[5.6]  . . .  Quattuor et quadraginta orationes super ea re habitæ, ex quis ob metum paucæ, plures assuetudine …

[5.6].  .  .  Forty-four speeches were delivered on this subject, a few of which were prompted by fear, most by the habit {of flattery}....

“ . . . . . .  Mihi pudorem aut Sejano invidiam allaturum censui.  Versa est fortuna, et ille quidem qui collegam et generum asciverat, sibi ignoscit ;  ceteri, quem per dedecora fovere, cum scelere insectantur.  Miserius sit ob amicitiam accusari an amicum accusare, haud discreverim.  Non crudelitatem, non clementiam cujusquam experiar, sed liber et mihi ipsi probatus antibo periculum.  Vos obtestor ne memoriam nostri per mærorem quam læti retineatis, adjiciendo me quoque eis qui fine egregio publica mala effugerunt.”

“. . . I was of the opinion that this would bring shame to me or hatred toward Sejanus.  There is now a change of fortune;  and indeed he {i.e., Tiberius} who chose him to be his colleague and his son-in-law pardons himself.  As for the rest, the man whom they encouraged by shameful baseness, they now wickedly attack.  Which is the most pitiable, to be accused for friendship’s sake or to have to accuse a friend, I cannot decide.  I will not put to the test anyone’s heartlessness or clemency;  but I shall head off the danger as a free man and justified to myself.  I adjure you to retain my memory not in sorrow but happily, numbering me too with those who by noble death have escaped the national misfortune.”

[5.7]  Tunc singulos, ut cuique absistere, alloqui animus erat, retinens aut dimittens partem diei absumpsit ;  multoque adhuc cœtu, et cunctis intrepidum vultum ejus spectantibus, quum superesse tempus novissimis crederent, gladio quem sinu abdiderat incubuit.  Neque Cæsar ullis criminibus aut probris defunctum insectatus est, quum in Blæsum multa fœdaque incusavisset.

[5.7]  Then he took up part of the day detaining or dismissing individuals, depending on whether each had a mind to withdraw or to speak to him;  and, while there was still a considerable throng, all of them watching his intrepid expression and believing that time still remained for some last words, he fell on the sword which he had hidden in a fold.  The emperor did not pursue him after his death with either accusation or reproach, although he had heaped a number of foul charges on Blæsus.

[5.8]  Relatum inde de P. Vitellio et Pomponio Secundo.  Illum indices arguebant claustra ærarii, cui præfectus erat, et militarem pecuniam rebus novis obtulisse ;  huic a Considio prætura functo objectabatur Ælii Galli amicitia, qui punito Sejano in hortos Pomponii quasi fidissimum ad subsidium perfugisset.  Neque aliud periclitantibus auxilii quam in fratrum constantia fuit qui vades exstitere.  Mox crebris prolationibus spem ac metum juxta gravatus Vitellius, petito per speciem studiorum scalpro, levem ictum venis intulit, vitamque ægritudine animi finivit.  At Pomponius multa morum elegantia et ingenio illustri, dum adversam fortunam æquus tolerat, Tiberio superstes fuit.

[5.8]  Next were discussed the cases of Publius Vitellius and Pomponius Secundus.  Informants argued that the former had offered the keys of the treasury (of which he was prefect) and military money for revolutionary purposes.  Against the latter, Considius, an ex-praetor, alleged intimacy with Ælius Gallus, who, after the punishment of Sejanus, had fled to the gardens of Pomponius, as if to his safest refuge.  They had no resource in their peril but in the steadfastness of their brothers who stood bail.  Soon, after frequent postponements, Vitellius, burdened by hope and fear alike, asked for a penknife, on the pretext of studying, and inflicted a slight wound in his veins, and died at last in a depressed mood.  Pomponius, a man of refined manners and brilliant genius, bore his adverse fortune with resignation, and outlived Tiberius.

[5.9]  Placitum posthac ut in reliquos Sejani liberos adverteretur, vanescente quanquam plebis ira ac plerisque per priora supplicia lenitis.  Igitur portantur in carcerem, filius imminentium intellegens, puella adeo nescia ut crebro interrogaret quod ob delictum et quo traheretur ;  neque facturam ultra, et posse se puerili verbere moneri.  Tradunt temporis ejus auctores, quia triumvirali supplicio affici virginem inauditum habebatur, a carnifice laqueum juxta compressam ;  exim oblisis faucibus id ætatis corpora in Gemonias abjecta.

[5.9]  It was next decided to punish the remaining children of Sejanus, though the fury of the populace was subsiding, and people generally had been appeased by the previous executions.  Accordingly they were carried off to prison, the boy {Capito Ælianus} aware of what lay ahead, and a girl {Junilla} so unaware that she asked frequently for what felony and to what place she was being dragged off;  she would not do it again, she said, and could be admonished by a child’s beating.  Historians of the time tell us that, because it was held to be unheard of for a virgin to have the triumviral execution inflicted on her, she was raped by the executioner with the noose lying beside her;  then, their throats crushed, the bodies — at that tender age — were thrown onto the Gemonian Steps.

[5.10]  Per idem tempus Asia atque Achaja exterritæ sunt acri magis quam diuturno rumore, Drusum Germanici filium apud Cycladas insulas, mox in continenti visum.  Et erat juvenis haud dispari ætate, quibusdam Cæsaris libertis velut agnitus ;  per dolumque comitantibus alliciebantur ignari, fama nominis et promptis Græcorum animis ad nova et mira.  Quippe elapsum custodiæ pergere ad paternos exercitus, Ægyptum aut Syriam invasurum, fingebant simul credebantque.  Jam juventutis concursu, jam publicis studiis frequentabatur, lætus præsentibus et inanium spe, quum auditum id Poppæo Sabino.  (Is, Macedoniæ tum intentus, Achajam quoque curabat.)  Igitur quo vera seu falsa antiret, Toronæum Thermæumque sinum præfestinans, mox Eubœam Ægæi maris insulam et Piræum Atticæ oræ, dein Corinthiense litus angustiasque Isthmi evadit ;  marique Actiaco Nicopolim Romanam coloniam ingressus, ibi demum cognoscit sollertius interrogatum quisnam foret, dixisse M. Silano genitum et, multis sectatorum dilapsis, ascendisse navem tanquam Italiam peteret.  Scripsitque hæc Tiberio, neque nos originem finemve ejus rei ultra comperimus.

[5.10]  About the same time Asia and Achaia were terrified by a shrill rather than persistent rumor that Drusus, the son of Germanicus, had been seen in the Cyclades and subsequently on the mainland.  There was indeed a young man of not dissimilar age, who had allegedly been recognized by some freedmen of Cæsar’s;  and through these accomplices, unwitting people were lured in by fakery, given the fame of the name and the temperamental readiness of Greeks for novelties and wonders.  The story indeed, which they no sooner invented than believed, was that Drusus had escaped from custody, and was on his way to the armies of his father, with the design of invading Egypt or Syria.  Already attended by a youthful throng and by the enthusiasm of the public, he was taking delight in the present and entertaining hopes of the impossible when Poppæus Sabinus heard of the affair.  (At the time he was chiefly occupied with Macedonia, but he also had the charge of Achaia.)  So, to forestall events whether true or false, he bypassed quickly the Toronæan and Thermæan gulfs, next negotiating Eubœa, an island in the Ægæan Sea and Piræus on the Attic coast, then the Corinthian coastline and the narrows of the Isthmus;  and, arriving by the Actian Sea at the Roman colony of Nicopolis, there he at last found out that the man, interrogated more carefully as to who he was, had said he was the son of Marcus Silanus and that, with many of his followers having dispersed, he had boarded a ship with the apparent aim of making for Italy.  Sabinus sent this account to Tiberius, and of the origin and issue of the affair nothing more is known to me.

[5.11]  Exitu anni diu aucta discordia consulum erupit.  Nam Trio, facilis capessendis inimicitiis et foro exercitus, ut segnem Regulum ad opprimendos Sejani ministros oblique perstrinxerat ;  ille, nisi lacesseretur, modestiæ retinens, non modo rettudit collegam sed ut noxium conjurationis ad disquisitionem trahebat.  Multisque patrum orantibus ponerent odia in perniciem itura, mansere infensi ac minitantes donec magistratu abirent.

[5.11]  At the close of the year a long growing feud between the consuls broke out.  {L. Fulcinius} Trio, who undertook antagonisms easily and was practiced in the forum, had indirectly criticized {P. Memmius} Regulus for being sluggish at stifling the agents of Sejanus.  Regulus, retentive of moderation unless he was provoked, not only rebuffed his colleague, but began the process of dragging him to trial as being guilty of conspiracy.  And though many of the senators implored them to lay aside hatreds likely to end ruinously, they remained hostile and menacing until they retired from the magistracy.

[6.1]  Gnæus Domitius {Ahenobarbus} and {L. Arruntius} Camillus Scribonianus had entered on the consulship {a.D. 32} when the emperor, after crossing the channel which divides Capreæ from Surrentum, sailed along Campania, in doubt whether he should enter the City or, because he had already decided otherwise, simulating a scene of impending arrival.  And, having landed often in the neighborhood and approached the gardens by the Tiber, he retreated again to his rocks and the solitude of the sea, in shame at the crimes and unbridled lusts with which he was so inflamed that, in the manner of a king, he polluted freeborn youngsters with his lechery.  It was not merely good looks and shapely bodies which he felt as an incentive to his lust, but in some cases boyish modesty and in others the images of their ancestors.  And that was the first time that the previously unknown designations of “sellarii” {“toiletseat-boys”} and “spintriæ” {“sphincter-boys”} were devised, respectively from the foulness of their place and their wide-ranging sodomy.  Slaves were assigned the task of searching out and dragging in the victims, with gifts for the willing and threats for the reluctant, and if a relative or parent held them back, they resorted to seizure by force and satisfied their own lusts on them, as though on prisoners of war.

[6.2]  At Romæ principio anni, quasi recens cognitis Liviæ flagitiis ac non pridem etiam punitis, atroces sententiæ dicebantur — in effigies quoque ac memoriam ejus ;  et bona Sejani ablata ærario ut in fiscum cogerentur (tanquam rēferret).  Scipiones hæc, et Silani et Cassii, eisdem ferme aut paulum immutatis verbis, asseveratione multa censebant, quum repente Togonius Gallus, dum ignobilitatem suam magnis nominibus inserit, per deridiculum auditur.  Nam principem orabat deligere senatores ex quis viginti, sorte ducti et ferro accincti, quoties curiam inisset, salutem ejus defenderent.  (Crediderat nimirum epistulæ, subsidio sibi alterum ex consulibus poscentis, ut tutus a Capreis Urbem peteret.)  Tiberius tamen, ludibria seriis permiscere solitus, egit grates benevolentiæ patrum :  sed ¿ Quos omitti posse, quos deligi ?  ¿ Semperne eosdem an subinde alios ?  ¿ Et honoribus perfunctos an juvenes, privatos an e magistratibus ?  ¿ Quam deinde speciem fore sumentium in limine curiæ gladios ?  Neque sibi vitam tanti, si armis tegenda foret.  Hæc adversus Togonium verbis moderans, neque ut ultra abolitionem sententiæ suaderet.

[6.2]  At Rome meanwhile, in the beginning of the year, as if Livia’s crimes had just been discovered and not also long since punished, fierce decrees were proposed against her very statues and memory, and the property of Sejanus was to be taken from the exchequer and transferred to the imperial treasury — as if there were any difference.  The motion was being urged with extreme persistency, in almost the same or with but slightly changed language, by such men as Scipio, Silanus, and Cassius, when suddenly Togonius Gallus intruding his own low origins among illustrious names, was listened to with derision.  He begged the emperor to select a number of senators, twenty out of whom should be chosen by lot to wear swords and to defend his person, whenever he entered the Senate House.  (The man had clearly believed the letter calling for one of the consuls as a guard so that he could go safely from Capreæ to Rome.)  Tiberius however, who usually combined jesting and seriousness, thanked the senators for their goodwill, but asked who could be rejected, who could be chosen?  “Were they always to be the same, or others in succession?  Former officeholders or youths, private citizens or officials?  Then, again, what a scene would there be, of men grasping their swords on the threshold of the Senate House?  His life was not of so much worth if it had to be defended by arms.”  Such was his reply to Togonius, moderated with these words, and so that he urged nothing beyond the cancellation of the proposal.

[6.3]  At Junium Gallionem, qui censuerat ut Prætoriani, actis stipendiis, jus apiscerentur in quattuordecim ordinibus sedendi, violenter increpuit, velut coram rogitans quid illi cum militibus, quos neque dicta imperatoris neque præmia nisi ab imperatore accipere par esset.  ¡ Repperisse prorsus quod divus Augustus non providerit !  ¿ An potius discordiam et seditionem a satellite Sejani quæsitam, qua rudes animos nomine honoris ad corrumpendum militiæ morem propelleret ?  Hoc pretium Gallio meditatæ adulationis tulit, statim curia, deinde Italia exactus ;  et quia incusabatur facile toleraturus exilium, delecta Lesbo, insula nobili et amœna, retrahitur in Urbem, custoditurque domibus magistratuum.

Eisdem litteris Cæsar Sextilium Paconianum, Prætorium, perculit, magno patrum gaudio, audacem maleficum, omnium secreta rimantem delectumque ab Sejano, cujus ope dolus C. Cæsari pararetur.  Quod postquam patefactum prorupere concepta pridem odia, et summum supplicium decernebatur, ni professus indicium foret.

[6.3]  Junius Gallio however, who had proposed that the Prætorian Guardsmen, after having served their campaigns, should acquire the privilege of sitting in the fourteen rows of the theater, received a savage censure.  Tiberius, just as if he were face to face with him, asked what he had to do with the soldiers, who ought not to receive the emperor’s orders or his rewards except from the emperor himself?  He had indeed discovered something for which the Divine Augustus had made no provision!  Or was, rather, one of Sejanus’s satellites rather seeking to sow discord and sedition, as a means of prompting ignorant minds, under the pretext of honor, to ruin military discipline?  This was the prize Gallio harvested for his studied sycophancy, with immediate expulsion from the Senate, and then from Italy.  And as men complained that he would endure his exile with equanimity, since he had chosen the famous and lovely island of Lesbos, he was dragged back to Rome and confined in the houses of magistrates.

In the same letter Cæsar struck at Sextilius Paconianus, an ex-praetor, to the great joy of the senators, as he was a bold, evil man, who pried into every person’s secrets, and had been the chosen instrument of Sejanus in preparing his treachery against Gajus {Caligula} Cæsar.  When this fact emerged, there came an outburst of long-concealed hatreds, and there would have been a sentence of capital punishment, had he not himself volunteered information against accomplices.

[6.4]  Ut vero Latinium Latiarem ingressus est, accusator ac reus juxta invisi gratissimum spectaculum præbebantur.  Latiaris, ut rettuli, præcipuus olim circumveniendi Titii Sabini et tunc luendæ pœnæ primus fuit.

Inter quæ Haterius Agrippa consules anni prioris invasit cur, mutua accusatione intenta, nunc silerent :  metum prorsus et noxæ conscientiam pro fœdere haberi ;  at non patribus reticenda quæ audivissent.

Regulus manere tempus ultionis, seque coram principe exsecuturum.

Trio æmulationem inter collegas, et si qua discordes jecissent, melius oblitterari respondit.

