[42] Variis deinde casibus iactatus et multorum odia meritus reus, haud tamen sine invidia Senecae damnatur. is fuit Publius Suillius, imperitante Claudio terribilis ac venalis et mutatione temporum non quantum inimici cuperent demissus quique se nocentem videri quam supplicem mallet. eius opprimendi gratia repetitum credebatur senatus consultum poenaque Cinciae legis adversum eos, qui pretio causas oravissent. nec Suillius questu aut exprobratione abstinebat, praeter ferociam animi extrema senecta liber et Senecam increpans infensum amicis Claudii, sub quo iustissimum exilium pertulisset. simul studiis inertibus et iuvenum imperitiae suetum livere iis, qui vividam et incorruptam eloquentiam tuendis civibus exercerent. se quaestorem Germanici, illum domus eius adulterum fuisse. an gravius aestimandum sponte litigatoris praemium honestae operae adsequi quam corrumpere cubicula principum feminarum? qua sapientia, quibus philosophorum praeceptis intra quadriennium regiae amicitiae ter milies sestertium paravisset? Romae testamenta et orbos velut indagine eius capi, Italiam et provincias immenso faenore hauriri: at sibi labore quaesitam et modicam pecuniam esse. crimen, periculum, omnia potius toleraturum, quam veterem ac domi partam dignationem subitae felicitati submittere[t].
42 And now the hero of a chequered and stormy career, who had earned himself a multitude of hatreds, received his condemnation, though not without some detriment to the popularity of Seneca. This was Publius Suillius, the terrible and venal favourite of the Claudian reign, now less cast down by the change in the times than his enemies could wish, and more inclined to be counted a criminal than a suppliant. For the sake, it was believed, of crushing him, there had been revived an earlier decree of the senate, together with the penalties prescribed by the Cincian law against advocates who had pleaded for profit. Suillius himself spared neither complaints nor objurgations, using the freedom natural not only to his fierce temper but to his extreme age, and assailing Seneca as “the embittered enemy of the friends of Claudius, under whom he had suffered his well-earned exile. At the same time, since his only experience was of bookish studies and single-minded youths, he had a jaundiced eye for those who applied a living and unsophisticated eloquence to the defence of their fellow-citizens. He himself had been Germanicus’ quaestor; Seneca, the adulterer under the prince’s roof. To obtain as the voluntary gift of a litigant some reward for honourable service — was that an offence to be judged more harshly than the pollution of the couch of imperial princesses? By what branch of wisdom, by what rules of philosophy, had he acquired, within four years of royal favour, three hundred million sesterces? In Rome his nets were spread for the childless and their testaments: Italy and the provinces were sucked dry by his limitless usury. But he, Suillius, had his hard-earned and modest competence! He would suffer accusation, trial, everything, rather than stoop his old, home-made honour before this upstart success.”
[43] Nec deerant qui haec isdem verbis aut versa in deterius Senecae deferrent. repertique accusatores direptos socios, cum Suillius provinciam Asiam regeret, ac publicae pecuniae peculatum detulerunt. mox, quia inquisitionem annuam impetraverant, brevius visum [sub] urbana crimina incipi, quorum obvii testes erant. ii acerbitate accusationis Q. Pomponium ad necessitatem belli civilis detrusum, Iuliam Drusi filiam Sabinamque Poppaeam ad mortem actas et Valerium Asiaticum, Lusium Saturninum, Cornelium Lupum circumventos, iam equitum Romanorum agmina damnata omnemque Claudii saevitiam Suillio obiectabant. ille nihil ex his sponte susceptum, sed principi paruisse defendebat, donec eam orationem Caesar cohibuit, compertum sibi referens ex commentariis patris sui nullam cuiusquam accusationem ab eo coactam. tum iussa Messalinae praetendi et labare defensio: cur enim neminem alium delectum, qui saevienti impudicae vocem praeberet? puniendos rerum atrocium ministros, ubi pretia scelerum adepti scelera ipsa aliis delegent. igitur adempta bonorum parte (nam filio et nepti pars concedebatur eximebanturque etiam quae testamento matris aut aviae acceperant) in insulas Baleares pellitur, non in ipso discrimine, non post damnationem fractus animo; ferebaturque copiosa et molli vita secretum illud toleravisse. filium eius Nerullinum adgressis accusatoribus per invidiam patris et crimina repetundarum, intercessit princeps tamquam satis expleta ultione.
