The Works of Tacitus
tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
[1864-1877]
Tacitus: Annals Book 3 [10]
10. Next day, Fulcinius Trio asked the consul’s leave to prosecute Piso. It
was contended against him by Vitellius and Veranius and the others who had been
the companions of Germanicus, that this was not Trio’s proper part, and that
they themselves meant to report their instructions from Germanicus, not as accusers,
but as deponents and witnesses to facts. Trio, abandoning the prosecution on
this count, obtained leave to accuse Piso’s previous career, and the emperor
was requested to undertake the inquiry. This even the accused did not refuse,
fearing, as he did, the bias of the people and of the Senate; while Tiberius,
he knew, was resolute enough to despise report, and was also entangled in his
mother’s complicity. Truth too would be more easily distinguished from perverse
misrepresentation by a single judge, where a number would be swayed by hatred
and ill-will. Tiberius was not unaware of the formidable difficulty of the inquiry
and of the rumours by which he was himself assailed. Having therefore summoned
a few intimate friends, he listened to the threatening speeches of the prosecutors
and to the pleadings of the accused, and finally referred the whole case to
the Senate.
11. Drusus meanwhile, on his return from Illyricum, though the Senate had
voted him an ovation for the submission of Maroboduus and the successes of the
previous summer, postponed the honour and entered Rome. Then the defendant sought
the advocacy of Lucius Arruntius, Marcus Vinicius, Asinius Gallus, Aeserninus
Marcellus and Sextus Pompeius, and on their declining for different reasons,
Marcus Lepidus, Lucius Piso, and Livineius Regulus became his counsel, amid
the excitement of the whole country, which wondered how much fidelity would
be shown by the friends of Germanicus, on what the accused rested his hopes,
and how far Tiberius would repress and hide his feelings. Never were the people
more keenly interested; never did they indulge themselves more freely in secret
whispers against the emperor or in the silence of suspicion.
12. On the day the Senate met, Tiberius delivered a speech of studied moderation.
“Piso,” he said, “was my father’s representative and friend, and was appointed
by myself, on the advice of the Senate, to assist Germanicus in the administration
of the East. Whether he there had provoked the young prince by wilful opposition
and rivalry, and had rejoiced at his death or wickedly destroyed him, is for
you to determine with minds unbiassed. Certainly if a subordinate oversteps
the bounds of duty and of obedience to his commander, and has exulted in his
death and in my affliction, I shall hate him and exclude him from my house,
and I shall avenge a personal quarrel without resorting to my power as emperor.
If however a crime is discovered which ought to be punished, whoever the murdered
man may be, it is for you to give just reparation both to the children of Germanicus
and to us, his parents. “Consider this too, whether Piso dealt with the armies
in a revolutionary and seditious spirit; whether he sought by intrigue popularity
with the soldiers; whether he attempted to repossess himself of the province
by arms, or whether these are falsehoods which his accusers have published with
exaggeration. As for them, I am justly angry with their intemperate zeal. For
to what purpose did they strip the corpse and expose it to the pollution of
the vulgar gaze, and circulate a story among foreigners that he was destroyed
by poison, if all this is still doubtful and requires investigation? For my
part, I sorrow for my son and shall always sorrow for him; still I would not
hinder the accused from producing all the evidence which can relieve his innocence
or convict Germanicus of any unfairness, if such there was. And I implore you
not to take as proven charges alleged, merely because the case is intimately
bound up with my affliction. Do you, whom ties of blood or your own true-heartedness
have made his advocates, help him in his peril, every one of you, as far as
each man’s eloquence and diligence can do so. To like exertions and like persistency
I would urge the prosecutors. In this, and in this only, will we place Germanicus
above the laws, by conducting the inquiry into his death in this house instead
of in the forum, and before the Senate instead of before a bench of judges.
In all else let the case be tried as simply as others. Let no one heed the tears
of Drusus or my own sorrow, or any stories invented to our discredit.”
13. Two days were then assigned for the bringing forward of the charges,
and after six days’ interval, the prisoner’s defence was to occupy three days.
