The Works of Tacitus
tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
[1864-1877]
Tacitus: Annals Book 12 [1]
A.D. 48-54
1. THE destruction of Messalina shook the imperial house; for a strife arose
among the freedmen, who should choose a wife for Claudius, impatient as he was
of a single life and submissive to the rule of wives. The ladies were fired
with no less jealousy. Each insisted on her rank, beauty, and fortune, and pointed
to her claims to such a marriage. But the keenest competition was between Lollia
Paulina, the daughter of Marcus Lollius, an ex-consul, and Julia Agrippina,
the daughter of Germanicus. Callistus favoured the first, Pallas the second.
Aelia Paetina however, of the family of the Tuberones, had the support of Narcissus.
The emperor, who inclined now one way, now another, as he listened to this or
that adviser, summoned the disputants to a conference and bade them express
their opinions and give their reasons.
2. Narcissus dwelt on the marriage of years gone by, on the tie of offspring,
for Paetina was the mother of Antonia, and on the advantage of excluding a new
element from his household, by the return of a wife to whom he was accustomed,
and who would assuredly not look with a stepmother’s animosity on Britannicus
and Octavia, who were next in her affections to her own children. Callistus
argued that she was compromised by her long separation, and that were she to
be taken back, she would be supercilious on the strength of it. It would be
far better to introduce Lollia, for, as she had no children of her own, she
would be free from jealousy, and would take the place of a mother towards her
stepchildren. Pallas again selected Agrippina for special commendation because
she would bring with her Germanicus’s grandson, who was thoroughly worthy of
imperial rank, the scion of a noble house and a link to unite the descendants
of the Claudian family. He hoped that a woman who was the mother of many children
and still in the freshness of youth, would not carry off the grandeur of the
Caesars to some other house.
3. This advice prevailed, backed up as it was by Agrippina’s charms. On the
pretext of her relationship, she paid frequent visits to her uncle, and so won
his heart, that she was preferred to the others, and, though not yet his wife,
already possessed a wife’s power. For as soon as she was sure of her marriage,
she began to aim at greater things, and planned an alliance between Domitius,
her son by Cneius Aenobarbus, and Octavia, the emperor’s daughter. This could
not be accomplished without a crime, for the emperor had betrothed Octavia to
Lucius Silanus, a young man otherwise famous, whom he had brought forward as
a candidate for popular favour by the honour of triumphal distinctions and by
a magnificent gladiatorial show. But no difficulty seemed to be presented by
the temper of a sovereign who had neither partialities nor dislikes, but such
as were suggested and dictated to him.
4. Vitellius accordingly, who used the name of censor to screen a slave’s
trickeries, and looked forward to new despotisms, already impending, associated
himself in Agrippina’s plans, with a view to her favour, and began to bring
charges against Silanus, whose sister, Junia Calvina, a handsome and lively
girl, had shortly before become his daughter-in-law. Here was a starting point
for an accuser. Vitellius put an infamous construction on the somewhat incautious
though not criminal love between the brother and sister. The emperor listened,
for his affection for his daughter inclined him the more to admit suspicions
against his son-in-law. Silanus meanwhile, who knew nothing of the plot, and
happened that year to be praetor, was suddenly expelled from the Senate by an
edict of Vitellius, though the roll of Senators had been recently reviewed and
the lustrum closed. Claudius at the same time broke off the connection; Silanus
was forced to resign his office, and the one remaining day of his praetorship
was conferred on Eprius Marcellus.
