Book 6 [20]

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Tacitus: Annals Book 6 [20]

20. About this time Caius Caesar, who became his grandfather's companion on his retirement to Capreae, married Claudia, daughter of Marcus Silanus. He was a man who masked a savage temper under an artful guise of self-restraint, and neither his mother's doom nor the banishment of his brothers extorted from him a single utterance. Whatever the humour of the day with Tiberius, he would assume the like, and his language differed as little. Hence the fame of a clever remark from the orator Passienus, that "there never was a better slave or a worse master." I must not pass over a prognostication of Tiberius respecting Servius Galba, then consul. Having sent for him and sounded him on various topics, he at last addressed him in Greek to this effect: "You too, Galba, will some day have a taste of empire." He thus hinted at a brief span of power late in life, on the strength of his acquaintance with the art of astrologers, leisure for acquiring which he had had at Rhodes, with Thrasyllus for instructor. This man's skill he tested in the following manner.

6.20. 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 '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.

21. Whenever he sought counsel on such matters, he would make use of the top of the house and of the confidence of one freedman, quite illiterate and of great physical strength. The man always walked in front of the person whose science Tiberius had determined to test, through an unfrequented and precipitous path (for the house stood on rocks), and then, if any suspicion had arisen of imposture or of trickery, he hurled the astrologer, as he returned, into the sea beneath, that no one might live to betray the secret. Thrasyllus accordingly was led up the same cliffs, and when he had deeply impressed his questioner by cleverly revealing his imperial destiny and future career, he was asked whether he had also thoroughly ascertained his own horoscope, and the character of that particular year and day. After surveying the positions and relative distances of the stars, he first paused, then trembled, and the longer he gazed, the more was he agitated by amazement and terror, till at last he exclaimed that a perilous and well-nigh fatal crisis impended over him. Tiberius then embraced him and congratulated him on foreseeing his dangers and on being quite safe. Taking what he had said as an oracle, he retained him in the number of his intimate friends.

6.21. Quotiens 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.

22. When I hear of these and like occurrences, I suspend my judgment on the question whether it is fate and unchangeable necessity or chance which governs the revolutions of human affairs. Indeed, among the wisest of the ancients and among their disciples you will find conflicting theories, many holding the conviction that heaven does not concern itself with the beginning or the end of our life, or, in short, with mankind at all; and that therefore sorrows are continually the lot of the good, happiness of the wicked; while others, on the contrary, believe that though there is a harmony between fate and events, yet it is not dependent on wandering stars, but on primary elements, and on a combination of natural causes. Still, they leave us the capacity of choosing our life, maintaining that, the choice once made, there is a fixed sequence of events. Good and evil, again, are not what vulgar opinion accounts them; many who seem to be struggling with adversity are happy; many, amid great affluence, are utterly miserable, if only the first bear their hard lot with patience, and the latter make a foolish use of their prosperity. Most men, however, cannot part with the belief that each person's future is fixed from his very birth, but that some things happen differently from what has been foretold through the impostures of those who describe what they do not know, and that this destroys the credit of a science, clear testimonies to which have been given both by past ages and by our own. In fact, how the son of this same Thrasyllus predicted Nero's reign I shall relate when the time comes, not to digress too far from my subject.

6.22. 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 aemulatur 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.

23. That same year the death of Asinius Gallus became known. That he died of starvation, there was not a doubt; whether of his own choice or by compulsion, was a question. The emperor was asked whether he would allow him to be buried, and he blushed not to grant the favour, and actually blamed the accident which had proved fatal to the accused before he could be convicted in his presence. Just as if in a three years' interval an opportunity was wanting for the trial of an old ex-consul and the father of a number of ex-consuls. Next Drusus perished, after having prolonged life for eight days on the most wretched of food, even chewing the stuffing, his bed. According to some writers, Macro had been instructed that, in case of Sejanus attempting an armed revolt, he was to hurry the young prince out of the confinement in which he was detained in the Palace and put him at the head of the people. Subsequently the emperor, as a rumour was gaining ground that he was on the point of a reconciliation with his daughter-in-law and his grandson, chose to be merciless rather than to relent.

