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

by Publius Cornelius Tacitus

  51 The appointment of a praetor to replace Vipstanus Gallus, cut off by death, gave rise to dispute. Germanicus and Drusus — for they were still at Rome — supported Haterius Agrippa, a kinsman of Germanicus. On the other hand, many insisted that the deciding factor should be the number of a candidate’s children — legally the correct position. Tiberius was overjoyed to see the senate divided between his sons and the laws. The law was certainly defeated, but not immediately and by a few votes only, — the mode in which laws were defeated even in days when laws had force!

  [52] Eodem anno coeptum in Africa bellum, duce hostium Tacfarinate. is natione Numida, in castris Romanis auxiliaria stipendia meritus, mox desertor, vagos primum et latrociniis suetos ad praedam et raptus congregare, dein more militiae per vexilla et turmas componere, postremo non inconditae turbae sed Musulamiorum dux haberi. valida ea gens et solitudinibus Africae propinqua, nullo etiam tum urbium cultu, cepit arma Maurosque accolas in bellum traxit: dux et his, Mazippa. divisusque exercitus, ut Tacfarinas lectos viros et Romanum in modum armatos castris attineret, disciplina et imperiis suesceret, Mazippa levi cum copia incendia et caedis et terrorem circumferret. coapulerantque Cinithios, haud spernendam nationem, in eadem, cum Furius Camillus pro consule Africae legionem et quod sub signis sociorum in unum conductos ad hostem duxit, modicam manum, si multitudinem Numidarum atque Maurorum spectares; sed nihil aeque cavabatur quam ne bellum metu eluderent; spe victoriae inducti sunt ut vincerentur. igitur legio medio, leves cohortes duaeque alae in cornibus locantur. nec Tacfarinas pugnam detrectavit. fusi Numidae, multosque post annos Furio nomini partum decus militiae. nam post illum reciperatorem urbis filiumque eius Camillum penes alias familias imperatoria laus fuerat; atque hic, quem memoramus, bellorum expers habebatur. eo pronior Tiberius res gestas apud senatum celebravit; et decrevere patres triumphalia insignia, quod Camillo ob modestiam vitae impune fuit.

  52 In the course of the same year, war broke out in Africa; where the enemy was commanded by Tacfarinas. By nationality a Numidian, who had served as an auxiliary in the Roman camp and then deserted, he began by recruiting gangs of vagrants, accustomed to robbery, for the purposes of plunder and of rapine: then he marshalled them into a body in the military style by companies and troops; finally, he was recognized as the head, not of a chaotic horde, but of the Musulamian people. That powerful tribe, bordering on the solitudes of Africa, and even then innocent of city life, took up arms and drew the adjacent Moors into the conflict. They, too, had their leader, Mazippa; and the confederate army was so divided that Tacfarinas could retain in camp a picked corps, equipped on the Roman model, and there inure it to discipline and obedience, while Mazippa, with a light-armed band, disseminated fire, slaughter, and terror. They had forced the Cinithians, by no means a negligible tribe, to join them, when Furius Camillus, proconsul of Africa, combined his legion with the whole of the auxiliaries under the standards, and led them towards the enemy — a modest array in view of the multitude of Numidians and Moors; yet the one thing he was anxious above all to avoid was that they should take fright and evade a trial of arms. The hope of victory, however, lured them into defeat. The legion, then, was posted in the centre; the light cohorts and two squadrons of horse on the wings. Nor did Tacfarinas decline the challenge: the Numidians were routed; and after many years the Furian name won martial honours. For, since the days of Rome’s great recoverer and his son, the laurels of high command had passed to other houses; and the Camillus with whom we are here concerned was not regarded as a soldier. Tiberius, therefore, was the readier to laud his exploits before the senate; while the Fathers voted him the insignia of triumph — to the unassuming Camillus an innocuous compliment.

  [53] Sequens annus Tiberium tertio, Germanicum iterum consules habuit. sed eum honorem Germanicus iniit apud urbem Achaiae Nicopolim, quo venerat per Illyricam oram viso fratre Druso in Delmatia agente, Hadriatici ac mox Ionii maris adversam navigationem perpessus. igitur paucos dies insumpsit reficiendae classi; simul sinus Actiaca victoria inclutos et sacratas ab Augusto manubias castraque Antonii cum recordatione maiorum suorum adiit. namque ei, ut memoravi, avunculus Augustus, avus Antonius erant, magnaque illic imago tristium laetorumque. hinc ventum Athenas, foederique sociae et vetustae urbis datum ut uno lictore uteretur. excepere Graeci quaesitissimis honoribus, vetera suorum facta dictaque praeferentes quo plus dignationis adulatio haberet.

