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

by Publius Cornelius Tacitus

  46 This the emperor knew; and he hesitated therefore with regard to the succession — first between his grandchildren. Of these, the issue of Drusus was the nearer to him in blood and by affection, but had not yet entered the years of puberty: the son of Germanicus possessed the vigour of early manhood, but also the affections of the multitude — and that, with his grandsire, was a ground of hatred. Even Claudius with his settled years and aspirations to culture came under consideration: the obstacle was his mental instability. Yet, if a successor were sought outside the imperial family, he dreaded that the memory of Augustus — the name of the Caesars — might be turned to derision and to contempt. For the care of Tiberius was not so much to enjoy popularity in the present as to court the approval of posterity. Soon, mentally irresolute, physically outworn, he left to fate a decision beyond his competence; though remarks escaped him which implied a foreknowledge of the future. For, with an allusion not difficult to read, he upbraided Macro with forsaking the setting and looking to the rising sun; and to Caligula, who in some casual conversation was deriding Lucius Sulla, he made the prophecy that he would have all the vices of Sulla with none of the Sullan virtues. At the same time, with a burst of tears, he embraced the younger of his grandsons; then, at the lowering looks of the other:—”Thou wilt slay him,” he said, “and another thee.” Yet, in defiance of his failing health, he relinquished no detail of his libertinism: he was striving to make endurance pass for strength; and he had always had a sneer for the arts of the physicians, and for men who, after thirty years of life, needed the counsel of a stranger in order to distinguish things salutary to their system from things deleterious.

  [6.47] Interim Romae futuris etiam post Tiberium caedibus semina iaciebantur. Laelius Balbus Acutiam, P. Vitellii quondam uxorem, maiestatis postulaverat; qua damnata cum praemium accusatori decerneretur, Iunius Otho tribunus plebei intercessit, unde illis odia, mox Othoni exitium. dein multorum amoribus famosa Albucilla, cui matrimonium cum Satrio Secundo coniurationis indice fuerat, defertur impietatis in principem; conectebantur ut conscii et adulteri eius Cn. Domitius, Vibius Marsus, L. Arruntius. de claritudine Domitii supra memoravi; Marsus quoque vetustis honoribus et inlustris studiis erat. sed testium interrogationi, tormentis servorum Macronem praesedisse commentarii ad senatum missi ferebant, nullaeque in eos imperatoris litterae suspicionem dabant, invalido ac fortasse ignaro ficta pleraque ob inimicitias Macronis notas in Arruntium.

  47 Meanwhile, at Rome the seeds were being sown of bloodshed destined to outlast Tiberius. Laelius Balbus had brought a charge of treason against Acutia, formerly the wife of Publius Vitellius. After her condemnation, a reward was on the point of being decreed to the accuser, when Junius Otho, the plebeian tribune, opposed his veto: whence a feud between the pair, terminated later by the destruction of Otho. Next, Albucilla, made notorious by a multitude of lovers, and at one time married to Satrius Secundus, the divulger of the plot, was arraigned for a breach of piety towards the sovereign: associated in the indictment as her accomplices and adulterers were Gnaeus Domitius, Vibius Marsus, Lucius Arruntius. On the nobility of Domitius I have touched above; Marsus also could claim ancestral honours as well as some distinction in letters. But the documents forwarded to the senate stated that Macro had presided at the examination of witnesses and the torture of the slaves; and the absence of the emperor’s usual letter against the accused gave rise to a suspicion that much of the evidence had been fabricated during his illness, and possibly without his knowledge, on account of the prefect’s well-known hostility to Arruntius.

  [6.48] Igitur Domitius defensionem meditans, Marsus tamquam inediam destinavisset, produxere vitam: Arruntius, cunctationem et moras suadentibus amicis, non eadem omnibus decora respondit: sibi satis aetatis neque aliud paenitendum quam quod inter ludibria et pericula anxiam senectam toleravisset, diu Seiano, nunc Macroni, semper alicui potentium invisus, non culpa sed ut flagitiorum impatiens. sane paucos ad suprema principis dies posse vitari: quem ad modum evasurum imminentis iuventam? an, cum Tiberius post tantam rerum experientiam vi dominationis convulsus et mutatus sit, G. Caesarem vix finita pueritia, ignarum omnium aut pessimis innutritum, meliora capessiturum Macrone duce, qui ut deterior ad opprimendum Seianum delectus plura per scelera rem publicam conflictavisset? prospectare iam se acrius servitium eoque fugere simul acta et instantia. haec vatis in modum dictitans venas resolvit. documento sequentia erunt bene Arruntium morte usum. Albucilla inrito ictu ab semet vulnerata iussu senatus in carcerem fertur. stuprorum eius ministri, Carsidius Sacerdos praetorius ut in insulam deportaretur, Pontius Fregellanus amitteret ordinem senatorium, et eaedem poenae in Laelium Balbum decernuntur, id quidem a laetantibus, quia Balbus truci eloquentia habebatur, promptus adversum insontis.

