[3.1]  Nihil intermissa navigatione hiberni maris Agrippina Corcyram insulam advehitur, litora Calabriæ contra sitam.  Illic paucos dies componendo animo insumit, violenta luctu et nescia tolerandi.  Interim adventu ejus 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 appulsu erat.  Atque ubi primum ex alto visa classis, complentur non modo portus et proxima maris sed mœnia ac tecta, quaque longissime prospectari poterat, mærentium turba et rogitantium inter se silentione an voce aliqua egredientem exciperent.  Neque satis constabat quid pro tempore foret, quum classis paulatim successit, non alacri, ut assolet, 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 Agrippinæ longo mærore fessum, obvii et recentes in dolore antibant.

[3.1]  Without pausing in her winter voyage Agrippina arrived at the island of Corcyra, facing the shores of Calabria.  There she spent a few days to compose her mind, for she was wild with grief and at a loss as to how to endure it.  Meanwhile on hearing of her arrival, all her intimate friends and a great many soldiers — those who had served under Germanicus —, many strangers too from the neighboring towns, some thinking it respectful to the emperor, and still more following their example, thronged eagerly to Brundisium, the nearest and safest landing place for a voyager.  As soon as the fleet was seen on the horizon, not only the harbour and the adjacent shores, but the city walls too and the roofs and every place which commanded the most distant prospect were filled with crowds of mourners, who incessantly asked one another, whether, when she landed, they were to receive her in silence or with some utterance of emotion.  They were not agreed on what befitted the occasion when the fleet slowly approached, its crew, not energetic as is usual, but wearing all a studied expression of grief.  When Agrippina descended from the vessel with her two children, clasping the funeral urn, with eyes riveted to the earth, there was one universal groan.  You could not distinguish kinsfolk from strangers, or the laments of men from those of women;  only the attendants of Agrippina, worn out as they were by long sorrow, were surpassed by the mourners who now met them, fresh in their grief.

[3.2]  Miserat duas Prætorias cohortes Cæsar, addito ut magistratus Calabriæ, Apulique et Campani, suprema erga memoriam filii sui munera fungerentur.  Igitur trlbunorum centurionumque umeris cineres portabantur ;  præcedebant 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 (jam enim magistratum occeperant) et Senatus ac magna pars populi viam complevere, disjecti et ut cuique libitum flentes ;  aberat quippe adulatio, gnaris omnibus lætam Tiberio Germanici mortem male dissimulari.

[3.2]  The emperor had despatched two Prætorian cohorts with instructions that the magistrates of Calabria, Apulia, and Campania were to pay the last honors to his son’s memory.  Accordingly tribunes and centurions bore Germanicus’s ashes on their shoulders.  They were preceded by the standards unadorned and the fasces reversed.  As they passed colony after colony, the populace in black, the knights in their state robes, burnt vestments and perfumes with other usual funeral adjuncts, in proportion to the wealth of the place.  Even those whose towns were out of the route, met the mourners, offered victims and built altars to the dead, testifying their grief by tears and wailings.  Drusus went as far as Tarracina with Claudius, brother of Germanicus, and had been at Rome.  Marcus Valerius and Marcus Aurelius, the consuls (who had already entered on office), and a great number of the people thronged the road in scattered groups, every one weeping as he felt inclined.  Flattery there was none, for all knew that Tiberius could scarcely dissemble his joy at the death of Germanicus.

[3.3]  Tiberius atque Augusta publico abstinuere, inferius majestate 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, quum super Agrippinam et Drusum et Claudium ceteri quoque consanguinei nominatim perscripti sint, seu valetudine præpediebatur seu victus luctu animus magnitudinem mali perferre visu non toleravit.  Facilius crediderim Tiberio et Augusta, qui domo non excedebant, cohibitam, ut par mæror et matris exemplo avia quoque et patruus attineri viderentur.

[3.3]  Tiberius and Augusta refrained from showing themselves, thinking it below their dignity to shed tears in public, or else fearing that, if all eyes scrutinised their faces, their hypocrisy would be revealed.  I do not find in any historian or in the daily register that Antonia, Germanicus’s mother, rendered any conspicuous honor to the deceased, though besides Agrippina, Drusus, and Claudius, all his other kinsfolk are mentioned by name.  She may either have been hindered by illness, or with a spirit overpowered by grief she may not have had the heart to endure the sight of so great an affliction.  But I can more easily believe that Tiberius and Augusta, who did not leave the palace, kept her within, that their sorrow might seem equal to hers, and that the grandmother and uncle might be thought to follow the mother’s example in staying at home.

[3.4]  Dies quo reliquiæ tumulo Augusti inferebantur modo per silentium vastus, modo ploratibus inquies ;  plena Urbis itinera, collucentes 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, quum decus patriæ, solum Augusti sanguinem, unicum antiquitatis specimen appellarent, versique ad cælum ac deos, integram illi subolem ac superstitem iniquorum precarentur.

[3.4]  The day on which the remains were consigned to the tomb of Augustus, was now desolate in its silence, now distracted by lamentations.  The streets of the city were crowded;  torches were blazing throughout the Campus Martius.  There the soldiers under arms, the magistrates without their symbols of office, the people in the tribes, were all incessantly exclaiming that the commonwealth was ruined, that not a hope remained, too boldly and openly to let one think that they remembered their rulers.  But nothing impressed Tiberius more deeply than the enthusiasm kindled in favor of Agrippina, whom men spoke of as the glory of the country, the sole surviving off spring of Augustus, the solitary example of the old times, while looking up to heaven and the gods they prayed for the safety of her children and that they might outlive their oppressors.

[3.5]  Fuere qui publici funeris pompam requirerent compararentque quæ 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 Juliorumque imagines ;  defletum in foro, laudatum pro rostris, cuncta a majoribus reperta aut quæ posteri invenerint cumulata :  at Germanico ne solitos quidem et cuicunque 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 ?

[3.5]  Some there were who missed the grandeur of a state-funeral, and contrasted the splendid honors conferred by Augustus on Drusus, the father of Germanicus.  “Then the emperor himself,” they said, “went in the extreme rigour of winter as far as Ticinum, and never leaving the corpse entered Rome with it.  Round the funeral bier were ranged the images of the Claudii and the Julii;  there was weeping in the forum, and a panegyric before the rostra;  every honor devised by our ancestors or invented by their descendants was heaped on him.  But as for Germanicus, even the customary distinctions due to any noble had not fallen to his lot.  Granting that his body, because of the distance of tie journey, was burnt in any fashion in foreign lands, still all the more honors ought to have been afterwards paid him, because at first chance had denied them.  His brother had gone but one day’s journey to meet him;  his uncle, not even to the city gates.  Where were all those usages of the past, the image at the head of the bier, the lays composed in commemoration of worth, the eulogies and laments — or at least the semblance of grief?”

[3.6]  Gnarum id Tiberio fuit ;  utque premeret vulgi sermones, monuit edicto multos illustrium Romanorum ob Rem Publicam obisse, neminem tam flagranti desiderio celebratum.  Idque et sibi et cunctis egregium, si modus adjiceretur.  Non enim eadem decora principibus viris et imperatori populo, quæ modicis domibus aut civitatibus.  Convenisse recenti dolori luctum et ex mærore solacia ;  sed referendum jam animum ad firmitudinem, ut quondam divus Julius, amissa unica filia, ut divus Augustus, ereptis nepotibus, abstruserint tristitiam.  Nil opus vetustioribus exemplis, quotiens populus Romanus clades exercituum, interitum ducum, funditus amissas nobiles familias constanter tulerit.  Principes mortales, Rem Publicam æternam esse.  Proin repeterent sollemnia, et quia ludorum Megalesium spectaculum suberat, etiam voluptates resumerent.

[3.6]  All this was known to Tiberius, and, to silence popular talk, he warned the people in a proclamation that many eminent Romans had died for their country and that none had been honored with such blazing regret.  This regret would be an honor both to himself and to all, if moderation were made part of it;  for what was becoming in humble homes and communities, did not befit princely personages and an imperial people.  Tears and the solace found in mourning were suitable enough when their pain was fresh;  but now they must brace their hearts to endurance, as in former days the Divine Julius after the loss of his only daughter, and the Divine Augustus when he was bereft of his grandchildren, had thrust away their sorrow.  There was no need of examples from the past, showing how often the Roman people had patiently endured the defeats of armies, the destruction of generals, the total extinction of noble families.  Princes were mortal;  the State was everlasting.  Let them then return to their usual formalities, and, as the shows of the games of the Great Goddess were at hand, even resume their amusements.

[3.7]  Tum exuto justitio reditum ad munia, et Drusus Illyricos ad exercitus profectus est, erectis omnium animis petendæ e Pisone ultioni, sed crebro questu quod vagus interim per amœna Asiæ atque Achajæ arroganti et subdola mora, scelerum probationes subverteret.  Nam vulgatum erat, missam, ut dixi, a Cn. Sentio famosam veneficiis Martinam subita morte Brundisii exstinctam, venenumque nodo crinium ejus occultatum nec ulla in corpore signa sumpti exitii reperta.

[3.7]  Then, the recess cast aside, people returned to their responsibilities, and Drusus set off for the Illyrian armies — the mind of everyone being alerted for the exacting of vengeance on Piso, but with frequent complaints that, as he roved meanwhile among the attractions of Asia and Achæa in an arrogant and guileful delay, he was undermining the proofs of his crimes.  It was indeed widely publicized that the notorius poisoner Martina, who, as I have related, had been despatched to Rome by Cnæus Sentius, had died suddenly at Brundisium;  that poison was concealed in a knot of her hair, and that no symptoms of self-inflicted death were discovered on her person.

[3.8]  At Piso, præmisso in Urbem filio datisque mandatis per quæ principem molliret, ad Drusum pergit quem haud fratris interitu trucem quam remoto æmulo æquiorem sibi sperabat.  Tiberius, quo integrum judicium ostentaret, exceptum comiter juvenem sueta erga filios familiarum nobiles liberalitate auget.  Drusus Pisoni, si vera forent quæ jacerentur, præcipuum in dolore suum locum respondit, sed malle falsa et inania, nec cuiquam mortem Germanici exitiosam esse.  Hæc palam et vitato omni secreto ;  neque dubitabantur præscripta ei a Tiberio quum, incallidus alioqui et facilis juventa, senilibus tum artibus uteretur.

[3.8]  Piso meanwhile sent his son on to Rome with a message intended to pacify the emporer, and then made his way to Drusus, who would, he hoped, be not so much infuriated at his brother’s death as kindly disposed towards himself in consequence of a rival’s removal.  Tiberius, to show his impartiality, received the youth courteously, and enriched him with the liberality he usually bestowed on the sons of noble families.  Drusus replied to Piso that if certain insinuations were true, he must be foremost in his resentment, but he preferred to believe that they were false and groundless, and that Germanicus’s death need be the ruin of no one.  This he said openly, avoiding anything like secrecy.  Men did not doubt that his answer had been prescribed him by Tiberius since, being inastute otherwise and youthfully unsophisticated, it was the methods of the elderly which he was then using.

[3.9]  Piso, Dalmatico mari tramisso relictisque apud Anconam navibus, per Picenum ac mox Flaminiam viam assequitur legionem, quæ e Pannonia in Urbem, dein præsidio Africæ ducebatur ;  eaque res agitata rumoribus ut in agmine atque itinere crebro se militibus ostentavisset.  Ab Narnia, vitandæ suspicionis — an quia pavidis consilia in incerto sunt —, Nare ac mox Tiberi devectus auxit vulgi iras, quia navem tumulo Cæsarum appulerat, dieque et ripa frequenti, magno clientium agmine ipse, feminarum comitatu Plancina et vultu alacres incessere.  Fuit inter irritamenta invidiæ domus foro imminens festa ornatu, conviviumque et epulæ ;  et celebritate loci nihil occultum.

[3.9]  Piso, after crossing the Dalmatian sea and leaving his ships at Ancona, went through Picenum and along the Flaminian road, where he overtook a legion which was marching from Pannonia to Rome and was then to garrison Africa.  It was a matter of common talk how he had repeatedly displayed himself to the soldiers on the road during the march.  From Narnia, to avoid suspicion — or because the plans of fearful people are never certain —, he sailed down the Nar, then down the Tiber, and increased the fury of the populace by bringing his vessel to shore at the tomb of the Cæsars.  In broad daylight, when the river-bank was thronged, he himself with a numerous following of dependents, and Plancina with a retinue of women, moved onward with joy in their countenances.  Among other things which provoked men’s anger was his house towering above the forum, cheerful with festal decorations, his banquet and his feast, about which there was no secrecy, because the place was so public.

[3.10]  Postera die Fulcinius Trio Pisonem apud consules postulavit.  Contra Vitellius ac Veranius, ceterique Germanicum comitati, tendebant :  nullas esse partes Trioni ;  neque se accusatores sed rerum indices et testes, mandata Germanici perlaturos.  Ille, dimissa ejus causæ 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 conscientiæ matris innexum esse ;  veraque aut in deterius credita judice 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.

[3.10]  Next day, Fulcinius Trio asked the consul’s leave to prosecute Piso.  Vitellius and Veranius and the others who had followed Germanicus objected that there was no role for Trio, and that they themselves meant to report their instructions from Germanicus, not as accusers, but as informants and witnesses to facts.  Trio, dismissing the charges of that case, obtained leave to accuse Piso’s previous career, and it was requested of the emperor that he undertake the inquiry.  This even the accused did not refuse, fearing, as he did, the bias of the people and of the Senate;  while Tiberius, he knew, was resolute enough to despise report, and was also entangled in his mother’s complicity.  Truth too would be more easily distinguished from perverse misrepresentation by a single judge, where a number would be swayed by hatred and ill-will.  The troublesomeness of the inquiry was not hidden to Tiberius — and the kind of notoriety by which he himself would be savaged.  Having therefore summoned a few intimate friends, he listened to the threatening speeches of the prosecutors and to the pleadings of the accused, and finally referred the whole case to the Senate.

[3.11]  Atque interim Drusus rediens Illyrico, quanquam patres censuissent ob receptum Maroboduum et res priore æstate gestas ut ovans iniret, prolato honore Urbem intravit.  Post quæ reo L. Arruntium, P. Vinicium, Asinium Gallum, Æserninum Marcellum, Sex.  Pompejum patronos petenti, iisque diversa excusantibus, M’.  Lepidus et L. Piso et Livinejus Regulus affuere, arrecta omni civitate, quanta fides amicis Germanici, quæ fiducia reo, satin cohiberet ac premeret sensus suos Tiberius.  Haud alias intentior populus plus sibi in principem occultæ vocis aut suspicacis silentii permisit.

[3.11]  Drusus meanwhile, on his return from Illyricum, though the Senate had voted him an ovation for the submission of Maroboduus and the successes of the previous summer, postponed the honor and entered Rome.  Then the defendant sought the advocacy of Lucius Arruntius, Marcus Vinicius, Asinius Gallus, Æserninus Marcellus and Sextus Pompejus, and on their declining for different reasons, Marcus Lepidus, Lucius Piso, and Livinejus Regulus became his counsel, amid the excitement of the whole country, which wondered how much fidelity would be shown by the friends of Germanicus, what confidence the defendant had, and whether Tiberius would manage to contain and suppress his own feelings.  At no other time did a more attentive people give itself greater permission for concealed utterances against the emperor or for suspicious silence.

[3.12]  Die Senatus Cæsar orationem habuit meditato temperamento.  Patris sui legatum atque amicum Pisonem fuisse, adjutoremque Germanico datum a se, auctore Senatu, rebus apud Orientem administrandis.  Illic contumacia et certaminibus asperasset juvenem exituque ejus lætatus esset, an scelere exstinxisset, integris animis dijudicandum.  “Nam si legatus officii terminos, obsequium erga imperatorem exuit ejusdemque morte (et luctu meo) lætatus est, odero seponamque a domo mea, et privatas inimicitias non ut princeps ulciscar ;  sin facinus in cujuscunque mortalium nece vindicandum detegitur, vos vero et liberos Germanici et nos parentes justis solaciis afficite.  Simulque illud reputate :  ¿ turbide et seditiose tractaverit exercitus Piso, quæsita sint per ambitionem studia militum, armis repetita provincia ? ;  an ¿ falsa hæc in majus vulgaverint accusatores ?

Quorum ego nimiis studiis jure suscenseo.  Nam ¿ quo pertinuit nudare corpus et contrectandum vulgi oculis permittere, differrique etiam per externos tanquam veneno interceptus esset, si incerta adhuc ista et scrutanda sunt ?  Defleo equidem filium meum semperque deflebo :  sed neque reum prohibeo quominus cuncta proferat quibus innocentia ejus sublevari aut si qua fuit iniquitas Germanici coargui possit ;  vosque oro ne, quia dolori meo causa conexa est, objecta crimina pro approbatis accipiatis.  Si quos propinquus sanguis aut fides sua patronos dedit, quantum quisque eloquentia et cura valet, juvate periclitantem ;  ad eundem laborem, eandem constantiam accusatores hortor.  Id solum Germanico super leges præstiterimus :  quod in Curia potius quam in foro, apud Senatum quam apud judices de morte ejus anquiritur — cetera pari modestia tractentur.  Nemo Drusi lacrimas, nemo mæstitiam meam spectet, nec si qua in nos adversa finguntur.”

