of shows might well be kept, said the critics, as often as praetors gave them, with no compulsion on any citizen to compete. But the ancestral customs, abolished little by little, were being utterly overthrown by an imported wantonness, so that whatever anywhere could be corrupted or could corrupt should be on view in the city, and the youth degenerate through foreign pursuits—frequenting gymnasia and idleness and base loves—with the princeps and the Senate for sponsors, who not only granted license to the vices but applied force, that Roman nobles should be polluted upon the stage under the show of speeches and songs. What was left, but that they should bare their bodies too and take up the boxing-gloves and rehearse such bouts in place of soldiering and arms? Or would justice be advanced, and the panels of knights discharge their distinguished office of judging, if they had listened, like connoisseurs, to broken cadences and the sweetness of voices? Nights, too, had been given over to dishonor, that no time might be left for decency, but that, in the promiscuous throng, each most abandoned man might dare in the dark what he had craved by day.

Nerone quartum Cornelio Cosso consulibus quinquennale ludicrum Romae institutum est ad morem Graeci certaminis, varia fama, ut cuncta ferme nova. quippe erant qui Gn. quoque Pompeium incusatum a senioribus ferrent quod mansuram theatri sedem posuisset. nam antea subitariis gradibus et scaena in tempus structa ludos edi solitos, vel si vetustiora repetas, stantem populum spectavisse, ne, si consideret theatro, dies totos ignavia continuaret. spectaculorum quidem antiquitas servaretur, quoties praetores ederent, nulla cuiquam civium necessitate certandi. ceterum abolitos paulatim patrios mores funditus everti per accitam lasciviam, ut quod usquam corrumpi et corrumpere queat in urbe visatur, degeneretque studiis externis iuventus, gymnasia et otia et turpis amores exercendo, principe et senatu auctoribus, qui non modo licentiam vitiis permiserint, sed vim adhibeant ut proceres Romani specie orationum et carminum scaena polluantur. quid superesse nisi ut corpora quoque nudent et caestus adsumant easque pugnas pro militia et armis meditentur? an iustitiam auctum iri et decurias equitum egregium iudicandi munus expleturos, si fractos sonos et dulcedinem vocum perite audissent? noctes quoque dedecori adiectas ne quod tempus pudori relinquatur, sed coetu promisco, quod perditissimus quisque per diem concupiverit, per tenebras audeat.

To most it was the license itself that pleased; yet they held up honorable names. Their ancestors too, they urged, had not recoiled from the diversions of shows, in keeping with the fortune that then was, and on that account had fetched actors from the Etruscans and horse-races from Thurii; and once Achaia and Asia were in their possession, the games had been put on with more care, yet no one born at Rome of honorable station had sunk to the theatrical arts in the two hundred years now since the triumph of Lucius Mummius, who first afforded that kind of show in the city. Thrift, too, had been served, in that a permanent seat had been set up for the theater rather than that, at vast expense, it should rise and be torn down year by year. Nor would the magistrates drain their estates to the same degree, nor would the people have cause to demand Greek contests of the magistrates, since the commonwealth would meet that expense. The victories of orators and bards would bring a spur to talent; nor was it burdensome for any judge to lend his ears to honorable pursuits and sanctioned pleasures. To merriment rather than to lewdness were given a few nights out of the whole five-year span, on which, amid so great a blaze of lights, nothing unlawful could be hidden. And in truth that spectacle passed off with no conspicuous disgrace; nor did even the modest partisanships of the plebs flare up, since the pantomimes, though restored to the stage, were kept from the sacred contests. The first prize for eloquence no one bore away, but it was proclaimed that Caesar was the victor. The Greek cloaks, in which during those days most had gone about, then went out of fashion.

Pluribus ipsa licentia placebat, ac tamen honesta nomina praetendebant. maiores quoque non abhorruisse spectaculorum oblectamentis pro fortuna quae tum erat, eoque a Tuscis accitos histriones, a Thuriis equorum certamina; et possessa Achaia Asiaque ludos curatius editos, nec quemquam Romae honesto loco ortum ad theatralis artes degeneravisse, ducentis iam annis a L. Mummii triumpho qui primus id genus spectaculi in urbe praebuerit. sed et consultum parsimoniae quod perpetua sedes theatro locata sit potius quam immenso sumptu singulos per annos consurgeret ac destrueretur. nec perinde magistratus rem familiarem exhausturos aut populo efflagitandi Graeca certamina a magistratibus causam fore, cum eo sumptu res publica fungatur. oratorum ac vatum victorias incitamentum ingeniis adlaturas; nec cuiquam iudici grave auris studiis honestis et voluptatibus concessis impertire. laetitiae magis quam lasciviae dari paucas totius quinquennii noctes, quibus tanta luce ignium nihil inlicitum occultari queat. sane nullo insigni dehonestamento id spectaculum transiit; ac ne modica quidem studia plebis exarsere, quia redditi quamquam scaenae pantomimi certaminibus sacris prohibebantur. eloquentiae primas nemo tulit, sed victorem esse Caesarem pronuntiatum. Graeci amictus quis per eos dies plerique incesserant tum exoleverunt.

Amid these things a comet blazed out, about which the opinion of the crowd is that it portends a change of ruler. And so, as though Nero were already cast down, they kept inquiring who might be chosen; and on every mouth Rubellius Plautus is celebrated, whose nobility came, on the mother’s side, from the Julian family. He himself cultivated the principles of the ancients, of austere bearing, his household chaste and retired, and the more he hid himself through fear, the more fame he won. The reading of a lightning-stroke, sprung from a like emptiness, swelled the rumor. For because, as Nero reclined at table by the Simbruine pools, in a villa whose name is Sublaqueum, the dishes were struck and the table scattered, and this had happened within the bounds of the Tiburtines, whence Plautus drew his father’s origin, men believed that he was being marked out by the will of the gods, and many fostered him—men whose ambition, greedy and for the most part deceptive, is to court the new and the doubtful before the event. So Nero, much disturbed by this, composes a letter to Plautus: let him consult the tranquility of the city and withdraw himself from those who spread depraved talk; he had ancestral estates throughout Asia, in which he might enjoy a safe and untroubled youth. So thither, with his wife Antistia and a few of his household, he withdrew. In those same days an excessive lust for luxury brought Nero infamy and danger, because he had gone swimming in the spring of the Marcian water that is led down to the city; and by bathing his body he seemed to have polluted the sacred draughts and the sanctity of the place. And the dangerous illness that followed confirmed the anger of the gods.

Inter quae sidus cometes effulsit; de quo vulgi opinio est tamquam mutationem regis portendat. igitur quasi iam depulso Nerone, quisnam deligeretur anquirebant; et omnium ore Rubellius Plautus celebratur, cui nobilitas per matrem ex Iulia familia. ipse placita maiorum colebat, habitu severo, casta et secreta domo, quantoque metu occultior, tanto plus famae adeptus. auxit rumorem pari vanitate orta interpretatio fulguris. nam quia discumbentis Neronis apud Simbruina stagna in villa cui Sublaqueum nomen est ictae dapes mensaque disiecta erat idque finibus Tiburtum acciderat, unde paterna Plauto origo, hunc illum numine deum destinari credebant, fovebantque multi quibus nova et ancipitia praecolere avida et plerumque fallax ambitio est. ergo permotus his Nero componit ad Plautum litteras, consuleret quieti urbis seque prava diffamantibus subtraheret: esse illi per Asiam avitos agros in quibus tuta et inturbida iuventa frueretur. ita illuc cum coniuge Antistia et paucis familiarium concessit. Isdem diebus nimia luxus cupido infamiam et periculum Neroni tulit, quia fontem aquae Marciae ad urbem deductae nando incesserat; videbaturque potus sacros et caerimoniam loci corpore loto polluisse. secutaque anceps valetudo iram deum adfirmavit.

But Corbulo, after Artaxata had been destroyed, judging that he must use the fresh terror to seize Tigranocerta—by razing which he might heighten the enemy’s fear, or, if he spared it, win the renown of clemency—presses on thither, with no hostile array, lest he take away the hope of pardon, yet with his care not relaxed, knowing the nation easy to change, as sluggish in the face of dangers, so faithless at opportunities. The barbarians, each according to his temper—some offered prayers, certain ones abandoned their villages and scattered into pathless country; and there were those who hid themselves and their dearest in caves. And so the Roman general, by diverse arts—mercy toward suppliants, speed against fugitives, unrelenting toward those who had taken to hiding-places—burns out with fire the mouths and outlets of the caverns, stopped up with faggots and brushwood. And as he marched past their borders the Mardi fell upon him—men practiced in brigandage and defended against the invader by their mountains; whom Corbulo, loosing the Iberians on them, laid waste, and avenged the enemy’s daring with foreign blood.

At Corbulo post deleta Artaxata utendum recenti terrore ratus ad occupanda Tigranocerta, quibus excisis metum hostium intenderet vel, si pepercisset, clementiae famam adipisceretur, illuc pergit, non infenso exercitu ne spem veniae auferret, neque tamen remissa cura, gnarus facilem mutatu gentem, ut segnem ad pericula ita infidam ad occasiones. barbari, pro ingenio quisque, alii preces offerre, quidam deserere vicos et in avia digredi; ac fuere qui se speluncis et carissima secum abderent. igitur dux Romanus diversis artibus, misericordia adversum supplices, celeritate adversus profugos, immitis iis qui latebras insederant ora et exitus specuum sarmentis virgultisque completos igni exurit. atque illum finis suos praegredientem incursavere Mardi, latrociniis exerciti contraque inrumpentem montibus defensi; quos Corbulo immissis Hiberis vastavit hostilemque audaciam externo sanguine ultus est.

He himself and the army, though they took no losses from battle, were yet wearing out through want and toils, driven to beat off hunger with the flesh of farm-beasts; and besides this, dearth of water, a burning summer, and long marches were eased only by the general’s endurance, who bore the same hardships and more than the common soldier. Then they came into cultivated places, and the crops were reaped; and of the two forts into which the Armenians had fled, one was taken by assault; those who had beaten off the first onset are forced to surrender by siege. Thence, crossing into the region of the Tauraunites, he escaped an unforeseen peril. For not far from his tent a barbarian, of no ignoble birth, was found with a weapon, and under torture disclosed the order of the plot, himself its author, and his confederates; and those who, under the show of friendship, were preparing the treachery were convicted and punished. Not long after, envoys sent from Tigranocerta report that the walls lie open and the people stand intent upon his orders; at the same time they handed over a gift of hospitality, a golden crown. And he received it with honor, and nothing was taken from the city, that they might the more readily keep their obedience unimpaired.

Ipse exercitusque ut nullis ex proelio damnis ita per inopiam et labores fatiscebant, carne pecudum propulsare famem adacti; ad hoc penuria aquae, fervida aestas, longinqua itinera sola ducis patientia mitigabantur, eadem pluraque gregario milite tolerantis. ventum dehinc in locos cultos demessaeque segetes, et ex duobus castellis in quae confugerant Armenii alterum impetu captum; qui primam vim depulerant, obsidione coguntur. unde in regionem Tauraunitium transgressus improvisum periculum vitavit. nam haud procul tentorio eius non ignobilis barbarus cum telo repertus ordinem insidiarum seque auctorem et socios per tormenta edidit, convictique et puniti sunt qui specie amicitiae dolum parabant. nec multo post legati Tigranocerta missi patere moenia adferunt, intentos popularis ad iussa: simul hospitale donum, coronam auream, tradebant. accepitque cum honore, nec quicquam urbi detractum quo promptius obsequium integri retinerent.

But the garrison-post of Legerda, which a fierce band of youths had shut, was stormed not without a contest: for they had even dared a battle before the walls and, driven within their defenses, gave way at last to the siege-mound and to the arms of those bursting in. These things came off the more easily because the Parthians were held off by the Hyrcanian war. The Hyrcanians, indeed, had sent to the Roman princeps to beg an alliance, pointing out that they were keeping Vologeses occupied as a pledge of their friendship. As these were returning, Corbulo, lest, having crossed the Euphrates, they should be cut off by the enemy’s watch-posts, gave them an escort and led them down to the shores of the Red Sea, whence, avoiding the Parthian territory, they made their way back to their native seats.

At praesidium Legerda quod ferox iuventus clauserat non sine certamine expugnatum est: nam et proelium pro muris ausi erant et pulsi intra munimenta aggeri demum et inrumpentium armis cessere. quae facilius proveniebant, quia Parthi Hyrcano bello distinebantur. miserantque Hyrcani ad principem Romanum societatem oratum, attineri a se Vologesen pro pignore amicitiae ostentantes. eos regredientis Corbulo, ne Euphraten transgressi hostium custodiis circumvenirentur, dato praesidio ad litora maris rubri deduxit, unde vitatis Parthorum finibus patrias in sedes remeavere.

Nay more, he forced Tiridates too—entering the borderlands of Armenia by way of the Medes—to withdraw far off and lose the hope of war, by sending ahead the legate Verulanus with auxiliaries while he himself came up with the legions in forced marches; and those whom he had found alienated from us in spirit he ravaged utterly with slaughter and fire, and was making good his hold on Armenia, when Tigranes arrived, chosen by Nero to take up the command—a man of the Cappadocian nobility, grandson of King Archelaus, but, because he had long been a hostage at Rome, sunk to a servile submissiveness. Nor was he received with consent, since among some the favor of the Arsacids endured; but most, loathing the arrogance of the Parthians, preferred a king given by the Romans. A garrison was added too, a thousand legionaries, three allied cohorts, and two squadrons of cavalry; and, that he might the more easily protect his new kingdom, portions of Armenia, each as it bordered on one of them, were assigned to the obedience of Pharasmanes, Polemon, Aristobulus, and Antiochus. Corbulo withdrew into Syria, left vacant by the death of the legate Ummidius and made over to himself.

Quin et Tiridaten per Medos extrema Armeniae intrantem praemisso cum auxiliis Verulano legato atque ipse legionibus citis abire procul ac spem belli amittere subegit; quosque nobis aversos animis cognoverat, caedibus et incendiis perpopulatus possessionem Armeniae usurpabat, cum advenit Tigranes a Nerone ad capessendum imperium delectus, Cappadocum ex nobilitate, regis Archelai nepos, sed quod diu obses apud urbem fuerat, usque ad servilem patientiam demissus. nec consensu acceptus, durante apud quosdam favore Arsacidarum: at plerique superbiam Parthorum perosi datum a Romanis regem malebant. additum et praesidium mille legionarii, tres sociorum cohortes duae- que equitum alae, et quo facilius novum regnum tueretur, pars Armeniae, ut cuique finitima, Pharasmani Polemonique et Aristobulo atque Antiocho parere iussae sunt. Corbulo in Syriam abscessit, morte Vmmidii legati vacuam ac sibi permissam.

In the same year, of the illustrious cities of Asia, Laodicea, laid low by an earthquake, recovered by its own resources, with no relief from us. But in Italy the ancient town of Puteoli obtained the rights of a colony and a surname from Nero. Veterans enrolled at Tarentum and Antium did not, for all that, relieve the thinness of those places, most having slipped away into the provinces in which they had served out their pay; and, accustomed neither to take wives nor to rear children, they left their homes bereft, without posterity. For no longer, as of old, were whole legions settled, with their tribunes and centurions and soldiers each of his own rank, so as to make a commonwealth by consent and affection, but men unknown to one another, from different maniples, with no leader, with no mutual attachments, suddenly gathered into one body as if from another race of mortals—a number rather than a colony.

Eodem anno ex inlustribus Asiae urbibus Laodicea tremore terrae prolapsa nullo a nobis remedio propriis opibus revaluit. at in Italia vetus oppidum Puteoli ius coloniae et cognomentum a Nerone apiscuntur. veterani Tarentum et Antium adscripti non tamen infrequentiae locorum subvenere, dilapsis pluribus in provincias in quibus stipendia expleverant; neque coniugiis suscipiendis neque alendis liberis sueti orbas sine posteris domos relinquebant. non enim, ut olim, universae legiones deducebantur cum tribunis et centurionibus et sui cuiusque ordinis militibus ut consensu et caritate rem publicam efficerent, sed ignoti inter se, diversis manipulis, sine rectore, sine adfectibus mutuis, quasi ex alio genere mortalium repente in unum collecti, numerus magis quam colonia.

The elections of praetors, wont to be held at the discretion of the Senate, the princeps settled—since they had blazed up with sharper canvassing—by appointing the three who were standing beyond the number to the command of a legion. And he augmented the honor of the Fathers by ordaining that those who had appealed from private judges to the Senate should risk the same sum of money as those who appealed to the emperor; for before this it had been free and exempt from penalty. At the year’s end Vibius Secundus, a Roman knight, on the accusation of the Moors, is condemned for extortion and driven out of Italy, escaping a heavier penalty only by struggling, through the resources of his brother Vibius Crispus.

Comitia praetorum arbitrio senatus haberi solita, quod acriore ambitu exarserant, princeps composuit, tres qui supra numerum petebant legioni praeficiendo. auxitque patrum honorem statuendo ut, qui a privatis iudicibus ad senatum provocavissent, eiusdem pecuniae periculum facerent cuius si qui imperatorem appellarent; nam antea vacuum id solutumque poena fuerat. fine anni Vibius Secundus eques Romanus accusantibus Mauris repetundarum damnatur atque Italia exigitur, ne graviore poena adficeretur Vibii Crispi fratris opibus enisus.

In the consulship of Caesennius Paetus and Petronius Turpilianus a grievous disaster was suffered in Britain; in which neither had Aulus Didius, the legate, as I have related, held more than what was already won, while his successor Veranius, after ravaging the Silures in modest raids, was prevented by death from carrying the war further—a man of great repute for severity while he lived, but, by the last words of his will, plainly convicted of ambition: for, with much flattery toward Nero, he added that he would have made the province subject to him, had he lived through the next two years. But at that time Suetonius Paulinus was governing the Britons—in knowledge of war, and in the talk of the people, which suffers no man to be without a rival, a competitor of Corbulo, eager to match the glory of recovered Armenia by subduing the public enemy. And so he prepares to attack the island of Mona, strong in inhabitants and a refuge of fugitives, and builds ships of flat hull against the shoal and treacherous water. So crossed the foot; the horse followed by the ford, or, where it ran deeper, swam across amid the waves beside their horses.

Caesennio Paeto et Petronio Turpiliano consulibus gravis clades in Britannia accepta; in qua neque A. Didius legatus, ut memoravi, nisi parta retinuerat, et successor Veranius modicis excursibus Siluras populatus, quin ultra bellum proferret, morte prohibitus est, magna, dum vixit, severitatis fama, supremis testamenti verbis ambitionis manifestus: quippe multa in Neronem adulatione addidit subiecturum ei provinciam fuisse, si biennio proximo vixisset. sed tum Paulinus Suetonius obtinebat Britannos, scientia militiae et rumore populi qui neminem sine aemulo sinit, Corbulonis concertator, receptaeque Armeniae decus aequare domitis perduellibus cupiens. igitur Monam insulam, incolis validam et receptaculum perfugarum, adgredi parat, navisque fabricatur plano alveo adversus breve et incertum. sic pedes: equites vado secuti aut altiores inter undas adnantes equis tramisere.

On the opposite shore stood the battle-line, dense with arms and men, women running among them; in the manner of Furies, in funereal dress, with streaming hair, they brandished torches; and Druids round about, pouring forth dire prayers with hands lifted to heaven, struck the soldiers with the strangeness of the sight, so that, as though their limbs clung fast, they offered their motionless bodies to the blows. Then, at the general’s exhortations, and spurring one another not to quail before a womanish and frenzied throng, they bear the standards forward, strike down all in their path, and wrap them in their own fire. A garrison was thereafter set over the conquered, and the groves, sacred to their savage superstitions, were felled: for they held it lawful to drench their altars with captives’ gore and to consult the gods through the entrails of men. While Suetonius was about this, the sudden revolt of the province is announced to him.

Stabat pro litore diversa acies, densa armis virisque, intercursantibus feminis; in modum Furiarum veste ferali, crinibus deiectis faces praeferebant; Druidaeque circum, preces diras sublatis ad caelum manibus fundentes, novitate aspectus perculere militem ut quasi haerentibus membris immobile corpus vulneribus praeberent. dein cohortationibus ducis et se ipsi stimulantes ne muliebre et fanaticum agmen pavescerent, inferunt signa sternuntque obvios et igni suo involvunt. praesidium posthac impositum victis excisique luci saevis superstitionibus sacri: nam cruore captivo adolere aras et hominum fibris consulere deos fas habebant. haec agenti Suetonio repentina defectio provinciae nuntiatur.

Prasutagus, king of the Iceni, famed for his long opulence, had written down Caesar as heir together with his two daughters, thinking by such deference that his kingdom and his house would be beyond reach of wrong. The thing fell out the contrary way—so far that his kingdom was laid waste by centurions, his house by slaves, as though it had been captured. To begin with, his wife Boudicca was scourged and his daughters violated by rape; the chief men of the Iceni, as though they had received the whole region as a gift, were stripped of their ancestral goods, and the king’s kinsmen were reckoned among chattels. By this outrage, and from fear of worse—since they had passed into the form of a province—they snatch up arms, the Trinobantes being roused to rebellion, and others who, not yet broken by servitude, had bound themselves by secret conspiracies to recover their liberty, with the fiercest hatred toward the veterans. For these, lately settled in the colony of Camulodunum, were driving them from their homes, expelling them from their fields, calling them captives and slaves—the soldiers fostering the veterans’ violence through a likeness of life and a hope of the same license. Besides this, the temple set up to the deified Claudius was looked on as a citadel of everlasting domination, and the chosen priests, under the show of religion, were pouring out whole fortunes. Nor did it seem hard to destroy a colony fenced by no fortifications—a matter too little foreseen by our commanders, while comfort is consulted before use.

Rex Icenorum Prasutagus, longa opulentia clarus, Caesarem heredem duasque filias scripserat, tali obsequio ratus regnumque et domum suam procul iniuria fore. quod contra vertit, adeo ut regnum per centuriones, domus per servos velut capta vastarentur. iam primum uxor eius Boudicca verberibus adfecta et filiae stupro violatae sunt: praecipui quique Icenorum, quasi cunctam regionem muneri accepissent, avitis bonis exuuntur, et propinqui regis inter mancipia habebantur. qua contumelia et metu graviorum, quando in formam provinciae cesserant, rapiunt arma, commotis ad rebellationem Trinobantibus et qui alii nondum servitio fracti resumere libertatem occultis coniurationibus pepigerant, acerrimo in veteranos odio. quippe in coloniam Camulodunum recens deducti pellebant domibus, exturbabant agris, captivos, servos appellando, foventibus impotentiam veteranorum militibus similitudine vitae et spe eiusdem licentiae. ad hoc templum divo Claudio constitutum quasi arx aeternae dominationis aspiciebatur, delectique sacerdotes specie religionis omnis fortunas effundebant. nec arduum videbatur excindere coloniam nullis munimentis saeptam; quod ducibus nostris parum provisum erat, dum amoenitati prius quam usui consulitur.

Meanwhile, with no manifest cause, the image of Victory at Camulodunum slipped down and turned about backward, as though it gave way to the enemy. And women, driven to frenzy, chanted that ruin was at hand, and that foreign roarings had been heard in their council-house; that the theater had rung with howlings, and that in the estuary of the Thames there had been seen the apparition of the colony overthrown: now the Ocean of bloody aspect, and, as the tide slipped back, the shapes of human bodies left behind—things drawn, for the Britons toward hope, for the veterans toward fear. But because Suetonius was far away, they sought aid from the procurator Catus Decianus. He sent no more than two hundred men, without proper arms; and there was a small band of soldiers within. Trusting in the protection of the temple, and hindered by those who, secretly privy to the rebellion, were confounding their counsels, they neither drew a ditch nor a rampart in front, nor, with the old men and women moved away, did the young men alone hold the place: off their guard, as though in the midst of peace, they are surrounded by the multitude of barbarians. The rest, indeed, was plundered or burned in the onset; the temple, in which the soldiery had massed, was besieged for two days and taken by storm. And the victorious Briton, meeting Petilius Cerialis, legate of the ninth legion, as he came up in relief, routed the legion and cut down all its infantry: Cerialis with the cavalry escaped into the camp and was defended by its fortifications. Alarmed by this disaster, and by the hatreds of the province which his avarice had driven into war, the procurator Catus crossed over into Gaul.

Inter quae nulla palam causa delapsum Camuloduni simulacrum Victoriae ac retro conversum quasi cederet hostibus. et feminae in furorem turbatae adesse exitium canebant, externosque fremitus in curia eorum auditos; consonuisse ululatibus theatrum visamque speciem in aestuario Tamesae subversae coloniae: iam Oceanus cruento aspectu, dilabente aestu humanorum corporum effigies relictae, ut Britannis ad spem, ita veteranis ad metum trahebantur. sed quia procul Suetonius aberat, petivere a Cato Deciano procuratore auxilium. ille haud amplius quam ducentos sine iustis armis misit; et inerat modica militum manus. tutela templi freti et impedientibus qui occulti rebellionis conscii consilia turbabant, neque fossam aut vallum praeduxerunt, neque motis senibus et feminis iuventus sola restitit: quasi media pace incauti multitudine barbarorum circumveniuntur. et cetera quidem impetu direpta aut incensa sunt: templum in quo se miles conglobaverat biduo obsessum expugnatumque. et victor Britannus Petilio Ceriali, legato legionis nonae, in subsidium adventanti obvius fudit legionem et quod peditum interfecit: Cerialis cum equitibus evasit in castra et munimentis defensus est. qua clade et odiis provinciae quam avaritia eius in bellum egerat trepidus procurator Catus in Galliam transiit.

But Suetonius, with marvelous steadfastness, marched through the midst of the enemy to Londinium—a place not distinguished by the title of a colony, but most thronged for its abundance of traders and provisions. There, in doubt whether to choose that seat for the war, having looked round on the scantiness of his soldiery, and since the rashness of Petilius had been checked by proofs great enough, he resolved to save the whole at the cost of one town. Nor was he bent by the weeping and tears of those imploring his aid, from giving the signal of departure and taking into a part of his column those who would go with him: whomever the unwarlike sex, or weary age, or the sweetness of the place had detained were overwhelmed by the enemy. The same disaster befell the municipality of Verulamium, because the barbarians, leaving aside the forts and military posts, made for whatever was richest for the plunderer and unsafe for defenders, glad of booty and slack at toil. About seventy thousand citizens and allies, it was agreed, fell in the places I have named. For they hastened neither to take captives nor to sell, nor to any other commerce of war, but to slaughter, the gibbet, fire, the cross—as men about to render the penalty, yet snatching their vengeance in the meantime.

At Suetonius mira constantia medios inter hostis Londinium perrexit, cognomento quidem coloniae non insigne, sed copia negotiatorum et commeatuum maxime celebre. ibi ambiguus an illam sedem bello deligeret, circumspecta infrequentia militis, satisque magnis documentis temeritatem Petilii coercitam, unius oppidi damno servare universa statuit. neque fletu et lacrimis auxilium eius orantium flexus est quin daret profectionis signum et comitantis in partem agminis acciperet: si quos imbellis sexus aut fessa aetas vel loci dulcedo attinuerat ab hoste oppressi sunt. eadem clades municipio Verulamio fuit, quia barbari omissis castellis praesidiisque militarium, quod uberrimum spolianti et defendentibus intutum, laeti praeda et laborum segnes petebant. ad septuaginta milia civium et sociorum iis quae memoravi locis cecidisse constitit. neque enim capere aut venundare aliudve quod belli commercium, sed caedes patibula ignes cruces, tamquam reddituri supplicium at praerepta interim ultione, festinabant.

Now Suetonius had the fourteenth legion, with the detachments of the twentieth and auxiliaries from the nearest posts—some ten thousand armed men—when he makes ready to drop delay and engage in line. And he chooses a place in a narrow gorge, shut in behind by a wood, knowing well enough that there was no enemy except in front, and that the plain was open, without fear of ambush. So the legionaries stood packed in their ranks, the light-armed round about, the cavalry massed before the wings. But the forces of the Britons exulted everywhere in bands and squadrons, a multitude such as at no other time, and of a spirit so fierce that they dragged their wives along too, as witnesses of the victory, and set them in wagons which they had placed about the outermost edge of the field.

Iam Suetonio quarta decima legio cum vexillariis vicesimanis et e proximis auxiliares, decem ferme milia armatorum erant, cum omittere cunctationem et congredi acie parat. deligitque locum artis faucibus et a tergo silva clausum, satis cognito nihil hostium nisi in fronte et apertam planitiem esse sine metu insidiarum. igitur legionarius frequens ordinibus, levis circum armatura, conglobatus pro cornibus eques adstitit. at Britannorum copiae passim per catervas et turmas exultabant, quanta non alias multitudo, et animo adeo feroci ut coniuges quoque testis victoriae secum traherent plaustrisque imponerent quae super extremum ambitum campi posuerant.

Boudicca, carrying her daughters before her in a chariot, as she came up to each tribe in turn, kept testifying that it was, to be sure, customary for the Britons to make war under a woman’s leadership; but that now she was avenging—not, as one sprung from such great forebears, her kingdom and her wealth, but, as one of the common throng, her lost liberty, her body worn out with the lash, the outraged chastity of her daughters. The lusts of the Romans had been carried so far that they left no body, not even old age or maidenhood, undefiled. Yet the gods stood by for a just vengeance: the legion that had dared battle had fallen; the rest were skulking in their camps, or casting about for flight. They would not endure even the din and the shout of so many thousands, far less their onset and their hands. If they weighed with themselves the numbers of armed men, and the causes of the war, they must conquer in that line or fall. This was a woman’s resolve: let the men live, and be slaves.

Boudicca curru filias prae se vehens, ut quamque nationem accesserat, solitum quidem Britannis feminarum ductu bellare testabatur, sed tunc non ut tantis maioribus ortam regnum et opes, verum ut unam e vulgo libertatem amissam, confectum verberibus corpus, contrectatam filiarum pudicitiam ulcisci. eo provectas Romanorum cupidines ut non corpora, ne senectam quidem aut virginitatem impollutam relinquant. adesse tamen deos iustae vindictae: cecidisse legionem quae proelium ausa sit; ceteros castris occultari aut fugam circumspicere. ne strepitum quidem et clamorem tot milium, nedum impetus et manus perlaturos: si copias armatorum, si causas belli secum expenderent, vincendum illa acie vel cadendum esse. id mulieri destinatum: viverent viri et servirent.

Not even Suetonius was silent in so great a crisis: though he trusted in their valor, yet he mingled exhortations and entreaties—that they should scorn the din of the barbarians and their empty threats: more women than fighting-men were to be seen yonder; unwarlike and unarmed, they would give way at once, once, so often routed, they recognized the steel and the courage of their conquerors. Even among many legions it was the few who finished battles; and it would add to their glory that a modest band should win the renown of a whole army. Only let them keep close, and, their javelins once discharged, carry on the havoc and slaughter with shield-boss and sword, forgetful of plunder: the victory once won, all would fall to them. Such ardor followed the general’s words, and the veteran soldier, with much experience of battles, had so braced himself to hurl the javelins, that Suetonius, sure of the issue, gave the signal for the fight.

Ne Suetonius quidem in tanto discrimine silebat: quamquam confideret virtuti, tamen exhortationes et preces miscebat ut spernerent sonores barbarorum et inanis minas: plus illic feminarum quam iuventutis aspici. imbellis, inermis cessuros statim ubi ferrum virtutemque vincentium toties fusi adgnovissent. etiam in multis legionibus paucos qui proelia profligarent; gloriaeque eorum accessurum quod modica manus universi exercitus famam adipiscerentur. conferti tantum et pilis emissis post umbonibus et gladiis stragem caedemque continuarent, praedae immemores: parta victoria cuncta ipsis cessura. is ardor verba ducis sequebatur, ita se ad intorquenda pila expedierat vetus miles et multa proeliorum experientia ut certus eventus Suetonius daret pugnae signum.

And first the legion, unmoved in its footing and keeping the narrowness of the place for a rampart, after it had spent its weapons with sure aim on the enemy who had come up nearer, burst out as in a wedge. The same was the charge of the auxiliaries; and the cavalry, with lances thrust out, shatters whatever was in the way and held firm. The rest turned their backs—flight being hard, since the wagons set round about had hedged off the ways of escape. And the soldier did not spare even the killing of the women, and the baggage-beasts too, transfixed with weapons, had swelled the heap of bodies. A glory was won that day, brilliant and equal to the victories of old: indeed there are those who hand down that little less than eighty thousand of the Britons fell, with about four hundred soldiers slain and not much more wounded. Boudicca ended her life by poison. And Poenius Postumus, prefect of the camp of the second legion, on learning the success of the fourteenth and the twentieth, because he had defrauded his own legion of equal glory and had, against the discipline of war, refused the general’s orders, ran himself through with his sword.

Ac primum legio gradu immota et angustias loci pro munimento retinens, postquam in propius suggressos hostis certo iactu tela exhauserat, velut cuneo erupit. idem auxiliarium impetus; et eques protentis hastis perfringit quod obvium et validum erat. ceteri terga praebuere, difficili effugio, quia circumiecta vehicula saepserant abitus. et miles ne mulierum quidem neci temperabat, confixaque telis etiam iumenta corporum cumulum auxerant. clara et antiquis victoriis par ea die laus parta: quippe sunt qui paulo minus quam octoginta milia Britannorum cecidisse tradant, militum quadringentis ferme interfectis nec multo amplius vulneratis. Boudicca vitam veneno finivit. et Poenius Postumus, praefectus castrorum secundae legionis, cognitis quartadecimanorum vicesimanorumque prosperis rebus, quia pari gloria legionem suam fraudaverat abnue- ratque contra ritum militiae iussa ducis, se ipse gladio transegit.

Then the whole army, drawn together, was kept under tents, to carry through what remained of the war. And Caesar augmented the forces, sending from Germany two thousand legionaries, eight cohorts of auxiliaries, and a thousand horse; by whose coming the men of the ninth were filled out with legionary soldiers, the cohorts and squadrons were placed in new winter quarters, and whatever of the nations had been wavering or hostile was laid waste with fire and steel. But nothing afflicted them so much as famine, for they had been heedless of sowing the crops, and every age had turned to war, while they marked our supplies for their own. And the very fierce nations were the slower to incline to peace, because Julius Classicianus, sent as successor to Catus and at odds with Suetonius, was obstructing the public good through private quarrels, and had put it about that a new legate should be awaited, who, without an enemy’s anger and a conqueror’s arrogance, would deal mildly with those who surrendered. At the same time he sent word to the city that they should look for no end of the fighting unless a successor were appointed to Suetonius, whose reverses he ascribed to the man’s own perversity, his successes to fortune.

Contractus deinde omnis exercitus sub pellibus habitus est ad reliqua belli perpetranda. auxitque copias Caesar missis ex Germania duobus legionariorum milibus, octo auxiliarium cohortibus ac mille equitibus; quorum adventu nonani legionario milite suppleti sunt, cohortes alaeque novis hibernaculis locatae quodque nationum ambiguum aut adversum fuerat igni atque ferro vastatum. sed nihil aeque quam fames adfligebat serendis frugibus incuriosos, et omni aetate ad bellum versa, dum nostros commeatus sibi destinant. gentesque praeferoces tardius ad pacem inclinabant, quia Iulius Classicianus, successor Cato missus et Suetonio discors, bonum publicum privatis simultatibus impediebat disperseratque novum legatum opperiendum esse, sine hostili ira et superbia victoris clementer deditis consulturum. simul in urbem mandabat, nullum proeliorum finem expectarent, nisi succederetur Suetonio, cuius adversa pravitati ipsius, prospera ad fortunam referebat.

