68 1 The next example of intrepidity was furnished by Sulpicius Asper; who to Nero’s question, why he had conspired to murder him, rejoined curtly that it was the only service that could be rendered to his many infamies. He then underwent the ordained penalty. The other centurions, as well, met their fate without declining from their traditions; but such resolution was not for Faenius Rufus, who imported his lamentations even into his will.
Nero was waiting for the consul Vestinus to be also incriminated, regarding him as a violent character and an enemy. But the conspirators had not shared their plans with Vestinus — some through old animosities, the majority because they considered him headstrong and impossible as a partner. Nero’s hatred of him had grown out of intimate companionship — Vestinus understanding perfectly, and despising, the pusillanimity of the sovereign; the sovereign afraid of the masterful friend who so often mocked him with that rough humour which, if it draws too largely on truth, leaves pungent memories behind. An additional, and recent, motive was that Vestinus had contracted a marriage with Statilia Messalina, though well aware that the Caesar also was among her paramours.
69 1 Accordingly, with neither a charge nor an accuser forthcoming, Nero, precluded from assuming the character of judge, turned to plain despotic force, and sent out the tribune Gerellanus with a cohort of soldiers, under orders to “forestall the attempts of the consul, seize what might be termed his citadel, and suppress his chosen corps of youths”: Vestinus maintained a house overlooking the forum, and a retinue of handsome slaves of uniform age. On that day, he had fulfilled the whole of his consular functions, and was holding a dinner-party, either apprehending nothing or anxious to dissemble whatever he apprehended, when soldiers entered and said the tribune was asking for him. He rose without delay, and all was hurried through in a moment. He shut himself in his bedroom, the doctor was at hand, the arteries were cut: still vigorous, he was carried into the bath and plunged in hot water, without letting fall a word of self-pity. In the meantime, the guests who had been at table with him were surrounded by guards; nor were they released till a late hour of the night, when Nero, laughing at the dismay, which he had been picturing in his mind’s eye, of the diners who were awaiting destruction after the feast, observed that they had paid dearly enough for their consular banquet.
70 1 He next ordained the despatch of Lucan. When his blood was flowing, and he felt his feet and hands chilling and the life receding little by little from the extremities, though the heart retained warmth and sentience, Lucan recalled a passage in his own poem, where he had described a wounded soldier dying a similar form of death, and he recited the very verses. Those were his last words. Then Senecio and Quintianus and Scaevinus, belying their old effeminacy of life, and then the rest of the conspirators, met their end, doing and saying nothing that calls for remembrance.
71 1 Meanwhile, however, the city was filled with funerals, and the Capitol with burnt offerings. Here, for the killing of a son; there, for that of a brother, a kinsman, or a friend; men were addressing their thanks to Heaven, bedecking their mansions with bays, falling at the knees of the sovereign, and persecuting his hand with kisses. And he, imagining that this was joy, recompensed the hurried informations of Antonius Navalis and Cervarius Proculus by a grant of immunity. Milichus, grown rich on rewards, assumed in its Greek form the title of Saviour. Of the tribunes, Gavius Silanus, though acquitted, fell by his own hand; Statius Proxumus stultified the pardon he had received from the emperor by the folly of his end. Then . . . Pompeius, Cornelius Martialis, Flavius Nepos, and Statius Domitius, were deprived of their rank, on the ground that, without hating the Caesar, they had yet the reputation of doing so. Novius Priscus, as a friend of Seneca, Glitius Gallus and Annius Pollio as discredited if hardly convicted, were favoured with sentences of exile. Priscus was accompanied by his wife Artoria Flaccilla, Gallus by Egnatia Maximilla, the mistress of a great fortune, at first left intact but afterwards confiscated — two circumstances which redounded equally to her fame. Rufrius Crispinus was also banished: the conspiracy supplied the occasion, but he was detested by Nero as a former husband of Poppaea. To Verginius Flavus and Musonius Rufus expulsion was brought by the lustre of their names; for Verginius fostered the studies of youth by his eloquence, Musonius by the precepts of philosophy. As though to complete the troop and a round number, Cluvidienus Quietus, Julius Agrippa, Blitius Catulinus, Petronius Priscus, and Julius Altinus were allowed the Aegean islands. But Scaevinus’ wife Caedicia and Caesennius Maximus were debarred from Italy, and by their punishment — and that alone — discovered that they had been on trial. Lucan’s mother Acilia was ignored, without acquittal and without penalty.
