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

by Publius Cornelius Tacitus

  [70] At Germanicus legionum, quas navibus vexerat, secundam et quartam decimam itinere terrestri P. Vitellio ducendas tradit, quo levior classis vadoso mari innaret vel reciproco sideret. Vitellius primum iter sicca humo aut modice adlabente aestu quietum habuit: mox inpulsu aquilonis, simul sidere aequinoctii, quo maxime tumescit Oceanus, rapi agique agmen. et opplebantur terrae: eadem freto litori campis facies, neque discemi poterant incerta ab solidis, brevia a profundis. sternuntur fluctibus, hauriuntur gurgitibus; iumenta, sarcinae, corpora exanima interfluunt, occursant. permiscentur inter se manipuli, modo pectore, modo ore tenus extantes, aliquando subtracto solo disiecti aut obruti. non vox et mutui hortatus iuvabant adversante unda; nihil strenuus ab ignavo, sapiens ab inprudenti, consilia a casu differre: cuncta pari violentia involvebantur. tandem Vitellius in editiora enisus eodem agmen subduxit. pernoctavere sine utensilibus, sine igni, magna pars nudo aut mulcato corpore, haud minus miserabiles quam quos hostis circumsidet: quippe illic etiam honestae mortis usus, his inglorium exitium. Iux reddidit terram, penetratumque ad amnem [Visurgin], quo Caesar classe contenderat. in positae dein legiones, vagante fama submersas; nec fides salutis, antequam Caesarem exercitumque reducem videre.

  70 Meanwhile Germanicus, in order to lighten the fleet in case it should have to navigate shallow water or should find itself grounded at ebb-tide, transferred two of the legions he had brought on shipboard — the second and fourteenth — to Publius Vitellius, who was to march them back by the land route. At first Vitellius had an uneventful journey over dry ground or through gently running tides. Before long, however, a northerly gale, aggravated by the equinox, during which the Ocean is always at its wildest, began to play havoc with the column. Then the whole land became a flood: sea, shore, and plain wore a single aspect; and it was impossible to distinguish solid from fluid, deep from shallow. Men were dashed over by the billows or drawn under by the eddies: packhorses — their loads — lifeless bodies — came floating through, or colliding with, the ranks. The companies became intermingled, the men standing one moment up to the breast, another up to the chin, in water; then the ground would fail beneath them, and they were scattered or submerged. Words and mutual encouragement availed nothing against the deluge: there was no difference between bravery and cowardice, between wisdom and folly, circumspection or chance; everything was involved in the same fury of the elements. At last Vitellius struggled out on to rising ground and led his columns after him. They spent the night without necessities, without fire, many of them naked or badly maimed, — every whit as wretched as their comrades in the invested camp. For those at least had the resource of an honourable death; here was destruction without the glory. Day brought back the land, and they pushed on to the river to which Germanicus had preceded them with the fleet. The legions then embarked. Current report proclaimed them drowned, and the doubts of their safety were soon dispelled by the sight of the Caesar returning with his army.

  [71] Iam Stertinius, ad accipiendum in deditionem Segimerum fratrem Segestis praemissus, ipsum et filium eius in civitatem Vbiorum perduxerat. data utrique venia, facile Segimero, cunctantius filio, quia Quintilii Vari corpus inlusisse dicebatur. ceterum ad supplenda exercitus damna certavere Galliae Hispaniae Italia, quod cuique promptum, arma equos aurum offerentes. quorum laudato studio Germanicus, armis modo et equis ad bellum sumptis, propria pecunia militem iuvit. utque cladis memoriam etiam comitate leniret, circumire saucios, facta singulorum extollere; vulnera intuens alium spe, alium gloria, cunctos adloquio et cura sibique et proelio firmabat.

  71 By this time, Stertinius, who had been sent forward to receive the submission of Segestes’ brother Segimerus, had brought him and his son through to the Ubian capital. Both were pardoned; Segimerus without any demur, his son with more hesitation, as he was said to have insulted the corpse of Quintilius Varus. For the rest, the two Gauls, the Spains, and Italy vied in making good the losses of the army with offers of weapons, horses, or gold, according to the special capacity of each province. Germanicus applauded their zeal, but took only arms and horses for the campaign: the soldiers he assisted from his private means. To soften by kindness also their recollections of the late havoc, he made a round of the wounded, praised their individual exploits; and, while inspecting their injuries, confirmed their enthusiasm for himself and battle, here by the stimulus of hope, there by that of glory, and everywhere by his consolations and solicitude.

