The Works of Tacitus
tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
[1864-1877]
Tacitus: Annals Book 3 [60]
60. Tiberius meantime, while securing to himself the substance of imperial power,
allowed the Senate some shadow of its old constitution by referring to its investigation
certain demands of the provinces. In the Greek cities license and impunity in
establishing sanctuaries were on the increase. Temples were thronged with the
vilest of the slaves; the same refuge screened the debtor against his creditor,
as well as men suspected of capital offences. No authority was strong enough
to check the turbulence of a people which protected the crimes of men as much
as the worship of the gods. It was accordingly decided that the different states
were to send their charters and envoys to Rome. Some voluntarily relinquished
privileges which they had groundlessly usurped; many trusted to old superstitions,
or to their services to the Roman people. It was a grand spectacle on that day,
when the Senate examined grants made by our ancestors, treaties with allies,
even decrees of kings who had flourished before Rome’s ascendancy, and the forms
of worship of the very deities, with full liberty as in former days, to ratify
or to alter.
61. First of all came the people of Ephesus. They declared that Diana and
Apollo were not born at Delos, as was the vulgar belief. They had in their own
country a river Cenchrius, a grove Ortygia, where Latona, as she leaned in the
pangs of labour on an olive still standing, gave birth to those two deities,
whereupon the grove at the divine intimation was consecrated. There Apollo himself,
after the slaughter of the Cyclops, shunned the wrath of Jupiter; there too
father Bacchus, when victorious in war, pardoned the suppliant Amazons who had
gathered round the shrine. Subsequently by the permission of Hercules, when
he was subduing Lydia, the grandeur of the temple’s ceremonial was augmented,
and during the Persian rule its privileges were not curtailed. They had afterwards
been maintained by the Macedonians, then by ourselves.
62. Next the people of Magnesia relied on arrangements made by Lucius Scipio
and Lucius Sulla. These generals, after respectively defeating Antiochus and
Mithridates, honoured the fidelity and courage of the Magnesians by allowing
the temple of Diana of the White Brow to be an inviolable sanctuary. Then the
people of Aphrodisia produced a decree of the dictator Caesar for their old
services to his party, and those of Stratonicea, one lately passed by the Divine
Augustus, in which they were commended for having endured the Parthian invasion
without wavering in their loyalty to the Roman people. Aphrodisia maintained
the worship of Venus; Stratonicea, that of Jupiter and of Diana of the Cross
Ways. Hierocaesarea went back to a higher antiquity, and spoke of having a Persian
Diana, whose fane was consecrated in the reign of Cyrus. They quoted too the
names of Perperna, Isauricus, and many other generals who had conceded the same
sacred character not only to the temple but to its precincts for two miles.
Then came the Cyprians on behalf of three shrines, the oldest of which had been
set up by their founder Aerias to the Paphian Venus, the second by his son Amathus
to Venus of Amathus, and the last to Jupiter of Salamis, by Teucer when he fled
from the wrath of his father Telamon.
63. Audience was also given to embassies from other states. The senators
wearied by their multiplicity and seeing the party spirit that was being roused,
intrusted the inquiry to the consuls, who were to sift each title and see if
it involved any abuse, and then refer back the entire matter to the Senate.
Besides the states already mentioned, the consuls reported that they had ascertained
that at Pergamus there was a sanctuary of Aesculapius, but that the rest relied
on an origin lost in the obscurity of antiquity. For example, the people of
Smyrna quoted an oracle of Apollo, which had commanded them to dedicate a temple
to Venus Stratonicis; and the islanders of Tenos, an utterance from the same
deity, bidding them consecrate a statue and a fane to Neptune. Sardis preferred
a more modern claim, a grant from the victorious Alexander. So again Miletus
relied on king Darius. But in each case their religious worship was that of
Diana or Apollo. The Cretans too demanded a like privilege for a statue of the
Divine Augustus. Decrees of the Senate were passed, which though very respectful,
still prescribed certain limits, and the petitioners were directed to set up
bronze tablets in each temple, to be a sacred memorial and to restrain them
from sinking into selfish aims under the mask of religion.
64. About this time Julia Augusta had an alarming illness, which compelled
the emperor to hasten his return to Rome, for hitherto there had been a genuine
harmony between the mother and son, or a hatred well concealed. Not long before,
for instance, Julia in dedicating a statue to the Divine Augustus near the theatre
of Marcellus had inscribed the name of Tiberius below her own, and it was surmised
that the emperor, regarding this as a slight on a sovereign’s dignity, had brooded
over it with deep and disguised resentment. However the Senate now decreed supplications
to the gods and the celebration of the Great Games, which were to be exhibited
by the pontiffs, augurs, the colleges of the Fifteen and of the Seven, with
the Augustal Brotherhood. Lucius Apronius moved that the heralds too should
preside over these Games. This the emperor opposed, distinguishing the peculiar
privileges of the sacred guilds, and quoting precedents. Never, he argued, had
the heralds this dignity. “The Augustal priests were included expressly because
their sacred office was specially attached to the family for which vows were
being performed.”
65. My purpose is not to relate at length every motion, but only such as
were conspicuous for excellence or notorious for infamy. This I regard as history’s
highest function, to let no worthy action be uncommemorated, and to hold out
the reprobation of posterity as a terror to evil words and deeds. So corrupted
indeed and debased was that age by sycophancy that not only the foremost citizens
who were forced to save their grandeur by servility, but every exconsul, most
of the ex-praetors and a host of inferior senators would rise in eager rivalry
to propose shameful and preposterous motions. Tradition says that Tiberius as
often as he left the Senate-House used to exclaim in Greek, “How ready these
men are to be slaves.” Clearly, even he, with his dislike of public freedom,
was disgusted at the abject abasement of his creatures.