Urgente Agrippa, Sanquinius Maximus e consularibus oravit Senatum ne curas imperatoris conquisitis insuper acerbitatibus augerent :  sufficere ipsum statuendis remediis.  Sic Regulo salus et Trioni dilatio exitii quæsita.

Haterius invisior fuit quia, somno aut libidinosis vigiliis marcidus, et ob segnitiam quamvis crudelem principem non metuens, illustribus viris perniciem inter ganeam ac stupra meditabatur.

[6.4]  As soon as he named Latinius Latiaris, accuser and accused, both alike objects of execration, presented a most welcome spectacle.  Latiaris, as I have related, had been foremost in contriving the ruin of Titius Sabinus, and was now the first to pay the penalty.

Meanwhile, Haterius Agrippa inveighed against the consuls {Regulus & Trio} of the previous year for now sitting silent after their threats of impeaching one another.  “It must be fear,” he said, “and a guilty conscience which are acting as a bond of union.  But the senators must not keep back what they have heard.”

{P. Memmius} Regulus{, consul 31,} replied that there remained time for vengeance, and he would follow it through in the emperor’s presence.

{L. Fulcinius} Trio{, consul 31,} replied that any rivalry between colleagues, and anything that their disputes had thrown out, were better forgotten.

When Agrippa still persisted, Sanquinius Maximus, one of the ex-consuls, implored the Senate not to increase the emperor’s anxieties by seeking further opportunities for acrimoniousness;  he was quite equal to prescribing the remedies himself.  This secured safety for Regulus and the postponement of Trio’s death.

Haterius was hated all the more because, drooping from oversleeping or from nightly debaucheries, and due to his sluggishness not fearing the emperor however cruel, he would plot the downfall of illustrious men amidst his gluttony and whoring.

[6.5]  Exim Cotta Messalinus, sævissimæ cujusque sententiæ auctor eoque inveterata invidia, ubi primum facultas data, arguitur pleraque :  C. Cæsarem quasi incestæ virilitatis, et quum die natali Augustæ inter sacerdotes epularetur, novendialem eam cenam dixisse ;  querensque de potentia M. Lepidi ac L. Arruntii, cum quibus ob rem pecuniariam disceptabat, addidisse :  “Illos quidem Senatus, me autem tuebitur Tiberiolus meus.”  Quæ cuncta a primoribus civitatis revincebatur, eisque instantibus ad imperatorem provocavit.  Nec multo post litteræ afferuntur quibus in modum defensionis, repetito inter se atque Cottam amicitiæ principio, crebrisque ejus officiis commemoratis, ne verba prave detorta neu convivalium fabularum simplicitas in crimen duceretur postulavit.

[6.5]  Thereupon Cotta Messalinus, author of every most savage proposal and thus the object of deep-rooted resentment, was accused on numerous counts when the chance was first presented.  He had spoken, it was said, of Gajus Cæsar, as of uncertain virility and, when dining among the priests on the birthday of Augustus, had said that that was a “funeral dinner.”  In remonstrating too against the influence of Marcus Lepidus and Lucius Arruntius, with whom he had disputes on money matters, he had added the remark, “They will have the Senate’s support;  I shall have that of my pet Tiberius.”  On all these points he was being proven guilty by the leaders of the state.  And as they kept hounding him, he appealed to the emperor.  Not long afterward a letter was delivered in which, in the manner of a defense, he rehearsed the beginning of the friendship between himself and Cotta and recollected the latter’s frequent services, demanding that perversely twisted words and the frankness of dinner-party stories should not be scaled to the level of a crime.

[6.6]  Insigne visum est earum Cæsaris litterarum initium ;  nam his verbis exorsus est :  “Quid scribam vobis, patres conscripti, aut quo modo scribam, aut quid omnino non scribam hoc tempore, di me deæque pejus perdant quam perire me cotidie sentio, si scio.”  Adeo facinora atque flagitia sua ipsi quoque in supplicium verterant.  Neque frustra præstantissimus sapientiæ firmare solitus est, si recludantur tyrannorum mentes, posse aspici laniatūs et ictūs — quando ut corpora verberibus, ita sævitia, libidine, malis consultis animus dilaceretur.  Quippe Tiberium non fortuna, non solitudines protegebant quin tormenta pectoris suasque ipse pœnas fateretur.

[6.6]  The beginning of that letter of the emperor seemed remarkable.  For it opened with these words:  “May all the gods and goddesses destroy me more miserably than I feel myself to be daily perishing, if I know at know at this moment what to write to you, Senators, how to write it, or what, in short, not to write.”  It was to that extent that his crimes and infamies had recoiled, as a penalty, on himself.  It was not for no reason that the wisest of philosophers{, Socrates,} used to assert that, if the minds of tyrants were laid open, mutilations and wounds could be seen — just as when bodies were lacerated by beatings, so also the soul was lacerated by savagery, lust and evil designs.  In Tiberius’ case neither his fortune nor his solitude shielded him from confessing the tortures of his soul and his own punishments.

[6.7]  Tum facta patribus potestate statuendi de Cæsiliano senatore qui plurima adversum Cottam prompserat, placitum eandem pœnam irrogari quam in Arusejum et Sanquinium, accusatores L. Arruntii :  quo non aliud honorificentius Cottæ evenit qui — nobilis quidem sed egens ob luxum, per flagitia infamis — sanctissimis Arruntii artibus dignitate ultionis æquabatur.

Q. Servæus posthac et Minucius Thermus inducti — Servæus prætura functus et quondam Germanici comes, Minucius equestri loco, modeste habita Sejani amicitia ;  unde illis major miseratio.  Contra Tiberius, præcipuos ad scelera increpans, admonuit C. Cestium prætorem dicere Senatui quæ sibi scripsisset, suscepitque Cestius accusationem.  Quod maxime exitiabile tulere illa tempora, quum primores Senatus infimas etiam delationes exercerent, alii propalam, multi per occultum ;  neque discerneres alienos a conjunctis, amicos ab ignotis, quid repens aut vetustate obscurum :  perinde in foro, in convivio, quaqua de re locuti incusabantur, ut quis prævenire et reum destinare properat, pars ad subsidium sui, plures infecti quasi valetudine et contactu.  Sed Minucius et Servæus damnati indicibus accessere.  Tractique sunt in casum eundem Julius Africanus e Santonis, Gallica civitate, Sejus Quadratus :  originem non repperi.

Neque sum ignarus a plerisque scriptoribus omissa multorum pericula et pœnas, dum copia fatiscunt, aut quæ ipsis nimia et mæsta fuerant ne pari tædio lecturos afficerent verentur :  nobis pleraque digna cognitu obvenere, quanquam ab aliis incelebrata.

[6.7]  Authority was then given to the Senate to decide the case of Senator Cæsilianus, who had produced most of the evidence against Cotta, and it was agreed that the same penalty should be invoked as on Arusejus and Sanquinius, the accusers of Lucius Arruntius.  Nothing more honorific than this ever happened to Cotta who — admittedly noble but impoverished due to his profligacy and infamous for his shameful crimes — was put on a level equal to the skillful righteousness of Arruntius through the impressiveness of his retribution.

Quintus Servæus and Minucius Thermus were next arraigned.  Servæus was an ex-praetor and, once, a companion of Germanicus;  Minucius was of equestrian rank;  and both had enjoyed, though moderately, the friendship of Sejanus.  Hence they enjoyed more sympathy.  Tiberius, in constrast, denounced them as foremost in crime, and bade Gajus Cestius, the prætor, tell the Senate what he had communicated to the emperor by letter.  Cestius undertook the prosecution.  And this was the most dreadful feature of the age, that leading members of the Senate, some openly, some secretly, practiced even the lowest forms of denunciation.  One could not distinguish between outsiders and kinsfolk, between friends and strangers, or say what was quite recent, or what half-forgotten from lapse of time.  People were incriminated for some casual remark in the forum or at the dinner-table, with each man rushing to beat the others in finding someone to accuse, some to protect themselves, most from being, so to say, infected with the contagion of the malady.  Minucius and Servæus, on being condemned, joined the denouncers, and then Julius Africanus with Sejus Quadratus were dragged into the same ruin.  Africanus was from the Santones, one of the states of Gaul;  the origin of Quadratus I have not ascertained.

Many authors, I am well aware, have passed over the perils and punishments of a host of persons, sickened by their multiplicity or fearing that what they had themselves found wearisome and saddening would be equally fatiguing to their readers.  For myself, I have lighted on many facts worth knowing, though unrecorded by others.

[6.8]  Nam ea tempestate qua Sejani amicitiam ceteri falso exuerant, ausus est eques Romanus M. Terentius, ob id reus, amplecti, ad hunc modum apud Senatum ordiendo :  “Fortunæ quidem meæ fortasse minus expediat agnoscere crimen quam abnuere :  sed utcunque casura res est, fatebor et fuisse me Sejano amicum et ut essem expetisse et, postquam adeptus eram, lætatum.  Videram collegam patris, regendis Prætoriis cohortibus, mox Urbis et militiæ munia simul obeuntem.  Illius propinqui et affines honoribus augebantur ;  ut quisque Sejano intimus ita ad Cæsaris amicitiam validus :  contra, quibus infensus esset, metu ac sordibus conflictabantur.  Nec quemquam exemplo assumo :  cunctos qui novissimi consilii expertes fuimus meo unius discrimine defendam.  Non enim Sejanum Vulsiniensem, sed Claudiæ et Juliæ domus partem, quas affinitate occupaverat, tuum, Cæsar, generum, tui consulatus socium, tua officia in Re Publica capessentem colebamus.  Non est nostrum æstimare quem supra ceteros et quibus de causis extollas :  tibi summum rerum judicium di dedere, nobis obsequii gloria relicta est.  Spectamus porro quæ coram habentur, cui ex te opes, honores, quis plurima juvandi nocendive potentia — quæ Sejano fuisse nemo negaverit.  Abditos principis sensus et, si quid occultius parat exquirere, illicitum, anceps :  nec ideo assequare.

Ne, patres conscripti, ultimum Sejani diem, sed sedecim annos cogitaveritis.  Etiam Satrium atque Pomponium venerabamur ;  libertis quoque ac janitoribus ejus notescere pro magnifico accipiebatur.  ¿ Quid ergo ?  ¿ Indistincta hæc defensio et promisca dabitur ?  Immo justis terminis dividatur.  Insidiæ in Rem Publicam, consilia cædis adversum imperatorem puniantur :  de amicitia et officiis, idem finis et te, Cæsar, et nos absolverit.”

[6.8]  A Roman knight, Marcus Terentius, at the crisis when all others had hypocritically repudiated the friendship of Sejanus, dared, when impeached on that ground, to cling to it by the following avowal to the Senate:  “In my position it is perhaps less to my advantage to acknowledge than to deny the charge.  Still, whatever is to be the issue of the matter, I shall admit that I was the friend of Sejanus, that I anxiously sought to be such, and was delighted when I was successful.  I had seen him his father’s colleague in the command of the Prætorian cohorts, then meeting the responsibilities of City and soldiery simultaneously.  His kinsfolk and connections were loaded with honors;  intimacy with Sejanus was in every case a powerful recommendation to the emperor’s friendship.  Those, on the contrary, whom he hated, had to struggle with danger and a defendant’s rags.  I take no individual as an instance.  All of us who had no part in his last design, I mean to defend at the peril of myself alone.  It was really not Sejanus of Vulsinii, it was a member of the Claudian and Julian houses, in which he had taken a position by his marriage-alliance, it was your son-in-law, Cæsar, your partner in the consulship, the man who administered your political functions, whom we courted.  It is not for us to criticise one whom you may raise above all others, or your motives for so doing.  Heaven has entrusted you with the supreme decision of affairs, and for us is left the glory of obedience.  And, again, we see what takes place before our eyes, who it is on whom you bestow riches and honors, who are the most powerful to help or to injure.  That Sejanus was such, no one will deny.  To try to find out the prince’s secret thoughts, or any of his hidden plans, is a forbidden, a dangerous thing, nor would you necessarily reach them.

“Do not, Senators, think only of Sejanus’s last day, but of his sixteen years of power.  We actually used to venerate Sarius and Pomponius;  becoming known even to his freedmen and doorkeepers was interpreted as magnificent.  What then is my meaning?  Is this defense to be given out without distinction and indiscriminately?  No;  let it divide along proper lines:  Plots against the State, murderous designs against the emperor should be punished.  As for friendship and its obligations, the same principle must acquit both you, Cæsar, and us.”

[6.9]  Constantia orationis, et quia repertus erat qui efferret quæ omnes animo agitabant, eo usque potuere ut accusatores ejus, additis quæ ante deliquerant, exilio aut morte multarentur.

Secutæ dehinc Tiberii litteræ in Sex. Vistilium prætorium quem, Druso fratri percarum, in cohortem suam transtulerat.  Causa offensionis Vistilio fuit, seu composuerat quædam in Gajum Cæsarem ut impudicum, sive ficto habita fides.  Atque ob id convictu principis prohibitus, quum senili manu ferrum temptavisset, obligat venas ;  precatusque per codicillos, immiti rescripto vincla resolvit.

Acervatim ex eo Annius Pollio, Appius Silanus Scauro Mamerco simul ac Sabino Calvisio majestatis postulantur, et Vinicianus Pollioni patri adjiciebatur, clari genus atque idem summis honoribus.  Contremuerantque patres (¿ nam quotus quisque affinitatis aut amicitiæ tot illustrium virorum expers erat ?), ni Celsus urbanæ cohortis tribunus, tum inter indices, Appium et Calvisium discrimini exemisset.  Cæsar Pollionis ac Viniciani Scaurique causam, ut ipse cum Senatu nosceret, distulit, datis quibusdam in Scaurum tristibus notis.

[6.9]  The steadfastness of this speech and the fact that there had been found a man to speak out what everyone was churning over in his mind, proved so effective that the accusers of Terentius were sentenced to banishment or death, their previous offences being taken into account.

Then came a letter from Tiberius against Sextus Vestilius, an ex-praetor, whom, as a special favorite of his brother Drusus, the emperor had admitted into his own select circle.  His reason for being displeased with Vestilius was either that he had written some things attacking Gajus Cæsar as shameless, or that credence was given to a fabrication.  For this Vestilius was excluded from the prince’s table.  After having tried the knife with his aged hand, he again bound up his veins;  and, his pleas in note form having been met with a ruthless rescript, he unloosed the fastenings once more.

After him in a group trial Annius Pollio, Appius Silanus along with Scaurus Mamercus and at the same time Sabinus Calvisius were charged with treason;  and Vinicianus was combined with Pollio, his father, men all of illustrious descent, and likewise recipients of the highest honors.  And the fathers had started to trmble (for how few were there who lacked connection or friendship with so many illustrious men?), but Celsus, tribune of an urban cohort and at that time among the informers, saved Appius and Calvisius from their plight.  The emperor postponed the cases of Pollio, Vinicianus, and Scaurus so that he could personally look into them with the Senate, adding some ominous indications regarding Scaurus.

[6.10]  Ne feminæ quidem exsortes periculi quæ, quia occupandæ Rei Publicæ argui non poterant, ob lacrimas incusabantur :  necataque est anus Vitia, Fufii Gemini mater, quod filii necem flevisset.  Hæc apud Senatum ;  nec secus apud principem Vescularius Flaccus ac Julius Marinus ad mortem aguntur, e vetustissimis familiarium, Rhodum secuti et apud Capreas individui ;  Vescularius insidiarum in Libonem internuntius ;  Marino participe Sejanus Curtium Atticum oppresserat.  Quo lætius acceptum, sua exempla in consultores reccidisse.

