2 1 Narcissus discoursed on his early marriage, on the daughter who had blessed that union (for Antonia was Paetina’s child), on the fact that no innovation in his domestic life would be entailed by the return of a spouse, who would regard Britannicus and Octavia — pledges of affection, next in dearness to her own — with anything rather than stepmotherly aversion. Callistus held that she was disqualified by her long-standing divorce, and, if recalled, would by the very fact be inclined to arrogance. A far wiser course was to bring in Lollia, who, as she had never known motherhood, would be immune from jealousy, and could take the place of a parent to her step-children. Pallas, in his eulogy of Agrippina, insisted on the point that she brought with her the grandson of Germanicus, who fully deserved an imperial position: let the sovereign unite to himself a famous stock, the posterity of the Julian and Claudian races, and ensure that a princess of tried fecundity, still in the vigour of youth, should not transfer the glory of the Caesars into another family!
3 1 His arguments prevailed, with help from the allurements of Agrippina. In a succession of visits, cloaked under the near relationship, she so effectually captivated her uncle that she displaced her rivals and anticipated the position by exercising the powers of a wife. For, once certain of her marriage, she began to amplify her schemes, and to intrigue for a match between Domitius, her son by Gnaeus Ahenobarbus, and the emperor’s daughter Octavia. That result was not to be achieved without a crime, as the Caesar had plighted Octavia to Lucius Silanus, and had introduced the youth (who had yet other titles to fame) to the favourable notice of the multitude by decorating him with the triumphal insignia and by a magnificent exhibition of gladiators. Still, there seemed to be no insuperable difficulty in the temper of a prince who manifested neither approval nor dislike except as they were imposed upon him by orders.
4 1 Vitellius, therefore, able to screen his servile knaveries behind the title of Censor, and with a prophetic eye for impending tyrannies, wooed the good graces of Agrippina by identifying himself with her scheme and by producing charges against Silanus, whose sister — fair and wayward, it is true — had until recently been his own daughter-in-law. This gave him the handle for his accusation, and he put an infamous construction on a fraternal love which was not incestuous but unguarded. The Caesar lent ear, affection for his daughter increasing his readiness to harbour doubts of her prospective husband. Silanus, ignorant of the plot, and, as it happened, praetor for the year, was suddenly by an edict of Vitellius removed from the senatorial order, though the list had long been complete and the lustrum closed. At the same time, Claudius cancelled the proposed alliance: Silanus was compelled to resign his magistracy, and the remaining day of his praetorship was conferred on Eprius Marcellus.
5 1 In the consulate of Gaius Pompeius and Quintus Veranius, the union plighted between Claudius and Agrippina was already being rendered doubly sure by rumour and by illicit love. As yet, however, they lacked courage to celebrate the bridal solemnities, no precedent existing for the introduction of a brother’s child into the house of her uncle. Moreover, the relationship was incest; and, if that fact were disregarded, it was feared that the upshot would be a national calamity. Hesitation was dropped only when Vitellius undertook to bring about the desired result by his own methods. He began by asking the Caesar if he would yield to the mandate of the people? — to the authority of the senate? On receiving the answer that he was a citizen among citizens, and incompetent to resist their united will, he ordered him to wait inside the palace. He himself entered the curia. Asseverating that a vital interest of the country was in question, he demanded leave to speak first, and began by stating that “the extremely onerous labours of the sovereign, which embraced the management of a world, stood in need of support, so that he might pursue his deliberations for the public good, undisturbed by domestic anxiety. And what more decent solace to that truly censorian spirit than to take a wife, his partner in weal and woe, to whose charge might be committed his inmost thoughts and the little children of a prince unused to dissipation or to pleasure, but to submission to the law from his early youth?”
