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

by Publius Cornelius Tacitus

  47 Sabinus, till he could muster his forces, returned soft answers; but when Pomponius Labeo arrived from Moesia with a legion, and King Rhoemetalces with a body of native auxiliaries who had not renounced their allegiance, he added his own available troops and moved against the enemy, by now concentrated in the wooded gorges. A few, more daring, showed themselves on the open hills, but were driven from them without difficulty, when the Roman commander advanced in battle-order, though cover was so near that little barbarian blood was spilt. Then, after fortifying a camp on the spot, Sabinus with a strong detachment made himself master of a narrow mountain-ridge running without a break to the nearest tribal fortress, which was held by a considerable force of armed men and irregulars. Simultaneously, he sent a picked body of archers to deal with the bolder spirits who, true to the national custom, were gambolling with songs and war-dances in front of the rampart. The bowmen, so long as they operated at long range, inflicted many wounds with impunity; on advancing closer, they were thrown into disorder by an unlooked-for sally, and fell back on the support of a Sugambrian cohort, drawn up a short distance away by the Roman general, since the men were prompt in danger, and, as regards the din produced by their songs and weapons, not less awe-inspiring than the enemy.

  [48] Translata dehinc castra hostem propter, relictis apud priora munimenta Thraecibus, quos nobis adfuisse memoravi. iisque permissum vastare, urere, trahere praedas, dum populatio lucem intra sisteretur noctemque in castris tutam et vigilem capesserent. id primo servatum: mox versi in luxum et raptis opulenti omittere stationes, lascivia epularum aut somno et vino procumbere. igitur hostes incuria eorum comperta duo agmina parant quorum altero populatores invaderentur, alii castra Romana adpugnarent, non spe capiendi sed ut clamore, telis suo quisque periculo intentus sonorem alterius proelii non acciperet. tenebrae insuper delectae augendam ad formidinem. sed qui vallum legionum temptabant facile pelluntur; Thraecum auxilia repentino incursu territa, cum pars munitionibus adiacerent, plures extra palarentur, tanto infensius caesi quanto perfugae et proditores ferre arma ad suum patriaeque servitium incusabantur.

  48 The camp was then moved a stage nearer the adversary; and the Thracians, whom I mentioned as having joined us, were left in charge of the earlier lines. They had licence to ravage, burn, and plunder, so long as their depredations were limited to the daylight, and the night spent safely and wakefully behind entrenchments. At first, the rule was kept: then, turning to luxury and enriched by their booty, they began to leave their posts for some wild orgy, or lay tumbled in drunken slumber. The enemy, therefore, who had information of their laxity, arranged two columns, by one of which the raiders were to be attacked, while another band demonstrated against the Roman encampment; not with any hope of capture, but in order that, amid the shouting and the missiles, every man engrossed by his own danger might be deaf to echoes of the other conflict. Darkness, moreover, was chosen for the blow, so as to intensify the panic. The attempt on the earthworks of the legions was, however, easily repelled: the Thracian auxiliaries, a few of whom were lying along their lines, while the majority were straggling outside, lost their nerve at the sudden onset, and were cut down all the more ruthlessly because they were branded as renegades and traitors carrying arms for the enslavement of themselves and their fatherland.

  [49] Postera die Sabinus exercitum aequo loco ostendit, si barbari successu noctis alacres proelium auderent. et postquam castello aut coniunctis tumulis non degrediebantur, obsidium coepit per praesidia quae opportune iam muniebat; dein fossam loricamque contexens quattuor milia passuum ambitu amplexus est; tum paulatim ut aquam pabulumque eriperet contrahere claustra artaque circumdare; et struebatur agger unde saxa hastae ignes propinquum iam in hostem iacerentur. sed nihil aeque quam sitis fatigabat, cum ingens multitudo bellatorum imbellium uno reliquo fonte uterentur; simulque armenta, ut mos barbaris, iuxta clausa egestate pabuli exanimari; adiacere corpora hominum quos vulnera, quos sitis peremerat; pollui cuncta sanie odore contactu.

  49 On the following day, Sabinus paraded his army in the plain, in the hope that the barbarians, elated by the night’s success might venture battle. As they showed no signs of descending from their stronghold or from the adjacent hills, he began their investment, with the help of the fortified posts which, opportunely enough, he was already constructing; then drew a continuous fosse and breastwork, with a circumference of •four miles; and lastly, step by step, contracted and tightened his lines of circumvallation, so as to cut off the supplies of water and forage; while an embankment began to rise, from which stones, spears, and fire-brands could be showered on the no longer distant enemy. But nothing told on the defence so much as thirst, since the one spring remaining had to serve the whole great multitude of combatants and non-combatants. At the same time, horses and cattle — penned up with their owners in the barbarian style — were dying for lack of fodder; side by side with them lay the bodies of men, victims of wounds or thirst, and the whole place was an abomination of rotting blood, stench, and infection.