And so, to look into the state of Britain, Polyclitus, one of the freedmen, was sent, in Nero’s great hope that by his authority not only might concord be begotten between legate and procurator, but the rebellious spirits of the barbarians too be composed to peace. Nor did Polyclitus fail to march, with a vast train, a burden upon Italy and Gaul, and, once he had crossed the Ocean, terrible to our soldiers too. But to the enemy he was a laughing-stock: among them, with liberty still ablaze, the power of freedmen was not yet known, and they marveled that a general and an army, the finisher of so great a war, should obey slaves. Yet all was reported to the emperor in a softer light; and Suetonius, kept on in the conduct of affairs, was, because afterward he had lost a few ships on the shore and the rowers in them, ordered—as though the war yet lasted—to hand over the army to Petronius Turpilianus, who had now gone out of his consulship. He, neither provoking the enemy nor himself provoked, laid the honorable name of peace upon a slothful inaction.

Igitur ad spectandum Britanniae statum missus est e libertis Polyclitus, magna Neronis spe posse auctoritate eius non modo inter legatum procuratoremque concordiam gigni, sed et rebellis barbarum animos pace componi. nec defuit Polyclitus quo minus ingenti agmine Italiae Galliaeque gravis, postquam Oceanum transmiserat, militibus quoque nostris terribilis incederet. sed hostibus inrisui fuit apud quos flagrante etiam tum libertate nondum cognita libertinorum potentia erat; mirabanturque quod dux et exercitus tanti belli confector servitiis oboedirent. cuncta tamen ad imperatorem in mollius relata; detentusque rebus gerundis Suetonius, quod postea paucas navis in litore remigiumque in iis amiserat, tamquam durante bello tradere exercitum Petronio Turpiliano qui iam consulatu abierat iubetur. is non inritato hoste neque lacessitus honestum pacis nomen segni otio imposuit.

In the same year at Rome notable crimes were committed, one by a senator’s, the other by a slave’s audacity. Domitius Balbus was of praetorian rank, and, by his long old age, his childlessness, and his money alike, exposed to plots. A kinsman of his, Valerius Fabianus, marked out for a career of office, foisted a forged will upon him, having taken in Vinicius Rufinus and Terentius Lentinus, Roman knights. These had associated with them Antonius Primus and Asinius Marcellus. Antonius was ready in audacity; Marcellus, distinguished by his great-grandfather Asinius Pollio, and held not contemptible in character, save that he believed poverty the chief of evils. So Fabianus seals the tablets, with the partners I have named and others less illustrious. The thing was proved before the Fathers, and Fabianus and Antonius, with Rufinus and Terentius, are condemned under the Cornelian law. The memory of his ancestors and the prayers of Caesar exempted Marcellus from the penalty rather than from the disgrace.

Eodem anno Romae insignia scelera, alterum senatoris, servili alterum audacia, admissa sunt. Domitius Balbus erat praetorius, simul longa senecta, simul orbitate et pecunia insidiis obnoxius. ei propinquus Valerius Fabianus, capessendis honoribus destinatus, subdidit testamentum adscitis Vinicio Rufino et Terentio Lentino equitibus Romanis. illi Antonium Primum et Asinium Marcellum sociaverant. Antonius audacia promptus, Marcellus Asinio Pollione proavo clarus neque morum spernendus habebatur nisi quod paupertatem praecipuum malorum credebat. igitur Fabianus tabulas sociis quos memoravi et aliis minus inlustribus obsignat. quod apud patres convictum et Fabianus Antoniusque cum Rufino et Terentio lege Cornelia damnantur. Marcellum memoria maiorum et preces Caesaris poenae magis quam infamiae exemere.

That day struck down Pompeius Aelianus too, a young man of quaestorian rank, as privy to the misdeeds of Fabianus; and he was interdicted from Italy and from Spain, in which he had been born. With like ignominy is Valerius Ponticus visited, because he had reported the accused to the praetor, that they might not be arraigned before the prefect of the city—for the moment under the show of law, but meaning soon, by collusion, to balk the punishment. There is added, by a decree of the Senate, that whoever had bought or sold such service should be liable to the same penalty as one condemned for malicious prosecution in a public court.

Perculit is dies Pompeium quoque Aelianum, iuvenem quaestorium, tamquam flagitiorum Fabiani gnarum, eique Italia et Hispania in qua ortus erat interdictum est. pari ignominia Valerius Ponticus adficitur quod reos ne apud praefectum urbis arguerentur ad praetorem detulisset, interim specie legum, mox praevaricando ultionem elusurus. additur senatus consulto, qui talem operam emptitasset vendidissetve perinde poena teneretur ac publico iudicio calumniae condemnatus.

Not long after, the prefect of the city, Pedanius Secundus, was killed by his own slave—whether because liberty had been refused, for which he had bargained a price, or, kindled with love of a catamite, he could not endure his master as a rival. But when, by the ancient custom, the whole household that had lodged under the same roof ought to be led to execution, through a gathering of the plebs, which was shielding so many innocents, it came even to sedition, and the Senate was besieged—within which itself there were the sympathies of those who spurned the excessive severity, though the greater number held that nothing should be changed. Among these, Gaius Cassius, in his turn at giving his opinion, discoursed in this fashion:

Haud multo post praefectum urbis Pedanium Secundum servus ipsius interfecit, seu negata libertate cui pretium pepigerat sive amore exoleti incensus et dominum aemulum non tolerans. ceterum cum vetere ex more familiam omnem quae sub eodem tecto mansitaverat ad supplicium agi oporteret, concursu plebis quae tot innoxios protegebat usque ad seditionem ventum est senatusque obsessus, in quo ipso erant studia nimiam severitatem aspernantium, pluribus nihil mutandum censentibus. ex quis C. Cassius sententiae loco in hunc modum disseruit:

"Many a time, conscript fathers, have I been present in this order when new decrees of the Senate were demanded against the institutions and laws of our ancestors; nor did I resist them—not because I doubted that in every matter provision was better and more rightly made of old, and that what is altered is changed for the worse, but lest, through too great a love of the ancient way, I should seem to exalt my own partiality. At the same time I did not judge that whatever of this authority is in us should be pulled down by frequent contradiction, so that it might remain entire, should the commonwealth ever have need of counsels. That day is come today, a man of consular rank slain in his own house by the treachery of a slave, which no one prevented or disclosed, though the decree of the Senate that threatened execution to the whole household had not yet been shaken. Decree impunity, by Hercules: but whom shall his own rank defend, when it has not availed the prefect of the city? whom shall the number of his slaves guard, when four hundred did not protect Pedanius Secundus? to whom shall his household bring aid—a household that, even in fear, takes no heed of our perils? Or—as some are not ashamed to feign—did the slayer avenge his own wrongs, because he had bargained over his father’s money, or a slave inherited from his forefathers was being dragged from him? Let us pronounce, into the bargain, that the master seems to have been lawfully slain.

’Saepe numero, patres conscripti, in hoc ordine interfui, cum contra instituta et leges maiorum nova senatus decreta postularentur; neque sum adversatus, non quia dubitarem super omnibus negotiis melius atque rectius olim provisum et quae converterentur in deterius mutari, sed ne nimio amore antiqui moris studium meum extollere viderer. simul quidquid hoc in nobis auctoritatis est crebris contradictionibus destruendum non existimabam, ut maneret integrum si quando res publica consiliis eguisset. quod hodie venit consulari viro domi suae interfecto per insidias servilis, quas nemo prohibuit aut prodidit quamvis nondum concusso senatus consulto quod supplicium toti familiae minitabatur. decernite hercule impunitatem: at quem dignitas sua defendet, cum praefecto urbis non profuerit? quem numerus servorum tuebitur, cum Pedanium Secundum quadringenti non protexerint? cui familia opem feret, quae ne in metu quidem pericula nostra advertit? an, ut quidam fingere non erubescunt, iniurias suas ultus est interfector, quia de paterna pecunia transegerat aut avitum mancipium detrahebatur? pronuntiemus ultro dominum iure caesum videri.

Is it our pleasure to hunt up arguments in a matter already deliberated by wiser men? But even if we now had to determine it for the first time, do you believe that a slave took up the purpose of killing his master without a menacing word slipping out, without his blurting something through rashness? Granted that he hid his design, that he made ready his weapon among men unaware: could he pass the watch, unbar the chamber’s doors, carry in a light, accomplish the murder, with all unknowing? Many tokens of crime go before it: if the slaves give warning, we can live as single men amid the many, safe amid the anxious, and at the last, if we must perish, not unavenged among the guilty. The temper of slaves was suspect to our forefathers, even when they were born on the same farms or in the same houses and took on love for their masters from the first. But now that we keep whole nations in our households—men of diverse rites, of foreign worship or none—you will hold that rabble in check by nothing but fear. ‘But some innocent will perish.’ Yes—for when, out of a routed army, every tenth man is beaten to death with the cudgel, the brave too draw the lot. Every great precedent carries something of injustice, which, against individuals, is repaid by the public good."

Libet argumenta conquirere in eo quod sapientioribus deliberatum est? sed et si nunc primum statuendum haberemus, creditisne servum interficiendi domini animum sumpsisse ut non vox minax excideret, nihil per temeritatem proloqueretur? sane consilium occultavit, telum inter ignaros paravit: num excubias transire, cubiculi foris recludere, lumen inferre, caedem patrare poterat omnibus nesciis? multa sceleris indicia praeveniunt: servi si prodant possumus singuli inter pluris, tuti inter anxios, postremo, si pereundum sit, non inulti inter nocentis agere. suspecta maioribus nostris fuerunt ingenia servorum etiam cum in agris aut domibus isdem nascerentur caritatemque dominorum statim acciperent. postquam vero nationes in familiis habemus, quibus diversi ritus, externa sacra aut nulla sunt, conluviem istam non nisi metu coercueris. at quidam insontes peribunt. nam et ex fuso exercitu cum decimus quisque fusti feritur, etiam strenui sortiuntur. habet aliquid ex iniquo omne magnum exemplum quod contra singulos utilitate publica rependitur.’

As no single man dared to go against the opinion of Cassius, so there answered discordant voices of those who pitied the number, or the age, or the sex, and the undoubted innocence of very many: yet the party that decreed the punishment prevailed. But it could not be obeyed, the multitude having massed together and threatening stones and firebrands. Then Caesar rebuked the people by edict, and fenced with military posts the whole route by which the condemned were led to execution. Cingonius Varro had moved that the freedmen too, who had been under the same roof, should be deported from Italy. This was forbidden by the princeps, lest the ancient custom, which mercy had not softened, should be sharpened by savagery.

Sententiae Cassii ut nemo unus contra ire ausus est, ita dissonae voces respondebant numerum aut aetatem aut sexum ac plurimorum indubiam innocentiam miserantium: praevaluit tamen pars quae supplicium decernebat. sed obtemperari non poterat, conglobata multitudine et saxa ac faces minante. tum Caesar populum edicto increpuit atque omne iter quo damnati ad poenam ducebantur militaribus praesidiis saepsit. censuerat Cingonius Varro ut liberti quoque qui sub eodem tecto fuissent Italia deportarentur. id a principe prohibitum est ne mos antiquus quem misericordia non minuerat per saevitiam intenderetur.

Condemned, under the same consuls, was Tarquitius Priscus, for extortion, the Bithynians prosecuting—to the great joy of the Fathers, because they remembered that Statilius Taurus, while proconsul, had been accused by him. The census throughout the Gauls was conducted by Quintus Volusius and Sextius Africanus and Trebellius Maximus—Volusius and Africanus rivals to each other in nobility; while both disdained Trebellius, they bore him up above themselves.

Damnatus isdem consulibus Tarquitius Priscus repetundarum Bithynis interrogantibus, magno patrum gaudio quia accusatum ab eo Statilium Taurum pro consule ipsius meminerant. census per Gallias a Q. Volusio et Sextio Africano Trebellioque Maximo acti sunt, aemulis inter se per nobilitatem Volusio atque Africano: Trebellium dum uterque dedignatur, supra tulere.

In that year Memmius Regulus met death—a man illustrious in authority, in steadfastness, in repute, so far as is granted where an emperor’s loftiness casts its shadow before it; so much so that Nero, sick in health, with flatterers about him saying that the end of the empire was at hand should he suffer anything by fate, answered that the commonwealth had a resource. When they then asked, in whom above all, he had added: in Memmius Regulus. Yet Regulus lived on after this, shielded by his retirement, and because his family’s distinction was new and his wealth not such as to be envied. A gymnasium was dedicated that year by Nero, and oil furnished to knight and senator, in the easy Greek manner.

Eo anno mortem obiit Memmius Regulus, auctoritate constantia fama, in quantum praeumbrante imperatoris fastigio datur, clarus, adeo ut Nero aeger valetudine et adulantibus circum, qui finem imperio adesse dicebant, si quid fato pateretur, responderit habere subsidium rem publicam. rogantibus dehinc in quo potissimum, addiderat in Memmio Regulo. vixit tamen post haec Regulus quiete defensus et quia nova generis claritudine neque invidiosis opibus erat. gymnasium eo anno dedicatum a Nerone praebitumque oleum equiti ac senatui Graeca facilitate.

In the consulship of Publius Marius and Lucius Afinius, the praetor Antistius—whom I have related to have behaved licentiously in his tribunate of the plebs—composed scurrilous verses against the princeps and published them at a crowded banquet, while he dined at the house of Ostorius Scapula. Thereupon he was charged with treason by Cossutianus Capito, who had lately recovered the senatorial rank through the prayers of Tigellinus, his father-in-law. Then for the first time was that law called back into use; and it was believed that not so much the ruin of Antistius was sought as glory for the emperor, that, by his tribunician veto, he might snatch from death a man condemned by the Senate. And although Ostorius had given in evidence that he had heard nothing, credit was given to the hostile witnesses; and Junius Marullus, consul-designate, moved that the praetorship be taken from the accused and that he be put to death after the manner of the ancestors. The rest then assenting, Thrasea Paetus, with much honor to Caesar and with the sharpest rebuke of Antistius, argued that it was not whatever a guilty defendant might deserve to suffer that ought to be decreed, under an excellent princeps and by a Senate bound by no necessity: the headsman and the halter were long since abolished, and there were penalties established by the laws, by which punishments might be decreed without the savagery of judges and the infamy of the times. Rather, on an island, his goods confiscated, the longer he dragged out his guilty life, the more wretched he would be in his private state, and would prove the greatest example of public clemency.

P. Mario L. Afinio consulibus Antistius praetor, quem in tribunatu plebis licenter egisse memoravi, probrosa adversus principem carmina factitavit vulgavitque celebri convivio dum apud Ostorium Scapulam epulatur. exim a Cossutiano Capitone, qui nuper senatorium ordinem precibus Tigellini soceri sui receperat, maiestatis delatus est. tum primum revocata ea lex; credebaturque haud perinde exitium Antistio quam imperatori gloriam quaeri, ut condemnatum a senatu intercessione tribunicia morti eximeret. et cum Ostorius nihil audivisse pro testimonio dixisset, adversis testibus creditum; censuitque Iunius Marullus consul designatus adimendam reo praeturam necandumque more maiorum. ceteris inde adsentientibus Paetus Thrasea, multo cum honore Caesaris et acerrime increpito Antistio, non quidquid nocens reus pati mereretur, id egregio sub principe et nulla necessitate obstricto senatui statuendum disseruit: carnificem et laqueum pridem abolita et esse poenas legibus constitutas quibus sine iudicum saevitia et temporum infamia supplicia decernerentur. quin in insula publicatis bonis quo longius sontem vitam traxisset, eo privatim miseriorem et publicae clementiae maximum exemplum futurum.

The freedom of Thrasea broke the servility of the rest, and after the consul had allowed a division, they voted with their feet for his motion, a few excepted—among whom the readiest in flattery was Aulus Vitellius, assailing every best man with wrangling and, when answered, falling silent, as cowardly natures do. But the consuls, not daring to complete the Senate’s decree, wrote to Caesar about the consensus. He, hesitating between shame and anger, at last wrote back that Antistius, provoked by no wrong, had uttered the gravest insults against the princeps; vengeance for these had been demanded of the Fathers, and it had been fitting that a penalty be set in proportion to the greatness of the offense. But he, who would have hindered the severity of those decreeing, did not forbid their moderation: let them decide as they wished; the license even of acquitting was granted. These and the like being read out, and his displeasure plain, not for that did the consuls change the motion, nor did Thrasea give up his opinion, nor the rest desert what they had approved—part lest they seem to have thrown the princeps to envy, the more being safe in their number, Thrasea from his accustomed firmness of mind, and that his glory should not lapse.

Libertas Thraseae servitium aliorum rupit et postquam discessionem consul permiserat, pedibus in sententiam eius iere, paucis exceptis, in quibus adulatione promptissimus fuit A. Vitellius, optimum quemque iurgio lacessens et respondenti reticens, ut pavida ingenia solent. at consules perficere decretum senatus non ausi de consensu scripsere Caesari. ille inter pudorem et iram cunctatus, postremo rescripsit nulla iniuria provocatum Antistium gravissimas in principem contumelias dixisse; earum ultionem a patribus postulatam et pro magnitudine delicti poenam statui par fuisse. ceterum se, qui severitatem decernentium impediturus fuerit, moderationem non prohibere: statuerent ut vellent, datam et absolvendi licentiam. his atque talibus recitatis et offensione manifesta, non ideo aut consules mutavere relationem aut Thrasea decessit sententia ceterive quae probaverant deseruere, pars, ne principem obiecisse invidiae viderentur, plures numero tuti, Thrasea sueta firmitudine animi et ne gloria intercideret.

By a not unlike charge was Fabricius Veiento harassed, in that he had composed many scurrilous things against the Fathers and the priests in those books to which he had given the name of codicils. Tullius Geminus, the accuser, added that the favors of the princeps and the right of obtaining offices had been put up for sale by him. This was Nero’s reason for taking up the trial; and, Veiento convicted, he drove him from Italy and ordered the books to be burned—books sought out and read again and again so long as they were got at peril; soon the freedom to own them brought forgetfulness.

Haud dispari crimine Fabricius Veiento conflictatus est, quod multa et probrosa in patres et sacerdotes compo- suisset iis libris quibus nomen codicillorum dederat. adiciebat Tullius Geminus accusator venditata ab eo munera principis et adipiscendorum honorum ius. quae causa Neroni fuit suscipiendi iudicii, convictumque Veientonem Italia depulit et libros exuri iussit, conquisitos lectitatosque donec cum periculo parabantur: mox licentia habendi oblivionem attulit.

But, as the public ills grew worse day by day, the supports were dwindling, and Burrus yielded up his life—uncertain whether by illness or by poison. The illness was conjectured from this, that, as his throat swelled inward little by little and the passage was choked, he made an end of his breath. More asserted that, by Nero’s order, as though a remedy were being applied, his palate had been smeared with a noxious drug, and that Burrus, having understood the crime, when the princeps came to visit him, turned away from the sight of him and, to his question, answered only this far: "I am doing well." To the state a great longing for him remained, through the memory of his virtue, and through his successors—the one’s sluggish innocence, the other’s most blazing infamies. For Caesar had set two men over the praetorian cohorts: Faenius Rufus, out of the people’s favor, because he managed the grain-supply without profit; and Sofonius Tigellinus, following in him an old shamelessness and ill repute. And they proved according to their known characters: Tigellinus the stronger in the prince’s mind and taken into his most intimate lusts; Rufus of good fame with people and soldiers—which with Nero he found told against him.

Sed gravescentibus in dies publicis malis subsidia minuebantur, concessitque vita Burrus, incertum valetudine an veneno. valetudo ex eo coniectabatur quod in se tumescentibus paulatim faucibus et impedito meatu spiritum finiebat. plures iussu Neronis, quasi remedium adhiberetur, inlitum palatum eius noxio medicamine adseverabant, et Burrum intellecto scelere, cum ad visendum eum princeps venisset, aspectum eius aversatum sciscitanti hactenus respondisse: ’ego me bene habeo.’ civitati grande desiderium eius mansit per memoriam virtutis et successorum alterius segnem innocentiam, alterius flagrantissima flagitia. quippe Caesar duos praetoriis cohortibus imposuerat, Faenium Rufum ex vulgi favore, quia rem frumentariam sine quaestu tractabat, Sofonium Tigellinum, veterem impudicitiam atque infamiam in eo secutus. atque illi pro cognitis moribus fuere, validior Tigellinus in animo principis et intimis libidinibus adsumptus, prospera populi et militum fama Rufus, quod apud Neronem adversum experiebatur.

The death of Burrus broke the power of Seneca, because the good arts had not the same strength, one of their two leaders being as it were removed, and Nero was inclining toward worse men. These assail Seneca with various accusations—that he was still adding to his riches, huge and lifted beyond a private man’s measure; that he was turning the favor of the citizens toward himself; and that, in the loveliness of his gardens too and the splendor of his villas, he was as it were overtopping the princeps. They threw at him also that he arrogated the praise of eloquence to himself alone, and turned out poems more often once the love of them had come upon Nero. For, openly hostile to the prince’s amusements, he belittled his prowess in driving horses, and mocked his voice as often as he sang. To what end was nothing in the commonwealth to be illustrious unless it were believed devised by him? Surely Nero’s boyhood was over and the strength of manhood at hand: let him strip off his schoolmaster, furnished with teachers ample enough in his own ancestors.

Mors Burri infregit Senecae potentiam quia nec bonis artibus idem virium erat altero velut duce amoto et Nero ad deteriores inclinabat. hi variis criminationibus Senecam adoriuntur, tamquam ingentis et privatum modum evectas opes adhuc augeret, quodque studia civium in se verteret, hortorum quoque amoenitate et villarum magnificentia quasi principem supergrederetur. obiciebant etiam eloquentiae laudem uni sibi adsciscere et carmina crebrius factitare, postquam Neroni amor eorum venisset. nam oblectamentis principis palam iniquum detrectare vim eius equos regentis, inludere voces, quoties caneret. quem ad finem nihil in re publica clarum fore quod non ab illo reperiri credatur? certe finitam Neronis pueritiam et robur iuventae adesse: exueret magistrum satis amplis doctoribus instructus maioribus suis.

But Seneca, not unaware of his accusers—since those betrayed it who had some care for honor, and Caesar more and more spurned his intimacy—begs the opportunity of a conversation, and, it being granted, thus begins: "It is the fourteenth year, Caesar, since I was brought near to your hope, the eighth since you have held the empire: in the time between, you have heaped on me so much of honors and of wealth that nothing is wanting to my happiness but its moderation. I will use great examples, and not of my own fortune, but of yours. Your great-great-grandfather Augustus allowed to Marcus Agrippa the seclusion of Mytilene, and to Gaius Maecenas, within the city itself, a leisure as of a foreigner; the one his partner in wars, the other tossed at Rome by many labors—they had received rewards ample, indeed, but in proportion to enormous services. I, what else could I bring to your munificence than studies reared, so to say, in the shade, and to which distinction has come because I seem to have attended the first lessons of your youth—a great price for that service. But you have surrounded me with measureless favor, with countless money, so far that for the most part I revolve within myself: I, sprung from an equestrian and provincial station, am I reckoned among the leading men of the state? Among the noble, and men who flaunt long-descended honors, has my newness blazed forth? Where is that spirit content with little? Does such a man build gardens like these, and parade through these suburban grounds, and overflow with such expanses of land, with such broad-flung usury? One defense comes to mind: that I ought not to have set myself against your gifts.

At Seneca criminantium non ignarus, prodentibus iis quibus aliqua honesti cura et familiaritatem eius magis aspernante Caesare, tempus sermoni orat et accepto ita incipit: ’quartus decimus annus est, Caesar, ex quo spei tuae admotus sum, octavus ut imperium obtines: medio temporis tantum honorum atque opum in me cumulasti ut nihil felicitati meae desit nisi moderatio eius. utar magnis exemplis nec meae fortunae sed tuae. abavus tuus Augustus Marco Agrippae Mytilenense secretum, C. Maecenati urbe in ipsa velut peregrinum otium permisit; quorum alter bellorum socius, alter Romae pluribus laboribus iactatus ampla quidem sed pro ingentibus meritis praemia acceperant. ego quid aliud munificentiae tuae adhibere potui quam studia, ut sic dixerim, in umbra educata, et quibus claritudo venit, quod iuventae tuae rudimentis adfuisse videor, grande huius rei pretium. at tu gratiam immensam, innumeram pecuniam circumdedisti adeo ut plerumque intra me ipse volvam: egone equestri et provinciali loco ortus proceribus civitatis adnumeror? inter nobilis et longa decora praeferentis novitas mea enituit? ubi est animus ille modicis contentus? talis hortos extruit et per haec suburbana incedit et tantis agrorum spatiis, tam lato faenore exuberat? una defensio occurrit quod muneribus tuis obniti non debui.

But we have each filled the measure—you, of what a princeps could grant a friend; I, of what a friend could accept from a princeps: the rest does but swell envy. Which envy, indeed, like all mortal things, lies far beneath your greatness; but it weighs upon me, and to me must aid be brought. As, worn out in campaign or on the road, I should beg for a prop, so on this journey of life, an old man and unequal even to the lightest cares, since I can no longer sustain my wealth, I seek protection. Bid my estate be managed by your agents, taken back into your fortune. Nor will I thrust myself down into poverty, but, having given up the things by whose glitter I am dazzled, I will recall to my mind the time that is now set apart for the care of gardens or villas. There remains to you your vigor, and the governance of the highest pinnacle, proven through so many years: we, your elder friends, may ask our rest back. This too will turn to your glory—that you raised to the heights men who could also bear moderate things."

Sed uterque mensuram implevimus, et tu, quantum princeps tribuere amico posset, et ego, quantum amicus a principe accipere: cetera invidiam augent. quae quidem, ut omnia mortalia, infra tuam magnitudinem iacet, sed mihi incumbit, mihi subveniendum est. quo modo in militia aut via fessus adminiculum orarem, ita in hoc itinere vitae senex et levissimis quoque curis impar, cum opes meas ultra sustinere non possim, praesidium peto. iube rem per procuratores tuos administrari, in tuam fortunam recipi. nec me in paupertatem ipse detrudam, sed traditis quorum fulgore praestringor, quod temporis hortorum aut villarum curae seponitur in animum revocabo. superest tibi robur et tot per annos visum summi fastigii regimen: possumus seniores amici quietem reposcere. hoc quoque in tuam gloriam cedet, eos ad summa vexisse qui et modica tolerarent.’

To which Nero answered nearly thus: "That I can meet your studied speech on the instant—this I count the first of your gifts, you who taught me to dispatch not only what is foreseen but the sudden. My great-great-grandfather Augustus allowed Agrippa and Maecenas to enjoy leisure after their labors, but at that very age of his own whose authority could safeguard whatever he had bestowed, and of whatever kind; and yet he stripped neither of the rewards given by him. They had earned them by war and dangers; for in these the youth of Augustus was passed: nor would your weapons and hands have failed me, had I been engaged in arms; but what the present condition demanded—with reason, with counsel, with precepts you fostered my boyhood, then my youth. And your gifts toward me, indeed, while life shall last, will be everlasting: what you have from me—gardens and usury and villas—are subject to chance. And though they may seem much, very many men, by no means equal to your accomplishments, have held more. I am ashamed to cite the freedmen who are reckoned wealthier: whence it is even a blush to me that you, foremost in my affection, do not yet surpass all in fortune.

Ad quae Nero sic ferme respondit: ’quod meditatae orationi tuae statim occurram id primum tui muneris habeo, qui me non tantum praevisa sed subita expedire docuisti. abavus meus Augustus Agrippae et Maecenati usurpare otium post labores concessit, sed in ea ipse aetate cuius auctoritas tueretur quidquid illud et qualecumque tribuisset; ac tamen neutrum datis a se praemiis exuit. bello et periculis meruerant; in iis enim iuventa Augusti versata est: nec mihi tela et manus tuae defuissent in armis agenti; sed quod praesens condicio poscebat, ratione consilio praeceptis pueritiam, dein iuventam meam fovisti. et tua quidem erga me munera, dum vita suppetet, aeterna erunt: quae a me habes, horti et faenus et villae, casibus obnoxia sunt. ac licet multa videantur, plerique haudquaquam artibus tuis pares plura tenuerunt. pudet referre libertinos qui ditiores spectantur: unde etiam mihi rubori est quod praecipuus caritate nondum omnis fortuna antecellis.

But you have a vigorous age, sufficient for affairs and for the enjoyment of their fruits, and we are but entering the first reaches of empire—unless, forsooth, you rank yourself below Vitellius, three times consul, or me below Claudius, and what long thrift won for Volusius, just so much my liberality cannot make up in your case. Nay, if in any part the slippery ground of our youth swerves aside, will you not call it back, and the more earnestly guide, with your support, the strength you yourself have furnished? It is not your moderation, if you give back the money, nor your repose, if you forsake the princeps, but my avarice, the dread of my cruelty, that will be on every lip. And though your self-restraint be praised to the utmost, yet it would not become a wise man to take glory to himself from the very source whence he gets infamy for his friend." To these things he adds embraces and kisses, formed by nature and trained by habit to veil hatred with deceitful caresses. Seneca—which is the end of all conversations with a master—renders thanks: but he changes the practices of his former power; he bars the throngs of callers, shuns his escorts, is seldom about the city, as though kept at home by hostile health or by the pursuits of philosophy.

Verum et tibi valida aetas rebusque et fructui rerum sufficiens, et nos prima imperii spatia ingredimur, nisi forte aut te Vitellio ter consuli aut me Claudio postponis et quantum Volusio longa parsimonia quaesivit, tantum in te mea liberalitas explere non potest. quin, si qua in parte lubricum adulescentiae nostrae declinat, revocas ornatumque robur subsidio impensius regis? non tua moderatio, si reddideris pecuniam, nec quies, si reliqueris principem, sed mea avaritia, meae crudelitatis metus in ore omnium versabitur. quod si maxime continentia tua laudetur, non tamen sapienti viro decorum fuerit unde amico infamiam paret inde gloriam sibi recipere.’ his adicit complexum et oscula, factus natura et consuetudine exercitus velare odium fallacibus blanditiis. Seneca, qui finis omnium cum dominante sermonum, grates agit: sed instituta prioris potentiae commutat, prohibet coetus salutantium, vitat comitantis, rarus per urbem, quasi valetudine infensa aut sapientiae studiis domi attineretur.

With Seneca struck down, it was easy to undermine Faenius Rufus, men accusing him on the score of his friendship with Agrippina. And Tigellinus, stronger day by day, and reckoning his evil arts—in which alone he was powerful—the more welcome if he should bind the princeps by a partnership in crimes, ferrets out his fears; and finding that Plautus and Sulla were most dreaded—Plautus lately removed into Asia, Sulla into Narbonese Gaul—he calls to mind their nobility and the armies near at hand, to the one those of the East, to the other those of Germany. He, unlike Burrus, eyed no divergent hopes, he said, but only the safety of Nero; against urban plots provision was somehow made by his present care: but distant disturbances—in what way could they be checked? Gaul was on the alert at the name of dictator, and no less were the peoples of Asia held in suspense by the renown of his grandfather Drusus. Sulla was destitute—hence his peculiar audacity—and a feigner of indolence while he sought scope for his rashness. Plautus, with his great wealth, did not even pretend a desire for ease, but paraded imitations of the old Romans, having taken on too the arrogance of the Stoics and a sect that makes men turbulent and grasping after affairs. Nor was there further delay. Sulla, on the sixth day, assassins having been conveyed to Massilia, is killed before fear or rumor, as he reclined for a meal. His head was brought back, and Nero mocked it as disfigured with premature gray.

Perculso Seneca promptum fuit Rufum Faenium imminuere Agrippinae amicitiam in eo criminantibus. validiorque in dies Tigellinus et malas artes, quibus solis pollebat, gratiores ratus si principem societate scelerum obstringeret, metus eius rimatur; compertoque Plautum et Sullam maxime timeri, Plautum in Asiam, Sullam in Galliam Narbonensem nuper amotos, nobilitatem eorum et propinquos huic Orientis, illi Germaniae exercitus commemorat. non se, ut Burrum, diversas spes sed solam incolumitatem Neronis spectare; cui caveri utcumque ab urbanis insidiis praesenti opera: longinquos motus quonam modo comprimi posse? erectas Gallias ad nomen dictatorium nec minus suspensos Asiae populos claritudine avi Drusi. Sullam inopem, unde praecipuam audaciam, et simulatorem segnitiae dum temeritati locum reperiret. Plautum magnis opibus ne fingere quidem cupidinem otii sed veterum Romanorum imitamenta praeferre, adsumpta etiam Stoicorum adrogantia sectaque quae turbidos et negotiorum adpetentis faciat. nec ultra mora. Sulla sexto die pervectis Massiliam percussoribus ante metum et rumorem interficitur cum epulandi causa discumberet. relatum caput eius inlusit Nero tamquam praematura canitie deforme.

That a murder was being prepared for Plautus was not so well hidden, because his safety was cared for by more men, and the length of the journey and of the sea and the time interposed had set rumor moving; and the common report feigned that he had appealed to Corbulo, then presiding over great armies and—were illustrious and innocent men killed—foremost among those exposed to danger. Nay more, that Asia had taken up arms in favor of the youth, and that the soldiers sent for the crime, neither strong in number nor ready in spirit, after they had been unable to carry out their orders, had gone over to new hopes. These empty things, after the fashion of rumor, were magnified by the idleness of those who believed them; but a freedman of Plautus, with the swiftness of the winds, forestalled the centurion and brought the message of Lucius Antistius, his father-in-law: let him flee a tame death, while there was a refuge: through pity for his great name he would find good men, would league the bold with him: meanwhile no help was to be spurned. If he beat off sixty soldiers (for so many were coming), while the news is carried back to Nero, while another band makes its way over, many things would follow that might grow even to war. In short, either safety was to be sought by such a course, or nothing heavier was to be borne by the daring man than by the coward.

Plauto parari necem non perinde occultum fuit, quia pluribus salus eius curabatur et spatium itineris ac maris tempusque interiectum moverat famam; vulgoque fingebant petitum ab eo Corbulonem, magnis tum exercitibus praesidentem et, clari atque insontes si interficerentur, praecipuum ad pericula. quin et Asiam favore iuvenis arma cepisse, nec milites ad scelus missos aut numero validos aut animo promptos, postquam iussa efficere nequiverint, ad spes novas transisse. vana haec more famae credentium otio augebantur; ceterum libertus Plauti celeritate ventorum praevenit centurionem et mandata L. Antistii soceri attulit: effugeret segnem mortem, dum suffugium esset: magni nominis miseratione reperturum bonos, consociaturum au- dacis: nullum interim subsidium aspernandum. si sexaginta milites (tot enim adveniebant) propulisset, dum refertur nuntius Neroni, dum manus alia permeat, multa secutura quae adusque bellum evalescerent. denique aut salutem tali consilio quaeri, aut nihil gravius audenti quam ignavo patiendum esse.

