[88] (1) While Caesar was engaged in giving the finishing touch to the war at Actium and Alexandria, Marcus Lepidus, a young man whose good looks exceeded his prudence — son of the Lepidus who had been one of the triumvirs for the re-establishment of order in the state and of Junia the sister of Brutus — had formed plans for the assassination of Caesar as soon as he should return to the city. (2) The guards of the city were at that time under the charge of Gaius Maecenas, of equestrian rank, but none the less of illustrious lineage, a man who was literally sleepless when occasion demanded, and quick to foresee what was to be done and skilful in doing it, but when any relaxation was allowed him from business cares would almost outdo a woman in giving himself up to indolence and soft luxury. He was not less loved by Caesar than Agrippa, though he had fewer honours heaped upon him, since he lived thoroughly content with the narrow stripe of the equestrian order. He might have achieved a position no less high than Agrippa, but had not the same ambition for it. (3) Quietly and carefully concealing his activity he unearthed the plans of the hot-headed youth, and by crushing Lepidus with wonderful swiftness and without causing disturbance to either men or things he extinguished the portentous beginnings of a new and reviving civil war. Lepidus himself paid the penalty for his ill-advised plot. Servilia his wife must be placed on a parity with the wife of Antistius already mentioned, for by swallowing live coals she compensated for her untimely death by the lasting memory of her name.
[89] (1) As for Caesar’s return to Italy and to Rome — the procession which met him, the enthusiasm of his reception by men of all classes, ages, and ranks, and the magnificence of his triumphs and of the spectacles which he gave — all this it would be impossible adequately to describe even within the compass of a formal history, to say nothing of a work so circumscribed as this. There is nothing that man can desire from the gods, (2) nothing that the gods can grant to a man, nothing that wish can conceive or good fortune bring to pass, which Augustus on his return to the city did not bestow upon the republic, the Roman people, and the world. (3) The civil wars were ended after twenty years, foreign wars suppressed, peace restored, the frenzy of arms everywhere lulled to rest; validity was restored to the laws, authority to the courts, and dignity to the senate; the power of the magistrates was reduced to its former limits, with the sole exception that two were added to the eight existing praetors. The old traditional form of the republic was restored. (4) Agriculture returned to the fields, respect to religion, to mankind freedom from anxiety, and to each citizen his property rights were now assured; old laws were usefully emended, and new laws passed for the general good; the revision of the senate, while not too drastic, was not lacking in severity. The chief men of the state who had won triumphs and had held high office were at the invitation of Augustus induced to adorn the city. In the case of the consulship only, Caesar was not able to have his way, (5) but was obliged to hold that office consecutively until the eleventh time in spite of his frequent efforts to prevent it; but the dictatorship which the people persistently offered him, he as stubbornly refused. To tell of the wars waged under his command, of the pacification of the world by his victories, (6) of his many works at home and outside of Italy would weary a writer intending to devote his whole life to this one task. As for myself, remembering the proposed scope of my work, I have confined myself to setting before the eyes and minds of my readers a general picture of his principate.
[90] (1) When the civil wars had been extinguished, as we have already told, and the rent limbs of the state itself began to heal, the provinces, also, torn asunder by the long series of wars began to knit together. Dalmatia, in rebellion for one hundred and twenty years, was pacified to the extent of definitely recognizing the sovereignty of Rome. The Alps, filled with wild and barbarous tribes, were subdued. The provinces of Spain were pacified after heavy campaigns conducted with varied success now by Caesar in person, now by Agrippa, whom the friendship of the emperor had raised to a third consulship and soon afterwards to a share in the emperor’s tribunician power. (2) Roman armies had been sent into these provinces for the first time in the consulship of Scipio and Sempronius Longus, in the first year of the Second Punic war, two hundred and fifty years ago, under the command of Gnaeus Scipio, the uncle of Africanus. For a period of two hundred years the struggle was kept up with so much bloodshed on both sides that the Roman people, by the loss of its commanders and armies, often suffered disgrace, and sometimes its empire was really endangered. (3) These, namely, were the provinces that brought death to the Scipios; that taxed the endurance of our ancestors in the disgraceful ten years’ war under Viriathus; that shook the Roman people with the panic of the Numantine war; here occurred the disgraceful surrender of Quintus Pompeius, whose terms the senate disavowed, and the more shameful capitulation of Mancinus, which was also disavowed, and its maker ignominiously handed over to the enemy; it was Spain that destroyed so many commanders who were consulars or praetorians, and which in the days of our fathers raised Sertorius to such a height of power that for a period of five years it was not possible to decide whether there was greater strength in the arms of the Spaniard or the Roman, and which of the two peoples was destined to obey the other. (4) These, then, were the provinces, so extensive, so populous, and so warlike, which Caesar Augustus, about fifty years ago, brought to such a condition of peace, that whereas they had never before been free from serious wars, they were now, under the governorship of Gaius Antistius and then of Publius Silius and of their successors, exempt even from brigandage.
