20 In the same year, Tacfarinas — whose defeat by Camillus in the previous summer I have already mentioned — resumed hostilities in Africa: at first, by desultory raids, too speedy for reprisals; then, by the destruction of villages and by plunder on a larger scale. Finally, he invested a Roman cohort not far from the river Pagyda. The position was commanded by Decrius, who, quick in action and experienced in war, regarded the siege as a disgrace. After an address to the men, he drew up his lines in front of the encampment so as to offer battle in the open. As the cohort broke at the first onset, he darted eagerly among the missiles, to intercept the fugitives, cursing the standard-bearers who could see Roman soldiers turn their backs to a horde of undrilled men or deserters. At the same time, he turned his wounded breast and his face — with one eye pierced — to confront the enemy, and continued to fight until he dropped forsaken by his troop.
[21] Quae postquam L. Apronio (nam Camillo successerat) comperta, magis dedecore suorum quam gloria hostis anxius, raro ea tempestate et e vetere memoria facinore decumum quemque ignominiosae cohortis sorte ductos fusti necat. tantumque severitate profectum ut vexillum veteranorum, non amplius quingenti numero, easdem Tacfarinatis copias praesidium cui Thala nomen adgressas fuderint. quo proelio Rufus Helvius gregarius miles servati civis decus rettulit donatusque est ab Apronio torquibus et hasta. Caesar addidit civicam coronam, quod non eam quoque Apronius iure proconsulis tribuisset questus magis quam offensus. sed Tacfarinas perculsis Numidis et obsidia aspernantibus spargit bellum, ubi instaretur cedens ac rursum in terga remeans. et dum ea ratio barbaro fuit, inritum fessumque Romanum impune ludificabatur: postquam deflexit ad maritimos locos, inligatus praeda stativis castris adhaerebat, missu patris Apronius Caesianus cum equite et cohortibus auxiliariis, quis velocissimos legionum addiderat, prosperam adversum Numidas pugnam facit pellitque in deserta.
21 When the news reached Lucius Apronius (the successor of Camillus), perturbed more by the disgrace of his own troops than by the success of the enemy, he resorted to a measure rare in that period and reminiscent of an older world, drawing by lot and flogging to death every tenth man in the dishonoured cohort. And so effective was the severity that, when the same forces of Tacfarinas assaulted a stronghold named Thala, they were routed by a company of veterans not more than five hundred in number. During the engagement a private soldier, Helvius Rufus, earned the distinction of saving a Roman life, and was presented by Apronius with the collar and spear: the civic crown was added by the emperor; who regretted, more in sorrow than in anger, that the proconsul had not exercised his power to award this further honour. As the Numidians had both lost heart and disdained sieges, Tacfarinas fell back on guerilla warfare, yielding ground when the enemy became pressing, and then returning to harass the rear. Indeed, so long as the African adhered to this strategy, he befooled with impunity the ineffective and footsore Roman. But when he deviated to the coastal district and encumbered himself with a train of booty which kept him near a fixed encampment, Apronius Caesianus, marching at his father’s order with the cavalry and auxiliary cohorts reinforced by the most mobile of the legionaries, fought a successful engagement and chased the Numidians into the desert.
[22] At Romae Lepida, cui super Aemiliorum decus L. Sulla et Cn. Pompeius proavi erant, defertur simulavisse partum ex P. Quirinio divite atque orbo. adiciebantur adulteria venena quaesitumque per Chaldaeos in domum Caesaris, defendente ream Manio Lepido fratre. Quirinius post dictum repudium ad huc infensus quamvis infami ac nocenti miserationem addiderat. haud facile quis dispexerit illa in cognitione mentem principis: adeo vertit ac miscuit irae et clementiae signa. deprecatus primo senatum ne maiestatis crimina tractarentur, mox M. Servilium e consularibus aliosque testis inlexit ad proferenda quae velut reicere voluerat. idemque servos Lepidae, cum militari custodia haberentur, transtulit ad consules neque per tormenta interrogari passus est de iis quae ad domum suam pertinerent. exemit etiam Drusum consulem designatum dicendae primo loco sententiae; quod alii civile rebantur, ne ceteris adsentiendi necessitas fieret, quidam ad saevitiam trahebant: neque enim cessurum nisi damnandi officio.
