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

by Publius Cornelius Tacitus

  25 1 The emperor’s speech was followed by a resolution of the Fathers, and the Aedui became the first to acquire senatorial rights in the capital: a concession to a long-standing treaty and to their position as the only Gallic community enjoying the title of brothers to the Roman people.

  Much at the same time, the Caesar adopted into the body of patricians all senators of exceptionally long standing or of distinguished parentage: for by now few families remained of the Greater and Lesser Houses, as they were styled by Romulus and Lucius Brutus; and even those selected to fill the void, under the Cassian and Saenian laws, by the dictator Caesar and the emperor Augustus were exhausted. Here the censor had a popular task, and he embarked upon it with delight. How to remove members of flagrantly scandalous character, he hesitated; but adopted a lenient method, recently introduced, in preference to one in the spirit of old-world severity, advising each offender to consider his case himself and to apply for the privilege of renouncing his rank: that leave would be readily granted; and he would publish the names of the expelled and the excused together, so that the disgrace should be softened by the absence of anything to distinguish between censorial condemnation and the modesty of voluntary resignation. In return, the consul Vipstanus proposed that Claudius should be called Father of the Senate:—”The title Father of his Country he would have to share with others: new services to the state ought to be honoured by unusual phrases.” But he personally checked the consul as carrying flattery to excess. He also closed the lustrum, the census showing 5,984,072 citizens. And now came the end of his domestic blindness: before long, he was driven to note and to avenge the excesses of his wife — only to burn afterwards for an incestuous union.

  26 1 By now the ease of adultery had cloyed on Messalina and she was drifting towards untried debaucheries, when Silius himself, blinded by his fate, or convinced perhaps that the antidote to impending danger was actual danger, began to press for the mask to be dropped:—”They were not reduced to waiting upon the emperor’s old age: deliberation was innocuous only to the innocent; detected guilt must borrow help from hardihood. They had associates with the same motives for fear. He himself was celibate, childless, prepared for wedlock and to adopt Britannicus.º Messalina would retain her power unaltered, with the addition of a mind at ease, could they but forestall Claudius, who, if slow to guard against treachery, was prompt to anger.” She took his phrases with a coolness due, not to any tenderness for her husband, but to a misgiving that Silius, with no heights left to scale, might spurn his paramour and come to appreciate at its just value a crime sanctioned in the hour of danger. Yet, for the sake of that transcendent infamy which constitutes the last delight of the profligate, she coveted the name of wife; and, waiting only till Claudius left for Ostia to hold a sacrifice, she celebrated the full solemnities of marriage.

  27 1 It will seem, I am aware, fabulous that, in a city cognizant of all things and reticent of none, any human beings could have felt so much security; far more so, that on a specified day, with witnesses to seal the contract, a consul designate and the emperor’s wife should have met for the avowed purposes of legitimate marriage; that the woman should have listened to the words of the auspices, have assumed the veil, have sacrificed in the face of Heaven; that both should have dined with the guests, have kissed and embraced, and finally have spent the night in the licence of wedlock. But I have added no touch of the marvellous: all that I record shall be the oral or written evidence of my seniors.

  28 1 A shudder, then, had passed through the imperial household. In particular, the holders of power with all to fear from a reversal of the established order, gave voice to their indignation, no longer in private colloquies, but without disguise:—”Whilst an actor profaned the imperial bedchamber, humiliation might have been inflicted, but destruction had still been in the far distance. Now, with his stately presence, his vigour of mind, and his impending consulate, a youthful noble was girding himself to a greater ambition — for the sequel of such a marriage was no mystery!” Fear beyond doubt came over them when they considered the hebetude of Claudius, his bondage to his wife, and the many murders perpetrated at the fiat of Messalina. Yet, again, the very pliancy of the emperor gave ground for confidence that, if they carried the day thanks to the atrocity of the charge, they might crush her by making her condemnation precede her trial. But the critical question, they realized, was whether Claudius would give a hearing to her defence, and whether they would be able to close his ears even to her confession.

  29 1 At the outset, Callistus (whom I have already noticed in connection with the killing of Gaius Caesar), together with Narcissus, the contriver of the Appian murder, and Pallas, then in the high noon of his favour, discussed the chances of diverting Messalina from her amour with Silius by private threats, while suppressing their knowledge of all other circumstances. Then, lest failure should involve their own destruction, Pallas and Callistus desisted; Pallas, through cowardice; the other, because he had expert knowledge of the last court as well and believed power to be held more securely by cautious than by vigorous counsels. Narcissus stood firm, making only one modification of the plan: there was to be no interview to forewarn her of the accusation or of the accuser. Himself on the alert for opportunities, as the Caesar lingered long at Ostia, he induced the pair of concubines, to whose embraces Claudius was the most habituated, by gifts, promises, and demonstrations of the power which would accrue to them from the fall of the wife, to undertake the task of delation.

