The Works of Tacitus
tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
[1864-1877]
Tacitus: Annals Book 14 [10]
10. But the emperor, when the crime was at last accomplished, realised its portentous
guilt. The rest of the night, now silent and stupified, now and still oftener
starting up in terror, bereft of reason, he awaited the dawn as if it would
bring with it his doom. He was first encouraged to hope by the flattery addressed
to him, at the prompting of Burrus, by the centurions and tribunes, who again
and again pressed his hand and congratulated him on his having escaped an unforeseen
danger and his mother’s daring crime. Then his friends went to the temples,
and, an example having once been set, the neighbouring towns of Campania testified
their joy with sacrifices and deputations. He himself, with an opposite phase
of hypocrisy, seemed sad, and almost angry at his own deliverance, and shed
tears over his mother’s death. But as the aspects of places change not, as do
the looks of men, and as he had ever before his eyes the dreadful sight of that
sea with its shores (some too believed that the notes of a funereal trumpet
were heard from the surrounding heights, and wailings from the mother’s grave),
he retired to Neapolis and sent a letter to the Senate, the drift of which was
that Agerinus, one of Agrippina’s confidential freedmen, had been detected with
the dagger of an assassin, and that in the consciousness of having planned the
crime she had paid its penalty.
11. He even revived the charges of a period long past, how she had aimed
at a share of empire, and at inducing the praetorian cohorts to swear obedience
to a woman, to the disgrace of the Senate and people; how, when she was disappointed,
in her fury with the soldiers, the Senate, and the populace, she opposed the
usual donative and largess, and organised perilous prosecutions against distinguished
citizens. What efforts had it cost him to hinder her from bursting into the
Senate-house and giving answers to foreign nations! He glanced too with indirect
censure at the days of Claudius, and ascribed all the abominations of that reign
to his mother, thus seeking to show that it was the State’s good fortune which
had destroyed her. For he actually told the story of the shipwreck; but who
could be so stupid as to believe that it was accidental, or that a shipwrecked
woman had sent one man with a weapon to break through an emperor’s guards and
fleets? So now it was not Nero, whose brutality was far beyond any remonstrance,
but Seneca who was in ill repute, for having written a confession in such a
style.
12. Still there was a marvellous rivalry among the nobles in decreeing thanksgivings
at all the shrines, and the celebration with annual games of Minerva’s festival,
as the day on which the plot had been discovered; also, that a golden image
of Minerva with a statue of the emperor by its side should be set up in the
Senate-house, and that Agrippina’s birthday should be classed among the inauspicious
days. Thrasea Paetus, who had been used to pass over previous flatteries in
silence or with brief assent, then walked out of the Senate, thereby imperilling
himself, without communicating to the other senators any impulse towards freedom.
There occurred too a thick succession of portents, which meant nothing. A woman
gave birth to a snake, and another was killed by a thunderbolt in her husband’s
embrace. Then the sun was suddenly darkened and the fourteen districts of the
city were struck by lightning. All this happened quite without any providential
design; so much so, that for many subsequent years Nero prolonged his reign
and his crimes. Still, to deepen the popular hatred towards his mother, and
prove that since her removal, his clemency had increased, he restored to their
ancestral homes two distinguished ladies, Junia and Calpurnia, with two ex-praetors,
Valerius Capito and Licinius Gabolus, whom Agrippina had formerly banished.
He also allowed the ashes of Lollia Paulina to be brought back and a tomb to
be built over them. Iturius and Calvisius, whom he had himself temporarily exiled,
he now released from their penalty. Silana indeed had died a natural death at
Tarentum, whither she had returned from her distant exile, when the power of
Agrippina, to whose enmity she owed her fall, began to totter, or her wrath
was at last appeased.
13. While Nero was lingering in the towns of Campania, doubting how he should
enter Rome, whether he would find the Senate submissive and the populace enthusiastic,
all the vilest courtiers, and of these never had a court a more abundant crop,
argued against his hesitation by assuring him that Agrippina’s name was hated
and that her death had heightened his popularity. “He might go without a fear,”
they said, “and experience in his person men’s veneration for him.” They insisted
at the same time on preceding him. They found greater enthusiasm than they had
promised, the tribes coming forth to meet him, the Senate in holiday attire,
troops of their children and wives arranged according to sex and age, tiers
of seats raised for the spectacle, where he was to pass, as a triumph is witnessed.
Thus elated and exulting over his people’s slavery, he proceeded to the Capitol,
performed the thanksgiving, and then plunged into all the excesses, which, though
ill-restrained, some sort of respect for his mother had for a while delayed.
14. He had long had a fancy for driving a four-horse chariot, and a no less
degrading taste for singing to the harp, in a theatrical fashion, when he was
at dinner. This he would remind people was a royal custom, and had been the
practice of ancient chiefs; it was celebrated too in the praises of poets and
was meant to show honour to the gods. Songs indeed, he said, were sacred to
Apollo, and it was in the dress of a singer that that great and prophetic deity
was seen in Roman temples as well as in Greek cities. He could no longer be
restrained, when Seneca and Burrus thought it best to concede one point that
he might not persist in both. A space was enclosed in the Vatican valley where
he might manage his horses, without the spectacle being public. Soon he actually
invited all the people of Rome, who extolled him in their praises, like a mob
which craves for amusements and rejoices when a prince draws them the same way.