22 At Rome, in the meantime, Lepida, who, over and above the distinction of the Aemilian family, owned Sulla and Pompey for great-grandsires, was accused of feigning to be a mother by Publius Quirinius, a rich man and childless. There were complementary charges of adulteries, of poisonings, and of inquiries made through the astrologers with reference to the Caesarian house. The defence was in the hands of her brother, Manius Lepidus. Despite her infamy and her guilt, Quirinius, by persisting in his malignity after divorcing her, had gained her a measure of sympathy. It is not easy to penetrate the emperor’s sentiments during this trial: so adroitly did he invert and confuse the symptoms of anger and of mercy. He began by requesting the senate not to deal with the charges of treason; then he lured the former consul, Marcus Servilius, with a number of other witnesses, into stating the very facts he had apparently wished to have suppressed. Lepida’s slaves, again, were being held in military custody; he transferred them to the consuls, and would not allow them to be questioned under torture upon the issues concerning his own family. Similarly, he exempted Drusus, who was consul designate, from speaking first to the question. By some this was read as a concession relieving the rest of the members from the need of assenting: others took it to mark a sinister purpose on the ground that he would have ceded nothing save the duty of condemning.
[23] Lepida ludorum diebus qui cognitionem intervenerant theatrum cum claris feminis ingressa, lamentatione flebili maiores suos ciens ipsumque Pompeium, cuius ea monimenta et adstantes imagines visebantur, tantum misericordiae permovit ut effusi in lacrimas saeva et detestanda Quirinio clamitarent, cuius senectae atque orbitati et obscurissimae domui destinata quondam uxor L. Caesari ac divo Augusto nurus dederetur. dein tormentis servorum patefacta sunt flagitia itumque in sententiam Rubelli Blandi a quo aqua atque igni arcebatur. huic Drusus adsensit quamquam alii mitius censuissent. mox Scauro, qui filiam ex ea genuerat, datum ne bona publicarentur. tum demum aperuit Tiberius compertum sibi etiam ex P. Quirinii servis veneno eum a Lepida petitum.
23 In the course of the Games, which had interrupted the trial, Lepida entered the theatre with a number of women of rank; and there, weeping, wailing, invoking her ancestors and Pompey himself, whom that edifice commemorated, whose statues were standing before their eyes, she excited so much sympathy that the crowd burst into tears, with a fierce and ominous outcry against Quirinius, to whose doting years, barren bed, and petty family they were betraying a woman once destined for the bride of Lucius Caesar and the daughter-in-law of the deified Augustus. Then, with the torture of her slaves, came the revelation of her crimes; and the motion of Rubellius Blandus, who pressed for her formal outlawry, was carried. Drusus sided with him, though others had proposed more lenient measures. Later, as a concession to Scaurus, who had a son by her, it was decided not to confiscate her property. And now at last Tiberius disclosed that he had ascertained from Quirinius’ own slaves that Lepida had attempted their master’s life by poison.
[24] Inlustrium domuum adversa (etenim haud multum distanti tempore Calpurnii Pisonem, Aemilii Lepidam amiserant) solacio adfecit D. Silanus Iuniae familiae redditus. casum eius paucis repetam. ut valida divo Augusto in rem publicam fortuna ita domi improspera fuit ob impudicitiam filiae ac neptis quas urbe depulit, adulterosque earum morte aut fuga punivit. nam culpam inter viros ac feminas vulgatam gravi nomine laesarum religionum ac violatae maiestatis appellando clementiam maiorum suasque ipse leges egrediebatur. sed aliorum exitus simul cetera illius aetatis memorabo si effectis in quae tetendi plures ad curas vitam produxero. D. Silanus in nepti Augusti adulter, quamquam non ultra foret saevitum quam ut amicitia Caesaris Tiberio imperitante deprecari senatum ac principem ausus est M. Silani fratris potentia, qui per insignem nobilitatem et eloquentiam praecellebat. sed Tiberius gratis agenti Silano patribus coram respondit se quoque laetari quod frater eius e peregrinatione longinqua revertisset, idque iure licitum quia
non senatus consulto non lege pulsus foret: sibi tamen adversus eum integras parentis sui offensiones neque reditu Silani dissoluta quae Augustus voluisset. fuit posthac in urbe eque honores adeptus est.