6.23. 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 populo imponere. mox, quia rumor incedebat fore ut nuru ac nepoti conciliaretur Caesar, saevitiam quam paenitentiam maluit.

24. He even bitterly reviled him after his death, taunting him with nameless abominations and with a spirit bent on his family's ruin and hostile to the State. And, what seemed most horrible of all, he ordered a daily journal of all that he said and did to be read in public. That there had been spies by his side for so many years, to note his looks, his sighs, and even his whispered thoughts, and that his grandfather could have heard read, and published all, was scarce credible. But letters of Attius, a centurion, and Didymus, a freedman, openly exhibited the names of slave after slave who had respectively struck or scared Drusus as he was quitting his chamber. The centurion had actually added, as something highly meritorious, his own language in all its brutality, and some utterances of the dying man in which, at first feigning loss of reason, he imprecated in seeming madness fearful things on Tiberius, and then, when hope of life was gone, denounced him with a studied and elaborate curse. "As he had slain a daughter-in-law, a brother's son, and son's sons, and filled his whole house with bloodshed, so might he pay the full penalty due to the name and race of his ancestors as well as to future generations." The Senate clamorously interrupted, with an affectation of horror, but they were penetrated by alarm and amazement at seeing that a hitherto cunning prince, who had shrouded his wickedness in mystery, had waxed so bold as to remove, so to speak, the walls of his house and display his grandson under a centurion's lash, amid the buffetings of slaves, craving in vain the last sustenance of life.

6.24. 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, legeret, 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 [alienationem mentis simulans] 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.

25. Men's grief at all this had not died away when news was heard of Agrippina. She had lived on, sustained by hope, I suppose, after the destruction of Sejanus, and, when she found no abatement of horrors, had voluntarily perished, though possibly nourishment was refused her and a fiction concocted of a death that might seem self-chosen. Tiberius, it is certain, vented his wrath in the foulest charges. He reproached her with unchastity, with having had Asinius Gallus as a paramour and being driven by his death to loathe existence. But Agrippina, who could not endure equality and loved to domineer, was with her masculine aspirations far removed from the frailties of women. The emperor further observed that she died on the same day on which Sejanus had paid the penalty of his crime two years before, a fact, he said, to be recorded; and he made it a boast that she had not been strangled by the halter and flung down the Gemonian steps. He received a vote of thanks, and it was decreed that on the seventeenth of October, the day on which both perished, through all future years, an offering should be consecrated to Jupiter.

6.25. 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 compulsam. 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.

26. Soon afterwards Cocceius Nerva, a man always at the emperor's side, a master of law both divine and human, whose position was secure and health sound, resolved to die. Tiberius, as soon as he knew it, sat by him and asked his reasons, adding intreaties, and finally protesting that it would be a burden on his conscience and a blot on his reputation, if the most intimate of his friends were to fly from life without any cause for death. Nerva turned away from his expostulations and persisted in his abstinence from all food. Those who knew his thoughts said that as he saw more closely into the miseries of the State, he chose, in anger and alarm, an honourable death, while he was yet safe and unassailed on. Meanwhile Agrippina's ruin, strange to say, dragged Plancina with it. Formerly the wife of Cneius Piso, and one who had openly exulted at the death of Germanicus, she had been saved, when Piso fell, by the intreaties of Augusta, and not less by the enmity of Agrippina. When hatred and favour had alike passed away, justice asserted itself. Pursued by charges universally notorious, she suffered by her own hand a penalty tardy rather than undeserved.

6.26. 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.

