58 1 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.
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.
63 1 Forsaken on every side, Maroboduus had no other refuge than the imperial clemency. Crossing the Danube where it flows by the province of Noricum he wrote to Tiberius, not in the tone of a landless man or a suppliant, but in one reminiscent of his earlier fortune: for “though many nations offered to welcome a king once so glorious, he had preferred the friendship of Rome.” The Caesar replied that “he would have a safe and honoured seat in Italy, if he remained; but, should his interests make a change advisable, he might depart as securely as he had come.” He asserted, however, in the senate that “not Philip himself had been so grave a menace to Athens — not Pyrrhus nor Antiochus to the Roman people.” The speech is still extant, in which he emphasized “the greatness of the man, the violence of the peoples beneath his rule, the nearness of the enemy to Italy, and the measures he had himself taken to destroy him.” Maroboduus, in fact, was detained at Ravenna; where the possibility of his restoration was held out to the Suebians, whenever they became unruly: but for eighteen years he never set foot out of Italy and grew into an old man, his fame much tarnished by too great love of life. An identical disaster and a similar haven awaited Catualda. A short while afterwards, broken by the power of the Hermunduri and the generalship of Vibilius, he received asylum, and was sent to Forum Julium, a colony of Narbonensian Gaul. Since the barbarian retainers of the two princes might, if intermingled with the native population, have disturbed the peace of the provinces, they were assigned a king in the person of Vannius, from the Quadian tribe, and settled on the further bank of the Danube, between the rivers Marus and Cusus.
64 1 As news had come at the same time that Germanicus had presented the throne of Armenia to Artaxias, the senate resolved that he and Drusus should receive an ovation upon entering the capital. In addition, arches bearing the effigy of the two Caesars were erected on each side of the temple of Mars the Avenger; while Tiberius showed more pleasure at having kept the peace by diplomacy than if he had concluded a war by a series of stricken fields. Accordingly, he now brought his cunning to bear against Rhescuporis, the king of Thrace. The whole of that country had been subject to Rhoemetalces; after whose death Augustus conferred one half on his brother Rhescuporis, the other on his son Cotys. By this partition the agricultural lands, the town, and the districts adjoining the Greek cities fell to Cotys; the remainder, — a sterile soil, a wild population, with enemies at the very door, — to Rhescuporis. So, too, with the character of the kings: one was gentle and genial; the other, sullen, grasping, and intolerant of partnership. At the first, however, they acted with a deceptive show of concord; then Rhescuporis began to overstep his frontiers, to appropriate districts allotted to Cotys, and to meet opposition with force: hesitantly during the lifetime of Augustus, whom he feared as the creator of both kingdoms and, if slighted, their avenger. The moment, however, that he heard of the change of sovereigns, he began to throw predatory bands across the border, to demolish fortresses, and to sow the seeds of war.
65 1 Nothing gave Tiberius so much anxiety as that settlements once made should not be disturbed. He chose a centurion to notify the kings that there must be no appeal to arms; and Cotys at once disbanded the auxiliaries he had collected. Rhescuporis, with assumed moderation, asked for a personal meeting: their differences, he said, could be adjusted verbally. Small difficulty was made about the time, the place, and, finally, the conditions, when one party through good nature, and the other through duplicity, conceded and accepted everything. To ratify the treaty, as he said, Rhescuporis added a banquet. When the merriment had been prolonged far into the night with the help of good cheer and wine, he laid in irons the unsuspecting Cotys, who, on discovering the treachery, appealed in vain to the sanctities of kingship, the deities of their common house, and the immunities of the hospitable board. Master of the whole of Thrace, he wrote to Tiberius that a plot had been laid for him, but he had forestalled the plotter: at the same time, under the pretext of a campaign against the Bastarnae and Scythians, he sustained himself by fresh levies of infantry and cavalry. A smooth letter came back:—”If his conscience was clear, he might trust to his innocence; but neither the emperor nor the senate would discriminate between the rights and wrongs of the case unless they heard it. He had better, then, surrender Cotys, come to Rome and shift the odium of the charge from his own shoulders.”
66 1 The letter was despatched into Thrace by Latinius Pandusa, the propraetor of Moesia, together with a company of soldiers, who were to take over Cotys. After some fluctuation between fear and anger, Rhescuporis, deciding to stand his trial for the commission, not the inception, of a crime, ordered the execution of Cotys; and promulgated a lie that his death had been self-inflicted. Still, the Caesar made no change in the methods he had once resolved upon, but, on the death of Pandusa — whom Rhescuporis accused of animus against himself — appointed Pomponius Flaccus to the government of Moesia; chiefly because that veteran campaigner was a close friend of the king, and, as such, the better adapted to deceive him.