Per idem tempus L. Piso pontifex, rarum in tanta claritudine, fato obiit, nullius servilis sententiæ sponte auctor et, quoties necessitas ingrueret, sapienter moderans.  Patrem ei censorium fuisse memoravi ;  ætas ad octogesimum annum processit ;  decus triumphale in Thræcia meruerat.  Sed præcipua ex eo gloria quod, præfectus Urbi, recens continuam potestatem et insolentiā parendi graviorem, mire temperavit.

[6.10]  Even women were not exempt from danger who, because theycould not be charged with taking over the state, were indicted for their tears :  Vitia, an aged woman, mother of Fufius Geminus, was executed for having wept over the death of her son.  Such were the proceedings in the Senate.  It was no different with the emperor.  Vescularius Flaccus and Julius Marinus were driven to their deaths, two of his oldest friends, men who had followed him to Rhodes and been his inseparable companions at Capreæ.  Vescularius was his intermediary in the plot against Libo, and it was with the co-operation of Marinus that Sejanus had ruined Curtius Atticus.  Hence all the more delight at the news that their own examples had rebounded upon their counselors.

About the same time Lucius Piso, the pontiff, died a natural death, a rare incident in so high a rank.  He never voluntarily produced a servile proposal and, whenever necessity encroached, was a wisely restraining influence.  His father, as I have related, had been a censor.  He lived to the advanced age of eighty, and had won in Thrace the honor of a triumph.  But his principal glory came from the fact that as prefect of the City he was wonderful at regulating a power whose continuity was only recent and which was made more burdensome by the unfamiliarity of obedience to it.

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

[6.11]  In former days, when the kings and subsequently the chief magistrates left, an official was temporarily chosen to administer justice and provide for emergencies, so that the City might not be left without government.  It is said that Denter Romulius was appointed by Romulus, then Numa Marcius by Tullus Hostilius, and Spurius Lucretius by Tarquinius Superbus.  Afterwards, the consuls did the commissioning.  A shadow of it endures whenever someone, owing to the Latin holiday, is made prefect in order to take over consular responsibility.  And Augustus too during the civil wars gave Cilnius Mæcenas, a Roman knight, charge of everything in Rome and Italy.  When he rose to supreme power, in consideration of the magnitude of the State and the slowness of legal remedies, he selected one of the exconsuls to hold the slaves in check as well as that part of the citizenry whose audacity leads to disruption unless it dreads force.  Messala Corvinus was the first to undertake that office and, within a few days, its termination, on the ground that he was ignorant of how to exercize it.  Next Taurus Statilius, despite his advanced age, sustained it admirably.  Then there was Piso:  after twenty years of being consistently commended, he was honored with a state funeral by a decree of the Senate.

[6.12]  Relatum inde ad patres a Quintiliano tribuno plebei de libro Sibullæ, quem Caninius Gallus, quindecimvirum, recipi inter ceteros ejusdem vatis, et ea de re Senatus consultum postulaverat.  Quo per discessionem facto, misit litteras Cæsar, modice tribunum increpans ignarum antiqui moris ob juventam.  Gallo exprobrabat quod, scientiæ cærimoniarumque vetus — incerto auctore, ante sententiam Collegii —, non, ut assolet, lecto per magistros æstimatoque carmine, apud infrequentem Senatum egisset.  Simul commonefecit — quia multa vana sub nomine celebri vulgabantur — sanxisse Augustum, quem intra diem ad prætorem urbanum deferrentur, neque habere privatim liceret.  Quod a majoribus quoque decretum erat post exustum sociali bello Capitolium, quæsitis Samo, Ilio, Erythris, per Africam etiam ac Siciliam et Italicas colonias carminibus Sibullæ, una seu plures fuere — datoque sacerdotibus negotio, quantum humana ope potuissent, vera discernere.  Igitur tunc quoque notioni quindecimvirum is liber subjicitur.

[6.12]  A motion was next brought forward in the Senate by Quintilianus, a tribune of the people, about a book of the Sibyl ;  Caninius Gallus, one of the College of Fifteen, had demanded both that it be accepted amoung the other books of that same seer and a Senate’s decision on the matter.  After this had been passed by a vote without debate, the emperor sent a letter in which he gently censured the tribune, as ignorant of ancient usage because of his youth.  Gallus he reproached on the grounds that, despite having grown grey in knowledge and ceremonial, he had spoken in front of a sparsely attended Senate on the basis of an uncertain authority before his College had given an opinion and not (as was usual) after the poem had been read by the Masters and assessed.  He also reminded him that, as many spurious works were achieving publicity under the celebrated name, Augustus had prescribed a date within which they should be delivered to the city praetor and it would be unlawful to own them privately.  This had been decreed by our ancestors too after the burning of the Capitol in the Social War, when there was a search throughout Samos, Ilium, Erythræ, and even in Africa as well as Sicily and the Italian colonies for poems of the Sibyl (whether there was but one of her or more), and the priests were charged with the business of distinguishing, as far as they could by human means, the genuine ones.  Accordingly, on this occasion too, that book was submitted for investigation by the College of the Fifteen.

[6.13]  Eisdem consulibus, gravitate annonæ juxta seditionem ventum, multaque et plures per dies in theatro licentius efflagitata quam solitum adversum imperatorem.  Quīs commotus, incusavit magistratus patresque quod non publica auctoritate populum coërcuissent, addiditque quibus ex provinciis et quanto majorem quam Augustus rei frumentariæ copiam advectaret.  Ita castigandæ plebi compositum Senatus consultum prisca severitate, neque segnius consules edixere.  Silentium ipsius non civile, ut crediderat, sed in superbiam accipiebatur.

[6.13]  During the same consulship the high price of wheat almost brought on an insurrection.  For several days there were many clamorous demands made in the theater with greater effrontery than usual towards the emperor.  Greatly disturbed by these, he reproached the magistrates and the Senate for not having used State authority to restrain the people.  And he added from what provinces he was importing the supply of grain as well as how much more than Augustus.  So, to castigate the masses, a Senate’s decision was composed with old-time severity, and the consuls were no more sluggish with an edict.  His own silence was not viewed as democratic, as he had thought, but as arrogance.

[6.14]  Fine anni Geminius, Celsus, Pompejus, equites Romani, cecidere conjurationis crimine ;  ex quis Geminius, prodigentia opum ac mollitia vitæ amicus Sejano, nihil ad serium.  Et Julius Celsus tribunus, in vinclis, laxatam catenam et circumdatam in diversum tendens, suam ipse cervicem perfregit.  At Rubrio Fabato, tanquam desperatis rebus Romanis, Parthorum ad misericordiam fugeret, custodes additi.  Sane is, repertus apud fretum Siciliæ retractusque per centurionem, nullas probabiles causas longinquæ peregrinationis afferebat ;  mansit tamen incolumis, oblivione magis quam clementia.

[6.14]  At the year’s close Geminius, Celsus and Pompejus, Roman knights, succumbed to a charge of conspiracy.  Of these Gajus Geminius, by lavish expenditure and a luxurious life, had been a friend of Sejanus, but not party to any serious wrongdoing.  While in bonds the tribune Julius Celsus, stretching his loosened chain and twisted in opposite directions around him, broke his neck.  Rubrius Fabatus was put under surveillance on the suspicion that, given the hopeless situation in Rome, he was fleeing to the Parthians for mercy.  To be sure, when discovered in the strait of Sicily and dragged back by a centurion, he gave no valid reasons for his long journey.  Even so, he lived on unharmed due to forgetfulness rather than to clemency.

[6.15]  Ser. Galba L. Sulla consulibus, diu quæsito quos neptibus suis maritos destinaret, Cæsar, postquam instabat virginum ætas, L. Cassium, M. Vinicium legit.  Vinicio oppidanum genus :  Calibus ortus, patre atque avo consularibus, cetera equestri familia erat, mitis ingenio et comptæ facundiæ.  Cassius plebeji Romæ generis, verum antiqui honoratique, et severa patris disciplina eductus, facilitate sæpius quam industria commendabatur.  Huic Drusillam, Vinicio Juliam Germanico genitas conjungit, superque ea re Senatui scribit, levi cum honore juvenum.  Dein, redditis absentiæ causis admodum vagis, flexit ad graviora et offensiones ob Rem Publicam cœptas, utque Macro præfectus, tribunorumque et centurionum pauci secum introirent quoties curiam ingrederetur petivit.  Factoque large et sine præscriptione generis aut numeri Senatus consulto, ne tecta quidem Urbis, adeo publicum consilium nunquam adiit, deviis plerumque itineribus ambiens patriam et declinans.

[6.15]  In the consulship of Servius Galba and Lucius Sulla {a.D. 33}, the emperor, after having long considered whom he was to choose to be husbands for his granddaughters, now that the maidens were of marriageable age, selected Lucius Cassius and Marcus Vinicius.  Vinicius was of provincial descent;  born at Cales, his father and grandfather having been consuls, he was otherwise of an equestrian family.  He was a man of amiable temper and of elegant eloquence.  Cassius was of a plebeian but ancient and honored lineage at Rome and, brought up in the strict discipline of his father, was commended more often for his complaisance than for his diligence.  To him and to Vinicius the emperor married respectively Drusilla and Julia, Germanicus’s daughters, and addressed a letter on the subject to the Senate, with some slight honoring of the young men.  He next assigned some very vague reasons for his absence, then passed to more important matters and to affronts incurred on behalf of the state, and requested that {Q. Nævius Cordus Sutorius} Macro, who commanded the Prætorians, with a few tribunes and centurions, might accompany him whenever he entered the Senate-house.  But though a decree was voted by the Senate on a liberal scale and without any restrictions as to rank or numbers, he never so much as went near the houses of Rome, much less the State-council, for he would often go round and avoid his native city by circuitous routes.

[6.16]  Interea magna vis accusatorum in eos irrupit qui pecunias fenore auctitabant adversum legem dictatoris Cæsaris, qua de modo credendi possidendique intra Italiam cavetur, omissam olim, quia privato usui bonum publicum postponitur.  Sane vetus Urbi fenebre malum, et seditionum discordiarumque creberrima causa, eoque cohibebatur antiquis quoque et minus corruptis moribus.  Nam primo Duodecim Tabulis sanctum ne quis unciario fenore amplius exerceret, quum antea ex libidine locupletium agitaretur ;  dein rogatione tribunicia ad semuncias redactum ;  postremo vetita versura.  Multisque plebi scitis obviam itum fraudibus quæ toties repressæ miras per artes rursum oriebantur.  Sed tum Gracchus prætor, cui ea quæstio evenerat, multitudine periclitantium subactus, rettulit ad Senatum, trepidique patres (neque enim quisquam tali culpa vacuus) veniam a principe petivere ;  et, concedente, annus in posterum sexque menses dati quis secundum jussa legis rationes familiares quisque componerent.

[6.16]  Meanwhile a great army of accusers burst upon those who kept increasing their money by usury, contrary to a law passed by Cæsar the Dictator by which measures are taken concerning the limit of credit and of possessions within Italy — a law long since neglected because the public good is subordinated to private advantage.  Usury was a chronic blight on the City and very regularly a reason for mutiny and discord, and it was therefore checked even in ancient times when behavior was less corrupt.  It was enshrined first in the the Twelve Tables that no one should lend at interest of more than 1%/year, whereas the previous procedure had been at the whim of the wealthy;  then by a tribunician bill, the rate was reduced to ½%/year;  finally, the practice of borrowing to pay a debt was forbidden.  And there were many plebiscites to counter the frauds which, though so often suppressed, by means of some amazing practices kept reemerging.  On this occasion, however, Gracchus, the praetor to whose jurisdiction the inquiry had fallen, overwhelmed by the numbers of those endangered, referred the matter to the Senate.  The trembling fathers — for none was free from guilt of this sort — sought pardon from the emperor;  and with his concession a period of a year six months ahead was granted, within which every one was to settle his private accounts conformably to the requirements of the law.

[6.17]  Hinc inopia rei nummariæ, commoto simul omnium ære alieno et quia, tot damnatis bonisque eorum divenditis, signatum argentum fisco vel ærario attinebatur.  Ad hoc Senatus præscripserat, duas quisque fenoris partes in agris per Italiam collocaret{, debitores totitem æris alieni solverent —Suetonius, Tib. 48}.  Sed creditores in solidum appellabant, nec decorum appellatis minuere fidem.  Ita primo concursatio et preces, dein strepere prætoris tribunal ;  eaque quæ remedio quæsita — venditio et emptio — in contrarium mutari, quia feneratores omnem pecuniam mercandis agris condiderant.  Copiam vendendi secuta vilitate, quanto quis obæratior, ægrius distrahebant, multique fortunis provolvebantur ;  eversio rei familiaris dignitatem ac famam præceps dabat, donec tulit opem Cæsar, disposito per mensas milies sestertio {1,000 * H$100,000 = H$100,000,000}, factaque mutuandi copia sine usuris per triennium, si debitor populo in duplum prædiis cavisset.  Sic refecta fides et paulatim privati quoque creditores reperti.  Neque emptio agrorum exercita ad formam Senatus consulti, acribus (ut ferme talia) initiis, incurioso fine.

[6.17]  Hence followed a scarcity of liquidity, with everyone’s debt being called in simultaneously and because, with so many conviced and their property sold piecemeal, printed coinage was kept locked up in the emperor’s treasury or the public repository.  In response the Senate had prescribed that everyone was to invest two thirds of his capital in land throughout Italy{, and the debtors were to pay off an equal amount of debt —Suetonius, Tib. 48}.  Creditors however were calling in the full amount, and it was unseemly for those called on to damage their credit-worthiness.  So, at first, there was running around and loan requests, then uproar at the prætor’s tribunal;  and what had been sought as a remedy — selling and buying — turned into the contrary, since the lenders had sunk all of their money into buying land.  With the depreciation which followed the mass of selling, the more deeply endebted one was, the greater the difficulty for him to sell things off, and many were wiped out in their fortunes.  The loss of wealth was throwing rank and reputation over the brink until Cæsar brought help by distributing 100 million sesterces {1,000 * H$100,000 = H$100,000,000} among the banks and providing the opportunity for three-year interest-free loans, if the debtor had given their double in land as security to the people.  Credit was thus restored, and gradually private lenders too were found.  But the purchase of land was not conducted in conformity with the Senate’s decree:  it was with rigor at the outset (as usual with such matters) but indifference in the end.

[6.18]  Dein redeunt priores metus, postulato majestatis Considio Proculo ;  qui nullo pavore diem natalem celebrans raptus in Curiam pariterque damnatus interfectusque, et sorori ejus Sanciæ aqua atque igni interdictum, accusante Q. Pomponio.  Is moribus inquies hæc et hujusce modi a se factitari prætendebat ut, parta apud principem gratia, periculis Pomponii Secundi fratris mederetur.  Etiam in Pompejam Macrinam exilium statuitur, cujus maritum Argolicum, socerum Laconem, e primoribus Achæorum, Cæsar afflixerat.  Pater quoque, illustris eques Romanus, ac frater prætorius, quum damnatio instaret, se ipsi interfecere.  Datum erat crimini quod Theophanen Mytilenæum, proavum eorum, Cn. Magnus inter intimos habuisset, quodque defuncto Theophani cælestes honores Græca adulatio tribuerat.