  [50] Rebusque turbatis malum extremum discordia accessit, his deditionem aliis mortem et mutuos inter se ictus parantibus; et erant qui non inultum exitium sed eruptionem suaderent. neque ignobiles tantum his diversi sententiis, verum e ducibus Dinis, provectus senecta et longo usu vim atque clementiam Romanam edoctus, ponenda arma, unum adflictis id remedium disserebat, primusque secum coniuge et liberis victori permisit: secuti aetate aut sexu imbecilli et quibus maior vitae quam gloriae cupido. at iuventus Tarsam inter et Turesim distrahebatur. utrique destinatum cum libertate occidere, sed Tarsa properum finem, abrumpendas pariter spes ac metus clamitans, dedit exemplum demisso in pectus ferro; nec defuere qui eodem modo oppeterent. Turesis sua cum manu noctem opperitur haud nescio duce nostro. igitur firmatae stationes densioribus globis; et ingruebat nox nimbo atrox, hostisque clamore turbido, modo per vastum silentium, incertos obsessores effecerat, cum Sabinus circumire, hortari, ne ad ambigua sonitus aut simulationem quietis casum insidiantibus aperirent, sed sua quisque munia servarent immoti telisque non in falsum iactis.

  50 To the confusion was added the last calamity, discord; some proposing surrender, some to fall on each other and die; while there were those, again, who commended, not unavenged destruction, but a last sortie. Others, and not the multitude only, dissented from each of these views: one of the leaders, Dinis, now advanced in years, and familiar through long experience with the power and the clemency of Rome, urged them to lay down their arms — it was the one resource in their extremity — and took the initiative by placing himself, his wife, and his children, at the disposal of the victor. He was followed by those who laboured under the disabilities of age or sex, or who were more passionately attached to life than to glory. On the other hand, the younger fighting men were divided between Tarsa and Turesis. Both were resolute not to outlive their freedom; but Tarsa, crying out for a quick despatch, a quietus to hope and fear alike, gave the example by plunging his weapon into his breast: nor were others lacking to choose the same mode of death. Turesis and his followers waited for the night: a fact of which the Roman commander was not ignorant. The outposts, accordingly, were secured by denser masses of men. — Night was falling, with a storm of rain; and the wild shouting on the enemy’s side, alternating as it did with deathly stillnesses, had begun to perplex the besiegers, when Sabinus made a tour of his lines and urged the men to be misled neither by ambiguous sound nor by simulated quiet into giving the ambuscaded foe his opening: every man should attend to his duties without budging from his post or expending javelins on an illusory mark.

  [51] Interea barbari catervis decurrentes nunc in vallum manualia saxa, praeustas sudes, decisa robora iacere, nunc virgultis et cratibus et corporibus exanimis complere fossas, quidam pontis et scalas ante fabricati inferre propugnaculis eaque prensare, detrahere et adversum resistentis comminus niti. miles contra deturbare telis, pellere umbonibus, muralia pila, congestas lapidum molis provolvere. his partae victoriae spes et si cedant insignitius flagitium, illis extrema iam sal
us et adsistentes plerisque matres et coniuges earumque lamenta addunt animos. nox aliis in audaciam, aliis ad formidinem opportuna; incerti ictus, vulnera improvisa; suorum atque hostium ignoratio et montis anfractu repercussae velut a tergo voces adeo cuncta miscuerant ut quaedam munimenta Romani quasi perrupta omiserint. neque tamen pervasere hostes nisi admodum pauci: ceteros, deiecto promptissimo quoque aut saucio, adpetente iam luce trusere in summa castelli ubi tandem coacta deditio. et proxima sponte incolarum recepta: reliquis quo minus vi aut obsidio subigerentur praematura montis Haemi et saeva hiems subvenit.

  51 Meanwhile, the barbarians, speeding down in their bands, now battered the palisade with hand-flung stones, stakes pointed in the fire, and oak-boughs hewn from the tree; now filled the moats with brushwood, hurdles, and lifeless bodies; while a few with bridges and ladders, fabricated beforehand, advanced against the turrets, clutching them, tearing them down, and struggling hand to hand with the defenders. The troops, in return, struck them down with spears, dashed them back with their shield-bosses, hurled on them siege-javelins and piles of massive stone. On each side were incentives enough to courage: on ours, hope that victory was won, and the more flagrant ignominy which would attend a defeat; on theirs, the fact that they were striking the last blow for deliverance — many with their wives and mothers close at hand and their lamentations sounding in their ears. Night, screening the audacity of some, the panic of others; blows dealt at random, wounds unforeseen; the impossibility of distinguishing friend from foe; cries echoed back from the mountain ravines, and so coming apparently from the rear — all this had produced such general confusion that the Romans abandoned some of their positions as forced. Yet actually none but a handful of the enemy made their way through; while the remainder, with their bravest either dead or disabled, were at the approach of daylight pushed back to their stronghold on the height, where surrender at last became compulsory. The districts adjourning were taken over with the concurrence of the inhabitants: the rest were saved from reduction, whether by assault or investment, by the premature and stern winter of the Haemus range.