67 1 Flaccus crossed into Thrace, and by unstinted promises induced Rhescuporis to enter the Roman lines, though he felt some hesitation, as he reflected on his guilt. He was then surrounded by a strong body-guard, ostensibly out of respect for his royalty; and by advice, suasion, and a surveillance which grew more obvious at each remove, till at last he realized the inevitable, the tribunes and centurions haled him to Rome. He was accused in the senate by Cotys’ wife, and condemned to detention at a distance from his kingdom. Thrace was divided between his son Rhoemetalces, who was known to have opposed his father’s designs, and the children of Cotys. As these were not of mature age, they were put under the charge of Trebellenus Rufus, an ex-praetor, who was to manage the kingdom in the interregnum; a parallel from an earlier generation being the despatch of Marcus Lepidus to Egypt as the guardian of Ptolemy’s children. Rhescuporis was deported to Alexandria, and perished in a genuine, or imputed, attempt at escape.
59 In the consulate of Marcus Silanus and Lucius Norbanus, Germanicus set out for Egypt to view its antiquities, though the reason given was solicitude for the province. He did, in fact, lower the price of cornº by opening the state granaries, and adopted many practices popular with the multitude, walking without his guards, his feet sandalled and his dress identical with that of the Greeks: an imitation of Publius Scipio, who is recorded to have done the like in Sicily, although the Carthaginia
n war was still raging. Tiberius passed a leniently worded criticism on his dress and bearing, but rebuked him with extreme sharpness for overstepping the prescription of Augustus by entering Alexandria without the imperial consent. For Augustus, among the other secrets of absolutism, by prohibiting all senators or Roman knights of the higher rank from entering the country without permission, kept Egypt isolated; in order that Italy might not be subjected to starvation by anyone who contrived, with however slight a garrison against armies however formidable, to occupy the province and the key-positions by land and sea.
60 1 Not yet aware, however, that his itinerary was disapproved, Germanicus sailed up the Nile, starting from the town of Canopus — founded by the Spartans in memory of the helmsman so named, who was buried there in the days when Menelaus, homeward bound for Greece, was blown to a distant sea and the Libyan coast. From Canopus he visited the next of the river-mouths, which is sacred to Hercules (an Egyptian born, according to the local account, and the eldest of the name, the others of later date and equal virtue being adopted into the title); then, the vast remains of ancient Thebes. On piles of masonry Egyptian letters still remained, embracing the tale of old magnificence, and one of the senior priests, ordered to interpret his native tongue, related that “once the city contained seven hundred thousand men of military age, and with that army King Rhamses, after conquering Libya and Ethiopia, the Medes and the Persians, the Bactrian and the Scyth, and the lands where the Syrians and Armenians and neighbouring Cappadocians dwell, had ruled over all that lies between the Bithynian Sea on the one hand and the Lycian on the other.” The tribute-lists of the subject nations were still legible: the weight of silver and gold, the number of weapons and horses, the temple-gifts of ivory and spices, together with the quantities of grain and other necessaries of life to be paid by the separate countries; revenues no less imposing than those which are now exacted by the might of Parthia or by Roman power.
61 1 But other marvels, too, arrested the attention of Germanicus: in especial, the stone colossus of Memnon, which emits a vocal sound when touched by the rays of the sun; the pyramids reared mountain high by the wealth of emulous kings among wind-swept and all but impassable sands; the excavated lake which receives the overflow of Nile; and, elsewhere, narrow gorges and deeps impervious to the plummet of the explorer. Then he proceeded to Elephantine and Syene, once the limits of the Roman Empire, which now stretches to the Persian Gulf.
68 1 About this time, Vonones — whose sequestration in Cilicia I have mentioned — attempted by bribing his warders to escape into Armenia, then to the Albani,64a The Heniochi,64b and his relative, the king of Scythia. Leaving the coast under the pretext of a hunting excursion, he made for the trackless forest country, and, availing himself of the speed of his horse, hurried to the river Pyramus; where, on the news of his escape, the bridges had been demolished by the people of the district: the stream itself was not fordable. He was arrested, therefore, on the river-bank by the cavalry prefect, Vibius Fronto; and a little later, Remmius, a time-expired veteran who had been in command of his former guards, ran him through with his sword, as though in an outburst of anger: a fact which makes it the more credible that conscious guilt and a fear of disclosures dictated the murder.
69 1 On the way from Egypt, Germanicus learned that all orders issued by him to the legions or the cities had been rescinded or reversed. Hence galling references to Piso: nor were the retorts directed by him against the prince less bitter. Then Piso determined to leave Syria. Checked almost immediately by the ill-health of Germanicus, then hearing that he had rallied and that the vows made for his recovery were already being paid, he took his lictors and swept the streets clear of the victims at the altars, the apparatus of sacrifice, and the festive populace of Antioch. After this, he left for Seleucia, awaiting the outcome of the malady which had again attacked Germanicus. The cruel virulence of the disease was intensified by the patient’s belief that Piso had given him poison; and it is a fact that explorations in the floor and walls brought to light the remains of human bodies, spells, curses, leaden tablets engraved with the name Germanicus, charred and blood-smeared ashes, and others of the implements of witchcraft by which it is believed the living soul can be devoted to the powers of the grave. At the same time, emissaries from Piso were accused of keeping a too inquisitive watch upon the ravages of the disease.