24 For the disasters of the great houses (for at no great distance of time Piso had been lost to the Calpurnii and Lepida to the Aemilii) there was some consolation in the return of Decimus Silanus to the Junian family. His mischance deserves a brief retrospect. Fortune, staunch to the deified Augustus in his public life, was less propitious to him at home, owing to the incontinence of his daughter and granddaughter, whom he expelled from the capital while penalizing their adulterers by death or banishment. For designating as he did the besetting sin of both the sexes by the harsh appellations of sacrilege and treason, he overstepped both the mild penalties of an earlier day and those of his own laws. But the fate of other delinquents I shall record together with the general history of that age, should I achieve the task I have set before me and be spared for yet other themes. Decimus Silanus, the lawless lover of Augustus’ granddaughter, though subjected to no harsher penalty than forfeiture of the imperial friendship, realized that the implication was exile; nor was it until the accession of Tiberius that he ventured to appeal to the senate and sovereign through his influential brother, Marcus Silanus, whose high descent and eloquence gave him a commanding position. Even so, while Silanus was expressing his gratitude before the senate, Tiberius replied that “he also was glad that his brother had returned from his distant pilgrimage: he had an indefeasible right to do so, as he had been exiled neither by resolution of the senate nor by form of law. At the same time, he retained his father’s objections to him intact; and the repatriation of Silanus had not cancelled the wishes of Augustus.” Accordingly he resided for the future in Rome, but without holding office.
[25] Relatum dein de moderanda Papia Poppaea, quam senior Augustus post Iulias rogationes incitandis caelibum poenis et augendo aerario sanxerat. nec ideo coniugia et educationes liberum frequentabantur praevalida orbitate: ceterum multitudo periclitantium gliscebat, cum omnis domus delatorum interpretationibus subverteretur, utque antehac flagitiis ita tunc legibus laborabatur. ea res admonet ut de principiis iuris et quibus modis ad hanc multitudinem infinitam ac varietatem legum perventum sit altius disseram.
25 A motion was then introduced to qualify the terms of the Lex Papia Poppaea. This law, complementary to the Julian rogations, had been passed by Augustus in his later years, in order to sharpen the penalties of celibacy and to increase the resources of the exchequer. It failed, however, to make marriage and the family popular — childlessness remained the vogue. On the other hand, there was an ever-increasing multitude of persons liable to prosecution, since every household was threatened with subversion by the arts of the informers; and where the country once suffered from its vices, it was now in peril from its laws. This circumstance suggests that I should discuss more deeply the origin of legislation and the processes which have resulted in the countless and complex statutes of to-day.
[26] Vetustissimi mortalium, nulla adhuc mala libidine, sine probro, scelere eoque sine poena aut coercitionibus agebant. neque praemiis opus erat cum honesta suopte ingenio peterentur; et ubi nihil contra morem cuperent, nihil per metum vetabantur. at postquam exui aequalitas et pro modestia ac pudore ambitio et vis incedebat, provenere dominationes multosque apud populos aeternum mansere. quidam statim aut postquam regum pertaesum leges maluerunt. hae primo rudibus hominum animis simplices erant; maximeque fama celebravit Cretensium, quas Minos, Spartanorum, quas Lycurgus, ac mox Atheniensibus quaesitiores iam et plures Solo perscripsit. nobis Romulus ut libitum imperitaverat: dein Numa religionibus et divino iure populum devinxit, repertaque quaedam a Tullo et Anco. sed praecipuus Servius Tullius sanctor legum fuit quis etiam reges obtemperarent.
26 Primeval man, untouched as yet by criminal passion, lived his life without reproach or guilt, and, consequently, without penalty or coercion: rewards were needless when good was sought instinctively, and he who coveted nothing unsanctioned by custom had to be withheld from nothing by a threat. But when equality began to be outworn, and ambition and violence gained ground in place of modesty and self-effacement, there came a crop of despotisms, which with many nations has remained perennial. A few communities, either from the outset or after a surfeit of kings, decided for government by laws. The earliest specimens were the artless creations of simple minds, the most famous being those drawn up in Crete by Minos, in Sparta by Lycurgus, and in Athens by Solon — the last already more recondite and more numerous. In our own case, after the absolute sway of Romulus, Numa imposed on his people the bonds of religion and a code dictated by Heaven. Other discoveries were due to Tullus and Ancus. But, foremost of all, Servius Tullius became an ordainer of laws, to which kings themselves were to owe obedience.