  [52] At Romae commota principis domo, ut series futuri in Agrippinam exitii inciperet Claudia Pulchra sobrina eius postulatur accusante Domitio Afro. is recens praetura, modicus dignationis et quoquo facinore properus clarescere, crimen impudicitiae, adulterum Furnium, veneficia in principem et devotiones obiectabat. Agrippina semper atrox, tum et periculo propinquae accensa, pergit ad Tiberium ac forte sacrificantem patri repperit. quo initio invidiae non eiusdem ait mactare divo Augusto victimas et posteros eius insectari. non in effigies mutas divinum spiritum transfusum: se imaginem veram, caelesti sanguine ortam, intellegere discrimen, suscipere sordis. frustra Pulchram praescribi cui sola exitii causa sit quod Agrippinam stulte prorsus ad cultum delegerit oblita Sosiae ob eadem adflictae. audita haec raram occulti pectoris vocem elicuere, correptamque Graeco versu admonuit non ideo laedi quia non regnaret. Pulchra et Furnius damnantur. Afer primoribus oratorum additus, divulgato ingenio et secuta adseveratione Caesaris qua suo iure disertum eum appellavit. mox capessendis accusationibus aut reos tutando prosperiore eloquentiae quam morum fama fuit, nisi quod aetas extrema multum etiam eloquentiae dempsit, dum fessa mente retinet silentii impatientiam.

  52 But in Rome, the imperial house was already shaken; and now, to open the train of events leading to the destruction of Agrippina, her second cousin, Claudia Pulchra, was put on trial, with Domitius Afer as accuser. Fresh from a praetorship, with but a modest standing in the world, and hurrying towards a reputation by way of any crime, he indicted her for unchastity, for adultery with Furnius, for practices by poison and spell against the life of the sovereign. Agrippina, fierce-tempered always and now inflamed by the danger of her kinswoman, flew to Tiberius, and, as chance would have it, found him sacrificing to his father. This gave the occasion for a reproachful outburst:—”It was not,” she said, “for the same man to offer victims to the deified Augustus and to persecute his posterity. Not into speechless stone had that divine spirit been transfused: she, his authentic effigy, the issue of his celestial blood, was aware of her peril and assumed the garb of mourning. It was idle to make a pretext of Pulchra, the only cause of whose destruction was that in utter folly she had chosen Agrippina as the object of her affection, forgetful of Sosia, who was struck down for the same offence.” Her words elicitedº one of the rare deliverances of that impenetrable breast. He seized her, and admonished her in a line of Greek that she was not necessarily “A woman injured, if she lacked a throne.” Pulchra and Furnius were condemned. Afer took rank with the great advocates: his genius had found publicity, and there had followed a pronouncement from the Caesar, styling him “an orator by natural right.” Later, whether as conductor of the prosecution or as mainstay of the defence, he enjoyed a fame which stood higher for eloquence than for virtue. Yet even of that eloquence age took heavy toll, sapping as it did his mental power and leaving his incapacity for silence.

  [53] At Agrippina pervicax irae et morbo corporis implicata, cum viseret eam Caesar, profusis diu ac per silentium lacrimis, mox invidiam et preces orditur: subveniret solitudini, daret maritum; habilem adhuc inventam sibi neque aliud probis quam ex matrimonio solacium; esse in civitate, * * * Germanici coniugem ac liberos eius recipere dignarentur. sed Caesar non ignarus quantum ex re publica peteretur, ne tamen offensionis aut metus manifestus foret sine responso quamquam instantem reliquit. id ego, a scriptoribus annalium non traditum, repperi in commentariis Agrippinae filiae quae Neronis principis mater vitam suam et casus suorum posteris memoravit.

  53 Meanwhile Agrippina, obstinately nursing her anger, and attacked by physical illness, was visited by the emperor. For long her tears fell in silence; then she began with reproaches and entreaties:—”He must aid her loneliness and give her a husband; she had still the requisite youth, and the virtuous had no consolation but in marriage — the state had citizens who would stoop to receive the wife of Germanicus and his children.” The Caesar, however, though he saw all that was implied in the request, was reluctant to betray either fear or resentment, and therefore, in spite of her insistence, left her without an answer. — This incident, not noticed by the professed historians, I found in the memoirs of her daughter Agrippina (mother of the emperor Nero), who recorded for the after-world her life and the vicissitudes of her house.