  [72] Decreta eo anno triumphalia insignia A. Caecinae, L. Apronio, C. Silio ob res cum Germanico gestas. nomen patris patriae Tiberius, a populo saepius ingestum, repudiavit; neque in acta sua iurari quamquam censente senatu permisit, cuncta mortalium incerta, quantoque plus adeptus foret, tanto se magis in lubrico dictitans. non tamen ideo faciebat fidem civilis animi; nam legem maiestatis reduxerat, cui nomen apud veteres idem, sed alia in iudicium veniebant, si quis proditione exercitum aut plebem seditionibus, denique male gesta re publica maiestatem populi Romani minuisset: facta arguebantur, dicta inpune erant. primus Augustus cognitionem de famosis libellis specie legis eius tractavit, commotus Cassii Severi libidine, qua viros feminasque inlustris procacibus scriptis diffamaverat; mox Tiberius, consultante Pompeio Macro praetore an iudicia maiestatis redderentur, exercendas leges esse re spondit. hunc quoque asperavere carmina incertis auctoribus vulgata in saevitiam superbiamque eius et discordem cum matre animum.

  72 In this year triumphal distinctions were voted to Aulus Caecina, Lucius Apronius, and Caius Silius, in return for their services with Germanicus. Tiberius rejected the title Father of his Country, though it had been repeatedly pressed upon him by the people: and, disregarding a vote of the senate, refused to allow the taking of an oath to obey his enactments. “All human affairs,” so ran his comment, “were uncertain, and the higher he climbed the more slippery his position.” Yet even so he failed to inspire the belief that his sentiments were not monarchical. For he had resuscitated the Lex Majestatis, a statute which in the old jurisprudence had carried the same name but covered a different type of offence — betrayal of an army; seditious incitement of the populace; any act, in short, of official maladministration diminishing the “majesty of the Roman nation.” Deeds were challenged, words went immune. The first to take cognizance of written libel under the statute was Augustus; who was provoked to the step by the effrontery with which Cassius Severus had blackened the characters of men and women of repute in his scandalous effusions: then Tiberius, to an inquiry put by the praetor, Pompeius Macer, whether process should still be granted on this statute, replied that “the law ought to take its course.” He, too, had been ruffled by verses of unknown authorship satirizing his cruelty, his arrogance, and his estrangement from his mother.

  [73] Haud pigebit referre in Falanio et Rubrio, modicis equitibus Romanis, praetemptata crimina, ut quibus initiis, quanta Tiberii arte gravissimum exitium inrepserit, dein repressum sit, postremo arserit cunctaque corripuerit, noscatur. Falanio obiciebat accusator, quod inter cultores Augusti, qui per omnis domos in modum collegiorum habebantur, Cassium quendam mimum corpore infamem adscivisset, quodque venditis hortis statuam Augusti simul mancipasset. Rubrio crimini dabatur violatum periurio numen Augusti. quae ubi Tiberio notuere, scripsit consulibus non ideo decretum patri suo caelum, ut in perniciem civium is honor verteretur. Cassium histrionem solitum inter alios eiusdem artis interesse ludis, quos mater sua in memoriam Augusti sacrasset; nec contra religiones fieri quod effigies eius, ut alia numinum simulacra, venditionibus hortorum et domuum accedant. ius iurandum perinde aestimandum quam si Iovem fefellisset: deorum iniurias dis curae.

  73 It will not be unremunerative to recall the first, tentative charges brought in the case of Falanius and Rubrius, two Roman knights of modest position; if only to show from what beginnings, thanks to the art of Tiberius, the accursed thing crept in, and, after a temporary check, at last broke out, an all-devouring conflagration. Against Falanius the accuser alleged that he had admitted a certain Cassius, mime and catamite, among the “votaries of Augustus,” who were maintained, a
fter the fashion of fraternities, in all the great houses: also, that when selling his gardens, he had parted with a statue of Augustus as well. To Rubrius the crime imputed was violation of the deity of Augustus by perjury. When the facts came to the knowledge of Tiberius, he wrote to the consuls that place in heaven had not been decreed to his father in order that the honour might be turned to the destruction of his countrymen. Cassius, the actor, with others of his trade, had regularly taken part in the games which his own mother had consecrated to the memory of Augustus; nor was it an act of sacrilege, if the effigies of that sovereign, like other images of other gods, went with the property, whenever a house or garden was sold. As to the perjury, it was on the same footing as if the defendant had taken the name of Jupiter in vain: the gods must look to their own wrongs.