[91] (1) While the pacification of the west was going on, in the east the Parthian king restored to Augustus the Roman standards which Orodes had taken at the time of Crassus’ disaster, and those which his son Phraates had captured on the defeat of Antony. This title of Augustus was deservedly given him on the motion of Plancus with the unanimous acclaim of the entire senate and the Roman people. (2) Yet there were those who did not like this prosperous state of affairs. For example, Lucius Murena and Fannius Caepio had entered into a plot to assassinate Caesar, but were seized by state authority and themselves suffered by law what they had wished to accomplish by violence. They were two men quite diverse in character, for Murena, apart from this act, might have passed as a man of good character, while Caepio, even before this, had been of the worst. (3) Shortly afterwards a similar attempt was made by Rufus Egnatius, a man who in all respects resembled a gladiator rather than a senator. Securing the favour of the people in his aedileship by putting out fires with his own gang of slaves, he increased it daily to such an extent that the people gave him the praetorship immediately after the aedileship. It was not long before he dared to become a candidate for the consulship, but he was overwhelmed by the general knowledge of his shameless deeds and crimes, and the state of his property came to be as desperate as his mind. Therefore, collecting about him men of his own kind, he resolved to assassinate Caesar in order that he might die after getting rid of him whose existence was not compatible with his own. (4) Such men are so constituted that each would prefer to fall in a general cataclysm than to perish alone, and, though suffering the same fate in the end, to be less conspicuous in dying. He, however, was not more successful than the rest in concealing his designs, and after being thrust into prison with his fellow conspirators, died the death his life richly deserved.
[92] (1) The remarkable conduct of an excellent man, Gaius Sentius Saturninus, who was consul about this time, must not be cheated of its due record. Caesar was absent from the city engaged in regulating the affairs of Asia and of the orient, (2) and in bringing to the countries of the world by his personal presence the blessings of Augustan peace. On this occasion Sentius, chancing thus to be sole consul with Caesar absent, adopting the rigorous regime of the older consuls, pursued a general policy of old-fashioned severity and great firmness, bringing to light the fraudulent tricks of the tax-collectors, punishing their avarice, and getting the public moneys into the treasury. But it was particularly in holding the elections
that he played the consul. (3) For in the case of candidates for the quaestorship whom he thought unworthy, he forbade them to offer their names, and when they insisted upon doing so, he threatened them with the exercise of his consular authority if they came down to the Campus Martius. (4) Egnatius, who was now at the height of popular favour, and was expecting to have his consulship follow his praetorship as his praetorship had followed his aedileship, he forbade to become a candidate, and failing in this, he swore that, even if Egnatius were elected consul by the votes of the people, he would refuse to report his election. (5) This conduct I consider as comparable with any of the celebrated acts of the consuls of the olden days. But we are naturally more inclined to praise what we have heard than what has occurred before our eyes; we regard the present with envy, the past with veneration, and believe that we are eclipsed by the former, but derive instruction from the latter.
[93] (1) Some three years before the plot of Egnatius was exposed, about the time of the conspiracy of Murena and Caepio, fifty years from the present date, Marcus Marcellus died, the son of Octavia, sister of Augustus, after giving a magnificent spectacle to commemorate his aedileship and while still quite a youth. People thought that, if anything should happen to Caesar, Marcellus would be his successor in power, at the same time believing, however, that this would not fall to his lot without opposition from Marcus Agrippa. He was, we are told, a young man of noble qualities, cheerful in mind and disposition, and equal to the station for which he was being reared. (2) After his death Agrippa, who had set out for Asia on the pretext of commissions from the emperor, but who, according to current gossip, had withdrawn, for the time being, on account of his secret animosity for Marcellus, now returned from Asia and married Julia the daughter of Caesar, who had been the wife of Marcellus, a woman whose many children were to be blessings neither to herself nor to the state.
