Complete Works of Tacitus (Delphi Classics) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 24)

by Publius Cornelius Tacitus

  39 1 Ostorius then interposed his light cohorts; but even so he failed to check the flight, until the legions took up the contest. Their strength equalized the struggle, which eventually turned in our favour; the enemy escaped with trivial losses, as the day was drawing to a close. Frequent engagements followed, generally of the irregular type, in woods and fens; decided by individual luck or bravery; accidental or prearranged; with passion or plunder for the motives; by orders, or sometimes without the knowledge of the leaders. Particularly marked was the obstinacy of the Silures, who were infuriated by a widely repeated remark of the Roman commander, that, as once the Sugambri had been exterminated or transferred to the Gallic provinces, so the Silurian name ought once for all to be extinguished. They accordingly cut off two auxiliary cohorts which, through the cupidity of their officers, were ravaging the country too incautiously; and by presents of spoils and captives they were drawing into revolt the remaining tribes also, when Ostorius — broken by the weary load of anxiety — paid the debt of nature; to the delight of the enemy, who considered that, perhaps not a battle, but certainly a campaign had disposed of a general whom it was impossible to despise.

  40 1 On receiving the news of the legate’s death, the Caesar, not to leave the province without a governor, appointed Aulus Didius to the vacancy. In spite of a rapid crossing, he found matters deteriorated, as the legion under Manlius Valens had been defeated in the interval. Reports of the affair were exaggerated: among the enemy, with the hope of alarming the commander on his arrival; by the commander — who magnified the version he heard — with the hope of securing additional credit, if he settled the disturbances, and a more legitimate excuse, if the disturbances persisted. In this case, again, the loss had been inflicted by the Silurians, and they carried their forays far and wide, until repelled by the advent of Didius. Since the capture of Caratacus, however, the Briton with the best knowledge of the art of war was Venutius, whose Brigantian extraction has been mentioned earlier. He had long been loyal, and had received the protection of the Roman arms during his married life with Queen Cartimandua: then had come a divorce, followed by immediate war, and he had extended his hostility to ourselves. At first, however, the struggle was confined to the pair; and Cartimandua adroitly entrapped the brother and family connections of Venutius. Incensed at her act, and smarting at the ignominious prospect of submitting to the sway of a woman, the enemy — a powerful body of young and picked warriors — invaded her kingdom. That event had been foreseen by us, and the cohorts sent to the rescue fought a sharp engagement, with dubious results at the outset but a more cheerful conclusion. The conflict had a similar issue in the case of the legion, which was commanded by Caesius Nasica; since Didius, retarded by his years and full of honours, was content to act through his subordinates and to hold the enemy at distance. — These operations, though conducted by two propraetors over a period of years, I have related consecutively, lest, if treated separately, they should leave an inadequate impression on the memory. I return to the chronological order.

  41 1 In the consulate of Tiberius Claudius, his fifth term, and of Servius Cornelius, the manly toga was prematurely conferred on Nero, so that he should appear qualified for a political career. The Caesar yielded with pleasure to the sycophancies of the senate, which desired Nero to assume the consulship in the twentieth year of his age, and in the interval, as consul designate, to hold proconsular authority outside the capital and bear the title Prince of the Youth. There was added a donative to the troops, with a largess to the populace, both under his name; while at the games in the Circus, exhibited to gain him the partialities of the crowd, Britannicus rode past in the juvenile white and purple, Nero in the robes of triumph. “Let the people survey the one in the insignia of supreme command, the other in his puerile garb, and anticipate conformably the destinies of the pair!” At the same time all centurions and tribunes who evinced sympathy with the lot of Britannicus were removed, some on fictitious grounds, others under cloak of promotion. Even the few freedmen of untainted loyalty were dismissed on the following pretext. At a meeting between the two boys, Nero greeted Britannicus by his name, and was himself saluted as “Domitius.” Representing the incident as a first sign of discord, Agrippina reported it with loud complaints to her husband:—”The act of adoption was flouted, the decision of the Fathers and the mandate of the people abrogated on the domestic hearth! And unless they removed the mischievous influence of those who inculcated this spirit of hostility, it would break out in a public catastrophe.” Perturbed by these hinted accusations, the emperor inflicted exile or death on the best of his son’s preceptors, and placed him under the custody of the substitutes provided by his stepmother.