  48 Domitius and Marsus, therefore, continued to live — the former studying his defence, the latter ostensibly bent on self-starvation. Arruntius, whose friends advised procrastination and delays, replied that “not the same things were becoming to all men. For himself he had lived long enough; and it was his one regret that he had borne with an old age of anxieties amid flouts and perils, long detested by Sejanus, now by Macro, always by one or other of the mighty, not through his fault, but because he was impatient of villanies. True, he might steer through the few days before the passing of the sovereign: but how to escape the youth of the sovereign who loomed ahead? Or, if absolute sway had power to convulse and transform the character of Tiberius after his vast experience of affairs, should Gaius Caesar, barely out of his boyhood, ignorant of all things or nurtured amid the worst, apply himself to better ways under the tutelage of Macro; who had been chosen, as the worse villain of the pair, to crush Sejanus, and had tormented the state by crimes more numerous than his? Even now he foresaw a yet harder servitude, and for that reason he was fleeing at once from the past and from the future.” So speaking, with something of a prophetic accent, he opened his veins. — That Arruntius did well to die the sequel will demonstrate. Albucilla, after dealing herself an ineffective wound, was borne to the dungeon by order of the senate. Of those who had subserved her amours, Carsidius Sacerdos, an ex-praetor, was condemned to deportation to an island, Pontius Fregellanus to forfeiture of his senatorial rank; and the same penalties were decreed against Laelius Balbus: one verdict, at least, which was pronounced with joy, since he was regarded as the master of a truculent eloquence — the ever-ready foe of innocence.

  [6.49] Isdem diebus Sex. Papinius consulari familia repentinum et informem exitum delegit, iacto in praeceps corpore. causa ad matrem referebatur, quae pridem repudiata adsentationibus atque luxu perpulisset iuvenem ad ea quorum effugium non nisi morte inveniret. igitur accusata in senatu, quamquam genua patrum advolveretur luctumque communem et magis imbecillum tali super casu feminarum animum aliaque in eundem dolorem maesta et miseranda diu ferret, urbe tamen in decem annos prohibita est, donec minor filius lubricum iuventae exiret.

  49 During these days, Sextus Papinius, member of a consular family, chose an abrupt and indecent end by throwing himself from a window. The motive was referred to his mother, long ago divorced, who, by flattering his taste for dissipation, was supposed to have driven the youth to extremities from which he could find no issue except by death. Arraigned accordingly in the senate, though she threw herself at the knees of the Fathers and pleaded at length the common heritage of grief and the greater weakness of the female heart under such a blow, with much else in the same harrowing strain, she was nevertheless forbidden the capital for ten years, till her younger son should leave behind him the slippery period of youth.

  [6.50] Iam Tiberium corpus, iam vires, nondum dissimulatio deserebat: idem animi rigor; sermone ac vultu intentus quaesita interdum comitate quamvis manifestam defectionem tegebat. mutatisque saepius locis tandem apud promunturium Miseni consedit in villa cui L. Lucullus quondam dominus. illic eum adpropinquare supremis tali modo compertum. erat medicus arte insignis, nomine Charicles, non quidem regere valetudines principis solitus, consilii tamen copiam praebere. is velut pr
opria ad negotia digrediens et per speciem officii manum complexus pulsum venarum attigit. neque fefellit: nam Tiberius, incertum an offensus tantoque magis iram premens, instaurari epulas iubet discumbitque ultra solitum, quasi honori abeuntis amici tribueret. Charicles tamen labi spiritum nec ultra biduum duraturum Macroni firmavit. inde cuncta conloquiis inter praesentis, nuntiis apud legatos et exercitus festinabantur. septimum decimum kal. Aprilis interclusa anima creditus est mortalitatem explevisse; et multo gratantum concursu ad capienda imperii primordia G. Caesar egrediebatur, cum repente adfertur redire Tiberio vocem ac visus vocarique qui recreandae defectioni cibum adferrent. pavor hinc in omnis, et ceteri passim dispergi, se quisque maestum aut nescium fingere; Caesar in silentium fixus a summa spe novissima expectabat. Macro intrepidus opprimi senem iniectu multae vestis iubet discedique ab limine. sic Tiberius finivit octavo et septuagesimo aetatis anno.