66. From unseemly flatteries they passed by degrees to savage acts. Caius
Silanus, pro-consul of Asia, was accused by our allies of extortion; whereupon
Mamercus Scaurus, an ex-consul, Junius Otho, a praetor, Brutidius Niger, an
aedile, simultaneously fastened on him and charged him with sacrilege to the
divinity of Augustus, and contempt of the majesty of Tiberius, while Mamercus
Scaurus quoted old precedents, the prosecutions of Lucius Cotta by Scipio Africanus,
of Servius Galba by Cato the Censor and of Publius Rutilius by Scaurus. As if
indeed Scipio’s and Cato’s vengeance fell on such offences, or that of the famous
Scaurus, whom his great grandson, a blot on his ancestry, this Mamercus was
now disgracing by his infamous occupation. Junius Otho’s old employment had
been the keeping of a preparatory school. Subsequently, becoming a senator by
the influence of Sejanus, he shamed his origin, low as it was, by his unblushing
effronteries. Brutidius who was rich in excellent accomplishments, and was sure,
had he pursued a path of virtue, to reach the most brilliant distinction, was
goaded on by an eager impatience, while he strove to outstrip his equals, then
his superiors, and at last even his own aspirations. Many have thus perished,
even good men, despising slow and safe success and hurrying on even at the cost
of ruin to premature greatness.
67. Gellius Publicola and Marcus Paconius, respectively quaestor and lieutenant
of Silanus, swelled the number of the accusers. No doubt was felt as to the
defendant’s conviction for oppression and extortion, but there was a combination
against him, that must have been perilous even to an innocent man. Besides a
host of adverse Senators there were the most accomplished orators of all Asia,
who, as such, had been retained for the prosecution, and to these he had to
reply alone, without any experience in pleading, and under that personal apprehension
which is enough to paralyse even the most practised eloquence. For Tiberius
did not refrain from pressing him with angry voice and look, himself putting
incessant questions, without allowing him to rebut or evade them, and he had
often even to make admissions, that the questions might not have been asked
in vain. His slaves too were sold by auction to the state-agent, to be examined
by torture. And that not a friend might help him in his danger, charges of treason
were added, a binding guarantee for sealed lips. Accordingly he begged a few
days’ respite, and at last abandoned his defence, after venturing on a memorial
to the emperor, in which he mingled reproach and entreaty.
68. Tiberius, that his proceedings against Silanus might find some justification
in precedent, ordered the Divine Augustus’s indictment of Volesus Messala, also
a proconsul of Asia, and the Senate’s sentence on him to be read. He then asked
Lucius Piso his opinion. After a long preliminary eulogy on the prince’s clemency,
Piso pronounced that Silanus ought to be outlawed and banished to the island
of Gyarus. The rest concurred, with the exception of Cneius Lentulus, who, with
the assent of Tiberius, proposed that the property of Silanus’s mother, as she
was very different from him, should be exempted from confiscation, and given
to the son.
> 68. Tiberius quae in Silanum parabat quo excusatius sub exemplo acciperentur,
libellos divi Augusti de Voleso Messala eiusdem Asiae pro consule factumque
in eum senatus consultum recitari iubet. tum L. Pisonem sententiam rogat. ille
multum de clementia principis praefatus aqua atque igni Silano interdicendum
censuit ipsumque in insulam Gyarum relegandum. eadem ceteri, nisi quod Cn. Lentulus
separanda Silani materna bona, quippe Atia parente geniti, reddendaque filio
dixit, adnuente Tiberio.
69. Cornelius Dolabella however, by way of carrying flattery yet further,
sharply censured the morals of Silanus, and then moved that no one of disgraceful
life and notorious infamy should be eligible for a province, and that of this
the emperor should be judge. “Laws, indeed,” he said, “punish crimes committed;
but how much more merciful would it be to individuals, how much better for our
allies, to provide against their commission.” The emperor opposed the motion.
“Although,” he said, “I am not ignorant of the reports about Silanus, still
we must decide nothing by hearsay. Many a man has behaved in a province quite
otherwise than was hoped or feared of him. Some are roused to higher things
by great responsibility; others are paralysed by it. It is not possible for
a prince’s knowledge to embrace everything, and it is not expedient that he
should be exposed to the ambitious schemings of others. Laws are ordained to
meet facts, inasmuch as the future is uncertain. It was the rule of our ancestors
that, whenever there was first an offence, some penalty should follow. Let us
not revolutionise a wisely devised and ever approved system. Princes have enough
burdens, and also enough power. Rights are invariably abridged, as despotism
increases; nor ought we to fall back on imperial authority, when we can have
recourse to the laws.” Such constitutional sentiments were so rare with Tiberius,
that they were welcomed with all the heartier joy. Knowing, as he did, how to
be forbearing, when he was not under the stimulus of personal resentment, he
further said that Gyarus was a dreary and uninhabited island, and that, as a
concession to the Junian family and to a man of the same order as themselves,
they might let him retire by preference to Cythnus. This, he added, was also
the request of Torquata, Silanus’s sister, a vestal of primitive purity. The
motion was carried after a division.
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