Thereupon Fulcinius Trio began with some old and irrelevant accusations about
intrigues and extortion during Piso’s government of Spain. This, if proved,
would not have been fatal to the defendant, if he cleared himself as to his
late conduct, and, if refuted, would not have secured his acquittal, if he were
convicted of the greater crimes. Next, Servaeus, Veranius, and Vitellius, all
with equal earnestness, Vitellius with striking eloquence, alleged against Piso
that out of hatred of Germanicus and a desire of revolution he had so corrupted
the common soldiers by licence and oppression of the allies that he was called
by the vilest of them “father of the legions” while on the other hand to all
the best men, especially to the companions and friends of Germanicus, he had
been savagely cruel. Lastly, he had, they said, destroyed Germanicus himself
by sorceries and poison, and hence came those ceremonies and horrible sacrifices
made by himself and Plancina; then he had threatened the State with war, and
had been defeated in battle, before he could be tried as a prisoner.
14. On all points but one the defence broke down. That he had tampered with
the soldiers, that his province had been at the mercy of the vilest of them,
that he had even insulted his chief, he could not deny. It was only the charge
of poisoning from which he seemed to have cleared himself. This indeed the prosecutors
did not adequately sustain by merely alleging that at a banquet given by Germanicus,
his food had been tainted with poison by the hands of Piso who sat next above
him. It seemed absurd to suppose that he would have dared such an attempt among
strange servants, in the sight of so many bystanders, and under Germanicus’s
own eyes. And, besides, the defendant offered his slaves to the torture, and
insisted on its application to the attendants on that occasion. But the judges
for different reasons were merciless, the emperor, because war had been made
on a province, the Senate because they could not be sufficiently convinced that
there had been no treachery about the death of Germanicus. At the same time
shouts were heard from the people in front of the Senate House, threatening
violence if he escaped the verdict of the Senators. They had actually dragged
Piso’s statues to the Gemonian stairs, and were breaking them in pieces, when
by the emperor’s order they were rescued and replaced. Piso was then put in
a litter and attended by a tribune of one of the Praetorian cohorts, who followed
him, so it was variously rumoured, to guard his person or to be his executioner.
15. Plancina was equally detested, but had stronger interest. Consequently
it was considered a question how far the emperor would be allowed to go against
her. While Piso’s hopes were in suspense, she offered to share his lot, whatever
it might be, and in the worst event, to be his companion in death. But as soon
as she had secured her pardon through the secret intercessions of Augusta, she
gradually withdrew from her husband and separated her defence from his. When
the prisoner saw that this was fatal to him, he hesitated whether he should
still persist, but at the urgent request of his sons braced his courage and
once more entered the Senate. There he bore patiently the renewal of the accusation,
the furious voices of the Senators, savage opposition indeed from every quarter,
but nothing daunted him so much as to see Tiberius, without pity and without
anger, resolutely closing himself against any inroad of emotion. He was conveyed
back to his house, where, seemingly by way of preparing his defence for the
next day, he wrote a few words, sealed the paper and handed it to a freedman.
Then he bestowed the usual attention on his person; after a while, late at night,
his wife having left his chamber, he ordered the doors to be closed, and at
daybreak was found with his throat cut and a sword lying on the ground.
16. I remember to have heard old men say that a document was often seen in
Piso’s hands, the substance of which he never himself divulged, but which his
friends repeatedly declared contained a letter from Tiberius with instructions
referring to Germanicus, and that it was his intention to produce it before
the Senate and upbraid the emperor, had he not been deluded by vain promises
from Sejanus. Nor did he perish, they said, by his own hand, but by that of
one sent to be his executioner. Neither of these statements would I positively
affirm; still it would not have been right for me to conceal what was related
by those who lived up to the time of my youth. The emperor, assuming an air
of sadness, complained in the Senate that the purpose of such a death was to
bring odium on himself, and he asked with repeated questionings how Piso had
spent his last day and night. Receiving answers which were mostly judicious,
though in part somewhat incautious, he read out a note written by Piso, nearly
to the following effect:- “Crushed by a conspiracy of my foes and the odium
excited by a lying charge, since my truth and innocence find no place here,
I call the immortal gods to witness that towards you Caesar, I have lived loyally,
and with like dutiful respect towards your mother. And I implore you to think
of my children, one of whom, Cneius is in way implicated in my career, whatever
it may have been, seeing that all this time he has been at Rome, while the other,
Marcus Piso, dissuaded me from returning to Syria. Would that I had yielded
to my young son rather than he to his aged father! And therefore I pray the
more earnestly that the innocent may not pay the penalty of my wickedness. By
forty-five years of obedience, by my association with you in the consulate,
as one who formerly won the esteem of the Divine Augustus, your father, as one
who is your friend and will never hereafter ask a favour, I implore you to save
my unhappy son.” About Plancina he added not a word.