But these things did not move Plautus—whether, unarmed and an exile, he foresaw no help, or from weariness of a doubtful hope, or from love of his wife and children, for whom he thought the princeps would be more placable if troubled by no anxiety. There are those who relate that other messages came from his father-in-law, as though nothing dreadful threatened; and that the teachers of philosophy, Coeranus of Greek, Musonius of Etruscan stock, counseled the steadfastness of awaiting death rather than an uncertain and trembling life. At all events he was found, in the middle of the day, stripped for the exercise of his body. Such he was when the centurion butchered him, in the presence of the eunuch Pelago, whom Nero had set over the centurion and the squad, like a royal minister over his satellites. The head of the slain man was brought back; at the sight of which—I will report the princeps’s own words—"Why," said Nero … and, his fear laid aside, he makes ready to hasten the marriage with Poppaea, put off on account of such terrors, and to remove his wife Octavia, who, however modestly she conducted herself, was burdensome by her father’s name and the people’s affection. But he sent a letter to the Senate about the killing of Sulla and Plautus, not avowing it, but [stating] that the temper of each was turbulent and that the safety of the commonwealth was held by him in great care. On that pretext thanksgivings were decreed, and that Sulla and Plautus be removed from the Senate—mockeries now graver than the evils themselves.

Sed Plautum ea non movere, sive nullam opem providebat inermis atque exul, seu taedio ambiguae spei, an amore coniugis et liberorum, quibus placabiliorem fore principem rebatur nulla sollicitudine turbatum. sunt qui alios a socero nuntios venisse ferant, tamquam nihil atrox immineret; doctoresque sapientiae, Coeranum Graeci, Musonium Tusci generis, constantiam opperiendae mortis pro incerta et trepida vita suasisse. repertus est certe per medium diei nudus exercitando corpori. talem eum centurio trucidavit coram Pelagone spadone quem Nero centurioni et manipulo, quasi satellitibus ministrum regium, praeposuerat. caput interfecti relatum; cuius aspectu (ipsa principis verba referam) ’cur’, inquit, ’Nero’ et posito metu nuptias Poppaeae ob eius modi terrores dilatas maturare parat Octaviamque coniugem amoliri, quamvis modeste ageret, nomine patris et studiis populi gravem. sed ad senatum litteras misit de caede Sullae Plautique haud confessus, verum utriusque turbidum ingenium esse et sibi incolumitatem rei publicae magna cura haberi. decretae eo nomine supplicationes utque Sulla et Plautus senatu moverentur, gravioribus iam ludibriis quam malis.

And so, having received the decree of the Fathers, after he sees all his crimes accepted as excellent, he drives out Octavia, calling her barren again and again; then is joined to Poppaea. She, long his concubine, and holding Nero in her power as her adulterer, soon as her husband, drove one of Octavia’s attendants to lay against her a love affair with a slave. And one is marked out as defendant, by surname Eucaerus, an Alexandrian by nation, trained to play upon the pipes. On this account examinations were held of the maidservants, and though some, overcome by the force of torture, assented to falsehoods, the greater number held fast to defend their mistress’s purity; of whom one, to Tigellinus pressing her, answered that Octavia’s womanhood was chaster than his mouth. She is put away, however, at first under the show of a civil separation, and receives the house of Burrus and the estates of Plautus—ill-omened gifts: soon she was driven into Campania, with a military guard added. Thence frequent complaints, and not secret, among the common folk, whose wisdom is less and whose perils, from the meanness of their fortune, are fewer. Upon these murmurs, as though Nero, from repentance of his outrage, had recalled Octavia his wife—

Igitur accepto patrum consulto, postquam cuncta scelerum suorum pro egregiis accipi videt, exturbat Octaviam, sterilem dictitans; exim Poppaeae coniungitur. ea diu paelex et adulteri Neronis, mox mariti potens, quendam ex ministris Octaviae impulit servilem ei amorem obicere. destinaturque reus cognomento Eucaerus, natione Alexandrinus, canere tibiis doctus. actae ob id de ancillis quaestiones et vi tormentorum victis quibusdam ut falsa adnuerent, plures perstitere sanctitatem dominae tueri; ex quibus una instanti Tigellino castiora esse muliebria Octaviae respondit quam os eius. movetur tamen primo civilis discidii specie domumque Burri, praedia Plauti, infausta dona accipit: mox in Campaniam pulsa est addita militari custodia. inde crebri questus nec occulti per vulgum, cui minor sapientia et ex mediocritate fortunae pauciora pericula sunt. his tamquam Nero paenitentia flagitii coniugem revocarit Octaviam.

then, rejoicing, they climb the Capitol and at last give thanks to the gods. They throw down the statues of Poppaea, they carry the images of Octavia on their shoulders, scatter them with flowers, and set them up in the Forum and the temples. They go even into praises of the princeps, returning to do him homage. And now they were filling the Palatium too with their multitude and their shouts, when bands of soldiers, let loose, scattered the rioters with lashes and leveled steel. And what they had overturned in the sedition was reversed, and the honor of Poppaea was restored. She, ever savage from hatred, now from fear as well—lest either a fiercer violence of the mob should burst forth, or Nero be turned by the inclination of the people—falling prostrate at his knees, [pleaded] that her cause did not stand at the point of contending over the marriage, though that was dearer to her than life, but that life itself had been brought to the last extremity by the clients and slaves of Octavia, who had given themselves the name of the plebs, and dared in peace what would scarcely befall in war. Those arms had been taken up against the princeps; only a leader had been wanting, who, once things were astir, would easily be found, if only she quitted Campania and proceeded to the city in person—she at whose nod, even in absence, the tumults were raised. Besides, what was her own fault? what offense to anyone? Was it because she was about to give a true offspring to the household gods of the Caesars? Did the Roman people prefer that the brood of an Egyptian flute-player be brought to the imperial summit? In short, if it were expedient for his affairs, let him send for his mistress willingly rather than under compulsion—or else look to his own safety. By a just vengeance and moderate remedies the first stirrings had subsided: but if they despaired of Octavia’s becoming Nero’s wife, they would give her a husband.

Exim laeti Capitolium scandunt deosque tandem venerantur. effigies Poppaeae proruunt, Octaviae imagines gestant umeris, spargunt floribus foroque ac templis statuunt. itur etiam in principis laudes repetitum venerantium. iamque et Palatium multitudine et clamoribus complebant, cum emissi militum globi verberibus et intento ferro turbatos disiecere. mutataque quae per seditionem verterant et Poppaeae honos repositus est. quae semper odio, tum et metu atrox ne aut vulgi acrior vis ingrueret aut Nero inclinatione populi mutaretur, provoluta genibus eius, non eo loci res suas agi ut de matrimonio certet, quamquam id sibi vita potius, sed vitam ipsam in extremum adductam a clientelis et servitiis Octaviae quae plebis sibi nomen indiderint, ea in pace ausi quae vix bello evenirent. arma illa adversus principem sumpta; ducem tantum defuisse qui motis rebus facile reperiretur, omitteret modo Campaniam et in urbem ipsa pergeret ad cuius nutum absentis tumultus cierentur. quod alioquin suum delictum? quam cuiusquam offensionem? an quia veram progeniem penatibus Caesarum datura sit? malle populum Romanum tibicinis Aegyptii subolem imperatorio fastigio induci? denique, si id rebus conducat, libens quam coactus acciret dominam, vel consuleret securitati. iusta ultione et modicis remediis primos motus consedisse: at si desperent uxorem Neronis fore Octaviam, illi maritum daturos.

Her talk, varied and fitted to fear and anger alike, both terrified the listener and inflamed him. But the suspicion against the slave had little force, and had been baffled by the examinations of the maidservants. So it is resolved to seek the confession of someone on whom the charge of revolution too might be fastened. And there seemed fit for it the perpetrator of the mother’s murder, Anicetus, prefect, as I have related, of the fleet at Misenum—in slight favor after the crime was committed, then in heavier hatred, because the ministers of evil deeds are looked on as if they reproached one. And so, summoning him, Caesar reminds him of his former service: he alone had come to the aid of the prince’s safety against a plotting mother; the occasion of a no less favor was at hand, if he would thrust away a hostile wife. There was no need of hand or weapon: let him confess to adultery with Octavia. He promises him rewards—secret, indeed, for the present, but great—and pleasant retreats; or, had he refused, threatens death. He, with his inbred frenzy and the easiness of his former villainies, invents even more than had been bidden, and confesses before the friends whom the princeps had brought in as though for a council. Then he is driven to Sardinia, where he bore a not-destitute exile and died by fate.

Varius sermo et ad metum atque iram accommodatus terruit simul audientem et accendit. sed parum valebat suspicio in servo et quaestionibus ancillarum elusa erat. ergo confessionem alicuius quaeri placet cui rerum quoque novarum crimen adfingeretur. et visus idoneus maternae necis patrator Anicetus, classi apud Misenum, ut memoravi, praefectus, levi post admissum scelus gratia, dein graviore odio, quia malorum facinorum ministri quasi exprobrantes aspiciuntur. igitur accitum eum Caesar operae prioris admonet: solum incolumitati principis adversus insidiantem matrem subvenisse; locum haud minoris gratiae instare si coniugem infensam depelleret. nec manu aut telo opus: fateretur Octaviae adulterium. occulta quidem ad praesens sed magna ei praemia et secessus amoenos promittit, vel, si negavisset, necem intentat. ille insita vaecordia et facilitate priorum flagitiorum plura etiam quam iussum erat fingit fateturque apud amicos quos velut consilio adhibuerat princeps. tum in Sardiniam pellitur ubi non inops exilium toleravit et fato obiit.

But Nero records in an edict that the prefect had been corrupted in the hope of allying the fleet, and—forgetful of the barrenness he had charged a little before—that her offspring had been aborted out of consciousness of her lusts, and that these things had been ascertained by him; and he shuts Octavia up on the island of Pandateria. No other exile affected the eyes of the beholders with greater pity. Some still remembered Agrippina banished by Tiberius; the fresher memory of Julia, driven out by Claudius, came before them: but to those women the strength of years had been present; they had seen some glad things, and lightened the present savagery by the recollection of a once-better fortune. For this one the very day of her wedding stood in the place of a funeral, led into a house where she would have nothing but mourning, her father snatched away by poison and at once her brother; then a maidservant mightier than her mistress, and Poppaea wedded only to the wife’s destruction; and, last of all, a charge heavier than any doom.

At Nero praefectum in spem sociandae classis corruptum et incusatae paulo ante sterilitatis oblitus, abactos partus conscientia libidinum, eaque sibi comperta edicto memorat insulaque Pandateria Octaviam claudit. non alia exul visentium oculos maiore misericordia adfecit. meminerant adhuc quidam Agrippinae a Tiberio, recentior Iuliae memoria obversabatur a Claudio pulsae: sed illis robur aetatis adfuerat; laeta aliqua viderant et praesentem saevitiam melioris olim fortunae recordatione adlevabant. huic primum nuptiarum dies loco funeris fuit, deductae in domum in qua nihil nisi luctuosum haberet, erepto per venenum patre et statim fratre; tum ancilla domina validior et Poppaea non nisi in perniciem uxoris nupta, postremo crimen omni exitio gravius.

And the girl, in the twentieth year of her age, among centurions and soldiers, by the foreboding of her ills already taken out of life, yet did not yet find rest in death. A few days after, she is ordered to die, though she now protested that she was a widow and only a sister, and called upon the Germanici common to them both, and at last the name of Agrippina, with whom living she would have borne a marriage unhappy indeed but without destruction. She is bound fast with cords, and her veins are opened through all her limbs; and because the blood, pressed back by fear, flowed too slowly, she is killed off by the steam of a scalding bath. And a more frightful cruelty is added: that her head, severed and carried to the city, Poppaea beheld. The gifts decreed to the temples on this account—to what end shall we go on recording them? Whoever shall learn the misfortunes of those times, from us or from other authors, let them take it for granted that, as often as the princeps ordered banishments and slaughters, so often were thanks rendered to the gods, and that what were once the tokens of prosperity were then the tokens of public calamity. Yet we shall not keep silent if any decree of the Senate was novel in its flattery or ultimate in its servility.

Ac puella vicesimo aetatis anno inter centuriones et milites, praesagio malorum iam vitae exempta, nondum tamen morte adquiescebat. paucis dehinc interiectis diebus mori iubetur, cum iam viduam se et tantum sororem testaretur communisque Germanicos et postremo Agrippinae nomen cieret, qua incolumi infelix quidem matrimonium sed sine exitio pertulisset. restringitur vinclis venaeque eius per omnis artus exolvuntur; et quia pressus pavore sanguis tardius labebatur, praefervidi balnei vapore enecatur. additurque atrocior saevitia quod caput amputatum latumque in urbem Poppaea vidit. dona ob haec templis decreta quem ad finem memorabimus? quicumque casus temporum illorum nobis vel aliis auctoribus noscent, praesumptum habeant, quoties fugas et caedes iussit princeps, toties grates deis actas, quaeque rerum secundarum olim, tum publicae cladis insignia fuisse. neque tamen silebimus si quod senatus consultum adulatione novum aut patientia postremum fuit.

In the same year he was believed to have killed by poison the most powerful of his freedmen—Doryphorus, on the ground that he had opposed the marriage with Poppaea; Pallas, because in his long old age he kept hold of an immense fortune. Romanus had assailed Seneca by secret denunciations as an associate of Gaius Piso, but was the more forcibly struck down by Seneca on the same charge. Whence fear came upon Piso, and there arose against Nero a great mass of conspiracy—and an ill-starred one.

Eodem anno libertorum potissimos veneno interfecisse creditus est, Doryphorum quasi adversatum nuptiis Poppaeae, Pallantem, quod immensam pecuniam longa senecta detineret. Romanus secretis criminationibus incusaverat Senecam ut C. Pisonis socium, sed validius a Seneca eodem crimine perculsus est. unde Pisoni timor et orta insidiarum in Neronem magna moles et improspera.

Meanwhile the king of the Parthians, Vologeses, having learned of Corbulo’s exploits, and that an alien king, Tigranes, had been set over Armenia, and wishing at the same time—his brother Tiridates thrust out—to avenge the contempt shown to the eminence of the Arsacids, was yet drawn to divergent cares by the Roman greatness and by reverence for the unbroken treaty, a procrastinator by temper, and entangled by the defection of the Hyrcanians, a strong nation, and by the many wars arising from it. And as he wavered, a fresh report of insult goads him on besides: for Tigranes, issuing from Armenia, had ravaged the Adiabeni, a neighboring nation, more widely and longer than in the way of raids; and this the chief men of the peoples bore ill: it had sunk to such contempt that they were overrun not even by a Roman general, but by the recklessness of a hostage kept so many years among chattels. Their grief was kindled by Monobazus, in whose hands was the rule of Adiabene, asking again and again what protection he was to seek, or whence. Armenia was already given up, the lands next to it were being drawn off; and unless the Parthians defended them, servitude under the Romans was lighter for those who surrendered than for those taken captive. Tiridates too, a fugitive from his kingdom, was the more grievous by his silence, or by complaining with restraint: it was not by sloth, he urged, that great empires are held together; a contest of men and arms must be made; in the highest fortune that is the fairer which is the stronger; and to keep one’s own is the glory of a private house, to fight over what is another’s is a king’s glory.

Interea rex Parthorum Vologeses cognitis Corbulonis rebus regemque alienigenam Tigranen Armeniae impositum, simul fratre Tiridate pulso spretum Arsacidarum fastigium ire ultum volens, magnitudine rursum Romana et continui foederis reverentia diversas ad curas trahebatur, cunctator ingenio et defectione Hyrcanorum, gentis validae, multisque ex eo bellis inligatus. atque illum ambiguum novus insuper nuntius contumeliae extimulat: quippe egressus Armenia Tigranes Adiabenos, conterminam nationem, latius ac diutius quam per latrocinia vastaverat, idque primores gentium aegre tolerabant: eo contemptionis descensum ut ne duce quidem Romano incursarentur, sed temeritate obsidis tot per annos inter mancipia habiti. accendebat dolorem eorum Monobazus, quem penes Adiabenum regimen, quod praesidium aut unde peteret rogitans. iam de Armenia concessum, proxima trahi; et nisi defendant Parthi, levius servitium apud Romanos deditis quam captis esse. Tiridates quoque regni profugus per silentium aut modice querendo gravior erat: non enim ignavia magna imperia contineri; virorum armorumque faciendum certamen; id in summa fortuna aequius quod validius, et sua retinere privatae domus, de alienis certare regiam laudem esse.

And so, moved by these things, Vologeses calls a council, sets Tiridates at his right hand, and thus begins: "This man, begotten of the same father with me, when on account of age he yielded me the supreme name, I established in possession of Armenia, which is reckoned the third rank of power: for Pacorus had before taken the Medes. And I seemed, against the old hatreds and rivalries of brothers, to have duly set in order the household gods of our family. The Romans forbid it, and the peace, never challenged with success on their own part, they now too rend asunder to their own ruin. I will not deny it: by equity rather than blood, by just cause rather than arms, I had preferred to keep what our forefathers won. If I have erred by delay, I will set it right by valor. Your strength, indeed, and glory are unimpaired, with the added fame of moderation, which is not to be scorned even by the highest of mortals, and is weighed by the gods." At the same time he bound the head of Tiridates with the diadem, and handed over to Monaeses, a nobleman, the ready band of cavalry that by custom attends the king, with the auxiliaries of the Adiabeni added, and charged him to drive Tigranes out of Armenia, while he himself, his discords with the Hyrcanians laid down, rouses his innermost forces and the whole mass of war, threatening the Roman provinces.

Igitur commotus his Vologeses concilium vocat et proximum sibi Tiridaten constituit atque ita orditur: ’hunc ego eodem mecum patre genitum, cum mihi per aetatem summo nomine concessisset, in possessionem Armeniae deduxi, qui tertius potentiae gradus habetur: nam Medos Pacorus ante ceperat. videbarque contra vetera fratrum odia et certamina familiae nostrae penatis rite composuisse. prohibent Romani et pacem numquam ipsis prospere lacessitam nunc quoque in exitium suum abrumpunt. non ibo infitias: aequitate quam sanguine, causa quam armis retinere parta maioribus malueram. si cunctatione deliqui, virtute corrigam. vestra quidem vis et gloria in integro est, addita modestiae fama quae neque summis mortalium spernenda est et a dis aestimatur.’ simul diademate caput Tiridatis evinxit, promptam equitum manum, quae regem ex more sectatur, Monaesi nobili viro tradidit, adiectis Adiabenorum auxiliis, mandavitque Tigranen Armenia exturbare, dum ipse positis adversus Hyrcanos discordiis viris intimas molemque belli ciet, provinciis Romanis minitans.

When these things were heard by Corbulo through sure messengers, he sends two legions, with Verulanus Severus and Vettius Bolanus, as a relief to Tigranes, with a secret order that they should conduct everything more deliberately than in haste: for he preferred to have a war rather than to wage one; and he had written to Caesar that there was need of a general of its own to defend Armenia: Syria, with Vologeses pressing on, was in sharper peril. And meanwhile he places the remaining legions along the bank of the Euphrates, arms a hastily raised force of the provincials, and cuts off the enemy’s approaches with garrisons. And because the region is poor in waters, he set redoubts over the springs; certain streams he buried under a heaping of sand.

Quae ubi Corbuloni certis nuntiis audita sunt, legiones duas cum Verulano Severo et Vettio Bolano subsidium Tigrani mittit occulto praecepto compositius cuncta quam festinantius agerent: quippe bellum habere quam gerere malebat; scripseratque Caesari proprio duce opus esse qui Armeniam defenderet: Syriam ingruente Vologese acriore in discrimine esse. atque interim reliquas legiones pro ripa Euphratis locat, tumultuariam provincialium manum armat, hostilis ingressus praesidiis intercipit. et quia egena aquarum regio est castella fontibus imposita; quosdam rivos congestu harenae abdidit.

While these things are being prepared by Corbulo for the protection of Syria, Monaeses, his column hurried on so as to outstrip the report of himself, did not on that account come upon a Tigranes unaware or off his guard. He had occupied Tigranocerta, a city strong in its abundance of defenders and the size of its walls. Besides, the river Nicephorius, of no contemptible breadth, surrounds part of the walls; and a vast ditch had been run where the river was not trusted. There were soldiers within, and supplies provided beforehand—in the bringing in of which a few, having advanced too greedily and been surrounded by the sudden enemy, had inflamed the rest more by anger than by fear. But the Parthian has no courage at close quarters for carrying through sieges: with his sparse arrows he neither frightens the besieged and merely thwarts himself. The Adiabeni, when they began to bring up ladders and engines, are easily thrust down, and soon, as our men sally out, are cut to pieces.

Ea dum a Corbulone tuendae Syriae parantur, acto raptim agmine Monaeses ut famam sui praeiret, non ideo nescium aut incautum Tigranen offendit. occupaverat Tigranocertam, urbem copia defensorum et magnitudine moenium validam. ad hoc Nicephorius amnis haud spernenda latitudine partem murorum ambit; et ducta ingens fossa qua fluvio diffidebatur. inerantque milites et provisi ante commeatus, quorum subvectu pauci avidius progressi et repentinis hostibus circumventi ira magis quam metu ceteros accenderant. sed Partho ad exequendas obsidiones nulla comminus audacia: raris sagittis neque clausos exterret et semet frustratur. Adiabeni cum promovere scalas et machinamenta inciperent, facile detrusi, mox erumpentibus nostris caeduntur.

Corbulo, however, although his affairs prospered, judging that fortune must be kept within bounds, sent men to Vologeses to remonstrate that violence had been done to the province: an allied and friendly king, and Roman cohorts, were being besieged. Let him rather abandon the siege, or he too would pitch his camp in hostile territory. Casperius, a centurion, chosen for that embassy, approaches the king at the town of Nisibis, thirty-seven miles distant from Tigranocerta, and delivered his message fiercely. With Vologeses it was an old purpose, fixed deep, to avoid Roman arms, nor were present matters flowing prosperously: the siege was vain, Tigranes safe in his force and supplies, those who had taken up the storming routed, legions sent into Armenia, and others, ready on Syria’s behalf, even pressing of their own accord to break in; his own cavalry was feeble through want of fodder: for a swarm of locusts had arisen and eaten away whatever was grassy or leafy. And so, his fear hidden away and holding out gentler things, he answers that he would send envoys to the Roman emperor concerning the seeking of Armenia and the firming of peace: he bids Monaeses leave Tigranocerta, and himself withdraws backward.

Corbulo tamen, quamvis secundis rebus suis, moderandum fortunae ratus misit ad Vologesen qui expostularent vim provinciae inlatam: socium amicumque regem, cohortis Romanas circumsideri. omitteret potius obsidionem, aut se quoque in agro hostili castra positurum. Casperius centurio in eam legationem delectus apud oppidum Nisibin, septem et triginta milibus passuum a Tigranocerta distantem, adit regem et mandata ferociter edidit. Vologesi vetus et penitus infixum erat arma Romana vitandi, nec praesentia prospere fluebant. inritum obsidium, tutus manu et copiis Tigranes, fugati qui expugnationem sumpserant, missae in Armeniam legiones, et aliae pro Syria paratae ultro inrumpere; sibi imbecillum equitem pabuli inopia: nam exorta vis locustarum ambederat quidquid herbidum aut frondosum. igitur metu abstruso mitiora obtendens, missurum ad imperatorem Romanum legatos super petenda Armenia et firmanda pace respondet: Monaesen omittere Tigranocertam iubet, ipse retro concedit.

These things most exalted as accomplished and magnificent, the work of the king’s dread and Corbulo’s threats: others interpreted that a secret bargain had been struck—that, the war being abandoned on both sides and Vologeses departing, Tigranes too should withdraw from Armenia. For why was the Roman army led away from Tigranocerta? why abandon in peace what they had defended in war? Was it better to have wintered at the far edge of Cappadocia, in hastily raised huts, than in the seat of a kingdom but now retained? Plainly the arms had been deferred, that Vologeses might contend with someone other than Corbulo, and that Corbulo should put the glory earned through so many years to no further hazard. For, as I have related, he had demanded a general of its own for the protection of Armenia, and Caesennius Paetus was heard to be approaching. And now he was at hand, the forces being so divided that the fourth and twelfth legions, with the fifth added, which had lately been summoned from Moesia, and at the same time the Pontic and the Galatian and Cappadocian auxiliaries, should obey Paetus; the third and sixth and tenth legions and the former soldiery of Syria should remain with Corbulo; the rest they should combine or divide according to the use of affairs. But neither was Corbulo tolerant of a rival, and Paetus—for whom it was glory enough to be reckoned next—kept disparaging what had been done, saying there had been no slaughter or booty, that the stormings of cities had been claimed in name only: he would lay upon the conquered tribute and laws and, in place of a king’s shadow, Roman jurisdiction.

Haec plures ut formidine regis et Corbulonis minis patrata ac magnifica extollebant: alii occulte pepigisse interpretabantur ut omisso utrimque bello et abeunte Vologese Tigranes quoque Armenia abscederet. cur enim exercitum Romanum a Tigranocertis deductum? cur deserta per otium quae bello defenderant? an melius hibernavisse in extrema Cappadocia, raptim erectis tuguriis, quam in sede regni modo retenti? dilata prorsus arma ut Vologeses cum alio quam cum Corbulone certaret, Corbulo meritae tot per annos gloriae non ultra periculum faceret. nam, ut rettuli, proprium ducem tuendae Armeniae poposcerat, et adventare Caesennius Paetus audiebatur. iamque aderat, copiis ita divisis ut quarta et duodecima legiones addita quinta, quae recens e Moesis excita erat, simul Pontica et Galatarum Cappadocumque auxilia Paeto oboedirent, tertia et sexta et decima legiones priorque Syriae miles apud Corbulonem manerent; cetera ex rerum usu sociarent partirenturve. sed neque Corbulo aemuli patiens, et Paetus, cui satis ad gloriam erat si proximus haberetur, despiciebat gesta, nihil caedis aut praedae, usurpatas nomine tenus urbium expugnationes dictitans: se tributa ac leges et pro umbra regis Romanum ius victis impositurum.

About the same time the envoys of Vologeses, whom I have mentioned as sent to the princeps, returned with nothing accomplished, and war was openly taken up by the Parthians. Nor did Paetus shrink from it, but with two legions—of which the fourth was at that time commanded by Funisulanus Vettonianus, the twelfth by Calavius Sabinus—he enters Armenia under a grim omen. For in the crossing of the Euphrates, which they were passing by a bridge, the horse that bore the consular insignia, troubled by no apparent cause, broke away to the rear; and a victim, standing by the winter quarters that were being fortified, burst through the half-finished works in flight and carried itself beyond the rampart; and the soldiers’ javelins blazed—a portent the more notable because the Parthian enemy fights it out with missile weapons.

Sub idem tempus legati Vologesis, quos ad principem missos memoravi, revertere inriti bellumque propalam sumptum a Parthis. nec Paetus detrectavit, sed duabus legionibus, quarum quartam Funisulanus Vettonianus eo in tempore, duodecimam Calavius Sabinus regebant, Armeniam intrat tristi omine. nam in transgressu Euphratis, quem ponte tramittebant, nulla palam causa turbatus equus qui consularia insignia gestabat retro evasit; hostiaque quae muniebantur hibernaculis adsistens semifacta opera fuga perrupit seque vallo extulit; et pila militum arsere, magis insigni prodigio quia Parthus hostis missilibus telis decertat.

But Paetus, scorning the omens, with his winter quarters not yet sufficiently strengthened and with no provision of corn, rushes the army across Mount Taurus, to recover Tigranocerta, as he gave out, and to lay waste the regions which Corbulo had left intact. And some forts were taken, and something of glory and booty won—had he but kept his glory with moderation, or his plunder with care. By overrunning, in far-flung marches, the places that could not be held, with the captured supply spoiled and winter now pressing on, he led the army back and composed a letter to Caesar as though the war were finished—in grand words, void of substance.

Ceterum Paetus spretis ominibus necdum satis firmatis hibernaculis, nullo rei frumentariae provisu, rapit exercitum trans montem Taurum reciperandis, ut ferebat, Tigranocertis vastandisque regionibus quas Corbulo integras omisisset. et capta quaedam castella gloriaeque et praedae nonnihil partum, si aut gloriam cum modo aut praedam cum cura habuisset. longinquis itineribus percursando quae obtineri nequibant, corrupto qui captus erat commeatu et instante iam hieme, reduxit exercitum composuitque ad Caesarem litteras quasi confecto bello, verbis magnificis, rerum vacuas.

Meanwhile Corbulo occupied the bank of the Euphrates, never neglected, with more frequent posts; and lest the hostile squadrons should bring a hindrance to the throwing of a bridge—for now over the plains below they were flitting in great show—he drives through the stream ships of surpassing size, linked by beams and built up with towers, and with catapults and ballistae beats off the barbarians, upon whom the stones and spears reached farther than could be matched by the answering cast of arrows. Then the bridge was completed, and the heights opposite are occupied, first by the allied cohorts, then by the camp of the legions, with such speed and display of strength that the Parthians, abandoning their preparation for invading Syria, turned all their hope to Armenia—where Paetus, ignorant of what was impending, kept the fifth legion far off in Pontus, and had weakened the rest by promiscuous furloughs of the soldiers, until it was heard that Vologeses was approaching with a great and hostile column.

Interim Corbulo numquam neglectam Euphratis ripam crebrioribus praesidiis insedit; et ne ponti iniciendo impedimentum hostiles turmae adferrent (iam enim subiectis campis magna specie volitabant), navis magnitudine praestantis et conexas trabibus ac turribus auctas agit per amnem catapultisque et ballistis proturbat barbaros, in quos saxa et hastae longius permeabant quam ut contrario sagittarum iactu adaequarentur. dein pons continuatus collesque adversi per socias cohortis, post legionum castris occupantur, tanta celeritate et ostentatione virium ut Parthi omisso paratu invadendae Syriae spem omnem in Armeniam verterent, ubi Paetus imminentium nescius quintam legionem procul in Ponto habebat, reliquas promiscis militum commeatibus infirmaverat, donec adventare Vologesen magno et infenso agmine auditum.

The twelfth legion is summoned, and—from the very quarter whence he had hoped for the report of an enlarged army—its want of numbers was betrayed: by which, however, the camp might have been held and the Parthian baffled by drawing out the war, had Paetus had firmness either in his own counsels or in others’. But whenever he had been braced by military men against the pressing crises, again, lest he seem in need of another’s opinion, he would pass over to contrary and worse courses. And then, leaving the winter quarters, crying out that not a ditch nor a rampart but bodies and arms had been given him against the enemy, he led the legions as though to contend in battle. Then, having lost a centurion and a few soldiers whom he had sent ahead to look at the enemy’s forces, he returned in alarm. And because Vologeses had pressed on less keenly, with empty confidence once more he set three thousand picked foot on the nearest ridge of Taurus, to bar the king’s passage; the Pannonian troopers too, the strength of his cavalry, he places in a part of the plain. His wife and son he hid in a fort whose name is Arsamosata, a cohort being given for a guard, and the soldiery dispersed which, kept in one body, would have more readily held off the roaming foe. Hardly, they say, was he driven to confess to Corbulo that the enemy was upon him. Nor did Corbulo make haste, so that, the dangers swelling, the glory of his relief too might increase. Yet he ordered to be made ready for the march a thousand men from each of three legions, and eight hundred of the cavalry, an equal number from the cohorts.

Accitur legio duodecima et unde famam aucti exercitus speraverat, prodita infrequentia: qua tamen retineri castra et eludi Parthus tractu belli poterat, si Paeto aut in suis aut in alienis consiliis constantia fuisset: verum ubi a viris militaribus adversus urgentis casus firmatus erat, rursus ne alienae sententiae indigens videretur in diversa ac deteriora transibat. et tunc relictis hibernis non fossam neque vallum sibi sed corpora et arma in hostem data clamitans, duxit legiones quasi proelio certaturus. deinde amisso centurione et paucis militibus quos visendis hostium copiis praemiserat trepidus remeavit. et quia minus acriter Vologeses institerat, vana rursus fiducia tria milia delecti peditis proximo Tauri iugo imposuit quo transitum regis arcerent; alaris quoque Pannonios, robur equitatus, in parte campi locat. coniunx ac filius castello, cui Arsamosata nomen est, abditi, data in praesidium cohorte ac disperso milite qui in uno habitus vagum hostem promptius sustentavisset. aegre compulsum ferunt ut instantem Corbuloni fateretur. nec a Corbulone properatum quo gliscentibus periculis etiam subsidii laus augeretur. expediri tamen itineri singula milia ex tribus legionibus et alarios octingentos, parem numerum e cohortibus iussit.

But Vologeses, although he had heard that the routes were beset by Paetus, here with foot, there with horse, with his plan in no way changed, by force and threats terrified the cavalry and crushed the legionaries—only a single centurion, Tarquitius Crescens, daring to defend the tower in which he held his post, and sallying out more than once and cutting down those of the barbarians who came up nearer, until he was hemmed in by the hurling of fire. Of the infantry, any who were unhurt sought the far-off and pathless places, the wounded the camp—magnifying, all of it out of fear, the king’s prowess, the savagery and the numbers of the tribes, with the easy credulity of those who feared the same things. Not even the commander struggled against the reverses, but had deserted all the duties of soldiering, sending again prayers to Corbulo—that he come quickly, that he guard the standards and the eagles and what name was left of an unhappy army: they would keep faith meanwhile, so long as life held out.

At Vologeses, quamvis obsessa a Paeto itinera hinc peditatu inde equite accepisset, nihil mutato consilio, sed vi ac minis alaris exterruit, legionarios obtrivit, uno tantum centurione Tarquitio Crescente turrim, in qua praesidium agitabat, defendere auso factaque saepius eruptione et caesis qui barbarorum propius suggrediebantur, donec ignium iactu circumveniretur. peditum si quis integer longinqua et avia, vulnerati castra repetivere, virtutem regis, saevitiam et copias gentium, cuncta metu extollentes, facili credulitate eorum qui eadem pavebant. ne dux quidem obniti adversis, sed cuncta militiae munia deseruerat, missis iterum ad Corbulonem precibus, veniret propere, signa et aquilas et nomen reliquum infelicis exercitus tueretur: se fidem interim, donec vita suppeditet, retenturos.

He, undaunted, and with part of his forces left in Syria, that the fortifications set on the Euphrates might be retained, made for the region of Commagene by the nearest way and not lacking in supplies, then for Cappadocia, thence for the Armenians. There accompanied the army, besides the other things customary in war, a great number of camels laden with grain, that he might at once beat back both the enemy and famine. The first of the routed men he met with was Paccius, a centurion of the first rank, then very many of the soldiers; whom, as they held out diverse causes for their flight, he admonished to return to the standards and to try the clemency of Paetus: he himself was without mercy only toward the victors. At the same time he goes to his own legions, exhorts them, reminds them of their former deeds, shows them new glory. Not the villages or towns of the Armenians, but a Roman camp and two legions in it, were the prize of their toil. If, to single common soldiers, the special crown for a citizen saved is bestowed by an imperator’s hand, what and how great that honor, where there should be beheld an equal number of those who had brought, and those who had received, deliverance! By these and the like words eager for the common cause—and there were those whom the dangers of brothers or kinsmen kindled with private spurs—they pressed on a continuous march, day and night.