6 1 As this engagingly worded preface was followed by flattering expressions of assent from the members, he took a fresh starting-point:—”Since it was the universal advice that the emperor should marry, the choice ought to fall on a woman distinguished by nobility of birth, by experience of motherhood, and by purity of character. No long inquiry was needed to convince them that in the lustre of her family Agrippina came foremost: she had given proof of her fruitfulness, and her moral excellences harmonized with the rest. But the most gratifying point was that, by the dispensation of providence, the union would be between a widow and a prince with experience of no marriage-bed but his own. They had heard from their fathers, and they had seen for themselves, how wives were snatched away at the whim of the Caesars: such violence was far removed from the orderliness of the present arrangement. They were, in fact, to establish a precedent by which the emperor would accept his consort from the Roman people! — Still, marriage with a brother’s child, it might be said, was a novelty in Rome. — But it was normal in other countries, and prohibited by no law; while marriage with cousins and second cousins, so long unknown, had with the progress of time become frequent. Usage accommodated itself to the claims of utility, and this innovation too would be among the conventions of to-morrow.”
7 1 Members were not lacking to rush from the curia, with emulous protestations that, if the emperor hesitated, they would proceed by force. A motley crowd flocked together, and clamoured that such also was the prayer of the Roman people. Waiting no longer, Claudius met them in the Forum, and offered himself to their felicitations, then entered the senate, and requested a decree legitimizing for the future also the union of uncles with their brothers’ daughters. None the less, only a single enthusiast for that form of matrimony was discovered — the Roman knight Alledius Severus, whose motive was generally said to have been desire for the favour of Agrippina. — From this moment it was a changed state, and all things moved at the fiat of a woman — but not a woman who, as Messalina, treated in wantonness the Roman Empire as a toy. It was a tight-drawn, almost masculine tyranny: in public, there was austerity and not infrequently arrogance; at home, no trace of unchastity, unless it might contribute to power. A limitless passion for gold had the excuse of being designed to create a bulwark of despotism.
8 1 On the wedding-day Silanus committed suicide; whether he had preserved his hope of life till then, or whether the date was deliberately chosen to increase the odium of his death. His sister Calvina was expelled from Italy. Claudius, in addition, prescribed sacrifices in accordance with the legislation of King Tullus, and expiatory ceremonies to be carried out by the pontiffs in the grove of Diana; universal derision being excited by this choice of a period in which to unearth the penalties and purifications of incest. Agrippina, on the other hand, not to owe her reputation entirely to crime, procured a remission of banishment for Annaeus Seneca, along with a praetorship: his literary fame, she conceived, would make the act popular with the nation; while she was anxious to gain so distinguished a tutor for Domitius in his transit from boyhood to adolescence, and to profit by his advice in their designs upon the throne. For the belief was that Seneca was attached to Agrippina by the memory of her kindness and embittered against Claudius by resentment of his injury.
9 1 The decision was now taken to delay no further; and the consul designate, Mammius Pollio, was induced by extraordinary promises to put forward a motion entreating Claudius to affiance Octavia to Domitius: an arrangement plausible enough on the score of their ages and likely to clear the way to higher things. Pollio proposed his resolution in nearly the same phrases which had lately been employed by Vitellius; Octavia’s engagement followed; and Domitius — who, over and above his former relationship to the Emperor, was now his plighted son-in-law — began to assume equality with Britannicus, thanks to the zeal of his mother, and to the art of those who, in return for the
ir arraignment of Messalina, apprehended the vengeance of her son.
10 1 About this date, the Parthian envoys, despatched, as I have mentioned, to sue for the return of Meherdates, entered the senate, and opened with the following statement of their commission:—”They were not ignorant of the existing treaty, nor did they come in rebellion against the family of the Arsacids: they were summoning the son of Vonones, the grandson of Phraates, to redress the tyranny of Gotarzes, which was insufferable equally to the nobles and to the commons. Already brothers, near relatives, distant connections had been annihilated by his butcheries; pregnant wives and infant children were being added to the list; whilst, inert at home and disastrous in the field, he sought to disguise his cowardice by his cruelty. With us they had an old friendship, begun by national agreement, and it was our part to assist an allied country, which rivalled our power, but allowed our primacy out of respect. The object of giving the son of kings in hostage for their fathers was that, if the government at home became obnoxious, recourse could be had to the emperor and senate, and a more enlightened prince, imbued with their manners, be called to the throne.”