72º Now that all was over, Nero held a meeting of the troops, and made a distribution of two thousand sesterces a man, remitting in addition the price of the grain ration previously supplied to them at the current market rate. Then, as if to recount the achievements of a war, he convoked the senate and bestowed triumphal distinctions on the consular Petronius Turpilianus, the praetor designate Cocceius Nerva, and the praetorian prefect Tigellinus: Nerva and Tigellinus he exalted so far that, not content with triumphal statues in the Forum, he placed their effigies in the palace itself. Consular insignia were decreed to Nymphidius
73 1 However, after he had spoken in the senate, Nero followed by publishing an edict to the people and a collection, in writing, of the informations laid and the avowals of the condemned; for in the gossip of the multitude he was being commonly attacked for procuring the destruction of great and guiltless citizens from motives of jealousy or of fear. Still, that a conspiracy was initiated, matured, brought home to its authors, was neither doubted at the period by those who were at pains to ascertain the facts, nor is denied by the exiles who have returned to the capital since the death of Nero. But in the senate, whilst all members, especially those with most to mourn, were stooping to sycophancy, Junius Gallio, dismayed by the death of his brother Seneca, and petitioning for his own existence, was attacked by Salienus Clemens, who styled him the enemy and parricide of his country; until he was deterred by the unanimous request of the Fathers that he would avoid the appearance of abusing a national sorrow for the purposes of a private hatred, and would not reawaken cruelty by recurring to matters either settled or cancelled by the clemency of the sovereign.
74 1 Offerings and thanks were then voted to Heaven, the Sun, who had an old temple in the Circus, where the crime was to be staged, receiving special honour for revealing by his divine power the secrets of the conspiracy. The Circensian Games of Ceres were to be celebrated with an increased number of horse-races; the month of April was to take the name of Nero; a temple of Safety was to be erected on the site . . . from which Scaevinus had taken his dagger. That weapon the emperor himself consecrated in the Capitol, and inscribed it: — To Jove the Avenger. At the time, the incident passed unnoticed: after the armed rising of the other “avenger,” Julius Vindex, it was read as a token and a presage of coming retribution. I find in the records of the senate that Anicius Cerialis, consul designate, gave it as his opinion that a temple should be built to Nero the Divine, as early as possible and out of public funds. His motion, it is true, merely implied that the prince had transcended mortal eminence and earned the worship of mankind; but it was vetoed by that prince, because by other interpreters it might be wrested into an omen of, and aspiration for, his decease; for the honour of divine is not paid to the emperor until he has ceased to live and move among men.
BOOK XVI
1 1 Nero now became the sport of f
ortune as a result of his own credulity and the promises of Caesellius Bassus. Punic by origin and mentally deranged, Bassus treated the vision he had seen in a dream by night as a ground of confident expectation, took ship to Rome, and, buying an interview with the emperor, explained that he had found on his estate an immensely deep cavern, which contained a great quantity of gold, not transformed into coin but in unwrought and ancient bullion. For there were ponderous ingots on the floor; while, in another part, the metal was piled in columns — a treasure which had lain hidden through the centuries in order to increase the prosperity of the present era. The Phoenician Dido, so his argument ran, after her flight from Tyre and her foundation at Carthage, had concealed the hoard, for fear that too much wealth might tempt her young nation to excess, or that the Numidian princes, hostile on other grounds as well, might be fired to arms by the lust of gold.