[6.18]  Then the former terrors returned, with a charge of treason against Considius Proculus.  While he was celebrating his birthday without a fear, he was snatched before the Senate, condemned and instantly put to death.  His sister Sancia was banished on the accusation of Quintus Pomponius.  A restless character, he gave as a pretext for engaging in this and like acts that, by winning favor with the emperor, he would be alleviating the perils hanging over his brother Pomponius Secundus.  Pompeja Macrina too was sentenced to banishment.  Cæsar had destroyed her husband Argolicus and her father-in-law Laco, leading men of Achaja.  Her father likewise, an illustrious Roman knight, and her brother, an ex-praetor, as their condemnation was impending, killed themselves.  It was imputed to them as a crime that their great-grandfather Theophanes of Mitylene had been one of the intimate friends of Pompey the Great, and that after his death Greek flattery had paid him divine honors.

[6.19]  Post quos Sex. Marius Hispaniarum ditissimus defertur incestasse filiam et saxo Tarpejo dejicitur.  Ac ne dubium haberetur magnitudinem pecuniæ malo vertisse, aurarias argentariasque ejus — quanquam publicarentur — sibimet Tiberius seposuit.  Irritatusque suppliciis, cunctos qui carcere attinebantur accusati societatis cum Sejano, necari jubet.  Jacuit immensa strages, omnis sexus, omnis ætas, illustres, ignobiles, dispersi aut aggerati.  Neque propinquis aut amicis assistere, illacrimare, ne visere quidem diutius dabatur, sed circumjecti custodes — et in mærorem cujusque intenti — corpora putrefacta assectabantur, dum in Tiberim traherentur ubi fluitantia aut ripis appulsa non cremare quisquam, non contingere.  Intercĭderat sortis humanæ commercium vi metūs :  quantumque sævitia glisceret, miseratio arcebatur.

[6.19]  Sextus Marius, the richest man in Spain, was next accused of incest with his daughter, and thrown headlong from the Tarpeian rock.  And lest there be any doubt that the vastness of his wealth had become his ruin, Tiberius took his gold- and silver-mines for himself — even though they were confiscated for the public.  Excited by these executions, he ordered all who were held in prison under accusation of complicity with Sejanus to be killed.  Immense slaughter covered the ground :  every sex, every age, the illustrious, the ignoble, dispersed or in heaps.  Kinsfolk and friends were not allowed to be near them, to weep over them, or even to gaze on them too long.  Guards were set around them, noting the sorrow of each person, who followed the putrefying corpses as they were dragged to the Tiber where, floating or driven on the bank, no one dared to cremate or touch them.  The bonds of the human lot had disappeared due to the force of terror :  and, with the growth of savagery, compassion was banished.

[6.20]  Sub idem tempus G. Cæsar, discedenti Capreas avo comes, Claudiam, M. Silani filiam, conjugio accepit, immanem animum subdola modestia tegens, non damnatione matris, non exitio fratrum rupta voce ;  qualem diem Tiberius induisset, pari habitu, haud multum distantibus verbis.  Unde mox scitum Passieni oratoris dictum percrebuit neque meliorem unquam servum neque deteriorem dominum fuisse.

(Non omiserim præsagium Tiberii de Servio Galba tum consule.  Quem accitum et diversis sermonibus pertemptatum, postremo Græcis verbis in hanc sententiam allocutus, “Et tu, Galba, quandoque degustabis imperium,” seram ac brevem potentiam significans, scientia Chaldæorum artis, cujus apiscendæ otium apud Rhodum, magistrum Thrasullum habuit, peritiam ejus hoc modo expertus.

[6.20]  About this time Gajus Cæsar {Caligula}, who became his grandfather’s companion on his retirement to Capreæ, married Claudia {Junia Claudilla}, daughter of Marcus {Junius} Silanus.  He was a man who masked an inhuman character under a hypocritical modesty, with no vocal outburst either at his mother’s doom or the banishment of his brothers.  Whatever mood of the day Tiberius had gotten into, he would assume the same attitude, with words hardly differing from his.  Hence an insightful remark of the orator Passienus soon became current:  “There never was a better slave or a worse master.”

(I must not pass over a prognostication of Tiberius respecting Servius Galba, then consul.  Having sent for him and sounded him on various topics, he at last addressed him in Greek to this effect:  “You too, Galba, will some day have a taste of empire.”  He thus hinted at a brief span of power late in life, on the strength of his acquaintance with the art of astrologers, leisure for acquiring which he had had at Rhodes, with Thrasyllus for instructor.  This man’s skill he tested in the following manner:

[6.21]  Quotiens super tanto negotio consultaret, edita domus parte ac liberti unius conscientia utebatur.  Is litterarum ignarus, corpore valido, per avia ac derupta (nam saxis domus imminet) præibat eum cujus artem experiri Tiberius statuisset et regredientem, si vanitatis aut fraudum suspicio incesserat, in subjectum mare præcipitabat ne index arcani exsisteret.  Igitur Thrasyllus, eisdem rupibus inductus, postquam percontantem commoverat, imperium ipsi et futura sollerter patefaciens, interrogatur an suam quoque genitalem horam comperisset, quem tum annum, qualem diem haberet.  Ille, positus siderum ac spatia dimensus, hærere primo, dein pavescere et, quantum introspiceret, magis ac magis trepidus admirationis et metus, postremo exclamat ambiguum sibi ac prope ultimum discrimen instare.  Tum complexus eum Tiberius præscium periculorum et incolumem fore gratatur, quæque dixerat oracli vice accipiens inter intimos amicorum tenet.

[6.21]  Whenever he was consulting on a subject of such importance, he used an elevated part of his house and the complicity of a single freedman.  The latter, illiterate but with a strong physique, went along the trackless precipices (the house loomed over rocks) ahead of the man on whose skill Tiberius had decided to experiment and, on returning, if any suspicion of charlatanry or fraud had arisen, would pitch him headlong into the sea lying below, so he could not present himself as an informant on the mysteries.  Thus it was that Thrasyllus was led over the same crags and, after he had impressed his questioner by a skillful disclosure of the man’s command and future circumstances, was asked whether he had also discovered his own natal hour :  what year and what kind of day was he currently experiencing?  Having measured the positions and distances of the planets, he hesitated at first, then began to panic and, trembling more and more in amazement and fear as his insight increased, he finally exclaimed that an ambiguous and almost final crisis was descending on him.  Tiberius then embraced him and congratulated him on the grounds that he was prescient of his perils and would be safe and sound.  And, taking what he had said as an oracle, he kept him among the most intimate of his friends.

[6.22]  Sed mihi hæc ac talia audienti in incerto judicium est, fatone res mortalium et necessitate immutabili an forte volvantur.  Quippe sapientissimos veterum, quique sectas eorum æmulantur, diversos reperies, ac multis insitam opinionem non initia nostri, non finem, non denique homines dis curæ ;  ideo creberrime tristia in bonos, læta apud deteriores esse.  Contra, alii fatum quidem congruere rebus putant — sed non e vagis stellis, verum apud principia et nexus naturalium causarum ;  ac tamen electionem vitæ nobis relinquunt, quam ubi elegeris, certum imminentium ordinem.

Neque mala vel bona quæ vulgus putet.  Multos qui conflictari adversis videantur, beatos, at plerosque, quanquam magnas per opes, miserrimos — si illi gravem fortunam constanter tolerent, hi prospera inconsulte utantur.

Ceterum, plurimis mortalium non eximitur quin primo cujusque ortu ventura destinentur, sed quædam secus quam dicta sint cadere fallaciis ignara dicentium :  ita corrumpi fidem artis cujus clara documenta et antiqua ætas et nostra tulerit.  Quippe a filio ejusdem Thrasulli prædictum Neronis imperium in tempore memorabitur, ne nunc incepto longius abierim.)

[6.22]  When I hear of these and like occurrences, I suspend my judgment on the question whether it is fate and unchangeable necessity or chance which governs the revolutions of human affairs.  For you will discover that the wisest of the ancients, and those who emulate their systems, are divided and that many have an innate belief that neither our beginnings nor end nor men themselves are the concern of the gods, and that hence it happens very frequently that the good are visited by sadness and the base with delight.  Contrariwise, others believe that though there is a harmony between fate and events, yet it is not dependent on wandering stars, but on principles and on a sequence of natural causes.  They nevertheless leave us a choice in life — but, when you have chosen it, there is a fixed order of inevitable events.

Good and evil, again, are not what the masses think;  many who seem to be struggling with adversity are happy;  many, amid great affluence, are utterly miserable, if the former bear their hard lot with fortitude, and the latter use their wealth incautiously.

Most men, however, cannot part with the belief that each person’s future is fixed from his very birth, but that some of them fall out differently from what has been stated, owing to the deceptions of those making their statements in ignorance;  thus is corrupted the credibility of a skill of which resounding evidence has been produced both by past ages and by our own.  In fact, how the son of this same Thrasyllus predicted Nero’s reign I shall relate when the time comes, not to digress too far from my subject.)

[6.23]  Eisdem consulibus, Asinii Galli mors vulgatur, quem egestate cibi peremptum haud dubium, sponte vel necessitate incertum habebatur.  Consultusque Cæsar an sepeliri sineret, non erubuit permittere, ultroque incusare casus qui reum abstulissent antequam coram convinceretur.  (Scilicet medio triennio defuerat tempus subeundi judicium consulari seni, tot consularium parenti.)

Drusus deinde exstinguitur, quum se miserandis alimentis, mandendo e cubili tomento, nonum ad diem detinuisset.  Tradidere quidam præscriptum fuisse Macroni, si arma ab Sejano temptarentur, extractum custodiæ juvenem (nam in Palatio attinebatur) ducem populo imponere.  Mox, quia rumor incedebat fore ut nurui ac nepoti conciliaretur Cæsar, sævitiam quam pænitentiam maluit.

[6.23]  That same year the death of Asinius Gallus became known.  That he died of starvation, there was not a doubt;  whether voluntarily or by compulsion, was uncertain.  And Cæsar, consulted whether he would allow him to be buried, did not blush to give permission — and moreover to censure the circumstances which had removed the defendant before he could be convicted in his presence.  (Evidently in the intervening triennium there had been no time for an elderly ex-consul and part of so many ex-consuls to undergo the judicial process!)

Next Drusus was extinguished, although he had sustained himself up to the ninth day by pitiable nourishment, chewing the stuffing of his bed.  According to some writers, Macro had been instructed that, if Sejanus were to attempt an armed revolt, he should take the young man out of custody (he was held in the Palatium) and install him as the people’s leader.  But later Cæsar, because a rumor was spreading that he was going to be reconciled with his daughter-in-law and grandson, preferred savagery to repentance.

[6.24]  Quin et invectus in defunctum probra corporis, exitiabilem in suos, infensum Rei Publicæ animum objecit, recitarique factorum dictorumque ejus descripta per dies jussit, quo non aliud atrocius visum :  astitisse tot per annos, qui vultum, gemitus, occultum etiam murmur exciperent, et potuisse avum audire, legeret, in publicum promere — vix fides, nisi quod Attii centurionis et Didymi liberti epistulæ servorum nomina præferebant, ut quis egredientem cubiculo Drusum pulsaverat, exterruerat.  Etiam sua verba centurio sævitiæ plena, tanquam egregium, vocesque deficientis adjecerat, quis primo alienationem mentis simulans quasi per dementiam funesta Tiberio, mox, ubi exspes vitæ fuit, meditatas compositasque diras imprecabatur, ut, quem ad modum nurum filiumque fratris et nepotes domumque omnem cædibus complevisset, ita pœnas nomini generique majorum et posteris exsolveret.  Obturbabant quidem patres specie detestandi.  Sed penetrabat pavor et admiratio, callidum olim et tegendis sceleribus obscurum huc confidentiæ venisse ut, tanquam dimotis parietibus, ostenderet nepotem sub verbere centurionis, inter servorum ictus, extrema vitæ alimenta frustra orantem.

[6.24]  Furthermore, he reviled him after his death, taunting him with allegations of bodily abuse and with a spirit bent on his family’s ruin and hostile to the State.  And, what seemed most horrible of all, he ordered a daily journal of all that he said and did to be read in public.  That there had stood by, through so many years, persons to catch his looks, groans, even his secret murmurs, and that his grandfather could have heard, read and publicly produced them — these things were scarcely credible, except that the letters of Attius, a centurion, and Didymus, a freedman, paraded the names of the slaves who had respectively struck or scared Drusus as he left his bedroom.  The centurion had even added (as an exceptional feat) his own language in all its brutality, and some utterances of the failing man in which, at first feigning loss of reason, he invoked in seeming madness fatalities on Tiberius, and then, despairing of life, denounced him with deliberate and measured curses to the effect that, in the same way as he had killed his daughter-in-law and brother’s son and grandsons and filled his whole house with slaugher, so he should pay the penalty to the name and lineage of his ancestors and to posterity.  The Senate clamorously interrupted with a pretense of invocations to ward off the curse, but they were penetrated by terror and shock at seeing that a hitherto cunning prince secretive in the concealment of his crimes, had reached such a level of self-assuredness as to remove, so to speak, the walls of his house and display his grandson under a centurion’s lash, amid the buffetings of slaves, begging in vain for the last sustenance of life.

[6.25]  Nondum is dolor exoleverat, quum de Agrippina auditum, quam interfecto Sejano spe sustentatam provixisse reor, et postquam nihil de sævitia remittebatur, voluntate exstinctam, nisi si negatis alimentis assimulatus est finis qui videretur sponte sumptus.  Enimvero Tiberius fœdissimis criminationibus exarsit, impudicitiam arguens et Asinium Gallum adulterum, ejusque morte ad tædium vitæ compulsam.  Sed Agrippina æqui impatiens, dominandi avida, virilibus curis feminarum vitia exuerat.  Eodem die defunctam, quo biennio ante Sejanus pœnas luisset, memoriæque id prodendum addidit Cæsar, jactavitque quod non laqueo strangulata neque in Gemonias projecta foret.  Actæ ob id grates decretumque ut quintum decimum Kal. Novembres, utriusque necis die, per omnes annos donum Jovi sacraretur.

[6.25]  Men’s grief at all this had not died away when news was heard of Agrippina.  She had lived on, sustained by hope, I suppose, after the destruction of Sejanus, and, when she found no abatement of horrors, had voluntarily perished — unless by the denial of nourishment her end was made to resemble one which seemed to have been chosen spontaneously.  Certainly Tiberius vented his wrath in the foulest charges accusing her of unchastity and Asinius Gallus as her adulterer and that his death had driven her to an aversion for life.  (But in fact Agrippina, impatient equality and greedy of mastery, had cast off female flaws in a preference for men’s concerns.)  The emperor further observed that she died on the same day on which Sejanus had paid the penalty of his crime two years before, and that the fact should be handed down to memory;  and he boasted that she had not been strangled by the noose and flung down the Gemonian steps.  Thanks were given for that, and it was decreed that every year on the 18th of October — the day of the deaths of both — a gift should be consecrated to Jupiter.

[6.26]  Haud multo post Coccejus Nerva, continuus principi, omnis divini humanique juris sciens, integro statu, corpore illæso, moriendi consilium cepit.  Quod ut Tiberio cognitum, assidēre, causas requirere, addere preces, fateri postremo grave conscientiæ, grave famæ suæ, si proximus amicorum nullis moriendi rationibus vitam fugeret.  Aversatus sermonem Nerva abstinentiam cibi conjunxit.  Ferebant gnari cogitationum ejus, quanto propius mala Rei Publicæ viseret, ira et metu, dum integer, dum intemptatus, honestum finem voluisse.