  53 The following year found Tiberius consul for a third time; Germanicus, for a second. The latter, however, entered upon that office in the Achaian town of Nicopolis, which he had reached by skirting the Illyrian coast after a visit to his brother Drusus, then resident in Dalmatia: the passage had been stormy both in the Adriatic and, later, in the Ionian Sea. He spent a few days, therefore, in refitting the fleet; while at the same time, evoking the memory of his ancestors, he viewed the gulf immortalized by the victory of Actium, together with the spoils which Augustus had consecrated, and the camp of Antony. For Augustus, as I have said, was his great-uncle, Antony his grandfather; and before his eyes lay the whole great picture of disaster and of triumph. — He next arrived at Athens; where, in deference to our treaty with an allied and time-honoured city, he made use of one lictor alone. The Greeks received him with most elaborate compliments, and, in order to temper adulation with dignity, paraded the ancient doings and sayings of their countrymen.

  [54] Petita inde Euboca tramisit Lesbum ubi Agrippina novissimo partu Iuliam edidit. tum extrema Asiae Perinthumque ac Byzantium, Thraecias urbes, mox Propontidis angustias et os Ponticum intrat, cupidine veteres locos et fama celebratos noscendi; pariterque provincias internis certaminibus aut magistratuum iniuriis fessas refovebat. atque illum in regressu sacra Samothracum visere nitentem obvii aquilones depulere. igitur adito Ilio quaeque ibi varietate fortunae et nostri origine veneranda, relegit Asiam adpellitque Colophona ut Clarii Apollinis oraculo uteretur. non femina illic, ut apud Delphos, sed certis e familiis et ferme Mileto accitus sacerdos numerum modo consultantium et nomina audit; tum in specum degressus, hausta fontis arcani aqua, ignarus plerumque litterarum et carminum edit responsa versibus compositis super rebus quas quis mente concepit. et ferebatur Germanico per ambages, ut mos oraculis, maturum exitum cecinisse.

  54 From Athens he visited Euboea, and crossed over to Lesbos; where Agrippina, in her last confinement, gave birth to Julia. Entering the outskirts of Asia, and the Thracian towns of Perinthus and Byzantium, he then struck through the straits of the Bosphorus and the mouth of the Euxine, eager to make the acquaintance of those ancient and storied regions, though simultaneously he brought relief to provinces outworn by internecine feud or official tyranny. On the return journey, he made an effort to visit the Samothracian Mysteries, but was met by northerly winds, and failed to make the shore. So, after an excursion to Troy and those venerable remains which attest the mutability of fortune and the origin of Rome, he skirted the Asian coast once more, and anchored off Colophon, in order to consult the oracle of the Clarian Apollo. Here it is not a prophetess, as at Delphi, but a male priest, chosen out of a restricted number of families, and in most cases imported from Miletus, who hears the number and the names of the consultants, but no more, then descends into a cavern, swallows a draught of water from a mysterious spring, and — though ignorant generally of writing and of metre — delivers his response in set verses dealing with the subject each inquirer had in mind. Rumour said that he had predicted to Germanicus his hastening fate, though in the equivocal terms which oracles affect.

  [55] At Cn. Piso quo properantius destinata inciperet civitatem Atheniensium turbido incessu exterritam oratione saeva increpat, oblique Germanicum perstringens quod contra decus Romani nominis non Atheniensis tot cladibus extinctos, sed conluviem illam nationum comitate nimia coluisset: hos enim esse Mithridatis adversus Sullam, Antonii adversus divum Augustum socios. etiam vetena obiectabat, quae in Macedones inprospere, violenter in suos fecissent, offensus urbi propria quoque ira quia Theophilum quendam Areo iudicio falsi damnatum precibus suis non concede
rent. exim navigatione celeri per Cycladas ee compendia maris adsequitur Germanicum apud insulam Rhodum, haud nescium quibus insectationibus petitus foret: sed tanta mansuetudine agebat ut, cum orta tempestas raperet in abrupta possetque interitus inimici ad casum referri, miserit triremis quarum subsidio discrimini eximeretur. neque tamen mitigatus Piso, et vix diei moram perpessus linquit Germanicum praevenitque. et postquam Syriam ac legiones attigit, largitione, ambitu, infimos manipularium iuvando, cum veteres centuriones, severos tribunos demoveret locaque eorum clientibus suis vel deterrimo cuique attribueret, desidiam in castris, licentiam in urbibus, vagum ac lascivientem per agros militem sineret, eo usque corruptionis provectus est ut sermone vulgi parens legionum haberetur. nec Plancina se intra decora feminis tenebat, .sed exercitio equitum, decursibus cohortium interesse, in Agrippinam, in Germanicum contumelias iacere, quibusdam etiam bonorum militum ad mala obsequia promptis, quod haud invito imperatore ea fieri occultus rumor incedebat. nota haec Germanico, sed praeverti ad Armenios instantior cura fuit.

