14 At the end of the year, the Roman knights, Geminius, Celsus, and Pompeius, succumbed to the charge of conspiracy. One of them, Geminius, through his prodigal expenditure and effeminacy of life, was certainly a friend of Sejanus, but to no serious purpose. The tribune Julius Celsus, again, when imprisoned, slackened his chain, and by slipping it over his head and pulling at the two ends broke his neck. On the other hand, Rubrius Fabatus was placed under surveillance on the ground that, in despair at the state of Rome, he was contemplating flight to the mercy of the Parthians. Certainly he was discovered in the neighbourhood of the Sicilian Strait, and, when haled back by a centurion, could give no plausible reasons for his distant pilgrimage. He kept his life, however, more through forgetfulness than through clemency.
[6.15] Ser. Galba L. Sulla consulibus diu quaesito quos neptibus suis maritos destinaret Caesar, postquam instabat virginum aetas, L. Cassium, M. Vinicium legit. Vinicio oppidanum genus: Calibus ortus, patre atque avo consularibus, cetera equestri familia erat, mitis ingenio et comptae facundiae. Cassius plebeii Romae generis, verum antiqui honoratique, et severa patris disciplina eductus facilitate saepius quam industria commendabatur. huic Drusillam, Vinicio Iuliam Germanico genitas coniungit superque ea re senatui scribit levi cum honore iuvenum. dein redditis absentiae causis admodum vagis flexit ad graviora et offensiones ob rem publicam coeptas, utque Macro praefectus tribunorumque et centurionum pauci secum introirent quoties curiam ingrederetur petivit. factoque large et sine praescriptione generis aut numeri senatus consulto ne tecta quidem urbis, adeo publicum consilium numquam adiit, deviis plerumque itineribus ambiens patriam et declinans.
15 In the consulate of Servius Galba and Lucius Sulla, the Caesar, after long debating whom to appoint as husbands for his grand-daughters, found the age of the girls advancing, and selected Lucius Cassius and Marcus Vinicius. Vinicius came of country stock: born at Cales, with a father and grandfather of consular rank, but of equestrian family otherwise, he was gentle in disposition and the master of a polished eloquence. Cassius, of a plebeian but old and honoured house at Rome, and trained under strict paternal discipline, recommended himself more often by an accommodating temper than by energy. To him and to Vinicius Tiberius plighted respectively Drusilla and Julia, the daughters of Germanicus, and wrote to the senate on the subject with a perfunctory eulogy of the young men. Then, after giving a number of extremely indelicate reasons for his absence, he turned to the graver subject of “enmities incurred for his country’s good,” and asked that the prefect Macro and a few tribunes and centurions should be admitted with himself as often as he entered the curia. Yet, notwithstanding that the senate passed a comprehensive decree without any proviso as to the composition or numbers of his escort, not once did he even approach the roofs of Rome, far less the deliberative assembly of the state, but time and again, by devious roads, encircled, and avoided, his native city.
[6.16] Interea magna vis accusatorum in eos inrupit qui pecunias faenore auctitabant adversum legem dictatoris Caesaris qua de modo credendi possidendique intra Italiam caventur, omissam olim, quia privato usui bonum publicum postponitur. sane vetus urbi faenebre malum et seditionum discordiarumque creberrima causa eoque cohibebatur antiquis quoque et minus corruptis moribus. nam primo duodecim tabulis sanctum ne quis unciario faenore amplius exerceret, cum antea ex libidine locupletium agitaretur; dein rogatione tribunicia ad semuncias redactum, postremo vetita versura. multisque plebi scitis obviam itum fraudibus quae toties repressae miras per artes rursum oriebantur. sed tum Gracchus praetor, cui ea quaestio evenerat, multitudine periclitantium subactus rettulit ad senatum, trepidique patres (neque enim quisquam tali culpa vacuus) veniam a principe petivere; et concedente annus in posterum sexque menses dati quis secundum iussa legis rationes familiaris quisque componerent.
