The Works of Tacitus
tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
[1864-1877]
Tacitus: Annals Book 6 [30]
30. Still the informers were punished when ever an opportunity occurred. Servilius
and Cornelius, for example, whom the destruction of Scaurus had made notorious,
were outlawed and transported to some islands for having taken money from Varius
Ligur for dropping a prosecution. Abudius Ruso too, who had been an aedile,
in seeking to imperil Lentulus Gaetulicus, under whom he had commanded a legion,
by alleging that he had fixed on a son of Sejanus for his son-in-law, was himself
actually condemned and banished from Rome. Gaetulicus at this time was in charge
of the legions of Upper Germany, and had won from them singular affection, as
a man of unbounded kindliness, moderate in his strictness, and popular even
with the neighbouring army through his father-in-law, Lucius Apronius. Hence
rumour persistently affirmed that he had ventured to send the emperor a letter,
reminding him that his alliance with Sejanus had not originated in his own choice,
but in the advice of Tiberius; that he was himself as liable to be deceived
as Tiberius, and that the same mistake ought not to be held innocent in the
prince and be a source of ruin to others. His loyalty was still untainted and
would so remain, if he was not assaIled by any plot. A successor he should accept
as an announcement of his doom. A compact, so to say, ought to be sealed between
them, by which he should retain his province, and the emperor be master of all
else. Strange as this story was, it derived credibility from the fact that Gaetulicus
alone of all connected with Sejanus lived in safety and in high favour, Tiberius
bearing in mind the people’s hatred, his own extreme age how his government
rested more on prestige than on power.
31. In the consulship of Caius Cestius and Marcus Servilius, some Parthian
nobles came to Rome without the knowledge of their king Artabanus. Dread of
Germanicus had made that prince faithful to the Romans and just to his people,
but he subsequently changed this behaviour for insolence towards us and tyranny
to his subjects. He was elated by the wars which he had successfully waged against
the surrounding nations, while he disdained the aged and, as he thought, unwarlike
Tiberius, eagerly coveting Armenia, over which, on the death of Artaxias, he
placed Arsaces, his eldest son. He further added insult, and sent envoys to
reclaim the treasures left by Vonones in Syria and Cilicia. Then too he insisted
on the ancient boundaries of Persia and Macedonia, and intimated, with a vainglorious
threat, that he meant to seize on the country possessed by Cyrus and afterwards
by Alexander. The chief adviser of the Parthians in sending the secret embassy
was Sinnaces, a man of distinguished family and corresponding wealth. Next in
influence was Abdus, an eunuch, a class which, far from being despised among
barbarians, actually possesses power. These, with some other nobles whom they
admitted to their counsels, as there was not a single Arsacid whom they could
put on the throne, most of the family having been murdered by Artabanus or being
under age, demanded that Phraates, son of king Phraates, should be sent from
Rome. “Only a name,” they said, “and an authority were wanted; only, in fact,
that, with Caesar’s consent, a scion of the house of Arsaces should show himself
on the banks of the Euphrates.”
32. This suited the wishes of Tiberius. He provided Phraates with what he
needed for assuming his father’s sovereignty, while he clung to his purpose
of regulating foreign affairs by a crafty policy and keeping war at a distance.
Artabanus meanwhile, hearing of the treacherous arrangement, was one moment
perplexed by apprehension, the next fired with a longing for revenge. With barbarians,
indecision is a slave’s weakness; prompt action king-like. But now expediency
prevailed, and he invited Abdus, under the guise of friendship, to a banquet,
and disabled him by a lingering poison; Sinnaces he put off by pretexts and
presents, and also by various employments. Phraates meanwhile, on arriving in
Syria, where he threw off the Roman fashions to which for so many years he had
been accustomed, and adapted himself to Parthian habits, unable to endure the
customs of his country, was carried off by an illness. Still, Tiberius did not
relinquish his purpose. He chose Tiridates, of the same stock as Artabanus,
to be his rival, and the Iberian Mithridates to be the instrument of recovering
Armenia, having reconciled him to his brother Pharasmanes, who held the throne
of that country. He then intrusted the whole of his eastern policy to Lucius
Vitellius. The man, I am aware, had a bad name at Rome, and many a foul story
was told of him. But in the government of provinces he acted with the virtue
of ancient times. He returned, and then, through fear of Caius Caesar and intimacy
with Claudius, he degenerated into a servility so base that he is regarded by
an after-generation as the type of the most degrading adulation. The beginning
of his career was forgotten in its end, and an old age of infamy effaced the
virtues of youth.