[3.12]  On the day the Senate met, Tiberius delivered a speech of studied balance.  “Piso,” he said, “was my father’s legate and friend, and was appointed by myself, on the advice of the Senate, to assist Germanicus in the administration of the East.  Whether he there had provoked the young prince by willful opposition and rivalry, and had rejoiced at his death or wickedly destroyed him, is for you to determine with minds unbiassed.  If the legate cast aside the boundaries of his office and his compliance toward his commander and was delighted at his death (and at my grief too), I shall hate him and bar him from my house, and thus it will not be as princeps that I shall avenge a private antagonism.  If however a crime is revealed which in the case of the killing of any mortal whatsoever would require vengeance, then it is for you to bring due solace both to the children of Germanicus and to us, his parents.  “Consider this too, whether Piso dealt with the armies in a revolutionary and seditious spirit;  whether he sought by intrigue popularity with the soldiers;  whether he attempted to repossess himself of the province by arms;  or whether these are falsehoods which his accusers have published with exaggeration.

As for them, I am justly angry with their intemperate zeal.  For what was the point of stripping the corpse and exposing it to the voyeurism of the vulgar gaze, and broadcast even among foreigners that he had been cut off by poison, if those matters are still uncertain and require examination?  For my part, I weep for my son and shall always weep for him;  still I would not hinder the accused from producing everything by which his innocence might be supported or it might be proven if there was any wrongdoing by Germanicus.  And I implore you not to take as proven charges alleged, merely because the case is intimately bound up with my affliction.  If a blood relationship or loyalty has brought any of you to Piso’s defense, you must each put all the strength of your eloquence and all your commitment into helping the imperiled man;  and I urge the prosecution to make the same effort, and show the same determination.  We will have granted Germanicus a single concession over and above the laws:  that the investigation into his death take place in the Curia rather than in the forum, in the Senate rather than before the judges.  In all else let the case be tried as simply as others.  Let no one heed the tears of Drusus or my own sorrow, or any stories invented to our discredit.”

[3.13]  Exim biduum criminibus objiciendis statuitur utque sex dierum spatio interjecto reus per triduum defenderetur.  Tum Fulcinius vetera et inania orditur, ambitiose avareque habitam Hispaniam ;  quod neque convictum noxæ reo, si recentia purgaret, neque defensum absolutioni erat, si teneretur majoribus flagitiis.

Post quæ Servæus et Veranius et Vitellius consimili studio, et multa eloquentia Vitellius, objecere odio Germanici et rerum novarum studio Pisonem vulgus militum per licentiam et sociorum injurias eo usque corrupisse ut « Parens Legionum » a deterrimis appellaretur ;  contra in optimum quemque, maxime in comites et amicos Germanici sævisse ;  postremo ipsum devotionibus et veneno peremisse — sacra hinc et immolationes nefandas ipsius atque Plancinæ —;  petitam armis Rem Publicam, utque reus agi posset, acie victum.

[3.13]  Two days were then assigned for the bringing forward of the charges, and after six days’ interval, the prisoner’s defence was to occupy three days.  Thereupon Fulcinius Trio began with some old and irrelevant accusations about intrigues and extortion during Piso’s government of Spain.  This would neither, if proved, have been harmful to the defendant if he cleared himself of the recent allegations, nor, if refuted, have secured his acquittal, if he were convicted of the greater crimes.

After this, Servæus, Veranius, and Vitellius, all with equal earnestness, Vitellius with striking eloquence, alleged against Piso that out of hatred of Germanicus and a desire of revolution he had so corrupted the common soldiers by licence and oppression of the allies that he was called by the vilest of them “Father of the Legions,” while on the other hand to all the best men, especially to the companions and friends of Germanicus, he had been savagely cruel.  Lastly, he had, they said, destroyed Germanicus himself by sorceries and poison — hence came those ceremonies and horrible sacrifices made by himself and Plancina—;  then he had threatened the State with war, and (so he could be put on trial) been defeated in battle.

[3.14]  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, quum super eum Piso discumberet, infectos manibus ejus cibos arguentes.  Quippe absurdum videbatur inter aliena servitia et tot astantium visu, ipso Germanico coram, id ausum ;  offerebatque familiam reus et ministros in tormenta flagitabat.  Sed judices per diversa implacabiles erant, Cæsar ob bellum provinciæ illatum, Senatus nunquam 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 jussu principis protectæ repositæque forent.  Igitur inditus lecticæ et a tribuno Prætoriæ cohortis deductus est, vario rumore custos saluti an mortis exactor sequeretur.

[3.14]  On all points but one the defence broke down.  That he had tampered with the soldiers, that his province had been at the mercy of the vilest of them, that he had even insulted his chief, he could not deny.  It was only the charge of poisoning from which he seemed to have cleared himself.  This indeed the prosecutors did not adequately sustain by merely alleging that at a banquet given by Germanicus, his food had been tainted with poison by the hands of Piso who sat next above him.  It seemed absurd to suppose that he would have dared such an attempt among someone else’s slaves, in the sight of so many bystanders, and under Germanicus’s own eyes.  And, besides, the defendant offered his slaves to the torture, and insisted on its application to the attendants on that occasion.  But the judges for different reasons were merciless, the emperor, because war had been made on a province, the Senate because they could not be sufficiently convinced that there had been no treachery about the death of Germanicus.

{ * * }

demanding what they had written, something which Tiberius no less than Piso refused.  At the same time shouts were heard from the people in front of the Senate House :  they would not keep from rioting if he evaded sentencing by the Senators.  They had actually dragged Piso’s statues to the Gemonian Stairs, and would have broken them apart, had they not been rescued and replaced on the emperor’s orders.  Piso was then put in a litter and attended by a tribune of one of the Prætorian cohorts, who followed him, so it was variously rumored, to guard his person or to be his executioner.

[3.15]  Eadem Plancinæ invidia, major gratia ;  eoque ambiguum habebatur quantum Cæsari in eam liceret.  Atque ipsa, donec mediæ Pisoni spes, sociam se cujuscunque fortunæ et, si ita ferret, comitem exitii promittebat :  ut secretis Augustæ precibus veniam obtinuit, paulatim segregari a marito, dividere defensionem cœpit.  Quod reus, postquam sibi exitiabile intellegit, an adhuc experiretur dubitans, hortantibus filiis durat mentem, Senatumque rursum ingreditur ;  redintegratamque accusationem, infensas patrum voces, adversa et sæva cuncta perpessus, nullo magis exterritus est quam quod Tiberium sine miseratione, sine ira, obstinatum clausumque vidit, ne quo affectu perrumperetur.  Relatus domum, tanquam defensionem in posterum meditaretur, pauca conscribit obsignatque et liberto tradit ;  tum solita curando corpori exsequitur.  Dein multam post noctem, egressa cubiculo uxore, operiri fores jussit ;  et cœpta luce perfosso jugulo, jacente humi gladio, repertus est.

[3.15]  Plancina was equally detested, but enjoyed stronger favor.  Consequently it was considered a question how far the emperor would be allowed to go against her.  As long as hopes for Piso remained in the balance, she promised to share his lot, whatever it might be, and in the worst event, to be his companion in death.  But as soon as she had secured her pardon through the secret intercessions of Augusta, she gradually withdrew from her husband and separated her defence from his.  When the prisoner saw that this was fatal to him, he hesitated whether he should still persist, but at the urgent request of his sons braced his courage and once more entered the Senate.  There he bore patiently the renewal of the accusation, the furious voices of the Senators, savage opposition indeed from every quarter, but nothing daunted him so much as to see Tiberius, without pity and without anger, blocked and closed against being breached by any emotional appeal.  He was conveyed back to his house, where, seemingly by way of preparing his defence for the next day, he wrote a few words, sealed the paper and handed it to a freedman.  Then he bestowed the usual attention on his person;  after a while, late at night, his wife having left his chamber, he ordered the doors to be closed, and at daybreak was found with his throat cut and a sword lying on the ground.

[3.16]  Audire me memini ex senioribus visum sæpius inter manus Pisonis libellum quem ipse non vulgaverit ;  sed amicos ejus dictitavisse, litteras Tiberii et mandata in Germanicum contineri, ac destinatum promere apud patres, principemque arguere, ni elusus a Sejano per vana promissa foret ;  nec illum sponte exstinctum verum immisso percussore.  Quorum neutrum asseveraverim :  neque tamen occulere debui narratum ab eis qui nostram ad juventam duraverunt.  Cæsar, flexo in mæstitiam ore, suam invidiam tali morte quæsitam apud Senatum {conquestus, Cn. Pisonem vocari jubet}, crebrisque interrogationibus exquirit qualem Piso diem supremum noctemque exegisset.  Atque illo pleraque sapienter, quædam inconsultius respondente, recitat codicillos a Pisone in hunc ferme modum compositos :  « Conspiratione inimicorum et invidia falsi criminis oppressus, quatenus veritati et innocentiæ meæ nusquam locus est, deos immortales testor vixisse me, Cæsar, cum fide adversum te neque alia in matrem tuam pietate ;  vosque oro liberis meis consulatis, ex quibus Cn. Piso qualicunque fortunæ meæ non est adjunctus, quum omne hoc tempus in Urbe egerit, M. Piso repetere Syriam dehortatus est.  ¡ Atque utinam ego potius filio juveni quam ille patri seni cessisset !  Eo impensius precor ne meæ pravitatis pœnas innoxius luat.  Per quinque et quadraginta annorum obsequium, per collegium consulatus, quondam divo Augusto parenti tuo probatus et tibi amicus, nec quicquam post hæc rogaturus, salutem infelicis filii rogo. »  De Plancina nihil addidit.

[3.16]  I remember having heard old men say that a document was often seen in Piso’s hands, the substance of which he never himself divulged, but which his friends repeatedly declared contained a letter from Tiberius and instructions against Germanicus, and that it was his intention to produce it before the Senate and upbraid the emperor, had he not been deluded by vain promises from Sejanus.  Nor did he perish, they said, by his own hand, but by that of one sent to be his executioner.  Neither of these statements would I positively affirm;  still it would not have been right for me to conceal what was related by those who lived up to the time of my youth.  The emperor, assuming an air of sadness, {complaining} before the Senate that the purpose of such a death was to bring odium on himself, {ordered Gnæus Pisonem to be called} and asked with repeated questionings how Piso had spent his last day and night.  Receiving answers which were mostly judicious, though in part somewhat incautious, he read out a note written by Piso, nearly to the following effect:— “Crushed by a conspiracy of my foes and the odium excited by a lying charge, given that there is no place anywhere for truth (and my innocence), I call the immortal gods to witness that towards you, Cæsar, I have lived with loyalty, and with like dutiful respect towards your mother.  And I implore you both to look after the interests of my children, one of whom, Gnæus Piso, is in no way implicated in my fortunes of whatever kind, seeing that all this time he has been at Rome, while the other, Marcus Piso, dissuaded me from reclaiming Syria.  (Would that I had yielded to my young son rather than he to his elderly father!)  And therefore I pray all the more earnestly that the innocent may not pay the penalty of my wickedness.  By forty-five years of obedience, by my collegiality in the consulate, as one who once won the approval of the Divine Augustus, your father, as one who is your friend and will never hereafter ask for anything, I ask for the safety of my unfortunate son.”  About Plancina he added nothing.

[3.17]  Post quæ Tiberius adulescentem crimine civilis belli purgavit, patris quippe jussa 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 cujusque secreti questus magis ardescebant.  Id ergo fas aviæ interfectricem nepotis aspicere, alloqui, eripere Senatui.  Quod pro omnibus civibus leges obtineant, uni Germanico non contigisse.  Vitellii et Veranii voce defletum Cæsarem, ab imperatore et Augusta defensam Plancinam.  Proinde venena et artes tam feliciter expertas verteret in Agrippinam, in liberos ejus, egregiamque aviam ac patruum sanguine miserrimæ domus exsatiaret.  Biduum super hac imagine cognitionis absumptum, urgente Tiberio liberos Pisonis, matrem uti tuerentur.  Et quum accusatores ac testes certatim perorarent, respondente nullo, miseratio quam invidia augebatur.

Primus sententiam rogatus, Aurelius Cotta consul (nam, referente Cæsare, magistratus eo etiam munere fungebantur) nomen Pisonis radendum fastis censuit, partem bonorum publicandam, pars ut Cn. Pisoni filio concederetur isque prænomen mutaret ;  M. Piso exuta dignitate et accepto quinquagies sestertio {50 * H$100,000 = H$5,000,000} in decem annos relegaretur, concessa Plancinæ incolumitate ob preces Augustæ.

[3.17]  Tiberius after this acquitted the young Piso of the charge of civil war on the ground that a son could not have refused a father’s orders, compassionating at the same time the high rank of the family and the terrible downfall even of Piso himself, however he might have deserved it.  For Plancina he spoke shamefully and disgracefully, alleging in excuse the intercession of his mother — against whom the criticisms of all decent people were flaring up more intensely in secret.  “So it was the duty of a grandmother,” people said, “to look a grandson’s murderess in the face, to converse with her and rescue her from the Senate.  What the laws secure on behalf of every citizen, had to Germanicus alone been denied.  A lament had been voiced for Cæsar {Germanicus} by Vitellius and Veranius;  it was by the emperor and Augusta that Plancina was defended.  She might as well now turn her poisonings, and her devices which had proved so successful, against Agrippina and her children, and thus sate this exemplary grandmother and uncle with the blood of a most unhappy house.”  Two days were frittered away over this appearance of a trial, Tiberius urging Piso’s children to defend their mother.  And as the accusers and witnesses competed in prosecuting the case, and getting no reply, pity rather than anger that grew.

The first to be asked his opinion was Aurelius Cotta, the consul (for when the emperor was doing the referring, the magistrates fulfilled that function too), who held that Piso’s name ought to be erased from the Calendar, half of his property confiscated, half given up to his son, Gnæus Piso, who was to change his first name;  that Marcus Piso, stripped of his rank, with an allowance of five million sesterces, should be banished for ten years, Plancina’s life being spared in consideration of Augusta’s intercession.

[3.18]  Multa ex ea sententia mitigata sunt a principe :  ne nomen Pisonis fastis eximeretur, quando M. Antonii, qui bellum patriæ fecisset, Julli Antonii, qui domum Augusti violasset, manerent.  Et M. Pisonem ignominiæ exemit, concessitque ei paterna bona, satis firmus, ut sæpe memoravi, adversum pecuniam et tum pudore absolutæ Plancinæ placabilior.  Atque idem, quum Valerius Messalinus signum aureum in æde Martis Ultoris, Cæcina Severus aram ultioni statuendam censuissent, prohibuit, ob externas ea victorias sacrari dictitans, domestica mala tristitia operienda.  Addiderat Messalinus Tiberio et Augustæ et Antoniæ et Agrippinæ Drusoque ob vindictam Germanici grates agendas, omiseratque Claudii mentionem.  Et Messalinum quidem L. Asprenas Senatu coram percontatus est an prudens præterisset ;  ac tum demum nomen Claudii ascriptum 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.

[3.18]  Much of the sentence was mitigated by the emperor.  The name of Piso was not to be struck out of the Calendar, since that of Marcus Antonius who had made war on his country, and that of Julius Antonius who had dishonored the house of Augustus, still remained.  Marcus Piso too he saved from degradation, and gave him his father’s property, for he was firm enough, as I have often related, against bribery, and now more forgiving out of shame for having acquitted Plancina.  Again, when Valerius Messalinus and Cæcina Severus proposed respectively the erection of a golden statue in the temple of Mars the Avenger and of an altar to Vengeance, he interposed, protesting that victories over the foreigner were commemorated with such monuments, but that domestic woes ought to be shrouded in silent grief.  There was a further proposal of Messalinus, that Tiberius, Augusta, Antonia, Agrippina and Drusus ought to be publicly thanked for having avenged Germanicus.  He omitted all mention of {Tiberius} Claudius {Nero, brother of Germanicus}.  Thereupon he was pointedly asked by Lucius Asprenas before the Senate, whether the omission had been intentional, and it was only then that the name of Claudius was added.  For my part, the wider the scope of my reflection on the present and the past, the more am I impressed by their mockery of human plans in every transaction.  For in terms of reputation, hopes and respect, everyone was more likely to succeed to power than the man whom fortune was keeping undere cover as the future emperor.

[3.19]  Paucis post diebus Cæsar auctor Senatui fuit Vitellio atque Veranio et Servæo sacerdotia tribuendi :  Fulcinio suffragium ad honores pollicitus, monuit ne facundiam violentia præcipitaret.  Is finis fuit ulciscendo — Germanici morte non modo apud illos homines qui tum agebant, etiam secutis temporibus vario rumore jactata.  Adeo maxima quæque 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 ejus excessit, una omnium Agrippæ liberorum miti obitu :  nam ceteros manifestum ferro vel creditum est veneno aut fame exstinctos.

[3.19]  A few days afterwards the emperor proposed to the Senate to confer the priesthood on Vitellius, Veranius and Servæus.  To Fulcinius he promised his support in seeking promotion, but warned him not to ruin his eloquence with pugnacity.  That was the end to the avenging — though Germanicus’ death was bandied about in various rumors not only among those men who lived then but also in following times.  So is it the case that all the greatest matters are ambiguous, inasmuch as some people hold any form of hearsay as confirmed, others turn truth into its converse, and each swells among posterity.

Drusus meanwhile quitted Rome to resume his command and soon re-entered the city with an ovation.  In the course of a few days his mother Vipsania died, the only one of all Agrippa’s children whose death was without violence.  As for the rest, they perished, some it is certain by the sword, others it was believed by poison or starvation.

[3.20]  Eodem anno Tacfarinas, quem priore æstate pulsum a Camillo memoravi, bellum in Africa renovat, vagis primum populationibus et ob pernicitatem inultis ;  dein vicos exscindere, trahere graves prædas ;  postremo haud procul Pagyda flumine cohortem Romanam circumsedit.  Præerat castello Decrius impiger manu, exercitus militia, et illam obsidionem flagitii ratus.  Is cohortatus milites ut copiam pugnæ 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 quanquam transfosso oculo adversum os in hostem intendit neque prœlium omisit donec, desertus suis, caderet.