[27] Pulso Tarquinio adversum patrum factiones multa populus paravit tuendae libertatis et firmandae concordiae, creatique decemviri et accitis quae usquam egregia compositae duodecim tabulae, finis aequi iuris. nam secutae leges etsi aliquando in maleficos ex delicto, saepius tamen dissensione ordinum et apiscendi inlicitos honores aut pellendi claros viros aliaque ob prava per vim latae sunt. hinc Gracchi et Saturnini turbatores plebis nec minor largitor nomine senatus Drusus; corrupti spe aut inlusi per intercessionem socii. ac ne bello quidem Italico, mox civili omissum quin multa et diversa sciscerentur, donec L. Sulla dictator abolitis vel conversis prioribus, cum plura addidisset, otium eius rei haud in longum paravit, statim turbidis Lepidi rogationibus neque multo post tribunis reddita licentia quoquo vellent populum agitandi. iamque non modo in commune sed in singulos homines latae quaestiones, et corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
27 Upon the expulsion of Tarquin, the commons, to check senatorial factions, framed a large number of regulations for the protection of their liberties or the establishment of concord; the Decemvirs came into being; and, by incorporating the best features of the foreign constitutions, the Twelve Tables were assembled, the final instance of equitable legislation. For succeeding laws, though occasionally suggested by a crime and aimed at the criminal, were more often carried by brute force in consequence of class-dissension — to open the way to an unconceded office, to banish a patriot, or to consummate some other perverted end. Hence our demagogues: our Gracchi and Saturnini, and on the other side a Drusus bidding as high in the senate’s name; while the provincials were alternately bribed with hopes and cheated with tribunician vetoes. Not even the Italian war, soon replaced by the Civil war, could interrupt the flow of self-contradictory legislation; until Sulla, in his dictatorship, by abolishing or inverting the older statutes and adding more of his own, brought the process to a standstill, but not for long. The calm was immediately broken by the Rogations of Lepidus, and shortly afterwards the tribunes were repossessed of their licence to disturb the nation as they pleased. And now bills began to pass, not only of national but of purely individual application, and when the state was most corrupt, laws were most abundant.
[28] Tum Cn. Pompeius, tertium consul corrigendis moribus delectus et gravior remediis quam delicta erant suarumque legum auctor idem ac subversor, quae armis tuebatur armis amisit. exim continua per viginti annos discordia, non mos, non ius; deterrima quaeque impune ac multa honesta exitio fuere. sexto demum consulatu Caesar Augustus, potentiae securus, quae triumviratu iusserat abolevit deditque iura quis pace et principe uteremur. acriora ex eo vincla, inditi custodes et lege Papia Poppaea praemiis inducti ut, si a privilegiis parentum cessaretur, velut parens omnium populus vacantia teneret. sed altius penetrabnat urbemque et Italiam et quod usquam civium corripuerant, multorumque excisi status. et terror omnibus intentabatur ni Tiberius statuendo remedio quinque consularium, quinque e praetoriis, totidem e cetero senatu sorte duxisset apud quos exsoluti plerique legis nexus modicum in praesens levamentum fuere.
28 Then came Pompey’s third consulate. But this chosen reformer of society, operating with remedies more disastrous than the abuses, this maker and breaker of his own en
actments, lost by the sword what he was holding by the sword. The followed twenty crowded years of discord, during which law and custom ceased to exist: villainy was immune, decency not rarely a sentence of death. At last, in his sixth consulate, Augustus Caesar, feeling his power secure, cancelled the behests of his triumvirate, and presented us with laws to serve our needs in peace and under a prince. Thenceforward the fetters were tightened: sentries were set over us and, under the Papia-Poppaean law, lured on by rewards; so that, if a man shirked the privileges of paternity, the state, as universal parent, might step into the vacant inheritance. But they pressed their activities too far: the capital, Italy, every corner of the Roman world, had suffered from their attacks, and the positions of many had been wholly ruined. Indeed, a reign of terror was threatened, when Tiberius, for the fixing of a remedy, chose by lot five former consuls, five former praetors, and an equal number of ordinary senators: a body which, by untying many of the legal knots, gave for the time a measure of relief.
[29] Per idem tempus Neronem e liberis Germanici iam ingressum iuventam commendavit patribus, utque munere capessendi vigintiviratus solveretur et quinquennio maturius quam per leges quaesturam peteret non sine inrisu audientium postulavit. praetendebat sibi atque fratri decreta eadem petente Augusto. sed neque tum fuisse dubitaverim qui eius modi preces occulti inluderent: ac tamen initia fastigii Caesaribus erant magisque in oculis vetus mos, et privignis cum vitrico levior necessitudo quam avo adversum nepotem. additur pontificatus et quo primum die forum ingressus est congiarium plebi admodum laetae quod Germanici stirpem iam puberem aspiciebat. auctum dehinc gaudium nuptiis Neronis et Iuliae Drusi filiae. utque haec secundo rumore ita adversis animis acceptum quod filio Claudii socer Seianus destinaretur. polluisse nobilitatem familiae videbatur suspectumque iam nimiae spei Seianum ultra extulisse.
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