The Works of Tacitus
tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
[1864-1877]
Tacitus: Annals Book 16 [20]
20. When Nero was in doubt how the ingenious varieties of his nightly revels
became notorious, Silia came into his mind, who, as a senator’s wife, was a
conspicuous person, and who had been his chosen associate in all his profligacy
and was very intimate with Petronius. She was banished for not having, as was
suspected, kept secret what she had seen and endured, a sacrifice to his personal
resentment. Minucius Thermus, an ex-praetor, he surrendered to the hate of Tigellinus,
because a freedman of Thermus had brought criminal charges against Tigellinus,
such that the man had to atone for them himself by the torture of the rack,
his patron by an undeserved death.
21. Nero after having butchered so many illustrious men, at last aspired
to extirpate virtue itself by murdering Thrasea Paetus and Barea Soranus. Both
men he had hated of old, Thrasea on additional grounds, because he had walked
out of the Senate when Agrippina’s case was under discussion, as I have already
related, and had not given the Juvenile games any conspicuous encouragement.
Nero’s displeasure at this was the deeper, since this same Thrasea had sung
in a tragedian’s dress at Patavium, his birth-place, in some games instituted
by the Trojan Antenor. On the day, too, on which the praetor Antistius was being
sentenced to death for libels on Nero, Thrasea proposed and carried a more merciful
decision. Again, when divine honours were decreed to Poppaea, he was purposely
absent and did not attend her funeral. All this Capito Cossutianus would not
allow to be forgotten. He had a heart eager for the worst wickedness, and he
also bore ill-will to Thrasea, the weight of whose influence had crushed him,
while envoys from Cilicia, supported by Thrasea’s advocacy, were accusing him
of extortion.
22. He alleged, too, against him the following charges:- “Thrasea,” he said,
“at the beginning of the year always avoided the usual oath of allegiance; he
was not present at the recital of the public prayers, though he had been promoted
to the priesthood of the Fifteen; he had never offered a sacrifice for the safety
of the prince or for his heavenly voice. Though formerly he had been assiduous
and unwearied in showing himself a supporter or an opponent even of the most
ordinary motions of senators, he had not entered the Senate-house for three
years, and very lately, when all were rushing thither with rival eagerness to
put down Silanus and Vetus, he had attended by preference to the private business
of his clients. This was political schism, and, should many dare to do the like,
it was actual war.” Capito further added, “The country in its eagerness for
discord is now talking of you, Nero, and of Thrasea, as it talked once of Caius
Caesar and Marcus Cato. Thrasea has his followers or rather his satellites,
who copy, not indeed as yet the audacious tone of his sentiments, but only his
manners and his looks, a sour and gloomy set, bent on making your mirthfulness
a reproach to you. He is the only man who cares not for your safety, honours
not your accomplishments. The prince’s prosperity he despises. Can it be that
he is not satisfied with your sorrows and griefs? It shows the same spirit not
to believe in Poppaea’s divinity as to refuse to swear obedience to the acts
of the Divine Augustus and the Divine Julius. He contemns religious rites; he
annuls laws. The daily records of the Roman people are read attentively in the
provinces and the armies that they may know what Thrasea has not done. “Either
let us go over to his system, if it is better than ours, or let those who desire
change have their leader and adviser taken from them. That sect of his gave
birth to the Tuberones and Favonii, names hateful even to the old republic.
They make a show of freedom, to overturn the empire; should they destroy it,
they will attack freedom itself. In vain have you banished Cassius, if you are
going to allow rivals of the Bruti to multiply and flourish. Finally, write
nothing yourself about Thrasea; leave the Senate to decide for us.” Nero further
stimulated the eager wrath of Cossutianus, and associated with him the pungent
eloquence of Marcellus Eprius.
23. As for the impeachment of Barea Soranus, Ostorius Sabinus, a Roman knight,
had already claimed it for himself. It arose out of his proconsulate of Asia,
where he increased the prince’s animosity by his uprightness and diligence,
as well as by having bestowed pains on opening the port of Ephesus and passed
over without punishment the violence of the citizens of Pergamos in their efforts
to hinder Acratus, one of the emperor’s freedmen, from carrying off statues
and pictures. But the crime imputed to him was friendship with Plautus and intrigues
to lure the province into thoughts of revolt. The time chosen for the fatal
sentence was that at which Tiridates was on his way to receive the sovereignty
of Armenia, so that crime at home might be partially veiled amid rumours on
foreign affairs, or that Nero might display his imperial grandeur by the murder
of illustrious men, as though it were a kingly exploit.
24. Accordingly when all Rome rushed out to welcome the emperor and see the
king, Thrasea, though forbidden to appear, did not let his spirit be cast down,
but wrote a note to Nero, in which he demanded to know the charges against him,
and asserted that he would clear himself, if he were informed of the crimes
alleged and had an opportunity of refuting them. This note Nero received with
eagerness, in the hope that Thrasea in dismay had written something to enhance
the emperor’s glory and to tarnish his own honour. When it turned out otherwise,
and he himself, on the contrary, dreaded the glance and the defiant independence
of the guiltless man, he ordered the Senate to be summoned.