  42 1 As yet, however, Agrippina lacked courage to make her supreme attempt, unless she could discharge from the command of the praetorian cohorts both Lusius Geta and Rufrius Crispinus, whom she believed faithful to the memory of Messalina and pledged to the cause of her children. Accordingly, through her assertions to her husband that the cohorts were being divided by the intriguing rivalry of the pair, and that discipline would be stricter if they were placed under a single head, the command was transferred to Afranius Burrus; who bore the highest character as a soldier but was well aware to whose pleasure he owed his appointment. The exaltation of her own dignity also occupied Agrippina: she began to enter the Capitol in a carriage; and that honour, reserved by antiquity for priests and holy objects, enhanced the veneration felt for a woman who to this day stands unparalleled as the daughter of an Imperator and the sister, the wife, and the mother of an emperor. Meanwhile, her principal champion, Vitellius, at the height of his influence and in the extremity of his age — so precarious are the fortunes of the mighty — was brought to trial upon an indictment laid by the senator Junius Lupus. The charges he preferred were treason and designs upon the empire and to these the Caesar would certainly have inclined his ear, had not the prayers, or rather the threats of Agrippina converted him to the course of formally outlawing the prosecutor: Vitellius had desired no more.

  43 1 Many prodigies occurred during the year. Ominous birds took their seat on the Capitol; houses were overturned by repeated shocks of earthquake, and, as the panic spread, the weak were trampled underfoot in the trepidation of the crowd. A shortage of corn,º again, and the famine which resulted, were construed as a supernatural warning. Nor were the complaints always whispered. Claudius, sitting in judgement, was surrounded by a wildly clamorous mob, and, driven into the farthest corner of the Forum, was there subjected to violent pressure, until, with the help of a body of troops, he forced a way through the hostile throng. It was established that the capital had provisions for fifteen days, no more; and the crisis was relieved only by the especial grace of the gods and the mildness of the winter. And yet, Heaven knows, in the past, Italy exported supplies for the legions into remote provinces; nor is sterility the trouble now, but we cultivate Africa and Egypt by preference, and the life of the Roman nation has been staked upon cargo-boats and accidents.

  44 1 In the same year, an outbreak of war between the Armenians and Iberians gave rise as well to a very serious disturbance of the relations between Parthia and Rome. The Parthian nation was now subject to Vologaeses, who, on the mother’s side, was the offspring of a Greek concubine and had obtained the crown with the acquiescence of his brothers: Iberia was held by its old master Pharasmanes; Armenia — with our support — by his brother Mithridates. There was a son of Pharasmanes by the name of Radamistus, tall and handsome, remarkable for his bodily strength, versed in the national accomplishments, and in high repute with the neighbouring peoples. That the modest kingdom of Iberia was being kept from him by his father’s tenacity of life, was a statement which he threw out too boldly and too frequently for his desires to remain unguessed. Pharasmanes, therefore, who had his misgivings about a youth alert for power and armed with the sympathies of the country, while his own years were already on the wane, sought to attract him to other ambitions by pointing to
Armenia; which, he observed, he had, by his expulsion of the Parthians, himself bestowed on Mithridates. Force, however, must wait: some ruse, by which they could take him off his guard, was preferable. Radamistus, then, after a feigned rupture with his father, gave out that he was unable to face the hatred of his stepmother, and made his way to his uncle; was treated by him with exceptional kindness as though he had been a child of his own; and proceeded to entice the Armenian nobles to revolution, undetected, and in fact honoured, by Mithridates.