  30 1 As the next step, Calpurnia — for so the woman was called — secured a private audience, and, falling at the Caesar’s knee, exclaimed that Messalina had wedded Silius. In the same breath, she asked Cleopatra, who was standing by ready for the question, if she had heard the news; and, on her sign of assent, requested that Narcissus should be summoned. He, entreating forgiveness for the past, in which he had kept silence to his master on the subject of Vettius, Plautius, and their like, said that not even now would he reproach the lady with her adulteries, far less reclaim the palace, the slaves, and other appurtenances of the imperial rank. No, these Silius might enjoy — but let him restore the bride and cancel the nuptial contract! “Are you aware,” he demanded, “of your divorce? For the nation, the senate, and the army, have seen the marriage of Silius; and, unless you act with speed, the new husband holds Rome!”

  31 1 The Caesar now summoned his principal friends; and, in the first place, examined Turranius, head of the cornº-department; then the praetorian commander Lusius Geta. They admitted the truth; and from the rest of the circle came a din of voices:—”He must visit the camp, assure the fidelity of the guards, consult his security before his vengeance.” Claudius, the fact is certain, was so bewildered by his terror that he inquired intermittently if he was himself emperor — if Silius was a private citizen.

  But Messalina had never given voluptuousness a freer rein. Autumn was at the full, and she was celebrating a mimic vintage through the grounds of the house. Presses were being trodden, vats flowed; while, beside them, skin-girt women were bounding like Bacchanals excited by sacrifice or delirium. She herself was there with dishevelled tresses and •waving thyrsus; at her side, Silius with an ivy crown, wearing the buskins and tossing his head, while around him rose the din of a wanton chorus. The tale runs that Vettius Valens, in some freak of humour, clambered into a tall tree, and to the question, “What did he spy?” answered: “A frightful storm over Ostia” — whether something of the kind was actually taking shape, or a chance-dropped word developed into a prophecy.

  32 1 In the meanwhile, not rumour only but messengers were hurrying in from all quarters, charged with the news that Claudius knew all and was on the way, hot for revenge. They parted therefore; Messalina to the Gardens of Lucullus; Silius — to dissemble his fear — to the duties of the forum. The rest were melting away by one road or other, when the centurions appeared and threw them into irons as discovered, some in the open, some in hiding. Messalina, though the catastrophe excluded th
ought, promptly decided for the course which had so often proved her salvation, to meet her husband and be seen by him: also, she sent word that Britannicus and Octavia were to go straight to their father’s arms. Further, she implored Vibidia, the senior Vestal Virgin, to gain the ear of the Supreme Pontiff and there plead for mercy. In the interval, with three companions in all (so complete, suddenly, was her solitude), she covered the full breadth of the city on foot, then mounted a vehicle used as a receptacle for garden refuse, and took the Ostian road, without a being to pity her, since all was outweighed by the horror of her crimes.

  33 1 Quite equal agitation prevailed on the imperial side; as implicit confidence was not felt in the praetorian commandant Geta, who veered with equal levity to the good and to the evil. Narcissus, therefore, with the support of others who shared his alarms, stated formally that there was no hope of saving the emperor, unless, for that day only, the command of the troops was transferred to one of the freedmen; the responsibility he offered to take himself. Furthermore, that Claudius, while being conveyed to the city, should not be swayed to repentance by Lucius Vitellius and Caecina Largus, he demanded a seat in the same litter, and took his place along with them.

  34 1 It was a persistent tradition later that, amid the self-contradictory remarks of the emperor, who at one moment inveighed against the profligacies of his wife, and, in the next, recurred to memories of his wedded life and to the infancy of his children, Vitellius merely ejaculated: “Ah, the crime — the villainy!” Narcissus, it is true, urged him to explain his enigma and favour them with the truth; but urgency was unavailing; Vitellius responded with incoherent phrases, capable of being turned to any sense required, and his example was copied by Caecina Largus.

  And now Messalina was within view. She was crying to the emperor to hear the mother of Octavia and Britannicus, when the accuser’s voice rose in opposition with the history of Silius and the bridal: at the same time, to avert the Caesar’s gaze, he handed him the memoranda exposing her debaucheries. Shortly afterwards, at the entry into Rome, the children of the union were on the point of presenting themselves, when Narcissus ordered their removal. Vibidia he could not repulse, nor prevent her from demanding in indignant terms that a wife should not be give undefended to destruction. He therefore replied that the emperor would hear her and there would be opportunities for rebutting the charge: meanwhile, the Virgin would do well to go and attend to her religious duties.