Ille interritus et parte copiarum apud Syriam relicta, ut munimenta Euphrati imposita retinerentur, qua proximum et commeatibus non egenum, regionem Commagenam, exim Cappadociam, inde Armenios petivit. comitabantur exercitum praeter alia sueta bello magna vis camelorum onusta frumenti ut simul hostem famemque depelleret. primum e perculsis Paccium primi pili centurionem obvium habuit, dein plerosque militum; quos diversas fugae causas obtendentis redire ad signa et clementiam Paeti experiri monebat: se nisi victoribus immitem esse. simul suas legiones adire, hortari, priorum admonere, novam gloriam ostendere. non vicos aut oppida Armeniorum, sed castra Romana duasque in iis legiones pretium laboris peti. si singulis manipularibus praecipua servati civis corona imperatoria manu tribueretur, quod illud et quantum decus, ubi par eorum numerus aspiceretur qui adtulissent salutem et qui accepissent! his atque talibus in commune alacres (et erant quos pericula fratrum aut propinquorum propriis stimulis incenderent) continuum diu noctuque iter properabant.

And the more intently did Vologeses press the besieged, now assaulting the rampart of the legions, now the fort in which the unwarlike age was sheltered, advancing closer than is the Parthians’ wont, in hope by that rashness to draw the enemy out into a fight. But they, scarcely dragged from their tents, defended nothing but the fortifications—part by the general’s order, others through their own cowardice or awaiting Corbulo, and, should force assail them, with the precedents of the Caudine and Numantine disasters held ready; and that the Samnites, an Italian people, had not the same force as the Parthians, rivals of the Roman empire. Even strong and renowned antiquity, as often as fortune turned against it, had taken thought for its own safety. By which despair of the army the general, overcome, yet composed his first letter to Vologeses, not in suppliant fashion, but in the manner of one lodging a complaint—that he was committing hostilities on behalf of the Armenians, always of Roman jurisdiction or subject to the king whom the imperator had chosen: peace on equal terms was useful; let him not look only to the present; he himself had come, with the whole strength of his kingdom, against two legions; but to the Romans there remained the rest of the world, with which to feed the war.

Eoque intentius Vologeses premere obsessos, modo vallum legionum, modo castellum, quo imbellis aetas defendebatur, adpugnare, propius incedens quam mos Parthis, si ea temeritate hostem in proelium eliceret. at illi vix contuberniis extracti, nec aliud quam munimenta propugnabant, pars iussu ducis, et alii propria ignavia aut Corbulonem opperientes, ac vis si ingrueret, provisis exemplis cladis Caudinae Numantinaeque; neque eandem vim Samnitibus, Italico populo, ac Parthis, Romani imperii aemulis. validam quoque et laudatam antiquitatem, quoties fortuna contra daret, saluti consuluisse. qua desperatione exercitus dux subactus primas tamen litteras ad Vologesen non supplices, sed in modum querentis composuit, quod pro Armeniis semper Romanae dicionis aut subiectis regi quem imperator delegisset hostilia faceret: pacem ex aequo utilem; ne praesentia tantum spectaret; ipsum adversus duas legiones totis regni viribus advenisse; at Romanis orbem terrarum reliquum quo bellum iuvarent.

To these things Vologeses wrote back nothing as to the substance, but that he must wait for his brothers Pacorus and Tiridates; that place and time had been appointed for a council on what they should decide about Armenia; that the gods had added something worthy of the Arsacids—that they should at the same time determine about the Roman legions. Messengers were sent thereafter by Paetus, and a conference with the king sought, who bade Vasaces, the cavalry-prefect, to go. Then Paetus recalls the Luculli, the Pompeys, and whatever the Caesars had done in holding or bestowing Armenia; Vasaces, that the semblance of retaining or of granting it was with us, the force with the Parthians. And much being disputed back and forth, Monobazus the Adiabenian is called in, for the next day, as witness to what they should agree. And it was resolved that the legions be freed from the siege, and that all the soldiery depart from the borders of the Armenians, and that the forts and the supplies be handed over to the Parthians; which accomplished, opportunity should be given Vologeses of sending envoys to Nero.

Ad ea Vologeses nihil pro causa sed opperiendos sibi fratres Pacorum ac Tiridaten rescripsit; illum locum tempusque consilio destinatum quid de Armenia cernerent; adiecisse deos dignum Arsacidarum, simul ut de legionibus Romanis statuerent. missi posthac Paeto nuntii et regis conloquium petitum, qui Vasacen praefectum equitatus ire iussit. tum Paetus Lucullos Pompeios et si qua Caesares obtinendae donandaeve Armeniae egerant, Vasaces imaginem retinendi largiendive penes nos, vim penes Parthos memorat. et multum in vicem disceptato, Monobazus Adiabenus in diem posterum testis iis quae pepigissent adhibetur. placuitque liberari obsidio legiones et decedere omnem militem finibus Armeniorum castellaque et commeatus Parthis tradi; quibus perpetratis copia Vologesi fieret mittendi ad Neronem legatos.

Meanwhile he laid a bridge over the river Arsanias (it flowed past the camp), under show of making that road ready for himself, but the Parthians had ordered it as a token of victory; for it was of use to them—ours went by a different way. Rumor added that the legions had been sent under the yoke, and other things drawn from the ill-starred affair, an imitation of which was practiced by the Armenians. For they entered the fortifications before the Roman column withdrew, and stood about the roads, recognizing and dragging away slaves or beasts once taken captive: clothing too was carried off, arms retained, the soldier in terror and giving way, lest any occasion of battle should arise. Vologeses, with the arms and bodies of the slain heaped up, that he might attest our disaster, held off from the sight of the fleeing legions: a name for moderation was being sought, once he had sated his arrogance. The river Arsanias, seated upon an elephant, he crossed; and each nearest the king broke through by the force of their horses, because a rumor had gone about that the bridge would give way to the burden through the guile of those who built it: but those who dared to go upon it found it firm and trusty.

Interim flumini Arsaniae (is castra praefluebat) pontem imposuit, specie sibi illud iter expedientis, sed Parthi quasi documentum victoriae iusserant; namque iis usui fuit; nostri per diversum iere. addidit rumor sub iugum missas legiones et alia ex rebus infaustis quorum simulacrum ab Armeniis usurpatum est. namque et munimenta ingressi sunt, antequam agmen Romanum excederet, et circumstetere vias captiva olim mancipia aut iumenta adgnoscentes abstrahentesque: raptae etiam vestes, retenta arma, pavido milite et concedente ne qua proelii causa existeret. Vologeses armis et corporibus caesorum aggeratis quo cladem nostram testaretur, visu fugientium legionum abstinuit: fama moderationis quaerebatur, postquam superbiam expleverat. flumen Arsaniam elephanto insidens, proximus quisque regem vi equorum perrupere, quia rumor incesserat pontem cessurum oneri dolo fabricantium: sed qui ingredi ausi sunt validum et fidum intellexere.

But it was established that corn had so abounded to the besieged that they set fire to the granaries; and, on the contrary, Corbulo handed down that the Parthians, poor in supplies and their fodder worn away, would have abandoned the siege, and that he himself had been distant no more than a three days’ march. He adds that it had been secured by Paetus’s oath, before the standards, with those standing by whom the king had sent to attest it, that no Roman would enter Armenia until letters of Nero were brought back as to whether he assented to peace. And as these things may be composed to magnify the infamy, so the rest is held in no obscurity: that in a single day Paetus traversed a distance of forty miles, his wounded abandoned all about, and that the panic of the fleeing was no less unsightly than if they had turned their backs in the battle-line. Corbulo, meeting them with his forces at the bank of the Euphrates, did not put forward such a display of insignia and arms as to cast the contrast in their teeth. The maniples, mournful and pitying the lot of their fellow-soldiers, could not refrain even from tears; scarcely, for weeping, was the mutual salutation taken up. The contest of valor and the ambition of glory—the passions of fortunate men—had departed: pity alone prevailed, and that the more among the humbler ranks.

Ceterum obsessis adeo suppeditavisse rem frumentariam constitit ut horreis ignem inicerent, contraque prodiderit Corbulo Parthos inopes copiarum et pabulo attrito relicturos oppugnationem, neque se plus tridui itinere afuisse. adicit iure iurando Paeti cautum apud signa, adstantibus iis quos testificando rex misisset, neminem Romanum Armeniam ingressurum donec referrentur litterae Neronis an paci adnueret. quae ut augendae infamiae composita, sic reliqua non in obscuro habentur, una die quadraginta milium spatium emensum esse Paetum, desertis passim sauciis, neque minus deformem illam fugientium trepidationem quam si terga in acie vertissent. Corbulo cum suis copiis apud ripam Euphratis obvius non eam speciem insignium et armorum praetulit ut diversitatem exprobraret. maesti manipuli ac vicem commilitonum miserantes ne lacrimis quidem temperare; vix prae fletu usurpata consalutatio. decesserat certamen virtutis et ambitio gloriae, felicium hominum adfectus: sola misericordia valebat et apud minores magis.

A brief conversation between the generals followed, the one complaining of his fruitless toil—the war might have been ended by the flight of the Parthians; the other answered that all was still entire for both: let them turn back the eagles and, joined together, invade Armenia, weakened by the withdrawal of Vologeses. Corbulo had no such instructions from the emperor, he said: moved by the peril of the legions, he had gone out of his province; since the Parthians’ attempts were held in uncertainty, he would make again for Syria—and even so the best fortune must be prayed for, that his infantry, worn out by the lengths of the marches, might overtake the cavalry, brisk and outstripping them by the ease of the plains. Thereupon Paetus wintered through Cappadocia. But to Corbulo messengers from Vologeses were sent: let him draw off his forts beyond the Euphrates and make the river, as of old, the boundary between; he, for his part, demanded that Armenia too be made empty of the various garrisons. And at last the king conceded; and the works Corbulo had built beyond the Euphrates were demolished, and the Armenians were left without an arbiter.

Ducum inter se brevis sermo secutus est, hoc conquerente inritum laborem, potuisse bellum fuga Parthorum finiri: ille integra utrique cuncta respondit: converterent aquilas et iuncti invaderent Armeniam abscessu Vologesis infirmatam. non ea imperatoris habere mandata Corbulo: periculo legionum commotum e provincia egressum; quando in incerto habeantur Parthorum conatus, Syriam repetiturum: sic quoque optimam fortunam orandam, ut pedes confectus spatiis itinerum alacrem et facilitate camporum praevenientem equitem adsequeretur. exim Paetus per Cappadociam hibernavit: at Vologesis ad Corbulonem missi nuntii, detraheret castella trans Euphraten amnemque, ut olim, medium faceret; ille Armeniam quoque diversis praesidiis vacuam fieri expostulabat. et postremo concessit rex; dirutaque quae Euphraten ultra communiverat Corbulo et Armenii sine arbitro relicti sunt.

But at Rome trophies over the Parthians and arches were being set up in the middle of the Capitoline hill, decreed by the Senate while the war was still undecided, and not abandoned even then—while appearance is consulted, conscience scorned. Nay more, to dissemble his cares about foreign affairs, Nero threw into the Tiber the grain of the plebs, spoiled by age, to prop up the sense of security in the corn-supply. To its price nothing was added, although about two hundred ships, in the very harbor, had been consumed by the violence of a storm, and a hundred others, brought up the Tiber, by an accidental fire. Then he set three men of consular rank—Lucius Piso, Ducenius Geminus, Pompeius Paulinus—over the public revenues, with a censure of the earlier principes, who by the heaviness of their outlays had overrun the lawful income: he himself, he said, made a yearly largess of sixty million sesterces to the commonwealth.

At Romae tropaea de Parthis arcusque medio Capitolini montis sistebantur, decreta ab senatu integro adhuc bello neque tum omissa, dum aspectui consulitur spreta con- scientia. quin et dissimulandis rerum externarum curis Nero frumentum plebis vetustate corruptum in Tiberim iecit quo securitatem annonae sustentaret. cuius pretio nihil additum est, quamvis ducentas ferme navis portu in ipso violentia tempestatis et centum alias Tiberi subvectas fortuitus ignis absumpsisset. tres dein consularis, L. Pisonem, Ducenium Geminum, Pompeium Paulinum vectigalibus publicis praeposuit, cum insectatione priorum principum qui gravitate sumptuum iustos reditus antissent: se annuum sexcenties sestertium rei publicae largiri.

There had grown widespread, at that season, a depraved custom: when, with elections or the allotment of provinces near, very many childless men took on sons by feigned adoptions, and, having drawn praetorships and provinces among the [adoptive] fathers, at once released by manumission those whom they had adopted. With great resentment the true fathers approach the Senate, recounting the right of nature, the toils of rearing, against the fraud and arts and brevity of an adoption. It was reward enough for the childless that, in great security and under no burdens, they had favor, honors, everything ready and within reach. To themselves the promises of the laws, long awaited, were turned into mockery, since a man who was a parent without anxiety, childless without grief, should suddenly match the long-cherished prayers of [true] fathers. There was made from this a decree of the Senate that a feigned adoption should help in no part of public office, nor avail even for the claiming of inheritances.

Percrebuerat ea tempestate pravus mos, cum propinquis comitiis aut sorte provinciarum plerique orbi fictis adoptionibus adsciscerent filios, praeturasque et provincias inter patres sortiti statim emitterent manu quos adoptaverant magna cum invidia senatum adeunt, ius naturae, labores educandi adversus fraudem et artes et brevitatem adoptionis enumerant. satis pretii esse orbis quod multa securitate, nullis oneribus gratiam honores cuncta prompta et obvia haberent. sibi promissa legum diu expectata in ludibrium verti, quando quis sine sollicitudine parens, sine luctu orbus longa patrum vota repente adaequaret. factum ex eo senatus consultum ne simulata adoptio in ulla parte muneris publici iuvaret ac ne usurpandis quidem hereditatibus prodesset.

Then Claudius Timarchus, a Cretan, is brought to trial—on the other charges, as is usual with the over-mighty among provincials and men raised by excessive wealth to the wronging of their lesser folk: but one utterance of his had penetrated even to an insult of the Senate, in that he had said again and again that it lay in his own power whether thanks should be voted to the proconsuls who had held Crete. Thrasea Paetus, turning that occasion to the public good, after he had voted that the defendant be expelled from the province of Crete, added these things: "Experience has proved, conscript fathers, that fine laws and honorable precedents are born, among good men, of the offenses of others. So the license of orators bore the Cincian bill, the bribery of candidates the Julian laws, the avarice of magistrates the Calpurnian decrees; for guilt is earlier in time than punishment, and to be amended comes later than to sin. Therefore, against the new arrogance of the provincials, let us take a counsel worthy of Roman good faith and steadfastness, whereby nothing be taken from the guardianship of the allies, and there leave us the notion that the reckoning of what each man is held to be lies anywhere but in the judgment of [Roman] citizens.

Exim Claudius Timarchus Cretensis reus agitur, ceteris criminibus ut solent praevalidi provincialium et opibus nimiis ad iniurias minorum elati: una vox eius usque ad contumeliam senatus penetraverat, quod dictitasset in sua potestate situm an pro consulibus qui Cretam obtinuissent grates agerentur. quam occasionem Paetus Thrasea ad bonum publicum vertens, postquam de reo censuerat provincia Creta depellendum, haec addidit: ’usu probatum est, patres conscripti, leges egregias, exempla honesta apud bonos ex delictis aliorum gigni. sic oratorum licentia Cinciam rogationem, candidatorum ambitus Iulias leges, magistratuum avaritia Calpurnia scita pepererunt; nam culpa quam poena tempore prior, emendari quam peccare posterius est. ergo adversus novam provincialium superbiam dignum fide constantiaque Romana capiamus consilium, quo tutelae sociorum nihil derogetur, nobis opinio decedat, qualis quisque habeatur, alibi quam in civium iudicio esse.

Once, indeed, not only a praetor or consul, but even private men were sent to view the provinces and report what seemed to them of each one’s obedience; and the nations trembled at the assessment of individual men: but now we pay court to foreigners and fawn on them, and just as at someone’s nod thanks are decreed, so, the more readily, an accusation. And let it be decreed, and let the provincials keep the power of displaying their influence in such a manner: but let false praise, squeezed out by entreaties, be restrained just as much as malice, as cruelty. More wrongs are often done while we oblige than while we give offense. Nay, certain virtues are objects of hatred—an unbending strictness, a mind unconquered in the face of favor. Hence the openings of our magistracies are commonly the better, and the close declines, while, after the manner of candidates, we go canvassing for votes: which, if they be barred, the provinces will be governed more evenly and steadily. For as avarice has been broken by the fear of the extortion-law, so, the rendering of thanks being forbidden, ambition will be held in check."

Olim quidem non modo praetor aut consul sed privati etiam mittebantur qui provincias viserent et quid de cuiusque obsequio videretur referrent; trepidabantque gentes de aestimatione singulorum: at nunc colimus externos et adulamur, et quo modo ad nutum alicuius grates, ita promptius accusatio decernitur. decernaturque et maneat provincialibus potentiam suam tali modo ostentandi: sed laus falsa et precibus expressa perinde cohibeatur quam malitia, quam crudelitas. plura saepe peccantur, dum demeremur quam dum offendimus. quaedam immo virtutes odio sunt, severitas obstinata, invictus adversum gratiam animus. inde initia magistratuum nostrorum meliora ferme et finis inclinat, dum in modum candidatorum suffragia conquirimus: quae si arceantur, aequabilius atque constantius provinciae regentur. nam ut metu repetundarum infracta avaritia est, ita vetita gratiarum actione ambitio cohibebitur.’

The opinion was celebrated with great assent. Yet the decree of the Senate could not be carried through, the consuls denying that a motion had been made on the matter. Soon, at the instance of the princeps, they sanctioned that no one should propose to a council of the allies that thanks to propraetors or proconsuls be moved in the Senate, and that no one should discharge that embassy. Under the same consuls, the gymnasium was burned up by a stroke of lightning, and the image of Nero in it was melted to a shapeless mass of bronze. And by an earthquake the famous town of Pompeii in Campania was in great part overthrown; and the Vestal virgin Laelia died, in whose place Cornelia, of the family of the Cossi, was taken.

Magno adsensu celebrata sententia. non tamen senatus consultum perfici potuit, abnuentibus consulibus ea de re relatum. mox auctore principe sanxere ne quis ad concilium sociorum referret agendas apud senatum pro praetoribus prove consulibus grates, neu quis ea legatione fungeretur. Isdem consulibus gymnasium ictu fulminis conflagravit effigiesque in eo Neronis ad informe aes liquefacta. et motu terrae celebre Campaniae oppidum Pompei magna ex parte proruit; defunctaque virgo Vestalis Laelia, in cuius locum Cornelia ex familia Cossorum capta est.

In the consulship of Memmius Regulus and Verginius Rufus, Nero received the daughter born to him of Poppaea with a joy beyond mortal, and called her Augusta, the same surname being given to Poppaea too. The place of the childbirth was the colony of Antium, where he himself had been begotten. Already the Senate had commended Poppaea’s womb to the gods and had publicly taken vows, which were multiplied and paid. And there were added thanksgivings, and a temple of Fertility, and a contest after the pattern of the Actian observance was decreed, and that golden images of the Fortunes be placed on the throne of Capitoline Jupiter, and that circus-games, as for the Julian house at Bovillae, so for the Claudian and Domitian at Antium, be celebrated. Which things proved fleeting, the infant dying within the fourth month. And again flatteries broke out, men voting the honor of a goddess, and a sacred couch, and a temple, and a priest. And he himself was as unrestrained in grief as in joy. It was remarked that, the whole Senate having streamed out to Antium right after the birth, Thrasea, being forbidden [to attend], received with unmoved spirit the affront—a herald of impending slaughter. There followed thereupon, they say, a word of Caesar’s, in which he boasted to Seneca that he had been reconciled with Thrasea, and Seneca congratulated Caesar: whence both glory and perils were swelling for those eminent men.

Memmio Regulo et Verginio Rufo consulibus natam sibi ex Poppaea filiam Nero ultra mortale gaudium accepit appellavitque Augustam dato et Poppaeae eodem cognomento. locus puerperio colonia Antium fuit, ubi ipse generatus erat. iam senatus uterum Poppaeae commendaverat dis votaque publice susceperat, quae multiplicata exolutaque. et additae supplicationes templumque fecunditatis et certamen ad exemplar Actiacae religionis decretum, utque Fortunarum effigies aureae in solio Capitolini Iovis locarentur, ludicrum circense, ut Iuliae genti apud Bovillas, ita Claudiae Domitiaeque apud Antium ederetur. quae fluxa fuere, quartum intra mensem defuncta infante. rursusque exortae adulationes censentium honorem divae et pulvinar aedemque et sacerdotem. atque ipse ut laetitiae, ita maeroris immodicus egit. adnotatum est, omni senatu Antium sub recentem partum effuso, Thraseam prohibitum immoto animo praenuntiam imminentis caedis contumeliam excepisse. secutam dehinc vocem Caesaris ferunt qua reconciliatum se Thraseae apud Senecam iactaverit ac Senecam Caesari gratulatum: unde gloria egregiis viris et pericula gliscebant.

Amid these things, at the beginning of spring, the envoys of the Parthians brought the instructions of King Vologeses, and a letter to the same effect: that he now gave up his former claims, so often bandied about, concerning the holding of Armenia, since the gods, arbiters even of powerful peoples, had handed over possession to the Parthians, not without Roman ignominy. Lately Tigranes had been shut up; afterward he had dismissed Paetus and the legions unharmed, when he could have crushed them. Force enough had been proved; a trial of leniency had been given too. Nor would Tiridates refuse to come to the city to receive the diadem, were he not held back by the scruple of his priesthood. He would go to the standards and the images of the princeps, where, before the legions, he might take the auspices of his reign.

Inter quae veris principio legati Parthorum mandata regis Vologesis litterasque in eandem formam attulere: se priora et toties iactata super optinenda Armenia nunc omit- tere, quoniam dii, quamvis potentium populorum arbitri, possessionem Parthis non sine ignominia Romana tradidissent. nuper clausum Tigranen; post Paetum legionesque, cum opprimere posset, incolumis dimisisse. satis adprobatam vim; datum et lenitatis experimentum. nec recusaturum Tiridaten accipiendo diademati in urbem venire nisi sacerdotii religione attineretur. iturum ad signa et effigies principis ubi legionibus coram regnum auspicaretur.

At such a letter of Vologeses, because Paetus wrote the contrary, as though affairs stood untouched, the centurion who had come with the envoys, being asked in what state Armenia was, answered that all the Romans had departed thence. Then, the barbarians’ mockery being understood—men begging for what they had wrested away—Nero took counsel among the chief men of the state whether a doubtful war or a dishonorable peace was to be preferred. And there was no hesitation about war. And Corbulo, acquainted through so many years with the soldiers and the enemy, is put in charge of the conduct of the matter, lest by another’s incompetence there be a fresh blunder, since the case of Paetus had bred disgust. So the envoys are sent back without effect, but with gifts, whence a hope might be made that Tiridates would not ask the same in vain, if he himself brought the petition. And the administration of Syria was committed to Gaius Cestius, the military forces to Corbulo; and the fifteenth legion, under the lead of Marius Celsus, was added from Pannonia. Letters are written to the tetrarchs and kings and prefects and procurators, and to those of praetorian rank who governed the neighboring provinces, with orders to obey Corbulo, his power enlarged to nearly that measure which the Roman people had granted to Gnaeus Pompey when he was to wage the war against the pirates. Paetus, on his return, when he feared graver things, Caesar thought it enough to assail with jests, in nearly these words: that he forgave him on the instant, lest a man so quick to take fright should grow ill from longer anxiety.

Talibus Vologesis litteris, quia Paetus diversa tamquam rebus integris scribebat, interrogatus centurio, qui cum legatis advenerat, quo in statu Armenia esset, omnis inde Romanos excessisse respondit. tum intellecto barbarum inrisu qui peterent quod eripuerant, consuluit inter primores civitatis Nero bellum anceps an pax inhonesta placeret. nec dubitatum de bello. et Corbulo militum atque hostium tot per annos gnarus gerendae rei praeficitur, ne cuius alterius inscitia rursum peccaretur, quia Paeti piguerat. igitur inriti remittuntur, cum donis tamen, unde spes fieret non frustra eadem oraturum Tiridaten, si preces ipse attulisset. Syriaeque executio C. Cestio, copiae militares Corbuloni permissae; et quinta decima legio ducente Mario Celso e Pannonia adiecta est. scribitur tetrarchis ac regibus praefectisque et procuratoribus et qui praetorum finitimas provincias regebant iussis Corbulonis obsequi, in tantum ferme modum aucta potestate quem populus Romanus Cn. Pompeio bellum piraticum gesturo dederat. regressum Paetum, cum graviora metueret, facetiis insectari satis habuit Caesar, his ferme verbis: ignoscere se statim, ne tam promptus in pavorem longiore sollicitudine aegresceret.

But Corbulo—the fourth and twelfth legions, which, every bravest man lost and the rest terrified, seemed little fit for battle, having been transferred into Syria—leads thence the sixth and third legions, unspent soldiery trained by frequent and prosperous toils, into Armenia; and he added the fifth legion, which, operating through Pontus, had been free of the disaster, along with the men of the fifteenth lately brought up, and detachments of picked men from Illyricum and Egypt, and what there was of cavalry-squadrons and cohorts, and the auxiliaries of the kings, all gathered into one at Melitene, where he was making ready to cross the Euphrates. Then, the army duly purified, he calls it to an assembly and begins with magnificent words about the auspices of the imperator and the things done by himself, turning the reverses aside onto the incompetence of Paetus, with much authority—which in a military man served in place of eloquence.

At Corbulo quarta et duodecima legionibus quae fortissimo quoque amisso et ceteris exterritis parum habiles proelio videbantur in Syriam translatis, sextam inde ac tertiam legiones, integrum militem et crebris ac prosperis laboribus exercitum, in Armeniam ducit; addiditque legionem quintam, quae per Pontum agens expers cladis fuerat, simul quintadecimanos recens adductos et vexilla delectorum ex Illyrico et Aegypto, quodque alarum cohortiumque, et auxilia regum in unum conducta apud Melitenen, qua tramittere Euphraten parabat. tum lustratum rite exercitum ad contionem vocat orditurque magnifica de auspiciis imperatoris rebusque a se gestis, adversa in inscitiam Paeti declinans, multa auctoritate, quae viro militari pro facundia erat.

Then he proceeds by the route once penetrated by Lucius Lucullus, the passes being opened that age had hedged up. And, not spurning the envoys of Tiridates and Vologeses who came concerning peace, he joins to them centurions with instructions not unkind: for it had not yet come to the pass where an extreme contest was needed. Many things had fallen out prosperously for the Romans, some for the Parthians, as a lesson against pride. Accordingly it was to Tiridates’s advantage to receive as a gift a kingdom untouched by devastations, and Vologeses would better consult for the Parthian nation by a Roman alliance than by mutual injuries. He knew, [said Corbulo,] how much discord was within, and how untamed and over-fierce the nations were that [Vologeses] ruled: whereas his own imperator had unmoved peace everywhere, and this one war alone. At the same time he adds terror to counsel, and drives from their seats the Armenian grandees who had first revolted from us, razes their forts, and fills plain and height, strong and weak, with equal dread.

Mox iter L. Lucullo quondam penetratum, apertis quae vetustas obsaepserat, pergit. et venientis Tiridatis Vologesisque de pace legatos haud aspernatus, adiungit iis centuriones cum mandatis non immitibus: nec enim adhuc eo ventum ut certamine extremo opus esset. multa Romanis secunda, quaedam Parthis evenisse, documento adversus superbiam. proinde et Tiridati conducere intactum vastationibus regnum dono accipere et Vologesen melius societate Romana quam damnis mutuis genti Parthorum consulturum. scire quantum intus discordiarum quamque indomitas et praeferocis nationes regeret: contra imperatori suo immotam ubique pacem et unum id bellum esse. simul consilio terrorem adicere et megistanas Armenios, qui primi a nobis defecerant, pellit sedibus, castella eorum excindit, plana edita, validos invalidosque pari metu complet.

The name of Corbulo was held, even by the barbarians, not hostile nor with an enemy’s hatred, and on that account they believed his counsel trustworthy. So Vologeses, not fierce on the main issue, asks a truce for certain prefectures; Tiridates demands a place and a day for a conference. A time near at hand, and a place in which the legions had lately been besieged with Paetus, was chosen by the barbarians for the memory of the more joyful event there—not shunned by Corbulo, that the unlikeness of fortune might augment his glory. Nor was he troubled by the infamy of Paetus, which was made most plain by this, that he ordered Paetus’s son, a tribune, to lead the maniples and cover over the remains of the ill-fought battle. On the appointed day Tiberius Alexander, an illustrious Roman knight, given as a minister for the war, and Annius Vinicianus, Corbulo’s son-in-law, not yet of senatorial age and set over the fifth legion as legate, came into the camp of Tiridates—for his honor, and that he should not fear treachery, given such a pledge; twenty horsemen apiece were then taken on. And at the sight of Corbulo the king first leaped down from his horse; nor did Corbulo delay, but both, on foot, joined right hands.

Non infensum nec cum hostili odio Corbulonis nomen etiam barbaris habebatur eoque consilium eius fidum credebant. ergo Vologeses neque atrox in summam et quibusdam praefecturis indutias petit: Tiridates locum diemque conloquio poscit. tempus propinquum, locus in quo nuper obsessae cum Paeto legiones erant barbaris delectus est ob memoriam laetioris ibi rei, Corbuloni non vitatus ut dissimilitudo fortunae gloriam augeret. neque infamia Paeti angebatur, quod eo maxime patuit quia filio eius tribuno ducere manipulos atque operire reliquias malae pugnae imperavit. die pacta Tiberius Alexander, inlustris eques Romanus, minister bello datus, et Vinicianus Annius, gener Corbulonis, nondum senatoria aetate et pro legato quintae legioni impositus, in castra Tiridatis venere, honori eius ac ne metueret insidias tali pignore; viceni dehinc equites adsumpti. et viso Corbulone rex prior equo desiluit; nec cunctatus Corbulo, sed pedes uterque dexteras miscuere.

Then the Roman praises the youth for abandoning headlong courses and laying hold of safe and salutary ones: he, after much preface about the nobility of his birth, adds the rest with restraint—that he would indeed go to Rome and bring Caesar a new distinction, an Arsacid as suppliant though the Parthians’ affairs were not adverse. Then it was agreed that Tiridates should lay down the royal emblem before the image of Caesar, and not take it up again save by the hand of Nero; and the conference was ended with a kiss. Then, a few days interposed, with great show on both sides—on the one hand the cavalry drawn up by squadrons and in their native insignia, on the other the columns of the legions stood with gleaming eagles and standards and images of the gods after the manner of a temple: in the midst a tribunal sustained a curule chair, and the chair an effigy of Nero. Advancing to it, Tiridates, victims slain after the custom, took the diadem from his head and laid it beneath the image, amid great stirrings of feeling in all, which were heightened by the slaughter or the siege of the Roman armies, still planted in their eyes: but now the lot was reversed; Tiridates would go, a spectacle to the nations—by how much less than a captive?

Exim Romanus laudat iuvenem omissis praecipitibus tuta et salutaria capessentem: ille de nobilitate generis multum praefatus, cetera temperanter adiungit: iturum quippe Romam laturumque novum Caesari decus, non adversis Parthorum rebus supplicem Arsaciden. tum placuit Tiridaten ponere apud effigiem Caesaris insigne regium nec nisi manu Neronis resumere; et conloquium osculo finitum. dein paucis diebus interiectis magna utrimque specie inde eques compositus per turmas et insignibus patriis, hinc agmina legionum stetere fulgentibus aquilis signisque et simulacris deum in modum templi: medio tribunal sedem curulem et sedes effigiem Neronis sustinebat. ad quam progressus Tiridates, caesis ex more victimis, sublatum capiti diadema imagini subiecit, magnis apud cunctos animorum motibus, quos augebat insita adhuc oculis exercituum Romanorum caedes aut obsidio: at nunc versos casus; iturum Tiridaten ostentui gentibus quanto minus quam captivum?

Corbulo added to his glory courtesy and feasts; and, the king repeatedly asking the reasons whenever he had noticed something new—as that the openings of the watches were announced by a centurion, that the banquet was dismissed by the war-trumpet, and that the altar built before the augural tent was kindled by a torch set beneath—he, exalting all to a grander scale, filled him with admiration of the ancient usage. On the next day [Tiridates] begged a space of time in which, about to go so great a journey, he might first visit his brothers and his mother; meanwhile he hands over his daughter as a hostage, and suppliant letters to Nero.

Addidit gloriae Corbulo comitatem epulasque; et rogitante rege causas, quoties novum aliquid adverterat, ut initia vigiliarum per centurionem nuntiari, convivium bucina dimitti et structam ante augurale aram subdita face accendi, cuncta in maius attollens admiratione prisci moris adfecit. postero die spatium oravit quo tantum itineris aditurus fratres ante matremque viseret; obsidem interea filiam tradit litterasque supplices ad Neronem.

And departing, he found Pacorus among the Medes, Vologeses at Ecbatana, not unconcerned for his brother: for he had even, by special messengers, asked of Corbulo that Tiridates undergo no semblance of servitude, nor hand over his sword, nor be barred from the embrace of those who held the provinces, nor stand waiting at their doors, and that at Rome his honor should be as great as the consuls’. No doubt, accustomed to foreign pride, he had no acquaintance with us, with whom the substance of empire counts, while empty trappings are let pass.

Et digressus Pacorum apud Medos, Vologesen Ecbatanis repperit non incuriosum fratris: quippe et propriis nuntiis a Corbulone petierat ne quam imaginem servitii Tiridates perferret neu ferrum traderet aut complexu provincias obtinentium arceretur foribusve eorum adsisteret, tantusque ei Romae quantus consulibus honor esset. scilicet externae superbiae sueto non inerat notitia nostri apud quos vis imperii valet, inania tramittuntur.

In the same year Caesar transferred the nations of the Maritime Alps to the right of Latium. He set the places of the Roman knights before the seats of the plebs at the circus; for up to that day they had entered without distinction, since the Roscian law had sanctioned nothing except concerning the fourteen rows. The same year had shows of gladiators of equal magnificence with the former; but more illustrious women and senators were defiled in the arena.

Eodem anno Caesar nationes Alpium maritimarum in ius Latii transtulit. equitum Romanorum locos sedilibus plebis anteposuit apud circum; namque ad eam diem indiscreti inibant, quia lex Roscia nihil nisi de quattuordecim ordinibus sanxit. spectacula gladiatorum idem annus habuit pari magnificentia ac priora; sed feminarum inlustrium senatorumque plures per arenam foedati sunt.

In the consulship of Gaius Laecanius and Marcus Licinius, Nero was driven by a desire growing keener day by day to haunt the public stages: for thus far he had sung within his house or gardens, at the Juvenalian games, which he now scorned as too little frequented and too cramped for so great a voice. Not daring, however, to begin at Rome, he chose Naples, as a Greek city: thence would be the beginning, that, having crossed over into Achaia and won the famous and anciently hallowed crowns, he might, with greater fame, draw out the enthusiasm of the citizens. So a crowd of townsfolk was gathered, and those whom the fame of the affair had summoned from the nearest colonies and municipalities, and those who follow Caesar for honor or for various uses, even maniples of soldiers, fill the theater of the Neapolitans.