[94] (1) At this period Tiberius Claudius Nero, in his nineteenth year, began his public life as quaestor. I have already told how, when he was three years of age, his mother Livia, the daughter of Drusus Claudianus, had become the wife of Caesar, her former husband, Tiberius Nero, himself giving her in marriage to him. (2) Nurtured by the teaching of eminent praeceptors, a youth equipped in the highest degree with the advantages of birth, personal beauty, commanding presence, an excellent education combined with native talents, (3) Tiberius gave early promise of becoming the great man he now is, and already by his look revealed the prince. Now, acting on the orders of his stepfather, he so skilfully regulated the difficulties of the grain supply and relieved the scarcity of cornº at Ostia and in the city that it was apparent from his execution of this commission how great he was destined to become. (4) Shortly afterwards he was sent by his stepfather with an army to visit the eastern provinces and restore them to order, and in that part of the world gave splendid illustration of all his strong qualities. Entering Armenia with his legions, he brought it once more under the sovereignty of the Roman people, and gave the kingship to Artavasdes. Even the king of the Parthians, awed by the reputation of so great a name, sent his own children as hostages to Caesar.
[95] (1) On Nero’s return Caesar resolved to test his powers in a war of no slight magnitude. In this work he gave him as a collaborator his own brother Drusus Claudius, to whom Livia gave birth when already in the house of Caesar. The two brothers attacked the Raeti and Vindelici from different directions, (2) and after storming many towns and strongholds, as well as engaging successfully in pitched battles, with more danger than real loss to the Roman army, though with much bloodshed on the part of the enemy, they thoroughly subdued these races, protected as they were by the nature of the country, difficult of access, strong in numbers, and fiercely warlike.
(3) Before this had occurred the censorship of Plancus and Paulus, which, exercised as it was with mutual discord, was little credit to themselves or little benefit to the state, for the one lacked the force, the other the character, in keeping with the office; Paulus was scarcely capable of filling the censor’s office, while Plancus had only too much reason to fear it, nor was there any charge which he could make against young men, or hear others make, of which he, old though he was, could not recognize himself as guilty.
[96] (1) Then occurred the death of Agrippa. Though a “new man” he had by his many achievements brought distinction upon his obscure birth, even to the extent of becoming the father-in‑law of Nero; and his sons, the grandsons of the emperor, had been adopted by Augustus under the names of Gaius and Lucius. His death brought Nero closer to Caesar, since his daughter Julia, who had been the wife of Agrippa, now married Nero.
(2) Shortly after, the Pannonian war, which had been begun by Agrippa in the consulate of your grandfather, Marcus Vinicius, was conducted by Nero, a war which was important and formidable enough, and on account of its proximity a menace to Italy. In another place I shall describe the tribes of the Pannonians and the races of Dalmatians, the situation of their country and its rivers, (3) the number and extent of their forces, and the many glorious victories won in the course of this war by this great commander; my present work must keep to its design. After achieving this victory Nero celebrated an ovation.
[97] (1) But while everything was being successfully managed in this quarter of the either, a disaster received in Germany under Marcus Lollius the legate — he was a man who was ever more eager for money than for honest action, and of vicious habits in spite of his excessive efforts at concealment — and the loss of the eagle of the fifth legion, summoned Caesar from the city to the provinces of Gaul. (2) The burden of responsibility for this war was then entrusted to Drusus Claudius, the brother of Nero, a young man endowed with as many great qualities as men’s nature is capable of receiving or application developing. It would be hard to say whether his talents were the better adapted to a military career or the duties of life; at any rate, the charm and the sweetness of his character are said to have been inimitable, (3) and also his modest attitude of equality towards his friends. As for his personal beauty, it was second only to that of his brother. But, after accomplishing to a great extent the subjection of Germany, in which much blood of that people was shed on various battle-fields, an unkind fate carried him off during his consulship, in his thirtieth year. (4) The burden of responsibility for this war was then transferred to Nero. He carried it on with his customary valour and good fortune, and after traversing every part of Germany in a victorious campaign, without any loss of the army entrusted to him — for he made this one of his chief concerns — he so subdued the country as to reduce it almost to the status of a tributary province. He then received a second triumph, and a second consulship.