[3.20]  That same year Tacfarinas who had been defeated, as I have related, by Camillus in the previous summer, renewed hostilities in Africa, first by mere desultory raids, so swift as to be unpunished;  next, by destroying villages and carrying off plunder wholesale.  Finally, he hemmed in a Roman cohort near the river Pagyda.  The position was commanded by Decrius, a soldier energetic in action and experienced in war, who regarded the siege as a disgrace.  Cheering on his men to offer battle in the open plain, he drew up his line in front of his intrenchments.  At the first shock, the cohort was driven back, upon which he threw himself fearlessly amid the missiles in the path of the fugitives and cried shame on the standard-bearers for letting Roman soldiers show their backs to a rabble of deserters.  At the same moment he was covered with wounds, and though pierced through the eye, he resolutely faced the enemy and ceased not to fight till he fell deserted by his men.

[3.21]  Quæ postquam L. Apronio (nam Camillo successerat) comperta, magis dedecore suorum quam gloria hostis anxius, raro ea tempestate et e vetere memoria facinore, decimum quemque ignominiosæ cohortis sorte ductos fusti necat.  Tantumque severitate profectum ut vexillum veteranorum, non amplius quingenti numero, easdem Tacfarinatis copias præsidium cui Thala nomen aggressas fuderint.  (Quo prœlio Rufus Helvius gregarius miles servati civis decus rettulit donatusque est ab Apronio torquibus et hasta.  Cæsar addidit civicam coronam, quod non eam quoque Apronius jure 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, irritum fessumque Romanum impune ludificabatur :  postquam deflexit ad maritimos locos, illigatusque præda stativis castris adhærebat, missu patris Apronius Cæsianus cum equite et cohortibus auxiliariis, quis velocissimos legionum addiderat, prosperam adversum Numidas pugnam facit, pellitque in deserta.

[3.21]  On receiving this information, Lucius Apronius, successor to Camillus, alarmed more by the dishonor of his own men than by the glory of the enemy, ventured on a deed quite exceptional at that time and derived from old tradition.  He flogged to death every tenth man drawn by lot from the disgraced cohort.  So beneficial was this rigour that a detachment of veterans, numbering not more than five hundred, routed those same troops of Tacfarinas on their attacking a fortress named Thala.  (In this engagement Rufus Helvius, a common soldier, won the honor of saving a citizen’s life, and was rewarded by Apronius with a neck-chain and a spear.  To these the emperor added the civic crown, complaining, but without anger, that Apronius had not used his right as proconsul to bestow this further distinction.)  Tacfarinas, however, finding that the Numidians were cowed and had a horror of siege-operations, pursued a desultory warfare, retreating when he was pressed, and then again hanging on his enemy’s rear.  While the barbarian continued these tactics, he could safely insult the baffled and exhausted Romans.  But when he marched away towards the coast and, hampered with booty, fixed himself in a stationary camp, Apronius Cæsianus, on dispatch from his father with cavalry and auxiliary cohorts (to which he had added the swiftest of the legionaries), had a successful battle with the Numidians and drove them into the desert.

[3.22]  At Romæ Lepida, cui super Æmiliorum decus L. Sulla et Cn. Pompejus proavi erant, defertur simulavisse partum ex P. Quirinio, divite atque orbo.  Adjiciebantur adulteria, venena, quæsitumque per Chaldæos in domum Cæsaris, 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 iræ et clementiæ signa.  Deprecatus primo Senatum ne majestatis crimina tractarentur, mox M. Servilium e consularibus aliosque testes illexit ad proferenda quæ velut reticeri voluerat.  Idemque servos Lepidæ, quum militari custodia haberentur, transtulit ad consules, neque per tormenta interrogari passus est de eis quæ ad domum suam pertinerent.  Exemit etiam Drusum consulem designatum dicendæ primo loco sententiæ ;  quod alii civile rebantur, ne ceteris assentiendi necessitas fieret, quidam ad sævitiam trahebant — neque enim cessurum nisi damnandi officio.

[3.22]  At Rome meanwhile Lepida (who, apart from her distinguished connection to the Æmilii, also had Lucius Sulla and Gnæus Pompey as her great-grandfathers) was accused of falsely claiming to have borne a child father by the rich and childless Publius Quirinius.  Further charges were added:  adultery, poisoning, and consulting astrologers on the subject of the emperor’s household.  The accused was defended by her brother Manius Lepidus.  Quirinus by his relentless enmity even after his divorce, had procured for her some sympathy, infamous and guilty as she was.  One could not easily perceive the emperor’s feelings at her trial;  so effectually did he interchange and blend the outward signs of resentment and compassion.  Having at first begged the Senate that charges of treason should not be handled, he later enticed Marcus Servilius (one of the ex-consuls) and other witnesses to produce what he had seemed to want to keep quiet.  He also handed over to the consuls Lepida’s slaves, who were in military custody, but would not allow them to be examined by torture on matters referring to his own family.  Drusus too, the consul-elect, he released from the necessity of having to speak first to the question.  Some thought this citizenlike, freeing others from the obligation of agreeing with him ;  some attributed it to Tiberius’ domineering, since Drusus would have withdrawn only if his obligation were to convict.

[3.23]  Lepida ludorum diebus qui cognitionem intervenerant theatrum cum claris feminis ingressa, lamentatione flebili majores suos ciens ipsumque Pompejum, cujus ea monumenta et astantes imagines visebantur, tantum misericordiæ permovit ut effusi in lacrimas sæva et detestanda Quirinio clamitarent, cujus senectæ atque orbitati et obscurissimæ domui destinata quondam uxor L. Cæsari, ac divo Augusto nurus, dederetur.  Dein tormentis servorum patefacta sunt flagitia, itumque in sententiam Rubelli Blandi, a quo aqua atque igni arcebatur.  Huic Drusus assensit quanquam 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.

[3.23]  On the days of the games which interrupted the trial, Lepida went into the theater with some ladies of rank, and as she appealed with piteous wailings to her ancestors and to that very Pompey, the public buildings and statues of whom stood there before their eyes, she roused such sympathy that people burst into tears and shouted, without ceasing, savage curses on Quirinius, “to whose childless old-age and miserably obscure family, one once destined to be the wife of Lucius Cæsar and the daughter-in-law of the Divine Augustus was being sacrificed.”  Then, by the torture of the slaves, her infamies were brought to light, and a motion of Rubellius Blandus was carried which outlawed her.  Drusus supported him, though others had proposed a milder sentence.  Subsequently, Scaurus, who had had daughter by her, obtained as a concession that her property should not be confiscated.  Then at last Tiberius disclosed that he had himself too ascertained from the slaves of Publius Quirinius that Lepida had attempted the latter’s life by poison.

[3.24]  Illustrium domuum adversa (etenim haud multum distanti tempore Calpurnii Pisonem, Æmilii Lepidam amiserant) solacio affecit D. Silanus, Juniæ familiæ redditus.  Casum ejus paucis repetam.  Ut valida divo Augusto in Rem Publicam fortuna, ita domi improspera fuit ob impudicitiam filiæ ac neptis quas Urbe depulit, adulterosque earum morte aut fuga punivit.  Nam culpam inter viros ac feminas vulgatam gravi nomine « læsarum religionum ac violatæ majestatis » appellando, clementiam majorum suasque ipse leges egrediebatur.  Sed aliorum exitus, simul cetera illius ætatis, memorabo si, effectis in quæ tetendi, plures ad curas vitam produxero :  D. Silanus in nepti Augusti adulter, quanquam non ultra foret sævitum quam ut amicitia Cæsaris 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 præcellebat.  Sed Tiberius, gratis agenti Silano, patribus coram respondit se quoque lætari quod frater ejus e peregrinatione longinqua revertisset — idque jure licitum, quia non Senatus consulto, non lege pulsus foret :  sibi tamen adversus eum integras parentis sui offensiones, neque reditu Silani dissoluta quæ Augustus voluisset.  Fuit posthac in Urbe, neque honores adeptus est.

[3.24]  It was some compensation for the misfortunes of great houses (for within a short interval the Calpurnii had lost Piso and the Æmilii Lepida) that Decimus Silanus was now restored to the Junian family.  I will briefly relate his downfall.  Though the Divine Augustus in his public life enjoyed unshaken prosperity, he was unfortunate at home from the profligacy of his daughter and granddaughter, both of whom he banished from Rome, and punished their paramours with death or exile.  Calling, as he did, a vice so habitual among men and women by the awful name of sacrilege and treason, he went far beyond the indulgent spirit of our ancestors, beyond indeed his own legislation.  But the outcomes of the other men, as well as the remaining events of that age, I shall recall if, after completing what I have intended, I prolong my life for further works.  Decimus Silanus, the paramour of the granddaughter of Augustus, though the only severity he experienced was exclusion from the emperor’s friendship, saw clearly that it meant exile;  and it was not till Tiberius’s reign that he ventured to appeal to the Senate and to the prince, in reliance on the influence of his brother Marcus Silanus, who was conspicuous both for his distinguished rank and eloquence.  But Tiberius, when Silanus thanked him, replied in the Senate’s presence, “that he too rejoiced at the brother’s return from his long foreign tour, and that this was justly allowable, inasmuch as he had been banished not by a decree of the Senate or under any law.  Still, personally,” he said, “he felt towards him his father’s resentment in all its force, and the return of Silanus had not cancelled the intentions of Augustus.”  Silanus after this lived at Rome without attaining office.

[3.25]  Relatum dein de moderanda Papia Poppæa, quam senior Augustus post Julias rogationes incitandis cælibum pœnis et augendo ærario sanxerat.  Nec ideo conjugia et educationes liberum frequentabantur, prævalida orbitate ;  ceterum multitudo periclitantium gliscebat, quum omnis domus delatorum interpretationibus subverteretur, utque antehac flagitiis, ita tunc legibus laborabatur.  Ea res admonet ut de principiis juris et quibus modis ad hanc multitudinem infinitam ac varietatem legum perventum sit altius disseram.

[3.25]  It was next proposed to moderating the Papia Poppæa law, which the elderly Augustus age had enacted as a follow-up to the Julian bills, for increasing the penalties on celibacy and for enriching the exchequer.  And yet, marriages and the rearing of children did not become more frequent, so powerful were the attractions of a childless state.  The numbers now in danger from its provisions, however, were growing, since every home was being subverted by the interpretations of denouncers, and while the problem before had been the transgressions, now it was the actual laws.  This fact prompts me to go more deeply into the origins of the legislation, and the ways in which we arrived at this endless multiplicity and variety of laws.

[3.26]  Vetustissimi mortalium, nulla adhuc mala libidine, sine probro, scelere eoque sine pœna aut coërcitionibus agebant.  Neque præmiis opus erat, quum honesta suopte ingenio peterentur ;  et ubi nihil contra morem cuperent, nihil per metum vetabantur.  At postquam exui æqualitas, et pro modestia ac pudore ambitio et vis incidebat, provenere dominationes, multosque apud populos æternum mansere.  Quidam statim, aut postquam regum pertæsum, leges maluerunt.  Ac primo, rudibus hominum animis, simplices erant ;  maximeque fama celebravit Cretensium, quas Minos, Spartanorum, quas Lycurgus, ac mox Atheniensibus quæsitiores jam et plures Solo perscripsit.  Nobis Romulus ut libitum imperitaverat ;  dein Numa religionibus et divino jure populum devinxit, repertaque quædam a Tullo et Anco.  Sed præcipuus Servius Tullius sanctor legum fuit quis etiam reges obtemperarent.

[3.26]  Mankind in the earliest age lived for a time without a single vicious impulse, without shame or guilt, and, consequently, without punishment and restraints.  Rewards were not needed when everything right was pursued on its own merits;  and as men desired nothing against morality, they were debarred from nothing by fear.  When however they began to throw off equality, and ambition and violence usurped the place of self-control and modesty, despotisms grew up and became perpetual among many nations.  Some from the beginning, or when tired of kings, preferred codes of laws.  And at first they were simple, while men’s minds were unsophisticated.  The most famous of them were those of the Cretans, framed by Minos;  those of the Spartans, by Lycurgus, and, subsequently, those which Solon drew up for the Athenians on a more elaborate and extensive scale.  Romulus governed us as he pleased;  then Numa bound the people by religious injunctions and divine legislation, and some elements were introduced by Tullus and Ancus.  But Servius Tullius was our chief legislator, to whose laws even kings were to be subject.

[3.27]  Pulso Tarquinio adversum patrum factiones multa populus paravit tuendæ libertatis et firmandæ concordiæ, creatique decemviri et, accitis quæ usquam egregia, compositæ duodecim tabulæ, finis æqui juris.  Nam secutæ leges, etsi aliquando in maleficos ex delicto, sæpius tamen dissensione ordinum et apiscendi illicitos honores aut pellendi claros viros aliaque ob prava per vim latæ sunt.  Hinc Gracchi et Saturnini, turbatores plebis, nec minor largitor, nomine Senatus, Drusus ;  corrupti spe aut illusi per intercessionem socii, ac ne bello quidem Italico, mox Civili, omissum quin multa et diversa sciscerentur, donec L. Sulla dictator, abolitis vel conversis prioribus (quum plura addidisset), otium ejus rei haud in longum paravit, statim turbidis Lepidi rogationibus, neque multo post tribunis reddita licentia quoquo vellent populum agitandi.  Jamque non modo in commune sed in singulos homines latæ quæstiones, et corruptissima Re Publica plurimæ leges.

[3.27]  After Tarquin’s expulsion, the people, to check cabals among the Senators, devised many safeguards for freedom and for the establishment of unity.  Decemvirs were appointed;  everything specially admirable elsewhere was adopted, and the Twelve Tables drawn up, the culmination of fair legislation.  For subsequent enactments, though occasionally directed against evildoers for some crime, were oftener carried by violence amid class dissensions, with a view to obtain undeserved honors, or to banish distinguished citizens, or for other base ends.  Hence the Gracchi and Saturnini, those popular agitators, and Drusus too, as flagrant a corrupter in the Senate’s name;  hence, the bribing of our allies by alluring promises and the cheating them by tribunes vetoes.  Even the Italian and then the Civil war did not pass without the enactment of many conflicting laws, till Lucius Sulla, the Dictator, by the repeal or alteration of past legislation and by many additions, gave us a brief lull in this process, to be instantly followed by the seditious proposals of Lepidus, and soon afterwards by the tribunes recovering their license to excite the people just as they chose.  And now legal proceedings were instituted not only for general purposes but against individuals, and laws were most numerous when the commonwealth was most corrupt.

[3.28]  Tum Cn. Pompejus, tertium consul corrigendis moribus delectus et gravior remediis quam delicta erant, suarumque legum auctor idem ac subversor, quæ armis tuebatur armis amisit.  Exim continua per viginti annos discordia, non mos, non jus ;  deterrima quæque impune ac multa honesta exitio fuere.  Sexto demum consulatu Cæsar Augustus, potentiæ securus, quæ triumviratu jusserat abolevit, deditque jura quis pace et principe uteremur.  Acriora ex eo vincla, inditi custodes et lege Papia Poppæa præmiis 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 Prætoriis, totidem e cetero Senatu sorte duxisset, apud quos exsoluti plerique legis nexus modicum in præsens levamentum fuere.

[3.28]  Gnæus Pompejus was then for the third time elected consul to reform public morals, but in applying remedies more terrible than the evils and repealing the legislation of which he had himself been the author, he lost by arms what by arms he had been maintaining.  Then followed twenty years of continuous strife;  custom or law there was none;  the vilest deeds went unpunished, while many noble acts brought ruin.  At last, in his sixth consulship, Cæsar Augustus, feeling his power secure, annulled the decrees of his triumvirate, and gave us a constitution whereby we could avail ourselves of peace and an emperor.  Thereafter our chains became more galling, and minders were set over us, stimulated by rewards under the Papia Poppæa law, so that if men shrank from the privileges of fatherhood, the State, as universal parent, might possess their ownerless properties.  But they began to penetrate more deeply and had gripped the City and Italy and citizens everywhere, and the assets of many were torn away.  And over all there hung a terror till Tiberius, to provide a remedy, selected by lot five ex-consuls, five ex-praetors, and five senators, by whom most of the legal knots were disentangled and some light temporary relief afforded.

[3.29]  Per idem tempus Neronem e liberis Germanici, jam ingressum juventam, commendavit patribus, utque munere capessendi vigintiviratūs solveretur et quinquennio maturius quam per leges quæsturam peteret, non sine irrisu audientium postulavit.  Prætendebat sibi atque fratri decreta eadem petente Augusto.  Sed neque tum fuisse dubitaverim qui ejusmodi preces occulti illuderent :  ac tamen initia fastigii Cæsaribus 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 lætæ quod Germanici stirpem jam puberem aspiciebat.  Auctum dehinc gaudium nuptiis Neronis et Juliæ, Drusi filiæ.  Utque hæc secundo rumore, ita adversis animis acceptum quod filio Claudii socer Sejanus destinaretur.  Polluisse nobilitatem familiæ videbatur, suspectumque jam nimiæ spei Sejanum ultra extulisse.