2 1 Accordingly, Nero, without sufficiently weighing the credibility either of his informant or of the affair in itself, and without sending to ascertain the truth of the tale, deliberately magnified the report and despatched men to bring in the spoils lying, he thought, ready to his hand. The party were given triremes, and to better their speed, picked oarsmen; and, throughout those days, this one theme was canvassed, by the populace with credulity, by the prudent with very different comments. It happened, too, that this was the second period for the celebration of the Quinquennial Games, and the incident was taken by the orators as the principal text for their panegyrics of the sovereign:—”For not the customary crops alone, or gold alloyed with other metals, were now produced: the earth gave her increase with novel fecundity, and high heaven sent wealth unsought.” And there were other servilities, which they developed with consummate eloquence and not inferior sycophancy, assured of the easy credence of their dupe!
3 1 Meanwhile, on the strength of this idle hope, his extravagance grew, and treasures long accumulated were dispersed on the assumption that others had been vouchsafed which would serve his prodigality for many years. In fact, he was already drawing on this fund for his largesses; and the expectation of wealth was among the causes of national poverty. For Bassus — who had dug up his own land along with a wide stretch of the adjacent plains, always insisting that this or that was the site of the promised cave, and followed not simply by the soldiers but by a whole people of rustics enlisted to carry out the work — at last threw off his delusion, and, with an astonished protest that never before had his dreams proved fallible and that this was a first deception, avoided disgrace and danger by a voluntary death. By some the statement is made that he was imprisoned, only to be released shortly afterwards, his property being confiscated to replace the queen’s treasure.
4 1 In the meantime, with the Quinquennial Contest hard at hand, the senate attempted to avert a scandal by offering the emperor the victory in song, adding a “crown of eloquence,” to cover the stigma inseparable from the stage. Nero protested, however, that he needed neither private interest nor the authority of the senate — he was meeting his competitors on equal terms, and would acquire an honestly earned distinction by the conscientious award of the judges. He began by reciting a poem on the stage: then, as the crowd clamoured for him to “display all his accomplishments” (the exact phrase used), he entered the theatre, observing the full rules of the harp — not to sit down when weary, not to wipe away the sweat except with the robe he was wearing, to permit no discharge from the mouth or nostrils to be visible. Finally, on bended knee, a hand kissed in salutation to that motley gathering, he awaited the verdict of the judges in feigned trepidation. And the city rabble, at least, accustomed to encourage the posturing even of the ordinary actor, thundered approval in measured cadences and regulated plaudits. You might have supposed them to be rejoicing; and possibly rejoicing they were, without a care for the national dishonour!
5 1 But the spectators from remote country towns in the still austere Italy tenacious of its ancient ways — those novices in wantonness from far-off provinces, who had come on a public mission or upon private business — were neither able to tolerate the spectacle nor competent to their degrading task. They flagged with inexperienced hands; they deranged the experts; often they had to be castigated by the soldiers stationed among the blocks of seats to assure that not a moment of time should be wasted in unmodulated clamour or sluggish silence. It was known that numbers of knights were crushed to death while fighting their way up through the narrow gangway and the inrush of the descending crowd, and that others, through spending day and night on the benches, were attacked by incurable disease. For it was a graver ground of fear to be missing from the spectacle, since there was a host of spies openly present, and more in hiding, to note the names and faces, the gaiety and gloom, of the assembly. Hence, the lot of the humble was punishment, at once inflicted: in the case of the great, the debt of hatred, dissembled for a moment, was speedily repaid; and the story was told that Vespasian, reprimanded by the freedman Phoebus for closing his eyelids, and screened with difficulty by the prayers of the better party, was only saved later from the impending destruction by his predestined greatness.
6 1 After the close of the festival, Poppaea met her end through a chance outburst of anger on the part of her husband, who felled her with a kick during pregnancy. That poison played its part I am unable to believe, though the assertion is made by some writers less from conviction than from hatred; for Nero was desirous of children, and love for his wife was a ruling passion. The body was not cremated in the Roman style, but, in conformity with the practice of foreign courts, was embalmed by stuffing with spices, then laid to rest in the mausoleum of the Julian race. Still, a public funeral was held; and the emperor at the Rostra eulogized her beauty, the fact that she had been the mother of an infant daughter now divine, and other favours of fortune which did duty for virtues.