16 Meanwhile, an army of accusers broke loose on the persons who habitually increased their riches by usury, in contravention of a law of the dictator Caesar, regulating the conditions of lending money and holding property within the boundaries of Italy: a measure dropped long ago, since the public good ranks second to private utility. The curse of usury, it must be owned, is inveterate in Rome, a constant source of sedition and discord; and attempts were accordingly made to repress it even in an older and less corrupt society. First came a provision of the Twelve Tables that the rate of interest, previously governed by the fancy of the rich, should not exceed one-twelfth per cent for the month; later a tribunician rogation lowered it to one-half of that amount; and at length usufruct was unconditionally banned; while a series of plebiscites strove to meet the frauds which were perpetually repressed, only, by extraordinary evasions, to make their appearance once more. In the present instance, however, the praetor Gracchus, to whose jurisdiction the case had fallen, was forced by the numbers implicated to refer it to the senate; and the Fathers in trepidation — for not one member was clear from such a charge — asked an indulgence from the prince. It was granted; and the next eighteen months were assigned as a term of grace within which all accounts were to be adjusted in accordance with the prescriptions of the law.
[6.17] Hinc inopia rei nummariae, commoto simul omnium aere alieno, et quia tot damnatis bonisque eorum divenditis signatum argentum fisco vel aerario attinebatur. ad hoc senatus praescripserat, duas quisque faenoris partis in agris per Italiam conlocaret. sed creditores in solidum appellabant nec decorum appellatis minuere fidem. ita primo concursatio et preces, dein strepere praetoris tribunal, eaque quae remedio quaesita, venditio et emptio, in contrarium mutari quia faeneratores omnem pecuniam mercandis agris condiderant. copiam vendendi secuta vilitate, quanto quis obaeratior, aegrius distrahebant, multique fortunis provolvebantur; eversio rei familiaris dignitatem ac famam praeceps dabat, donec tulit opem Caesar disposito per mensas milies sestertio factaque mutuandi copia sine usuris per triennium, si debitor populo in duplum praediis cavisset. sic refecta fides et paulatim privati quoque creditores reperti. neque emptio agrorum exercita ad formam senatus consulti, acribus, ut ferme talia, initiis, incurioso fine.
17 The result was a dearth of money: for not only were all debts called in simultaneously; but after so many convictions and sales of forfeited estates, the cash which had been realized was locked in the treasury or the imperial exchequer. To meet this difficulty, the senate had prescribed that every creditor was to invest two-thirds of his capital, now lying at interest, in landed property in Italy;
[6.18] Dein redeunt priores metus postulato maiestatis Considio Proculo; qui nullo pavore diem natalem celebrans raptus in curiam pariterque damnatus interfectusque, et sorori eius Sanciae aqua atque igni interdictum accusante Q. Pomponio. is moribus inquies haec et huiusce modi a se factitari praetendebat ut parta apud principem gratia periculis Pomponii Secundi fratris mederetur. etiam in Pompeiam Macrinam exilium statuitur cuius maritum Argolicum socerum Lac
onem e primoribus Achaeorum Caesar adflixerat. pater quoque inlustris eques Romanus ac frater praetorius, cum damnatio instaret, se ipsi interfecere. datum erat crimini quod Theophanen Mytilenaeum proavum eorum Cn. Magnus inter intimos habuisset, quodque defuncto Theophani caelestis honores Graeca adulatio tribuerat.
18 Old fears now returned with the indictment for treason of Considius Proculus; who, while celebrating his birthday without a qualm, was swept off to the senate-house and in the same moment condemned and executed. His sister Sancia was banned from fire and water, the accuser being Quintus Pomponius: a restless character, who pleaded that the object of his activity in this and similar cases was, by acquiring favour with the emperor, to palliate the dangers of his brother Pomponius Secundus. Exile was also the sentence of Pompeia Macrina, whose husband Argolicus and father-in-law Laco, two of the most prominent men in Achaia had been struck down by the Caesar. Her father, too, a Roman knight of the highest rank, and her brother, a former praetor, finding their condemnation at hand, committed suicide. The crime laid to their account was that Theophanes of Mytilene (great-grandfather of Pompeia and her brother) had been numbered with the intimates of Pompey, and that, after his death, Greek sycophancy had paid him the honour of deification.