[3.29]  About this same time he commended to the Senate’s favor, Nero {Julius Cæsar, A.D. 6—31}, Germanicus’s son, who was just entering on manhood, and asked them, not without smiles of ridicule from his audience, to exempt him from serving as one of the Twenty Commissioners, and let him be a candidate for quæstorship five years earlier than the law allowed.  His excuse was that a similar decree had been made for himself {24 B.C.} and his brother {Nero Claudius Drusus, 19 B.C.} at the request of Augustus.  But I would not doubt that even then there were some who would have secretly ridiculed such a petition ;  still, those times were only the beginnings of the Cæsars’ loftiness, and the old customs loomed larger in men’s eyes, while also the tie between stepfather and stepson was weaker than that between grandfather and grandchild.  The pontificate was likewise given to Nero and, on the day on which he first entered the forum, a gratuity to the city populace who greatly rejoiced at seeing a son of Germanicus now grown to manhood.  Their joy was further increased by Nero’s marriage to Julia, Drusus {Cæsar}’s daughter.  This news was met with favorable comments, but it was heard with disgust that Sejanus was to be the father-in-law of {Drusus,} the son of Claudius {and Plautia Urgulanilla}.  The emperor seemed to have polluted the nobility of his house and to have yet further elevated Sejanus, already suspected of overweening ambition.

[3.30]  Fine anni concessere vita insignes viri L. Volusius et Sallustius Crispus.  Volusio vetus familia, neque tamen præturam egressa :  ipse consulatum intulit, censoria etiam potestate legendis equitum decuriis functus, opumque quis domus illa immensum viguit primus accumulator.  Crispum equestri ortum loco C. Sallustius, rerum Romanarum florentissimus auctor, sororis nepotem in nomen ascivit.  Atque ille, quanquam prompto ad capessendos honores aditu, Mæcenatem æmulatus sine dignitate senatoria multos triumphalium consulariumque potentia anteiit, 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 ostentabat.  Igitur incolumi Mæcenate proximus, mox præcipuus, cui secreta imperatorum inniterentur, et interficiendi Postumi Agrippæ conscius, ætate provecta speciem magis in amicitia principis quam vim tenuit.  Idque et Mæcenati acciderat, fato potentiæ raro sempiternæ :  an satiās capit aut illos, quum omnia tribuerunt, aut hos, quum jam nihil reliquum est quod cupiant.

[3.30]  Two remarkable men died at the end of the year, Lucius Volusius and Sallustius Crispus.  Volusius was of an old family, but one that had never gone further than the praetorship.  He himself brought a consulship into it ;  he also held the office of censor for selecting the equestrian squadrons, and was the first to pile up the wealth which that house enjoyed to a boundless extent.  Crispus, born to an equestrian position, was affiliated into his name by Gajus Sallustius, the brightest flower among the authors of Roman history.  Though his road to preferment was easy, he chose to emulate Mæcenas, and without rising to a senator’s rank, he surpassed in power many who had won triumphs and consulships.  He was a contrast to the manners of antiquity in his elegance and refinement, and in the sumptuousness of his wealth he was almost a voluptuary.  But beneath all this was a vigorous mind, equal to the greatest labors, the more active in proportion as he made a show of sloth and apathy.  And so during Mæcenas’ lifetime he was the secondary, afterward the primary person to whom imperial secrets would be entrusted, and accessory to the murder of Postumus Agrippa, till in advanced age he retained the shadow rather than the substance of the emperor’s friendship.  The same too had happened to Mæcenas, so rarely is it the destiny of power to be lasting:  satiety takes over — either the one party when it has given everything, or the other when there is nothing left that it wants.

[3.31]  Sequitur Tiberii quartus, Drusi secundus consulatus, patris atque filii collegio insignis.  (Nam triennio ante Germanici cum Tiberio idem honor neque patruo lætus neque natura tam conexus fuerat.)  Ejus anni principio Tiberius quasi firmandæ 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 præbuit juveni materiem apiscendi favoris.  Domitius Corbulo prætura functus de L. Sulla nobili juvene questus est apud Senatum quod sibi inter spectacula gladiatorum loco non decessisset.  Pro Corbulone ætas, patrius mos, studia seniorum erant ;  contra Mamercus Scaurus et L. Arruntius aliique Sullæ propinqui nitebantur.  Certabantque orationibus et memorabantur exempla majorum, qui juventutis irreverentiam gravibus decretis notavissent, donec Drusus apta temperandis animis disseruit ;  et satisfactum Corbuloni per Mamercum qui patruus simul ac vitricus Sullæ et oratorum ea ætate uberrimus erat.

Idem Corbulo, plurima per Italiam itinera fraude mancipum et incuria magistratuum interrupta et impervia clamitando, exsecutionem ejus negotii libens suscepit ;  quod haud perinde publice usui habitum quam exitiosum multis quorum in pecuniam atque famam damnationibus et hasta sæviebat.

[3.31]  Next followed Tiberius’s fourth, Drusus’s second consulship {a.D. 21}, memorable from the fact that father and son were colleagues.  (Three years previously the association of Germanicus and Tiberius in the same honor had not been agreeable to the uncle, nor had it the link of so close a natural tie.)  At the beginning of this year Tiberius, avowedly to recruit his health, retired to Campania, as if to consolidate his health but in fact giving gradual consideration to a long and continuous absence — or so that Drusus, with his father removed, might fulfill the responsibilities of the consulship on his own.  It happened that a mere trifle which grew into a sharp contest gave the young prince the means of acquiring popularity.  Domitius Corbulo, an ex-praetor, complained to the Senate that Lucius Sulla, a young noble, had not given place to him at a gladiatorial show.  Corbulo had age, national usage and the feelings of the older senators in his favor.  Against him Mamercus Scaurus, Lucius Arruntius and other kinsmen of Sulla strenuously exerted themselves.  There was a keen debate, and appeal was made to the precedents of our ancestors, as having censured in severe decrees disrespect on the part of the young, until Drusus spoke words suited to moderating their spirits.  Corbulo too received an apology from Mamercus, who was Sulla’s uncle and stepfather, and the most fluent speaker of that day.

It was this same Corbulo, who, after raising a cry that most of the roads in Italy were obstructed and impassable through the dishonesty of contractors and the negligence of officials, himself willingly undertook the complete management of the business.  This proved not so beneficial to the State as ruinous to many persons, whose property and credit he mercilessly attacked by convictions and confiscations.

[3.32]  Neque multo post, missis ad Senatum litteris, Tiberius motam rursum Africam incursu Tacfarinatis docuit, judicioque patrum deligendum pro consule gnarum militiæ, corpore validum et bello suffecturum.  Quod initium Sex. Pompejus agitandi adversus Manium Lepidum odii nanctus, ut socordem, inopem et majoribus suis dedecorum eoque etiam Asiæ sorte depellendum incusavit, adverso Senatu, qui Lepidum mitem magis quam ignavum, paternas ei angustias et nobilitatem sine probro actam honori quam ignominiæ habendam ducebat.  Igitur missus in Asiam, et de Africa decretum ut Cæsar legeret cui mandanda foret.

[3.32]  Soon afterwards Tiberius informed the Senate by letter that Africa was again disturbed by an incursion of Tacfarinas, and that they must use their judgment in choosing as proconsul an experienced soldier of vigorous constitution, who would be equal to the war.  Sextus Pompeius, taking this opportunity to vent his hatred against Lepidus, attacked him as a slothful, indigent man disgraceful to his ancestors and so to be rejected even from the lot-drawing for Asia.  But the Senate was against him, for they thought Lepidus placid rather than lazy, that his straitened finances were inherited, and that his noble life, led without reproach, should be viewed as an honor, not a disgrace.  And so he was sent to Asia, and with respect to Africa it was decided that the emperor should choose to whom it was to be assigned.

[3.33]  Inter quæ Severus Cæcina censuit ne quem magistratum cui provincia obvenisset uxor comitaretur, multum ante repetito concordem sibi conjugem et sex partus enixam, seque quæ in publicum statueret domi servavisse, cohibitā intra Italiam, quanquam ipse plures per provincias quadraginta stipendia explevisset.  Haud enim frustra placitum olim ne feminæ in socios aut gentes externas traherentur :  inesse mulierum comitatui quæ pacem luxu, bellum formidine morentur, et Romanum agmen ad similitudinem barbari incessus convertant.  Non imbecillum tantum et imparem laboribus sexum sed, si licentia assit, sævum, ambitiosum, potestatis avidum ;  incedere inter milites, habere ad manum centuriones ;  præsedisse nuper feminam exercitio cohortium, decursu legionum.  Cogitarent ipsi, quotiens repetundarum aliqui arguerentur, plura uxoribus objectari :  his statim adhærescere deterrimum quemque provincialium, ab his negotia suscipi, transigi ;  duorum egressus coli, duo esse prætoria, pervicacibus magis et impotentibus mulierum jussis quæ Oppiis quondam aliisque legibus constrictæ nunc vinclis exolutis domos, fora, jam et exercitus regerent.

[3.33]  During this debate Severus Cæcina proposed that no magistrate who had obtained a province should be accompanied by his wife.  He began by recounting at length how harmoniously he had lived with his wife, who had borne him six children, and how in his own home he had observed what he was proposing for the public, with her having been restricted to within Italy, though he had himself served forty campaigns in various provinces.  “With good reason,” he said, “had it been formerly decided that women were not to be taken among our allies or into foreign countries.  A train of women involves delays through luxury in peace and through panic in war, and converts a Roman army on the march into the likeness of a barbarian progress.  Not only is the sex feeble and unequal to hardship, but, when it has liberty, it is spiteful, intriguing and greedy of power.  They show themselves off among the soldiers and have the centurions at their beck.  Lately a woman had presided at the drill of the cohorts and the march-in-review of the legions.  You should yourselves bear in mind that, whenever men are accused of extortion, most of the charges are directed against the wives.  It is to these that the vilest of the provincials instantly attach themselves;  it is they who undertake and settle business;  two persons receive homage when they appear;  there are two centres of government, and the women’s orders are the more obstinate and intemperate.  Formerly they were restrained by the Oppian and other laws;  now, loosed from every bond, they rule our houses, our tribunals, even our armies.”

[3.34]  Paucorum hæc assensu audita :  plures obturbabant, neque relatum de negotio neque Cæcinam dignum tantæ rei censorem.  Mox Valerius Messalinus — cui parens Messala, ineratque imago paternæ facundiæ — respondit multa duritiæ veterum in melius et lætius mutata ;  neque enim, ut olim, obsideri Urbem bellis, aut provincias hostiles esse.  Et pauca feminarum necessitatibus concedi, quæ ne conjugum quidem penates, 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 sæpe pravitatibus uxorum maritos” :  ¿ num ergo omnes cælibes integros ?  Placuisse quondam Oppias leges, sic temporibus Rei Publicæ 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 luxui, cupidinibus alienis.  Vix præsenti custodia manere illæsa conjugia :  ¿ quid fore si per plures annos in modum discidii oblitterentur ?  Sic obviam irent eis quæ alibi peccarentur ut flagitiorum Urbis meminissent.

Addidit pauca Drusus de matrimonio suo ;  nam principibus adeunda sæpius longinqua imperii.  ¡ Quoties divum Augustum in Occidentem atque Orientem meavisse, comite Livia !  Se quoque in Illyricum profectum et, si ita conducat, alias ad gentes iturum, haud semper æquo animo, si ab uxore carissima et tot communium liberorum parente divelleretur.  Sic Cæcinæ sententia elusa.

[3.34]  A few heard this speech with approval, but the majority clamorously objected that there was no proper motion on the subject, and that Cæcina was no fit censor on so grave an issue.  Presently Valerius Messalinus, Messala’s son, in whom the father’s eloquence was reproduced, replied that much of the sternness of antiquity had been changed into a better and more genial system.  “Rome,” he said, “is not now, as formerly, beset with wars, nor are the provinces hostile.  A few concessions are made to the wants of women, but such as are not even a burden to their husbands homes, much less to the allies.  In all other respects man and wife share alike, and this arrangement involves no trouble in peace.  War of course requires that men should be unincumbered, but when they return what worthier solace can they have after their hardships than a wife’s society?  But some wives have abandoned themselves to scheming and rapacity.  Well:  even among our magistrates, are not many subject to various passions?  Still, that is not a reason for sending no one into a province.  Husbands have often been corrupted by the vices of their wives.  Are then all unmarried men blameless?  The Oppian laws were formerly adopted to meet the political necessities of the time, and subsequently there was some remission and mitigation of them on grounds of expediency.  It is idle to shelter our own weakness under other names;  for it is the husband’s fault if the wife transgresses propriety.  Besides, it is wrong that because of the weak will of one or two men, all husbands should be cut off from their partners in prosperity and adversity.  And further, a sex naturally weak will be thus left to itself and be at the mercy of its own sensuality and the passions of others.  Even with the husband’s personal vigilance the marriage tie is scarcely preserved inviolate.  What would happen were it for a number of years to be forgotten, just as in a divorce?  Let them confront the evils being committed elsewhere with the same attitude with which they kept in mind the vices of Rome!”

Drusus added a few words on his own experience as a husband.  “Princes,” he said, “must often visit the extremities of their empire.  How often had the Divine Augustus travelled to West and to the East accompanied by Livia?  He had himself gone to Illyricum and, should it be expedient, he would go to other countries, not always however with a contented mind, if he had to tear himself from a much loved wife, the mother of his many children.”  In this way Cæcina’s proposal was outwitted.

[3.35]  Et proximo Senatus die Tiberius per litteras, castigatis oblique patribus quod cuncta curarum ad principem rejicerent, M’.  Lepidum et Junium Blæsum nominavit ex quis pro consule Africæ legeretur.  Tum audita amborum verba, intentius excusante se Lepido, quum valetudinem corporis, ætatem liberum, nubilem filiam obtenderet — intellegereturque etiam quod silebat :  avunculum esse Sejani Blæsum, atque eo prævalidum.  Respondit Blæsus specie recusantis sed neque eadem asseveratione, et consensu adulantium haud difficulter victus est.

[3.35]  At the Senate’s next meeting came a letter from Tiberius, which indirectly censured them for throwing on the emperor every political care, and named Marcus Lepidus and Junius Blæsus, one of whom was to be chosen pro-consul of Africa.  Both spoke on the subject, and Lepidus begged earnestly to be excused.  He alleged ill-health, his children’s tender age, his having a daughter to marry — while what he kept silent about was understood:  the fact that Blæsus was Sejanus’ uncle and so very powerful in influence.  Blæsus replied with an affectation of refusal, but not with the same persistency, and was won over without difficulty by the unanimity of the sycophants.

[3.36]  Exim promptum quod multorum intimis questibus tegebatur.  Incedebat enim deterrimo cuique licentia impune probra et invidiam in bonos excitandi, arrepta imagine Cæsaris :  libertique etiam ac servi, patrono vel domino quum voces, quum manus intentarent, ultro metuebantur.  Igitur C. Cestius senator disseruit principes quidem instar deorum esse, sed neque a diis nisi justas 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 curiæ, ab Annia Rufilla, quam fraudis sub judice damnavisset, probra sibi et minæ intendantur, neque ipse audeat jus experiri ob effigiem imperatoris oppositam.  Haud dissimilia alii et quidam atrociora circumstrepebant, precabanturque Drusum daret ultionis exemplum, donec accitam convictamque attineri publica custodia jussit.

[3.36]  Next came out what was being covered up by the secret complaints of many people.  The vilest wretches used a growing freedom in exciting insult and odium against respectable citizens, and escaped punishment by clasping some statue of the emperor.  The very freedman or slave was often an actual terror to his patron or master whom he would menace by word and gesture.  Accordingly Gajus Cestius, a senator, argued that “though princes were like deities, yet even the gods listened only to righteous prayers from their suppliants, and that no one fled to the Capitol or any other temple in Rome to use it as an auxiliary in crime.  There was an end and utter subversion of all law when, in the forum and on the threshold of the Senate House, Annia Rufilla, whom he had convicted of fraud before a judge, assailed him with insults and threats, while he did not himself dare to try legal proceedings, because he was confronted by her with the emperor’s image.”  Members raised a din all round him, complaining of not dissimilar — and some even of more distressing — abuses, and they repeated begged Drusus to set an example by inflicting punishment, till he ordered Rufilla to be summoned, had her convicted and ordered her confined in the public prison.

[3.37]  Et Considius Æquus et Cælius Cursor, equites Romani, quod fictis majestatis criminibus Magium Cæcilianum prætorem petivissent, auctore principe ac decreto Senatus puniti.  Utrumque in laudem Drusi trahebatur :  ab eo in Urbe inter cœtus et sermones hominum obversante, secreta patris mitigari.  Neque luxus in juvene adeo displicebat :  huc potius intenderet, diem ædificationibus, noctem conviviis trahere, quam solus et nullis voluptatibus avocatus mæstam vigilantiam et malas curas exerceret.

[3.37]  Considius Æquus too and Cœlius Cursor, Roman knights, were punished on the emperor’s proposal, by a decree of the Senate, for having attacked the praetor, Magius Cæcilianus, with false charges of treason.  Both these results were represented as an honor to Drusus :  by moving in society at Rome, amid popular talk, the effects of his father’s reclusive behavior, they said, were being mitigated.  Even a wild life in one so young gave little offence.  Better that he should incline that way, spend his days in architecture, his nights in banquets, than that he should live in solitude, cut off from every pleasure, and absorbed in a gloomy vigilance and mischievous schemes.

[3.38]  Non enim Tiberius, non accusatores fatiscebant.  Et Ancharius Priscus Cæsium Cordum pro consule Cretæ postulaverat repetundis, addito majestatis crimine, quod tum omnium accusationum complementum erat.  Cæsar Antistium Veterem e primoribus Macedoniæ, absolutum adulterii, increpitis judicibus ad dicendam majestatis causam retraxit ut turbidum et Rhescuporidis consiliis permixtum, qua tempestate Cotye, fratris filio interfecto, bellum adversus nos volverat.  Igitur aqua et igni interdictum reo, appositumque ut teneretur insula neque Macedoniæ neque Thræciæ opportuna.