27. Amid the many sorrows which saddened Rome, one cause of grief was the marriage of Julia, Drusus's daughter and Nero's late wife, into the humbler family of Rubellius Blandus, whose grandfather many remembered as a Roman knight from Tibur. At the end of the year the death of Aelius Lamia, who, after being at last released from the farce of governing Syria, had become city-prefect, was celebrated with the honours of a censor's funeral. He was a man of illustrious descent, and in a hale old age; and the fact of the province having been withheld gained him additional esteem. Subsequently, on the death of Flaccus Pomponius, propraetor of Syria, a letter from the emperor was read, in which he complained that all the best men who were fit to command armies declined the service, and that he was thus necessarily driven to intreaties, by which some of the ex-consuls might be prevailed on to take provinces. He forgot that Arruntius had been kept at home now for ten years, that he might not go to Spain. That same year Marcus Lepidus also died. I have dwelt at sufficient length on his moderation and wisdom in my earlier books, and I need not further enlarge on his noble descent. Assuredly the family of the Aemilii has been rich in good citizens, and even the members of that house whose morals were corrupt, still lived with a certain splendour.

6.27. 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.

28. During the consulship of Paulus Fabius and Lucius Vitellius, the bird called the phoenix, after a long succession of ages, appeared in Egypt and furnished the most learned men of that country and of Greece with abundant matter for the discussion of the marvellous phenomenon. It is my wish to make known all on which they agree with several things, questionable enough indeed, but not too absurd to be noticed. That it is a creature sacred to the sun, differing from all other birds in its beak and in the tints of its plumage, is held unanimously by those who have described its nature. As to the number of years it lives, there are various accounts. The general tradition says five hundred years. Some maintain that it is seen at intervals of fourteen hundred and sixty-one years, and that the former birds flew into the city called Heliopolis successively in the reigns of Sesostris, Amasis, and Ptolemy, the third king of the Macedonian dynasty, with a multitude of companion birds marvelling at the novelty of the appearance. But all antiquity is of course obscure. From Ptolemy to Tiberius was a period of less than five hundred years. Consequently some have supposed that this was a spurious phoenix, not from the regions of Arabia, and with none of the instincts which ancient tradition has attributed to the bird. For when the number of years is completed and death is near, the phoenix, it is said, builds a nest in the land of its birth and infuses into it a germ of life from which an offspring arises, whose first care, when fledged, is to bury its father. This is not rashly done, but taking up a load of myrrh and having tried its strength by a long flight, as soon as it is equal to the burden and to the journey, it carries its father's body, bears it to the altar of the Sun, and leaves it to the flames. All this is full of doubt and legendary exaggeration. Still, there is no question that the bird is occasionally seen in Egypt.

6.28. 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.

29. Rome meanwhile being a scene of ceaseless bloodshed, Pomponius Labeo, who was, as I have related, governor of Moesia, severed his veins and let his life ebb from him. His wife, Paxaea, emulated her husband. What made such deaths eagerly sought was dread of the executioner, and the fact too that the condemned, besides forfeiture of their property, were deprived of burial, while those who decided their fate themselves, had their bodies interred, and their wills remained valid, a recompense this for their despatch. The emperor, however, argued in a letter to the Senate that it had been the practice of our ancestors, whenever they broke off an intimacy, to forbid the person their house, and so put an end to friendship. "This usage he had himself revived in Labeo's case, but Labeo, being pressed by charges of maladministration in his province and other crimes, had screened his guilt by bringing odium on another, and had groundlessly alarmed his wife, who, though criminal, was still free from danger." Mamercus Scaurus was then for the second time impeached, a man of distinguished rank and ability as an advocate, but of infamous life. He fell, not through the friendship of Sejanus, but through what was no less powerful to destroy, the enmity of Macro, who practised the same arts more secretly. Macro's information was grounded on the subject of a tragedy written by Scaurus, from which he cited some verses which might be twisted into allusions to Tiberius. But Servilius and Cornelius, his accusers, alleged adultery with Livia and the practice of magical rites. Scaurus, as befitted the old house of the Aemilii, forestalled the fatal sentence at the persuasion of his wife Sextia, who urged him to die and shared his death.

6.29. 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.

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