43 There was no lack of auditors to report his remarks, word for word or with changes for the worse, to Seneca. Accusers were discovered, and they laid their charges — that the provincials had been plundered during Suillius’ government of Asia, and that there had been embezzlement of public money. Then, as the prosecution had obtained a year for inquiries, it seemed shorter to begin upon his delinquencies at home, witnesses to which were ready to hand. By these the venomous indictment which had driven Quintus Pomponius to the necessity of civil war; the hounding to death of Drusus’ daughter Julia, and of Poppaea Sabina; the trapping of Valerius Asiaticus, of Lusius Saturninus, and of Cornelius Lupus; finally, the conviction of an army of Roman knights, and the whole tale of Claudius’ cruelty, — were laid to the account of Suillius. In defence he urged that none of these acts had been undertaken voluntarily and that he had merely obeyed the sovereign; until the Caesar cut short his speech by stating that he had definite knowledge from his father’s papers that he had compelled no prosecution of any person. Orders from Messalina were now alleged, and the defence began to totter:—”For why had none other been chosen to put his voice at the disposal of that homicidal wanton? Punishment must be measured out to these agents of atrocity, when, after handling the wages of crime, they imputed the crime to others.” Hence, after the forfeiture of half his estate — for his son and granddaughter were allowed the other half, and a similar exemption was extended to the property they had derived from their mother’s will or their grandmother’s — he was banished to the Balearic Isles. Neither with his fate in the balance nor with his condemnation recorded did his spirit break; and it was asserted later that a life of luxury and abundance had made his seclusion not intolerable. When his son Nerullinus was attacked by the accusers, who relied on his father’s unpopularity and on charges of extortion, the emperor interposed his veto, on the ground that vengeance was satisfied.
[44] Per idem tempus Octavius Sagitta plebei tribunus, Pontiae mulieris nuptae amore vaecors, ingentibus donis adulterium et mox, ut omitteret maritum, emercatur, suum matrimonium promittens ac nuptias eius pactus. sed ubi mulier vacua fuit, nectere moras, adversam patris voluntatem causari repertaque spe ditioris coniugis promissa exuere. Octavius contra modo conqueri, modo minitari, famam perditam, pecuniam exhaustam obtestans, denique salutem, quae sola reliqua esset, arbitrio eius permittens. ac postquam spernebatur, noctem unam ad solacium poscit, qua delenitus modum in posterum adhiberet. statuitur nox, et Pontia consciae ancillae custodiam cubiculi mandat. ille uno cum liberto ferrum veste occultum infert. tum, ut adsolet in amore et ira, iurgia preces, exprobratio satisfactio, et pars tenebrarum libidini seposita; ea quasi incensus nihil metuentem ferro transverberat et adcurrentem ancillam vulnere absterret cubiculoque prorumpit. postera die manifesta caedes, haud ambiguus percussor; quippe mansitasse una convincebatur. sed libertus suum illud facinus profiteri, se patroni iniurias ultum esse. commoveratque quosdam magnitudine exempli, donec ancilla ex vulnere refecta verum aperuit. postulatusque apud consules a patre interfectae, postquam tribunatu abierat, sententia patrum et lege de sicariis condemnatur.
44 Nearly at the same time, the plebeian tribune Octavius Sagitta, madly in love with a wedded woman called Pontia, purchased by immense gifts first the act of adultery, then her desertion of her husband. He promised marriage on his own part, and had secured a similar pledge on hers. Once free, however, the woman began to procrastinate, to plead the adverse wishes of her father, and, when hopes of a wealthier match presented themselves, to shuffle off her promise. Octavius, on the other side, now remonstrated, now threatened, appealing to the ruin of his reputation, to the exhaustion of his fortune, and finally placing his life, all that he could yet call his own, at her absolute disposal. As he was flouted, he asked for the consolation of one night, to allay his fever and enable him to control himself in future. The nig
ht was fixed, and Pontia entrusted the watch over her bedroom to a maid in their confidence. Octavius entered with one freedman, a dagger concealed in his dress. Love and anger now ran their usual course in upbraidings and entreaties, reproach and reparation; and a part of the night was set aside to passion; inflamed by which, as it seemed, he struck her through with his weapon, while she suspected nothing; drove off with a wound the maid who came running up, and broke out of the room. Next day, the murder was manifest, and the assassin not in doubt: for that he had been with her was demonstrated. None the less, the freedman asserted that the crime was his own; he had avenged, he said, the injuries of his patron; and so startling was this example of devotion that he had shaken the belief of some, when the maid’s recovery from her wound enabled her to disclose the truth. Octavius, after laying down his tribunate, was arraigned before the consuls by the father of the victim, and sentenced by verdict of the senate and under the law of assassination.