33. Of the petty chiefs Mithridates was the first to persuade Pharasmanes
to aid his enterprise by stratagem and force, and agents of corruption were
found who tempted the servants of Arsaces into crime by a quantity of gold.
At the same instant the Iberians burst into Armenia with a huge host, and captured
the city of Artaxata. Artabanus, on hearing this, made his son Orodes the instrument
of vengeance. He gave him the Parthian army and despatched men to hire auxiliaries.
Pharasmanes, on the other hand, allied himself with the Albanians, and procured
aid from the Sarmatae, whose highest chiefs took bribes from both sides, after
the fashion of their countrymen, and engaged themselves in conflicting interests.
But the Iberians, who were masters of the various positions, suddenly poured
the Sarmatae into Armenia by the Caspian route. Meanwhile those who were coming
up to the support of the Parthians were easily kept back, all other approaches
having been closed by the enemy except one, between the sea and the mountains
on the Albanian frontier, which summer rendered difficult, as there the shallows
are flooded by the force of the Etesian gales. The south wind in winter rolls
back the waves, and when the sea is driven back upon itself, the shallows along
the coast, are exposed.
34. Meantime, while Orodes was without an ally, Pharasmanes, now strengthened
by reinforcements, challenged him to battle, taunted him on his refusal, rode
up to his camp and harassed his foraging parties. He often hemmed him in with
his picquets in the fashion of a blockade, till the Parthians, who were unused
to such insults, gathered round the king and demanded battle. Their sole strength
was in cavalry; Pharasmanes was also powerful in infantry, for the Iberians
and Albanians, inhabiting as they did a densely wooded country, were more inured
to hardship and endurance. They claim to have been descended from the Thessalians,
at the period when Jason, after the departure of Medea and the children born
of her, returned subsequently to the empty palace of Aeetes, and the vacant
kingdom of Colchi. They have many traditions connected with his name and with
the oracle of Phrixus. No one among them would think of sacrificing a ram, the
animal supposed to have conveyed Phrixus, whether it was really a ram or the
figure-head of a ship. Both sides having been drawn up in battle array, the
Parthian leader expatiated on the empire of the East, and the renown of the
Arsacids, in contrast to the despicable Iberian chief with his hireling soldiery.
Pharasmanes reminded his people that they had been free from Parthian domination,
and that the grander their aims, the more glory they would win if victorious,
the more disgrace and peril they would incur if they turned their backs. He
pointed, as he spoke, to his own menacing array, and to the Median bands with
their golden embroidery; warriors, as he said, on one side, spoil on the other.
35. Among the Sarmatae the general’s voice was not alone to be heard. They
encouraged one another not to begin the battle with volleys of arrows; they
must, they said, anticipate attack by a hand to hand charge. Then followed every
variety of conflict. The Parthians, accustomed to pursue or fly with equal science,
deployed their squadrons, and sought scope for their missiles. The Sarmatae,
throwing aside their bows, which at a shorter range are effective, rushed on
with pikes and swords. Sometimes, as in a cavalry-action, there would be alternate
advances and retreats, then, again, close fighting, in which, breast to breast,
with the clash of arms, they repulsed the foe or were themselves repulsed. And
now the Albanians and Iberians seized, and hurled the Parthians from their steeds,
and embarrassed their enemy with a double attack, pressed as they were by the
cavalry on the heights and by the nearer blows of the infantry. Meanwhile Pharasmanes
and Orodes, who, as they cheered on the brave and supported the wavering, were
conspicuous to all, and so recognised each other, rushed to the combat with
a shout, with javelins, and galloping chargers, Pharasmanes with the greater
impetuosity, for he pierced his enemy’s helmet at a stroke. But he could not
repeat the blow, as he was hurried onwards by his horse, and the wounded man
was protected by the bravest of his guards. A rumour that he was slain, which
was believed by mistake, struck panic into the Parthians, and they yielded the
victory.