11 1 In reply to these and similar representations, the emperor began a speech upon Roman preëminence and the signs of deference evinced by Parthia. He claimed parity with the deified Augustus, to whom, as he pointed out, they had applied for a king; but he omitted to mention Tiberius, though he too had sent out sovereigns. As Meherdates was present, he subjoined a few maxims:—”Let him form the idea not of a despotism and slaves but of a governor and citizens, and practise mercy and justice — qualities unknown to barbarians, and as such doubly welcome.” Then, turning to the deputies, he eulogized the foster-child of the city, “who so far had given every proof of moderation. Still, the character of kings had to be borne with, and frequent changes served no purpose. Rome, in her satiety of glory, had reached the stage when she desired tranquillity for foreign countries as well as herself.” Gaius Cassius, the governor of Syria, was then commissioned to escort the youth to the bank of the Euphrates.
12 1 In that period, Cassius stood unrivalled as a jurist: for the arts of war are lost in a quiet world, and peace maintains on a single level the man of action and the sluggard. Still, so far as was possible, he reintroduced the old code of discipline, constantly exercised his legions, and acted with the same care and forethought as if an enemy had been at hand: in his view, the only conduct worthy of his ancestry and of the Cassian family, which had gained celebrity even in those regions. Accordingly, he called up the persons who had suggested the application for a king; pitched his camp at Zeugma, the most convenient point for crossing the river; and, after the arrival of the Parthian magnates and the Arab prince Acbarus, cautioned Meherdates that the enthusiasm of barbarians, though lively, grows chill with delay or changes into treachery: let him therefore press on with his adventure. The advice was ignored through the dishonesty of Acbarus, by whom the inexperienced youth — who identified kingship with dissipation — was detained day after day in the town of Edessa. Even when invited by Carenes, who pointed out that all was easy if they arrived quickly, he took, not the short road into Mesopotamia, but a circuitous route to Armenia, at that time an impracticable district, as winter was setting in.
13 1 At last, when, outworn by snows and mountains, they were nearing the plains, they effected a junction with the forces of Carenes, and, crossing the Tigris, struck through the country of the Adiabeni, whose king, Izates, had in public leagued himself with Meherdates, whilst in private, and with more sincerity, he inclined to Gotarzes. In passing, however, they captured Nineveh, the time-honoured capital of Assyria, together with a fortress, known to fame as the site on which the Persian empire fell in the last battle between Darius and Alexander. — Meanwhile, Gotarzes, at a mountain by the name of Sanbulos, was offering vows to the local deities; the chief cult being that of Hercules, who at fixed intervals warns his priests by dream to place beside his temple a number of horses equipped for hunting. These, after being furnished with quivers full of arrows, run loose in the forest glades, and only at night return, panting hard, and with quivers emptied. In a second nightly vision, the god points out the course he held through the forest, and all along it wild beasts are discovered strewing the ground.
14 1 Gotarzes, whose army had not as yet reached adequate strength, made use of the river Corma as a natural barrier, and, in spite of derisive messages challenging him to battle, continued to interpose delays, to change his quarters, and, by despatching bribery-agents, to bid for the defection of his enemies. First Izates and the contingents of Adiabene, then Acbarus with those of the Arabs, took their departure, in accordance with the levity of their race and with the fact, proved by experience, that barbarians are more inclined to seek their kings from Rome than to keep them. Stripped of these powerful auxiliaries, and apprehending treason from the rest, Meherdates took the one course remaining and decided to stake his fortune upon a trial of arms. Gotarzes, emboldened by the depletion of the enemy, did not decline an engagement, and the armies met, with great slaughter and dubious success; until Carenes, who had broken the forces opposed to him, carried his advance too far and was cut off by fresh troops in his rear. With all hope lost, Meherdates now listened to the promises of his father’s vassal Parraces, and, by an act of perfidy on his part, was thrown into chains and surrendered to the victor; who, upbraiding him as no relative of his, nor a member of the Arsacian house, but an alien and a Roman, struck off his ears and commanded him to live — an advertisement of his own mercy and of our dishonour. Next came the death of Gotarzes by disease, and Vonones, then viceroy of Media, was called to the throne. No successes and no reverses entitled him to mention: he completed a short, inglorious and perfunctory reign, and the Parthian empire devolved upon his son Vologaeses.