Ceterum Agrippinæ pernicies, quod vix credibile, Plancinam traxit.  Nupta olim Cn. Pisoni et palam læta morte Germanici, quum Piso caderet, precibus Augustæ nec minus inimicitiis Agrippinæ defensa erat.  Ut odium et gratia desiere, jus valuit ;  petitaque criminibus haud ignotis sua manu sera magis quam immerita supplicia persolvit.

[6.26]  Soon afterwards Coccejus Nerva, an inseparable friend of the emperor, knowledgeable in law both divine and human, whose position was secure and health sound, resolved to die.  When this became known to Tiberius, he sat beside him and asked his reasons, adding entreaties, and finally admitted that it would be hard on his conscience, hard on his reputation, if the most intimate of his friends were to flee life with no grounds for dying.  Nerva, turning away from all conversation, persisted in his abstinence from food.  Those who knew his thoughts said that, as he saw more closely into the miseries of the State, he chose, in anger and alarm, an honorable death, while he was yet safe and unassailed.

Meanwhile Agrippina’s ruin, strange to say, dragged Plancina with it.  Formerly the wife of Gnæus Piso, and one who had openly exulted at the death of Germanicus, she had been saved, when Piso fell, by the entreaties of Augusta, and not less by the enmity of Agrippina.  When hatred and favor had alike passed away, justice prevailed.  Pursued by charges by no means unknown, she suffered by her own hand a penalty tardy rather than undeserved.

[6.27]  Tot luctibus funesta civitate, pars mæroris fuit quod Julia, Drusi filia, quondam Neronis uxor, denupsit in domum Rubellii Blandi, cujus avum Tiburtem, equitem Romanum, plerique meminerant.

Extremo anni, mors Ælii Lamiæ funere censorio celebrata qui, administrandæ Syriæ imagine tandem exsolutus, Urbi præfuerat.  Genus illi decorum, vivida senectus ;  et non permissa provincia dignationem addiderat.  Exin Flacco Pomponio, Syriæ pro prætore, defuncto, recitantur Cæsaris litteræ, quis incusabat egregium quemque et regendis exercitibus idoneum abnuere id munus, seque ea necessitudine ad preces cogi per quas consularium aliqui capessere provincias adigerentur — oblitus Arruntium, ne in Hispaniam pergeret, decimum jam annum attineri.  Obiit eodem anno et M’. Lepidus, de cujus moderatione atque sapientia in prioribus libris satis collocavi.  Neque nobilitas diutius demonstranda est :  quippe Æmilium genus fecundum bonorum civium — et qui eadem familia, corruptis moribus, illustri tamen fortuna ēgere.

[6.27]  Amid the many sorrows which saddened Rome, one cause of grief was that Julia, Drusus’s daughter and once Nero’s wife, married into the family of Rubellius Blandus, whose grandfather many had remembered as a Roman knight from Tibur.

At the end of the year a censorial funeral was the means of celebrating the death of Ælius Lamia who, released at length from his phantom governorship of Syria, had been in charge of the City.  He was a man of illustrious descent, and with a vigorous old age;  and his disallowed province had added prestige.  Subsequently, on the death of Flaccus Pomponius, propraetor of Syria, a letter from the emperor was read, in which he complained that all the best men who were fit to command armies declined the service, and that he was thus necessarily driven to entreaties by which some of the ex-consuls might be prevailed upon to take provinces.  He forgot that Arruntius had been kept at home now for the tenth year, prevented from going to Spain.  That same year Marcus Lepidus also died.  I have dwelt at sufficient length on his moderation and wisdom in my earlier books, and I need not further enlarge on his noble descent.  Assuredly the family of the Æmilii has been rich in good citizens, and even the members of that house whose morals were corrupt nevertheless enjoyed illustrious fortune.

[6.28]  Paulo Fabio L. Vitellio consulibus, post longum sæculorum ambitum, avis phœnix in Ægyptum venit, præbuitque materiem doctissimis indigenarum et Græcorum, multa super eo miraculo disserendi.  De quibus congruunt — et plura ambigua —, sed cognitu non absurda promere libet.  Sacrum Soli id animal, et ore ac distinctu pinnarum a ceteris avibus diversum, consentiunt qui formam ejus effinxere :  de numero annorum varia traduntur.  Maxime vulgatum quingentorum spatium :  sunt qui asseverent mille quadringentos sexaginta unum interjici, prioresque alites Sesoside primum, post Amaside dominantibus, dein Ptolemæo, qui ex Macedonibus tertius regnavit, in civitatem cui Heliopolis nomen advolavisse, multo ceterarum volucrum comitatu novam faciem mirantium.  Sed antiquitas quidem obscura :  inter Ptolemæum ac Tiberium minus ducenti quinquaginta anni fuerunt.  Unde nonnulli falsum hunc phœnicem, neque Arabum e terris, credidere, nihilque usurpavisse ex his quæ vetus memoria firmavit.  Confecto quippe annorum numero, ubi mors propinquet, suis in terris struere nidum, eique vim genitalem affundere ex qua fetum oriri ;  et primam adulto curam sepeliendi patris, neque id temere sed, sublato murræ pondere, temptatoque per longum iter, ubi par oneri, par meatui sit, subire patrium corpus, inque Solis aram perferre atque adolere.  Hæc incerta et fabulosis aucta :  ceterum, aspici aliquando in Ægypto eam volucrem non ambigitur.

[6.28]  During the consulship of Paulus Fabius and Lucius Vitellius {a.D. 34}, the bird called the phoenix, after a long succession of ages, appeared in Egypt and furnished the most learned men of that country and of Greece with abundant matter for the discussion of the marvellous phenomenon.  The points on which they agree, and the more numerous matters which are disputed but nevertheless not inappropriate to acknowledge, make a pleasing subject for presentation.  The creature is sacred to the Sun, and those who have depicted its shape concur that in its beak and the distinctiveness of its wings it is different from every other bird.  But various alternatives are transmitted on the number of years :  the most common is a period of five hundred, but there are those who assert that the interval is one thousand four hundred sixty-one, and that it was first during Sesosis’ {= Sesostris I, 12th dyn., 1970-1935 B.C.} rule, and afterward during Amasis’ {570-526 B.C.} and then Ptolemy’s {= Ptolemy III Euergetes, 246-221 B.C.} (the third of the Macedonians to reign), that earlier fowl flew into the community whose name is Heliopolis {“Sun City”} , with a considerable escort of the other birds wondering at the new face.  Now antiquity is of course a dark age ;  but between Ptolemy and Tiberius there were less that two hundred fifty years.  Hence some have believed this present phoenix to be false and not from the land of the Arabs, and that it performed none of the feats which ancient memory has affirmed :  namely that, with the number of its years completed, and when death is approaching, it builds a nest in its own land and pours on it a generative force, from which its issue springs ;  and the fist concern of the latter as an adult is burying its father — not randomly but, after lifting up a weight of myrrh and testing it on a long journey, then, when it is equal to the burden and equal to the expedition, it takes up its father’s body and carries it all the way to the altar of the Sun and sacrifices it in flames.  — These matters are uncertain and exaggerated by fantasy ;  but that that particular bird is sometimes observed in Egypt is not disputed.

[6.29]  At Romæ cæde continua Pomponius Labeo, quem præfuisse Mœsiæ rettuli, per abruptas venas sanguinem effudit ;  æmulataque est conjunx Paxæa.  (Nam promptas ejusmodi mortes metus carnificis faciebat — et quia damnati, publicatis bonis, sepultura prohibebantur.  Eorum qui de se statuebant humabantur corpora, manebant testamenta — pretium festinandi.)  Sed Cæsar, missis ad Senatum litteris, disseruit morem fuisse majoribus, quoties dirimerent amicitias, interdicere domo eumque finem gratiæ ponere :  id se repetivisse in Labeone, atque illum, quia male administratæ provinciæ aliorumque criminum arguebatur, culpam invidia velavisse, frustra conterrita uxore, quam etsi nocentem, periculi tamen expertem fuisse.

Mamercus dein Scaurus rursum postulatur, insignis nobilitate et orandis causis, vita probrosus.  Nihil hunc amicitia Sejani, sed labefecit (haud minus validum ad exitia) Macronis odium qui easdem artes occultius exercebat, detuleratque argumentum tragœdiæ a Scauro scriptæ, additis versibus qui in Tiberium flecterentur :  verum ab Servilio et Cornelio accusatoribus adulterium Liviæ, magorum sacra objectabantur.  Scaurus, ut dignum veteribus Æmiliis, damnationem antiit, hortante Sextia uxore, quæ incitamentum mortis et particeps fuit.

[6.29]  But at Rome the slaughter was constant, with Pomponius Labeo, who was, as I have related, governor of Mœsia, pouring out his blood through ruptured veins ;  and he was emulated by his wife Paxæa.  (Fear of the executioner was producing ready deaths of that type — and because the condemned had their property confiscated and were prevented from burial.  The bodies of those who decided for themselves were interred, their wills survived — the reward for hurrying.)  But Cæsar, in a letter sent to the Senate, lectured that it had been the practice of their ancestors, whenever they broke off friendships, to debar a person from their house, thereby putting an end to their cordiality.  He had revived this with Labeo ;  but the latter, because he was being accused of maladmininstration of a province and other malfeasances, had obscured his guilt by an invidious act.  This had needlessly terrified his wife who, though culpable, had nevertheless not shared in his peril.

Mamercus Scaurus was then impeached for the second time, a man of distinguished rank and ability as an advocate, but of infamous life.  He fell, not through the friendship of Sejanus, but by the hatred (no less effective as regards extermination) of Macro, who practiced the same arts more secretly.  Macro’s denouncement was based on the subject of a tragedy written by Scaurus with additional verses which could be twisted against Tiberius.  But the imputations cast at him by the accusers Servilius and Cornelius, were of adultery with Livia and of magical rites.  Scaurus, as befitted the old house of the Æmilii, forestalled the condemnation at the urging of his wife Sextia, who exhorted him to die and shared his death.

[6.30]  Ac tamen accusatores, si facultas incideret, pœnis afficiebantur, ut Servilius Corneliusque, perdito Scauro famosi, quia pecuniam a Vario Ligure omittendæ delationis ceperant, in insulas interdicto igni atque aqua demoti sunt.  Et Abudius Ruso functus ædilitate, dum Lentulo Gætulico, sub quo legioni præfuerat, periculum facessit quod is Sejani filium generum destinasset, ultro damnatur atque Urbe exigitur.  Gætulicus ea tempestate superioris Germaniæ legiones curabat, mirumque amorem assecutus erat, effusæ clementiæ, modicus severitate et proximo quoque exercitui per L. Apronium socerum non ingratus.  Unde fama constans, ausum mittere ad Cæsarem litteras, « affinitatem sibi cum Sejano haud sponte sed consilio Tiberii cœptam ;  perinde se quam Tiberium falli potuisse ;  neque errorem eundem illi sine fraude, aliis exitio habendum.  Sibi fidem integram et, si nullis insidiis peteretur, mansuram ;  successorem non aliter quam indicium mortis accepturum.  Firmarent velut fœdus quo princeps ceterarum rerum poteretur, ipse provinciam retineret. »  — Hæc, mira quanquam, fidem ex eo trahebant quod unus omnium Sejani affinium incolumis multaque gratia mansit, reputante Tiberio publicum sibi odium, extremam ætatem, magisque fama quam vi stare res suas.

[6.30]  And yet accusers themselves, if the opportunity arose, had punishments inflicted on them:  Servilius and Cornelius, for example, whom the destruction of Scaurus had made notorious, were removed to islands for having taken money from Varius Ligur for abandoning a denouncement.  Abudius Ruso too, who had been an ædile, while contriving to imperil Lentulus Gætulicus (under whom he had commanded a legion) for having fixed on a son of Sejanus as his son-in-law, was himself actually condemned and banished from the City.  Gætulicus at this time was in charge of the legions of Upper Germany, and had won from them a wonderful affection, being a man of effusive clemency, moderate in his strictness, and popular even with the neighboring army through his father-in-law, Lucius Apronius.  Hence the persistent rumor that he had ventured to send the emperor a letter, reminding him that his alliance with Sejanus had not originated in his own choice, but in the advice of Tiberius;  that he was himself as liable to be deceived as Tiberius, and that the same mistake ought not to be held harmless in the latter but as a source of doom in others.  His loyalty was still untainted and, unless he were the target of some plot, would so remain.  A successor he would accept as a sign of his doom.  A compact, so to say, ought to be sealed between them, by which he should retain his province, and the emperor be master of all else.  Strange as this story was, it drew credibility from the fact that Gætulicus, alone of all connected with Sejanus, lived in safety and in high favor, Tiberius bearing in mind the people’s hatred, his own extreme age how his government rested more on prestige than on power.

[6.31]  C. Cestio M. Servilio consulibus, nobiles Parthi in Urbem venere, ignaro rege Artabano.  Is, metu Germanici fidus Romanis, æquabilis in suos, mox superbiam in nos, sævitiam in populares sumpsit, fretus bellis quæ secunda adversum circumjectas nationes exercuerat, et senectutem Tiberii ut inermem despiciens, avidusque Armeniæ cui, defuncto rege Artaxia, Arsacen, liberorum suorum veterrimum, imposuit, addita contumelia et missis qui gazam a Vonone relictam in Syria Ciliciaque reposcerent ;  simul veteres Persarum ac Macedonum terminos — ¡ seque invasurum possessa Cyro et post Alexandro per vaniloquentiam ac minas ! — jaciebat.  Sed Parthis mittendi secretos nuntios validissimus auctor fuit Sinnaces, insigni familia ac perinde opibus, et proximus huic Abdus ademptæ virilitatis.  (Non despectum id apud barbaros — ultroque potentiam habet.)  Ii, ascitis et aliis primoribus, quia neminem gentis Arsacidarum summæ rei imponere poterant (interfectis ab Artabano plerisque aut nondum adultis), Phraaten, regis Phraatis filium, Roma poscebant :  nomine tantum et auctore opus, sponte Cæsaris, ut genus Arsacis ripam apud Euphratis cerneretur.

[6.31]  In the consulship of Gajus Cestius and Marcus Servilius {a.D. 35}, some Parthian nobles came to the City without the knowledge of their king Artabanus {II}.  Loyal to the Romans and fair to his own people as long as he feared Germanicus, he subsequently adopted insolence towards us and tyranny to his subjects as a result of the wars which he had successfully waged against the surrounding nations, despising Tiberius’ old age as toothless and coveting Armenia, over which, on the death of Artaxias, he placed Arsaces, his eldest son, adding the insult of sending envoys to reclaim the treasures left by Vonones in Syria and Cilicia.  At the same time he boasted of the ancient boundaries of Persia and Macedonia, and, with vaunting and threats, that he was going to invade what had been possessed by Cyrus and afterwards by Alexander.  The strongest instigator of the Parthians in sending the secret embassy was Sinnaces, a man of distinguished family and corresponding wealth and, next to him, Abdus, a eunuch.  (Among barbarians that condition is not despised but actually confers power.)  These, with some other nobles whom they admitted to their counsels, as there was not a single Arsacid whom they could put on the throne (most of the family having been murdered by Artabanus or not yet adults), demanded that Phraates, son of King Phraates {IV}, be sent from Rome.  There was need only of a name and authorization, given Cæsar’s accord, for the lineage of Arsaces to be seen on the banks of the Euphrates.