[6.19] Post quos Sex. Marius Hispaniarum ditissimus defertur incestasse filiam et saxo Tarpeio deicitur. ac ne dubium haberetur magnitudinem pecuniae malo vertisse, aurariasque eius, quamquam publicarentur, sibimet Tiberius seposuit. inritatusque suppliciis cunctos qui carcere attinebantur accusati societatis cum Seiano necari iubet. iacuit immensa strages, omnis sexus, omnis aetas, inlustres ignobiles, dispersi aut aggerati. neque propinquis aut amicis adsistere, inlacrimare, ne visere quidem diutius dabatur, sed circumiecti custodes et in maerorem cuiusque intenti corpora putrefacta adsectabantur, dum in Tiberim traherentur ubi fluitantia aut ripis adpulsa non cremare quisquam, non contingere. interciderat sortis humanae commercium vi metus, quantumque saevitia glisceret, miseratio arcebatur.
19 After these, Sextus Marius, the richest man of Spain, was arraigned for incest with his daughter and flung from the Tarpeian Rock; while, to leave no doubt that it was the greatness of his wealth which had redounded to his ruin, his copper-mines and gold-mines, though forfeit to the state, were reserved by Tiberius for himself. And as executions had whetted his appetite, he gave orders for all persons in custody on the charge of complicity with Sejanus to be killed. On the ground lay the huge hecatomb of victims: either sex, every age; the famous, the obscure; scattered or piled in mounds. Nor was it permitted to relatives or friends to stand near, to weep over them, or even to view them too long; but a cordon of sentries, with eyes for each beholder’s sorrow, escorted the rotting carcasses, as they were dragged to the Tiber, there to float with the current or drift to the banks, with none to commit them to the flames or touch them. The ties of our common humanity had been dissolved by the force of terror; and before each advance of cruelty compassion receded.
[6.20] Sub idem tempus G. Caesar, discedenti Capreas avo comes, Claudiam, M. Silani filiam, coniugio accepit, immanem animum subdola modestia tegens, non damnatione matris, non exitio fratrum rupta voce; qualem diem Tiberius induisset, pari habitu, haud multum distantibus verbis. unde mox scitum Passieni oratoris dictum percrebuit neque meliorem umquam servum neque deteriorem dominum fuisse. Non omiserim praesagium Tiberii de Servio Galba tum consule; quem accitum et diversis sermonibus pertemptatum postremo Graecis verbis in hanc sententiam adlocutus ‘et tu, Galba, quandoque degustabis imperium,’ seram ac brevem potentiam significans, scientia Chaldaeorum artis, cuius apiscendae otium apud Rhodum, magistrum Thrasullum habuit, peritiam eius hoc modo expertus.
20 About the same time, Gaius Caesar, who had accompanied his grandfather on the departure to Capreae, received in marriage Claudia, the daughter of Marcus Silanus. His monstrous character was masked by a hypocritical modesty: not a word escaped him at the sentencing of his mother or the destruction of his brethren; whatever the mood assumed for the day by Tiberius, the attitude of his grandson was the same, and his words not greatly different. Hence, a little later, the epigram of the orator Passienus — that the world never knew a better slave, nor a worse master. I cannot omit the prophecy of Tiberius with regard to Servius Galba, then consul. He sent for him, sounded him in conversations on a variety of subjects, and finally addressed him in a Greek sentence, the purport of which was, “Thou, too, Galba, shalt one day have thy taste of empire”: a hint of belated and short-lived power, based on knowledge of the Chaldean art, the acquirement of which he owed to the leisure of Rhodes and the instructions of Thrasyllus. His tutor’s capacity he had tested as follows.
[6.21] Quotiens super tali negotio consultaret, edita domus parte ac liberti unius conscientia utebatur. is litterarum ignarus, corpore valido, per avia ac derupta (nam saxis domus imminet) praeibat eum cuius artem experiri Tiberius statuisset et regredientem, si vanitatis aut fraudum suspicio incesserat, in subiectum mare praecipitabat ne index arcani existeret. igitur Thrasullus isdem rupibus inductus postquam percontantem commoverat, imperium ipsi et futura sollerter patefaciens, interrogatur an suam quoque genitalem horam comperisset, quem tum annum, qualem diem haberet. ille positus siderum ac spatia dimensus haerere primo, dein pavescere, et quantum introspiceret magis ac magis trepidus admirationis et metus, postremo exclamat ambiguum sibi ac prope ultimum discrimen instare. tum complexus eum Tiberius praescium periculorum et incolumem fore gratatur, quaeque dixerat oracli vice accipiens inter intimos amicorum tenet.