Nam Thræcia, diviso imperio in Rhœmetalcen et liberos Cotyis, quis ob infantiam tutor erat Trebellenus Rufus, insolentia nostri discors agebat ;  neque minus Rhœmetalcen quam Trebellenum incusantes popularium injurias inultas sinere, Cœlaletæ Odrusæque et Dii, validæ nationes, arma cepere, ducibus diversis et paribus inter se per ignobilitatem ;  quæ causa fuit ne in bellum atrox coalescerent.  Pars turbant præsentia, alii montem Hæmum transgrediuntur ut remotos populos concirent ;  plurimi ac maxime compositi regem urbemque Philippopolim, a Macedone Philippo sitam, circumsidunt.

[3.38]  Tiberius indeed and the informers were never weary.  Ancharius Priscus had arraigned Cæsius Cordus, the proconsul of Crete, for extortion, adding a charge of treason (which was now the complement of every accusation) ;  and Cæsar, berating the judges, dragged back Antistius Vetus, one of the chiefs of Macedonia and acquitted of adultery, to stand trial for treason, on the grounds that he had been disruptive and implicated in the plans of Rhescuporis at the time when the latter, after killing Cotys, his brother’s son, had been contemplating war against us.  Fire and water were therefore forbidden to the defendant, with the additional clause that he be held on an island from which neither Macedonia nor Thrace were conveniently accessible.

For Thrace, its empire divided between Rhœmetalces and Cotys’children (who owing to their infancy had Trebellienus Rufus as their guardian), was experiencing internal disaffection through its unfamiliarity with us.  Censuring Rhœmetalces no less than Trebellienus for allowing the injuries of their compatriots to go unavenged, the Cœlaletæ, Odrusæ and Dii, powerful tribes, took up arms under separate leaders, comparable only in ther ignobility.  This was what kept them from coming together for a savage war.  Some disrupted their immediate neighborhood;  others crossed Mount Hæmus, to muster remote tribes;  the majority of them (and the best organized) besieged the king and city of Philippopolis, a city founded by Philip of Macedon.

[3.39]  Quæ ubi cognita P. Vellæo (is proximum exercitum præsidebat), alarios equites ac leves cohortium mittit in eos qui prædabundi aut assumendis auxiliis vagabantur, ipse robur peditum ad exsolvendum obsidium ducit.  Simulque cuncta prospere acta, cæsis populatoribus et dissensione orta apud obsidentes, regisque opportuna eruptione et adventu legionis.  Neque aciem aut prœlium dici decuerit in quo semermi ac palantes trucidati sunt sine nostro sanguine.

[3.39]  When this was known to Publius Vellæus who commanded the nearest army, he sent some allied cavalry and light infantry to attack those who were roaming in quest of plunder or of reinforcements, while he marched in person with the main strength of the foot to raise the siege.  Every operation was at the same moment successful;  the pillagers were cut to pieces;  dissensions broke out among the besiegers, and the king made a well-timed sally just as the legion arrived.  A battle or even a skirmish it did not deserve to be called, in which merely half-armed stragglers were slaughtered without bloodshed on our side.

[3.40]  Eodem anno Galliarum civitates ob magnitudinem æris alieni rebellionem cœptavere, cujus exstimulator acerrimus inter Treveros Julius Florus, apud Æduos Julius Sacrovir.  Nobilitas ambobus et majorum bona facta, eoque Romana civitas olim data, quum id rarum, nec nisi virtuti pretium esset.  Ii secretis colloquiis, ferocissimo quoque assumpto (aut quibus ob egestatem ac metum ex flagitiis maxima peccandi necessitudo), componunt Florus Belgas, Sacrovir propiores Gallos concire.  Igitur per conciliabula et cœtus seditiosa disserebant de continuatione tributorum, gravitate fenoris, sævitia ac superbia præsidentium, et discordare militem, audito Germanici exitio.  Egregium resumendæ libertati tempus, si ipsi florentes quam inops Italia, quam imbellis Urbana plebes, nihil validum in exercitibus nisi quod externum, cogitarent.

[3.40]  That same year, some states of Gaul, under the pressure of heavy debts, attempted a revolt.  Its most active instigators were Julius Florus among the Treveri and Julius Sacrovir among the Ædui.  Both were blessed by noble birth and their ancestors’ good deeds, for which Roman citizenship had been formerly granted them, when the gift was rare and only as a reward for valor.  In secret conferences to which the fiercest spirits were admitted (or any in whom a strong compulsion of wrongdoing arose out of poverty and out of the fear resulting from their shameful deeds), they arranged that Florus was to rouse the Belgæ, Sacrovir the Gauls nearer home.  These men accordingly talked sedition in meeting-places and gatherings about the perpetual taxes, the oppressive usury, the viciousness and arrogance of their overseers, saying that there was disaffection among our soldiers, since they had heard of the murder of Germanicus.  “It was,” they said, “a grand opportunity for the recovery of freedom, if only they would realize their own vigor compared with the exhaustion of Italy, the unwarlike character of the city populace, and the utter weakness of Rome’s armies in all but their foreign element.”

[3.41]  Haud ferme ulla civitas intacta seminibus ejus motus fuit :  sed erupere primi Andecavi ac Turoni.  Quorum Andecavos Acilius Aviola legatus, excita cohorte quæ Lugduni præsidium agitabat, coërcuit.  Turoni legionario milite quem Visellius Varro inferioris Germaniæ 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, ostentandæ, ut ferebat, virtutis :  sed captivi ne incesseretur telis agnoscendum se præbuisse arguebant.  Consultus super eo, Tiberius aspernatus est indicium, aluitque dubitatione bellum.

[3.41]  Scarcely a single community was untouched by the germs of this commotion.  First however in actual revolt were the Andecavi and Turoni.  Of these the former were put down by an officer, Acilius Aviola, who had summoned a cohort which was on garrison duty at Lugdunum.  The Turoni were quelled by some legionary troops sent by Visellius Varro who commanded in Lower Germany, and led by the same Aviola and some Gallic chieftains who brought aid, in order that they might disguise their disaffection and exhibit it at a better opportunity.  Sacrovir too was conspicuous, with head uncovered, cheering on his men to fight for Rome, to display, as he said, his valour.  But the prisoners asserted that he sought recognition that he might not be a mark for missiles.  Tiberius when consulted on the matter disdained the information, and fostered the war by his irresolution.

[3.42]  Interim Florus insistere destinatis, pellicere alam equitum quæ, conscripta e Treveris, militia disciplinaque nostra habebatur ut, cæsis negotiatoribus Romanis, bellum inciperet ;  paucique equitum corrupti, plures in officio mansere.  Aliud vulgus obæratorum aut clientium arma cepit ;  petebantque saltus quibus nomen Arduenna, quum legiones utroque ab exercitu, quas Visellius et C. Silius adversis itineribus objecerant, arcuerunt.  Præmissusque cum delecta manu Julius Indus e civitate eadem, discors Floro et ob id navandæ operæ avidior, inconditam multitudinem adhuc disjecit.  Florus, incertis latebris victores frustratus, postremo visis militibus qui effugia insederant, sua manu cecidit.  Isque Treverici tumultus finis.

[3.42]  Florus meanwhile persisted in his objectives and tried to induce a squadron of cavalry levied among the Treveri, trained in our service and discipline, to begin hostilities by a massacre of the Roman traders.  A few of the men were corrupted, but the majority remained in their allegiance.  It was the general crowd of debtors and clients which took up arms ;  they were making their way to the upland forests known as the Ardennes, when they were blocked by legions which Visellius and Silius had by opposite routes thrown in their way from their respective armies.  Julius Indus from the same state, who was at odds with Florus and therefore particularly eager to render us a service, was sent on in advance with an elite detachment, and dispersed the still disorganized multitude.  Florus, foiling the victors with his changes of hiding place, finally, on seeing the soldiers who had beset his escape-routes, fell by his own hand.  And that was the end of the rebellion of the Treveri.

[3.43]  Apud Æduos major moles exorta quanto civitas opulentior et comprimendi procul præsidium.  Augustodunum, caput gentis, armatis cohortibus Sacrovir occupaverat ut nobilissimam Galliarum subolem (liberalibus studiis ibi operatam) et, eo pignore, parentes propinquosque eorum adjungeret ;  simul arma occulte fabricata juventuti dispertit.  Quadraginta milia fuere, quinta sui parte legionariis armis, ceteri cum venabulis et cultris, quæque alia venantibus tela sunt.  Adduntur e servitiis gladiaturæ destinati quibus more gentico continuum ferri tegimen :  “cruppellarios” vocant, inferendis ictibus inhabilis, accipiendis impenetrabilis.  Augebantur eæ copiæ 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.)

[3.43]  A more formidable movement broke out among the Ædui, proportioned to the greater wealth of the state and the distance of the garrison which should repress it.  Sacrovir with some armed cohorts had seized Augustodunum, the capital of the tribe, so that he could enlist the noblest youth of Gaul (there devoting themselves to Roman-Hellenistic studies) and, with them as pawns, their parents and relatives.  At the same time he distributed secretly manufactured arms to the youth.  There were forty thousand, a fifth in legionary armor;  the rest had hunting spears and knives and other weapons used in the chase.  In addition were some slaves who were being trained for gladiators, who were, in the fashion of their country, clad completely in iron body-armor.  They were called “crupellarii,” clumsy in inflicting blows, impenetrable in receiving them.  These forces kept being augmented, not yet with the open agreement of the neighboring communities, but with a ready enthusiasm individually — as well as owing to the rivalry of the Roman leaders, between whom there was a dispute, each of the two demanding the war for himself.  (Subsequently it was Varro who, ineffectual on account of his old age, yielded to the vigorous Silius.)

[3.44]  At Romæ non Treveros modo et Æduos, sed quattuor et sexaginta Galliarum civitates descivisse, assumptos in societatem Germanos, dubias Hispanias, cuncta, ut mos famæ, in majus credita.  Optimus quisque Rei Publicæ cura mærebat :  multi odio præsentium et cupidine mutationis suis quoque periculis lætabantur, increpabantque Tiberium quod in tanto rerum motu libellis accusatorum insumeret operam.  ¿ An Sacrovirum majestatis crimine reum in Senatu fore ?  Exstitisse 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.

[3.44]  At Rome meanwhile people said that it was not only the Treveri and Ædui who had revolted, but the sixty-four states of Gaul with the Germans in alliance, while Spain too was disaffected;  anything in fact was believed, with rumor’s usual exaggeration.  All good men were saddened by anxiety for the country, but many in their loathing of the present system and eagerness for change, rejoiced at their very perils and exclaimed against Tiberius for spending effort on the letters of informers amid such political convulsions.  “Was Sacrovir too,” they asked, “to be charged with treason before the Senate?  Finally men have risen up to put an end to those bloody letters with arms.  Even war is a good exchange for a miserable peace.”

Looking all the more deliberately unworried, Tiberius changed neither his residence nor his expression, but acted as usual throughout those days, with inscrutability of mind — or he had learned that things were of moderate scope and less important than broadcast.

[3.45]  Interim Silius cum legionibus duabus incedens, præmissa auxiliari manu, vastat Sequanorum pagos qui, finium extremi, et Æduis 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 copiæque patentibus locis apparuere.  In fronte statuerat ferratos, in cornibus cohortes, a tergo semermos.  Ipse inter primores equo insigni adire, memorare veteres Gallorum glorias quæque Romanis adversa intulissent ;  quam decora victoribus libertas, quanto intolerantior servitus iterum victis.

[3.45]  Silius meantime was advancing with two legions, and having sent forward some auxiliary troops was ravaging those villages of the Sequani, which, situated on the border, adjoin the Ædui, and were associated with them in arms.  He then pushed on by forced marches to Augustodunum, his standard-bearers vying in zeal, and even the privates loudly protesting against any halt for their usual rest or during the hours of night.  Just let them see their enemy and be seen by them — that would be enough for victory.  At the twelfth milestone Sacrovir and his forces appeared on open ground.  In front he had placed the ironclads, on the edges the cohorts, and at the rear the half-armed.  He himself rode amid the foremost ranks on a splendid charger, reminding them of the ancient glories of the Gauls, of the disasters they had inflicted on the Romans, how grand would be the freedom of the victorious, how more intolerable than ever the slavery of a second conquest.

[3.46]  Non diu hæc nec apud lætos :  etenim propinquabat legionum acies, inconditique ac militiæ nescii oppidani neque oculis neque auribus satis competebant.  Contra Silius, etsi præsumpta spes hortandi causas exemerat, clamitabat tamen pudendum ipsis quod Germaniarum victores adversum Gallos tanquam in hostem ducerentur.  «Una nuper cohors rebellem Turonum, una ala Treverum, paucæ hujus ipsius exercitus turmæ profligavere Sequanos.  Quanto pecunia dites et voluptatibus opulentos, tanto magis imbelles Æduos convincite — et fugientibus consulite.»  Ingens ad ea clamor et circumfudit eques, frontemque pedites invasere, nec cunctatum apud latera.  Paulum moræ attulere ferrati, restantibus laminis adversum pila et gladios ;  set miles, correptis securibus et dolabris, ut si murum perrumperet, cædere tegmina et corpora ;  quidam trudibus aut furcis inertem molem prosternere, jacentesque 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 omnes cremavit.

[3.46]  His words were brief and heard without exultation.  For now the legions in battle array were advancing, and the rabble of townsfolk who knew nothing of war had their faculties of sight and hearing quite paralysed.  Silius, on the one hand, though confident hope took away any need for encouragement, exclaimed again and again that it was a shame to the conquerors of Germany to have to be led against Gauls as against an enemy.  “Only the other day the rebel Turoni had been discomfited by a single cohort, the Treveri by one cavalry squadron, the Sequani by a few companies of this very army.  Convince these Ædui once for all that, the more they abound in wealth and luxury, the more unwarlike they are — but spare them when they flee.”  Then there was a deafening cheer;  the cavalry threw itself on the flanks, and the infantry charged the van.  On the wings there was but a brief resistance.  The iron-armored men were somewhat of an obstacle, as the iron plates did not yield to javelins or swords;  but our men, snatching up hatchets and pickaxes, hacked at their bodies and their armor as if they were breaching a wall.  Some beat down the unwieldy mass with pikes and forked poles, and they were left lying on the ground, without an effort to rise, like dead men.  Sacrovir with his most trustworthy followers hurried first to Augustodunum and then, from fear of being surrendered, to a nearby country house.  There by his own hand he fell, and his comrades by mutually inflicted wounds.  The house over them was set afire, cremating them all.

[3.47]  Tum demum Tiberius ortum patratumque bellum Senatui 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, adjunxit, magnitudinem imperii extollens, neque decorum principibus, si una alterave civitas turbet, omisisse Urbem, unde in omnia regimen.  Nunc, quia non metu ducatur, iturum ut præsentia spectaret componeretque.  Decrevere patres vota pro reditu ejus supplicationesque et alia decora.  Solus Dolabella Cornelius, dum anteire ceteros parat, absurdam in adulationem progressus, censuit ut ovans e Campania Urbem introiret.  Igitur secutæ Cæsaris litteræ quibus se non tam vacuum gloria prædicabat ut, post ferocissimas gentes perdomitas, tot receptos in juventa aut spretos triumphos, jam senior peregrinationis suburbanæ inane præmium peteret.

[3.47]  Then at last Tiberius informed the Senate by letter of the beginning and completion of the war, without either taking away from or adding to the truth, but saying that the legates had prevailed by their loyalty and courage, he through his planning.  He also gave the reasons why neither he himself nor Drusus had gone to the war;  he magnified the greatness of the empire, and said it would be undignified for emperors, whenever there was a commotion in one or two states, to abandon the capital, the center of all government.  Now, as he was not influenced by fear, he would go to examine and settle matters.  The Senate decreed vows for his safe return, with thanksgivings and other appropriate ceremonies.  Cornelius Dolabella alone, in endeavouring to outdo the other Senators, went the length of a preposterous flattery by proposing that he should enter Rome from Campania with an ovation.  Thereupon came a letter from the emperor declaring that, after crushing the most savage tribes and accepting or declining so many triumphs in his youth, he was ot now, in his advancing age, so lacking in glory as to seek the hollow prize of a journey in the suburbs.

[3.48]  Sub idem tempus ut mors Sulpicii Quirinii publicis exsequiis frequentaretur petivit a Senatu.  Nihil ad veterem et patriciam Sulpiciorum familiam Quirinius pertinuit, ortus apud municipium Lanuvium :  sed impiger militiæ et acribus ministeriis, consulatum sub divo Augusto, mox, expugnatis per Ciliciam Homonadensium castellis, insignia triumphi adeptus ;  datusque rector G. Cæsari Armeniam obtinenti.  Tiberium quoque Rhodi agentem coluerat.  Quod tunc patefecit in Senatu, laudatis in se officiis et incusato M. Lollio, quem auctorem Gajo Cæsari pravitatis et discordiarum arguebat.  Sed ceteris haud læta memoria Quirinii erat ob intenta, ut memoravi, Lepidæ pericula, sordidamque et præpotentem senectam.