  [74] Nec multo post Granium Marcellum praetorem Bithyniae quaestor ipsius Caepio Crispinus maiestatis postulavit, subscribente Romano Hispone: qui formam vitae iniit, quam postea celebrem miseriae temporum et audaciae hominum fecerunt. nam egens, ignotus, inquies, dum occultis libellis saevitiae principis adrepit, mox clarissimo cuique periculum facessit, potentiam apud unum, odium apud omnis adeptus dedit exemplum, quod secuti ex pauperibus divites, ex contemptis metuendi perniciem aliis ac postremum sibi invenere. sed Marcellum insimulabat sinistros de Tiberio sermones habuisse, inevitabile crimen, cum ex moribus principis foedissima quaeque deligeret accusator obiectaretque reo. nam quia vera erant, etiam dicta credebantur. addidit Hispo statuam Marcelli altius quam Caesarum sitam, et alia in statua amputato capite Augusti effigiem Tiberii inditam. ad quod exarsit adeo, ut rupta taciturnitate proclamaret se quoque in ea causa laturum sententiam palam et iuratum, quo ceteris eadem necessitas fieret. manebant etiam tum vestigia morientis libertatis. igitur Cn. Piso ‘quo’ inquit ‘loco censebis, Caesar? si primus, habebo quod sequar: si post omnis, vereor ne inprudens dissentiam.’ permotus his, quantoque incautius efrerverat, paenitentia patiens tulit absolvi reum criminibus maiestatis: de pecuniis repetundis ad reciperatores itum est.

  74 Before long, Granius Marcellus, praetor of Bithynia, found himself accused of treason by his own quaestor, Caepio Crispinus, with Hispo Romanus to back the charge. Caepio was the pioneer in a walk of life which the miseries of the age and effronteries of men soon rendered popular. Indigent, unknown, unresting, first creeping, with his private reports, into the confidence of his pitiless sovereign, then a terror to the noblest, he acquired the favour of one man, the hatred of all, and set an example, the followers of which passed from beggary to wealth, from being despised to being feared, and crowned at last the ruin of others by their own. He alleged that Marcellus had retailed sinister anecdotes about Tiberius: a damning indictment, when the accuser selected the foulest qualities of the imperial character, and attributed their mention to the accused. For, as the facts were true, they were also believed to have been related! Hispo added that Marcellus’ own statue was placed on higher ground than those of the Caesars, while in another the head of Augustus had been struck off to make room for the portrait of Tiberius. This incensed the emperor to such a degree that, breaking through his taciturnity, he exclaimed that, in this case, he too would vote, openly and under oath, — the object being to impose a similar obligation on the rest. There remained even yet some traces of dying liberty. Accordingly Gnaeus Piso inquired: “In what order will you register your opinion, Caesar? If first, I shall have something to follow: if last of all, I fear I may inadvertently find myself on the other side.” The words went home; and with a meekness that showed how profoundly he rued his unwary outburst, he voted for the acquittal of the defendant on the counts of treason. The charge of peculation went before the appropriate commission.

  [75] Nec patrum cognitionibus satiatus iudiciis adsidebat in cornu tribunalis, ne praetorem curuli depelleret; multaque eo coram adversus ambitum et potentium preces constituta. sed dum veritilti consulitur, libertas corrumpebatur. inter quae Pius Aurelius senator questus mole publicae viae ductuque aquarum labefactas aedis suas, auxilium patrum invocabat. resistentibus aerarii praetoribus subvenit Caesar pretiumque aedium Aurelio tribuit, erogandae per honesta pecuniae cupiens, quam virtutem diu retinuit, cum ceteras exueret. Propertio Celeri praetorio, veniam ordinis ob paupertatem petenti, decies sestertium largitus est, satis conperto paternas ei angustias esse. temptantis eadem alios probare causam senatui iussit, cupidine severitatis in iis etiam quae rite faceret acerbus. unde ceteri silentium et paupertatem confessioni et beneficio praeposuere.

  75 Not satiated with senatorial cases, he took to sitting in the common courts, — at a corner of the tribunal, so as not to dispossess the praetor of his chair. As a result of his presence, many verdicts were recorded in defiance of intrigue and of the solicitations of the great. Still, while equity gained, liberty suffered. — Among these cases, Aurelius Pius, a member of the senate, complained that by the construction of a public road and aqueduct his house had been left insecure; and he asked compensation from the Fathers. As the treasury officials were obdurate, Tiberius came to the rescue, and paid him the value of his mansion: for, given a good cause, he was ready and eager to spend — a virtue which he long retained, even when he was denuding himself of every other. When Propertius Celer, the ex-praetor, applied to be excused from his senatorial rank on the score of poverty, he satisfied himself that his patrimony was in fact embarrassed, and made him a gift of one million sesterces. Others who tried a similar experiment were ordered to make out a case before the senate: for in his passion for austerity, even where he acted justly, he contrived to be harsh. The rest, therefore, preferred silence and poverty to confession and charity.