7 1 To the death of Poppaea, outwardly regretted, but welcome to all who remembered her profligacy and cruelty, Nero added a fresh measure of odium by prohibiting Gaius Cassius from attendance at the funeral. It was the first hint of mischief. Nor was the mischief long delayed. Silanus was associated with him; their only crime being that Cassius was eminent for a great hereditary fortune and an austere character, Silanus for a noble lineage and a temperate youth. Accordingly, the emperor sent a speech to the senate, arguing that both should be removed from public life, and objecting to the former that, among his other ancestral effigies, he had honoured a bust of Gaius Cassius, inscribed:—”To the leader of the cause.” The seeds of civil war, and revolt from the house of the Caesars, — such were the objects he had pursued. And, not to rely merely on the memory of a hated name as an incentive to faction, he had taken to himself a partner in Lucius Silanus, a youth of noble family and headstrong temper, who was to be his figure-head for a revolution.
8 1 He then attacked Silanus himself in the same strain as his uncle Torquatus, alleging that he was already apportioning the responsibilities of empire, and appointing freedmen to the charge of “accounts, documents, and correspondence”: an indictment at once frivolous and false; for the prevalent alarms had made Silanus vigilant, and his uncle’s doom has terrified him into especial caution. Next, so-called informers were introduced to forge against Lepida — wife of Cassius, aunt of Silanus — a tale of incest, committed with her brother’s son, and of magical ceremonies. The senators Vulcacius Tullinus and Cornelius Marcellus were brought in as accomplices, with the Roman knight Calpurnius Fabatus. Their imminent condemnation they cheated by appealing to the emperor, and later, as being of minor importance, made good their escape from Nero, now fully occupied by crimes of the first magnitude.
9 1 Then, by decree of the senate, sentences of exile were registered against Cassius and Silanus: on the case of Lepida the Caesar was to pronounce. Cassius was deported to the island of Sardinia, and old age left to do its work. Silanus, ostensibly bound for Naxos, was removed to Ostia, and afterwards confined in an Apulian town by the name of Barium. There, while supporting with philosophy
his most unworthy fate, he was seized by a centurion sent for the slaughter. To the suggestion that he should cut an artery, he replied that he had, in fact, made up his mind to die, but could not excuse the assassin his glorious duty. The centurion, however, noticing that, if unarmed, he was very strongly built and betrayed more anger than timidity, ordered his men to overpower him. Silanus did not fail to struggle, and to strike with what vigour his bare fists permitted, until he dropped under the sword of the centurion, as upon a field of battle, his wounds in front.
10 1 With not less courage Lucius Vetus, his mother-in-law Sextia, and his daughter Pollitta, met their doom: they were loathed by the emperor, who took their life to be a standing protest against the slaying of Rubellius Plautus, the son-in-law of Vetus. But the opportunity for laying bare his ferocity was supplied by the freedman Fortunatus; who, after embezzling his patron’s property, now deserted him to turn accuser, and called to his aid Claudius Demianus, imprisoned for heinous offences by Vetus in his proconsulate of Asia, but now freed by Nero as the recompense of delation. Apprized of this, and gathering that he and his freedman were to meet in the struggle as equals, the accused left for his estate at Formiae. There heº was placed under a tacit surveillance by the military. He had with him his daughter, who apart from the impending danger, was embittered by a grief which had lasted since the day when she watched the assassins of her husband Plautus — she had clasped the bleeding neck, and still treasured her blood-flecked robe, widowed, unkempt, unconsoled, and fasting except for a little sustenance to keep death at bay. Now, at the prompting of her father, she went to Naples; and, debarred from access to Nero, besieged his doors, crying to him to give ear to the guiltless and not surrender to a freedman the one-time partner of his consulate; sometimes with female lamentations, and again in threatening accents which went beyond her sex, until the sovereign showed himself inflexible alike to prayer and to reproach.
Complete Works of Tacitus (Delphi Classics) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 24) Page 91