36. Artabanus very soon marched with the whole strength of his kingdom, intent
on vengeance. The Iberians from their knowledge of the country fought at an
advantage. Still Artabanus did not retreat till Vitellius had assembled his
legions and, by starting a report that he meant to invade Mesopotamia, raised
an alarm of war with Rome. Armenia was then abandoned, and the fortunes of Artabanus
were overthrown, Vitellius persuading his subjects to forsake a king who was
a tyrant in peace, and ruinously unsuccessful in war. And so Sinnaces, whose
enmity to the prince I have already mentioned, drew into actual revolt his father
Abdageses and others, who had been secretly in his counsel, and were now after
their continued disasters more eager to fight. By degrees, many flocked to him
who, having been kept in subjection by fear rather than by goodwill, took courage
as soon as they found leaders. Artabanus had now no resources but in some foreigners
who guarded his person, men exiled from their own homes, who had no perception
of honour, or any scruple about a base act, mere hireling instruments of crime.
With these attendants he hastened his flight into the remote country on the
borders of Scythia, in the hope of aid, as he was connected by marriage alliances
with the Hyrcanians and Carmanians. Meantime the Parthians, he thought, indulgent
as they are to an absent prince, though restless under his presence, might turn
to a better mind.
37. Vitellius, as soon as Artabanus had fled and his people were inclined
to have a new king, urged Tiridates to seize the advantage thus offered, and
then led the main strength of the legions and the allies to the banks of the
Euphrates. While they were sacrificing, the one, after Roman custom, offering
a swine, a ram and a bull; the other, a horse which he had duly prepared as
a propitiation to the river-god, they were informed by the neighbouring inhabitants
that the Euphrates, without any violent rains, was of itself rising to an immense
height, and that the white foam was curling into circles like a diadem, an omen
of a prosperous passage. Some explained it with more subtlety, of a successful
commencement to the enterprise, which, however, would not be lasting, on the
ground, that though a confident trust might be placed in prognostics given in
the earth or in the heavens, the fluctuating character of rivers exhibited omens
which vanished the same moment. A bridge of boats having been constructed and
the army having crossed, the first to enter the camp was Ornospades, with several
thousand cavalry. Formerly an exile, he had rendered conspicuous aid to Tiberius
in the completion of the Dalmatic war, and had for this been rewarded with Roman
citizenship. Subsequently, he had again sought the friendship of his king, by
whom he had been raised to high honour, and appointed governor of the plains,
which, being surrounded by the waters of those famous rivers, the Euphrates
and Tigris, have received the name of Mesopotamia. Soon afterwards, Sinnaces
reinforced the army, and Abdageses, the mainstay of the party, came with the
royal treasure and what belonged to the crown. Vitellius thought it enough to
have displayed the arms of Rome, and he then bade Tiridates remember his grandfather
Phraates, and his foster-father Caesar, and all that was glorious in both of
them, while the nobles were to show obedience to their king, and respect for
us, each maintaining his honour and his loyalty. This done, he returned with
the legions to Syria.
38. I have related in sequence the events of two summer-campaigns, as a relief
to the reader’s mind from our miseries at home. Though three years had elapsed
since the destruction of Sejanus, neither time, intreaties, nor sated gratification,
all which have a soothing effect on others, softened Tiberius, or kept him from
punishing doubtful or forgotten offenses as most flagrant and recent crimes.
Under this dread, Fulcinius Trio, unwilling to face an onslaught of accusers,
inserted in his will several terrible imputations on Macro and on the emperor’s
principal freedmen, while he taunted the emperor himself with the mental decay
of old age, and the virtual exile of continuous retirement. Tiberius ordered
these insults, which Trio’s heirs had suppressed, to be publicly read, thus
showing his tolerance of free speech in others and despising his own shame,
or, possibly, because he had long been ignorant of the villanies of Sejanus,
and now wished any remarks, however reckless, to published, and so to ascertain,
through invective, if it must be so, the truth, which flattery obscures. About
the same time Granius Marcianus, a senator, who was accused of treason by Caius
Gracchus, laid hands on himself. Tarius Gratianus too, an ex-praetor, was condemned
under the same law to capital punishment.
39. A similar fate befell Trebellienus Rufus and Sextius Paconianus. Trebellienus
perished by his own hand; Paconianus was strangled in prison for having there
written some lampoons on the emperor. Tiberius received the news, no longer
parted by the sea, as he had been once, or through messengers from a distance,
but in close proximity to Rome, so that on the same day, or after the interval
of a single night, he could reply to the despatches of the consuls, and almost
behold the bloodshed as it streamed from house to house, and the strokes of
the executioner. At the year’s close Poppaeus Sabinus died, a man of somewhat
humble extraction, who had risen by his friendship with two emperors to the
consulship and the honours of a triumph. During twenty-four years he had the
charge of the most important provinces, not for any remarkable ability, but
because he was equal to business and was not too great for it.
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