  [76] Eodem anno continuis imbribus auctus Tiberis plana urbis stagnaverat; relabentem secuta est aedificiorum et hominum strages. igitur censuit Asinius Gallus ut libri Sibyllini adirentur. Renuit Tiberius, perinde divina humanaque obtegens; sed remedium coercendi fluminis Ateio Calpitoni et L. Arruntio mandatum. Achaiam ac Macedoniam onera deprecantis levari in praesens proconsulari imperio tradique Caesari placuit. edendis gladiatoribus, quos Germanici fratris ac suo nomine obtulerat, Drusus praesedit, quamquam vili sanguine nimis gaudens; quod [in] vu]gus formidolosum et pater arguisse dicebatur. cur abstinuerit spectaculo ipse, varie trahebant; alii taedio coetus, quidam tristitia ingenii et metu conparationis, quia Augustus comiter interfuisset. non crediderim ad ostentandam saevitiam movendasque populi offensiones concessam filio materiem, quamquam id quoque dictum est.

  76 In the same year, the Tiber, rising under the incessant rains, had flooded the lower levels of the city, and its subsidence was attended by much destruction of buildings and life. Accordingly, Asinius Gallus moved for a reference to the Sibylline Books. Tiberius objected, preferring secrecy as in earth so in heaven: still, the task of coercing the stream was entrusted to Ateius Capito and Lucius Arruntius. Since Achaia and Macedonia protested against the heavy taxation, it was decided to relieve them of their proconsular government for the time being and transfer them to the emperor. A show of gladiators, given in the name of his brother Germanicus, was presided over by Drusus, who took an extravagant pleasure in the shedding of blood however vile — a trait so alarming to the populace that it was said to have been censured by his father. Tiberius’ own absence from the exhibition was variously explained. Some ascribed it to his impatience of a crowd; others, to his native morosity and his dread of comparisons; for Augustus had been a good-humoured spectator. I should be slow to believe that he deliberately furnished his son with an occasion for exposing his brutality and arousing the disgust of the nation; yet even this was suggested.

  [77] At theatri licentia, proximo priore anno coepta, gravius tum erupit, occisis non modo e plebe set militibus et centurione, vulnerato tribuno praetoriae cohortis, dum probra in magistratus et dissensionem vulgi prohibent. actum de ea seditione apud patres dicebanturque sententiae, ut praetoribus ius virgarum in histriones esset. intercessit Haterius Agrippa tribunus plebei increpitusque est Asinii Galli oratione, silente Tiberio, qui ea simulacra libertatis senatui
praebebat. valuit tamen intercessio, quia divus Augustus immunis verberum histriones quondam responderat, neque fas Tiberio infringere dicta eius. de modo lucaris et adversus lasciviam fautorum multa decernuntur; ex quis maxime insignia, ne domos pantomimorum senator introiret, ne egredientis in publicum equites Romani cingerent aut alibi quam in theatro spectarentur, et spectantium immodestiam exilio multandi potestas praetoribus fieret.

  77 The disorderliness of the stage, which had become apparent the year before, now broke out on a more serious scale. Apart from casualties among the populace, several soldiers and a centurion were killed, and an officer of the Praetorian Guards wounded, in the attempt to repress the insults levelled at the magistracy and the dissension of the crowd. The riot was discussed in the senate, and proposals were mooted that the praetors should be empowered to use the lash on actors. Haterius Agrippa, a tribune of the people, interposed his veto, and was attacked in a speech by Asinius Gallus, Tiberius said nothing: these were the phantoms of liberty which he permitted to the senate. Still the veto held good: for the deified Augustus had once remarked, in answer to a question, that players were immune from the scourge; and it would be blasphemy in Tiberius to contravene his words. Measures in plenty were framed to limit the expenditure on entertainments and to curb the extravagance of the partisans. The most striking were: that no senator was to enter the houses of the pantomimes; that, if they came out into public, Roman knights were not to gather round, nor were their performances to be followed except in the theatre; while the praetors were to be authorized to punish by exile any disorder among the spectators.