C. Laecanio M. Licinio consulibus acriore in dies cupidine adigebatur Nero promiscas scaenas frequentandi: nam adhuc per domum aut hortos cecinerat Iuvenalibus ludis, quos ut parum celebris et tantae voci angustos spernebat. non tamen Romae incipere ausus Neapolim quasi Graecam urbem delegit: inde initium fore ut transgressus in Achaiam insignisque et antiquitus sacras coronas adeptus maiore fama studia civium eliceret. ergo contractum oppidanorum vulgus, et quos e proximis coloniis et municipiis eius rei fama acciverat, quique Caesarem per honorem aut varios usus sectantur, etiam militum manipuli, theatrum Neapolitanorum complent.

There, as most thought, a grim thing, but, as he himself reckoned, rather a providential one, and with favorable deities, came to pass: for, the people who had been present having gone out, the theater collapsed empty, and without harm to anyone. So, in studied songs giving thanks to the gods and extolling the very luck of the recent mishap, and about to seek the crossing of the Adriatic sea, he settled meanwhile at Beneventum, where a famous gladiatorial show was being given by Vatinius. Vatinius was among the foulest portents of that court—a nursling of a cobbler’s stall, of twisted body, of buffoonish drollery; taken up at first for the purpose of insults, then, by accusing each best man, he prevailed so far that in influence, money, and the power to do harm he outdid even the wicked.

Illic, plerique ut arbitrabantur, triste, ut ipse, providum potius et secundis numinibus evenit: nam egresso qui adfuerat populo vacuum et sine ullius noxa theatrum conlapsum est. ergo per compositos cantus grates dis atque ipsam recentis casus fortunam celebrans petiturusque maris Hadriae traiectus apud Beneventum interim consedit, ubi gladiatorium munus a Vatinio celebre edebatur. Vatinius inter foedissima eius aulae ostenta fuit, sutrinae tabernae alumnus, corpore detorto, facetiis scurrilibus; primo in contumelias adsumptus, dehinc optimi cuiusque criminatione eo usque valuit ut gratia pecunia vi nocendi etiam malos praemineret.

While Nero frequented his show, not even amid pleasures was there a respite from crimes. For in those very days Torquatus Silanus is driven to die, because, beyond the renown of the Junian house, he reckoned the deified Augustus his great-great-grandfather. The accusers were ordered to charge that he was prodigal in his givings, and had no other hope than in revolution: nay, that he kept among his freedmen men he styled secretaries of letters, of petitions, of accounts—titles belonging to the highest charge, and rehearsals of it. Then each of his most intimate freedmen was bound and dragged off; and when condemnation was at hand, Torquatus cut through the veins of his arms; and there followed a speech of Nero’s, after his wont: that, guilty as he was and rightly distrustful of his defense, he would yet have lived, had he but awaited the clemency of the judge.

Eius munus frequentanti Neroni ne inter voluptates quidem a sceleribus cessabatur. isdem quippe illis diebus Torquatus Silanus mori adigitur, quia super Iuniae familiae claritudinem divum Augustum abavum ferebat. iussi accusatores obicere prodigum largitionibus, neque aliam spem quam in rebus novis esse: quin inter libertos habere quos ab epistulis et libellis et rationibus appellet, nomina summae curae et meditamenta. tum intimus quisque libertorum vincti abreptique; et cum damnatio instaret, brachiorum venas Torquatus interscidit; secutaque Neronis oratio ex more, quamvis sontem et defensioni merito diffisum victurum tamen fuisse si clementiam iudicis expectasset.

And not long after, Achaia being given up for the present—the causes were uncertain—he revisited the city, turning over in secret imaginings the provinces of the East, and above all Egypt. Then, having attested by edict that his absence would not be long, and that all in the commonwealth would be alike unshaken and prosperous, he went up to the Capitol on the occasion of that departure. There, having venerated the gods, when he had entered the temple of Vesta too, suddenly trembling through all his limbs—whether terrified by the divinity, or, from the recollection of his crimes, never void of fear—he abandoned the undertaking, protesting that all his cares were lighter to him than his love of country. He had seen the mournful faces of the citizens, he heard their secret complaints, that he was about to go so great a journey, whose even moderate excursions they could not bear, accustomed to be revived against mischances by the sight of the princeps. Therefore, as in private ties the nearest pledges prevail, so the Roman people had the greatest force, and he must obey it as it held him back. These and such things were welcome to the plebs, in their craving for pleasures and—what is their chief concern—dreading, if he were away, the straits of the corn-supply. The Senate and the chief men were uncertain whether he was held the more dreadful far off or near at hand: then, as is the way with great fears, they thought what had come to pass the worse.

Nec multo post omissa in praesens Achaia (causae in incerto fuere) urbem revisit, provincias Orientis, maxime Aegyptum, secretis imaginationibus agitans. dehinc edicto testificatus non longam sui absentiam et cuncta in re publica perinde immota ac prospera fore, super ea profectione adiit Capitolium. illic veneratus deos, cum Vestae quoque templum inisset, repente cunctos per artus tremens, seu numine exterrente, seu facinorum recordatione numquam timore vacuus, deseruit inceptum, cunctas sibi curas amore patriae leviores dictitans. vidisse maestos civium vultus, audire secretas querimonias, quod tantum itineris aditurus esset, cuius ne modicos quidem egressus tolerarent, sueti adversum fortuita aspectu principis refoveri. ergo ut in privatis necessitudinibus proxima pignora praevalerent, ita populum Romanum vim plurimam habere parendumque retinenti. haec atque talia plebi volentia fuere, voluptatum cupidine et, quae praecipua cura est, rei frumentariae angustias, si abesset, metuenti. senatus et primores in incerto erant procul an coram atrocior haberetur: dehinc, quae natura magnis timoribus, deterius credebant quod evenerat.

He himself, to win belief that nowhere was anything so pleasing to him, set out banquets in public places and used the whole city as if it were his house. And most renowned for luxury and report were the feasts prepared by Tigellinus, which I will set down as a specimen, lest the same prodigality must be told too often. So, on the lake of Agrippa, he had a raft built, on which a banquet was placed, to be moved by the towing of other vessels. The ships were picked out in gold and ivory, and the rowers, catamites, were arranged by their ages and their skill in lusts. He had sought out birds and beasts from diverse lands, and creatures of the sea even from the Ocean. Along the embankments of the pool stood brothels filled with women of rank, and over against them were seen harlots with naked bodies. Now there were obscene gestures and movements; and after darkness came on, all the neighboring grove and the surrounding roofs rang with song and grew bright with lights. He himself, befouled through things lawful and unlawful, had left no infamy whereby he might pass a life more corrupt, save that, a few days after, he was wedded, as the bride, in the manner of formal marriages, to one of that herd of the polluted (his name was Pythagoras). The bridal veil was put upon the emperor, the augurs were sent for; there were a dowry, a marriage-couch, and nuptial torches—everything, in fine, was on view that even in a woman the night conceals.

Ipse quo fidem adquireret nihil usquam perinde laetum sibi, publicis locis struere convivia totaque urbe quasi domo uti. et celeberrimae luxu famaque epulae fuere quas a Tigellino paratas ut exemplum referam, ne saepius eadem prodigentia narranda sit. igitur in stagno Agrippae fabricatus est ratem cui superpositum convivium navium aliarum tractu moveretur. naves auro et ebore distinctae, remiges- que exoleti per aetates et scientiam libidinum componebantur. volucris et feras diversis e terris et animalia maris Oceano abusque petiverat. crepidinibus stagni lupanaria adstabant inlustribus feminis completa et contra scorta visebantur nudis corporibus. iam gestus motusque obsceni; et postquam tenebrae incedebant, quantum iuxta nemoris et circumiecta tecta consonare cantu et luminibus clarescere. ipse per licita atque inlicita foedatus nihil flagitii reliquerat quo corruptior ageret, nisi paucos post dies uni ex illo contaminatorum grege (nomen Pythagorae fuit) in modum sollemnium coniugiorum denupsisset. inditum imperatori flammeum, missi auspices, dos et genialis torus et faces nuptiales, cuncta denique spectata quae etiam in femina nox operit.

There follows a disaster—whether by chance or by the prince’s guile is uncertain, for authors have handed down both—but graver and more atrocious than all that have befallen this city through the violence of fires. Its beginning arose in that part of the circus which adjoins the Palatine and Caelian hills, where, among the shops that held such merchandise as feeds a flame, the fire, no sooner begun than strong, and driven by the wind, seized upon the whole length of the circus. For no houses fenced with defenses, nor temples girt with walls, nor anything else, lay between to delay it. With its onset the conflagration ranged over the level ground first, then, rising to the heights and again ravaging the lower places, it forestalled all remedies by the swiftness of the mischief, the city lying open to it with its narrow streets bent this way and that, and its irregular blocks—such as old Rome was. Add to this the wailings of terrified women, of those worn with age or raw in childhood, and those who looked to themselves or to others—while they drag the helpless or wait for them, some by lingering, some by haste, all hindered everything. And often, while they looked back behind them, they were surrounded on the flanks or in front; or, if they had got away into the nearest parts, with those too caught by the fire, they found even what they had believed far off in the same plight. At last, in doubt what to shun, what to seek, they crowded the streets, they strewed themselves over the fields; some, all their fortunes lost, even their daily food, others from love of their own, whom they had not been able to snatch away, though the way of escape lay open, perished. Nor did anyone dare to fight the fire, amid the frequent threats of the many who forbade its being quenched, and because others openly threw firebrands and cried out that there was one who authorized them—whether to ply their pillaging the more freely, or by order.

Sequitur clades, forte an dolo principis incertum (nam utrumque auctores prodidere), sed omnibus quae huic urbi per violentiam ignium acciderunt gravior atque atrocior. initium in ea parte circi ortum quae Palatino Caelioque montibus contigua est, ubi per tabernas, quibus id mercimonium inerat quo flamma alitur, simul coeptus ignis et statim validus ac vento citus longitudinem circi corripuit. neque enim domus munimentis saeptae vel templa muris cincta aut quid aliud morae interiacebat. impetu pervagatum incendium plana primum, deinde in edita adsurgens et rursus inferiora populando, antiit remedia velocitate mali et obnoxia urbe artis itineribus hucque et illuc flexis atque enormibus vicis, qualis vetus Roma fuit. ad hoc lamenta paventium feminarum, fessa aetate aut rudis pueritiae, quique sibi quique aliis consulebant, dum trahunt invalidos aut opperiuntur, pars mora, pars festinans, cuncta impediebant. et saepe dum in tergum respectant lateribus aut fronte circumveniebantur, vel si in proxima evaserant, illis quoque igni correptis, etiam quae longinqua crediderant in eodem casu reperiebant. postremo, quid vitarent quid peterent ambigui, complere vias, sterni per agros; quidam amissis omnibus fortunis, diurni quoque victus, alii caritate suorum, quos eripere nequiverant, quamvis patente effugio interiere. nec quisquam defendere audebat, crebris multorum minis restinguere prohibentium, et quia alii palam faces iaciebant atque esse sibi auctorem vociferabantur, sive ut raptus licentius exercerent seu iussu.

At that time Nero, staying at Antium, did not return to the city before the fire approached his house, by which he had made the Palatium and the gardens of Maecenas continuous. Nor, however, could it be stopped from devouring both the Palatium and the house and everything around. But, as a solace to the people, dislodged and in flight, he opened the Field of Mars and the monuments of Agrippa, nay even his own gardens, and ran up hasty buildings to take in the destitute throng; and necessaries were brought up from Ostia and the neighboring municipalities, and the price of corn brought down to three sesterces. Which things, popular though they were, fell flat, because a rumor had spread that, at the very time the city was ablaze, he had mounted his private stage and sung of the fall of Troy, likening the present ills to the calamities of old.

Eo in tempore Nero Antii agens non ante in urbem regressus est quam domui eius, qua Palatium et Maecenatis hortos continuaverat, ignis propinquaret. neque tamen sisti potuit quin et Palatium et domus et cuncta circum haurirentur. sed solacium populo exturbato ac profugo campum Martis ac monumenta Agrippae, hortos quin etiam suos patefecit et subitaria aedificia extruxit quae multitudinem inopem acciperent; subvectaque utensilia ab Ostia et propinquis municipiis pretiumque frumenti minutum usque ad ternos nummos. quae quamquam popularia in inritum cadebant, quia pervaserat rumor ipso tempore flagrantis urbis inisse eum domesticam scaenam et cecinisse Troianum excidium, praesentia mala vetustis cladibus adsimulantem.

On the sixth day at last, at the foot of the Esquiline, an end was made to the fire, buildings being pulled down over an immense space, so that to the unbroken violence there should be presented open ground and, as it were, an empty sky. And not yet was the fear laid aside, nor had hope returned to the plebs: the fire stalked anew, in the more open places of the city; and so the loss of human life was less, but the shrines of the gods and the porticoes dedicated to delight fell over a wider area. And that fire had the more infamy because it had broken out from the Aemilian estates of Tigellinus, and it seemed that Nero was seeking the glory of founding a new city and calling it by his own name. For Rome is divided into fourteen regions, of which four remained entire, three were leveled to the ground: of the seven that remained there survived a few traces of buildings, mangled and half-burned.

Sexto demum die apud imas Esquilias finis incendio factus, prorutis per immensum aedificiis ut continuae violentiae campus et velut vacuum caelum occurreret. necdum positus metus aut redierat plebi spes: rursum grassatus ignis patulis magis urbis locis; eoque strages hominum minor, delubra deum et porticus amoenitati dicatae latius procidere. plusque infamiae id incendium habuit quia praediis Tigellini Aemilianis proruperat videbaturque Nero condendae urbis novae et cognomento suo appellandae gloriam quaerere. quippe in regiones quattuordecim Roma dividitur, quarum quattuor integrae manebant, tres solo tenus deiectae: septem reliquis pauca tectorum vestigia supererant, lacera et semusta.

It would not be easy to enter the number of the houses and tenement-blocks and temples that were lost: but there were burned, of the most ancient sanctity, what Servius Tullius had dedicated to the Moon, and the great altar and shrine which the Arcadian Evander had consecrated to the Hercules present before him, and the temple of Jupiter the Stayer vowed by Romulus, and the palace of Numa, and the shrine of Vesta with the household gods of the Roman people; now too the wealth gained by so many victories, and the glories of Greek arts, then the ancient and uncorrupted monuments of genius—so that, however great the beauty of the rising city, the older men remembered many things that could not be restored. There were those who noted that this fire took its beginning on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of Sextilis, the very day on which the Senones too had set the captured city aflame. Others have gone so far in their care as to count the same number of years and months and days between the two fires.

Domuum et insularum et templorum quae amissa sunt numerum inire haud promptum fuerit: sed vetustissima religione, quod Servius Tullius Lunae et magna ara fanumque quae praesenti Herculi Arcas Evander sacraverat, aedesque Statoris Iovis vota Romulo Numaeque regia et delubrum Vestae cum Penatibus populi Romani exusta; iam opes tot victoriis quaesitae et Graecarum artium decora, exim monumenta ingeniorum antiqua et incorrupta, ut quamvis in tanta resurgentis urbis pulchritudine multa seniores meminerint quae reparari nequibant. fuere qui adnotarent xiiii Kal. Sextilis principium incendii huius ortum, et quo Senones captam urbem inflammaverint. alii eo usque cura progressi sunt ut totidem annos mensisque et dies inter utraque incendia numerent.

But Nero made use of his country’s ruins, and built a house in which the wonder lay not so much in gems and gold—long familiar and made commonplace by luxury—as in fields and pools, and, in the manner of wildernesses, here woods, there open spaces and prospects, with Severus and Celer for masters and contrivers, who had the genius and the boldness to attempt by art even what nature had refused, and to trifle with the prince’s resources. For they had promised to sink a navigable canal from the Avernian lake all the way to the mouths of the Tiber, over the desolate shore or through the opposing mountains. For nothing watery for the breeding of waters offers itself but the Pomptine marshes: the rest is sheer cliff or parched, and, even if it could be broken through, the toil would be intolerable, nor was there cause enough. Nero, however, craver of the incredible as he was, strove to dig out the ridges nearest Avernus; and the traces of that fruitless hope remain.

Ceterum Nero usus est patriae ruinis extruxitque domum in qua haud proinde gemmae et aurum miraculo essent, solita pridem et luxu vulgata, quam arva et stagna et in modum solitudinum hinc silvae inde aperta spatia et prospectus, magistris et machinatoribus Severo et Celere, quibus ingenium et audacia erat etiam quae natura denegavisset per artem temptare et viribus principis inludere. namque ab lacu Averno navigabilem fossam usque ad ostia Tiberina depressuros promiserant squalenti litore aut per montis adversos. neque enim aliud umidum gignendis aquis occurrit quam Pomptinae paludes: cetera abrupta aut arentia ac, si perrumpi possent, intolerandus labor nec satis causae. Nero tamen, ut erat incredibilium cupitor, effodere proxima Averno iuga conisus est; manentque vestigia inritae spei.

But the parts of the city that remained over from his house were rebuilt, not, as after the Gallic fires, with no distinction nor at random, but with the rows of the blocks measured out, and broad spaces of streets, and the height of the buildings restrained, and the courts opened up, and porticoes added to protect the front of the tenement-blocks. These porticoes Nero promised to build at his own money, and to hand over the courts, cleared, to their owners. He added rewards according to each man’s rank and the resources of his estate, and fixed a time within which, their houses or blocks being finished, they should take possession. For the receiving of the rubble he marked out the Ostian marshes, and [ordered] that the ships which had carried up grain by the Tiber should run down laden with rubble; and that the buildings themselves, in a fixed part of them, should be made solid, without beams, of Gabine or Alban stone, because that stone is impervious to fire; and that the water, cut off by the license of private men, should flow more abundantly and in more places for public use, with watchmen set; and that everyone should keep, in open view, the means for checking fires; nor should there be party-walls in common, but each building be girt with its own. These things, adopted from utility, brought a comeliness too to the new city. Yet there were those who believed that the old form had conduced more to health, since the narrowness of the streets and the height of the roofs were not so pierced by the heat of the sun: but now the open breadth, defended by no shade, glowed with a heavier heat.

Ceterum urbis quae domui supererant non, ut post Gallica incendia, nulla distinctione nec passim erecta, sed dimensis vicorum ordinibus et latis viarum spatiis cohibitaque aedificiorum altitudine ac patefactis areis additisque porticibus quae frontem insularum protegerent. eas porticus Nero sua pecunia extructurum purgatasque areas dominis traditurum pollicitus est. addidit praemia pro cuiusque ordine et rei familiaris copiis finivitque tempus intra quod effectis domibus aut insulis apiscerentur. ruderi accipiendo Ostiensis paludes destinabat utique naves quae frumentum Tiberi subvectassent onustae rudere decurrerent; aedificiaque ipsa certa sui parte sine trabibus saxo Gabino Albanove solidarentur, quod is lapis ignibus impervius est; iam aqua privatorum licentia intercepta quo largior et pluribus locis in publicum flueret, custodes; et subsidia reprimendis ignibus in propatulo quisque haberet; nec communione parietum, sed propriis quaeque muris ambirentur. ea ex utilitate accepta decorem quoque novae urbi attulere. erant tamen qui crederent veterem illam formam salubritati magis conduxisse, quoniam angustiae itinerum et altitudo tectorum non perinde solis vapore perrumperentur: at nunc patulam latitudinem et nulla umbra defensam graviore aestu ardescere.

And these things, indeed, were provided for by human counsels. Soon expiations of the gods were sought, and the Sibylline books consulted, from which supplication was made to Vulcan and to Ceres and Proserpina, and Juno was propitiated by the matrons, first on the Capitol, then by the nearest sea, whence water was drawn and the temple and image of the goddess were sprinkled; and the women who had husbands celebrated sacred feasts and all-night vigils. But neither by human aid, nor by the prince’s largesses or the appeasings of the gods, did the scandal recede, but that the fire was believed to have been ordered. Therefore, to put down the rumor, Nero foisted the guilt upon, and visited with the most exquisite punishments, those whom the populace, hating them for their outrages, called Christians. The author of that name, Christ, had, in the reign of Tiberius, been put to death by the procurator Pontius Pilate; and the deadly superstition, repressed for the moment, was breaking out again, not only through Judaea, the origin of that evil, but through the city too, whither, from every quarter, all things atrocious or shameful flow together and find a following. And so, first those were seized who confessed; then, by their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much on the charge of the fire as for hatred of the human race. And to those perishing mockeries were added, that, wrapped in the hides of wild beasts, they should perish by the mangling of dogs, or be fastened to crosses, or, doomed to the flames, be burned, when daylight had failed, to serve for nocturnal lighting. Nero had offered his own gardens for that spectacle, and was giving a circus-show, mingled in a charioteer’s garb with the plebs, or mounted on a racing-car. Whence, although against men guilty and deserving the most extreme examples, pity arose—as though they were being made away with not for the public good but for the savagery of a single man.

Et haec quidem humanis consiliis providebantur. mox petita dis piacula aditique Sibyllae libri, ex quibus supplicatum Vulcano et Cereri Proserpinaeque ac propitiata Iuno per matronas, primum in Capitolio, deinde apud proximum mare, unde hausta aqua templum et simulacrum deae perspersum est; et sellisternia ac pervigilia celebravere feminae quibus mariti erant. sed non ope humana, non largitionibus principis aut deum placamentis decedebat infamia quin iussum incendium crederetur. ergo abolendo rumori Nero subdidit reos et quaesitissimis poenis adfecit quos per flagitia invisos vulgus Christianos appellabat. auctor nominis eius Christus Tiberio imperitante per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio adfectus erat; repressaque in praesens exitiabilis superstitio rursum erumpebat, non modo per Iudaeam, originem eius mali, sed per urbem etiam quo cuncta undique atrocia aut pudenda confluunt celebranturque. igitur primum correpti qui fatebantur, deinde indicio eorum multitudo ingens haud proinde in crimine incendii quam odio humani generis convicti sunt. et pereuntibus addita ludibria, ut ferarum tergis contecti laniatu canum interirent, aut crucibus adfixi aut flammandi, atque ubi defecisset dies in usum nocturni luminis urerentur. hortos suos ei spectaculo Nero obtulerat et circense ludicrum edebat, habitu aurigae permixtus plebi vel curriculo insistens. unde quamquam adversus sontis et novissima exempla meritos miseratio oriebatur, tamquam non utilitate publica sed in saevitiam unius absumerentur.

Meanwhile, in the collecting of moneys, Italy was thoroughly ravaged, the provinces overthrown, and the allied peoples and those that are called the free cities. And into that plunder even the gods passed, the temples in the city being stripped and the gold drawn out which, in triumphs, in vows, every age of the Roman people had consecrated in prosperity or in fear. But indeed throughout Asia and Achaia not only the offerings, but the very images of the deities were carried off, Acratus and Secundus Carrinas being sent into those provinces. The former a freedman ready for any infamy, the latter versed in Greek learning to the lips, but had not clothed his mind in good arts. Seneca was reported, in order to turn from himself the odium of the sacrilege, to have begged the seclusion of a distant country estate, and, when it was not conceded, with a feigned illness, as though sick in the nerves, not to have left his chamber. Some have handed down that poison was prepared for him by his own freedman, named Cleonicus, at Nero’s order, and avoided by Seneca through the freedman’s disclosure, or through his own dread, while he sustained life on a most simple diet, and wild fruits, and, if thirst prompted, running water.

Interea conferendis pecuniis pervastata Italia, provinciae eversae sociique populi et quae civitatium liberae vocantur. inque eam praedam etiam dii cessere, spoliatis in urbe templis egestoque auro quod triumphis, quod votis omnis populi Romani aetas prospere aut in metu sacraverat. enimvero per Asiam atque Achaiam non dona tantum sed simulacra numinum abripiebantur, missis in eas provincias Acrato ac Secundo Carrinate. ille libertus cuicumque flagitio promptus, hic Graeca doctrina ore tenus exercitus animum bonis artibus non induerat. ferebatur Seneca quo invidiam sacrilegii a semet averteret longinqui ruris secessum oravisse et, postquam non concedebatur, ficta valetudine quasi aeger nervis cubiculum non egressus. tradidere quidam venenum ei per libertum ipsius, cui nomen Cleonicus, paratum iussu Neronis vitatumque a Seneca proditione liberti seu propria formidine, dum persimplici victu et agrestibus pomis ac, si sitis admoneret, profluente aqua vitam tolerat.

About the same time gladiators at the town of Praeneste, having attempted a breakout, were checked by a guard of soldiers set to watch them, the people already, by their rumors, invoking Spartacus and the evils of old, as the people is, both greedy of revolution and afraid of it. And not long after a disaster of the fleet is received—not from war, for at no other time was the peace so unmoved, but Nero had ordered the fleet to return into Campania by a fixed day, with no exception made for the hazards of the sea. So the helmsmen, though the deep raged, moved from Formiae; and, in a heavy southwester, while they strive to round the cape of Misenum, driven upon the Cumaean shores, they lost very many of the triremes and the smaller craft here and there.

Per idem tempus gladiatores apud oppidum Praeneste temptata eruptione praesidio militis, qui custos adesset, coerciti sunt, iam Spartacum et vetera mala rumoribus ferente populo, ut est novarum rerum cupiens pavidusque. nec multo post clades rei navalis accipitur, non bello (quippe haud alias tam immota pax), sed certum ad diem in Campaniam redire classem Nero iusserat, non exceptis maris casibus. ergo gubernatores, quamvis saeviente pelago, a Formiis movere; et gravi Africo, dum promunturium Miseni superare contendunt, Cumanis litoribus impacti triremium plerasque et minora navigia passim amiserunt.

At the end of the year prodigies are spread abroad, heralds of impending evils: a force of lightnings, never at another time more frequent, and a comet—always, with Nero, atoned for by illustrious blood; two-headed offspring of men or other animals, cast out into public view or found in the sacrifices, in which it is the custom to immolate pregnant victims. And in the territory of Placentia, beside the road, a calf was born whose head was on its leg; and there followed the interpretation of the soothsayers, that another head of human affairs was being prepared, but would not be strong nor concealed, because it had been kept back in the womb, or brought forth beside the way.

Fine anni vulgantur prodigia imminentium malorum nuntia: vis fulgurum non alias crebrior et sidus cometes, sanguine inlustri semper Neroni expiatum; bicipites hominum aliorumve animalium partus abiecti in publicum aut in sacrificiis, quibus gravidas hostias immolare mos est, reperti. et in agro Placentino viam propter natus vitulus cui caput in crure esset; secutaque haruspicum interpretatio, parari rerum humanarum aliud caput, sed non fore validum neque occultum, quia in utero repressum aut iter iuxta editum sit.

Then Silius Nerva and Atticus Vestinus enter on the consulship, a conspiracy being at once begun and increased, into which senators, knight, soldier, women too had vied in giving their names, both from hatred of Nero and from favor toward Gaius Piso. He, sprung of the Calpurnian line and embracing, by his father’s nobility, many illustrious families, was of bright report among the common folk, through virtue, or semblances resembling virtues. For he plied his eloquence in defending citizens, his bounty toward friends, and to strangers too [was] agreeable in talk and meeting; there were present also the gifts of fortune—a tall body, a comely face: but far from him were gravity of character or thrift in pleasures; he indulged levity and magnificence and sometimes luxury, and this won approval with the many, who, amid so great a sweetness of the vices, want the highest power neither close-fisted nor over-stern.

Ineunt deinde consulatum Silius Nerva et Atticus Vestinus, coepta simul et aucta coniuratione in quam certatim nomina dederant senatores eques miles, feminae etiam, cum odio Neronis tum favore in C. Pisonem. is Calpurnio genere ortus ac multas insignisque familias paterna nobilitate complexus, claro apud vulgum rumore erat per virtutem aut species virtutibus similis. namque facundiam tuendis civibus exercebat, largitionem adversum amicos, et ignotis quoque comi sermone et congressu; aderant etiam fortuita, corpus procerum, decora facies: sed procul gravitas morum aut voluptatum parsimonia; levitati ac magnificentiae et aliquando luxu indulgebat, idque pluribus probabatur qui in tanta vitiorum dulcedine summum imperium non restrictum nec perseverum volunt.

The beginning of the conspiracy did not come from any craving of Piso himself: nor yet could I easily relate who was the first author, by whose prompting was stirred what so many took up. That Subrius Flavus, tribune of a praetorian cohort, and Sulpicius Asper, a centurion, were the readiest, the steadfastness of their end proved; and Lucanus Annaeus and Plautius Lateranus brought lively hatreds. Lucan was kindled by personal causes, because Nero was crushing the fame of his poems and had forbidden him to display them—vain in his pretense [of being a poet]. Lateranus, consul-designate, no injury but love of the commonwealth allied. But Flavius Scaevinus and Afranius Quintianus, both of senatorial rank, against their own reputation took up the beginning of so great a deed: for Scaevinus had a mind unstrung by luxury, and hence a life languid with sleep; Quintianus, of ill fame for the softness of his body and traduced by Nero in an abusive poem, was going to avenge the insult.

Initium coniurationi non a cupidine ipsius fuit: nec tamen facile memoraverim quis primus auctor, cuius instinctu concitum sit quod tam multi sumpserunt. promptissimos Subrium Flavum tribunum praetoriae cohortis et Sulpicium Asprum centurionem extitisse constantia exitus docuit; et Lucanus Annaeus Plautiusque Lateranus vivida odia intulere. Lucanum propriae causae accendebant, quod famam carminum eius premebat Nero prohibueratque ostentare, vanus adsimulatione: Lateranum consulem designatum nulla iniuria sed amor rei publicae sociavit. at Flavius Scaevinus et Afranius Quintianus, uterque senatorii ordinis, contra famam sui principium tanti facinoris capessivere: nam Scaevino dissoluta luxu mens et proinde vita somno languida; Quintianus mollitia corporis infamis et a Nerone probroso carmine diffamatus contumeliam ultum ibat.

So, while among themselves or among friends they cast about [the talk] that the prince’s crimes and the end of his rule were at hand, and that one must be chosen to succor the wearied state, they joined to them Claudius Senecio, Cervarius Proculus, Vulcacius Araricus, Julius Augurinus, Munatius Gratus, Antonius Natalis, Marcius Festus, Roman knights; of whom Senecio, drawn from a special intimacy with Nero and even then keeping up the appearance of friendship, was beset by the more dangers on that account: Natalis was a partner in every secret with Piso; for the rest, hope was sought from a revolution. There were enrolled, besides Subrius and Sulpicius, of whom I have told, the soldierly hands of Gavius Silvanus and Statius Proxumus, tribunes of the praetorian cohorts, and of Maximus Scaurus and Venetus Paulus, centurions. But the chief strength seemed to be in Faenius Rufus, the prefect, whom—praised in life and repute—Tigellinus, through savagery and lewdness, outstripped in the prince’s favor, and wore down with accusations, and had often brought into fear, as though he were an adulterer of Agrippina and, from longing for her, bent on revenge. So when, by his own frequent speech, belief was made to the conspirators that the prefect of the praetorian guard too had come down to their side, they now debated more readily about the time and place of the killing. And it was reported that Subrius Flavus had conceived an impulse to attack Nero as he sang upon the stage, or when, the house burning, he ran to and fro by night unguarded. Here the chance of solitude, there the very throng—witness of so fair a deed—had goaded his spirit most splendidly, had not the longing for impunity held him back, ever the foe of great enterprises.

Ergo dum scelera principis et finem adesse imperio deligendumque qui fessis rebus succurreret inter se aut inter amicos iaciunt, adgregavere Claudium Senecionem, Cervarium Proculum, Vulcacium Araricum, Iulium Augurinum, Munatium Gratum, Antonium Natalem, Marcium Festum, equites Romanos; ex quibus Senecio, e praecipua familiaritate Neronis, speciem amicitiae etiam tum retinens eo pluribus periculis conflictabatur: Natalis particeps ad omne secretum Pisoni erat; ceteris spes ex novis rebus petebatur. adscitae sunt super Subrium et Sulpicium, de quibus rettuli, militares manus Gavius Silvanus et Statius Proxumus tribuni cohortium praetoriarum, Maximus Scaurus et Venetus Paulus centuriones. sed summum robur in Faenio Rufo praefecto videbatur, quem vita famaque laudatum per saevitiam impudicitiamque Tigellinus in animo principis antibat fatigabatque criminationibus ac saepe in metum adduxerat quasi adulterum Agrippinae et desiderio eius ultioni intentum. igitur ubi coniuratis praefectum quoque praetorii in partis descendisse crebro ipsius sermone facta fides, promptius iam de tempore ac loco caedis agitabant. et cepisse impetum Subrius Flavus ferebatur in scaena canentem Neronem adgrediendi, aut cum ardente domo per noctem huc illuc cursaret incustoditus. hic occasio solitudinis, ibi ipsa frequentia tanti decoris testis pul- cherrima animum extimulaverant, nisi impunitatis cupido retinuisset, magnis semper conatibus adversa.

Meanwhile, as they hesitated and put off hope and fear, a certain Epicharis—it is uncertain by what means she had got knowledge, nor had she before any care for honorable things—set to kindling and reproaching the conspirators, and at last, sick of their slowness, and being in Campania, tried to undermine the chief men of the Misenum fleet and to bind them by complicity, with such a beginning. There was a ship-captain in that fleet, Volusius Proculus, one of Nero’s agents for the killing of his mother, not advanced, as he reckoned, in proportion to the greatness of the crime. He, an old acquaintance of the woman, or by a friendship lately sprung up, while he lays open his services toward Nero and how they had fallen out in vain, and adds his complaints and a fixed purpose of revenge if a chance arose, gave hope that he could be impelled and could win over more: nor was it a slight help in the fleet, with frequent occasions, because Nero took much delight in the use of the sea about Puteoli and Misenum. So Epicharis says yet more; and she rehearses all the crimes of the princeps, and that nothing was left to the Senate. But provision had been made how he might pay the penalty for the overthrown commonwealth: let him only gird himself to lend zealous service and lead the keenest of the soldiers to their side, and look for worthy rewards; the names of the conspirators, however, she kept back. Whence the information of Proculus was vain, although he had carried what he had heard to Nero. For Epicharis, summoned and set face to face with the informer, easily confuted him, who leaned on no witnesses. But she herself was kept in custody, Nero suspecting that even what was not being proved true was not on that account false.

Interim cunctantibus prolatantibusque spem ac metum Epicharis quaedam, incertum quonam modo sciscitata (neque illi ante ulla rerum honestarum cura fuerat), accendere et arguere coniuratos, ac postremum lentitudinis eorum pertaesa et in Campania agens primores classiariorum Misenensium labefacere et conscientia inligare conisa est tali initio. erat nauarchus in ea classe Volusius Proculus, occidendae matris Neroni inter ministros, non ex magnitudine sceleris provectus, ut rebatur. is mulieri olim cognitus, seu recens orta amicitia, dum merita erga Neronem sua et quam in inritum cecidissent aperit adicitque questus et destinationem vindictae, si facultas oreretur, spem dedit posse impelli et pluris conciliare: nec leve auxilium in classe, crebras occasiones, quia Nero multo apud Puteolos et Misenum maris usu laetabatur. ergo Epicharis plura; et omnia scelera principis orditur, neque senatui quidquam manere. sed provisum quonam modo poenas eversae rei publicae daret: accingeretur modo navare operam et militum acerrimos ducere in partis, ac digna pretia expectaret; nomina tamen coniuratorum reticuit. unde Proculi indicium inritum fuit, quamvis ea quae audierat ad Neronem detulisset. accita quippe Epicharis et cum indice composita nullis testibus innisum facile confutavit. sed ipsa in custodia retenta est, suspectante Nerone haud falsa esse etiam quae vera non probabantur.