70 1 Of all this Germanicus heard with at least as much anger as alarm:—”If his threshold was besieged, if he must surrender his breath under the eye of his enemies, what must the future hold in store for his unhappy wife — for his infant children? Poison was considered too dilatory; Piso was growing urgent — imperative — to be left alone with his province and his legions! But Germanicus had not fallen from himself so far, nor should the price of blood remain with the slayer!” He composed a letter renouncing his friendship: the general account adds that he ordered him to leave the province. Delaying no longer, Piso weighed anchor, and regulated his speed so that the return journey should be the shorter, if Germanicus’ death opened the door in Syria.
71 1 For a moment the Caesar revived to hope: then his powers flagged, and, with the end near, he addressed his friends at the bedside to the following effect:—”If I were dying by the course of nature, I should have a justified grievance against Heaven itself for snatching me from parents, children, and country, by a premature end in the prime of life. Now, cut off as I am by the villainy of Piso and Plancina, I leave my last prayers in the keeping of your breasts: report to my father and brother the agonies that rent me, the treasons that encompassed me, before I finished the most pitiable of lives by the vilest of deaths. If any were ever stirred by the hopes I inspired, by kindred blood, — even by envy of me while I lived, — they must shed a tear to think that the once happy survivor of so many wars has fallen by female treachery. You will have your opportunity to complain before the senate and to invoke the law. The prime duty of friends is not to follow their dead with passive laments, but to remember his wishes and carry out his commands. Strangers themselves will bewail Germanicus: you will avenge him — if you loved me, and not my fortune. Show to the Roman people the granddaughter of their deified Augustus, who was also my wife; number her six children: pity will side with the accusers, and, if the murderers allege some infamous warrant, they will find no credence in men — or no forgiveness!” His friends touched the dying hand and swore to forgo life sooner than revenge.
72 1 Then he turned to his wife, and implored her “by the memory of himself, and for the sake of their common children, to strip herself of pride, to stoop her spirit before the rage of fortune, and never — if she returned to the capital — to irritate those stronger than herself by a competition for power.” These words in public: in private there were others, in which he was believed to hint at danger from the side of Tiberius. Soon afterwards he passed away, to the boundless grief of the province and the adjacent peoples. Foreign nations and princes felt the pang — so great had been his courtesy to allies, his humanity to enemies: in aspect and address alike venerable, while he maintained the magnificence and dignity of exalted fortune, he had escaped envy and avoided arrogance.
73 1 His funeral, devoid of ancestral effigies or procession, was distinguished by eulogies and recollections of his virtues. There were those who, considering his personal appearance, his early age, and the circumstances of his death, — to which they added the proximity of the region where he perished, — compared his decease with that of Alexander the Great:—”Each eminently handsome, of famous lineage, and in years not much exceeding thirty, had fallen among alien races by the treason of their countrymen. But the Roman had borne himself as one gentle to his friends, moderate in his pleasures, content with a single wife and the children of lawful wedlock. Nor was he less a man of the sword; though he lacked the other’s temerity, and, when his numerous victories had beaten down the Germanies, was prohibited from making fast their bondage. But had he been the sole arbiter of affairs, of kingly auth
ority and title, he would have overthrown the Greek in military fame with an ease proportioned to his superiority in clemency, self-command, and all other good qualities.” The body, before cremation, was exposed in the forum of Antioch, the place destined for the final rites. Whether it bore marks of poisoning was disputable: for the indications were variously read, as pity and preconceived suspicion swayed the spectator to the side of Germanicus, or his predilections to that of Piso.
74 1 A consultation followed between the legates and other senators present, to determine the new governor of Syria. When the rest had made a half-hearted effort, the claims of Vibius Marsus and Gnaeus Sentius were canvassed at length; then Marsus gave way to the superior age and greater keenness of his competitor. And he, on the demand of Vitellius, Veranius, and the others (who were drawing up the articles of indictment as though the case had already been entered), despatched to Rome a woman by the name of Martina, infamous in the province for her poisonings and beloved of Plancina.
75 1 Agrippina herself, worn out with grief and physically ill, yet intolerant of every obstacle to revenge, went on board the fleet with her children and the ashes of Germanicus; amid universal pity for this woman of sovereign lineage, her wedded glory wont but yesterday to attract the gaze of awed and gratulatory crowds, now carrying in her bosom the relics of the dead, uncertain of her vengeance, apprehensive for herself, cursed in that fruitfulness which had borne but hostages to fortune.
Complete Works of Tacitus (Delphi Classics) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 24) Page 55