[45] Non minus insignis eo anno impudicitia magnorum rei publicae malorum initium fecit. erat in civitate Sabina Poppaea, T. Ollio patre genita, sed nomen avi materni sumpserat, inlustri memoria Poppaei Sabini consularis et triumphali decore praefulgentis; nam Ollium honoribus nondum functum amicitia Seiani pervertit. huic mulieri cuncta alia fuere praeter honestum animum. quippe mater eius, aetatis suae feminas pulchritudine supergressa, gloriam pariter et formam dederat; opes claritudine generis sufficiebant. sermo comis nec absurdum ingenium. modestiam praeferre et lascivia uti; rarus in publicum egressus, idque velata parte oris, ne satiaret adspectum, vel quia sic decebat. famae numquam pepercit, maritos et adulteros non distinguens; neque adfectui suo aut alieno obnoxia, unde utilitas ostenderetur, illuc libidinem transferebat. igitur agentem eam in matrimonio Rufri Crispi[ni] equitis Romani, ex quo filium genuerat, Otho pellexit iuventa ac luxu et quia flagrantissimus in amicitia Neronis habebatur. nec mora quin adulterio matrimonium iungeretur.
45 A no less striking instance of immorality proved in this year the beginning of grave public calamities. There was in the capital a certain Poppaea Sabina, daughter of Titus Ollius, though she had taken the name of her maternal grandfather, Poppaeus Sabinus, of distinguished memory, who, with the honours of his consulate and triumphal insignia, outshone her father: for Ollius had fallen a victim to his friendship with Sejanus before holding the major offices. She was a woman possessed of all advantages but a character. For her mother, after eclipsing the beauties of it her day, had endowed her alike with her fame and her looks: her wealth was adequate to the distinction of her birth. Her conversation was engaging, her wit not without point; she paraded modesty, and practised wantonness. In public she rarely appeared, and then with her face half-veiled, so as not quite to satiate the beholder, — or, possibly, because it so became her. She was never sparing of her reputation, and drew no distinctions between husbands and adulterers: vulnerable neither to her own nor to alien passion, where material advantage offered, thither she transferred her desires. Thus, whilst living in the wedded state with Rufrius Crispinus, a Roman knight by whom she had had a son, she was seduced by Otho, with his youth, his voluptuousness, and his reputed position as the most favoured of Nero’s friends: nor was it long before adultery was supplemented by matrimony.
[46] Otho sive amore incautus laudare formam elegantiamque uxoris apud principem, sive ut accenderet ac, si eadem femina potirentur, id quoque vinculum potentiam ei adiceret. saepe auditus est consurgens e convivio Caesaris seque ire ad illam, sibi concessam dictitans nobilitatem pulchritudinem, vota omnium et gaudia felicium. his atque talibus inritamentis non longa cunctatio interponitur, sed accepto aditu Poppaea primum per blandimenta et artes valescere, imparem cupidini et forma Neronis captam simulans; mox acri iam principis amore ad superbiam vertens, si ultra unam alteramque noctem attineretur, nuptam esse se dictitans, nec posse matrimonium omittere, devinctam Othoni per genus vitae, quod nemo adaequaret: illum animo et cultu magnificum; ibi se summa fortuna digna visere. at Neronem, paelice ancilla et adsuetudine Actes devinctum, nihil e contubernio servili nisi abiectum et sordidum traxisse. deicitur familiaritate sueta, post congressu et comitatu Otho, et ad postremum, ne in urbe aemulatus ageret, provinciae Lusitaniae praeficitur; ubi usque ad civilia arma non ex priore infamia, sed integre sancteque egit, procax otii et potestatis temperantior.
46 Otho, possibly by an amorous indiscretion, began to praise the looks and the graces of his wife in presence of the emperor; or, possibly, his object was to inflame the sovereign’s desire, and, by the additional bond of joint ownership in one woman, to reinforce his own influence. His voice was often heard, declaring, as he rose from the Caesar’s table, that he at least must be returning to his wife — that to him had fallen that rank and beauty which the world desired and the fortunate enjoyed. In view of these and the like incitements, there was no tedious interval of delay; and Poppaea, admitted to the presence, proceeded to establish her ascendancy; at first, by cajolery and artifice, feigning that she was too weak to resist her passion and had been captured by Nero’s beauty; then — as the emperor’s love grew fervent — changing to haughtiness, and, if she was detained for more than a second night, insisting that she was a wife and could not renounce her married status, linked as she was to Otho by a mode of life which none could parallel:—”His was a true majesty of mind and garb; in him she contemplated the princely manner; while Nero, enchained by his menial paramour and the embraces of an Acte, had derived from that servile cohabitation no tincture of anything but the mean and the shabby.” Otho was debarred from his usual intimacy with the sovereign; then from his levées and his suite: finally, to prevent his acting as Nero’s rival in Rome, he was appointed to the province of Lusitania; where, till the outbreak of the civil war, he lived, not in the mode of his notorious past, but uprightly and without reproach, frivolous where his leisure was concerned, more self-controlled as regarded his official powers.