  50 By now his constitution and his strength were failing Tiberius, but not yet his powers of dissimulation. The unbending mind remained; still energetic in word and look, he strove every now and then to cover the manifest breaking-up by a forced sociability. After repeated changes of residence, he came to rest at last on the promontory of Misenum, in a villa which once had Lucius Lucullus for its master. There it was discovered, by the following means, that he was nearing the end. There was a doctor, of repute in his calling, by the name of Charicles, who had been accustomed not to treat the illnesses of the emperor but to offer him opportunities for consulting him. While taking his departure on the plea of private business, he clasped the Caesar’s hand, apparently as an act of respect, and felt the pulse. The device was detected. Tiberius — possibly offended, and therefore making a special effort to conceal his anger — ordered the dinner to proceed, and, ostensibly out of compliment to a departing friend, remained at table until after his usual hour. Still, Charicles assured Macro that the respiration was failing and that he would not last above a couple of days. Immediately all arrangements were hurried through; at interviews, if the parties were present; by couriers, in the case of the generals and the armies. On the sixteenth of March, owing to a stoppage in his breathing, it was believed that he had paid the debt of nature; and Gaius Caesar, in the midst of a gratulatory crowd, was leaving the villa to enter on the preliminaries of empire, when suddenly word came that Tiberius was recovering his speech and sight and calling for someone to bring him food as a restorative after his swoon. A general panic followed: the others began to scatter in all directions, each face counterfeiting grief or ignorance; only the Caesar, frozen into silence, stood dashed from the height of hope and expecting the worst. Macro, undaunted, ordered the old man to be suffocated under a pile of bedclothes, while all left the threshold. — Thus Tiberius made an end in the seventy-eighth year of his age.

  [6.51] Pater ei Nero et utrimque origo gentis Claudiae, quamquam mater in Liviam et mox Iuliam familiam adoptionibus transierit. casus prima ab infantia ancipites; nam proscriptum patrem exul secutus, ubi domum Augusti privignus introiit, multis aemulis conflictatus est, dum Marcellus et Agrippa, mox Gaius Luciusque Caesares viguere; etiam frater eius Drusus prosperiore civium amore erat. sed maxime in lubrico egit accepta in matrimonium Iulia, impudicitiam uxoris tolerans aut declinans. dein Rhodo regressus vacuos principis penatis duodecim annis, mox rei Romanae arbitrium tribus ferme et viginti obtinuit. morum quoque tempora illi diversa: egregium vita famaque quoad privatus vel in imperiis sub Augusto fuit; occultum ac subdolum fingendis virtutibus donec Germanicus ac Drusus superfuere; idem inter bona malaque mixtus incolumi matre; intestabilis saevitia sed obtectis libidinibus dum Seianum dilexit timuitve: postremo in scelera simul ac dedecora prorupit postquam remoto pudore et metu suo tantum ingenio utebatur.

  51 The son of Nero, on both sides he traced his origin to the Claudian house, though his mother, by successive acts of adoption, had passed into the Livian and, later, the Julian families. From earliest infancy he experienced the hazards of fortune. At first the exiled attendant of a proscribed father, he entered the house of Augustus in the quality of step-son; only to struggle against numerous rivals during the heyday of Marcellus and Agrippa and, later, of Gaius and Lucius Caesar; while even his brother Drusus was happier in the love of his countrymen. But his position was the most precarious after his preferment to the hand of Julia, when he had to tolerate, or to elude, the infidelities of his wife. Then came the return from Rhodes; and he was master of the heirless imperial house for twelve years, and later arbiter of the Roman world for virtually twenty-three. His character, again, has its separate epochs. There was a noble season in his life and fame while he lived a private citizen or a great official under Augustus; an inscrutable and disingenuous period of hypocritical virtues while Germanicus and Drusus remained: with his mother alive, he was still an amalgam of good and evil; so long as he loved, or feared, Sejanus, he was loathed for his cruelty, but his lust was veiled; finally, when the restraints of shame and fear were gone, and nothing remained but to follow his own bent, he plunged impartially into crime and into ignominy.

  LIBER VNDECIMVS — BOOK XI

  [1] * * * nam Valerium Asiaticum, bis consulem, fuisse quondam adulterum eius credidit, pariterque hortis inhians, quos ille a Lucullo cooptos insigni magnificentia extollebat, Suillium accusandis utrisque immittit. adiungitur Sosibius Britannici educator qui per speciem benevolentiae moneret Claudium cavere vim atque opes principibus infensas: praecipoum auctorem Asiaticum interficiendi G. Caesaris non extimuisse contione in populi Romani fateri gloriamque facinoris ultro petere; clarum ex eo in urbe, didita per provincias fama parare iter ad Germanicos exercitus, quando genitus Viennae multisque et validis propinquitatibus subnixus turbare gentilis nationes promptum haberet. at Claudius nihil ultra scrutatus citis cum militibus tamquam opprimendo bello Crispinum praetorii praefectum misit, a quo repertus est apud Baias vinclisque inditis in urbem raptus.