  45 1 Assuming the character of a reconciled son, he returned to his father, and announced that all which it had been possible to effect by fraud was ready: what remained must be achieved by arms. Meanwhile, Pharasmanes fabricated pretexts for war:—”During his conflict with the king of Albania, his appeal for Roman help had been opposed by his brother, and he would now avenge that injury by his destruction.” At the same time, he entrusted a large force to his son; who, by a sudden incursion, unnerved Mithridates, beat him out of the plains, and forced him into Gorneae, a fort protected by the nature of the ground and a garrison under the command of the prefect Caelius Pollio and the centurion Casperius. Nothing is so completely unknown to barbarians as the appliances and refinements of siege operations — a branch of warfare perfectly familiar to ourselves. Hence, after several attacks, fruitless or worse, upon the fortifications, Radamistus began a blockade: then, as force was ignored, he bribed the avarice of the prefect, though Casperius protested against the subversion, by guilt and gold, of an allied monarch and of Armenia, his gift from the Roman people. At last, as Pollio continued to plead the numbers of the enemy and Radamistus the orders of his father, he stipulated for a truce, and left with the intention of either deterring Pharasmanes from his campaign or acquainting the governor of Syria, Ummidius Quadratus, with the state of matters in Armenia.

  46 1 With the centurion’s departure, the prefect found himself rid of his warder, and he now pressed Mithridates to conclude a treaty. He enlarged upon the link of brotherhood, upon Pharasmanes’ priority in age, upon the other titles of kinship, — the fact that he was married to his brother’s daughter and was himself the father-in-law of Radamistus. “The Iberians,” he said, “though for the time being the stronger party, were not disinclined to peace. He was familiar enough already with Armenian treachery, and his only defence was a badly provisioned fort. Let him not decide for the doubtful experiment of arms in preference to a bloodless compact!” While Mithridates hesitated in spite of these arguments — the prefect’s advice being suspect, as he had seduced one of the royal concubines and was considered capable of any villainy for a price — Casperius in the interval made his way to Pharasmanes and demanded that the Iberians should raise the siege. In public, the king’s replies were vague and usually bland; in private, he warned Radamistus by courier to hurry on the siege by any and all means. The wage of dishonour was accordingly increased; and by secret bribery Pollio induced the troops to demand a peace under threat of abandoning the post. Mithridates had now no option; he accepted the place and day suggested for the treaty, and left the fort.

  47 1 The first act of Radamistus was to throw himself into his arms with affected devotion and to address him as father-in-law and parent. He followed with an oath that neither by steel nor by poison would he practise against his life. At the same moment, he hurried him into a neighbouring grove, where, he informed him, the apparatus of sacrifice had been provided in order that their peace might be ratified before the attesting gods. The procedure in the case of two kings meeting to conclude an alliance is to unite their right hands, tie the thumbs together, and tighten the pressure by a knot: then, when the blood has run to the extremities, a slight incision gives it outlet, and each prince licks it in turn. A mystical character is attached to the agreement thus sealed and counter-sealed in blood. But, on this occasion, the person who was fastening the bonds feigned to slip, and, grasping Mithridates by the knees, threw him prostrate: at the same instant, a number of men rushed up and put him in irons. He was dragged off by his shackles, to barbarians a supreme indignity; and before long the populace, which had experienced the rigour of his sway, was levelling against him its insults and its blows. There were also, on the other hand, some found to pity so complete a reversal of fortune; and his wife, who followed with their infant children, filled the place with her laments. The prisoners were stowed out of sight in separate and covered vehicles, until the orders of Pharasmanes should be ascertained. To him the desire of a crown outweighed a brother and a daughter, and his temper was prompt to crime: still he shewed consideration for his eyes by not having them killed in his presence. Radamistus, too mindful apparently of his oath, produced neither steel nor poison for the destruction of his sister and uncle, but had them tossed on the ground and smothered under a heavy pile of clothes. Mithridates’ sons were also slaughtered, since they had shed tears at the murder of their parents.