  [54] Ceterum Seianus maerentem et improvidam altius perculit, immissis qui per speciem amicitiae monerent paratum ei venenum, vitandas soceri epulas. atque illa simulationum nescia, cum propter discumberet, non vultu aut sermone flecti, nullos attingere cibos, donec advertit Tiberius, forte an quia audiverat; idque quo acrius experiretur, poma, ut erant adposita, laudans nurui sua manu tradidit. aucta ex eo suspicio Agrippinae et intacta ore servis tramisit. nec tamen Tiberii vox coram secuta, sed obversus ad matrem non mirum ait si quid severius in eam statuisset a qua veneficii insimularetur. inde rumor parari exitium neque id imperatorem palam audere, secretum ad perpetrandum quaeri.

  54 Sejanus, however, struck a deeper dismay into her harassed and improvident breast by sending agents to warn her, under the colour of friendship, that poison was ready for her: she would do well to avoid the dinners of her father-in-law. And she, a stranger to all pretence, as she reclined next to him at table, relaxed neither her features nor her silence, and refused to touch her food; until at last, either by accident or from information received, Tiberius’ attention was arrested, and, to apply a more searching test, he took some fruit as it had been set before him and with his own hand passed it to his daughter-in-law, with a word of praise. The act increased Agrippina’s suspicions, and without tasting the dish she passed it over to the slaves. Even so, no overt remark followed from Tiberius: he turned, however, to his mother, and observed that it was not strange if he had resolved on slightly rigorous measures against a lady who accused him of murder by poison. Hence a rumour that her destruction was in preparation, and that the emperor lacked courage to do the deed openly: a quiet setting for the crime was being consi
dered.

  [55] Sed Caesar quo famam averteret adesse frequens senatoi legatosque Asiae ambigentis quanam in civitate templum statueretur pluris per dies audivit. undecim urbes certabant, pari ambitione, viribus diversae. neque multum distantia inter se memorabant de vetustate generis, studio in populum Romanum per bella Persi et Aristonici aliorumque regum. verum Hypaepeni Trallianique Laodicenis ac Magnetibus simul tramissi ut pamum validi; ne Ilienses quidem, cum parentem urbis Romae Troiam referrent, nisi antiquitatis gloria pollebant. paulum addubitatum quod Halicarnasii mille et ducentos per annos nullo motu terrae nutavisse sedes suas vivoque in saxo fundamenta templi adseveraverant. Pergamenos (eo ipso nitebantur) aede Augusto ibi sita satis adeptos creditum. Ephesii Milesiique, hi Apollinis, illi Dianae caerimonia occupavisse civitates visi. ita Sardianos inter Zmyrnaeosque deliberatum. Sardiani decretum Etruriae recitavere ut consanguinei: nam Tyrrhenum Lydumque Atye rege genitos ob multitudinem divisisse gentem; Lydum patriis in terris resedisse, Tyrrheno datum novas ut conderet sedes; et ducum e nominibus indita vocabula illis per Asiam, his in Italia; auctamque adhuc Lydorum opulentiam missis in Graeciam populis cui mox a Pelope nomen. simul litteras imperatorum et icta nobiscum foedera bello Macedonum ubertatemque fluminum suorum, temperiem caeli ac ditis circum terras memorabant.

  55 To divert criticism, the Caesar attended the senate with frequency, and for several days listened to the deputies from Asia debating which of their communities was to erect his temple. Eleven cities competed, with equal ambition but disparate resources. With no great variety each pleaded national antiquity, and zeal for the Roman cause in the wars with Perseus, Aristonicus, and other kings. But Hypaepa and Tralles, together with Laodicea and Magnesia, were passed over as inadequate to the task: even Ilium, though it appealed to Troy as the parent of Rome, had no significance apart from the glory of its past. Some little hesitation was caused by the statement of the Halicarnassians that for twelve hundred years no tremors of earthquake had disturbed their town, and the temple foundations would rest on the living rock. The Pergamenes were refuted by their main argument: they had already a sanctuary of Augustus, and the distinction was thought ample. The state-worship in Ephesus and Miletus was considered to be already centred on the cults of Diana and Apollo respectively: the deliberations turned, therefore, on Sardis and Smyrna. The Sardians read a decree of their “kindred country” of Etruria. “Owing to its numbers,” they explained, “Tyrrhenus and Lydus, sons of King Atys, had divided the nation. Lydus had remained in the territory of his fathers, Tyrrhenus had been allotted the task of creating a new settlement; and the Asiatic and Italian branches of the people had received distinctive titles from the names of the two leaders; while a further advance in the Lydian power had come with the despatch of colonists to the peninsula which afterwards took its name from Pelops.” At the same time, they recalled the letters from Roman commanders, the treaties concluded with us in the Macedonian war, their ample rivers, tempered climate, and the richness of the surrounding country.