  1 . . . For she believed that Valerius Asiaticus, twice a consul, had formerly been her paramour; and, as she coveted equally the gardens which Lucullus had laid down and Asiaticus was embellishing with conspicuous splendour, she unleashed Suillius to indict the pair. With him was associated Britannicus’ tutor Sosibius; who ostensibly out of good-will, was to warn Claudius to be on his guard against a power and a purse which boded no good to emperors:—”The prime mover in the killing of Gaius Caesar, Asiaticus had not trembled to avow his complicity in a gathering of the Roman people and even to arrogate the glory of the assassination. Famous, in consequence, at Rome, with a reputation that pervaded the provinces, he was preparing an excursion to the armies of Germanicus; for the reason that, born as he was at Vienne and backed by a multitude of powerful connections, he had every facility for creating trouble among the peoples of his native land.” Claudius made no further scrutiny; but, as though to quell an incipient war, despatched at full speed a body of soldiers under the praetorian prefect Crispinus, who found Asiaticus at Baiae, threw him into irons, and haled him to the capital.

  [2] Neque data senatus copia: intra cubiculum auditur, Messalina coram et Suillio corruptionem militum, quos pecunia et stupro in omne flagitium obstrictos arguebat, exim adulterium Poppaeae, postremum mollitiam corporis obiectante. ad quod victo silentio prorupit reus et ‘interroga’ inquit, ‘Suilli, filios tuos: virum esse me fatebuntur.’ ingressusque defensionem, commoto maiorem in modum Claudio, Messalinae quoque lacrimas excivit. quibus abluendis cubiculo egrediens monet Vitellium ne elabi reum sineret: ipsa ad perniciem Poppaeae festinat, subditis qui terrore carceris ad voluntariam mortem propellerent, adeo ignaro Caesare ut paucos post dies epulantem apud se maritum eius Scipionem percontaretur cur sine uxore discubuisset, atque ille functam fato responderet.

  2 Nor was access to the senate allowed: he was heard inside a bedroom, with Messalina looking on and Suillius formulating the charges: corruption of the military, who, he alleged, were bound in return for money — and worse — to every form of infamy; adultery with Poppaea; and, finally, sexual effeminacy. The last imputation was too much
for the defendant’s taciturnity:—”Question thy sons, Suillus, he broke out; “they will confess me man!” And entering on his defence, he moved Claudius deeply, and even elicited tears from Messalina; who, on quitting the room to wash them away, cautioned Vitellius not to let the prisoner slip through their fingers. She herself set hurriedly about the destruction of Poppaea, and suborned agents to drive her to a voluntary death by menace of the dungeon; the ignorance of the Caesar being so complete that, when her husband Scipio dined with him a few days later, he inquired why he had taken his place without his wife, and received the answer that she had gone the way of all flesh.

  [3] Sed consultanti super absolutione Asiatici flensVitellius, commemorata vetustate amicitiae utque Antoniam principis matrem pariter observavissent, dein percursis Asiatici in rem publicam officiis recentique adversus Britanniam militia, quaeque alia conciliandae misericordiae videbantur, liberum mortis arbitrium ei permisit; et secuta sunt Claudii verba in eandem clementiam. hortantibus dehinc quibusdam inediam et lenem exitum, remittere beneficium Asiaticus ait: et usurpatis quibus insueverat exercitationibus, lauto as corpore, hilare epulatus, cum se honestius calliditate Tiberii vel impetu G. Caesaris periturum dixisset quam quod fraude muliebri et impudico Vitellii ore caderet, venas exolvit, viso tamen ante rogo iussoque transferri partem in aliam ne opacitas arborum vapore ignis minueretur: tantum illi securitatis novissimae fuit.

  3 When, however, Claudius requested his advice as to the acquittal of Asiaticus, Vitellius tearfully recalled their long-standing friendship and the equal devotion they had shown to the sovereign’s mother Antonia: then, running over the services of Asiaticus to the state, his recent work in the field against the Britons, and all else that seemed calculated to inspire compassion, he proposed that he should be allowed a free choice as to the form of his death; and a pronouncement from Claudius followed in the same spirit of clemency. When some of his friends then recommended the gradual exit by starvation, Asiaticus remarked that he was declining that boon; went through the gymnastic exercises which had become habitual with him; bathed; dined in good spirits; and, after observing that it would have been more respectable to perish by the subtlety of Tiberius or the onslaught of Gaius Caesar than to fall by female fraud and the lecherous tongue of Vitellius, opened his arteries; but not before he had visited his pyre and given orders for it to be moved to another site, so that his trees with their shady leafage might not be affected by the heat. So complete was his composure to the end!