[6.32]  Cupitum id Tiberio :  ornat Phraaten accingitque paternum ad fastigium, destinata retinens, consiliis et astu res externas moliri, arma procul habere.  Interea, cognitis insidiis, Artabanus tardari metu, modo cupidine vindictæ inardescere.  Et barbaris cunctatio servilis, statim exsequi regium, videtur.  Valuit tamen utilitas, ut Abdum specie amicitiæ vocatum ad epulas lento veneno illigaret, Sinnacen dissimulatione ac donis, simul per negotia moraretur.  Et Phraates apud Syriam, dum omisso cultu Romano cui per tot annos insueverat, instituta Parthorum sumit, patriis moribus impar, morbo absumptus est.

Sed non Tiberius omisit incepta :  Tiridaten, sanguinis ejusdem, æmulum Artabano, recuperandæque Armeniæ Hiberum Mithridaten deligit, conciliatque fratri Pharasmani qui gentile imperium obtinebat ;  et cunctis quæ apud Orientem parabantur L. Vitellium præfecit.  Eo de homine haud sum ignarus sinistram in Urbe famam, pleraque fœda memorari ;  ceterum, regendis provinciis prisca virtute egit.  Unde regressus et formidine G. Cæsaris, familiaritate Claudii turpe in servitium mutatus, exemplar apud posteros adulatorii dedecoris habetur, cesseruntque prima postremis, et bona juventæ senectus flagitiosa oblitteravit.

[6.32]  That was what Tiberius wanted.  He decorated Phraates and girded him for his ancestral pinnacle, while he clung to his purpose of regulating foreign affairs by a crafty policy and keeping war at a distance.  Artabanus meanwhile, hearing of the treacherous arrangement, was one moment inhibited by fear, the next fired with a longing for revenge.  To the barbarians, hesitation appears servile, prompt action royal.  But now practicality prevailed, with the result that he invited Abdus, under the guise of friendship, to a banquet and entrapped him with a slow-acting poison;  Sinnaces he put off by pretexts and presents, as well as on business.  As for Phraates, having abandoned the Roman lifestyle to which he had become accustomed over so many years, he was adopting the habits of the Parthians when, unequal to his native customs, he was carried off by disease in Syria.

Still, Tiberius did not relinquish his purpose.  He chose Tiridates, of the same stock as Artabanus, to be his rival and, for the recovery of Armenia, the Iberian Mithridates {I}, and reconciled him to his brother Pharasmanes {I}, who was in command of their nation.  He then entrusted the whole of his eastern policy to Lucius Vitellius.  As regards this man, I am not unaware that a sinister reputation and many loathsome things are remembered of him in the City.  But in the government of provinces he acted with the virtue of ancient times.  He returned, and then, through fear of Gajus Cæsar {“Caligula”} and intimacy with Claudius {= Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus}, he changed to shameful servitude, being regarded among posterity as a paradigm of sycophantic disgrace :  the commencement of his career surrendered to its conclusion, and his moral youth was obliterated by outrages in old age.

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

[6.33]  Of the petty chiefs Mithridates was the first to persuade Pharasmanes to aid his enterprise by stratagem and force, and agents of corruption were found who tempted the servants of Arsaces into crime by a quantity of gold.  At the same instant the Iberians burst into Armenia with a huge host, and captured the city of Artaxata{, the capital of Greater Armenia}.  Artabanus, on hearing this, made his son Orodes the instrument of vengeance.  He gave him {*a tribal force*} and the Parthian army and despatched men to hire auxiliaries.  Pharasmanes, on the other hand, allied himself with the Albanians and called on the Sarmatæ, whose highest chiefs took bribes from both sides, in their national fashion, and assumed opposing allegiances.  But the Iberians, in territorial control, hastily poured out their Sarmatians against the Armenians through the Caspain route.  Meanwhile those who were coming up to the support of the Parthians were easily warded off, since other approaches had been closed by the enemy, while the one remaining — between the sea and the outermost mountains of the Albanians — was obstructed owing to the summer season, because the shallows become flooded by the blasts of the Etesian gales.  (It is the wintry Southwestern which rolls back the waves and, with the water repulsed into the sea, the shallows along the coast are exposed.)

[6.34]  Interim Oroden sociorum inopem auctus auxilio Pharasmanes vocare ad pugnam et detrectantem incessĕre :  adequitare castris, infensare pabula ;  ac sæpe in modum obsidii stationibus cingebat, donec Parthi, contumeliarum insolentes, circumsisterent regem, poscerent prœlium.  Atque illis sola in equite vis :  Pharasmanes et pedite valebat.  Nam Hiberi Albanique, saltuosos locos incolentes, duritiæ patientiæque magis insuevere ;  feruntque se Thessalis ortos, qua tempestate Jaso post avectam Mēdēam genitosque ex ea liberos inanem mox regiam Æētæ vacuosque Colchos repetivit.  Multaque de nomine ejus et oraclum Phrixi celebrant ;  nec quisquam ariete sacrificaverit, credito vexisse Phrixum, sive id animal seu navis insigne fuit.

Ceterum, derecta utrimque acie, Parthus imperium Orientis, claritudinem Arsacidarum, contraque ignobilem Hiberum mercennario milite disserebat ;  Pharasmanes integros semet a Parthico dominatu, quanto majora peterent, plus decoris victores aut, si terga darent, flagitii atque periculi laturos ;  simul horridam suorum aciem, picta auro Mēdorum agmina, hinc viros, inde prædam ostendere.

[6.34]  Meantime, while Orodes was without an ally, Pharasmanes, now strengthened by reinforcements, challenged him to battle, taunted him on his refusal, rode up to his camp and harassed his foraging parties.  He would encircle him with his pickets in the manner of a blockade, until finally the Parthians, unused to such insults, gathered round the king and demanded battle.  Their only strength was in cavalry;  But Pharasmanes was effective in infantry as well, for the Iberians and Albanians, inhabiting as they did densely wooded hill country, were more inured to hardship and endurance.  (They claim to be descended from the Thessalians, at the time when Jason, after the abduction of Medea and the birth of their children, later returned to the empty palace of Æetes and the kingless Colchi.  And they celebrate many things associated with his name and with the oracle of Phrixus ;  nor would any one of them sacrifice with a ram, the animal supposed to have conveyed Phrixus, whether it was an animal or the figure-head of a ship.)

Both sides having been drawn up in battle array, the Parthian leader expatiated on the empire of the East and the renown of the Arsacids, and in contrast the ignoble Iberian with his hireling soldiery.  Pharasmanes said his people had been untouched by Parthian domination, and that the grander their aims, the greater their glory as victors;  if they turned their backs, the worse their shame and peril.  He pointed, as he spoke, to the bristling array of his own men, and to the Median ranks painted with gold:  on this side, men;  on that one, booty.

[6.35]  Enimvero apud Sarmatas non una vox ducis :  se quisque stimulant ne pugnam per sagittas sinerent :  impetu et comminus præveniendum.  Variæ hinc bellantium species, quum Parthus, sequi vel fugere pari arte suetus, distraheret turmas, spatium ictibus quæreret, Sarmatæ, omisso arcu (quo brevius valent), contis gladiisque ruerent ;  modo equestris prœlii more, frontis et tergi vices, aliquando conserta acies ut corporibus et pulsu armorum pellerent pellerentur.  Jamque et Albani Hiberique prensare, detrudere, ancipitem pugnam hostibus facere, quos super eques et propioribus vulneribus pedites afflictabant.  Inter quæ Pharasmanes Orodesque, dum strenuis assunt aut dubitantibus subveniunt, conspicui eoque gnari, clamore telis equis concurrunt, instantius Pharasmanes ;  nam vulnus per galeam adegit.  Nec iterare valuit, prælatus equo, et fortissimis satellitum protegentibus saucium :  fama tamen occisi falso credita exterruit Parthos, victoriamque concessere.

[6.35]  Among the Sarmatæ the general’s voice was not alone to be heard.  They each goaded one another not to allow a fight with arrows:  they should anticipate with an attack and hand to hand.  The results were varying warrior displays.  The Parthian, accustomed to pursue or flee with equal skill, dispersed his squadrons and sought room for his strikes.  The Sarmatæ, dropping their bow (in which they are effective over a shorter range), rushed on with pikes and swords.  Sometimes, in the manner of a cavalry battle, it alternated between front and rear;  at others, the line was joined, with the result that, amid bodies and the clash of arms, they repulsed the foe or were themselves repulsed.  And now the Albanians and Iberians grabbed and dislodged them, and presented a two-sided fight to their enemy whom the cavalry was striking from above and the infantry with close-range wounds.  Meanwhile Pharasmanes and Orodes, who, as they cheered on the brave and supported the wavering, were conspicuous and so recognised each other, with a shout rushed at one another on horseback with spears — Pharasmanes the more vehemently, for he inflicted a wound through the helmet.  But he could not repeat it, having been carried past by his horse, and with the bravest of the other’s bodyguards protecting the wounded man.  Nevertheless, a report of his death was wrongly believed and terrified the Parthians, and they yielded the victory.

[6.36]  Mox Artabanus tota mole regni ultum iit.  Peritia locorum ab Hiberis melius pugnatum ;  nec ideo abscedebat, ni contractis legionibus Vitellius, et subdito rumore tanquam Mesopotamiam invasurus, metum Romani belli fecisset.  Tum omissa Armenia versæque Artabani res, illiciente Vitellio desererent regem sævum in pace et adversis prœliorum exitiosum.  Igitur Sinnaces, quem antea infensum memoravi, patrem Abdagæsen aliosque occultos consilii et tunc continuis cladibus promptiores ad defectionem trahit, affluentibus paulatim qui, metu magis quam benevolentia subjecti, repertis auctoribus sustulerant animum.  Nec jam aliud Artabano reliquum quam si qui externorum corpori custodes aderant, suis quisque sedibus extorres, quis neque boni intellectus neque mali cura sed mercede aluntur ministri sceleribus.  His assumptis in longinqua et contermina Scythiæ fugam maturavit, spe auxilii, quia Hyrcanis Carmaniisque per affinitatem innexus erat :  atque interim posse Parthos absentium æquos, præsentibus mobiles, ad pænitentiam mutari.

[6.36]  Artabanus soon embarked on revenge with the whole strength of his kingdom.  The Iberians from their knowledge of the country fought at an advantage.  Still Artabanus would not retreat till Vitellius had gathered his legions and, by planting a rumor that he was about to invade Mesopotamia, created the fear of war with Rome.  Armenia was then abandoned, and the fortunes of Artabanus were overthrown, with Vitellius enticing the people to forsake a king who was savage in peacetime, and ruinous by his failures in battle.  And so Sinnaces, whose enmity to the prince I have already mentioned, drew his father Abdagæses into defecting, as well as others privy to the plan (and now, with the ongoing disasters, all the readier), with the gradual influx of those who, as subjects more through fear than goodwill, had plucked up their courage on the discovery of men with initiative.  Artabanus had now nothing left but his bodyguard of foreigners, each an outcase from his own home, who had no understanding of good or concern about evile, but who are nourished with money to be ministers of crime.  With these attendants he hastened his flight into the remote country bordering Scythia, in the hope of aid, as he was connected by marriage alliances with the Hyrcanians and Carmanians.  Meantime the Parthians, he thought, fair-minded as they are to the absent but fickle to those present, might switch to repentance.

[6.37]  At Vitellius, profugo Artabano et flexis ad novum regem popularium animis, hortatus Tiridaten parata capessere, robur legionum sociorumque ripam ad Euphratis ducit.  Sacrificantibus — quum hic more Romano suovetaurilia daret, ille equum placando amni adornasset — nuntiavere accolæ Euphraten, nulla imbrium vi, sponte et immensum attolli, simul albentibus spumis in modum diadematis sinuare orbes, auspicium prosperi transgressūs.  (Quidam callidius interpretabantur initia conatus secunda, neque diuturna, quia eorum quæ terra cælove portenderentur certior fides, fluminum instabilis natura simul ostenderet omina raperetque.)  Sed ponte navibus effecto, tramissoque exercitu, primus Ornospades multis equitum milibus in castra venit, exul quondam et Tiberio, quum Delmaticum bellum conficeret, haud inglorius auxiliator, eoque civitate Romana donatus, mox, repetita amicitia regis, multo apud eum honore, præfectus campis qui Euphrate et Tigre inclutis amnibus circumflui, Mesopotamiæ nomen acceperunt.  Neque multo post Sinnaces auget copias ;  et columen partium, Abdagæses, gazam et paratūs regios adjicit.  Vitellius, ostentasse Romana arma satis ratus, monet Tiridaten primoresque :  hunc, Phraatis avi et altoris Cæsaris, quæque utrubique pulchra, meminerit ;  illos, obsequium in regem, reverentiam in nos, decus quisque suum et fidem retinerent.  Exim cum legionibus in Syriam remeavit.

[6.37]  On the other hand, Vitellius, as soon as Artabanus had fled and his people were inclined to have a new king, urged Tiridates to seize the advantage thus offered, and then led the main strength of the legions and the allies to the banks of the Euphrates.  While they were sacrificing — the one, after Roman custom, offering a boar, a ram and a bull;  the other having decorated a horse for placating the river — they were informed by the neighboring inhabitants that the Euphrates, without any violent rains, was of itself rising to an immense height, with white foam simultaneously curling into circles like a diadem, an omen of a prosperous crossing.  (Some, more astutely, interpreted that the initial stages of the attempt would be successful but not long-lasting, on the ground that things which were portended by the earth or the heavens were of more reliable credibility, but the unstable nature of rivers both revealed omens and immediately snatched them away.)  A bridge of boats having been constructed and the army having crossed, the first to enter the camp was Ornospades, with several thousand cavalry.  Formerly an exile and a not inglorious adjutant to Tiberius in the completion of the Dalmatic war, and for this having been rewarded with Roman citizenship, he had resumed his friendship of his king, been raised to high honor and appointed governor of the plains which, being surrounded by those famous rivers, the Euphrates and Tigris, received the name of Mesopotamia {“Between-River-Land”}.  Soon afterwards, Sinnaces reinforced the army;  and Abdagæses, the pillar of his faction, came with the treasure and royal accoutrements.  Vitellius, thinking it enough to have displayed the arms of Rome, warned Tiridates and his chiefs:  the former should remember Phraates his grandfather and his foster-father Cæsar and the fine qualities of both;  the latter should observe compliance toward their king, respect toward us, and each his own honor and loyalty.  This done, he returned with the legions to Syria.

[6.38]  Quæ duabus æstatibus gesta conjunxi quo requiesceret animus a domesticis malis.  Non enim Tiberium, quanquam triennio post cædem Sejani — quæ ceteros mollire solent —, tempus, preces, satias mitigabant, quin incerta vel abolita pro gravissimis et recentibus puniret.  Eo metu Fulcinius Trio ingruentes accusatores haud perpessus, supremis tabulis multa et atrocia in Macronem ac præcipuos libertorum Cæsaris composuit, ipsi fluxam senio mentem et continuo abscessu velut exilium objectando.  Quæ ab heredibus occultata recitari Tiberius jussit, patientiam libertatis alienæ ostentans et contemptor suæ infamiæ ;  an, scelerum Sejani diu nescius, mox quoquo modo dicta vulgari malebat, veritatisque cui adulatio officit, per probra saltem gnarus fieri.

Eisdem diebus Granius Marcianus senator, a C. Graccho majestatis postulatus, vim vitæ suæ attulit, Tariusque Gratianus prætura functus lege eadem extremum ad supplicium damnatus.