5. In the year of the consulship of Caius Pompeius and Quintus Veranius,
the marriage arranged between Claudius and Agrippina was confirmed both by popular
rumour and by their own illicit love. Still, they did not yet dare to celebrate
the nuptials in due form, for there was no precedent for the introduction of
a niece into an uncle’s house. It was positively incest, and if disregarded,
it would, people feared, issue in calamity to the State. These scruples ceased
not till Vitellius undertook the management of the matter in his own way. He
asked the emperor whether he would yield to the recommendations of the people
and to the authority of the Senate. When Claudius replied that he was one among
the citizens and could not resist their unanimous voice, Vitellius requested
him to wait in the palace, while he himself went to the Senate. Protesting that
the supreme interest of the commonwealth was at stake, he begged to be allowed
to speak first, and then began to urge that the very burdensome labours of the
emperor in a world-wide administration, required assistance, so that, free from
domestic cares, he might consult the public welfare. How again could there be
a more virtuous relief for the mind of an imperial censor than the taking of
a wife to share his prosperity and his troubles, to whom he might intrust his
inmost thoughts and the care of his young children, unused as he was to luxury
and pleasure, and wont from his earliest youth to obey the laws.
6. Vitellius, having first put forward these arguments in a conciliatory
speech, and met with decided acquiescence from the Senate, began afresh to point
out, that, as they all recommended the emperor’s marriage, they ought to select
a lady conspicuous for noble rank and purity, herself too the mother of children.
“It cannot,” he said, “be long a question that Agrippina stands first in nobility
of birth. She has given proof too that she is not barren, and she has suitable
moral qualities. It is, again, a singular advantage to us, due to divine providence,
for a widow to be united to an emperor who has limited himself to his own lawful
wives. We have heard from our fathers, we have ourselves seen that married women
were seized at the caprice of the Caesars. This is quite alien to the propriety
of our day. Rather let a precedent be now set for the taking of a wife by an
emperor. But, it will be said, marriage with a brother’s daughter is with us
a novelty. True; but it is common in other countries, and there is no law to
forbid it. Marriages of cousins were long unknown, but after a time they became
frequent. Custom adapts itself to expediency, and this novelty will hereafter
take its place among recognized usages.”
7. There were some who rushed out of the Senate passionately protesting that
if the emperor hesitated, they would use violence. A promiscuous throng assembled,
and kept exclaiming that the same too was the prayer of the Roman people. Claudius
without further delay presented himself in the forum to their congratulations;
then entering the Senate, he asked from them a decree which should decide that
for the future marriages between uncles and brothers’ daughters should be legal.
There was, however, found only one person who desired such a marriage, Alledius
Severus, a Roman knight, who, as many said, was swayed by the influence of Agrippina.
Then came a revolution in the State, and everything was under the control of
a woman, who did not, like Messalina, insult Rome by loose manners. It was a
stringent, and, so to say, masculine despotism; there was sternness and generally
arrogance in public, no sort of immodesty at home, unless it conduced to power.
A boundless greed of wealth was veiled under the pretext that riches were being
accumulated as a prop to the throne.
8. On the day of the marriage Silanus committed suicide, having up to that
time prolonged his hope of life, or else choosing that day to heighten the popular
indignation. His sister, Calvina, was banished from Italy. Claudius further
added that sacrifices after the ordinances of King Tullius, and atonements were
to be offered by the pontiffs in the grove of Diana, amid general ridicule at
the idea devising penalties and propitiations for incest at such a time. Agrippina,
that she might not be conspicuous only by her evil deeds, procured for Annaeus
Seneca a remission of his exile, and with it the praetorship. She thought this
would be universally welcome, from the celebrity of his attainments, and it
was her wish too for the boyhood of Domitius to be trained under so excellent
an instructor, and for them to have the benefit of his counsels in their designs
on the throne. For Seneca, it was believed, was devoted to Agrippina from a
remembrance of her kindness, and an enemy to Claudius from a bitter sense of
wrong.
9. It was then resolved to delay no longer. Memmius Pollio, the consul-elect,
was induced by great promises to deliver a speech, praying Claudius to betroth
Octavia to Domitius. The match was not unsuitable to the age of either, and
was likely to develop still more important results. Pollio introduced the motion
in much the same language as Vitellius had lately used. So Octavia was betrothed,
and Domitius, besides his previous relationship, became now the emperor’s affianced
son-in-law, and an equal of Britannicus, through the exertions of his mother
and the cunning of those who had been the accusers of Messalina, and feared
the vengeance of her son.
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