The Works of Tacitus
tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
[1864-1877]
Tacitus: Annals Book 2 [60]
60. Germanicus, however, who had not yet learnt how much he was blamed for his
expedition, sailed up the Nile from the city of Canopus as his starting-point.
Spartans founded the place because Canopus, pilot of one of their ships, had
been buried there, when Menelaus on his return to Greece was driven into a distant
sea and to the shores of Libya. Thence he went to the river’s nearest mouth,
dedicated to a Hercules who, the natives say, was born in the country and was
the original hero, others, who afterwards showed like valour, having received
his name. Next he visited the vast ruins of ancient Thebes. There yet remained
on the towering piles Egyptian inscriptions, with a complete account of the
city’s past grandeur. One of the aged priests, who was desired to interpret
the language of his country, related how once there had dwelt in Thebes seven
hundred thousand men of military age, and how with such an army king Rhamses
conquered Libya, Ethiopia, Media, Persia, Bactria, and Scythia, and held under
his sway the countries inhabited by the Syrians, Armenians, and their neighbours,
the Cappadocians, from the Bithynian to the Lycian sea. There was also to be
read what tributes were imposed on these nations, the weight of silver and gold,
the tale of arms and horses, the gifts of ivory and of perfumes to the temples,
with the amount of grain and supplies furnished by each people, a revenue as
magnificent as is now exacted by the might of Parthia or the power of Rome.
61. But Germanicus also bestowed attention on other wonders. Chief of these
were the stone image of Memnon, which, when struck by the sun’s rays, gives
out the sound of a human voice; the pyramids, rising up like mountains amid
almost impassable wastes of shifting sand, raised by the emulation and vast
wealth of kings; the lake hollowed out of the earth to be a receptacle for the
Nile’s overflow; and elsewhere the river’s narrow channel and profound depth
which no line of the explorer can penetrate. He then came to Elephantine and
Syene, formerly the limits of the Roman empire, which now extends to the Red
Sea.
62. While Germanicus was spending the summer in visits to several provinces,
Drusus gained no little glory by sowing discord among the Germans and urging
them to complete the destruction of the now broken power of Maroboduus. Among
the Gotones was a youth of noble birth, Catualda by name, who had formerly been
driven into exile by the might of Maroboduus, and who now, when the king’s fortunes
were declining, ventured on revenge. He entered the territory of the Marcomanni
with a strong force, and, having corruptly won over the nobles to join him,
burst into the palace and into an adjacent fortress. There he found the long-accumulated
plunder of the Suevi and camp followers and traders from our provinces who had
been attracted to an enemy’s land, each from their various homes, first by the
freedom of commerce, next by the desire of amassing wealth, finally by forgetfulness
of their fatherland.
63. Maroboduus, now utterly deserted, had no resource but in the mercy of
Caesar. Having crossed the Danube where it flows by the province of Noricum,
he wrote to Tiberius, not like a fugitive or a suppliant, but as one who remembered
his past greatness. When as a most famous king in former days he received invitations
from many nations, he had still, he said, preferred the friendship of Rome.
Caesar replied that he should have a safe and honourable home in Italy, if he
would remain there, or, if his interests required something different, he might
leave it under the same protection under which he had come. But in the Senate
he maintained that Philip had not been so formidable to the Athenians, or Pyrrhus
or Antiochus to the Roman people, as was Maroboduus. The speech is extant, and
in it he magnifies the man’s power, the ferocity of the tribes under his sway,
his proximity to Italy as a foe, finally his own measures for his overthrow.
The result was that Maroboduus was kept at Ravenna, where his possible return
was a menace to the Suevi, should they ever disdain obedience. But he never
left Italy for eighteen years, living to old age and losing much of his renown
through an excessive clinging to life. Catualda had a like downfall and no better
refuge. Driven out soon afterwards by the overwhelming strength of the Hermundusi
led by Vibilius, he was received and sent to Forum Julii, a colony of Narbonensian
Gaul. The barbarians who followed the two kings, lest they might disturb the
peace of the provinces by mingling with the population, were settled beyond
the Danube between the rivers Marus and Cusus, under a king, Vannius, of the
nation of the Quadi.
64. Tidings having also arrived of Artaxias being made king of Armenia by
Germanicus, the Senate decreed that both he and Drusus should enter the city
with an ovation. Arches too were raised round the sides of the temple of Mars
the Avenger, with statues of the two Caesars. Tiberius was the more delighted
at having established peace by wise policy than if he had finished a war by
battle. And so next he planned a crafty scheme against Rhescuporis, king of
Thrace. That entire country had been in the possession of Rhoemetalces, after
whose death Augustus assigned half to the king’s brother Rhescuporis, half to
his son Cotys. In this division the cultivated lands, the towns, and what bordered
on Greek territories, fell to Cotys; the wild and barbarous portion, with enemies
on its frontier, to Rhescuporis. The kings too themselves differed, Cotys having
a gentle and kindly temper, the other a fierce and ambitious spirit, which could
not brook a partner. Still at first they lived in a hollow friendship, but soon
Rhescuporis overstepped his bounds and appropriated to himself what had been
given to Cotys, using force when he was resisted, though somewhat timidly under
Augustus, who having created both kingdoms would, he feared, avenge any contempt
of his arrangement. When however he heard of the change of emperor, he let loose
bands of freebooters and razed the fortresses, as a provocation to war.