[6.38]  These achievements of two seasons I have linked together so the mind could rest from the domestic miseries.  Though it had been three years since the execution of Sejanus — which usually softens others —, neither time, entreaties nor saturation made Tiberius mild enough to keep from punishing doubtful or bygone offenses as extremely serious and recent crimes.  Fearing this, Fulcinius Trio, refusing to endure the encroaching accusers, in his final testament wrote many embittered things against Macro and chief freedmen of Cæsar, imputing to the old man an enfeebled mind and, with his continual absence, a kind of exile.  Tiberius ordered these insults, which Trio’s heirs had attempted to suppress, to be publicly read, thus showing off his tolerance of free speech in others and contemptuous of his own infamy;  or, possibly, because he had long been ignorant of the crimes of Sejanus, he now preferred remarks, however expressed, to be made public, and to become aware, if only through invective, of the truth which is blocked by sycophancy.

About the same time Granius Marcianus, a senator, who was accused of treason by Gajus Gracchus, ended his own life violently.  Tarius Gratianus too, an ex-praetor, was condemned under the same law to capital punishment.

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

[6.39]  No different were the fates of Trebellenus Rufus and Sextilius Paconianus.  Trebellenus perished by his own hand;  Paconianus was strangled in prison for having there written some lampoons on the emperor.  Tiberius received the news, no longer parted by the sea, as he had been once, or through long-distance messengers, but in close proximity to Rome, so that on the same day, or after the interval of a single night, he could reply to the letters of the consuls, as though beholding the blood flowing among the houses, and the hands of the executioner.  At the year’s close Poppæus Sabinus died, a man of somewhat humble extraction, who had risen by his friendship with two emperors to the consulship and the honors of a triumph.  During twenty-four years he had the charge of the most important provinces, not for any remarkable ability, but because he was equal to the business and nothing higher.

[6.40]  Quintus Plautius Sex.  Papinius consules sequuntur.  Eo anno neque quod L. Arusejus *{de exilio revocatus esset, neque quod multi accusationibus ejus}* morte affecti forent, assuetudine malorum ut atrox advertebatur ;  sed exterruit quod Vibullius Agrippa, eques Romanus, quum perorassent accusatores, in ipsa curia depromptum sinu venenum hausit, prolapsusque ac moribundus festinatis lictorum manibus in carcerem raptus est, faucesque jam exanimis laqueo vexatæ.  Ne Tigranes quidem, Armenia quondam potitus ac tunc reus, nomine regio supplicia civium effugit.  At C. Galba consularis et duo Blæsi voluntario exitu cecidere :  Galba tristibus Cæsaris litteris provinciam sortiri prohibitus ;  Blæsis sacerdotia, integrā eorum domo destinata, convulsā distulerat, tunc ut vacua contulit in alios — quod signum mortis intellexere et exsecuti sunt.  Et Æmilia Lepida, quam juveni Druso nuptam rettuli, crebris criminibus maritum insectata, quanquam intestabilis, tamen impunita agebat, dum superfuit pater Lepidus :  post a delatoribus corripitur ob servum adulterum ;  nec dubitabatur de flagitio.  Ergo omissa defensione finem vitæ sibi posuit.

[6.40]  Quintus Plautius and Sextus Papinius were the next consuls {a.D. 36}.  Neither the fact that that year Lucius Arusejus *{had been recalled from exile, nor that through his accusations many}* were put to death struck men as anything horrible, given their familiarity with evil deeds.  But there was a panic when Vibullius Agrippa, a Roman knight, producing poison from a fold in his robe when his accusers had finished their declamations, swallowed it in the Senate-house itself and, having collapsed on the point of death, was swept off to prison by the hasty hands of lictors, where the neck of the now lifeless man was crushed with the noose.  Not even Tigranes, once in possession of Armenia and now a defendant, escaped the punishment of an ordinary citizen on the strength of his royal title.  But Gajus Galba, an ex-consul, and the two Blæsi fell by voluntary deaths:  Galba, because prohibited by a sinister letter from Cæsar from drawing lots for a province;  while, as for the Blæsi, the priesthoods destined for them while their house was intact were, after it had been devastated, suspended by Tiberius and now conferred, as vacant offices, on others.  This they understood as a signal of their doom, and followed through.  Æmilia Lepida too, whose marriage with the younger Drusus I have already related, who, though she had pursued her husband with ceaseless accusations, remained unpunished, detestable as she was, as long as her father Lepidus lived, was subsequently seized by informers for adultery with a slave.  There was no question about her guilt, and so without an attempt at defence she put an end to her life.

[6.41]  Per idem tempus Cietarum natio, Cappadoci Archelao subjecta, quia nostrum in modum deferre census, pati tributa, adigebatur, in juga Tauri montis abscessit, locorumque ingenio sese contra imbelles regis copias tutabatur, donec M. Trebellius legatus, a Vitellio præside Syriæ cum quattuor milibus legionariorum et delectis auxiliis missus, duos colles quos barbari insederant (minori Cadra, alteri Davara nomen est) operibus circumdedit, et erumpere ausos ferro, ceteros siti ad deditionem coëgit.

At Tiridates, volentibus Parthis, Nicephorium et Anthemusiada ceterasque urbes quæ, Macedonibus sitæ, Græca vocabula usurpant, Halumque et Artemitam — Parthica oppida —, recepit, certantibus gaudio qui, Artabanum Scythas inter eductum ob sævitiam exsecrati, come Tiridatis ingenium Romanas per artes sperabant.

[6.41]  At this same time the Cietæ, a tribe subject to the Cappadocian Archelaus, retreated to the heights of Mount Taurus, because they were compelled in Roman fashion to reporting census figures and submitting to tribute.  There they defended themselves by means of the nature of the terrain against the king’s unwarlike troops, until Marcus Trebellius, sent by Vitellius (the governor of Syria) with four thousand legionaries and selected auxiliaries, surrounded the two hills occupied by the barbarians (the smaller named Cadra, the other Davara) with earthworks.  Those who dared to break out he reduced to surrender by the sword, the rest by drought.

Tiridates meanwhile, with the consent of the Parthians, took possession of Nicephorium, Anthemusias and the other cities which, having been founded by Macedonians, have Greek names, and of the Parthian towns Halus and Artemita, to the competing joys of people who, having cursed Artabanus for his savagery (reared as he had been among the Scythians), were now putting their hopes in Tiridates’ affable nature due to his Roman culture.

[6.42]  Plurimum adulationis Seleucenses induere, civitas potens, sæpta muris neque in barbarum corrupta, sed conditoris Seleuci retinens.  Trecenti opibus aut sapientia delecti ut Senatus ;  sua populo vis.  Et quoties concordes agunt, spernitur Parthus :  ubi dissensere, dum sibi quisque contra æmulos subsidium vocant, accitus in partem adversum omnes valescit.  Id nuper acciderat, Artabano regnante, qui plebem primoribus tradidit ex suo usu :  nam populi imperium juxta libertatem ;  paucorum dominatio regiæ libidini propior est.  Tum adventantem Tiridaten extollunt veterum regum honoribus — et quos recens ætas largius invenit ;  simul probra in Artabanum fundebant, materna origine Arsaciden, cetera degenerem.  Tiridates rem Seleucensem populo permittit.  Mox consultans quonam die sollemnia regni capesseret, litteras Phraatis et Hieronis (qui validissimas præfecturas obtinebant) accipit, brevem moram precantium.  Placitumque opperiri viros præpollentes, atque interim Ctesiphon sedes imperii petita.  Sed ubi diem ex die prolatabant, multis coram et approbantibus, Surena patrio more Tiridaten insigni regio evinxit.

[6.42]  The greatest sycophancy was assumed by Seleucia, a powerful community, encircled by walls and not corrupted into barbarism but with a retentive memory of their founder Seleucus.  (Three hundred men are selected as a Senate on account of their wealth or wisdom;  the people have their own influence.  When both act in concert, the Parthian is spurned;  but whenever they disagree, each calls for support against its rivals and he, summoned to take one side, becomes effective against them all.  This had happened recently in the reign of Artabanus, who handed the people over to the chiefs for his own advantage.  For whereas command by the people borders on freedom, domination by a few is closer to the good pleasure of a king.)  On the present occasion they exalted Tiridates’ arrival by means of the honors paid to the kings of old — plus honors which the recent age has more lavishly devised.  At the same time they poured abuse on Artabanus, an Arsacid on his mother’s side, but otherwise degenerate.  Tiridates entrusted Seleucian affairs to the people;  but later, as he was debating on what day he should solemnize his assumption of the kingdom, he received letters from Phraates and Hiero (who held the most substantial prefectures) pleading for a short delay.  He decided to await such powerful individuals, and meanwhile made for Ctesiphon, the imperial capital.  But when they kept stretching one day into another, the Surena, to the approval of the many who were present, wreathed Tiridates with the royal insignia according to ancestral custom.

[6.43]  Ac si statim interiora ceterasque nationes petivisset, oppressa cunctantium dubitatio et omnes in unum cedebant.  Assidendo castellum, in quod pecuniam et pælices Artabanus contulerat, dedit spatium exuendi pacta.  Nam Phraates et Hiero et si qui alii delectum capiendo diademati diem haud concelebraverant, pars metu, quidam invidia in Abdagæsen qui tum aula et novo rege potiebatur, ad Artabanum vertere.  Isque in Hyrcanis repertus est, illuvie obsitus et alimenta arcu expediens.  Ac primo tanquam dolus pararetur territus, ubi data fides reddendæ dominationi venisse, allevatur animum et quæ repentina mutatio exquirit.  Tum Hiero pueritiam Tiridatis increpat, neque penes Arsaciden imperium sed inane nomen apud imbellem externā mollitiā, vim in Abdagæsis domo.

[6.43]  And if he had immediately made his way to the heart of the country and to its other tribes, the hesitation of the doubters would have been suppressed, and everyone would have yielded.  By besieging a fortress into which Artabanus had conveyed his treasure and his concubines, he gave time for the pacts to be done away with.  Phraates and Hiero, with others who had not concelebrated the day fixed for the coronation — some from fear, some out of jealousy of Abdagæses (who then ruled the court and the new king) —, turned to Artabanus.  He was found among the Hyrcanians, covered with filth and procuring his sustenance with his bow.  He was at first terrified, as though a trap were being readied, but when their pledge was given that they had come to restore his dominion, he lifted his spirits and asked why the sudden change.  Hiero then berated the immaturity of Tiridates :  the throne was not held by an Arsacid, but that a mere empty name lay with a creature weakened by foreign effeminacy, while the actual power was in the house of Abdagæses.

[6.44]  Sensit vetus regnandi falsos in amore odia non fingere.  Nec ultra moratus quam dum Scytharum auxilia conciret, pergit properus et præveniens inimicorum astus, amicorum pænitentiam ;  neque exuerat pædorem, ut vulgum miseratione adverteret.  Non fraus, non preces — nihil omissum, quo ambiguos illiceret, prompti firmarentur.  Jamque multa manu propinqua Seleuciæ adventabat, quum Tiridates simul fama atque ipso Artabano perculsus distrahi consiliis :  ¿ iret contra, an bellum cunctatione tractaret ?   Quibus prœlium et festinati casus placebant, disjectos et longinquitate itineris fessos ne animo quidem satis ad obsequium coaluisse disserunt :  proditores nuper, hostesque ejus quem rursum foveant.  Verum Abdagæses regrediendum in Mesopotamiam censebat ut, amne objecto, Armeniis interim Elymæisque et ceteris a tergo excitis, aucti copiis socialibus et quas dux Romanus misisset, fortunam temptarent.  Ea sententia valuit, quia plurima auctoritas penes Abdagæsen — et Tiridates ignavus ad pericula erat.  Sed fugæ specie discessum ;  ac, principio a gente Arabum facto, ceteri domos abeunt vel in castra Artabani, donec Tiridates, cum paucis in Syriam revectus, pudore proditionis omnes exsolvit.

[6.44]  The veteran ruler realized that, though these men might be false in their affection, their hatred was not feigned;  and, delaying no further except to raise auxiliaries from the Scythians, he proceeded apace, forestalling any strategems of his foes and any regret from his friends.  And, to attract the sympathy of the public, he had not ast off his squalor:  no trick, no plea, nothing was neglected that would entice the waverers and consolidate the ready.  And with a sizeable contingent he was already approaching the environs of Seleucia when Tiridates, shocked simultaneously by both the report and presence of Artabanus, was torn apart between plans:  should he march against him or drag out the war by delaying?  Those who favored battle and a quick decision argued that their opponents, in disarray and exhausted by the length of their journey, had not even in their hearts and minds united in obedience, having only recently been deserters and enemies of the man whom once again they were supporting.  But Abdagæses proposed going back to Mesopotamia in order that, with the river as a barrier and with the Armenians and Elymæi and the others meanwhile roused in the rear, they might try their fortune when augmented by allied forces and those which the Roman leader would send.  The latter suggestions prevailed, because most authority rested with Abdagæses — and Tiridates was a coward in the face of danger.  But the departure had the appearance of flight;  and, a start having been made by the race of the Arabs, the others left for their homes or for the camp of Artabanus, until Tiridates, after returning to Syria with a few men, released everyone from the disgrace of desertion.

[6.45]  Idem annus gravi igne Urbem afficit, deusta parte circi quæ Aventino contigua, ipsoque Aventino ;  quod damnum Cæsar ad gloriam vertit, exsolutis domuum et insularum pretiis.  (Milies sestertium {1,000 * H$100,000 = H$100,000,000} in munificentia collocatum, tanto acceptius in vulgum, quanto modicus privatis ædificationibus — ne publice quidem nisi duo opera struxit :  templum Augusto et scænam Pompejani theatri.  Eaque perfecta, contemptu ambitionis an per senectutem, haud dedicavit.)  Sed æstimando cujusque detrimento, quattuor progeneri Cæsaris — Cn. Domitius, Cassius Longinus, M. Vinicius, Rubellius Blandus — delecti, additusque nominatione consulum P. Petronius.  Et pro ingenio cujusque, quæsiti decretique in principem honores ;  quos omiserit receperitve, in incerto fuit ob propinquum vitæ finem.

Neque enim multo post supremi Tiberio consules, Cn. Acerronius C. Pontius, magistratum occepere, nimia jam potentia Macronis, qui gratiam G. Cæsaris nunquam sibi neglectam acrius in dies fovebat, impuleratque post mortem Claudiæ (quam nuptam ei rettuli) uxorem suam Enniam, imitando amorem, juvenem illicere pactoque matrimonii vincire, nihil abnuentem, dum dominationis apisceretur ;  nam, etsi commotus ingenio, simulationum tamen falsa in sinu avi perdidicerat.

[6.45]  That same year afflicted Rome with a terrible fire, with part of the circus near the Aventine hill burnt down, as well as the Aventine quarter itself.  This calamity the emperor turned to his own glory by paying the prices of the houses and apartment buildings.  (A hundred million sesterces {1,000 * H$100,000 = H$100,000,000} was expended in this munificence, all the more welcome to the populace, as Tiberius was rather sparing in his private building.  He built no more than two structures at public expense:  the temple of Augustus and the stage of Pompey’s theater, and when these were completed, he did not dedicate them, either disdaining popularity or due to his extreme age.)  To assess the damage in each case, four grandsons-in-law of Cæsar — Gnæus Domitius, Cassius Longinus, Marcus Vinicius, Rubellius Blandus — were appointed, and Publius Petronius was added on the nomination of the consuls.  And honors were devised and decreed to the emperor in accordance with the ingenuity of each person.  But which of these he rejected or accepted was uncertain, owing to his life’s approaching end.