However, the public exposure of his shame acted on him as an incentive instead
of sickening him, as men expected. Imagining that he mitigated the scandal by
disgracing many others, he brought on the stage descendants of noble families,
who sold themselves because they were paupers. As they have ended their days,
I think it due to their ancestors not to hand down their names. And indeed the
infamy is his who gave them wealth to reward their degradation rather than to
deter them from degrading themselves. He prevailed too on some well-known Roman
knights, by immense presents, to offer their services in the amphitheatre; only
pay from one who is able to command, carries with it the force of compulsion.
15. Still, not yet wishing to disgrace himself on a public stage, he instituted
some games under the title of “juvenile sports,” for which people of every class
gave in their names. Neither rank nor age nor previous high promotion hindered
any one from practising the art of a Greek or Latin actor and even stooping
to gestures and songs unfit for a man. Noble ladies too actually played disgusting
parts, and in the grove, with which Augustus had surrounded the lake for the
naval fight, there were erected places for meeting and refreshment, and every
incentive to excess was offered for sale. Money too was distributed, which the
respectable had to spend under sheer compulsion and which the profligate gloried
in squandering. Hence a rank growth of abominations and of all infamy. Never
did a more filthy rabble add a worse licentiousness to our long corrupted morals.
Even, with virtuous training, purity is not easily upheld; far less amid rivalries
in vice could modesty or propriety or any trace of good manners be preserved.
Last of all, the emperor himself came on the stage, tuning his lute with elaborate
care and trying his voice with his attendants. There were also present, to complete
the show, a guard of soldiers with centurions and tribunes, and Burrus, who
grieved and yet applauded. Then it was that Roman knights were first enrolled
under the title of Augustani, men in their prime and remarkable for their strength,
some, from a natural frivolity, others from the hope of promotion. Day and night
they kept up a thunder of applause, and applied to the emperor’s person and
voice the epithets of deities. Thus they lived in fame and honour, as if on
the strength of their merits.
16. Nero however, that he might not be known only for his accomplishments
as an actor, also affected a taste for poetry, and drew round him persons who
had some skill in such compositions, but not yet generally recognised. They
used to sit with him, stringing together verses prepared at home, or extemporised
on the spot, and fill up his own expressions, such as they were, just as he
threw them off. This is plainly shown by the very character of the poems, which
have no vigour or inspiration, or unity in their flow. He would also bestow
some leisure after his banquets on the teachers of philosophy, for he enjoyed
the wrangles of opposing dogmatists. And some there were who liked to exhibit
their gloomy faces and looks, as one of the amusements of the court.
17. About the same time a trifling beginning led to frightful bloodshed between
the inhabitants of Nuceria and Pompeii, at a gladiatorial show exhibited by
Livineius Regulus, who had been, as I have related, expelled from the Senate.
With the unruly spirit of townsfolk, they began with abusive language of each
other; then they took up stones and at last weapons, the advantage resting with
the populace of Pompeii, where the show was being exhibited. And so there were
brought to Rome a number of the people of Nuceria, with their bodies mutilated
by wounds, and many lamented the deaths of children or of parents. The emperor
entrusted the trial of the case to the Senate, and the Senate to the consuls,
and then again the matter being referred back to the Senators, the inhabitants
of Pompeii were forbidden to have any such public gathering for ten years, and
all associations they had formed in defiance of the laws were dissolved. Livineius
and the others who had excited the disturbance, were punished with exile.
18. Pedius Blaesus was also expelled from the Senate on the accusation of
the people of Cyrene, that he had violated the treasury of Aesculapius and had
tampered with a military levy by bribery and corruption. This same people prosecuted
Acilius Strabo who had held the office of praetor, and had been sent by Claudius
to adjudicate on some lands which were bequeathed by king Apion, their former
possessor, together with his kingdom to the Roman people, and which had since
been seized by the neighbouring proprietors, who trusted to a long continued
licence in wrong, as if it constituted right and justice. Consequently, when
the adjudication was against them, there arose a bitter feeling towards the
judge, but the Senate replied that they knew nothing of the instructions given
by Claudius, and that the emperor must be consulted. Nero, though he approved
Strabo’s decision, wrote word that nevertheless he was for relieving the allies,
and that he waived all claim to what had been taken into possession.
19. Then followed the deaths of two illustrious men, Domitius Afer and Marcus
Servilius, who had flourished through a career of the highest honours and great
eloquence. The first was a pleader; Servilius, after long practice in the courts,
distinguished himself by his history of Rome and by the refinement of his life,
which the contrast of his character to that of Afer, whom he equalled in genius,
rendered the more conspicuous.
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