  35 1 Throughout the proceedings Claudius maintained a strange silence, Vitellius wore an air of unconsciousness: all things moved at the will of the freedman. He ordered the adulterer’s mansion to be thrown open and the emperor to be conducted to it. First he pointed out in the vestibule an effigy — banned by senatorial decree — of the elder Silius; then he demonstrated how the heirlooms of the Neros and the Drusi had been requisitioned as the price of infamy. As the emperor grew hot and broke into threats, he led him to the camp, where a mass-meeting of the troops had been prearranged. After a preliminary address by Narcissus, he spoke a few words: for, just as his resentment was, shame denied it utterance. There followed one long cry from the cohorts demanding the names and punishment of the criminals. Set before the tribunal, Silius attempted neither defence nor delay, and asked for an acceleration of death. His firmness was imitated by a number of Roman knights of the higher rank. Titius Proculus, appointed by Silius as “custodian” of Messalina, and now proffering evidence, was ordered for execution, together with Vettius Valens, who confessed, and their accomplices Pompeius Urbicus and Saufeius Trogus. The same penalty was inflicted also on Decrius Calpurnianus, prefect of the city-watch; on Sulpicius Rufus, procurator of the school of gladiators; and on the senator Juncus Vergilianus.

  36 1 Only Mnester caused some hesitation, as, tearing his garments, he called to Claudius to look at the imprints of the lash and remember the phrase by which he had placed him at the disposal of Messalina. “Others had sinned through a bounty of high hope; he, from need; and no man would have had to perish sooner, if Silius gained the empire.” The Caesar was affected, and leaned to mercy; but the freedmen decided him, after so many executions of the great, not to spare an actor: when the transgression was so heinous, it mattered nothing whether it was voluntary or enforced. Even the defence of the Roman knight Traulus Montanus was not admitted. A modest but remarkably handsome youth, he had within a single night received his unsought invitation and his dismissal from Messalina, who was equally capricious in her desires and her disdains. In the cases of Suillius Caesoninus and Plautius Lateranus, the death penalty was remitted. The latter was indebted to the distinguished service of his uncle: Suillius was protected by his vices, since in the proceedings of that shameful rout his part had been the reverse of masculine.

  37 1 Meanwhile, in the Gardens of Lucullus, Messalina was fighting for life, and composing a petition; not without hope, and occasionally — so much of her insolence she had retained in her extremity — not without indignation. In fact, if Narcissus had not hastened her despatch, the ruin had all but fallen upon the head of the accuser. For Claudius, home again and soothed by an early dinner, grew a little heated with the wine, and gave instructions for someone to go and inform “the poor woman” — the exact phrase which he is stated to have used — that she must be in presence next day to plead her cause. The words were noted: his anger was beginning to cool, his love to return; and, if they waited longer, there was ground for anxiety in the approaching night with its memories of the marriage-chamber. Narcissus, accordingly, burst out of the room, and ordered the centurions and tribune in attendance to carry out the execution: the instructions came from the emperor. Evodus, one of the freedmen, was commissioned to guard against escape and to see that the deed was done. Hurrying to the Gardens in advance of the rest, he discovered Messalina prone on the ground, and, seated by her side, her mother Lepida; who, estranged from her daughter during her prime, had been conquered to pity in her last necessity, and was now advising her not to await the slayer:—”Life was over and done; and all that could be attempted was decency in death.” But honour had no place in that lust-corrupted soul, and tears and lamentations were being prolonged in vain, when the door was driven in by the onrush of the new-comers, and over her stood the tribune in silence, and the freedman upbraiding her with a stream of slavish insults.

  38 1 Now for the first time she saw her situation as it was, and took hold of the steel. In her agitation, she was applying it without result to her throat and again to her breast, when the tribune ran her through. The corpse was granted to her mother; and word was carried to Claudius at the table that Messalina had perished: whether by her own or a strange hand was not specified. Nor was the question asked: he called for a cup and went through the routine of the banquet. Even in the days that followed, he betrayed no symptoms of hatred or of joy, of anger or of sadness, or, in fine, of any human emotion; not when he saw the accusers rejoicing, not when he saw his children mourning. His forgetfulness was assisted by the senate, which decreed that the name and statues of the empress should be removed from private and public places. The decorations of the quaestorship were voted to Narcissus: baubles to the pride of one who bore himself as the superior of Pallas and Callistus! . . . . . . Meritorious actions, it is true, but fated to produce the worst of results. . . . . .

  BOOK XII

  1 1 The execution of Messalina shook the imperial household: for there followed a conflict among the freedmen, who should select a consort for Claudius, with his impatience of celibacy and his docility under wifely government. Nor was competition less fierce among the women: each paraded for comparison her nobility, her charms, and her wealth, and advertised them as worthy of that exalted alliance. The question, however, lay mainly between Lollia Paulina, daughter of the consular Marcus Lollius, and Julia Agrippina, the issue of Germanicus. The latter had the patronage of Pallas; the former, of Callistus; while Aelia Paetina, a Tubero by family, was favoured by Narcissus. The emperor, who leaned alternately to one or the oth
er, according to the advocate whom he had heard the last, called the disputants into council, and ordered each to express his opinion and to add his reasons.