  55 Meanwhile Gnaeus Piso, in haste to embark upon his schemes, first alarmed the community of Athens by a tempestuous entry, then assailed them in a virulent speech, which included an indirect attack on Germanicus for “compromising the dignity of the Roman name by his exaggerated civilities, not to the Athenians (whose repeated disasters had extinguished the breed) but to the present cosmopolitan rabble. For these were the men who had leagued themselves with Mithridates against Sulla, with Antony against the deified Augustus!” He upbraided them even with their ancient history; their ill-starred outbreaks against Macedon and their violence towards their own countrymen. Private resentment, also, embittered him against the town, as the authorities refused to give up at his request a certain Theophilus, whom the verdict of the Areopagus had declared guilty of forgery. After this, quick sailing by a short route through the Cyclades brought him up with Germanicus at Rhodes. The prince was aware of the invectives with which he had been assailed; yet he behaved with such mildness that, when a rising storm swept Piso toward the rock-bound coast, and the destruction of his foe could have been referred to misadventure, he sent warships to help in extricating him from his predicament. Even so, Piso was not mollified; and, after reluctantly submitting to the loss of a single day, he left Germanicus and completed the journey first. Then, the moment he reached Syria and the legions, by bounties and by bribery, by attentions to the humblest private, by dismissals of the veteran centurions and the stricter commanding officers, whom he replaced by dependants of his own or by men of the worst character, by permitting indolence in the camp, licence in the towns, and in the country a vagrant and riotous soldiery, he carried corruption to such a pitch that in the language of the rabble he was known as the Father of the Legions. Nor could Plancina contain herself within the limits of female decorum: she attended cavalry exercises and infantry manoeuvres; she flung her gibes at Agrippina or Germanicus; some even of the loyal troops being ready to yield her a disloyal obedience; for a whispered rumour was gaining ground that these doings were not unacceptable to the emperor. The state of affairs was known to Germanicus, but his more immediate anxiety was to reach Armenia first.

  [56] Ambigua gens ea antiquitus hominum ingeniis et situ terrarum, quoniam nostris provinciis late praetenta penitus ad Medos porrigitur; maximisque imperiis interiecti et saepius discordes sunt, adversus Romanos odio et in Parthum invidia. regem illa tempestate non habobant, amoto Vonone: sed favor nationis inclinabat in Zenonem, Polemonis regis Pontici filium, quod is prima ab infantia instituta et cultum Armeniorum aemulatus, venatu epulis et quae alia barbari celebrant, proceres plebemque iuxta devinxerat. igitur Germanicus in urbe Artaxata adprobantibus nobilibus, circumfusa multitudine, insigne regium capiti eius imposuit. ceteri venerantes regem Artaxiam consalutavere, quod illi vocabulum indiderant ex nomine urbis. at Cappadoces in formam provinciae redacti Q. Veranium legatum accepere; et quaedam ex regiis tributis deminuta quo mitius Romanum imperium speraretur. Commagenis Q. Servaeus praeponitur, tum primum ad ius praetoris translatis.

  56 That country, from the earliest period, has owned a national character and a geographical situation of equal ambiguity, since with a wide extent of frontier conterminous with our own provinces, it stretches inland right up to Media; so that the Armenians lie interposed between two vast empires, with which, as they detest Rome and envy the Parthian, they are too frequently at variance. At the moment they lacked a king, owing to the removal of Vonones, but the national sentiment leaned to Zeno, a son of the Pontic sovereign Polemo: for the prince, an imitator from earliest infancy of Armenian institutions and dress, had endeared himself equally to the higher and the lower orders by his affection for the chase, the banquet, and the other favourite pastimes of barbarians. Accordingly, in the town of Artaxata, before the consenting nobles and a great concourse of the people, Germanicus placed on his head the emblem of royalty. All save the Romans did homage and acclaimed King Artaxias — an appellation suggested by the name of the city. On the other hand, Cappadocia, reduced to the rank of a province, received Quintus Veranius as governor; and, to encourage hope in the mildness of Roman sway, a certain number of the royal tributes were diminished. Quintus Servaeus was appointed to Commagene, now for the first time transferred to praetorian jurisdiction.

  [57] Cunctaque socialia prospere composita non ideo laetum Germanicum habebant ob superbiam Pisonis qui iussus partem legionum ipse aut per filium in Armeniam ducere utrumque neglexerat Cyrri demum apud hiberna decumae legionis convenere, firmato vultu, Piso adversus metum, Germanicus ne minari crederetur; et erat, ut rettuli, clementior. sed amici accendendis offensionibus callidi intendere vera, adgerere falsa ipsumque et Plancinam et filios variis modis criminari. postremo paucis familiarium adhibitis sermo coeptus a Caesare, qualem ira et dissimulatio gignit, responsum a Pisone precibus contumacibus; discesseruntque apertis odiis. post quae rarus in tribunali Caesaris Piso, et si quando adsideret, atrox ac dissentire manifestus. vox quoque eius audita est in convivio, cum apud regem Nabataeorum coronae aureae magno pondere Caesari et Agrippinae, leves Pisoni et ceteris offerrentur, principis Romani, non Parthi regis filio eas epulas dari; abiecitque simul coronam et multa in luxum addidit quae Germanico quamquam acerba tolerabantur tamen.