The conspirators, however, moved by the fear of betrayal, resolved to hasten the killing at Baiae, in Piso’s villa, by whose loveliness Caesar, captivated, came often, and entered the baths and banquets without his guards and the cumbrance of his fortune. But Piso refused, putting forward the odium, if the sanctities of the table and the gods of hospitality should be stained with the blood of a princeps of whatever sort: better at the city, in that hated house built up out of the spoils of citizens, or in some public place, would they accomplish what they had undertaken for the commonwealth. This [he said] for the common ear; but with a hidden fear, lest Lucius Silanus—of surpassing nobility, and, by the training of Gaius Cassius, with whom he had been brought up, raised to every distinction—should seize the empire, those readily giving it to him who were untouched by the conspiracy and who would pity Nero as one slain by crime. Most believed that Piso had avoided too the keen temper of the consul Vestinus, lest he rise up for liberty, or, another emperor being chosen, make the commonwealth a gift of his own bestowing. For Vestinus was no sharer in the conspiracy, although on that charge Nero sated an old hatred against an innocent man.

Coniuratis tamen metu proditionis permotis placitum maturare caedem apud Baias in villa Pisonis, cuius amoeni- tate captus Caesar crebro ventitabat balneasque et epulas inibat omissis excubiis et fortunae suae mole. sed abnuit Piso invidiam praetendens, si sacra mensae diique hospitales caede qualiscumque principis cruentarentur: melius apud urbem in illa invisa et spoliis civium extructa domo vel in publico patraturos quod pro re publica suscepissent. haec in commune, ceterum timore occulto ne L. Silanus eximia nobilitate disciplinaque C. Cassii, apud quem educatus erat, ad omnem claritudinem sublatus imperium invaderet, prompte daturis qui a coniuratione integri essent quique miserarentur Neronem tamquam per scelus interfectum. plerique Vestini quoque consulis acre ingenium vitavisse Pisonem crediderunt, ne ad libertatem oreretur vel delecto imperatore alio sui muneris rem publicam faceret. etenim expers coniurationis erat, quamvis super eo crimine Nero vetus adversum insontem odium expleverit.

At last they resolved to carry out their designs on the day of the Circensian games which is celebrated for Ceres, because Caesar, rare in going abroad and shut up in his house or gardens, came regularly to the shows of the circus, and the approaches were the readier through the gladness of the spectacle. They had arranged the order of the ambush: that Lateranus, as if entreating aid for his household, in the posture of a suppliant and falling at the prince’s knees, should fling down the unwary man and pin him—strong in spirit and huge in body; then, as he lay entangled, the tribunes and centurions and others, each as he had of daring, should run up and butcher him, Scaevinus demanding the leading part for himself, who had taken down a dagger from the temple of Salus—or, as others have handed down, of Fortune—in the town of Ferentinum, and wore it as though consecrated for a great enterprise. Meanwhile Piso was to wait by the temple of Ceres, whence the prefect Faenius and the rest were to fetch him, summoned, into the camp, with Antonia, daughter of Claudius Caesar, accompanying, to draw out the favor of the crowd—which Gaius Plinius records. For us it was in mind not to conceal what was handed down in whatever way, although it seemed absurd either that Antonia had lent her name and her peril to an empty hope, or that Piso, known for his love of his wife, had bound himself to another marriage—unless the lust of ruling burns hotter than all [other] affections.

Tandem statuere circensium ludorum die, qui Cereri celebratur, exequi destinata, quia Caesar rarus egressu domoque aut hortis clausus ad ludicra circi ventitabat promptioresque aditus erant laetitia spectaculi. ordinem insidiis composuerant, ut Lateranus, quasi subsidium rei familiari oraret, deprecabundus et genibus principis accidens prosterneret incautum premeretque, animi validus et corpore ingens; tum iacentem et impeditum tribuni et centuriones et ceterorum, ut quisque audentiae habuisset, adcurrerent trucidarentque, primas sibi partis expostulante Scaevino, qui pugionem templo Salutis sive, ut alii tradidere, Fortunae Ferentino in oppido detraxerat gestabatque velut magno operi sacrum. interim Piso apud aedem Cereris opperiretur, unde eum praefectus Faenius et ceteri accitum ferrent in castra, comitante Antonia, Claudii Caesaris filia, ad eliciendum vulgi favorem, quod C. Plinius memorat. nobis quoquo modo traditum non occultare in animo fuit, quamvis absurdum videretur aut inanem ad spem Antoniam nomen et periculum commodavisse aut Pisonem notum amore uxoris alii matrimonio se obstrinxisse, nisi si cupido dominandi cunctis adfectibus flagrantior est.

But it is a marvel how, among people of diverse kind, rank, age, sex, rich and poor, everything was held in by silence, until the betrayal began from the house of Scaevinus; who, the day before the ambush, after much talk with Antonius Natalis, then returning home, sealed his will, and, drawing from its sheath the dagger of which I told above, complaining that it was dulled by age, ordered it roughened on a whetstone and made to flash to a point, and gave that charge to his freedman Milichus. At the same time a banquet was begun more lavishly than usual, the dearest of his slaves presented with freedom, others with money; and he himself was downcast and plainly in great brooding, though he feigned cheer with rambling talk. At last he warns the same Milichus to make ready bandages for wounds and the means by which blood is staunched—whether [Milichus was] aware of the conspiracy and faithful up to that point, or ignorant and then first seized with suspicions, as most have handed down. For when his servile mind reckoned with itself the rewards of treachery, and at the same time boundless money and power floated before him, right gave way, and the safety of his patron, and the memory of the freedom he had received. For he had taken in his wife’s counsel too—womanish and worse: for she, unprompted, held terror over him, [saying] that many freedmen and slaves had stood by who had seen the same things; the silence of one would avail nothing, but the rewards would lie with the one man who had got in first with the information.

Sed mirum quam inter diversi generis ordinis, aetatis sexus, ditis pauperes taciturnitate omnia cohibita sint, donec proditio coepit e domo Scaevini; qui pridie insidiarum multo sermone cum Antonio Natale, dein regressus domum testamentum obsignavit, promptum vagina pugionem, de quo supra rettuli, vetustate obtusum increpans asperari saxo et in mucronem ardescere iussit eamque curam liberto Milicho mandavit. simul adfluentius solito convivium initum, servorum carissimi libertate et alii pecunia donati; atque ipse maestus et magnae cogitationis manifestus erat, quamvis laetitiam vagis sermonibus simularet. postremo vulneribus ligamenta quibusque sistitur sanguis parare eundem Milichum monet, sive gnarum coniurationis et illuc usque fidum, seu nescium et tunc primum arreptis suspicionibus, ut plerique tradidere. nam cum secum servilis animus praemia perfidiae reputavit simulque immensa pecunia et potentia obversabantur, cessit fas et salus patroni et acceptae libertatis memoria. etenim uxoris quoque consilium adsumpserat muliebre ac deterius: quippe ultro metum intentabat, multosque adstitisse libertos ac servos qui eadem viderint: nihil profuturum unius silentium, at praemia penes unum fore qui indicio praevenisset.

So, at the break of day, Milichus makes for the Servilian gardens; and, when he was kept off at the doors, repeatedly saying that he brought great and dreadful tidings, and being led by the doorkeepers to Nero’s freedman Epaphroditus, then by him to Nero, he discloses the pressing danger, the formidable conspirators, and the rest that he had heard or conjectured. He shows too the weapon prepared for his [master’s] killing, and bade the accused be summoned. He, hurried in by soldiers and having begun his defense, answered that the steel he was charged with had long been revered with an ancestral cult and kept in his chamber, and filched by the freedman’s fraud. The tablets of his will he had often sealed, with no careful regard for the days. Moneys and freedoms he had given his slaves before as a gift, but more lavishly then for this reason, that, his estate now slender and his creditors pressing, he distrusted his will. Indeed, he had always set out liberal feasts, a pleasant life, and one little approved by stern judges. No poultices for wounds had been [made ready] by his order; but, since [Milichus] had brought the other charges manifestly groundless, he was tacking on a crime of which he made himself at once informer and witness. He adds firmness to his words; he, unprompted, denounces the man as an infamous and accursed wretch, with such security of voice and face that the information would have tottered, had not Milichus’s wife reminded him that Antonius Natalis had conversed much and in secret with Scaevinus, and that both were intimates of Gaius Piso.

Igitur coepta luce Milichus in hortos Servilianos pergit; et cum foribus arceretur, magna et atrocia adferre dictitans deductusque ab ianitoribus ad libertum Neronis Epaphroditum, mox ab eo ad Neronem, urgens periculum, gravis coniuratos et cetera quae audiverat coniectaverat docet. telum quoque in necem eius paratum ostendit accirique reum iussit. is raptus per milites et defensionem orsus, ferrum cuius argueretur olim religione patria cultum et in cubiculo habitum ac fraude liberti subreptum respondit. tabulas testamenti saepius a se et incustodita dierum observatione signatas. pecunias et libertates servis et ante dono datas, sed ideo tunc largius quia tenui iam re familiari et instantibus creditoribus testamento diffideret. enimvero liberalis semper epulas struxisse, vitam amoenam et duris iudicibus parum probatam. fomenta vulneribus nulla iussu suo sed, quia cetera palam vana obiecisset, adiungere crimen cuius se pariter indicem et testem faceret. adicit dictis constantiam; incusat ultro intestabilem et consceleratum tanta vocis ac vultus securitate ut labaret indicium, nisi Milichum uxor admonuisset Antonium Natalem multa cum Scaevino ac secreta conlocutum et esse utrosque C. Pisonis intimos.

So Natalis is summoned, and, questioned apart, [they are asked] what that talk was, on what matter it had been. Then suspicion arose, because they had given answers that did not tally, and chains were put on. And they did not bear the sight of the tortures and the threats: yet Natalis first, more knowing of the whole conspiracy, and at the same time more skilled in accusing, confesses first about Piso, then adds Annaeus Seneca—whether he had been a go-between between him and Piso, or to procure Nero’s favor, who, hostile to Seneca, was hunting up all arts to crush him. Then, Natalis’s information being known, Scaevinus too, with like weakness—or believing all now disclosed, and no profit in silence—gave up the rest. Of whom Lucan and Quintianus and Senecio long denied: afterward, bribed by promised impunity, that they might excuse their tardiness, Lucan named Acilia his mother, Quintianus Glitius Gallus, Senecio Annius Pollio—the chief of their friends.

Ergo accitur Natalis et diversi interrogantur quisnam is sermo, qua de re fuisset. tum exorta suspicio, quia non congruentia responderant, inditaque vincla. et tormentorum aspectum ac minas non tulere: prior tamen Natalis, totius conspirationis magis gnarus, simul arguendi peritior, de Pisone primum fatetur, deinde adicit Annaeum Senecam, sive internuntius inter eum Pisonemque fuit, sive ut Neronis gratiam pararet, qui infensus Senecae omnis ad eum opprimendum artes conquirebat. tum cognito Natalis indicio Scaevinus quoque pari imbecillitate, an cuncta iam patefacta credens nec ullum silentii emolumentum, edidit ceteros. ex quibus Lucanus Quintianusque et Senecio diu abnuere: post promissa impunitate corrupti, quo tarditatem excusarent, Lucanus Aciliam matrem suam, Quintianus Glitium Gallum, Senecio Annium Pollionem, amicorum praecipuos, nominavere.

And meanwhile Nero, recollecting that Epicharis was held on the information of Volusius Proculus, and reckoning a woman’s body unequal to pain, orders her to be mangled with tortures. But neither lashes, nor fires, nor the anger of those who tortured her the more keenly, lest they be flouted by a woman, prevailed to make her not deny the charges. Thus the first day of the question was set at naught. The next day, as she was being dragged back to the same torments in a chair (for with her limbs dislocated she could not stand), with the binding of a breast-band, which she had pulled from her bosom, tied like a noose to the chair’s arch, she set in her neck, and, straining with the weight of her body, forced out her breath, already faint—by a brighter example, a freedwoman, in so great a strait, shielding strangers and men almost unknown, when freeborn men, and men, and Roman knights and senators, untouched by torture, each betrayed the dearest of his own pledges. For Lucan too, and Senecio, and Quintianus did not cease to give up their accomplices far and wide, Nero more and more in dread, although he had hedged himself round with multiplied guards.

Atque interim Nero recordatus Volusii Proculi indicio Epicharin attineri ratusque muliebre corpus impar dolori tormentis dilacerari iubet. at illam non verbera, non ignes, non ira eo acrius torquentium ne a femina spernerentur, pervicere quin obiecta denegaret. sic primus quaestionis dies contemptus. postero cum ad eosdem cruciatus retraheretur gestamine sellae (nam dissolutis membris insistere nequibat), vinclo fasciae, quam pectori detraxerat, in modum laquei ad arcum sellae restricto indidit cervicem et corporis pondere conisa tenuem iam spiritum expressit, clariore exemplo libertina mulier in tanta necessitate alienos ac prope ignotos protegendo, cum ingenui et viri et equites Romani senatoresque intacti tormentis carissima suorum quisque pignorum proderent. non enim omittebant Lucanus quoque et Senecio et Quintianus passim conscios edere, magis magisque pavido Nerone, quamquam multiplicatis excubiis semet saepsisset.

Nay more, he gave the city, as it were, into custody, the walls occupied by maniples, the sea and river too beset. And there flitted through the fora, through the houses, the countryside too and the nearest of the municipalities, foot and horse, mingled with Germans, whom the prince trusted as foreigners. Hence unbroken and chained columns were haled along and laid down at the gates of the gardens. And when they had gone in to plead their cause, a chance word that had taken pleasure in the conspirators, and sudden encounters—if they had gone to a banquet or a show together—were received as a crime, while, over and above the savage interrogations of Nero and Tigellinus, Faenius Rufus too pressed violently—not yet named by the informers—and, to win credit for his ignorance, was fierce against his confederates. The same man, when Subrius Flavus, standing by, made a sign asking whether, in the midst of the very inquiry, he should draw his sword and accomplish the killing, shook his head, and broke the impulse of one now bringing his hand back to the hilt.

Quin et urbem per manipulos occupatis moenibus, insesso etiam mari et amne, velut in custodiam dedit. voli- tabantque per fora, per domos, rura quoque et proxima municipiorum pedites equitesque, permixti Germanis, quibus fidebat princeps quasi externis. continua hinc et vincta agmina trahi ac foribus hortorum adiacere. atque ubi dicendam ad causam introissent, laetatum erga coniuratos et fortuitus sermo et subiti occursus, si convivium, si spectaculum simul inissent, pro crimine accipi, cum super Neronis ac Tigellini saevas percontationes Faenius quoque Rufus violenter urgeret, nondum ab indicibus nominatus, et quo fidem inscitiae pararet, atrox adversus socios. idem Subrio Flavo adsistenti adnuentique an inter ipsam cognitionem destringeret gladium caedemque patraret, rennuit infregitque impetum iam manum ad capulum referentis.

There were those who, the conspiracy being betrayed—while Milichus is heard, while Scaevinus wavers—urged Piso to go to the camp, or mount the rostra and try the sympathies of the soldiers and the people. If accomplices joined his attempts, the uninvolved too would follow; and great would be the renown of a thing once set in motion, which avails most in new ventures. Nothing had been provided by Nero against this. Even brave men are terrified by sudden things—much less would that stage-player, with Tigellinus, of course, and his concubines for escort, raise arms against him. Many things are brought to pass by attempting them, which to the sluggish look hard. In vain to hope for silence and faith in the minds and bodies of so many accomplices: to torment or to reward all things lie open. They would come who would bind him too, and at last visit him with an unworthy death. How much more gloriously would he perish, while he clasps the commonwealth, while he calls down aid for liberty. Rather let the soldier fail, and the plebs desert him, so long as he himself—even if his life were forestalled—made his death one that ancestors and posterity would approve. Unmoved by these things, and having lingered a little in public, then secluded at home, he was steeling his spirit against the end, until a band of soldiers arrived whom Nero had picked—recruits, or men recent in their service: for the veteran soldier was feared, as steeped in favor [for Piso]. He died, the veins of his arms cut. His will, with foul flatteries toward Nero, he gave up as a concession to the love of his wife, whom, base-born and commended by her bodily form alone, he had carried off from a friend’s marriage. The woman’s name was Satria Galla, her former husband’s Domitius Silus: the latter by his sufferance, she by her unchastity, spread abroad the infamy of Piso.

Fuere qui prodita coniuratione, dum auditur Milichus, dum dubitat Scaevinus, hortarentur Pisonem pergere in castra aut rostra escendere studiaque militum et populi temptare. si conatibus eius conscii adgregarentur, secuturos etiam integros; magnamque motae rei famam, quae plurimum in novis consiliis valeret. nihil adversum haec Neroni provisum. etiam fortis viros subitis terreri, nedum ille scaenicus, Tigellino scilicet cum paelicibus suis comitante, arma contra cieret. multa experiendo confieri quae segnibus ardua videantur. frustra silentium et fidem in tot consciorum animis et corporibus sperare: cruciatui aut praemio cuncta pervia esse. venturos qui ipsum quoque vincirent, postremo indigna nece adficerent. quanto laudabilius periturum, dum amplectitur rem publicam, dum auxilia libertati invocat. miles potius deesset et plebes desereret, dum ipse maioribus, dum posteris, si vita praeriperetur, mortem adprobaret. immotus his et paululum in publico versatus, post domi secretus, animum adversum suprema firmabat, donec manus militum adveniret quos Nero tirones aut stipendiis recentis delegerat: nam vetus miles timebatur tamquam favore imbutus. obiit abruptis brachiorum venis. testamentum foedis adversus Neronem adulationibus amori uxoris dedit, quam degenerem et sola corporis forma commendatam amici matrimonio abstulerat. nomen mulieri Satria Galla, priori marito Domitius Silus: hic patientia, illa impudicitia Pisonis infamiam propagavere.

Nero joins to it the next killing, of Plautius Lateranus, consul-designate, so hastily that he did not allow him to embrace his children, nor that brief discretion over his death. Dragged into the place set apart for the punishments of slaves, he is butchered by the hand of the tribune Statius—full of steadfast silence, and not flinging at the tribune that same complicity. There follows the death of Annaeus Seneca, most joyful to the prince—not because he had found him manifestly [guilty] of the conspiracy, but to go on with the steel, since the poison had not gone forward. For Natalis alone, and only thus far, brought it forth: that he had been sent to the sick Seneca to visit him and to complain why he barred Piso from access: it would be better if they exercised their friendship in familiar intercourse; and that Seneca had answered that mutual conversations and frequent meetings profited neither, but that his own safety rested on the safety of Piso. These things Gavius Silvanus, tribune of a praetorian cohort, is ordered to carry, and to ask Seneca whether he acknowledged the words of Natalis and his own replies. He, by chance or by design, had on that day returned from Campania and halted at a suburban estate at the fourth milestone. Thither, toward evening, the tribune came and surrounded the villa with bands of soldiers; then to him, dining with his wife Pompeia Paulina and two friends, he delivered the emperor’s commands.

Proximam necem Plautii Laterani consulis designati Nero adiungit, adeo propere ut non complecti liberos, non illud breve mortis arbitrium permitteret. raptus in locum servilibus poenis sepositum manu Statii tribuni trucidatur, plenus constantis silentii nec tribuno obiciens eandem conscientiam. Sequitur caedes Annaei Senecae, laetissima principi, non quia coniurationis manifestum compererat, sed ut ferro grassaretur, quando venenum non processerat. solus quippe Natalis et hactenus prompsit missum se ad aegrotum Senecam uti viseret conquerereturque cur Pisonem aditu arceret: melius fore si amicitiam familiari congressu exercuissent; et respondisse Senecam sermones mutuos et crebra conloquia neutri conducere; ceterum salutem suam incolumitate Pisonis inniti. haec ferre Gavius Silvanus tribunus praetoriae cohortis et an dicta Natalis suaque responsa nosceret percontari Senecam iubetur. is forte an prudens ad eum diem ex Campania remeaverat quartumque apud lapidem suburbano rure substiterat. illo propinqua vespera tribunus venit et villam globis militum saepsit; tum ipsi cum Pompeia Paulina uxore et amicis duobus epulanti mandata imperatoris edidit.

Seneca answered that Natalis had been sent to him and had complained, in Piso’s name, that he was kept from visiting him, and that he himself had excused it by the reason of his health and his love of quiet. He had no cause to set the safety of a private man before his own; nor was his nature ready for flatteries. And this no one knew better than Nero, who had more often experienced Seneca’s freedom than his servility. When these things were reported by the tribune in the presence of Poppaea and Tigellinus—which was the savage prince’s innermost council—he asks whether Seneca was preparing a voluntary death. Then the tribune affirmed that no marks of fear, nothing grim in his words or his face, had been detected. So he is ordered to go back and announce death. Fabius Rusticus hands down that he returned not by the road he had come, but turned aside to Faenius the prefect, and, the orders of Caesar set forth, asked whether he should obey, and was advised by him to carry them out—by the fatal cowardice of all. For Silvanus too was among the conspirators, and was multiplying the very crimes for whose avenging he had conspired. Yet he spared his own voice and sight [the scene], and sent in to Seneca one of the centurions to announce the last necessity.

Seneca missum ad se Natalem conquestumque no- mine Pisonis quod a visendo eo prohiberetur, seque rationem valetudinis et amorem quietis excusavisse respondit. cur salutem privati hominis incolumitati suae anteferret causam non habuisse; nec sibi promptum in adulationes ingenium. idque nulli magis gnarum quam Neroni, qui saepius libertatem Senecae quam servitium expertus esset. ubi haec a tribuno relata sunt Poppaea et Tigellino coram, quod erat saevienti principi intimum consiliorum, interrogat an Seneca voluntariam mortem pararet. tum tribunus nulla pavoris signa, nihil triste in verbis eius aut vultu deprensum confirmavit. ergo regredi et indicere mortem iubetur. tradit Fabius Rusticus non eo quo venerat itinere reditum sed flexisse ad Faenium praefectum, et expositis Caesaris iussis an obtemperaret interrogavisse, monitumque ab eo ut exequeretur, fatali omnium ignavia. nam et Silvanus inter coniuratos erat augebatque scelera in quorum ultionem consenserat. voci tamen et aspectui pepercit intromisitque ad Senecam unum ex centurionibus qui necessitatem ultimam denuntiaret.

He, undaunted, asks for the tablets of his will; and, the centurion refusing, turning to his friends, he attests that, since he was forbidden to render thanks for their deserts, he leaves them the one thing he now has—and yet the fairest—the image of his life, of which, if they kept the memory, they would carry off, as the fruit of a steadfast friendship, the renown of good arts. At the same time he recalls their tears, now by talk, now more sternly in the manner of one chiding, to firmness, asking where were the precepts of wisdom, where the reasoning rehearsed through so many years against the things now pressing? For to whom had Nero’s savagery been unknown? Nor did anything remain, after the killing of a mother and a brother, but that he should add the death of his foster-father and tutor.

Ille interritus poscit testamenti tabulas; ac denegante centurione conversus ad amicos, quando meritis eorum referre gratiam prohiberetur, quod unum iam et tamen pulcherrimum habeat, imaginem vitae suae relinquere testatur, cuius si memores essent, bonarum artium famam fructum constantis amicitiae laturos. simul lacrimas eorum modo sermone, modo intentior in modum coercentis ad firmitudinem revocat, rogitans ubi praecepta sapientiae, ubi tot per annos meditata ratio adversum imminentia? cui enim ignaram fuisse saevitiam Neronis? neque aliud superesse post matrem fratremque interfectos quam ut educatoris praeceptorisque necem adiceret.

When he had discoursed these and such things as though for the common hearing, he embraces his wife, and, a little softened against his present fortitude, asks and entreats her to temper her grief and not take it up forever, but, in the contemplation of a life led through virtue, to bear the longing for her husband with honorable consolations. She, on the contrary, declares that death is destined for her too, and demands the hand of the striker. Then Seneca, not opposed to her glory, and at the same time out of love, lest he leave her, his only-beloved, to outrages, said: "The comforts of life I had shown you; you prefer the glory of death: I will not begrudge you the example. Let the steadfastness of so brave an end be equal in us both; more of renown in your ending." After which, at the same stroke, they open their arms with the steel. Seneca, since his aged body, thinned too by spare diet, offered the blood slow ways of escape, severs the veins of his shins and the hams as well; and, worn out with savage torments, lest by his own pain he break down his wife’s spirit, and lest he himself, by looking on her torments, slip into impatience, he urges her to withdraw into another chamber. And, his eloquence supplying him even at the very last moment, having summoned scribes, he handed down very much, which, given out to the public in his own words, I forbear to recast.

Vbi haec atque talia velut in commune disseruit, complectitur uxorem et paululum adversus praesentem fortitudinem mollitus rogat oratque temperaret dolori neu aeternum susciperet, sed in contemplatione vitae per virtutem actae desiderium mariti solaciis honestis toleraret. illa contra sibi quoque destinatam mortem adseverat manumque percussoris exposcit. tum Seneca gloriae eius non adversus, simul amore, ne sibi unice dilectam ad iniurias relinqueret, ’vitae’ inquit ’delenimenta monstraveram tibi, tu mortis decus mavis: non invidebo exemplo. sit huius tam fortis exitus constantia penes utrosque par, claritudinis plus in tuo fine.’ post quae eodem ictu brachia ferro exolvunt. Seneca, quoniam senile corpus et parco victu tenuatum lenta effugia sanguini praebebat, crurum quoque et poplitum venas abrumpit; saevisque cruciatibus defessus, ne dolore suo animum uxoris infringeret atque ipse visendo eius tormenta ad impatientiam delaberetur, suadet in aliud cubiculum abscedere. et novissimo quoque momento suppeditante eloquentia advocatis scriptoribus pleraque tradidit, quae in vulgus edita eius verbis invertere supersedeo.

But Nero, with no private hatred toward Paulina, and lest the odium of his cruelty should swell, orders her death to be stayed. At the soldiers’ urging, slaves and freedmen bind up her arms, press back the blood—it is uncertain whether without her knowledge. For, as the crowd is prompt toward the worse, there were not wanting those who believed that, so long as she feared an implacable Nero, she had sought the fame of a death shared with her husband, then, a gentler hope being offered, was won over by the enticements of life; to which she added a few years afterward, with praiseworthy memory of her husband, and with face and limbs whitened to that pallor which showed that much of her vital breath had been drawn off. Seneca meanwhile, the drawing-out and slowness of death continuing, begs Statius Annaeus—long proved to him by the loyalty of friendship and the art of medicine—to bring out the poison, provided long before, by which those condemned in the public judgment of the Athenians were put to death; and, it being brought, he drank it in vain, his limbs already cold and his body shut against the force of the poison. At last he entered a basin of hot water, sprinkling the nearest of his slaves, and adding the word that he poured that liquor as a libation to Jupiter the Liberator. Then, carried into the bath and stifled by its vapor, he is cremated without any funeral solemnity. So he had directed beforehand in his codicils, when, even then most rich and most powerful, he took thought for his last rites.

At Nero nullo in Paulinam proprio odio, ac ne glisceret invidia crudelitatis, iubet inhiberi mortem. hortantibus militibus servi libertique obligant brachia, premunt sanguinem, incertum an ignarae. nam ut est vulgus ad deteriora promptum, non defuere qui crederent, donec implacabilem Neronem timuerit, famam sociatae cum marito mortis petivisse, deinde oblata mitiore spe blandimentis vitae evictam; cui addidit paucos postea annos, laudabili in maritum memoria et ore ac membris in eum pallorem albentibus ut ostentui esset multum vitalis spiritus egestum. Seneca interim, durante tractu et lentitudine mortis, Statium Annaeum, diu sibi amicitiae fide et arte medicinae probatum, orat provisum pridem venenum quo damnati publico Atheniensium iudicio extinguerentur promeret; adlatumque hausit frustra, frigidus iam artus et cluso corpore adversum vim veneni. postremo stagnum calidae aquae introiit, respergens proximos servorum addita voce libare se liquorem illum Iovi liberatori. exim balneo inlatus et vapore eius exanimatus sine ullo funeris sollemni crematur. ita codicillis praescripserat, cum etiam tum praedives et praepotens supremis suis consuleret.

There was a report that Subrius Flavus, with the centurions, by a secret plan—not unknown, however, to Seneca—had resolved that, after Nero had been slain by Piso’s agency, Piso too should be killed, and the empire handed over to Seneca, as a man picked out, for the splendor of his virtues, by the guiltless, for the supreme height. Nay, the words of Flavus too were bruited about—that it made no difference to the disgrace whether a lyre-singer were displaced and a tragic actor came in his stead, because, as Nero sang to the lyre, so Piso in the dress of a tragedian.

Fama fuit Subrium Flavum cum centurionibus occulto consilio neque tamen ignorante Seneca destinavisse ut post occisum opera Pisonis Neronem Piso quoque interficeretur tradereturque imperium Senecae, quasi insontibus claritudine virtutum ad summum fastigium delecto. quin et verba Flavi vulgabantur, non referre dedecori si citharoedus demoveretur et tragoedus succederet, quia ut Nero cithara, ita Piso tragico ornatu canebat.

But the military conspiracy too did not deceive further, the informers being fired to betray Faenius Rufus, whom they could not bear to be at once accomplice and inquisitor. So, as he pressed and threatened, Scaevinus, with a smile, says that no one knew more than he himself, and exhorts him, into the bargain, to render so good a prince his due in turn. There was against this from Faenius neither speech nor silence, but, tripping over his own words and plainly in terror—and the rest, and most of all Cervarius Proculus, a Roman knight, striving to convict him—he is, by the emperor’s order, seized and bound by the soldier Cassius, who, on account of the notable strength of his body, stood by.

Ceterum militaris quoque conspiratio non ultra fefellit, accensis indicibus ad prodendum Faenium Rufum, quem eundem conscium et inquisitorem non tolerabant. ergo instanti minitantique renidens Scaevinus neminem ait plura scire quam ipsum, hortaturque ultro redderet tam bono principi vicem. non vox adversum ea Faenio, non silentium, sed verba sua praepediens et pavoris manifestus, ceterisque ac maxime Cervario Proculo equite Romano ad convincendum eum conisis, iussu imperatoris a Cassio milite, qui ob insigne corporis robur adstabat, corripitur vinciturque.

Soon, by the information of the same men, the tribune Subrius Flavus is undone, at first turning the unlikeness of their characters to his defense—nor would he, an armed man, have joined in so great a deed with the unarmed and effeminate; then, when he was pressed, embracing the glory of confession. And being asked by Nero by what causes he had gone forward to the forgetting of his military oath, "I hated you," he said; "nor was any of the soldiers more faithful to you, while you deserved to be loved. I began to hate you, after you turned out the murderer of your mother and your wife, a charioteer, a stage-player, and an arsonist." I have reported the very words, because they were not, like Seneca’s, made public, and the rough, strong sentiments of a military man deserved no less to be known. It was agreed that nothing in that conspiracy fell on Nero’s ears more grievously: for, as he was prompt in committing crimes, so was he unused to hearing of what he did. The punishment of Flavus is committed to the tribune Veianius Niger. He ordered a pit to be dug in a nearby field, which Flavus, chiding as shallow and cramped, said to the soldiers standing about, "Not even this is according to the rule." And being admonished to stretch out his neck bravely, "Would," he said, "that you may strike as bravely!" And the other, trembling much, when he had scarcely with two strokes cut off the head, boasted of his savagery to Nero, saying that he had killed him with a stroke and a half.

Mox eorundem indicio Subrius Flavus tribunus pervertitur, primo dissimilitudinem morum ad defensionem trahens, neque se armatum cum inermibus et effeminatis tantum facinus consociaturum; dein, postquam urgebatur, confessionis gloriam amplexus. interrogatusque a Nerone quibus causis ad oblivionem sacramenti processisset, ’oderam te’ inquit, ’nec quisquam tibi fidelior militum fuit, dum amari meruisti. odisse coepi, postquam parricida matris et uxoris, auriga et histrio et incendiarius extitisti.’ ipsa rettuli verba, quia non, ut Senecae, vulgata erant, nec minus nosci decebat militaris viri sensus incomptos et validos. nihil in illa coniuratione gravius auribus Neronis accidisse constitit, qui ut faciendis sceleribus promptus, ita audiendi quae faceret insolens erat. poena Flavi Veianio Nigro tribuno mandatur. is proximo in agro scrobem effodi iussit, quam Flavus ut humilem et angustam increpans, circumstantibus militibus, ’ne hoc quidem’ inquit ’ex disciplina.’ admonitusque fortiter protendere cervicem, ’utinam’ ait ’tu tam fortiter ferias!’ et ille multum tremens, cum vix duobus ictibus caput amputavisset, saevitiam apud Neronem iactavit, sesquiplaga interfectum a se dicendo.

The next example of steadfastness Sulpicius Asper, a centurion, gave, answering Nero, who asked why he had conspired for his killing, briefly, that his so many infamies could be relieved in no other way: then he underwent the appointed penalty. Nor did the other centurions degenerate in enduring their punishments: but Faenius Rufus had not an equal spirit, but carried his lamentations even into his will. Nero was waiting for the consul Vestinus too to be drawn into the charge, deeming him violent and hostile: but of the conspirators [some] had not mingled their counsels with Vestinus, certain ones from old quarrels with him, the more because they thought him headlong and unsociable. But Nero’s hatred against Vestinus had begun from an intimate fellowship, while the one despises the prince’s cowardice, deeply known to him, the other fears the ferocity of his friend, often mocked with harsh witticisms, which, when they draw much from the truth, leave a keen memory of themselves. There had come in addition a recent cause, that Vestinus had joined Statilia Messalina to himself in marriage, not unaware that Caesar was among her adulterers.

Proximum constantiae exemplum Sulpicius Asper centurio praebuit, percontanti Neroni cur in caedem suam conspiravisset breviter respondens non aliter tot flagitiis eius subveniri potuisse: tum iussam poenam subiit. nec ceteri centuriones in perpetiendis suppliciis degeneravere: at non Faenio Rufo par animus, sed lamentationes suas etiam in testamentum contulit. Opperiebatur Nero ut Vestinus quoque consul in crimen traheretur, violentum et infensum ratus: sed ex coniuratis consilia cum Vestino non miscuerant, quidam vetustis in eum simultatibus, plures quia praecipitem et insociabilem credebant. ceterum Neroni odium adversus Vestinum ex intima sodalitate coeperat, dum hic ignaviam principis penitus cognitam despicit, ille ferociam amici metuit, saepe asperis facetiis inlusus, quae ubi multum ex vero traxere, acrem sui memoriam relinquunt. accesserat repens causa quod Vestinus Statiliam Messalinam matrimonio sibi iunxerat, haud nescius inter adulteros eius et Caesarem esse.

And so, no charge, no accuser existing—because he could not put on the semblance of a judge—turning to the violence of mastery, he sends in the tribune Gerellanus with a cohort of soldiers, and bids him forestall the consul’s attempts, seize, as it were, his citadel, crush his picked youth, because Vestinus had a house overhanging the Forum, and comely slaves of equal age. He had fulfilled all his consular duties that day and was holding a banquet, fearing nothing, or dissembling his fear, when soldiers, entering, said that he was summoned by the tribune. He, without delay, rises, and everything is hurried at once: he is shut in a chamber, the physician is at hand, the veins are cut, still vigorous he is carried into the bath, plunged in hot water, with no word uttered whereby he might pity himself. Meanwhile those who had reclined with him were surrounded by a guard, and not let go until far into the night, after Nero, having both pictured and mocked their panic, as they awaited destruction from the table, said that they had paid penalty enough for a consul’s banquet.