25. Thrasea then consulted his most intimate friends whether he should attempt
or spurn defence. Conflicting advice was offered. Those who thought it best
for him to enter the Senate house said that they counted confidently on his
courage, and were sure that he would say nothing but what would heighten his
renown. “It was for the feeble and timid to invest their last moments with secrecy.
Let the people behold a man who could meet death. Let the Senate hear words,
almost of divine inspiration, more than human. It was possible that the very
miracle might impress even a Nero. But should he persist in his cruelty, posterity
would at least distinguish between the memory of an honourable death and the
cowardice of those who perished in silence.”
26. Those, on the other hand, who thought that he ought to wait at home,
though their opinion of him was the same, hinted that mockeries and insults
were in store for him. “Spare your ears” they said, “taunts and revilings. Not
only are Cossutianus and Eprius eagerly bent on crime; there are numbers more,
daring enough, perchance, to raise the hand of violence in their brutality.
Even good men through fear do the like. Better save the Senate which you have
adorned to the last the infamy of such an outrage, and leave it a matter of
doubt what the senators would have decided, had they seen Thrasea on his trial.
It is with a vain hope we are aiming to touch Nero with shame for his abominations,
and we have far more cause to fear that he will vent his fury on your wife,
your household, on all others dear to you. And therefore, while you are yet
stainless and undisgraced, seek to close life with the glory of those in whose
track and pursuits you have passed it.” Present at this deliberation was Rusticus
Arulenus, an enthusiastic youth, who, in his ardour for renown, offered, as
he was tribune of the people, to protest against the sentence of the Senate.
Thrasea checked his impetuous temper, not wishing him to attempt what would
be as futile, and useless to the accused, as it would be fatal to the protester.
“My days,” he said, “are ended, and I must not now abandon a scheme of life
in which for so many years I have persevered. You are at the beginning of a
career of office, and your future is yet clear. Weigh thoroughly with yourself
beforehand, at such a crisis as this, the path of political life on which you
enter.” He then reserved for his own consideration the question whether it became
him to enter the Senate.
27. Next day, however, two praetorian cohorts under arms occupied the temple
of Venus Genetrix. A group of ordinary citizens with swords which they did not
conceal, had blocked the approach to the Senate. Through the squares and colonnades
were scattered bodies of soldiers, amid whose looks of menace the senators entered
their house. A speech from the emperor was read by his quaestor. Without addressing
any one by name, he censured the senators for neglecting their public duties,
and drawing by their example the Roman knights into idleness. “For what wonder
is it,” he asked, “that men do not come from remote provinces when many, after
obtaining the consulate or some sacred office, give all their thoughts by choice
to the beauty of their gardens?” Here was, so to say, a weapon for the accusers,
on which they fastened.
28. Cossutianus made a beginning, and then Marcellus in more violent tones
exclaimed that the whole commonwealth was at stake. “It is,” he said, “the stubbornness
of inferiors which lessens the clemency of our ruler. We senators have hitherto
been too lenient in allowing him to be mocked with impunity by Thrasea throwing
off allegiance, by his son-in-law Helvidius Priscus indulging similar frenzies,
by Paconius Agrippinus, the inheritor of his father’s hatred towards emperors,
and by Curtius Montanus, the habitual composer of abominable verses. I miss
the presence of an ex-consul in the Senate, of a priest when we offer our vows,
of a citizen when we swear obedience, unless indeed, in defiance of the manners
and rites of our ancestors, Thrasea has openly assumed the part of a traitor
and an enemy. In a word, let the man, wont to act the senator and to screen
those who disparage the prince, come among us; let him propose any reform or
change he may desire. We shall more readily endure his censure of details than
we can now bear the silence by which he condemns everything. Is it the peace
throughout the world or victories won without loss to our armies which vex him?
A man who grieves at the country’s prosperity, who treats our public places,
theatres and temples as if they were a desert, and who is ever threatening us
with exile, let us not enable such an one to gratify his perverse vanity. To
him the decrees of this house, the offices of State, the city of Rome seem as
nothing. Let him sever his life from a country all love for which he has long
lost and the very sight of which he has now put from him.”
29. While Marcellus, with the savage and menacing look he usually wore, spoke
these and like words with rising fury in his voice, countenance, and eye, that
familiar grief to which a thick succession of perils had habituated the Senate
gave way to a new and profounder panic, as they saw the soldiers’ hands on their
weapons. At the same moment the venerable form of Thrasea rose before their
imagination, and some there were who pitied Helvidius too, doomed as he was
to suffer for an innocent alliance. “What again,” they asked, “was the charge
against Agrippinus except his father’s sad fate, since he too, though guiltless
as his son, fell beneath the cruelty of Tiberius? As for Montanus, a youth without
a blemish, author of no libellous poem, he was positively driven out an exile
because he had exhibited genius.”
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