15 1 Meanwhile, Mithridates of Bosporus, a wanderer since the loss of his throne, learned that the Roman commander Didius had departed with the main body of his army, leaving the young and simple Cotys in his novel kingdom, with a few cohorts under the Roman knight, Julius Aquila. Scornful of both, he proceeded to raise the tribes and attract deserters: finally, mustering an army, he ejected the king of the Dandaridae, and seized his dominions. When this had become known and his invasion of Bosporus was expected from day to day, Aquila and Cotys — diffident of their own strength, as the Siracene prince Zorsines had resumed hostilities — followed his example, and sought outside support by sending envoys to the powerful Aorsian prince, Eunones. An alliance presented little difficulty, when they could exhibit the power of Rome ranged against the rebel Mithridates. It was arranged, therefore, that Eunones should be responsible for the cavalry fighting, the Romans undertaking the siege of all towns.
16 1 They then advanced with combined forces, the front and rear held by the Aorsi, the centre by the cohorts and by Bosporan troops armed on our model. In this order they inflicted a reverse on the enemy and reached Soza, a town of Dandarica evacuated by Mithridates, which, in view of the doubtful sympathies of the population, it was thought advisable to secure by leaving a garrison. They next advanced on the Siraci, and, crossing the stream of the Panda, invested Uspe, a city built on a height and fortified with walls and moats — the drawback being that, as the walls were not of stone but of wickerwork hurdles with soil between, they were too weak to sustain an attack, while our siege towers, with their greater elevation, threw the garrison into disorder by discharges of firebrands and spears. In fact, if the struggle had not been interrupted by night, the beginning and end of the attack would have fallen within the limits of one day.
17 1 On the morrow, deputies were sent out asking terms for the free population, but making an offer of ten thousand slaves. The composition was rejected by the victors, on the ground that it was cruelty to massacre surrendered men, and extremely difficult to maintain a ring of guards round such a multitude: better they should perish by the law of war! And the troops, who had mounted by their ladders, received the signal for no quarter. The des
truction of the inhabitants of Uspe struck dismay into the rest of the country; safety being considered impossible when armies and fortifications, high or difficult ground, rivers and cities, failed equally to stay the enemy. Zorsines, therefore, after long debating whether his first consideration was due to the desperate case of Mithridates or to his own ancestral kingdom, when once the interests of his nation carried the day, gave hostages and prostrated himself before the effigy of the Caesar — much to the glory of the Roman army, which had indisputably reached, bloodless and victorious, a point within three days’ march of the Tanais. During their withdrawal, however, fortune changed, as a few of the ships — they were returning by sea — were carried on to the Taurian coast and there surrounded by the barbarians, who killed the prefect of one cohort and many of the auxiliaries.
18 1 In the interval, as there was no help in arms, Mithridates debated the question whose mercy he should put to the proof. His brother Cotys, once his betrayer, then his declared enemy, inspired mistrust; and, of the Romans, no one of sufficient authority was on the scene for much weight to be attached to his promises. He turned to Eunones, who was not embittered against him by private animosities, and whose power had been increased by his recently formed friendship with ourselves. His dress and features, then, adjusted so far as possible to his present situation, he entered the palace and fell at the king’s knees with the words:—”Mithridates, whom the Romans have sought for so many years over land and sea, is here of his own accord. Use as thou wilt the issue of the great Achaemenes — the one title of which my enemies have not bereft me.”
19 1 Eunones, moved by the fame of the man, by the revolution in his fortunes, and by his not ignoble prayer, raised the suppliant and commended him for selecting the Aorsian people and his own right hand to which to address his appeal for clemency. At the same time, he sent a legation to the Caesar, with a letter to the following effect:—”Between the emperors of the Roman nation and the kings of great realms, friendship had its origin in the similarity of rank: between himself and Claudius there subsisted also a partnership in victory. The noblest end of war was a settlement reached by pardon; and it was thus that Zorsines had been conquered, but not despoiled. On behalf of Mithridates, who deserved sterner treatment, he asked for neither power nor royalty, but simply that he should not be led in triumph nor expiate his faults with his life.”
Complete Works of Tacitus (Delphi Classics) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 24) Page 74