[3.48]  About the same time he requested the Senate to let the death of Sulpicius Quirinius be celebrated with a public funeral.  He had no connection with the old patrician family of the Sulpicii, having been born in the town of Lanuvium.  An energetic soldier, he had by his zealous services won the consulship under the Divine Augustus, and subsequently, after storming the fortresses of the Homonadenses in Cilicia, the honors of a triumph.  He was also appointed mentor to Gajus {Julius} Cæsar during his government of Armenia, and had likewise paid court to Tiberius during his stay at Rhodes.  The latter now revealed this in the Senate, praising the man’s services to himself and censuring Marcus Lollius, whom he criticized as having been responsible for Gajus {Julius} Cæsar’s prevarication and disaffection.  But to the others any recall of Quirinius was unwelcome owing to the dangers which he had directed against Lepida (as I have recalled) and to his miserly and overpowerful old age.

[3.49]  Fine anni Clutorium Priscum, equitem Romanum, post celebre carmen quo Germanici suprema defleverat, pecunia donatum a Cæsare, corripuit delator, objectans ægro Druso composuisse quod, si exstinctus foret, majore præmio vulgaretur.  Id Clutorius in domo P. Petronii, socru ejus Vitellia coram, multisque illustribus feminis, per vaniloquentiam legerat.  Ut delator exstitit, ceteris ad dicendum testimonium exterritis, sola Vitellia nihil se audivisse asseveravit.  Sed arguentibus ad perniciem plus fidei fuit, sententiaque Haterii Agrippæ consulis designati indictum reo ultimum supplicium.

[3.49]  At the close of the year, Gajus Clutorius Priscus, a Roman knight who had been given money by Cæsar after a celebrated poem in which he had lamented the final moments of Germanicus, was seized by a denouncer, casting at him the charge that during an illness of Drusus he had composed something which, if the man’s life were extinguished, would be published for an even greater reward.  Clutorius as a foolish boast had read it at the house of P. Petronius in the presence of Vitellia, the latter’s mother-in-law, and of many illustrious females.  When the denouncer appeared, the others were terrified into giving testimony;  only Vitellia asserted that she had heard nothing.  But more belief was accorded to those whose criticisms were aimed at his ruin, and on the proposal of Haterius Agrippa, the consul designate, the defendant was sentenced to the ultimate reprisal.

[3.50]  Contra M’. Lepidus in hunc modum exorsus est :  ‘Si, Patres Conscripti, unum id spectamus, quam nefaria voce Clutorius Priscus mentem suam et aures 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, majorumque et vestra exempla temperant, et vana a scelestis, dicta a maleficiis differunt, est locus sententiæ per quam neque huic delictum impune sit, et nos clementiæ simul ac severitatis non pæniteat.  Sæpe audivi principem nostrum conquerentem si quis sumpta morte misericordiam ejus prævenisset.  Vita Clutorii in integro est, qui neque servatus in periculum Rei Publicæ neque interfectus in exemplum ibit.  Studia illi ut plena vecordiæ, ita inania et fluxa sunt ;  nec quicquam grave ac serium ex eo metuas qui suorum ipse flagitiorum proditor non virorum animis sed muliercularum arrepit.  Cedat tamen Urbe et bonis amissis aqua et igni arceatur ;  quod perinde censeo ac si lege majestatis teneretur.’

[3.50]  Marcus Lepidus spoke against the sentence as follows:  - “Senators, if we look just at the single fact of how Clutorius Priscus polluted his own mind and the ears of men with his evil voice, neither prison nor noose nor tortures fit for a slave would be punishment enough for him.  But if shameful deeds and crimes have no limit, the emperor’s moderation, our ancestors’ and your examples exhibit moderation in respect of reprisals and remedies;  and if foolishness differs from crimes, words from evil deeds, there is space for a sentence by which neither the crime will go unpunished in this man, nor, simultaneously, will we rue either our leniency or our severity.  Often have I heard our emperor complain when any one has anticipated his mercy by a self-inflicted death.  Clutorius’s life is still intact;  spared, he will be no danger to the State;  and executed, no deterrent.  His literary studies, full of derangement as they are, are illusory and fleeting;  nor would you dread anything weighty or serious from a man who, in betraying his own outrages, infiltratres the minds not of men but of poor little women.  Let him neverhteless leave the City and, losing his property, be banned from water and fire — something which I propose exactly as if he were liable under the law of treason.”

[3.51]  Solus Lepido Rubellius Blandus e consularibus assensit :  ceteri sententiam Agrippæ secuti, ductusque in carcerem Priscus ac statim exanimatus.  Id Tiberius solitis sibi ambagibus apud Senatum incusavit, quum extolleret pietatem quamvis modicas principis injurias acriter ulciscentium, deprecare tam præcipites verborum pœnas, laudaret Lepidum, neque Agrippam argueret.  Igitur factum Senatus consultum ne decreta Patrum ante diem decimum ad ærarium deferrentur, idque vitæ spatium damnatis prorogaretur.  Sed non Senatui libertas ad pænitendum erat, neque Tiberius interjectu temporis mitigabatur.

[3.51]  Only one of the ex-consuls, Rubellius Blandus, supported Lepidus.  The rest voted with Agrippa.  Priscus was dragged off to prison and instantly put to death.  Of this Tiberius complained to the Senate with his usual ambiguity, praising the loyalty of those who actively avenged wrongs, however slight, done to their emperor, but disapproving of such hasty punishment of mere words, praising Lepidus, but not criticizing Agrippa.  So the Senate passed a resolution that their decrees should not be registered in the state archives before the tenth day, and that condemned prisoners be given a reprieve for that length of time.  The Senate, however, had no latitude to reverse its decisions, nor did Tiberius ever soften in the intervening time.

[3.52]  C. Sulpicius D. Haterius consules sequuntur, non 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 ganeæ paratus assiduis sermonibus vulgati fecerant curam ne princeps antiquæ parsimoniæ durius adverteret.  Nam incipiente C. Bibulo ceteri quoque ædiles 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, sæpe apud se pensitato an coërceri tam profusæ cupidines possent, num coërcitio plus damni in Rem Publicam ferret, quam indecorum attrectare quod non obtineret vel, retentum, ignominiam et infamiam virorum illustrium posceret, postremo litteras ad Senatum composuit quarum sententia in hunc modum fuit :

[3.52]  Gajus Sulpicius and Didius Haterius {A.D. 22} were the next consuls.  It was a year not undisturbed in foreign affairs, and at home by the suspicion of strictness against luxuriousness, whose inordinate surge had reached everything on which money was squandered.  Yet general expenditure, though actually heavier, was concealed by the frequent disguising of prices;  it was the publicity given in regular conversations to the accoutrements for belly and eating-house which had caused concern that an emperor of old-fashioned frugality might take harsher measures.  For, beginning with Gajus Bibulus, the other aediles too had said that the expenditure law was being spurned, and that forbidden prices for comestibles were increasing daily and could not be staunched by the ordinary remedies.  And the Senators, when consulted, had deferred the business intact to the emperor.  Tiberius, after long considering whether such excessive desires could be repressed, whether their repression would not be still more hurtful to the State, how undignified it would be to take on what he could not achieve, or what, if achieved, would entail the disgrace and infamy of men of distinction, at last addressed a letter to the Senate to the following purport:

[3.53]  ‘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.  Quodsi mecum ante viri strenui, ædiles, consilium habuissent, nescio an suasurus fuerim omittere potius prævalida et adulta vitia quam hoc assequi, 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 ædilis aut prætoris aut consulis partes sustineo.  Majus aliquid et excelsius a principe postulatur ;  et quum recte factorum sibi quisque gratiam trahant, unius invidiā ab omnibus peccatur.

‘¿ Quid enim primum prohibere et priscum ad morem recidere aggrediar ?  ¿ Villarumne infinita spatia ?  ¿ Familiarum numerum et nationes ?  ¿ Argenti et auri pondus ?  ¿ Æris tabularumque miracula ?  ¿ Promiscas viris et feminis vestes atque illa feminarum propria, quis pecuniæ nostræ ad externas aut hostiles gentes transferuntur?

[3.53]  Perhaps in any other matter, Senators, it would be more convenient that I should be consulted in your presence, and then state what I think to be for the public good ;  but on this motion it is better that my eyes be withdrawn lest, as by your gaze you indicate the faces and fear of the individuals who might be accused of shameful luxuriousness, I myself should look at them too and (as it were) apprehend them  Had those energetic men, our ædiles, had a consultation with me beforehand, I would probably have urged them to ignore rampant and mature vices rather than pursue a course which revealed the outrages for which we were no match.  They however have certainly done their duty, as I would wish all other officials likewise to fulfill their parts.  For myself, it is neither seemly to keep silence nor is it easy to speak my mind, as I do not perform in the roles of ædile, praetor, or consul.  Something greater and loftier is expected of a prince;  and, while everybody tries to take to himself the credit for things well done, it is through the opprobrium of a single individual that wrongdoing is committed by all.

For what am I first to begin with restraining and cutting down to the old standard?  The vast dimensions of country houses?  The number of slaves of every nationality?  The masses of silver and gold?  The marvels in bronze and painting?  The unisex clothing of males and females, and those items individual to females for which our money is transferred to foreign or enemy peoples?

[3.54]  ‘Nec ignoro in conviviis et circulis incusari ista, et modum posci ;  sed si quis legem sanciat, pœnas indicat, īdem 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 coërceas ;  corruptus simul et corruptor, æger et flagrans animus haud levioribus remediis restinguendus est quam libidinibus ardescit.  Tot a majoribus repertæ leges, tot quas divus Augustus tulit, illæ oblivione, hæ (quod flagitiosius est) contemptu abolitæ, 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 irritamenta quidem eadem intra Italiam dominantibus.  Externis victoriis aliena, civilibus etiam nostra consumere didicimus.  ¡ Quantulum istud est de quo ædiles admonent !  ¡ Quam, si cetera respicias, in levi habendum !  At, hercule, nemo refert quod Italia externæ opis indiget, quod vita populi Romani per incerta maris et tempestatum cotidie volvitur.  Ac nisi provinciarum copiæ et dominis et servitiis et agris subvenerint, nostra nos scilicet nemora nostræque villæ tuebuntur.

Hanc, Patres conscripti, curam sustinet princeps ;  hæc 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, quum gloriam ejus rei adepti sunt, simultates faciunt ac mihi relinquunt.  Credite, Patres conscripti, me quoque non esse offensionum avidum ;  quas quum graves et plerumque iniquas pro Re Publica suscipiam, inanes et irritas, neque mihi aut vobis usui futuras, jure deprecor.’

[3.54]  I am not unaware that people at entertainments and social gatherings condemn all this and demand some restriction.  But if a law were to be passed and a penalty imposed, those very same persons will cry out that the State is being overturned, that ruin is plotted against all our most brilliant fashion, that not a citizen is safe from incrimination.  Indeed, you may not check old and far-advanced pathologies even of the body except through rough and harsh interventions;  an infected and infectious, sick and feverish mind may not be cooled down by remedies weaker than the passions it burns with.  So many laws devised by our ancestors, so many which the divine Augustus passed, having been nullified — the former through being forgotten, the latter (which is more shameful) through contempt —, have made luxury the stronger.  The truth is, that when one craves something not yet forbidden, there is a fear that it may be forbidden;  but when people once transgress prohibitions with impunity, there is no longer any fear or any shame.

Why, then, was thrift important in the past?  Because every one practised self-control ;  because we were all members of one city.  We did not even have the same incitements while our dominion was confined to Italy.  Through victories abroad we learned how to consume the goods of others, through civil-war victories, our own.  How trivial is that issue of yours, about which the aediles warn!  How unimportant, if you consider everything else, it is to be regarded!  But, by Hercules, no one brings before the Senate consideration of the fact that Italy needs external resources, that the life of the Roman people is pitched about by the uncertainties of sea and storm on a daily basis.  And unless the resources of the provinces help out our masters and our slaves and our fields, then clearly our own woods and country villas will have to look after us.

This, Senators, is the charge the emperor is concerned with;  neglecting it will drag the State into oblivion.  The cure for other evils must be sought in our own hearts.  For the rest, the remedy must be within the mind;  let modesty change us, necessity the poor, satiety the rich for the better.  Or if any of our officials give promise of such energy and strictness as can stem the corruption, I praise the man, and I confess that I am relieved of a portion of my burdens.  But if they wish to denounce vice, and when they have gained credit for so doing, they arouse resentments and leave them to me.  Be assured, Senators, that I too am by no means eager to incur enmities;  and though for the public good I may take on formidable and often unjust enmities, yet I have a right to decline those that are without substance and purposeless and will be of use neither to myself nor to you.

[3.55]  Auditis Cæsaris litteris, remissa ædilibus talis cura ;  luxusque mensæ — a fine Actiaci belli ad ea arma quis Servius Galba rerum adeptus est per annos centum profusis sumptibus exerciti — paulatim exolevere.  Causas ejus mutationis quærere libet.  Dites olim familiæ nobilium aut claritudine insignes studio magnificentiæ prolabebantur.  Nam etiam tum plebem, socios, regna colere et coli licitum ;  ut quisque opibus, domo, paratu speciosus, per nomen et clientelas illustrior habebatur.  Postquam cædibus sævitum et magnitudo famæ exitio erat, ceteri ad sapientiora convertere.  Simul novi homines e municipiis et coloniis atque etiam provinciis in Senatum crebro assumpti domesticam parsimoniam intulerunt et, quanquam fortuna vel industria plerique pecuniosam ad senectam pervenirent, mansit tamen prior animus.  Sed præcipuus astricti moris auctor Vespasianus fuit, antiquo ipse cultu victuque.  Obsequium inde in principem et æmulandi amor validior quam pœna ex legibus et metus.  Nisi forte rebus cunctis inest quidam velut orbis ut, quemadmodum temporum vices, ita morum vertantur ;  nec omnia apud priores meliora, sed nostra quoque ætas multa laudis et artium imitanda posteris tulit.  Verum, hæc nobis in majores certamina ex honesto maneant.

[3.55]  When they had heard the emperor’s letter, the ædiles were excused from so anxious a task, and extravagant cuisine (which was practiced with prodigal expenditure for a hundred years, from the end of the battle of Actium to the armed conflict in which Servius Galba gained power) faded out by degrees.  It is as well that I should trace the causes of this change.  Formerly rich or highly distinguished noble families often sank into ruin from a passion for splendour.  Even then men were still at liberty to court and be courted by the city populace, by our allies and by foreign princes, and every one who from his wealth, his mansion and his establishment was conspicuously grand, gained too proportionate lustre by his name and his numerous clientele.  After the savage massacres in which greatness of renown was fatal, the survivors turned to wiser ways.  The new men who were often admitted into the Senate from the towns, colonies and even the provinces, introduced their household thrift, and though many of them by good luck or energy attained an old age of wealth, still their former tastes remained.  But the chief encourager of strict manners was Vespasian, himself old-fashioned both in his dress and diet.  Henceforth a respectful feeling towards the prince and a love of emulation proved more efficacious than legal penalties or terrors.  Or possibly there is in all things a kind of cycle, and there may be moral revolutions just as there are changes of seasons.  Nor was everything better in the past, but our own age too has produced many specimens of excellence and culture for posterity to imitate.  In any case, may this competition of ours with our forebears, proceeding from what is honorable, continue!

[3.56]  Tiberius, fama moderationis parta quod ingruentes accusatores represserat, mittit litteras ad Senatum quis potestatem tribuniciam Druso petebat.  (Id summi fastigii vocabulum Augustus repperit, ne regis aut dictatoris nomen assumeret ac tamen, appellatione aliqua, cetera imperia præmineret.)  Marcum deinde Agrippam socium ejus potestatis, quo defuncto Tiberium Neronem, delegit — ne successor in incerto foret.  Sic cohiberi pravas aliorum spes rebatur ;  simul modestiæ Neronis et suæ magnitudini fidebat.  Quo tunc exemplo Tiberius Drusum summæ rei admovit, quum incolumi Germanico integrum inter duos judicium tenuisset.  Sed principio litterarum veneratus deos ut consilia sua Rei Publicæ prosperarent, modica de moribus adulescentis neque in falsum aucta rettulit.  Esse illi conjugem et tres liberos, eamque ætatem 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.

[3.56]  Tiberius having won a reputation for restraint because he had checked he swooping accusers, sent a letter to the Senate in which he sought the tribunician power for Drusus.  (That designation for the highest exaltation was devised by Augustus so that he would not take on the name of king or dictator and yet by some entitlement would tower over the other commands.)  He then chose Marcus Agrippa to be his associate in this power, and on Agrippa’s death, Tiberius Nero — so that there would be no uncertainty as to the succession.  In this manner he thought to check the perverse ambition of others, while he had confidence in Nero’s moderation and in his own greatness.  Following this precedent, Tiberius now placed Drusus next to the throne, though while Germanicus was alive he had maintained an impartial attitude towards the two princes.  However in the beginning of his letter he implored heaven to prosper his plans on behalf of the State, and then added a few remarks, without falsehood or exaggeration, on the character of the young prince.  He had, he reminded them, a wife and three children, and his age was the same as that at which he had himself been formerly summoned by the Divine Augustus to undertake this duty.  Nor was it a precipitate step;  it was only after an experience of eight years, after having quelled mutinies and settled wars, after a triumph and two consulships, that he was adopted as a partner in trials already familiar to him.

[3.57]  Præceperant animis orationem patres ;  quo quæsitior 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 monumentis ad memoriam temporum non consulum nomina præscriberentur, sed eorum qui tribuniciam potestatem gererent.  At Q. Haterius, quum ejus diei Senatus consulta aureis litteris figenda in curia censuisset, deridiculo fuit, senex fœdissimæ adulationis tantum infamia usurus.