[47] Hactenus Nero flagitiis et sceleribus velamenta quaesivit. suspectabat maxime Cornelium Sullam, socors ingenium eius in contrarium trahens callidumque et simulatorem interpretando. quem metum Graptus ex libertis Caesaris, usu et senecta Tiberio abusque domum principium edoctus, tali mendacio intendit. pons Mulvius in eo tempore celebris nocturnis inlecebris erat; ven[ti]tabatque illuc Nero, quo solutius urbem extra lasciviret. igitur regredienti per viam Flaminiam compositas insidias fatoque evitatas, quoniam diverso itinere Sallustianos in hortos remeaverit, auctoremque eius doli Sullam ementitur, quia forte redeuntibus ministris principis quidam per iuvenilem licentiam, quae tunc passim exercebatur, inanem metum fecerant. neque servorum quisquam neque clientium Sullae adgnitus, maximeque despecta et nullius ausi capax natura eius a crimine abhorrebat: proinde tamen, quasi convictus esset, cedere patria et Massiliensium moenibus coerceri iubetur.
47 Henceforward Nero sought no veil for his debaucheries and crimes. He had a peculiar suspicion of Cornelius Sulla, whose natural slowness of wit he totally misunderstood, reading him as an astute character with a gift for simulation. His fears were deepened by the mendacity of Graptus, a Caesarian freedman, whom experience and age had familiarized with the household of the emperors from Tiberius downward. The Mulvian Bridge at that period was famous for its nocturnal attractions, and Nero was in the habit of frequenting it, so as to allow his extravagances a freer rein outside the city. Graptus accordingly invented the fiction that an ambuscade had been arranged for the prince in the event of his returning by the Flaminian Way; that it had been providentially avoided, as he had come back by the other route to the Gardens of Sallust; and that the author of the plot was Sulla — the foundation of the story being that, as chance would have it, a few rioters, in one of the juvenile escapades then so generally practised, had thrown the emperor’s servants, on the road home, into a groundless panic. Neither a slave nor a client of Sulla’s had been recognised; and his contemptible nature, incapable of daring in any form, was utterly incompatible with the charge: yet, precisely as though he had been proved guilty, he received orders to leave his coun
try and confine himself within the walls of Massilia.
[48] Isdem consulibus auditae Puteolanorum legationes, quas diversas ordo plebs ad senatum miserant, illi vim multitudinis, hi magistratuum et primi cuiusque avaritiam increpantes. eaque seditio ad saxa et minas ignium progressa ne c[aed]em et arma proliceret, C. Cassius adhibendo remedio delectus. quia severitatem eius non tolerabant, precante ipso ad Scribonios fratres ea cura transfertur, data cohorte praetoria, cuius terrore et paucorum supplicio rediit oppidanis concordia.
48 Under the same consuls, audience was given to deputations from Puteoli, despatched separately to the senate by the decurions and the populace, the former inveighing against the violence of the mob, the latter against the rapacity of the magistrates and of the leading citizens in general. Lest the quarrels, which had reached the point of stone-throwing and threats of arson, should end by provoking bloodshed under arms, Gaius Cassius was chosen to apply the remedy. As the disputants refused to tolerate his severity, the commission at his own request was transferred to the brothers Scribonius; and these were given a praetorian cohort, the terrors of which, together with a few executions, restored the town to concord.
[49] Non referrem vulgarissimum senatus consultum, quo civitati Syracusanorum egredi numerum edendis gladiatoribus finitum permittebatur, nisi Paetus Thrasea contra dixisset praebuissetque materiem obtrectatoribus arguendae sententiae. cur enim, si rem publicam egere libertate senatoria crederet, tam levia consectaretur? quin de bello aut pace, de vectigalibus et legibus, quibusque aliis [res] Romana continetur, suaderet dissuaderetve? licere patribus, quotiens ius dicendae sententiae accepissent, quae vellent expromere relationemque in ea postulare. an solum emendatione dignum, ne Syracusis spectacula largius ederentur: cetera per omnes imperii partes perinde egregia quam si non Nero, sed Thrasea regimen eorum teneret? quod si summa dissimulatione transmitterentur, quanto magis inanibus abstinendum! Thrasea contra, rationem poscentibus amicis, non praesentium ignarum respondebat eius modi consulta corrigere, sed patrum honori dare, ut manifestum fieret magnarum rerum curam non dissimulaturos, qui animum etiam levissimis adverterent.
Complete Works of Tacitus (Delphi Classics) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 24) Page 285