65. Nothing made Tiberius so uneasy as an apprehension of the disturbance
of any settlement. He commissioned a centurion to tell the kings not to decide
their dispute by arms. Cotys at once dismissed the forces which he had prepared.
Rhescuporis, with assumed modesty, asked for a place of meeting where, he said,
they might settle their differences by an interview. There was little hesitation
in fixing on a time, a place, finally on terms, as every point was mutually
conceded and accepted, by the one out of good nature, by the other with a treacherous
intent. Rhescuporis, to ratify the treaty, as he said, further proposed a banquet;
and when their mirth had been prolonged far into the night, and Cotys amid the
feasting and the wine was unsuspicious of danger, he loaded him with chains,
though he appealed, on perceiving the perfidy, to the sacred character of a
king, to the gods of their common house, and to the hospitable board. Having
possessed himself of all Thrace, he wrote word to Tiberius that a plot had been
formed against him, and that he had forestalled the plotter. Meanwhile, under
pretext of a war against the Bastarnian and Scythian tribes, he was strengthening
himself with fresh forces of infantry and cavalry. He received a conciliatory
answer. If there was no treachery in his conduct, he could rely on his innocence,
but neither the emperor nor the Senate would decide on the right or wrong of
his cause without hearing it. He was therefore to surrender Cotys, come in person
transfer from himself the odium of the charge.
66. This letter Latinius Pandus, propraetor of Moesia, sent to Thrace, with
soldiers to whose custody Cotys was to be delivered. Rhescuporis, hesitating
between fear and rage, preferred to be charged with an accomplished rather than
with an attempted crime. He ordered Cotys to be murdered and falsely represented
his death as self-inflicted. Still the emperor did not change the policy which
he had once for all adopted. On the death of Pandus, whom Rhescuporis accused
of being his personal enemy, he appointed to the government of Moesia Pomponius
Flaccus, a veteran soldier, specially because of his close intimacy with the
king and his consequent ability to entrap him.
67. Flaccus on arriving in Thrace induced the king by great promises, though
he hesitated and thought of his guilty deeds, to enter the Roman lines. He then
surrounded him with a strong force under pretence of showing him honour, and
the tribunes and centurions, by counsel, by persuasion, and by a more undisguised
captivity the further he went, brought him, aware at last of his desperate plight,
to Rome. He was accused before the Senate by the wife of Cotys, and was condemned
to be kept a prisoner far away from his kingdom. Thrace was divided between
his son Rhoemetalces, who, it was proved, had opposed his father’s designs,
and the sons of Cotys. As these were still minors, Trebellienus Rufus, an expraetor,
was appointed to govern the kingdom in the meanwhile, after the precedent of
our ancestors who sent Marcus Lepidus into Egypt as guardian to Ptolemy’s children.
Rhescuporis was removed to Alexandria, and there attempting or falsely charged
with attempting escape, was put to death.
68. About the same time, Vonones, who, as I have related, had been banished
to Cilicia, endeavoured by bribing his guards to escape into Armenia, thence
to Albania and Heniochia, and to his kinsman, the king of Scythia. Quitting
the sea-coast on the pretence of a hunting expedition, he struck into trackless
forests, and was soon borne by his swift steed to the river Pyramus, the bridges
over which had been broken down by the natives as soon as they heard of the
king’s escape. Nor was there a ford by which it could be crossed. And so on
the river’s bank he was put in chains by Vibius Fronto, an officer of cavalry;
and then Remmius, an enrolled pensioner, who had previously been entrusted with
the king’s custody, in pretended rage, pierced him with his sword. Hence there
was more ground for believing that the man, conscious of guilty complicity and
fearing accusation, had slain Vonones.
69. Germanicus meanwhile, as he was returning from Egypt, found that all
his directions to the legions and to the various cities had been repealed or
reversed. This led to grievous insults on Piso, while he as savagely assailed
the prince. Piso then resolved to quit Syria. Soon he was detained there by
the failing health of Germanicus, but when he heard of his recovery, while people
were paying the vows they had offered for his safety, he went attended by his
lictors, drove away the victims placed by the altars with all the preparations
for sacrifice, and the festal gathering of the populace of Antioch. Then he
left for Seleucia and awaited the result of the illness which had again attacked
Germanicus. The terrible intensity of the malady was increased by the belief
that he had been poisoned by Piso. And certainly there were found hidden in
the floor and in the walls disinterred remains of human bodies, incantations
and spells, and the name of Germanicus inscribed on leaden tablets, half-burnt
cinders smeared with blood, and other horrors by which in popular belief souls
are devoted so the infernal deities. Piso too was accused of sending emissaries
to note curiously every unfavourable symptom of the illness. malefica quis creditur
animas numinibus infernis sacrari. simul missi a Pisone incusabantur ut valetudinis
adversa rimantes.
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