[3.57]  The senators had anticipated this message and hence their flattery was the more studied.  But they could devise nothing but voting statues of the two princes, shrines to certain deities, temples, arches and the usual routine, except that Marcus Silanus sought to honor the princes by a slur on the consulate, and proposed that on all monuments, public or private, should be inscribed, to mark the date, the names, not of the consuls, but of those who were holding the tribunician power.  Quintus Haterius, when he brought forward a motion that the decrees passed that day should be set up in the Senate House in letters of gold, was laughed at as an old dotard, who would get nothing but infamy out of such utterly loathsome sycophancy.

[3.58]  Inter quæ, provincia Africa Junio Blæso prorogata, Servius Maluginensis flamen Dialis ut Asiam sorte haberet postulavit, frustra vulgatum dictitans non licere Dialibus egredi Italia, neque aliud jus suum quam Martialium Quirinaliumque flaminum :  porro, si hi duxissent provincias, ¿ cur Dialibus id vetitum ?  Nulla de eo populi scita, non in libris cærimoniarum reperiri.  Sæpe pontifices Dialia sacra fecisse, si flamen valetudine aut munere publico impediretur.  Quinque et septuaginta annis post Cornelii Merulæ cædem neminem suffectum, neque tamen cessavisse religiones.  Quodsi 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 æmulationi, non odio aut privatis affectionibus obnoxium.

[3.58]  Meantime Junius Blæsus received an extension of his government of Africa, and Servius {Cornelius Lentulus} Maluginensis, the priest of Jupiter, demanded to have Asia allotted to him.  “It was,” he asserted, “a popular error that it was not lawful for the Dialian priests to leave Italy;  in fact, his own legal position differed not from that of the priests of Mars and of Quirinus.  If these latter had provinces allotted to them, why was it forbidden to the Dialian priests?  There were no resolutions of the people or anything to be found in the books of ceremonies on the subject.  Pontiffs had often performed the rites to Jupiter when his priest was hindered by illness or by public duty.  For seventy-five years after the suicide of Cornelius Merula no successor to his office had been appointed;  yet religious rites had not ceased.  If during so many years it was possible for there to be no appointment without any prejudice to religion, with what comparative ease might he be absent for one year’s proconsulate?  That these priests in former days were prohibited by the pontiff from going into the provinces, was the result of private feuds.  Now, thank heaven, the supreme pontiff was also the supreme man {= the emperor}, and was subject to no rivalry, hatred or personal feeling.”

[3.59]  Adversus quæ quum augur Lentulus aliique varie dissererent, eo decursum est ut pontificis maximi sententiam opperirentur.  Tiberius, dilata notione de jure flaminis, decretas ob tribuniciam Drusi potestatem cærimonias temperavit, nominatim arguens insolentiam sententiæ, aureasque litteras contra patrium morem.  Recitatæ et Drusi epistulæ quanquam ad modestiam flexæ pro superbissimis accipiuntur :  huc decidisse cuncta ut ne juvenis quidem, tanto honore accepto, adiret Urbis deos, ingrederetur Senatum, auspicia saltem gentile apud solum inciperet.  Bellum scilicet, aut diverso terrarum distineri — litora et lacus Campaniæ quum maxime peragrantem.  Sic imbui rectorem generis humani ;  id primum e paternis consiliis discere.  Sane, gravaretur aspectum civium senex imperator, fessamque ætatem et actos labores prætenderet ;  ¿ Druso quod nisi ex arrogantia impedimentum ?

[3.59]  As the augur Lentulus and others argued on various grounds against this view, the result was that they awaited the decision of the supreme pontiff.  Tiberius deferred any investigation into the priest’s legal position, but he modified the ceremonies which had been decreed in honor of Drusus’s tribunician power, expressly criticizing the unconventionality of the proposal and the gold letters contrary to ancestral custom.  A letter from Drusus was also read aloud and, though steered toward restraint, it was perceived as being very arrogant.  “We have fallen so low,” people said, “that even a mere youth who has received so high an honor does not go as a worshipper to the city’s gods, does not enter the Senate, does not so much as take the auspices on his country’s soil.  There is a war, no doubt, or he is kept from us in some remote part of the world — at the same time that he is touring the shores and lakes of Campania.  Such is the training of the future ruler of mankind;  such the lesson he first learns from his father’s counsels.  Granted, an aged emperor may dislike bearing the citizens’ gaze, and plead the weariness of declining years and the toils of the past.  But, as for Drusus, what can be his hindrance but arrogance?”

[3.60]  Sed Tiberius, vim principatus sibi firmans, imaginem antiquitatis Senatui præbebat, postulata provinciarum ad disquisitionem patrum mittendo.  Crebrescebat enim Græcas per urbes licentia — atque impunitas — asyla statuendi ;  complebantur templa pessimis servitiorum ;  eodem subsidio obærati adversum creditores suspectique capitalium criminum receptabantur, nec ullum satis validum imperium erat coërcendis seditionibus populi, flagitia hominum ut cærimonias deum protegentis.  Igitur placitum ut mitterent civitates jura atque legatos.  Et quædam quod falso usurpaverant sponte omisere ;  multæ vetustis superstitionibus, aut meritis in populum Romanum, fidebant.  Magnaque ejus diei species fuit quo Senatus majorum beneficia, sociorum pacta, regum etiam qui ante vim Romanam valuerant decreta, ipsorumque numinum religiones, introspexit — libero, ut quondam, quid firmaret mutaretve.

[3.60]  Tiberius meantime, while securing to himself the substance of imperial power, presented a façade of former days to the Senate by sending the demands of the provinces for investigation by the fathers.  For among the Greek cities the license — and unbridledness — of establishing asyla was growing.  Temples were thronged with the vilest of the slaves;  the same refuge screened the debtor against his creditor, as well as men suspected of capital offences.  No authority was strong enough to check the turbulence of a people which protected the crimes of men as much as the worship of the gods.  It was accordingly decided that the different states were to send their charters and envoys to Rome.  Some voluntarily relinquished privileges which they had groundlessly usurped;  many trusted to old superstitions, or to their services to the Roman people.  It was a grand spectacle on that day, when the Senate examined grants made by our ancestors, treaties with allies, even decrees of kings who had flourished before Rome’s ascendancy, and the forms of worship of the very deities — with full liberty as in days of yore, to ratify or to alter.

[3.61]  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 oleæ (quæ tum etiam maneat) annisam, edidisse ea numina, deorumque monitu sacratum nemus, atque ipsum illic Apollinem post interfectos Cyclopas Jovis iram vitavisse.  Mox Liberum Patrem, bello victorem, supplicibus Amazonum quæ aram insederant ignovisse.  Auctam hinc concessu Herculis, quum Lydia poteretur, cærimoniam templo ;  neque Persarum dicione deminutum jus ;  post Macedonas, dein nos servavisse.

[3.61]  First of all came the people of Ephesus.  They declared that Diana and Apollo were not born at Delos, as was the vulgar belief.  They had in their own country a river Cenchrius, a grove Ortygia, where Latona, as she leaned in the pangs of labor on an olive tree (which at that time still survived), gave birth to those two deities, and at the behest of the gods the grove was consecrated.  There Apollo himself, after killing the Cyclopes, had avoided the wrath of Jupiter;  there too Father Bacchus, as the victor in war, had pardoned the Amazons pleading for mercy who had taken seats at the altar.  Subsequently, by permission of Hercules during the time he was policing Lydia, the sacredness of the temple was increased.  Nor were its privileges curtailed under Persian rule.  They had afterwards been maintained by the Macedonians, then by ourselves.

[3.62]  Proximi hos Magnetes L. Scipionis et L. Sullæ constitutis nitebantur, quorum ille Antiocho, hic Mithridate pulsis, fidem atque virtutem Magnetum decoravere, uti Dianæ Leucophrynæ perfugium inviolabile foret.  Aphrodisienses posthac et Strationicenses dictatoris Cæsaris ob vetusta in partes merita et recens divi Augusti decretum attulere, laudati quod Parthorum irruptionem nihil mutata in populum Romanum constantia pertulissent.  Sed Aphrodisiensium civitas Veneris, Stratonicensium Jovis et Triviæ religionem tuebantur.  Altius Hierocæsarienses exposuere :  Persicam apud se Dianam, delubrum rege Cyro dicatum ;  et memorabantur Perpennæ, Isaurici multaque alia imperatorum nomina qui non modo templo sed duobus milibus passuum eandem sanctitatem tribuerant.  Exim Cyprii, tribus de delubris :  quorum vetustissimum Paphiæ Veneri auctor Aërias, post filius ejus Amathus Veneri Amathusiæ, et Jovi Salaminio Teucer, Telamonis patris ira profugus, posuissent.

[3.62]  Next the people of Magnesia relied on arrangements made by Lucius {Cornelius} Scipio {Asiagenes} and Lucius Sulla.  These generals, after respectively defeating Antiochus and Mithridates, honored the loyalty and valor of the Magnesians by allowing the refuge of Diana of the White Brow to be inviolable.  Then the people of Aphrodisia produced a decree of the dictator Cæsar for their historic services to his party, and those of Stratonicea, one lately passed by the Divine Augustus, in which they were commended for having endured the Parthian invasion without wavering in their loyalty to the Roman people.  (As it was, Aphrodisia maintained the worship of Venus;  Stratonicea, that of Jupiter and of Diana of the Crossroads.)  Hierocæsarea put forth an argument of a higher antiquity:  in their realm was a Persian Diana, whose fane was consecrated in the reign of Cyrus.  They quoted too the names of Perpenna, Isauricus and many other generals who had conceded the same sacred character not only to the temple but to within a two-mile radius of it.  Then came the Cyprians on behalf of three shrines, the oldest of which had been set up by their founder Aërias to the Paphian Venus, the second by his son Amathus to Venus of Amathus, and the last to Jupiter of Salamis, by Teucer when he fled from the wrath of his father Telamon.

[3.63]  Auditæ aliarum quoque civitatium legationes.  Quorum copia fessi patres, et quia studiis certabatur, consulibus permisere ut, perspecto jure et si qua iniquitas involveretur, rem integram rursum ad Senatum referrent.  Consules, super eas civitates quas memoravi, apud Pergamum Æsculapii compertum asylum rettulerunt — ceteros obscuris ob vetustatem initiis niti.  Nam Zmyrnæos oraculum Apollinis, cujus imperio Stratonicidi Veneri templum dicaverint, Tenios ejusdem carmen referre, quo sacrare Neptuni effigiem ædemque jussi sint.

Propiora Sardianos :  Alexandri victoris id donum.  Neque minus Milesios Dareo rege niti.  (Sed cultus numinum utrisque Dianam aut Apollinem venerandi.)  Petere et Cretenses simulacro divi Augusti.  Factaque Senatus consulta quis, multo cum honore, modus tamen præscribebatur.  Jussique ipsis in templis figere æra sacrandam ad memoriam, neu specie religionis in ambitionem delaberentur.

[3.63]  Audience was also given to embassies from other states.  The senators, wearied by their multiplicity and because the debates were being carried out with passion, intrusted the inquiry to the consuls who, after thoroughly determining the legalities and whether any irregularities were involved, were to refer the entire matter impartially back to the Senate.  Besides the states already mentioned, the consuls reported that they had ascertained that at Pergamus there was a sanctuary of Æsculapius, but that the rest relied on an origin lost in the obscurity of antiquity.  For example, the people of Smyrna quoted an oracle of Apollo, which had commanded them to dedicate a temple to Venus Stratonicis;  and the islanders of Tenos, an utterance from the same deity, bidding them consecrate a statue and a fane to Neptune.

The Sardians were closer to the present :  theirs was a gift of the victorious Alexander.  To no less an extent the Milesians were basing themselves on King Darius.  (As for specifics, for each side the cult of the supernaturals was that of Diana and Apollo respectively.)  The Cretans too were pleading on the basis of a statue of the Divine Augustus.  Decrees of the Senate were passed, which though very respectful, still prescribed certain limits, and the petitioners were directed to set up bronze tablets in each temple, to be a sacred memorial and to restrain them from sinking into selfish aims under the mask of religion.

[3.64]  Sub idem tempus Juliæ Augustæ valetudo atrox necessitudinem principi fecit festinati in Urbem reditus, sincera adhuc inter matrem filiumque concordia sive occultis odiis.  Neque enim multo ante, quum haud procul theatro Marcelli effigiem divo Augusto Julia dicaret, Tiberii nomen suo postscripserat, idque ille credebatur ut inferius majestate principis gravi et dissimulata offensione abdidisse.  Sed tum supplicia dis Ludique Magni ab Senatu decernuntur, quos pontifices et augures et quindecimviri septemviris simul et sodalibus Augustalibus ederent.  Censuerat L. Apronius ut Fetiales quoque eis Ludis præsiderent.  Contra dixit Cæsar, distincto sacerdotiorum jure et repetitis exemplis :  neque enim unquam Fetialibus hŏc majestatis fuisse.  Ideo Augustales adjectos, quia proprium ejus domus sacerdotium esset, pro qua vota persolverentur.

[3.64]  About this time Julia Augusta had an alarming illness, which compelled the emperor to hasten his return to Rome, for hitherto there had been a genuine harmony between the mother and son, or a hatred well concealed.  Not long before, for instance, Julia, in dedicating a statue to the Divine Augustus near the theater of Marcellus {April 23, A.D. 22}, had inscribed the name of Tiberius below her own {DIVO AUGUSTO JULIA, TIBERIUS}, and it was surmised that the emperor had buried it, as disrespectful of the dignity of an emperor, out of sight, disguising the serious affront.  However the Senate now decreed supplications to the gods and the celebration of the Great Games, which were to be exhibited by the pontiffs, augurs, the colleges of the Fifteen and of the Seven, with the Augustal Brotherhood.  Lucius Apronius moved that the Fetials too should preside over these Games.  This the emperor opposed, distinguishing the peculiar privileges of the priesthoods, and quoting precedents.  Never, he argued, had the Fetials had this level of dignity.  “The Augustal priests were included precisely because their priesthood was specific to the family for which vows were being paid.”

[3.65]  Exsequi sententias haud institui nisi insignes per honestum aut notabili dedecore, quod præcipuum 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 prætura functi, multique etiam pedarii senatores, certatim exsurgerent fœdaque et nimia censerent.  Memoriæ proditur Tiberium, quoties curia egrederetur, Græcis verbis in hunc modum eloqui solitum, “¡ O homines ad servitutem paratos !” — scilicet etiam illum qui libertatem publicam nollet tam projectæ servientium patientiæ tædebat.

[3.65]  My purpose is not to relate at length every motion, but only such as were conspicuous for excellence or notorious for infamy.  This I regard as history’s highest function, to let no worthy action be uncommemorated, and so that crooked words and deeds will have the fear of infamy and posterity to face.  So corrupted indeed and debased was that age by sycophancy that not only the foremost citizens who were forced to save their grandeur by servility, but every ex-consul, most of the ex-praetors and a host of non-voting senators would rise in eager rivalry to propose shameful and preposterous motions.  Tradition says that Tiberius as often as he left the Senate-House used to exclaim in Greek, “How ready these men are to be slaves.”  Clearly, even he, with his dislike of public freedom, was disgusted at the abject abasement of his creatures.

[3.66]  Paulatim dehinc ab indecoris ad infesta transgrediebantur.  C. Silanum pro consule Asiæ repetundarum a sociis postulatum Mamercus Scaurus e consularibus, Junius Otho prætor, Bruttedius Niger ædilis simul corripiunt, objectantque violatum Augusti numen, spretam Tiberii majestatem — Mamercus antiqua exempla jaciens, 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, opprobrium majorum Mamercus infami opera dehonestabat.  Junio Othoni litterarium ludum exercere vetus ars fuit ;  mox, Sejani potentia senator, obscura initia impudentibus ausis propolluebat.  Bruttedium artibus honestis copiosum et, si rectum iter pergeret, ad clarissima quæque iturum, festinatio exstimulabat, dum æquales, dein superiores, postremo suasmet ipse spes antire parat — quod multos etiam bonos pessum dedit qui, spretis quæ tarda cum securitate, præmatura vel cum exitio properant.

[3.66]  From unseemly flatteries they passed by degrees to hostilities.  Gajus Silanus, pro-consul of Asia, was accused by our allies of extortion;  whereupon Mamercus Scaurus, an ex-consul, Junius Otho, a praetor, Bruttedius Niger, an ædile, simultaneously attacked and accused him of sacrilege to the divinity of Augustus, and contempt of the majesty of Tiberius, while Mamercus Scaurus threw in old precedents, the prosecutions of Lucius Cotta by Scipio Africanus, of Servius Galba by Cato the Censor and of Publius Rutilius by Scaurus.  Oh, sure!  Scipio and Cato were punishing the same kinds of things, or the famous Scaurus — the great-grandfater whom Mamercus, a disgrace to his ancestors, was dishonoring with his shameful actions.  Junius Otho’s old job had been running an elementary school.  Subsequently, as a senator due to the influence of Sejanus, he polluted his already obscure beginnings by bold and shameless acts.  Bruttedius, abounding in honorable attainments and, had he continued the right course, headed toward achieving every brilliance, was goaded on by undue haste as he strove to outstrip his equals, then his superiors, and at last even his own aspirations — something which has destroyed many, even good men, who, rejecting goals attainable slowly but surely, chase after those not yet ready, even to their own destruction.

[3.67]  Auxere numerum accusatorum Gellius Publicola et Paconius, ille quæstor Silani, hic legatus.  Nec dubium habebatur sævitiæ captarumque pecuniarum teneri reum :  sed multa aggerebantur etiam insontibus periculosa, quum super tot senatores adversos facundissimis totius Asiæ 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 sæpe etiam confitendum erat ne frustra quæsivisset.  Servos quoque Silani, ut tormentis interrogarentur, actor publicus mancipio acceperat.  Et ne quis necessariorum juvaret periclitantem, majestatis crimina subdebantur, vinclum et necessitas silendi.  Igitur petito paucorum dierum interjectu defensionem sui deseruit, missis ad Cæsarem codicillis quibus invidiam et preces miscuerat.