17. Tiberius after this acquitted the young Piso of the charge of civil war
on the ground that a son could not have refused a father’s orders, compassionating
at the same time the high rank of the family and the terrible downfall even
of Piso himself, however he might have deserved it. For Plancina he spoke with
shame and conscious disgrace, alleging in excuse the intercession of his mother,
secret complaints against whom from all good men were growing more and more
vehement. “So it was the duty of a grandmother,” people said, “to look a grandson’s
murderess in the face, to converse with her and rescue her from the Senate.
What the laws secure on behalf of every citizen, had to Germanicus alone been
denied. The voices of a Vitellius and Veranius had bewailed a Caesar, while
the emperor and Augusta had defended Plancina. She might as well now turn her
poisonings, and her devices which had proved so successful, against Agrippina
and her children, and thus sate this exemplary grandmother and uncle with the
blood of a most unhappy house.” Two days were frittered away over this mockery
of a trial, Tiberius urging Piso’s children to defend their mother. While the
accusers and their witnesses pressed the prosecution with rival zeal, and there
was no reply, pity rather than anger was on the increase. Aurelius Cotta, the
consul, who was first called on for his vote (for when the emperor put the question,
even those in office went through the duty of voting), held that Piso’s name
ought to be erased from the public register, half of his property confiscated,
half given up to his son, Cneius Piso, who was to change his first name; that
Marcus Piso, stript of his rank, with an allowance of five million sesterces,
should be banished for ten years, Plancina’s life being spared in consideration
of Augusta’s intercession.
18. Much of the sentence was mitigated by the emperor. The name of Piso was
not to be struck out of the public register, since that of Marcus Antonius who
had made war on his country, and that of Julius Antonius who had dishonoured
the house of Augustus, still remained. Marcus Piso too he saved from degradation,
and gave him his father’s property, for he was firm enough, as I have often
related, against the temptation of money, and now for very shame at Plancina’s
acquittal, he was more than usually merciful. Again, when Valerius Messalinus
and Caecina Severus proposed respectively the erection of a golden statue in
the temple of Mars the Avenger and of an altar to Vengeance, he interposed,
protesting that victories over the foreigner were commemorated with such monuments,
but that domestic woes ought to be shrouded in silent grief. There was a further
proposal of Messalinus, that Tiberius, Augusta, Antonia, Agrippina and Drusus
ought to be publicly thanked for having avenged Germanicus. He omitted all mention
of Claudius. Thereupon he was pointedly asked by Lucius Asprenas before the
Senate, whether the omission had been intentional, and it was only then that
the name of Claudius was added. For my part, the wider the scope of my reflection
on the present and the past, the more am I impressed by their mockery of human
plans in every transaction. Clearly, the very last man marked out for empire
by public opinion, expectation and general respect was he whom fortune was holding
in reserve as the emperor of the future.
19. A few days afterwards the emperor proposed to the Senate to confer the
priesthood on Vitellius, Veranius and Servaeus. To Fulcinius he promised his
support in seeking promotion, but warned him not to ruin his eloquence by rancour.
This was the end of avenging the death of Germanicus, a subject of conflicting
rumours not only among the people then living but also in after times. So obscure
are the greatest events, as some take for granted any hearsay, whatever its
source, others turn truth into falsehood, and both errors find encouragement
with posterity. Drusus meanwhile quitted Rome to resume his command and soon
afterwards re-entered the city with an ovation. In the course of a few days
his mother Vipsania died, the only one of all Agrippa’s children whose death
was without violence. As for the rest, they perished, some it is certain by
the sword, others it was believed by poison or starvation.
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