Igitur non crimine, non accusatore existente, quia speciem iudicis induere non poterat, ad vim dominationis conversus Gerellanum tribunum cum cohorte militum immittit iubetque praevenire conatus consulis, occupare velut arcem eius, opprimere delectam iuventutem, quia Vestinus imminentis foro aedis decoraque servitia et pari aetate habebat. cuncta eo die munia consulis impleverat conviviumque celebrabat, nihil metuens an dissimulando metu, cum ingressi milites vocari eum a tribuno dixere. ille nihil demoratus exsurgit et omnia simul properantur: clauditur cubiculo, praesto est medicus, abscinduntur venae, vigens adhuc balneo infertur, calida aqua mersatur, nulla edita voce qua semet miseraretur. circumdati interim custodia qui simul discubuerant, nec nisi provecta nocte omissi sunt, postquam pavorem eorum, ex mensa exitium opperientium, et imaginatus et inridens Nero satis supplicii luisse ait pro epulis consularibus.

Then he orders the killing of Annaeus Lucanus. He, when, the blood flowing forth, he perceives his feet and hands grow cold and the breath give way little by little from the extremities, his breast still warm and master of its mind, recalling a poem composed by himself, in which he had told of a wounded soldier dying by the likeness of just such a death, repeated those very verses, and that was his last utterance. Senecio thereafter, and Quintianus, and Scaevinus—belying the softness of their former life—then the rest of the conspirators, perished, with no deed or word worth recording.

Exim Annaei Lucani caedem imperat. is profluente sanguine ubi frigescere pedes manusque et paulatim ab extremis cedere spiritum fervido adhuc et compote mentis pectore intellegit, recordatus carmen a se compositum quo vulneratum militem per eius modi mortis imaginem obisse tradiderat, versus ipsos rettulit eaque illi suprema vox fuit. Senecio posthac et Quintianus et Scaevinus non ex priore vitae mollitia, mox reliqui coniuratorum periere, nullo facto dictove memorando.

But meanwhile the city was being filled with funerals, the Capitol with victims; one, his son killed, another, a brother or a kinsman or a friend, gave thanks to the gods, decked his house with laurel, rolled at the man’s knees and wearied his right hand with kisses. And he, believing this to be joy, rewards the hasty informations of Antonius Natalis and Cervarius Proculus with impunity. Milichus, enriched with rewards, assumed the title of "preserver," in the Greek word for the thing. Of the tribunes, Gavius Silvanus, though acquitted, fell by his own hand; Statius Proxumus marred, by the emptiness of his end, the pardon he had received from the emperor. Then there were stripped of their tribunate Pompeius, Cornelius Martialis, Flavius Nepos, Statius Domitius, as though they did not indeed hate the prince, but were nonetheless thought to. To Novius Priscus, through his friendship with Seneca, and to Glitius Gallus and Annius Pollio—defamed rather than convicted—exiles were given. Priscus was accompanied by his wife Artoria Flaccilla, Gallus by Egnatia Maximilla, possessed at first of great and unimpaired wealth, afterward taken from her; both of which increased her glory. Rufrius Crispinus too is driven out, on the occasion of the conspiracy, but hateful to Nero because he had once held Poppaea in marriage. Verginius Flavus and Musonius Rufus the brightness of their name expelled: for Verginius fostered the studies of the young by his eloquence, Musonius by the precepts of wisdom. To Cluvidienus Quietus, Julius Agrippa, Blitius Catulinus, Petronius Priscus, Julius Altinus—as though for a procession and a tally—the islands of the Aegean sea are assigned. But Caedicia, wife of Scaevinus, and Caesennius Maximus are forbidden Italy, learning only by their penalty that they had been defendants. Acilia, mother of Annaeus Lucanus, without acquittal, without punishment, was passed over in silence.

Sed compleri interim urbs funeribus, Capitolium victimis; alius filio, fratre alius aut propinquo aut amico interfectis, agere grates deis, ornare lauru domum, genua ipsius advolvi et dextram osculis fatigare. atque ille gaudium id credens Antonii Natalis et Cervarii Proculi festinata indicia impunitate remuneratur. Milichus praemiis ditatus conservatoris sibi nomen, Graeco eius rei vocabulo, adsumpsit. e tribunis Gavius Silvanus quamvis absolutus sua manu cecidit; Statius Proxumus veniam quam ab imperatore acceperat vanitate exitus corrupit. exuti dehinc tribunatuPompeius, Cornelius Martialis, Flavius Nepos Statius Domitius, quasi principem non quidem odissent sed tamen existimarentur. Novio Prisco per amicitiam Senecae et Glitio Gallo atque Annio Pollioni infamatis magis quam convictis data exilia. Priscum Artoria Flaccilla coniunx comitata est, Gallum Egnatia Maximilla, magnis primum et integris opibus, post ademptis; quae utraque gloriam eius auxere. pellitur et Rufrius Crispinus occasione coniurationis, sed Neroni invisus quod Poppaeam quondam matrimonio tenuerat. Verginium Flavum et Musonium Rufum claritudo nominis expulit: nam Verginius studia iuvenum eloquentia, Musonius praeceptis sapientiae fovebat. Cluvidieno Quieto, Iulio Agrippae, Blitio Catulino, Petronio Prisco, Iulio Altino velut in agmen et numerum, Aegaei maris insulae permittuntur. at Caedicia uxor Scaevini et Caesennius Maximus Italia prohibentur, reos fuisse se tantum poena experti. Acilia mater Annaei Lucani sine absolutione, sine supplicio dissimulata.

These things accomplished, Nero, an assembly of the soldiers being held, distributed two thousand sesterces a head to the rankers, and added grain free of charge, which before they had at the market rate. Then, as though to set forth deeds done in war, he calls the Senate and bestows triumphal distinction on Petronius Turpilianus, of consular rank, on Cocceius Nerva, praetor-designate, and on Tigellinus, prefect of the praetorian guard—so exalting Tigellinus and Nerva that, over and above their triumphal images in the Forum, he set up effigies of them at the Palatium too. Consular insignia [were given] to Nymphidius—since he is now first brought forward, I will go back over a few things: for he too will be a part of the Roman calamities. So, sprung from a freedwoman mother, who had made common her comely body among the slaves and freedmen of the principes, he gave out that he was begotten of Gaius Caesar, since by some chance he was tall of build and grim of countenance—or [because] Gaius Caesar, lusting after harlots too, had made sport even with his mother.

Quibus perpetratis Nero et contione militum habita bina nummum milia viritim manipularibus divisit addiditque sine pretio frumentum, quo ante ex modo annonae utebantur. tum quasi gesta bello expositurus vocat senatum et triumphale decus Petronio Turpiliano consulari, Cocceio Nervae praetori designato, Tigellino praefecto praetorii tribuit, Tigellinum et Nervam ita extollens ut super triumphalis in foro imagines apud Palatium quoque effigies eorum sisteret. consularia insignia Nymphidioquia nunc primum oblatus est, pauca repetam: nam et ipse pars Romanarum cladium erit. igitur matre libertina ortus quae corpus decorum inter servos libertosque principum vulgaverat, ex G. Caesare se genitum ferebat, quoniam forte quadam habitu procerus et torvo vultu erat, sive G. Caesar, scortorum quoque cupiens, etiam matri eius inlusit

But Nero, the Senate being summoned, a speech delivered among the Fathers, added an edict before the people, and the depositions and confessions of the condemned, gathered into books. For he was being torn by the frequent rumor of the crowd, as though he had extinguished famous and innocent men out of envy or fear. But that a conspiracy had been begun, and ripened, and put down again, neither did those then doubt who had a care for knowing the truth, and those confess who returned to the city after Nero’s death. But in the Senate, all being sunk into flattery, each according to his measure of grief, Salienus Clemens assailed Junius Gallio—panic-stricken by the death of his brother Seneca and a suppliant for his own safety—calling him an enemy and a parricide, until he was deterred by the consensus of the Fathers, lest he seem to abuse the public ills for the occasion of a private hatred, and to drag back to a new savagery what the clemency of the prince had composed or blotted out.

Sed Nero vocato senatu, oratione inter patres habita, edictum apud populum et conlata in libros indicia confessionesque damnatorum adiunxit. etenim crebro vulgi rumore lacerabatur, tamquam viros claros et insontis ob invidiam aut metum extinxisset. ceterum coeptam adultamque et revictam coniurationem neque tunc dubitavere quibus verum noscendi cura erat, et fatentur qui post interitum Neronis in urbem regressi sunt. at in senatu cunctis, ut cuique plurimum maeroris, in adulationem demissis, Iunium Gallionem, Senecae fratris morte pavidum et pro sua incolumitate supplicem, increpuit Salienus Clemens, hostem et parricidam vocans, donec consensu patrum deterritus est, ne publicis malis abuti ad occasionem privati odii videretur, neu composita aut oblitterata mansuetudine principis novam ad saevitiam retraheret.

Then gifts and thanks to the gods are decreed, and a special honor to the Sun, who has an ancient temple by the circus in which the deed was being prepared—[the Sun] who had by his divine power unveiled the secrets of the conspiracy; and that the games of the Circensian Ceres be celebrated with more horse-races, and that the month of April take the surname of Nero; and that a temple be raised to Salus on the spot whence Scaevinus had drawn the steel. He himself consecrated that dagger on the Capitol and inscribed it "To Jupiter the Avenger": at the time not remarked; afterward, with the rising of the arms of Julius Vindex, it was construed as an omen and presage of the vengeance to come. I find in the records of the Senate that Anicius Cerialis, consul-designate, declared, as his opinion, that a temple be set up to the deified Nero, as soon as might be, at public expense. Which indeed he decreed as though [Nero] had passed beyond the mortal summit and earned the veneration of men, but [Nero] himself forbade it, lest, by the interpretation of certain persons, it be turned into an ill omen of his own end: for the honor of a god is not granted to a princeps before he has ceased to move among men.

Tum dona et grates deis decernuntur, propriusque honos Soli, cui est vetus aedes apud circum in quo facinus parabatur, qui occulta coniurationis numine retexisset; utque circensium Cerealium ludicrum pluribus equorum cursibus celebraretur mensisque Aprilis Neronis cognomentum acciperet; templum Saluti extrueretur eo loci *ex quo Scaevinus ferrum prompserat. ipse eum pugionem apud Capitolium sacravit inscripsitque Iovi Vindici: in praesens haud animadversum; post arma Iulii Vindicis ad auspicium et praesagium futurae ultionis trahebatur. reperio in commentariis senatus Cerialem Anicium consulem designatum pro sententia dixisse ut templum divo Neroni quam maturrime publica pecunia poneretur. quod quidem ille decernebat tamquam mortale fastigium egresso et venerationem hominum merito, sed ipse prohibuit, ne interpretatione quorundam ad omen malum sui exitus verteretur: nam deum honor principi non ante habetur quam agere inter homines desierit.

Thereafter fortune made sport of Nero, through his own vanity and the promises of Caesellius Bassus, who, a Carthaginian by origin and of a disordered mind, drew the image of a night’s slumber to the hope of an undoubted thing, and, carried to Rome, having bought his way to the prince’s presence, sets forth that there had been found in his field a cave of measureless depth, in which a great quantity of gold was contained, not in the shape of money, but in rough and ancient bulk. For there lay, he said, exceedingly heavy ingots, while in another part columns stood; which, concealed through so great a span of time, [were there] for the increase of present wealth. But, as his conjecture showed, Dido the Phoenician, a fugitive from Tyre, when she had founded Carthage, had hidden away those riches, lest a new people grow wanton with too much money, or the kings of the Numidians—hostile on other counts too—be fired to war by greed of gold.

Inlusit dehinc Neroni fortuna per vanitatem ipsius et promissa Caeselli Bassi, qui origine Poenus, mente turbida, nocturnae quietis imaginem ad spem haud dubiae rei traxit, vectusque Romam, principis aditum emercatus, expromit repertum in agro suo specum altitudine immensa, quo magna vis auri contineretur, non in formam pecuniae sed rudi et antiquo pondere. lateres quippe praegravis iacere, adstantibus parte alia columnis; quae per tantum aevi occulta augendis praesentibus bonis. ceterum, ut coniectura demonstrabat, Dido Phoenissam Tyro profugam condita Carthagine illas opes abdidisse, ne novus populus nimia pecunia lasciviret aut reges Numidarum, et alias infensi, cupidine auri ad bellum accenderentur.

So Nero, the credit neither of the author nor of the business itself being sufficiently examined, and no men sent through whom he might learn whether true things were being reported, of his own accord swells the rumor and sends men to carry off what was, as it were, booty ready prepared. Triremes are given, and a picked rowing-crew, to aid the haste. Nor through those days did the people, in their credulity, and the prudent, in a contrary report, talk of anything else. And by chance the quinquennial spectacle was being celebrated for the second lustrum, and by the orators the chief matter was taken up for the praise of the prince. For [they said] not only were the usual crops, nor gold mixed with [base] metals, being engendered, but the earth was springing forth with a new abundance, and the gods were tendering wealth ready to hand—and whatever other servile things they feigned with the highest eloquence and no less flattery, secure of the easy credulity of one who believed.

Igitur Nero, non auctoris, non ipsius negotii fide satis spectata nec missis per quos nosceret an vera adferrentur, auget ultro rumorem mittitque qui velut paratam praedam adveherent. dantur triremes et delectum remigium iuvandae festinationi. nec aliud per illos dies populus credulitate, prudentes diversa fama tulere. ac forte quinquennale ludicrum secundo lustro celebrabatur, ab oratoribusque praecipua materia in laudem principis adsumpta est. non enim solitas tantum fruges nec confusum metallis aurum gigni, sed nova ubertate provenire terram et obvias opes deferre deos, quaeque alia summa facundia nec minore adulatione servilia fingebant, securi de facilitate credentis.

Meanwhile luxury swelled on an empty hope, and the old resources were consumed, as though riches had been bestowed for him to squander through many years. Nay, he was now even lavishing from that source; and the expectation of the wealth was among the causes of the public poverty. For Bassus, his own field dug up and the broad fields around, while he affirms this place or that to be of the promised cave, and not only soldiers but a crowd of country-folk follow, enrolled to carry out the work—at last, his frenzy laid aside, marveling that his dreams had not been false before, and that he was then for the first time deluded, escaped shame and fear by a death of his own choosing. Some have handed down that he was bound and soon let go, his goods taken from him in place of the royal treasure-hoard.

Gliscebat interim luxuria spe inani consumebanturque veteres opes quasi oblatis quas multos per annos prodigeret. quin et inde iam largiebatur; et divitiarum expectatio inter causas paupertatis publicae erat. nam Bassus effosso agro suo latisque circum arvis, dum hunc vel illum locum promissi specus adseverat, sequunturque non modo milites sed populus agrestium efficiendo operi adsumptus, tandem posita vaecordia, non falsa antea somnia sua seque tunc primum elusum admirans, pudorem et metum morte voluntaria effugit. quidam vinctum ac mox dimissum tradidere ademptis bonis in locum regiae gazae.

Meanwhile the Senate, the lustral contest being now near, in order to avert disgrace, offers the emperor the victory in song, and adds the crown for eloquence, by which the dishonor of the stage might be cloaked. But Nero, repeatedly saying that there was no need of canvassing nor of the Senate’s power—that he, on equal terms against his rivals and by the conscientiousness of the judges, would attain a praise he deserved—first recites a poem on the stage; soon, the crowd demanding that he make public all his accomplishments (for these were the words they used), he enters the theater, obeying all the laws of the lyre: not to sit down when weary, not to wipe his sweat except on the garment he wore for clothing, that no issue from mouth or nostrils might be seen. At last, bending his knee and saluting that gathering with his hand, he awaited the verdicts of the judges with feigned dread. And the plebs of the city indeed, wont to applaud the gestures of actors too, rang out in fixed measures and with rehearsed applause. You would think they rejoiced—and perhaps they did rejoice, through their indifference to the public disgrace.

Interea senatus propinquo iam lustrali certamine, ut dedecus averteret, offert imperatori victoriam cantus adicitque facundiae coronam qua ludicra deformitas velaretur. sed Nero nihil ambitu nec potestate senatus opus esse dictitans, se aequum adversum aemulos et religione iudicum meritam laudem adsecuturum, primo carmen in scaena recitat; mox flagitante vulgo ut omnia studia sua publicaret (haec enim verba dixere) ingreditur theatrum, cunctis citharae legibus obtemperans, ne fessus resideret, ne sudorem nisi ea quam indutui gerebat veste detergeret, ut nulla oris aut narium excrementa viserentur. postremo flexus genu et coetum illum manu veneratus sententias iudicum opperiebatur ficto pavore. et plebs quidem urbis, histrionum quoque gestus iuvare solita, personabat certis modis plausuque composito. crederes laetari, ac fortasse laetabantur per incuriam publici flagitii.

But those who had come from remote municipalities, and from an Italy still austere and keeping the old usage, and those who, from far-off provinces, unpracticed in such wantonness, had arrived on the duty of embassies or for private business, neither could endure that sight nor were equal to the unseemly toil, since they flagged with unskilled hands, and threw into confusion those who knew, and were often beaten by the soldiers who stood throughout the seat-wedges, lest any instant of time should pass with unequal shouting or with slack silence. It was established that very many of the knights, while they struggle through the narrowness of the entrances and the crowding multitude, were trampled, and others, while they keep to their seats day and night, were seized by a deadly disease. For there was a graver fear, were they to be absent from the spectacle—many [agents] openly and more in secret, to scan the names and faces, the eagerness and gloom, of those assembling. Whence on the humbler folk punishments were at once imposed; against the illustrious the hatred was dissembled for the present and soon repaid. And they would tell that Vespasian, as though he closed his eyes in sleep, was upbraided by the freedman Phoebus, and hardly screened by the entreaties of the better men, and soon escaped the impending destruction by a greater destiny.

Sed qui remotis e municipiis severaque adhuc et antiqui moris retinente Italia, quique per longinquas provincias lascivia inexperti officio legationum aut privata utilitate advenerant, neque aspectum illum tolerare neque labori inhonesto sufficere, cum manibus nesciis fatiscerent, turbarent gnaros ac saepe a militibus verberarentur, qui per cuneos stabant ne quod temporis momentum impari clamore aut silentio segni praeteriret. constitit plerosque equitum, dum per angustias aditus et ingruentem multitudinem enituntur, obtritos, et alios, dum diem noctemque sedilibus continuant, morbo exitiabili correptos. quippe gravior inerat metus, si spectaculo defuissent, multis palam et pluribus occultis, ut nomina ac vultus, alacritatem tristitiamque coeuntium scrutarentur. unde tenuioribus statim inrogata supplicia, adversum inlustris dissimulatum ad praesens et mox redditum odium. ferebantque Vespasianum, tamquam somno coniveret, a Phoebo liberto increpitum aegreque meliorum precibus obtectum, mox imminentem perniciem maiore fato effugisse.

After the end of the spectacle, Poppaea met her death, by a chance fit of her husband’s anger, by whom, with child, she was felled by a kick. For I would not credit poison—though certain writers report it, from hatred rather than from good faith: for he was eager for children and a slave to love of his wife. Her body was not done away with by fire, as is the Roman custom, but, after the manner of foreign kings, stuffed with perfumes, was embalmed and borne into the tomb of the Julii. Yet public obsequies were conducted, and he himself praised, before the rostra, her beauty, and that she had been the parent of a divine infant, and the other gifts of fortune in place of virtues.

Post finem ludicri Poppaea mortem obiit, fortuita mariti iracundia, a quo gravida ictu calcis adflicta est. neque enim venenum crediderim, quamvis quidam scriptores tradant, odio magis quam ex fide: quippe liberorum cupiens et amori uxoris obnoxius erat. corpus non igni abolitum, ut Romanus mos, sed regum externorum consuetudine differtum odoribus conditur tumuloque Iuliorum infertur. ductae tamen publicae exequiae laudavitque ipse apud rostra formam eius et quod divinae infantis parens fuisset aliaque fortunae munera pro virtutibus.

The death of Poppaea—openly mournful, but joyful to those who recalled her unchastity and savagery—Nero filled up with a new odium besides, by forbidding Gaius Cassius the office of the obsequies, which was the first token of evil. Nor was it long deferred, but Silanus is added, on no charge except that Cassius excelled in his ancient wealth and weight of character, Silanus in the distinction of his birth and his temperate youth. So, a speech being sent to the Senate, he argued that both must be removed from the commonwealth, and cast at Cassius that, among the images of his ancestors, he had also venerated an effigy of Gaius Cassius, inscribed thus: "To the leader of the party": namely, the seeds of civil war and a revolt from the house of the Caesars had been aimed at; and, lest he employ for sedition only the memory of a hostile name, he had taken to himself Lucius Silanus, a youth noble in birth, headlong in spirit, whom he might parade for revolution.

Mortem Poppaeae ut palam tristem, ita recordantibus laetam ob impudicitiam eius saevitiamque, nova insuper invidia Nero complevit prohibendo C. Cassium officio exequiarum, quod primum indicium mali. neque in longum dilatum est, sed Silanus additur, nullo crimine nisi quod Cassius opibus vetustis et gravitate morum, Silanus claritudine generis et modesta iuventa praecellebant. igitur missa ad senatum oratione removendos a re publica utrosque disseruit, obiectavitque Cassio quod inter imagines maiorum etiam C. Cassi effigiem coluisset, ita inscriptam ’duci partium’: quippe semina belli civilis et defectionem a domo Caesarum quaesitam; ac ne memoria tantum infensi nominis ad discordias uteretur, adsumpsisse L. Silanum, iuvenem genere nobilem, animo praeruptum, quem novis rebus ostentaret.

Then he rebuked Silanus himself on the same counts as his uncle Torquatus, alleging that he was now apportioning the cares of empire and setting freedmen over accounts and petitions and correspondence—charges at once empty and false: for Silanus, the more watchful through fear, and terrified by his uncle’s destruction, had been bent only on guarding himself. Thereafter men were brought in under the title of informers, to trump up against Lepida—Cassius’s wife, Silanus’s aunt—incest with her brother’s son and dread rites of sacrifice. There were dragged in as accomplices the senators Vulcacius Tullinus and Marcellus Cornelius, and Calpurnius Fabatus, a Roman knight; who, by appealing to the prince, balked the imminent condemnation, and soon, while Nero was stretched taut about the greatest crimes, slipped away as persons of lesser account.

Ipsum dehinc Silanum increpuit isdem quibus patruum eius Torquatum, tamquam disponeret iam imperii curas praeficeretque rationibus et libellis et epistulis libertos, inania simul et falsa: nam Silanus intentior metu et exitio patrui ad praecavendum exterritus erat. inducti posthac vocabulo indicum qui in Lepidam, Cassii uxorem, Silani amitam, incestum cum fratris filio et diros sacrorum ritus confingerent. trahebantur ut conscii Vulcacius Tullinus ac Marcellus Cornelius senatores et Calpurnius Fabatus eques Romanus; qui appellato principe instantem damnationem frustrati, mox Neronem circa summa scelera distentum quasi minores evasere.

Then, by a decree of the Senate, exiles are decreed for Cassius and Silanus: about Lepida Caesar was to decide. And Cassius was deported to the island of Sardinia, and his old age was looked for to end him. Silanus, as though he were being conveyed to Naxos, was removed to Ostia, then shut up in a municipality of Apulia whose name is Barium. There, bearing a most undeserved fate wisely, he is laid hold of by a centurion sent for the killing; and to one urging him to sever his veins he said that his spirit was indeed set on death, but that he would not yield the slayer the glory of the service. But the centurion, seeing him, though unarmed, yet exceedingly strong, and nearer to anger than to fear, orders him pressed down by the soldiers. Nor did Silanus leave off struggling and aiming blows, as far as he availed with bare hands, until he fell beneath the centurion, with wounds in front, as if in battle.

Tunc consulto senatus Cassio et Silano exilia decernuntur: de Lepida Caesar statueret. deportatusque in insulam Sardiniam Cassius, et senectus eius expectabatur. Silanus tamquam Naxum deveheretur Ostiam amotus, post municipio Apuliae, cui nomen Barium est, clauditur. illic indignissimum casum sapienter tolerans a centurione ad caedem misso corripitur; suadentique venas abrumpere animum quidem morti destinatum ait, sed non remittere percussori gloriam ministerii. at centurio quamvis inermem, praevalidum tamen et irae quam timori propiorem cernens premi a militibus iubet. nec omisit Silanus obniti et intendere ictus, quantum manibus nudis valebat, donec a centurione vulneribus adversis tamquam in pugna caderet.

No less promptly did Lucius Vetus and his mother-in-law Sextia and his daughter Pollitta undergo death, hateful to the prince as though, by living on, they reproached him with the killing of Rubellius Plautus, son-in-law of Lucius Vetus. But the beginning of unveiling the savagery was furnished by the freedman Fortunatus, who, having made away with his patron’s property, crossed over to accusing, calling in Claudius Demianus—whom, bound by Vetus, proconsul of Asia, for his crimes, Nero loosed as a reward for the accusation. When this was learned by the defendant, and that he was being set on an equal footing with his freedman, he withdraws to his Formian lands: there the soldiers surround him with a secret guard. His daughter was at hand, savage—over and above the onrushing peril—with a long grief, ever since she had seen the slayers of her husband Plautus; and, having embraced his bleeding neck, she kept his blood and her spattered garments, a widow, unkempt, in unbroken mourning, and taking no nourishment except what would ward off death. Then, at her father’s urging, she goes to Naples; and because she was barred from access to Nero, going out to meet him, besetting him, she begged that he hear an innocent man and not give up to a freedman one who had once been the colleague of his own consulship—now with a woman’s wailing, at times in a voice that overpassed her sex, she cried out in fury, until the prince showed himself unmoved alike by prayers and by the odium he incurred.

Haud minus prompte L. Vetus socrusque eius Sextia et Pollitta filia necem subiere, invisi principi tamquam vivendo exprobrarent interfectum esse Rubellium Plautum, generum Luci Veteris. sed initium detegendae saevitiae praebuit interversis patroni rebus ad accusandum transgrediens Fortunatus libertus, adscito Claudio Demiano, quem ob flagitia vinctum a Vetere Asiae pro consule exolvit Nero in praemium accusationis. quod ubi cognitum reo seque et libertum pari sorte componi, Formianos in agros digreditur: illic eum milites occulta custodia circumdant. aderat filia, super ingruens periculum longo dolore atrox, ex quo percussores Plauti mariti sui viderat; cruentamque cervicem eius amplexa servabat sanguinem et vestis respersas, vidua inpexa luctu continuo nec ullis alimentis nisi quae mortem arcerent. tum hortante patre Neapolim pergit; et quia aditu Neronis prohibebatur, egressus obsidens, audiret insontem neve consulatus sui quondam collegam dederet liberto, modo muliebri eiulatu, aliquando sexum egressa voce infensa clamitabat, donec princeps immobilem se precibus et invidiae iuxta ostendit.

So she announces to her father to cast away hope and use necessity: at the same time it is brought [word] that an inquiry of the Senate and a savage sentence were being prepared. Nor were there wanting those who advised him to name Caesar heir for the greatest part, and so to provide for his grandchildren out of the remainder. Spurning this, lest he befoul a life led close to liberty by a final servitude, he lavishes on his slaves whatever money was at hand; and whatever could be carried away, he bids each take for himself, only three little couches being kept for the last [scene]. Then, in the same chamber, with the same steel, they cut their veins, and, in haste, and covered with single garments for decency’s sake, they are borne into the baths—father gazing on daughter, grandmother on granddaughter, she on both—and, vying with one another, praying for a swift departure to the failing soul, so as to leave their own as survivors, and yet about to die. And fortune kept the order: the elder first, then she of earliest years, are extinguished. They were accused after their burial, and it was decreed that they be punished after the manner of the ancestors, and Nero interposed, permitting death without an arbiter: such mockeries were tacked on when the slaughters were already done.

Ergo nuntiat patri abicere spem et uti necessitate: simul adfertur parari cognitionem senatus et trucem sententiam. nec defuere qui monerent magna ex parte heredem Caesarem nuncupare atque ita nepotibus de reliquo consu- lere. quod aspernatus, ne vitam proxime libertatem actam novissimo servitio foedaret, largitur in servos quantum aderat pecuniae; et si qua asportari possent, sibi quemque deducere, tres modo lectulos ad suprema retineri iubet. tunc eodem in cubiculo, eodem ferro abscindunt venas, properique et singulis vestibus ad verecundiam velati balineis inferuntur, pater filiam, avia neptem, illa utrosque intuens, et certatim precantes labenti animae celerem exitum, ut relinquerent suos superstites et morituros. servavitque ordinem fortuna, ac seniores prius, tum cui prima aetas extinguuntur. accusati post sepulturam decretumque ut more maiorum punirentur, et Nero intercessit, mortem sine arbitro permittens: ea caedibus peractis ludibria adiciebantur.

Publius Gallus, a Roman knight, because he had been intimate with Faenius Rufus and not a stranger to Vetus, was forbidden water and fire. To the freedman and accuser, as the reward of his service, a seat in the theater among the tribunician messengers is given. And the months which followed April—the same being also "Neronius"—are changed: May to the name of Claudius, June to that of Germanicus, Cornelius Orfitus attesting (he who had so proposed) that the month of June had been thus passed over because two Torquati, now killed for their crimes, had made the name June ill-omened.

Publius Gallus eques Romanus, quod Faenio Rufo intimus et Veteri non alienus fuerat, aqua atque igni prohibitus est. liberto et accusatori praemium operae locus in theatro inter viatores tribunicios datur. et menses, qui Aprilem eundemque Neroneum sequebantur, Maius Claudii, Iunius Germanici vocabulis mutantur, testificante Cornelio Orfito, qui id censuerat, ideo Iunium mensem transmissum, quia duo iam Torquati ob scelera interfecti infaustum nomen Iunium fecissent.

A year foul with so many crimes the gods too marked with storms and diseases. Campania was laid waste by a whirlwind of winds, which scattered villas, orchards, crops far and wide, and carried its violence to the neighborhood of the city; in which a force of pestilence was depopulating every kind of mortals, with no inclemency of the sky that would meet the eyes. But the houses were filled with lifeless bodies, the roads with funerals; no sex, no age was free of the peril; slaves alike and the freeborn commons were swept off in haste, amid the lamentations of wives and children, who, while they sit by, while they weep, were often cremated on the same pyre. The deaths of knights and senators, though indiscriminate, were less to be wept, as though, by the common mortality, they got ahead of the prince’s savagery. In the same year levies were held through Narbonese Gaul and Africa and Asia, for the filling-up of the Illyrian legions, from which those worn out by age or ill-health were released from the oath. The disaster of Lugdunum the prince solaced with four million sesterces, that they might restore what the city had lost; which sum the people of Lugdunum had before offered toward the misfortunes of the city.

Tot facinoribus foedum annum etiam dii tempestatibus et morbis insignivere. vastata Campania turbine ventorum, qui villas arbusta fruges passim disiecit pertulitque violentiam ad vicina urbi; in qua omne mortalium genus vis pestilentiae depopulabatur, nulla caeli intemperie quae occurreret oculis. sed domus corporibus exanimis, itinera funeribus complebantur; non sexus, non aetas periculo vacua; servitia perinde et ingenua plebes raptim extingui, inter coniugum et liberorum lamenta, qui dum adsident, dum deflent, saepe eodem rogo cremabantur. equitum senatorumque interitus quamvis promisci minus flebiles erant, tamquam communi mortalitate saevitiam principis praevenirent. Eodem anno dilectus per Galliam Narbonensem Africamque et Asiam habiti sunt supplendis Illyrici legionibus, ex quibus aetate aut valetudine fessi sacramento solvebantur. cladem Lugdunensem quadragies sestertio solatus est princeps, ut amissa urbi reponerent; quam pecuniam Lugdunenses ante obtulerant urbis casibus.

In the consulship of Gaius Suetonius and Luccius Telesinus, Antistius Sosianus—penalized with exile, as I have said, for having made scurrilous verses against Nero—after he learned of that honor [paid] to informers, and [found] the prince so prompt to killings, restless of mind and not slack at opportunities, attaches to himself, by the likeness of their lot, Pammenes—an exile of the same place and notorious for the art of the Chaldeans, and on that account entangled in the friendships of many—reckoning not in vain that messengers and consultations resorted to him; at the same time he learns that a yearly sum was supplied to him by Publius Anteius. Nor did he fail to know that Anteius was odious to Nero for his love of Agrippina, and that his wealth was peculiarly apt to draw forth [Nero’s] greed, and that this was a cause of ruin to many. So, the letters of Anteius being intercepted, having filched too the papers in which the day of his nativity and things to come were kept hidden among the secrets of Pammenes, and, finding at the same time what had been composed about the birth and life of Ostorius Scapula, he writes to the prince that he would bring great things, and such as conduced to his safety, if he obtained a brief reprieve from exile: namely, that Anteius and Ostorius were lying in wait for the state and prying into their own and Caesar’s destinies. Thereupon light galleys were sent, and Sosianus is conveyed in haste. And, his information being made public, Anteius and Ostorius were held among the condemned rather than among the accused, so much so that no one would seal the will of Anteius, had not Tigellinus stood forth as warrantor, Anteius being first admonished not to delay his last tablets. And he, having drunk poison, loathing its slowness, hastened death on by cutting his veins.

C. Suetonio Luccio Telesino consulibus Antistius Sosianus, factitatis in Neronem carminibus probrosis exilio, ut dixi, multatus, postquam id honoris indicibus tamque promptum ad caedes principem accepit, inquies animo et occasionum haud segnis Pammenem, eiusdem loci exulem et Chaldaeorum arte famosum eoque multorum amicitiis innexum, similitudine fortunae sibi conciliat, ventitare ad eum nuntios et consultationes non frustra ratus; simul annuam pecuniam a P. Anteio ministrari cognoscit. neque nescium habebat Anteium caritate Agrippinae invisum Neroni opesque eius praecipuas ad eliciendam cupidinem eamque causam multis exitio esse. igitur interceptis Antei litteris, furatus etiam libellos, quibus dies genitalis eius et eventura secretis Pammenis occultabantur, simul repertis quae de ortu vitaque Ostorii Scapulae composita erant, scribit ad principem magna se et quae incolumitati eius conducerent adlaturum, si brevem exilii veniam impetravisset: quippe Anteium et Ostorium imminere rebus et sua Caesarisque fata scrutari. exim missae liburnicae advehiturque propere Sosianus. ac vulgato eius indicio inter damnatos magis quam inter reos Anteius Ostoriusque habebantur, adeo ut testamentum Antei nemo obsignaret, nisi Tigellinus auctor extitisset monito prius Anteio ne supremas tabulas moraretur. atque ille hausto veneno, tarditatem eius perosus intercisis venis mortem adproperavit.