[3.67]  Gellius Publicola and Marcus Paconius, respectively quæstor and lieutenant of Silanus, swelled the number of the accusers.  No doubt was felt as to the defendant’s conviction for brutality and extortion.  But many factors, dangerous even to the blameless, were piling up against him, since, in addition to so many senatorial opponents, he was replying to men who were the most fluent in all Asia and chosen to accuse for that very reason ;  whereas he was on his own and ignorant of advocacy, and in a state of dread (which cripples even practiced eloquence) peculiar to himself, since Tiberius did not stop pressuring him by tone of voice and looks, and frequently putting questions to him himself ;  nor was it permitted to rebut or parry, and often even confession too was required, lest the latter should have asked in vain.  In addition, a public agent had bought Silanus’ slaves so they could be interrogated under torture.  And so that none of his relatives could help him, charges of treason were forged, a restraint and compulsion to be silent.  Accordingly he begged a few days’ respite, and at last abandoned his defence, after sending a note to the emperor, in which he mingled reproach and entreaty.

[3.68]  Tiberius quæ in Silanum parabat, quo excusatius sub exemplo acciperentur, libellos divi Augusti de Voleso Messala, ejusdem Asiæ pro consule, factumque in eum Senatus consultum recitari jubet.  Tum L. Pisonem sententiam rogat.  Ille, multum de clementia principis præfatus, aqua atque igni Silano interdicendum censuit, ipsumque in insulam Gyarum relegandum.  Eadem ceteri, nisi quod Cn. Lentulus separanda Silani materna bona (quippe Appia parente geniti) reddendaque filio dixit, annuente Tiberio.

[3.68]  Tiberius, that his proceedings against Silanus might find some justification in precedent, ordered the Divine Augustus’s indictment of Volesus Messala, also a proconsul of Asia, and the Senate’s sentence on him to be read.  He then asked Lucius Piso his opinion.  After a long preliminary eulogy on the prince’s clemency, Piso pronounced that Silanus ought to be outlawed and banished to the island of Gyarus.  The rest concurred, except that Gnæus Lentulus said that Silanus’ maternal property should be kept separate (for his mother was Appia) and restored to his son — this to endorsement from Tiberius.

[3.69]  At Cornelius Dolabella, dum adulationem longius sequitur, increpitis C. Silani moribus addidit, ne quis vita probrosus et opertus infamia provinciam sortiretur, idque princeps dijudicaret.  Nam a legibus delicta puniri :  ¿ quanto fore mitius in ipsos, melius in socios, provideri ne peccaretur ?  Adversum quæ disseruit Cæsar :  non quidem sibi ignara quæ 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 majoribus institutum ut, si antissent delicta, pœnæ sequerentur.  Ne verterent sapienter reperta et semper placita.  Satis onerum principibus, satis etiam potentiæ.  Minui jura, quotiens gliscat potestas, nec utendum imperio ubi legibus agi possit.  Quanto rarior apud Tiberium popularitas, tanto lætioribus animis accepta.  Atque ille, prudens moderandi, si propria ira non impelleretur, addidit insulam Gyarum immitem et sine cultu hominum esse :  darent Juniæ familiæ et viro quondam ordinis ejusdem ut Cythnum potius concederet.  Id sororem quoque Silani, Torquatam, priscæ sanctimoniæ virginem, expetere.  In hanc sententiam facta discessio.

[3.69]  Cornelius Dolabella however, by way of carrying his sycophancy yet further, sharply censured the morals of Silanus, and then moved that no one of disgraceful life and notorious infamy should be eligible for a province, and that of this the emperor should be judge.  “Laws, indeed,” he said, “punish crimes committed;  but how much more merciful would it be to individuals, how much better for our allies, to see to it beforehand that no malpractice would take place.”  The emperor opposed the motion.  “Although,” he said, “I am not ignorant of the reports about Silanus, still we must decide nothing by hearsay.  Many a man has behaved in a province quite otherwise than was hoped or feared of him.  Some are roused to higher things by great responsibility;  others are paralysed by it.  It is not possible for a prince’s knowledge to embrace everything, and it is not expedient that he should be swayed by the ambition of someone else.  The precise reason why laws were constituted for past deeds was that future ones were in doubt.  It was the rule of our ancestors that, if felonies preceded, punishment followed.  Let us not overturn a wisely devised and ever approved system.  Princes have enough burdens, and also enough power.  Rights are invariably abridged, as official power increases;  nor should we resort to commanding when it is possible to conduct matters by law.”  The rarer such popularity-seeking was with Tiberius, the happier the feelings with which it was accepted.  Knowing, as he did, how to be forbearing (when he was not driven by personal resentment), he further said that Gyarus was a dreary and uninhabited island, and that, as a concession to the Junian family and to a man formerly of the same order as themselves, they might let him retire by preference to Cythnus.  This, he added, was also the request of Torquata, Silanus’s sister, a vestal of classical purity.  Without further ado the matter was carried by vote.

[3.70]  Post, auditi Cyrenenses et, accusante Anchario Prisco, Cæsius Cordus repetundarum damnatur.  L. Ennium, equitem Romanum, majestatis postulatum quod effigiem principis promiscum ad usum argenti vertisset, recipi Cæsar inter reos vetuit — palam aspernante Atejo Capitone quasi per libertatem.  Non enim debere eripi patribus vim statuendi, neque tantum maleficium impune habendum.  Sane lentus in suo dolore esset :  Rei Publicæ injurias ne largiretur.  Intellexit hæc Tiberius ut erant, magis quam ut dicebantur, perstititque intercedere.  Capito insignitior infamia fuit quod, humani divinique juris sciens, egregia in publicum et bonas domi artes dehonestavisset.

[3.70]  Audience was next given to the people of Cyrene, and on the prosecution of Ancharius Priscus, Cæsius Cordus was convicted of extortion.  Lucius Ennius, a Roman knight, was accused of treason, for having converted a statue of the emperor to the common use of silver plate;  but the emperor forbade his being put upon his trial — something openly spurned by Atejus Capito with a show of independence.  “The Senate,” he said, “ought not to have wrested from it the power of deciding a question, and such a crime must not go unpunished.  By all means let him be slow to respond in the case of his own pain, still he should not condone wrongs done to the state.”  Tiberius understood this for what it was, rather than for what was said, and persisted in his intervention.  Capito’s disgrace was the more conspicuous, for, versed as he was in the science of law, human and divine, he had now dishonored his exceptional public record and fine domestic attainments.

[3.71]  Incessit dein religio, quonam in templo locandum foret donum quod pro valetudine Augustæ equites Romani voverant Equestri Fortunæ :  nam etsi delubra ejus deæ multa in Urbe, nullum tamen tali cognomento erat.  Repertum est ædem esse apud Antium quæ sic nuncuparetur, cunctasque cærimonias Italicis in oppidis, templaque et numinum effigies, juris atque imperii Romani esse.  Ita donum apud Antium statuitur.

Et quoniam de religionibus tractabatur, dilatum nuper responsum adversus Servium Maluginensem, flaminem Dialem, prompsit Cæsar, recitavitque decretum pontificum, quotiens valetudo adversa flaminem Dialem incessisset, ut, pontificis maximi arbitrio, plus quam binoctium abesset, dum ne diebus publici sacrificii neu sæpius quam bis eundem in annum ;  quæ 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 Asiæ in eum, qui consularium Maluginensi proximus erat, collata.

[3.71]  Next came a religious question, as to the temple in which ought to be deposited the offering which the Roman knights had vowed to Equestrian Fortune for the recovery of Augusta.  Although that Goddess had several shrines in Rome, there was none with this special designation.  It was discovered that there was a sanctuary which was so named at Antium, and that all sacred rites in the towns of Italy as well as temples and images of deities were under the jurisdiction and authority of Rome.  Accordingly the offering was placed at Antium.

As religious questions were under discussion, the emperor now produced his recently postponed answer with regard to Servius {Cornelius Lentulus} Maluginensis, a Dialian priest, and read the pontifical decree prescribing that whenever illness had befallen a Dialian priest, he might, at the supreme pontiff’s discretion, be absent more than two nights, provided it was not during the days of public sacrifice or more than twice in the same year.  This regulation of the emperor Augustus proved sufficiently that a year’s absence and a provincial government were not permitted to Dialian priests.  Also cited was the precedent of Lucius Metellus, supreme pontiff, who had detained at Rome the priest Aulus Postumius.  And so Asia was allotted to the exconsul next in seniority to Maluginensis.

[3.72]  Eisdem diebus Lepidus ab Senatu petivit ut basilicam Pauli, Æmilia monumenta, propria pecunia firmaret ornaretque.  Erat etiam tum in more publica munificentia ;  nec Augustus arcuerat Taurum, Philippum, Balbum hostiles exuvias aut exundantes opes ornatum ad Urbis et posterum gloriam conferre.  Quo tum exemplo Lepidus, quanquam pecuniæ modicus, avitum decus recoluit.  At Pompeji theatrum igne fortuito haustum Cæsar exstructurum pollicitus est, eo quod nemo e familia restaurando sufficeret, manente tamen nomine Pompeji.  Simul laudibus Sejanum extulit, tanquam labore vigilantiaque ejus tanta vis unum intra damnum stetisset ;  et censuere patres effigiem Sejano quæ apud theatrum Pompeji locaretur.  Neque multo post Cæsar, quum Junium Blæsum pro consule Africæ triumphi insignibus attolleret, dare id se dixit honori Sejani, cujus ille avunculus erat.

[3.72]  About the same time {Marcus Æmilius} Lepidus asked the Senate’s leave to restore and embellish, at his own expense, the shopping mall of Paulus, that monument of the Æmilian family.  Public-spirited munificence was still in fashion, and Augustus had not hindered Taurus, Philippus, or Balbus from applying the spoils of war or their superfluous wealth to adorn the capital and to win the admiration of posterity.  Following these examples, Lepidus, though possessed of a moderate fortune, now revived the glory of his ancestors.  Pompejus’s theater, which had been destroyed by an accidental fire, the emperor promised to rebuild, simply because no member of the family was equal to restoring it, but Pompejus’s name was to be retained.  At the same time he highly extolled Sejanus on the ground that it was through his exertions and vigilance that such fury of the flames had been confined to the destruction of a single building.  The Senate voted Sejanus a statue, which was to be located at Pompejus’s theater.  And soon afterwards the emperor in honoring Junius Blæsus proconsul of Africa, with triumphal distinctions, said that he granted them as a compliment to Sejanus, whose uncle Blæsus was.

[3.73]  Ac tamen res Blæsi dignæ decore tali fuere.  Nam Tacfarinas, quanquam sæpius depulsus, reparatis per intima Africæ auxiliis, huc arrogantiæ 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 Cæsarem ferunt quam quod desertor et prædo hostium more ageret.  Ne Spartaco quidem post tot consularium exercituum clades inultam Italiam urenti, quanquam 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 Blæso, 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.

[3.73]  In fact, though, Blæsus’ record did merit such a decoration.  For Tacfarinas, though often driven back, had reconstituted his reserves in the interior of Africa, and had become so insolent as to send envoys to Tiberius, actually demanding a settlement for himself and his army, or else threatening us with an interminable war.  Never, it is said, was the emperor more aggrieved by an insult to himself and the Roman people than by a deserter and brigand acting like a belligerent.  “Not even to Spartacus, when he was scorching an Italy still unavenged after so many disasters to consular armies, and although the State was tottering under great wars with Sertorius and Mithridates, was it granted that he be received into our trust under a pact;  far less, in Rome’s most glorious height of power, is the bandit Tacfarinas to be bought off by peace and a concession of territory.”  He gave the job to Blæsus :  the others should be enticed to the prospect of laying down their arms without harm, he said, but the leader himself was to be seized by whatever means.  A great many were indeed received in surrender by that pardon ;  subsequently war was waged against the techniques of Tacfarinas by means not dissimilar to his own.

[3.74]  Nam quia ille robore exercitus impar, furandi melior, plures per globos incursaret, eluderetque et insidias simul temptaret, tres incessus, totidem agmina parantur.  Ex quis Cornelius Scipio legatus præfuit, qua prædatio in Lepcitanos et suffugia Garamantum ;  alio latere, ne Cirtensium pagi impune traherentur, propriam manum Blæsus 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, sæpe, a tergo erat ;  multique eo modo cæsi aut circumventi.  Tunc tripertitum exercitum plures in manus dispergit, præponitque centuriones virtutis expertæ.  Nec, ut mos fuerat, acta æstate retrahit copias, aut in hibernaculis veteris provinciæ componit, sed ut in limine belli dispositis castellis per expeditos et solitudinum gnaros mutantem mapalia Tacfarinatem proturbabat, donec fratre ejus capto regressus est, properantius tamen quam ex utilitate sociorum, relictis per quos resurgeret bellum.  Sed Tiberius pro confecto interpretatus id quoque Blæso 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 æqualitatem.  Concessit quibusdam et Augustus id vocabulum ac tunc Tiberius Blæso postremum.

[3.74]  For, being no match in the hard core of his army, but better in guerrilla warfare, he kept raiding and eluding with several groups and at the same time attempted ambushes.  To combat him, three lines of attack and an equal number of marching columns were prepared.  Of these, Cornelius Scipio the legate was in charge in the area where there was plundering against the Lepcitani and refuge among the Garamantes.  On another flank, to prevent the districts of the Cirtenses from being annexed with impunity, Blæsus’ son led a unit of his own.  In the middle, with the picked men, installing strongholds and fortifications at suitable points, the leader himself had made everything confined and hostile for the enemy, because, whichever way they turned, some part of the Roman soldiery was in front, on the flank and (as often) in the rear ;  and by those means many were slaughtered or currounded.  Then he divided his tripartite army into several units and placed centurions of tested courage in charge.  Nor, as had been the custom, did he withdraw his forces at the end of the summer season or billet them in winter quarters in the old province.  Instead, having distributed forts as if on the threshold to the war, using unencumbered men who were knowledgeable of the deserts, he kept hounding Tacfarinas from one yurt-camp to the next, until finally, on the capture of the man’s brother, Blæsus turned back — too hastily, however, for the allies’ benefit, since remnants were left who would resurrect the war.  Tiberius however regarded the war as finished, and also granted Blæsus the privilege of being saluted as “Imperator” by his legions, an ancient honor conferred on generals who, for good service to the State, were acclaimed on the joyful impulse of their victorious army ;  and there used to be several “Imperatores” simultaneously, and not any one above the equality of the rest.  Augustus too granted the title to certain persons;  and now, for the last time, Tiberius gave it to Blæsus.

[3.75]  Obiere eo anno viri illustres :  Asinius Saloninus, Marco Agrippa et Pollione Asinio avis, fratre Druso insignis Cæsarique progener destinatus ;  et Capito Atejus, de quo memoravi, principem in civitate locum studiis civilibus assecutus, sed avo centurione Sullano, patre prætorio.  Consulatum ei acceleraverat Augustus ut Labeonem Antistium eisdem artibus præcellentem dignatione ejus magistratus anteiret.  Namque illa ætas duo pacis decora simul tulit :  sed Labeo, incorrupta libertate et ob id fama celebratior, Capitonis obsequium dominantibus magis probabatur.  Illi, quod præturam intra stetit, commendatio ex injuria, huic, quod consulatum adeptus est, odium ex invidia, oriebatur.

[3.75]  Two illustrious men died that year.  One was Asinius Saloninus, distinguished as the grandson of Marcus Agrippa and Asinius Pollio, as the brother of Drusus and the intended husband of the emperor’s granddaughter.  The other was Capito Atejus, already mentioned, who had won a foremost position in the State by his legal attainments, though his grandfather was but a centurion under Sulla, his father a praetor.  He was prematurely promoted to the consulship by Augustus so that through the dignity of that office he would outshine Labeo Antistius, a man outstanding in the same arts.  That age indeed produced at one time two brilliant ornaments of peace.  Labeo was a man of incorruptible independence and on that account more celebrated in reputation, whereas Capito’s compliance was more approved by his masters.  For the former, recognition resulted from the wrong of his being stopped at the praetorship, for the latter, hatred from the envy over his attaining the consulate.

[3.76]  Et Junia sexagesimo quarto post Philippensem aciem anno supremum diem explevit, Catone avunculo genita, C. Cassii uxor, M. Bruti soror.  Testamentum ejus multo apud vulgum rumore fuit, quia in magnis opibus, quum ferme cunctos proceres cum honore nominavisset, Cæsarem omisit.  Quod civiliter acceptum, neque prohibuit quominus laudatione pro rostris ceterisque sollemnibus funus cohonestaretur.  Viginti clarissimarum familiarum imagines antelatæ sunt, Manlii, Quinctii aliaque ejusdem nobilitatis nomina.  Sed præfulgebant Cassius atque Brutus eo ipso quod effigies eorum non visebantur.

[3.76]  Junia too, the niece of Cato, wife of Gajus Cassius and sister of Marcus Brutus, died this year, the sixty-fourth after the battle of Philippi.  Her will was the theme of much popular gossip, for, with her vast wealth, after having honorably mentioned almost every nobleman by name, she passed over the emperor.  Tiberius took the omission with civility and did not forbid a panegyric before the Rostra with the other customary funeral honors.  The busts of twenty most illustrious families were borne in the procession, with the names of Manlius, Quinctius, and others of equal rank.  But Cassius and Brutus outshone them all, from the very fact that their likenesses were not to be seen.