21 For all consultations on such business he used the highest part of his villa and the confidential services of one freedman. Along the pathless and broken heights (for the house overlooks a cliff) this illiterate and robust guide led the way in front of the astrologer whose art Tiberius had resolved to investigate, and on his return, had any suspicion arisen of incompetence or of fraud, hurled him into the sea below, lest he should turn betrayer of the secret. Thrasyllus, then, introduced by the same rocky path, after he had impressed his questioner by adroit revelations of his empire to be and of the course of the future, was asked if he had ascertained his own horoscope — what was the character of that year — what the complexion of that day. A diagram which he drew up of the positions and distances of the stars at first gave him pause; then he showed signs of fear: the more careful his scrutiny, the greater his trepidation between surprise and alarm; and at last he exclaimed that a doubtful, almost a final, crisis was hard upon him. He was promptly embraced by Tiberius, who, congratulating him on the fact that he had divined, and was about to escape, his perils, accepted as oracular truth, the predictions he had made, and retained him among his closest friends.
[6.22] Sed mihi haec ac talia audienti in incerto iudicium est fatone res mortalium et necessitate immutabili an forte volvantur. quippe sapientissimos veterum quique sectam eorum aemulatur diversos reperies, ac multis insitam opinionem non initia nostri, non finem, non denique homines dis curae; ideo creberrime tristia in bonos, laeta apud deteriores esse. contra alii fatum quidem congruere rebus putant, sed non e vagis stellis, verum apud principia et nexus naturalium causarum; ac tamen electionem vitae nobis relinquunt, quam ubi elegeris, certum imminentium ordinem. neque mala vel bona quae vulgus putet: multos qui conflictari adversis videantur beatos, at plerosque quamquam magnas per opes miserrimos, si illi gravem fortunam constanter tolerent, hi prospera inconsulte utantur. ceterum plurimis mortalium non eximitur quin primo cuiusque ortu ventura destinentur, sed quaedam secus quam dicta sint cadere fallaciis ignara dicentium: ita corrumpi fidem artis cuius clara documenta et antiqua aetas et nostra tulerit. quippe a filio eiusdem Thrasulli praedictum Neronis imperium in tempore memorabitur, ne nunc incepto longius abierim.
22 For myself, when I listen to this and similar narratives, my judgement wavers. Is the revolution of human things governed by fate and changeless necessity, or by accident? You will find the wisest of the ancients, and the disciplines attached to their tenets, at complete variance; in many of them a fixed belief that Heaven c
oncerns itself neither with our origins, nor with our ending, nor, in fine, with mankind, and that so adversity continually assails the good, while prosperity dwells among the evil. Others hold, on the contrary, that, though there is certainly a fate in harmony with events, it does not emanate from wandering stars, but must be sought in the principles and processes of natural causation. Still, they leave us free to choose our life: that choice made, however, the order of the future is certain. Nor, they maintain, are evil and good what the crowd imagines: many who appear to be the sport of adverse circumstances are happy; numbers are wholly wretched though in the midst of great possessions — provided only that the former endure the strokes of fortuneº with firmness, while the latter employ her favours with unwisdom. With most men, however, the faith is ineradicable that the future of an individual is ordained at the moment of his entry into life; but at times a prophecy is falsified by the event, through the dishonesty of the prophet who speaks he knows not what; and thus is debased the credit of an art, of which the most striking evidences have been furnished both in the ancient world and in our own. For the forecast of Nero’s reign, made by the son of this very Thrasyllus, shall be related at its fitting place: at present I do not care to stray too far from my theme.
[6.23] Isdem consulibus Asinii Galli mors vulgatur, quem egestate cibi peremptum haud dubium, sponte vel necessitate incertum habebatur. consultusque Caesar an sepeliri sineret, non erubuit permittere ultroque incusare casus qui reum abstulissent antequam coram convinceretur: scilicet medio triennio defuerat tempus subeundi iudicium consulari seni, tot consularium parenti. Drusus deinde extinguitur, cum se miserandis alimentis, mandendo e cubili tomento, nonum ad diem detinuisset. tradidere quidam praescriptum fuisse Macroni, si arma ab Seiano temptarentur, extractum custodiae iuvenem (nam in Palatio attinebatur) ducem populo imponere. mox, quia rumor incedebat fore ut nuru ac nepoti conciliaretur Caesar, saevitiam quam paenitentiam maluit.
Complete Works of Tacitus (Delphi Classics) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 24) Page 264