Ostorius was at that time on distant lands, near the border of the Ligurians: thither a centurion was sent to hasten his killing. The cause of the haste arose from this, that Ostorius—of much military fame and having earned a civic crown in Britain, of huge body and skill in arms—had caused Nero fear, lest he assail him, ever timid and, the conspiracy lately discovered, the more terrified. So the centurion, when he had closed the escapes of the villa, lays open the emperor’s orders to Ostorius. He turns upon himself the fortitude often proved against enemies; and because his veins, though cut, poured out too little blood, using a slave’s hand only so far as to hold the dagger motionless, he pressed the man’s right hand and ran his throat upon it.

Ostorius longinquis in agris apud finem Ligurum id temporis erat: eo missus centurio qui caedem eius maturaret. causa festinandi ex eo oriebatur quod Ostorius multa militari fama et civicam coronam apud Britanniam meritus, ingenti corpore armorumque scientia metum Neroni fecerat ne invaderet pavidum semper et reperta nuper coniuratione magis exterritum. igitur centurio, ubi effugia villae clausit, iussa imperatoris Ostorio aperit. is fortitudinem saepe adversum hostis spectatam in se vertit; et quia venae quamquam interruptae parum sanguinis effundebant, hactenus manu servi usus ut immotum pugionem extolleret, adpressit dextram eius iuguloque occurrit.

Even if I were recording foreign wars and deaths met on behalf of the commonwealth, with so great a sameness of incidents, a glut would have seized me too, and I should look for the weariness of others, who shrink from the deaths of citizens—honorable though they be—as grievous and unceasing. But as it is, a slavish submissiveness, and so much blood wasted at home, weary the mind and cramp it with grief. Nor would I exact any other indulgence from those by whom these things shall be known than that I not hate men perishing so tamely. It was the anger of the gods against the Roman state, which one may not, as in the disasters of armies or the captivity of cities, pass over with a single telling. Let this be granted to the posterity of illustrious men: that, just as in their funeral rites they are set apart from the common burial, so in the recording of their last hours they may receive and keep a memorial of their own.

Etiam si bella externa et obitas pro re publica mortis tanta casuum similitudine memorarem, meque ipsum satias cepisset aliorumque taedium expectarem, quamvis honestos civium exitus, tristis tamen et continuos aspernantium: at nunc patientia servilis tantumque sanguinis domi perditum fatigant animum et maestitia restringunt. neque aliam defensionem ab iis quibus ista noscentur exegerim, quam ne oderim tam segniter pereuntis. ira illa numinum in res Romanas fuit, quam non, ut in cladibus exercituum aut captivitate urbium, semel edito transire licet. detur hoc inlustrium virorum posteritati, ut quo modo exequiis a promisca sepultura separantur, ita in traditione supremorum accipiant habeantque propriam memoriam.

For within a few days, in the same train, Annaeus Mela, Anicius Cerialis, Rufrius Crispinus, Gaius Petronius fell—Mela and Crispinus Roman knights of senatorial dignity. For the latter, once prefect of the praetorian guard and presented with consular insignia, and lately driven into Sardinia on the charge of conspiracy, on receiving the message of the death ordered, killed himself. Mela, born of the same parents as Gallio and Seneca, had held off from the seeking of offices, out of a topsy-turvy ambition that, as a Roman knight, he might be equaled in power to men of consular rank; at the same time he believed it a shorter road to the amassing of money, by way of the procuratorships for managing the prince’s business. The same man had fathered Annaeus Lucanus, a great aid to his renown. When he was killed, while [Mela] keenly demands his estate, he stirred up an accuser, Fabius Romanus, one of Lucan’s most intimate friends. A complicity in the conspiracy is feigned, shared between father and son, Lucan’s handwriting being counterfeited: which Nero, having inspected, ordered to be carried to him, gaping after his wealth. But Mela, by what was then the readiest way of death, opened his veins, having written codicils in which he paid out a great sum to Tigellinus and his son-in-law Cossutianus Capito, that the rest might remain [to his heirs]. There is added in the codicils, as though, complaining of the unfairness of his death, he had so written, that he indeed was dying for no causes of punishment, but Rufrius Crispinus and Anicius Cerialis were enjoying life, [though] hostile to the prince. These things were believed forged—of Crispinus, because he had already been killed, of Cerialis, in order that he might be killed. For not long after he did violence to himself, with less pity than the rest, because they remembered that a conspiracy had been betrayed by him to Gaius Caesar.

Paucos quippe intra dies eodem agmine Annaeus Mela, Cerialis Anicius, Rufrius Crispinus, C. Petronius cecidere, Mela et Crispinus equites Romani dignitate senatoria. nam hic quondam praefectus praetorii et consularibus insignibus donatus ac nuper crimine coniurationis in Sardiniam exactus accepto iussae mortis nuntio semet interfecit. Mela, quibus Gallio et Seneca parentibus natus, petitione honorum abstinuerat per ambitionem praeposteram ut eques Romanus consularibus potentia aequaretur; simul adquirendae pecuniae brevius iter credebat per procurationes administrandis principis negotiis. idem Annaeum Lucanum genuerat, grande adiumentum claritudinis. quo interfecto dum rem familiarem eius acriter requirit, accusatorem concivit Fabium Romanum, ex intimis Lucani amicis. mixta inter patrem filiumque coniurationis scientia fingitur, adsimilatis Lucani litteris: quas inspectas Nero ferri ad eum iussit, opibus eius inhians. at Mela, quae tum promptissima mortis via, exolvit venas, scriptis codicillis quibus grandem pecuniam in Tigellinum generumque eius Cossutianum Capitonem erogabat quo cetera manerent. additur codicillis, tamquam de iniquitate exitii querens ita scripsisset, se quidem mori nullis supplicii causis, Rufrium autem Crispinum et Anicium Cerialem vita frui infensos principi. quae composita credebantur de Crispino, quia interfectus erat, de Ceriale, ut interficeretur. neque enim multo post vim sibi attulit, minore quam ceteri miseratione, quia proditam G. Caesari coniurationem ab eo meminerant.

Concerning Gaius Petronius a few things must be recalled from further back. For with him the day was passed in sleep, the night in the duties and delights of life; and, as industry had advanced others to fame, so had idleness this man, and he was reckoned no glutton and spendthrift, like most of those who swallow their own substance, but a man of cultivated luxury. And his sayings and doings, the more unbuttoned they were and parading a certain heedlessness of himself, the more agreeably were they received, with an air of artlessness. Yet, as proconsul of Bithynia and soon consul, he showed himself vigorous and equal to affairs. Then, relapsing into vices, or by an imitation of vices, he was taken among the few of Nero’s intimates as the arbiter of elegance, since [Nero] deemed nothing charming or refined, in all his abundance, save what Petronius had approved to him. Hence the jealousy of Tigellinus, as against a rival, and one his better in the science of pleasures. So he works upon the cruelty of the prince, to which his other lusts gave way, charging Petronius with the friendship of Scaevinus—a slave being suborned to inform, the [chance of] defense taken away, and the greater part of his household snatched into chains.

De C. Petronio pauca supra repetenda sunt. nam illi dies per somnum, nox officiis et oblectamentis vitae transigebatur; utque alios industria, ita hunc ignavia ad famam protulerat, habebaturque non ganeo et profligator, ut plerique sua haurientium, sed erudito luxu. ac dicta factaque eius quanto solutiora et quandam sui neglegentiam praeferentia, tanto gratius in speciem simplicitatis accipiebantur. proconsul tamen Bithyniae et mox consul vigentem se ac parem negotiis ostendit. dein revolutus ad vitia seu vitiorum imitatione inter paucos familiarium Neroni adsumptus est, elegantiae arbiter, dum nihil amoenum et molle adfluentia putat, nisi quod ei Petronius adprobavisset. unde invidia Tigellini quasi adversus aemulum et scientia voluptatum potiorem. ergo crudelitatem principis, cui ceterae libidines cedebant, adgreditur, amicitiam Scaevini Petronio obiectans, corrupto ad indicium servo ademptaque defensione et maiore parte familiae in vincla rapta.

By chance in those days Caesar had made for Campania, and Petronius, having gone forward as far as Cumae, was being detained there; nor did he endure any longer the delays of fear or hope. Yet he did not drive out his life headlong, but, his veins cut, as it pleased him, and bound up, he would open them again, and converse with his friends—not on grave themes, nor such as might earn him the glory of constancy. And he listened to them reciting nothing of the immortality of the soul or the doctrines of the wise, but light songs and facile verses. Of his slaves he treated some with bounty, certain ones with stripes. He went to a banquet, gave himself to sleep, so that, although his death was compelled, it might resemble a chance one. Not even in his codicils—as most of the dying did—did he flatter Nero or Tigellinus or any other of the powerful, but he wrote out in full the prince’s infamies, under the names of his catamites and his women, and the novelty of each act of vice, and, having sealed them, sent them to Nero. And he broke his signet-ring, lest it be of use afterward for the contriving of perils.

Forte illis diebus Campaniam petiverat Caesar, et Cumas usque progressus Petronius illic attinebatur; nec tulit ultra timoris aut spei moras. neque tamen praeceps vitam expulit, sed incisas venas, ut libitum, obligatas aperire rursum et adloqui amicos, non per seria aut quibus gloriam constantiae peteret. audiebatque referentis nihil de immortalitate animae et sapientium placitis, sed levia carmina et facilis versus. servorum alios largitione, quosdam verberibus adfecit. iniit epulas, somno indulsit, ut quamquam coacta mors fortuitae similis esset. ne codicillis quidem, quod plerique pereuntium, Neronem aut Tigellinum aut quem alium potentium adulatus est, sed flagitia principis sub nominibus exoletorum feminarumque et novitatem cuiusque stupri perscripsit atque obsignata misit Neroni. fregitque anulum ne mox usui esset ad facienda pericula.

To Nero, in doubt by what means the character of his nights had become known, Silia is offered—well known by her marriage to a senator, and herself taken on [by him] for every lust, and exceedingly intimate with Petronius. She is driven into exile, as though she had not kept silent about what she had seen and endured—from his own private hatred. But Minucius Thermus, who had discharged the praetorship, he gave over to the feuds of Tigellinus, because a freedman of Thermus had brought certain charges against Tigellinus, which the man himself atoned for by the agonies of the rack, his patron by an undeserved death.

Ambigenti Neroni quonam modo noctium suarum ingenia notescerent, offertur Silia, matrimonio senatoris haud ignota et ipsi ad omnem libidinem adscita ac Petronio perquam familiaris. agitur in exilium tamquam non siluisset quae viderat pertuleratque, proprio odio. at Minucium Thermum praetura functum Tigellini simultatibus dedit, quia libertus Thermi quaedam de Tigellino criminose detulerat, quae cruciatibus tormentorum ipse, patronus eius nece immerita luere.

So many distinguished men butchered, at the last Nero conceived a craving to extirpate virtue itself, by the killing of Thrasea Paetus and Barea Soranus—long hostile to both, and with causes added against Thrasea: that he had walked out of the Senate when the matter of Agrippina was being put, as I have related, and that at the show of the Juvenalia he had lent a service too little conspicuous; and that offense penetrated the deeper, because the same Thrasea, at Patavium, whence he was sprung, had sung in tragic dress at the cestic games instituted by the Trojan Antenor. On the day, too, on which the praetor Antistius was being condemned to death for his outrages composed against Nero, he had voted the milder measures, and carried them; and when divine honors were decreed to Poppaea, he had been absent of his own accord, and had not attended the funeral. These things Capito Cossutianus would not let be blotted out, besides a mind headlong toward villainies, unfair to Thrasea because by his authority he had been brought down, when Thrasea aided the envoys of the Cilicians while they arraign Capito for extortion.

Trucidatis tot insignibus viris ad postremum Nero virtutem ipsam excindere concupivit interfecto Thrasea Paeto et Barea Sorano, olim utrisque infensus et accedentibus causis in Thraseam, quod senatu egressus est cum de Agrippina referretur, ut memoravi, quodque Iuvenalium ludicro parum spectabilem operam praebuerat; eaque offensio altius penetrabat, quia idem Thrasea Patavi, unde ortus erat, ludis cetastis a Troiano Antenore institutis habitu tragico cecinerat. die quoque quo praetor Antistius ob probra in Neronem composita ad mortem damnabatur, mitiora censuit obtinuitque; et cum deum honores Poppaeae decernuntur sponte absens, funeri non interfuerat. quae oblitterari non sinebat Capito Cossutianus, praeter animum ad flagitia praecipitem iniquus Thraseae quod auctoritate eius concidisset, iuvantis Cilicum legatos dum Capitonem repetundarum interrogant.

Nay, he threw also these charges: that Thrasea avoided the solemn oath at the year’s beginning; that he was not present at the pronouncing of the vows, though invested with the priesthood of the Fifteen; that he had never sacrificed for the safety of the prince or for his heavenly voice; that, once constant and untiring—who would show himself a supporter or an opponent even of the commonplace decrees of the Fathers—for three years he had not entered the Curia; and most lately, when men were rushing in rivalry to coerce Silanus and Vetus, he had rather given his leisure to the private affairs of his clients. This was now secession, and faction, and—should many dare the same—war. "As once," he said, "the state, greedy for discords, talked of Gaius Caesar and Marcus Cato, so now [it talks] of you, Nero, and Thrasea. And he has followers, or rather satellites, who do not yet ape the defiance of his votes, but his bearing and countenance, stiff and grim, that they may reproach you with your wantonness. To this one man alone your safety is a thing uncared for, your accomplishments unhonored. He spits out the prince’s prosperities: is he not glutted even with our mournings and griefs? It is of the same temper not to believe Poppaea a goddess, as not to swear by the acts of the deified Augustus and the deified Julius. He spurns the religions, he abrogates the laws. The daily record of the Roman people is read, through the provinces, through the armies, the more attentively, that it may be known what Thrasea has not done. Either let us cross over to those institutions [of his], if they are the better, or let those who crave revolution be deprived of their leader and instigator. That sect bred the Tuberones and the Favonii—names hateful even to the old commonwealth. To overturn the empire, they parade liberty: if they shall overturn it, they will assail liberty itself. In vain have you put Cassius away, if you mean to suffer the rivals of the Bruti to swell and flourish. In short, write nothing yourself about Thrasea: leave us the Senate as arbiter." Nero exalts, with his anger, the ready spirit of Cossutianus, and adds Eprius Marcellus, of keen eloquence.

Quin et illa obiectabat, principio anni vitare Thraseam sollemne ius iurandum; nuncupationibus votorum non adesse, quamvis quindecimvirali sacerdotio praeditum; numquam pro salute principis aut caelesti voce immolavisse; adsiduum olim et indefessum, qui vulgaribus quoque patrum consultis semet fautorem aut adversarium ostenderet, triennio non introisse curiam; nuperrimeque, cum ad coercendos Silanum et Veterem certatim concurreretur, privatis potius clientium negotiis vacavisse. secessionem iam id et partis et, si idem multi audeant, bellum esse. ’ut quondam C. Caesarem’ inquit ’et M. Catonem, ita nunc te, Nero, et Thraseam avida discordiarum civitas loquitur. et habet sectatores vel potius satellites, qui nondum contumaciam sententiarum, sed habitum vultumque eius sectantur, rigidi et tristes, quo tibi lasciviam exprobrent. huic uni incolumitas tua sine cura, artes sine honore. prospera principis respuit: etiamne luctibus et doloribus non satiatur? eiusdem animi est Poppaeam divam non credere, cuius in acta divi Augusti et divi Iuli non iurare. spernit religiones, abrogat leges. diurna populi Romani per provincias, per exercitus curatius leguntur, ut noscatur quid Thrasea non fecerit. aut transeamus ad illa instituta, si potiora sunt, aut nova cupientibus auferatur dux et auctor. ista secta Tuberones et Favonios, veteri quoque rei publicae ingrata nomina, genuit. ut imperium evertant libertatem praeferunt: si perverterint, libertatem ipsam adgredientur. frustra Cassium amovisti, si gliscere et vigere Brutorum aemulos passurus es. denique nihil ipse de Thrasea scripseris: disceptatorem senatum nobis relinque.’ extollit ira promptum Cossutiani animum Nero adicitque Marcellum Eprium acri eloquentia.

But Barea Soranus had already been demanded as a defendant by Ostorius Sabinus, a Roman knight, [arising] from his proconsulship of Asia, in which he heightened the prince’s displeasures by his justice and diligence, and because he had spent care on opening the harbor of the Ephesians, and had left unavenged the violence of the city of Pergamum in forbidding Acratus, Caesar’s freedman, to carry off statues and paintings. But what was charged as a crime was his friendship with Plautus, and the ambition of winning over the province to new hopes. The time was chosen for the condemnation at which Tiridates was arriving to receive the kingdom of Armenia, so that, by the rumors turned to foreign affairs, the domestic crime might be cast in shadow—or that he might flaunt his imperial greatness by the slaughter of distinguished men, as by a kingly deed.

At Baream Soranum iam sibi Ostorius Sabinus eques Romanus poposcerat reum ex proconsulatu Asiae, in quo offensiones principis auxit iustitia atque industria, et quia portui Ephesiorum aperiendo curam insumpserat vimque civitatis Pergamenae prohibentis Acratum, Caesaris libertum, statuas et picturas evehere inultam omiserat. sed crimini dabatur amicitia Plauti et ambitio conciliandae provinciae ad spes novas. tempus damnationi delectum, quo Tiridates accipiendo Armeniae regno adventabat, ut ad externa rumoribus intestinum scelus obscuraretur, an ut magnitudinem imperatoriam caede insignium virorum quasi regio facinore ostentaret.

So, the whole city pouring out to receive the prince and behold the king, Thrasea, barred from the meeting, did not cast down his spirit, but composed a note to Nero, asking the charges and asserting that he would clear himself, had he the knowledge of the accusations and the means of dispelling them. These tablets Nero hastily received, in the hope that Thrasea, frightened, had written such things as would exalt the prince’s renown and dishonor his own fame. When this did not happen, and he, of himself, came to dread the look and spirit and freedom of the guiltless man, he orders the Fathers to be summoned.

Igitur omni civitate ad excipiendum principem spectandumque regem effusa, Thrasea occursu prohibitus non demisit animum, sed codicillos ad Neronem composuit, requirens obiecta et expurgaturum adseverans, si notitiam criminum et copiam diluendi habuisset. eos codicillos Nero properanter accepit, spe exterritum Thraseam scripsisse, per quae claritudinem principis extolleret suamque famam dehonestaret. quod ubi non evenit vultumque et spiritus et libertatem insontis ultro extimuit, vocari patres iubet.

Then Thrasea took counsel among his closest [friends], whether he should attempt a defense or scorn it. Diverse counsels were brought. Those to whom it seemed [good] to enter the Curia argue that they have no fear about his constancy; that he would say nothing but what would heighten his glory. It was the sluggish and the fearful who wrapped their last hours in secrecy: let the people behold a man going to meet death, let the Senate hear utterances as though from some divine power, surpassing the human: even Nero might be stirred by the very marvel: but if he stuck to cruelty, the memory of an honorable death would at least be set apart, among posterity, from the cowardice of those who perish through silence.

Tum Thrasea inter proximos consultavit, temptaretne defensionem an sperneret. diversa consilia adferebantur. quibus intrari curiam placebat, securos esse de constantia eius disserunt; nihil dicturum nisi quo gloriam augeret. segnis et pavidos supremis suis secretum circumdare: aspiceret populus virum morti obvium, audiret senatus voces quasi ex aliquo numine supra humanas: posse ipso miraculo etiam Neronem permoveri: sin crudelitati insisteret, distingui certe apud posteros memoriam honesti exitus ab ignavia per silentium pereuntium.

On the contrary, those who judged that he must wait at home [held] the same of Thrasea himself, but that mockeries and insults were impending: let him withdraw his ears from the abuse and the reproaches. Not only Cossutianus or Eprius were ready for crime: there remained men who would perhaps, in their brutality, dare hands and blows; even the good follow through fear. Let him rather take from the Senate, which he had so adorned, the infamy of so great an outrage, and leave it uncertain what the Fathers would have decreed had they seen Thrasea on trial. That a shame for his villainies should seize Nero was to be cherished on a vain hope; and much more to be feared lest he vent his fury on his wife, his daughter, his other pledges. Accordingly, unblemished, unpolluted, let him seek his end with the glory of those in whose footsteps and pursuits he had led his life. There was present at the council Arulenus Rusticus, a glowing youth, and, from a desire of praise, he offered to veto the Senate’s decree: for he was tribune of the plebs. Thrasea curbed his ardor, lest he begin things idle and of no profit to the defendant, and deadly to the one interposing. His own life was now lived out, [he said], and the unbroken order of a life through so many years must not be forsaken: for him it was the beginning of his magistracies, and what remained was untouched. Let him weigh much beforehand with himself what road of entering public life he was setting out on at such a time. But whether it became himself to come into the Senate, he left to his own reflection.

Contra qui opperiendum domi censebant, de ipso Thrasea eadem, sed ludibria et contumelias imminere: subtraheret auris conviciis et probris. non solum Cossutianum aut Eprium ad scelus promptos: superesse qui forsitan manus ictusque per immanitatem ausuri sint; etiam bonos metu sequi. detraheret potius senatui quem perornavisset infamiam tanti flagitii et relinqueret incertum quid viso Thrasea reo decreturi patres fuerint. ut Neronem flagitiorum pudor caperet inrita spe agitari; multoque magis timendum ne in coniugem, in filiam, in cetera pignora eius saeviret. proinde intemeratus, impollutus, quorum vestigiis et studiis vitam duxerit, eorum gloria peteret finem. aderat consilio Rusticus Arulenus, flagrans iuvenis, et cupidine laudis offerebat se intercessurum senatus consulto: nam plebei tribunus erat. cohibuit spiritus eius Thrasea ne vana et reo non profutura, intercessori exitiosa inciperet. sibi actam aetatem, et tot per annos continuum vitae ordinem non deserendum: illi initium magistratuum et integra quae supersint. multum ante secum expenderet quod tali in tempore capessendae rei publicae iter ingrederetur. ceterum ipse an venire in senatum deceret meditationi suae reliquit.

But at the next dawn two praetorian cohorts in arms occupied the temple of Venus Genetrix; a knot of men in togas, with swords not concealed, had blocked the approach to the Senate, and military columns [were] scattered through the fora and the basilicas. Amid the sight and the threats of these the senators entered the Curia, and the prince’s speech was heard, [read] by his quaestor: with no one addressed by name, he reproached the Fathers for deserting their public duties, and that by their example the Roman knights were turning to sloth: for what wonder if men did not come from far-off provinces, when very many, having attained the consulship and the priesthoods, attended rather to the loveliness of their gardens? Which, as though a weapon, the accusers snatched up.

At postera luce duae praetoriae cohortes armatae templum Genetricis Veneris insedere; aditum senatus globus togatorum obsederat non occultis gladiis, dispersique per fora ac basilicas cunei militares. inter quorum aspectus et minas ingressi curiam senatores, et oratio principis per quaestorem eius audita est: nemine nominatim compellato patres arguebat quod publica munia desererent eorumque exemplo equites Romani ad segnitiam verterentur: etenim quid mirum e longinquis provinciis haud veniri, cum plerique adepti consulatum et sacerdotia hortorum potius amoenitati inservirent. quod velut telum corripuere accusatores.

And, Cossutianus making the beginning, with greater force Marcellus kept crying out that the supreme interest of the commonwealth was at issue; that by the defiance of inferiors the lenity of the ruler was lessened. Too mild had the Fathers been up to that day, who suffered Thrasea, in revolt, and his son-in-law Helvidius Priscus, in the same frenzies, and at the same time Paconius Agrippinus, heir to a father’s hatred of princes, and Curtius Montanus, who kept composing detestable poems, to make their mock with impunity. He missed, in the Senate a consular, at the vows a priest, at the oath a citizen—unless, against the institutions and ceremonies of the ancestors, Thrasea had openly put on [the part of] traitor and enemy. In short, let him come, accustomed to play the senator and to shield the detractors of the prince, let him propose what he would have corrected or changed: they would more easily bear him railing at single things than they now endure the silence of one who condemns all. Did the peace throughout the whole earth displease him, or victories without loss to the armies? Let them not make a man—gloomy at the public goods, and who counted fora, theaters, temples for a desert, who threatened them with his own exile—master of his depraved ambition. To him these seemed not decrees, not the magistrates or the city of Rome. Let him tear his life away from the state whose love he had long since, and now even the sight of, cast off.

Et initium faciente Cossutiano, maiore vi Marcellus summam rem publicam agi clamitabat; contumacia inferiorum lenitatem imperitantis deminui. nimium mitis ad eam diem patres, qui Thraseam desciscentem, qui generum eius Helvidium Priscum in isdem furoribus, simul Paconium Agrippinum, paterni in principes odii heredem, et Curtium Montanum detestanda carmina factitantem eludere impune sinerent. requirere se in senatu consularem, in votis sacerdotem, in iure iurando civem, nisi contra instituta et caerimonias maiorum proditorem palam et hostem Thrasea induisset. denique agere senatorem et principis obtrectatores protegere solitus veniret, censeret quid corrigi aut mutari vellet: facilius perlaturos singula increpantem quam nunc silentium perferrent omnia damnantis. pacem illi per orbem terrae, an victorias sine damno exercituum displicere? ne hominem bonis publicis maestum, et qui fora theatra templa pro solitudine haberet, qui minitaretur exilium suum, ambitionis pravae compotem facerent. non illi consulta haec, non magistratus aut Romanam urbem videri. abrumperet vitam ab ea civitate cuius caritatem olim, nunc et aspectum exuisset.

While, through these and such things, Marcellus—grim and menacing as he was—blazed in voice, face, eyes, there was not that now-familiar sadness of the Senate, grown used to the frequency of perils, but a new and deeper dread, as they looked on the hands and weapons of the soldiers. At the same time the venerable aspect of Thrasea himself kept rising before them; and there were those who pitied Helvidius too, about to pay the penalty of a guiltless kinship. What had been charged against Agrippinus save his father’s grim fortune, since that man too, just as innocent, had fallen by the savagery of Tiberius? And indeed Montanus, of upright youth and no infamous poem, was being driven into exile because he had brought forth his talent.

Cum per haec atque talia Marcellus, ut erat torvus ac minax, voce vultu oculis ardesceret, non illa nota et celebritate periculorum sueta iam senatus maestitia, sed novus et altior pavor manus et tela militum cernentibus. simul ipsius Thraseae venerabilis species obversabatur; et erant qui Helvidium quoque miserarentur, innoxiae adfinitatis poenas daturum. quid Agrippino obiectum nisi tristem patris fortunam, quando et ille perinde innocens Tiberii saevitia concidisset. enimvero Montanum probae iuventae neque famosi carminis, quia protulerit ingenium, extorrem agi.

And meanwhile Ostorius Sabinus, accuser of Soranus, enters and begins about the friendship of Rubellius Plautus, and that Soranus had administered the proconsulship of Asia in a way accommodated rather to his own renown than to the common advantage, by fostering the seditions of the cities. These were old [charges]: but a recent one, and by which he linked the daughter to the father’s peril, [was] that she had been over-lavish with money. This had indeed happened through the piety of Servilia (for that was the girl’s name), who, from affection toward her parent, and at the same time the imprudence of [her] age, had yet consulted about nothing else than the safety of the house, and whether Nero might be appeasable, [and] whether the inquiry of the Senate would bring nothing dreadful. So she was summoned into the Senate, and they stood, set apart, before the tribunal of the consuls—the parent advanced in age, over against him the daughter within the twentieth year of her life, lately widowed and forlorn by the driving of her husband Annius Pollio into exile, not even looking at her father, whose perils she seemed to have made the heavier.

Atque interim Ostorius Sabinus, Sorani accusator, ingreditur orditurque de amicitia Rubelli Plauti, quodque proconsulatum Asiae Soranus pro claritate sibi potius accommodatum quam ex utilitate communi egisset, alendo seditiones civitatium. vetera haec: sed recens et quo discrimini patris filiam conectebat, quod pecuniam magis dilargita esset. acciderat sane pietate Serviliae (id enim nomen puellae fuit), quae caritate erga parentem, simul imprudentia aetatis, non tamen aliud consultaverat quam de incolumitate domus, et an placabilis Nero, an cognitio senatus nihil atrox adferret. igitur accita est in senatum, steteruntque diversi ante tribunal consulum grandis aevo parens, contra filia intra vicesimum aetatis annum, nuper marito Annio Pollione in exilium pulso viduata desolataque, ac ne patrem quidem intuens cuius onerasse pericula videbatur.

Then, the accuser asking whether she had sold her bridal finery, or a necklace torn from her neck, to raise money for the performing of magic rites, at first stretched on the ground in long weeping and silence, then having clasped the altar-steps and the altar, she said: "No unholy gods, no curses, nor anything else did I call upon with my luckless prayers than that you, Caesar, [and] you, Fathers, might keep this best of fathers safe. So I gave my gems and garments and the insignia of my rank, just as I would have, had they demanded my blood and my life. Let those persons—unknown to me before this—look to it by what name they are [called], what arts they ply: no mention of the prince passed my lips, save among the divinities. Yet my most wretched father knows nothing; and, if it is a crime, I alone have offended."

Tum interrogante accusatore an cultus dotalis, an detractum cervici monile venum dedisset, quo pecuniam faciendis magicis sacris contraheret, primum strata humi longoque fletu et silentio, post altaria et aram complexa ’nullos’ inquit ’impios deos, nullas devotiones, nec aliud infelicibus precibus invocavi quam ut hunc optimum patrem tu, Caesar, vos, patres, servaretis incolumem. sic gemmas et vestis et dignitatis insignia dedi, quo modo si sanguinem et vitam poposcissent. viderint isti, antehac mihi ignoti, quo nomine sint, quas artes exerceant: nulla mihi principis mentio nisi inter numina fuit. nescit tamen miserrimus pater et, si crimen est, sola deliqui.’

While she still spoke, Soranus takes up her words and cries out that she had not set out with him into the province, that she could not, by reason of her age, have been known to Plautus, that she was not implicated in her husband’s charges: let them set apart [for trial] one guilty only of an excessive piety, and let him himself undergo whatever lot. At the same time he was rushing into the embraces of his daughter as she ran to meet him, had not the lictors, thrown between, withstood them both. Then place was given to the witnesses; and as much pity as the savagery of the accusation had stirred, so much wrath did Publius Egnatius, [as] witness, kindle. A client this man of Soranus, and now bought to crush his friend, he flaunted the authority of the Stoic sect, trained in bearing and visage to render the image of an honest man, but in spirit treacherous, sly, hiding greed and lust; which, after they were laid open by money, he gave an example for being on one’s guard—[that one must beware], just as of men wrapped in frauds or stained with infamies, so of men false under the appearance of good arts, and of a treacherous friendship.

Loquentis adhuc verba excipit Soranus proclamatque non illam in provinciam secum profectam, non Plauto per aetatem nosci potuisse, non criminibus mariti conexam: nimiae tantum pietatis ream separarent, atque ipse quamcumque sortem subiret. simul in amplexus occurrentis filiae ruebat, nisi interiecti lictores utrisque obstitissent. mox datus testibus locus; et quantum misericordiae saevitia accusationis permoverat, tantum irae P. Egnatius testis concivit. cliens hic Sorani et tunc emptus ad opprimendum amicum auctoritatem Stoicae sectae praeferebat, habitu et ore ad exprimendam imaginem honesti exercitus, ceterum animo perfidiosus, subdolus, avaritiam ac libidinem occultans; quae postquam pecunia reclusa sunt, dedit exemplum praecavendi, quo modo fraudibus involutos aut flagitiis commaculatos, sic specie bonarum artium falsos et amicitiae fallacis.

Yet the same day brought also an honorable example, that of Cassius Asclepiodotus, who, foremost among the Bithynians for the greatness of his wealth, with the same devotion with which he had honored Soranus in his prosperity, did not desert him as he tottered, and, stripped of all his fortunes and driven into exile, [stands] as a proof of the gods’ even-handedness toward examples good and bad. To Thrasea, Soranus, and Servilia is given the choice of death; Helvidius and Paconius are driven from Italy; Montanus was granted to his father, with the proviso that he hold no place in public life. To the accusers Eprius and Cossutianus five million sesterces each, to Ostorius twelve hundred thousand and quaestorian insignia, are bestowed.

Idem tamen dies et honestum exemplum tulit Cassii Asclepiodoti, qui magnitudine opum praecipuus inter Bithynos, quo obsequio florentem Soranum celebraverat, labantem non deseruit, exutusque omnibus fortunis et in exilium actus, aequitate deum erga bona malaque documenta. Thraseae Soranoque et Serviliae datur mortis arbitrium; Helvidius et Paconius Italia depelluntur; Montanus patri concessus est, praedicto ne in re publica haberetur. accusatoribus Eprio et Cossutiano quinquagies sestertium singulis, Ostorio duodecies et quaestoria insignia tribuuntur.

Then to Thrasea, passing the time in his gardens, the consuls’ quaestor was sent, the day now drawing toward evening. He had held a numerous gathering of illustrious men and women, most intent on Demetrius, a teacher of the Cynic discipline, with whom—as one could conjecture from the intentness of his face, and from things heard, if any spoke out more clearly—he was inquiring about the nature of the soul and the parting of breath and body, until Domitius Caecilianus, one of his closest friends, arrived and set forth to him what the Senate had decreed. So, as those present wept and lamented, Thrasea urges them to depart quickly and not to mingle their own perils with the lot of a condemned man, and warns Arria, who was attempting her husband’s last [act] and to follow the example of her mother Arria, to keep her life and not to take from their common daughter her one and only support.

Tum ad Thraseam in hortis agentem quaestor consulis missus vesperascente iam die. inlustrium virorum feminarumque coetus frequentis egerat, maxime intentus Demetrio Cynicae institutionis doctori, cum quo, ut coniectare erat intentione vultus et auditis, si qua clarius proloquebantur, de natura animae et dissociatione spiritus corporisque inquirebat, donec advenit Domitius Caecilianus ex intimis amicis et ei quid senatus censuisset exposuit. igitur flentis queritantisque qui aderant facessere propere Thrasea neu pericula sua miscere cum sorte damnati hortatur, Arriamque temptantem mariti suprema et exemplum Arriae matris sequi monet retinere vitam filiaeque communi subsidium unicum non adimere.

Then, having gone forward into the colonnade, he is found there by the quaestor, nearer to joy, because he had learned that Helvidius his son-in-law was only being barred from Italy. Then, the decree of the Senate received, he leads Helvidius and Demetrius into a chamber; and, the veins of each arm held forth, after he had poured out the blood, sprinkling it over the ground, the quaestor called nearer, "We pour a libation," he said, "to Jupiter the Liberator. Look, young man; and—may the gods, indeed, avert the omen, but—you have been born into such times as it profits to fortify the spirit with examples of steadfastness." Afterward, the slowness of his end bringing grievous torments, his eyes turned upon Demetrius...

Tum progressus in porticum illic a quaestore reperitur, laetitiae propior, quia Helvidium generum suum Italia tantum arceri cognoverat. accepto dehinc senatus consulto Helvidium et Demetrium in cubiculum inducit; porrectisque utriusque brachii venis, postquam cruorem effudit, humum super spargens, propius vocato quaestore ’libamus’ inquit ’Iovi liberatori. specta, iuvenis; et omen quidem dii prohibeant, ceterum in ea tempora natus es quibus firmare animum expediat constantibus exemplis.’ post lentitudine exitus gravis cruciatus adferente, obversis in Demetrium

T acitus Entire

The Annals

Cite this passage

Support this project