  57 Complete and happy as was his adjustment of the allies’ affairs, it gave Germanicus no satisfaction, in view of the insolence of Piso; who, when ordered to conduct part of the legions into Armenia either in his own person or in that of his son, had ignored both alternatives. In Cyrrus, the winter-quarters of the tenth legion, they met at last, their features schooled to exclude, in Piso’s case, all evidence of alarm; in the Caesar’s, all suggestion of a threat. He was, in fact, as I have stated, indulgent to a fault. But his friends had the craft to inflame his resentments: they aggravated truths, accumulated falsehoods, levelled a miscellany of charges at Piso, Plancina, and their sons. Finally, in the presence of a few intimates, the prince opened the conversation in the key always struck by dissembled anger; Piso returned a defiant apology, and they parted in open hatred. From now onward, Piso’s appearances at the tribunal of Germanicus were rare; and, on the occasions when he took his seat, it was with the sullen air of undisguised opposition. Again he was heard to remark in a banquet at the Nabataean court, when massive golden crowns were offered to Germanicus and Agrippina, and lighter specimens to Piso and the rest, that this was a dinner given to the son, not of a Parthian king, but of a Roman prince. At the same time, he tossed his crown aside, and added a diatribe on luxury, which Germanicus, in spite of its bitterness, contrived to tolerate.

  [58] Inter quae ab rege Parthorum Artabano legati venere. miserat amicitiam ac foedus memoraturos, et cupere novari dextras, daturumque honori Germanici ut ripam Euphratis accederet: petere interim ne Vonones in Syria haberetur neu proceres gentium propinquis nuntiis ad discordias traheret. ad ea Germanicus de societate Romanorum Parthorumque magnifice, de adventu regis et cultu sui cum decore ac modestia respondit. Vonones Pompeiopolim, Ciliciae maritimam urb
em, amotus est. datum id non modo 6 precibus Artabani, sed contumeliae Pisonis cui gratissimus erat ob plurima oflicia et dona quibus Plancinam devinxerat.

  58 Meanwhile deputies arrived from the Parthian king, Artabanus. They had been sent to mention the friendship and the treaty between the nations, and to add that “the king desired a fresh exchange of pledges; and, in compliment to Germanicus, would meet him on the bank of the Euphrates. In the interval, he asked that Vonones should not be kept in Syria to lure the tribal chieftains into discord by agents from over the border.” As to the alliance between Rome and Parthia, Germanicus replied in florid terms; of the king’s coming and his courtesy to himself he spoke with dignity and modesty: Vonones was removed to Pompeiopolis, a maritime town of Cilicia. The concession was not simply a compliance with Artabanus’ request but also an affront to Piso; to whom the pretender was highly acceptable in consequence of the numerous civilities and presents for which Plancina was indebted to him.

  [59] M. Silano L. Norbano consulibus Germanicus Aegyptum proficiscitur cognoscendae antiquitatis. sed cura provinciae praetendebatur, levavitque apertis horreis pretia frugum multaque in vulgus grata usurpavit: sine milite incedere, pedibus intectis et pari cum Graecis amictu, P. Scipionis aemulatione, quem eadem factitavisse apud Siciliam, quamvis flagrante adhuc Poenorum bello, accepimus. Tiberius cultu habituque eius lenibus verbis perstricto, acerrime increpuit quod contra instituta Augusti non sponte principis Alexandriam introisset. nam Augustus inter alia dominationis arcana, vetitis nisi permissu ingredi senatoribus aut equitibus Romanis inlustribus, seposuit Aegyptum ne fame urgeret Italiam quisquis eam provinciam claustraque terrae ac maris quamvis levi praesidio adversum ingentis exercitus insedisset.

  62 While Germanicus was passing the summer in various provinces, Drusus earned considerable credit by tempting the Germans to revive their feuds and, as the power of Maroboduus was already shattered, to press on his complete destruction. Among the Gotones was a youth of good family, named Catualda, exiled some time ago by the arms of Maroboduus, and now, as his fortunes waned, emboldened to revenge. With a strong following, he entered Marcomanian territory, seduced the chieftains into complicity, and burst into the palace and adjoining fortress. There they discovered the ancient Suebian spoils, together with a number of sutlers and traders out of the Roman provinces, drawn from their respective homes and implanted on hostile soil first by the commercial privileges, then by the lure of increased profits, and finally by oblivion of their country.