  48 1 Quadratus, gathering that Mithridates was betrayed and his kingdom held by the murderers, convened his council, laid the incidents before it, and asked for an opinion whether he should take punitive measures. A few showed some concern for the national honour; the majority inculcated safety:—”Alien crime in general was to be hailed with pleasure; it was well, even, to sow the seeds of hatred, precisely as on many occasions a Roman emperor, ostensibly as an act of munificence, had given away this same Armenia, merely to unsettle the temper of the barbarians. Let Radamistus hold his ill-gotten gains, so long as he held them at the price of detestation and of infamy: it was better for us than if he had won them with glory!” This opinion was adopted. But, to avoid the appearance of having acquiesced in the crime, when the imperial orders might be to the contrary effect, messengers were sent to Pharasmanes, requesting him to evacuate Armenian territory and withdraw his son.

  49 1 The procurator of Cappadocia was Julius Paelignus, a person made doubly contemptible by hebetude of mind and grotesqueness of body, yet on terms of the greatest intimacy with Claudius during the years of retirement when he amused his sluggish leisure with the society of buffoons. The Paelignus had mustered the provincial militia, with the avowed intention of recovering Armenia; but, while he was plundering our subjects in preference to the enemy, the secession of his troops left him defenceless against the barbarian incursions, and he made his way to Radamistus, by whose liberality he was so overpowered that he voluntarily advised him to assume the kingly emblem, and assisted at its assumption in the quality of sponsor and satellite. Ugly reports of the incident spread; and, to make it clear that not all Romans were to be judged by the standard of Paelignus, the legate Helvidius Priscus was sent with a legion to deal with the disturbed situation as the circumstances might require. Accordingly, after crossing Mount Taurus in haste, he had settled more points by moderation than by force, when he was ordered back to Syria, lest he should give occasion for a Parthian war.

  50 1 For Vologaeses, convinced that the chance was come for an attack on Armenia, once the property of his ancestors, now usurped by a foreign monarch in virtue of a crime, collected a force, and prepared to settle his brother Tiridates on the throne; so that no branch of his family should lack its kingdom. The Parthian invasion forced back the Iberians without a formal battle, and the Armenian towns of Artaxata and Tigranocerta accepted the yoke. Then a severe winter, the inadequate provision of supplies, and an epidemic due to both of these causes, forced Vologaeses to abandon the scene of action; and Armenia, masterless once again, was occupied by Radamistus, more truculent than ever towards a nation of traitors whom he regarded as certain to rebel when opportunity offered. They were a people inured to bondage; but patience broke, and they surrounded the palace in arms.

  51 1 The one salvation for Radamistus lay in the speed of the horses which swept himself and his wife away. His wife, however, was pregnant; and though fear of the enemy and love of her husband sustained her more or less in the first stages of the flight, yet before long, with the continuous gallop jarring her womb and vibrating thro
ugh her system, she began to beg for an honourable death to save her from the degradations of captivity. At first, he embraced her, supported her, animated her, one moment wondering at her courage, the next sick with fear at the thought of abandoning her to the possession of another. At last, overmastered by his love, and no stranger to deeds of violence, he drew his sabre, dragged her bleeding to the bank of the Araxes, and, bent on removing even her corpse, consigned her to the current: he himself rode headlong through to his native kingdom of Iberia. Meanwhile, Zenobia (to give his wife her name) was noticed by a few shepherds in a quiet backwater, still breathing and showing signs of life. Arguing her high birth from the distinction of her appearance, they bound up her wound, applied their country remedies, and, on discovering her name and misfortune, carried her to the town of Artaxata; from which, by the good offices of the community, she was escorted to Tiridates, and, after a kind reception, was treated with royal honours.