[98] (1) While the events of which we have spoken were taking place in Pannonia and in Germany, a fierce rebellion arose in Thrace, and all its clans were aroused to arms. It was terminated by the valour of Lucius Piso, whom we still have with us to‑day as the most vigilant and at the same time the gentlest guardian of the security of the city. (2) As lieutenant of Caesar he fought the Thracians for three years, and by a succession of battles and sieges, with great loss of life to the Thracians, he brought these fiercest of races to their former state of peaceful subjection. By putting an end to this war he restored security to Asia and peace to Macedonia. Of Piso all must think and say that his character is an excellent blend of firmness and gentleness, (3) and that it would be hard to find anyone possessing a stronger love of leisure, or, on the other hand, more capable of action, and of taking the necessary measures without thrusting his activity upon our notice.
[99] (1) Soon afterwards Tiberius Nero, who had now held two consulships and celebrated two triumphs; who had been made the equal of Augustus by sharing with him the tribunician power; the most eminent of all Roman citizens save one (and that because he wished it so); the greatest of generals, attended alike by fame and fortune; veritably the second luminary and the second head of the state — (2) this man, moved by some strangely incredible and inexpressible feeling of affection for Au
gustus, sought leave from him who was both his father-in‑law and stepfather to rest from the unbroken succession of his labours. The real reasons for this were soon made plain. Inasmuch as Gaius Caesar had already assumed the toga of manhood, and Lucius was reaching maturity, he concealed his reason in order that his own glory might not stand in the way of the young men at the beginning of their careers. (3) I must reserve for my regular history a description of the attitude of the state at this juncture, of the feelings of the individual citizens, of the tears of all at taking leave of such a man, and how nearly the state came to laying upon him its staying hand. (4) Even in this brief epitome I ought to say that all who departed for the provinces across the sea, whether proconsuls or governors appointed by the emperor, went out of their way to see him at Rhodes, and on meeting him they lowered their fasces to him though he was but a private citizen — if such majesty could ever belong to a private citizen — thereby confessing that his retirement was more worthy of honour than their official position.
[100] (1) The whole world felt the departure of Nero from his position as protector of the city. The Parthian, breaking away from his alliance with us, laid hold of Armenia, and the eyes of its conqueror were no longer upon it.
(2) But in the city, in the very year in which Augustus, then consul with Gallus Caninius (thirty years ago), had sated to repletion the minds and eyes of the Roman people with the magnificent spectacle of a gladiatorial show and a sham naval battle on the occasion of the dedication of the temple of Mars, a calamity broke out in the emperor’s own household which is shameful to narrate and dreadful to recall. (3) For his daughter Julia, utterly regardless of her great father and her husband, left untried no disgraceful deed untainted with either extravagance or lust of which a woman could be guilty, either as the doer or as the object, and was in the habit of measuring the magnitude of her fortune only in the terms of licence to sin, setting up her own caprice as a law unto itself. (4) Iulus Antonius, who had been a remarkable example of Caesar’s clemency, only to become the violator of his household, avenged with his own hand the crime he had committed. After the defeat of Marcus Antonius, his father, Augustus had not only granted him his life, but after honouring him with the priesthood, the praetorship, the consulship, and the governorship of provinces, had admitted him to the closest ties of relationship through a marriage with his sister’s daughter. (5) Quintius Crispinus also, who hid his extraordinary depravity behind a stern brow, Appius Claudius, Sempronius Gracchus, Scipio, and other men of both orders but of less illustrious name, suffered the penalty which they would have paid had it been the wife of an ordinary citizen they had debauched instead of the daughter of Caesar and the wife of Nero. Julia was banished to an island and removed from the eyes of her country and her parents, though her mother Scribonia accompanied her and employed with her as a voluntary companion of her exile.
Complete Works of Velleius Paterculus Page 26