For not long afterwards Tiberius’s last consuls, Gnæus Acerronius and Gajus Pontius, took office {a.D. 37}, with power already being exercised excessively by Macro, who by the day was fostering ever more keenly the goodwill — which in fact he had never neglected — of Gajus Cæsar {Caligula}.  And after the death of Claudia (who had, as I have related, been married to Gajus), he had driven his own wife Ennia into seducing the young man into a feigned love affair and binding him to a promise of marriage, a man given to refusing nothing, so long as he could achieve mastery.  For though he was temperamentally volatile, he had thoroughly learnt the falsehoods of hypocrisy in his grandfather’s lap.

[6.46]  Gnarum hoc principi, eoque dubitavit de tradenda Re Publica, primum inter nepotes, quorum Druso genitus sanguine et caritate propior, sed nondum pubertatem ingressus, Germanici filio robur juventæ, vulgi studia eăque — apud avum — odii causā.  Etiam de Claudio agitanti, quod is, composita ætate, bonarum artium cupiens erat, imminuta mens ejus obstitit.  Sin extra domum successor quæreretur, ne memoria Augusti, ne nomen Cæsarum in ludibria et contumelias verterent metuebat :  quippe illi non perinde curæ gratia præsentium quam in posteros ambitio.  Mox incertus animi, fesso corpore, consilium, cui impar erat, fato permisit, jactis tamen vocibus per quas intellegeretur providus futurorum.  Namque Macroni — non abdita ambage — occidentem ab eo deseri, orientem spectari exprobravit, et G. Cæsari, forte orto sermone L. Sullam irridenti, omnia Sullæ vitia et nullam ejusdem virtutem habiturum prædixit.  Simul crebris cum lacrimis minorem ex nepotibus complexus — truci alterius vultu —, “Occides hunc tu,” inquit, “et te alius.”  Sed gravescente valetudine nihil e libidinibus omittebat, in patientia firmitudinem simulans, solitusque eludere medicorum artes atque eos qui, post tricesimum ætatis annum, ad internoscenda corpori suo utilia vel noxia, alieni consilii indigerent.

[6.46]  This the emperor knew, and he therefore hesitated about bequeathing the empire — first, between his grandsons.  Of these, the son of Drusus{, Tiberius Gemellus,} was nearest in blood and natural affection, but had not yet entered manhood.  Germanicus’s son{, Gajus Caligula,} was in the vigor of youth and enjoyed the favor of the masses — this being a cause for the hatred of his grandfather.  Tiberius had even thought of Claudius, as he was of settled age and had a taste for the fine arts, but a weak intellect was against him.  If, however, a successor were to be sought outside of his house, he feared that the memory of Augustus and the name of the Cæsars would become objects of mockery and insult.  His concern was not so much to gain popularity of the current age as the approval of posterity.  Perplexed in mind, exhausted in body, he soon left to destiny a question to which he was unequal, though throwing out some utterances through which he might be understood as foreseeing future developments.  He taunted Macro, in a not obscure simile, with the reproach that the setting sun was being forsaken by him and the rising one being looked at.  Once too, when Gajus Cæsar in a casual conversation ridiculed Lucius Sulla, he predicted to him that he would have all Sulla’s vices and none of his virtues.  On the same occasion, having embraced the younger{, Tiberius Gemellus,} of his two grandsons with a flood of tears, at the other’s antagonistic expression, said, “You will slay this boy, and will be yourself slain by another.”  But even with his health deteriorating he gave up none of his debaucheries.  In his sufferings he would simulate health, and he was accustomed to ridicule physicians’ skills and all who, after the age of thirty, require another man’s advice to distinguish between what is beneficial or hurtful to their own bodies.

[6.47]  Interim Romæ futuris etiam post Tiberium cædibus semina jaciebantur.  Lælius Balbus Acutiam, P. Vitellii quondam uxorem, majestatis postulaverat ;  qua damnata, quum præmium accusatori decerneretur, Junius Otho tribunus plebei intercessit, unde illis odia, mox Othoni exitium.  Dein multorum amoribus famosa Albucilla, cui matrimonium cum Satrio Secundo, conjurationis indice, fuerat, defertur impietatis in principem ;  conectebantur ut conscii et adulteri ejus Cn. Domitius, Vibius Marsus, L. Arruntius.  (De claritudine Domitii supra memoravi ;  Marsus quoque vetustis honoribus et illustris studiis erat.)  Sed testium interrogationi, tormentis servorum, Macronem præsedisse commentarii ad Senatum missi ferebant ;  nullæque in eos imperatoris litteræ suspicionem dabant, invalido ac fortasse ignaro, ficta pleraque ob inimicitias Macronis notas in Arruntium.

[6.47]  At Rome meanwhile were being sown the seeds of slaughter to come even after Tiberius’s death.  Acutia, formerly the wife of Publius Vitellius, had been accused of treason by Lælius Balbus.  When on her condemnation a reward was being voted to her prosecutor, Junius Otho, tribune of the people, interposed his veto.  Hence a feud between Vitellius and Otho, ending in Otho’s extermination.  Then Albucilla, notorious for the number of her lovers, who had been married to Satrius Secundus, the betrayer of the late conspiracy {of Sejanus}, was denounced for irreverence towards the emperor.  Gnæus Domitius, Vibius Marsus and Lucius Arruntius were implicated as her accomplices and adulterers.  (I have already spoken of the illustrious rank of Domitius.  Marsus too was distinguished by the honors of his ancestors and by his own attainments.)  It was, however, stated in the protocols furnished to the Senate that Macro had supervised the interrogation of the witnesses and the torture of the slaves ;  and the fact of no letter against the defendants from the emperor gave rise to the suspicion that, given that he was feeble and perhaps unaware, most things had been fabricated due to Macro’s well-known hatred of Arruntius.

[6.48]  Igitur Domitius defensionem meditans, Marsus tanquam inediam destinavisset, produxere vitam ;  Arruntius, cunctationem et moras suadentibus amicis, non eadem omnibus decora respondit :  sibi satis ætatis, neque aliud pænitendum quam quod inter ludibria et pericula anxiam senectam toleravisset, diu Sejano, nunc Macroni, semper alicui potentium invisus, non culpa sed ut flagitiorum impatiens.  Sane paucos ad suprema principis dies posse vitari :  ¿ Quem ad modum evasurum imminentis juventam ?  ¿ An, quum Tiberius, post tantam rerum experientiam, vi dominationis convulsus et mutatus sit, G. Cæsarem, vix finita pueritia, ignarum omnium aut pessimis innutritum, meliora capessiturum, Macrone duce qui, ut deterior ad opprimendum Sejanum delectus, plura per scelera Rem Publicam conflictavisset ?  Prospectare jam se acrius servitium, eoque fugere simul acta et instantia.  Hæc vatis in modum dictitans venas resolvit.  Documento sequentia erunt, bene Arruntium morte usum.

Albucilla irrito ictu ab semet vulnerata jussu Senatus in carcerem fertur.  Stuprorum ejus ministri, Carsidius Sacerdos prætorius ut in insulam deportaretur, Pontius Fregellanus amitteret ordinem senatorium, et eædem pœnæ in Lælium Balbum decernuntur — id quidem a lætantibus, quia Balbus truci eloquentia habebatur, promptus adversum insontes.

[6.48]  And so Domitius and Marsus prolonged their lives, Domitius, preparing his defence, Marsus, as though he had decided on starvation.  Arruntius, when his friends advised temporising and delay, replied that “the same things were not becoming to all.  He had had enough of life, and all he regretted was that amid ridicule and peril he had endured a tormented old age, long detested by Sejanus, now by Macro, always by one of the powerful, not for any fault, but because he was intolerant of grotesque crimes.  Yes, the few days until the emperor’s last moments could be sidestepped.  How was he to evade the youth of the looming sovereign?  When Tiberius, after so much experience, had become deranged and changed by despotic power, would Gajus Cæsar, barely out of childhood, ignorant of everything and reared by the worst types, strive for better states — led by Macro who, chosen for being more baneful in order to crush Sejanus, had afflicted the State with more crimes?  He now foresaw a still more bitter slavery, and was therefore simultaneously fleeing the past and what was coming.”  Uttering these things in the manner of a soothsayer, he opened his veins.  What followed will be a proof that Arruntius did well to die.

Albucilla, having wounded herself with an ineffectual stab, was carried off to prison on the order of the Senate.  Of her accomplices in debaucheries, the ex-praetor Carsidius Sacerdos, was to be deported to an island, Pontius Fregellanus was to lose his position as senator, and the same punishments were to be decreed for Lælius Balbus — this by delighted members, since Balbus was held to be of vicious eloquence, primed to attack the innocent.

[6.49]  Eisdem diebus Sex. Papinius consulari familia repentinum et informem exitum delegit, jacto in præceps corpore.  Causa ad matrem referebatur quæ, pridem repudiata, assentationibus atque luxu perpulisset juvenem ad ea quorum effugium non nisi morte inveniret.  Igitur accusata in Senatu, quanquam genua patrum advolveretur, luctumque communem, et magis imbecillum tali super casu feminarum animum, aliaque in eundem dolorem mæsta et miseranda diu ferret, Urbe tamen in decem annos prohibita est, donec minor filius lubricum juventæ exiret.

[6.49]  About the same time Sextus Papinius, who belonged to a family of consular rank, chose a sudden and hideous death, by throwing himself headlong from a height.  The cause was ascribed to his mother who, having been long since rejected, had at last by adulation and luxuriousness driven him to the point where he could find no escape but in death.  Thus, accused in the Senate, although she grovelled at the knees of the senators and for a long time pled that grief was common, and women’s personalities weaker in such cases, and other sorrowful and pitiable things with the same painfulness, she was nevertheless banished from Rome for ten years, till her younger son had passed the slippery years of youth.

[6.50]  Jam Tiberium corpus, jam vires — ¡ nondum dissimulatio ! — deserebat :  idem animi rigor ;  sermone ac vultu intentus, quæsita interdum comitate quamvis manifestam defectionem tegebat.  Mutatisque sæpius locis tandem apud promunturium Miseni consedit in villa cui L. Lucullus quondam dominus.  Illic eum appropinquare supremis, tali modo compertum :

Erat medicus arte insignis, nomine Charicles, non quidem regere valetudines principis solitus, consilii tamen copiam præbere.  Is velut propria ad negotia digrediens, et per speciem officii manum complexus, pulsum venarum attigit.  Neque fefellit :  nam Tiberius — incertum an offensus tantoque magis iram premens — instaurari epulas jubet, discumbitque ultra solitum, quasi honori abeuntis amici tribueret.  Charicles tamen labi spiritum nec ultra biduum duraturum Macroni firmavit.  Inde cuncta colloquiis inter præsentes, nuntiis apud legatos et exercitus festinabantur.  Septimum decimum kal. Apriles, interclusā animā, creditus est mortalitatem explevisse ;  et, multo gratantium concursu, ad capienda imperii primordia G. Cæsar egrediebatur, quum repente affertur redire Tiberio vocem ac visus, vocarique qui recreandæ defectioni cibum afferrent.  Pavor hinc in omnes, et ceteri passim dispergi, se quisque mæstum aut nescium fingere ;  Cæsar, in silentium fixus, a summa spe novissima expectabat.  Macro intrepidus opprimi senem injectu multæ vestis jubet discedique ab limine.  Sic Tiberius finivit octavo et septuagesimo ætatis anno.

[6.50]  Tiberius’s bodily powers were now leaving him, but not his skill in dissembling.  There was the same inflexibility of spirit;  guarding his speech and looks, he would sometimes try to disguise his decline, no matter how evident, with contrived affability.  After frequent changes of location, he at last settled down on the promontory of Misenum in a villa once owned by Lucius Lucullus.  That he was there approaching his end was discovered in the following way:

There was a physician, distinguished for his skill, named Charicles, usually employed, not indeed in treating the emperor’s health problems, but to afford the opportunity of advice.  This man, as though leaving on business of his own, and clasping his hand seemingly in homage, felt his pulse.  But he did not fool him.  For Tiberius (it is uncertain whether he was offended and suppressed his anger all the more) ordered the banquet resumed and reclined at table longer than usual, as if paying honor to a departing friend.  Charicles, however, assured Macro that his breath was failing and that he would not last more than two days.  Thereupon everything was hurried up with conferences among those present and communications sent to the legates and armies.  On the 16th of March, after his breathing stopped, he was believed to have completed his mortal span;  and amidst a great crowd of well-wishers, Gajus Cæsar {Caligula} was going out to start taking command, when suddenly news came that Tiberius’ voice and vision were returning, and he was calling for people to bring him food to revive him from his faintness.  At this there was universal consternation, and while the rest dispersed in all directions, everyone feigning grief or ignorance, Gajus Cæsar, in silent stupor, passed from the highest hopes to anticipating the worst.  Undaunted, Macro ordered the old emperor to be smothered under a huge pile of clothes, and all to quit the entrance-hall.  And so died Tiberius, in the seventy-eighth year of his age.

[6.51]  Pater ei Nero et utrimque origo gentis Claudiæ, quanquam mater in Liviam et mox Juliam familiam adoptionibus transierit.  Casus prima ab infantia ancipites ;  nam proscriptum patrem exul secutus, ubi domum Augusti privignus introiit, multis æmulis conflictatus est, dum Marcellus et Agrippa, mox Gajus Luciusque Cæsares viguere ;  etiam frater ejus Drusus prosperiore civium amore erat.  Sed maxime in lubrico egit, accepta in matrimonium Julia, impudicitiam uxoris tolerans aut declinans.  Dein Rhodo regressus, vacuos principis penates duodecim annis, mox rei Romanæ arbitrium tribus ferme et viginti obtinuit.  Morum quoque tempora illi diversa :  egregium vita famaque quoad privatus vel in imperiis sub Augusto fuit ;  occultum ac subdolum fingendis virtutibus donec Germanicus ac Drusus superfuere ;  idem inter bona malaque mixtus, incolumi matre ;  intestabilis sævitia sed obtectis libidinibus dum Sejanum dilexit timuitve :  postremo in scelera simul ac dedecora prorupit postquam, remoto pudore et metu, suo tantum ingenio utebatur.

[6.51]  {Tiberius} Nero was his father, and he was on both sides descended from the Claudian house, though his mother passed by adoption, first into the Livian, then into the Julian family.  From earliest infancy, the events of his life were in fluctuation.  For, having followed his proscribed father as a exile, on entering Augustus’ household as a stepson, he had to struggle with many rivals while Marcellus and Agrippa and, subsequently, Gajus and Lucius Cæsar throve.  Even his brother Drusus enjoyed greater popularity among the citizens.  But he was in an especially precarious situation after having married Julia, whether enduring or fleeing abroad from his wife’s promiscuity.  On his return from Rhodes he held power in the emperor’s now heirless house for twelve years, then Roman imperial command, for almost twenty-three.  His behavior too had its distinct periods.  He was excellent in life and repute as long as he was a private citizen or an officeholder under Augustus;  he was secretive and guileful in pretending virtuousness as long as Germanicus and Drusus were alive.  While his mother was alive, he was a mixture of good and evil;  he was execrable in his savagery but with his lusts cloaked, while he loved or feared Sejanus.  Finally, having doffed all shame and fear, he began following only his own inner nature and plunged into crimes and degradations alike.