Tacitus: Annals: Book 4 [10]

The Works of Tacitus

tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb

[1864-1877]

Tacitus: Annals Book 4 [10]

10. In relating the death of Drusus I have followed the narrative of most of
the best historians. But I would not pass over a rumour of the time, the strength
of which is not even yet exhausted. Sejanus, it is said, having seduced Livia
into crime, next secured, by the foulest means, the consent of Lygdus, the eunuch,
as from his youth and beauty he was his master’s favourite, and one of his principal
attendants. When those who were in the secret had decided on the time and place
of the poisoning, Sejanus, with the most consummate daring, reversed his plan,
and, whispering an accusation against Drusus of intending to poison his father,
warned Tiberius to avoid the first draught offered him as he was dining at his
son’s house. Thus deceived, the old emperor, on sitting down to the banquet,
took the cup and handed it to Drusus. His suspicions were increased when Drusus,
in perfect unconsciousness, drank it off with youthful eagerness, apparently,
out of fear and shame, bringing on himself the death which he had plotted against
his father.

11. These popular rumours, over and above the fact that they are not vouched
for by any good writer, may be instantly refuted. For who, with moderate prudence,
far less Tiberius with his great experience, would have thrust destruction on
a son, without even hearing him, with his own hand too, and with an impossibility
of returning to better thoughts. Surely he would rather have had the slave who
handed the poison, tortured, have sought to discover the traitor, in short,
would have been as hesitating and tardy in the case of an only son hitherto
unconvicted of any crime, as he was naturally even with strangers. But as Sejanus
had the credit of contriving every sort of wickedness, the fact that he was
the emperor’s special favourite, and that both were hated by the rest of the
world, procured belief for any monstrous fiction, and rumour too always has
a dreadful side in regard to the deaths of men in power. Besides, the whole
process of the crime was betrayed by Apicata, Sejanus’s wife, and fully divulged,
under torture, by Eudemus and Lygdus. No writer has been found sufficiently
malignant to fix the guilt on Tiberius, though every circumstance was scrutinized
and exaggerated. My object in mentioning and refuting this story is, by a conspicuous
example, to put down hearsay, and to request all into whose hands my work shall
come, not to catch eagerly at wild and improbable rumours in preference to genuine
history which has not been perverted into romance.

12. Tiberius pronounced a panegyric on his son before the Rostra, during
which the Senate and people, in appearance rather than in heart, put on the
expression and accents of sorrow, while they inwardly rejoiced at the brightening
future of the family of Germanicus. This beginning of popularity and the ill-concealed
ambition of their mother Agrippina, hastened its downfall. Sejanus when he saw
that the death of Drusus was not avenged on the murderers and was no grief to
the people, grew bold in wickedness, and, now that his first attempt had succeeded,
speculated on the possibility of destroying the children of Germanicus, whose
succession to the throne was a certainty. There were three, and poison could
not be distributed among them, because of the singular fidelity of their guardians
and the unassailable virtue of Agrippina. So Sejanus inveighed against Agrippina’s
arrogance, and worked powerfully on Augusta’s old hatred of her and on Livia’s
consciousness of recent guilt, and urged both these women to represent to the
emperor that her pride as a mother and her reliance on popular enthusiasm were
leading her to dream of empire. Livia availed herself of the cunning of accusers,
among whom she had selected Julius Postumus, a man well suited to her purpose,
as he had an intrigue with Mutilia Prisca, and was consequently in the confidence
of Augusta, over whose mind Prisca had great influence. She thus made her aged
grandmother, whose nature it was to tremble for her power, irreconcilably hostile
to her grandson’s widow. Agrippina’s friends too were induced to be always inciting
her proud spirit by mischievous talk.

13. Tiberius meanwhile, who did not relax his attention to business, and
found solace in his work, occupied himself with the causes of citizens at Rome
and with petitions from allies. Decrees of the Senate were passed at his proposal
for relieving the cities of Cibyra and Aegium in Asia and Achaia, which had
suffered from earthquakes, by a remission of three years’ tribute. Vibius Serenus
too, proconsul of Further Spain, was condemned for violence in his official
capacity, and was banished to the island of Amorgus for his savage temper. Carsidius
Sacerdos, accused of having helped our enemy Tacfarinas with supplies of grain,
was acquitted, as was also Caius Gracchus on the same charge. Gracchus’s father,
Sempronius, had taken him when a mere child to the island of Cercina to be his
companion in exile. There he grew up among outcasts who knew nothing of a liberal
education, and after a while supported himself in Africa and Sicily by petty
trade. But he did not escape the dangers of high rank. Had not his innocence
been protected by Aelius Lamia and Lucius Apronius, successive governors of
Africa, the splendid fame of that ill-starred family and the downfall of his
father would have dragged him to ruin.

14. This year too brought embassies from the Greek communities. The people
of Samos and Cos petitioned for the confirmation of the ancient right of sanctuary
for the respective temples of Juno and Aesculapius. The Samians relied on a
decree of the Amphictyonic Council, which had the supreme decision of all questions
when the Greeks, through the cities they had founded in Asia, had possession
of the sea-coast. Cos could boast equal antiquity, and it had an additional
claim connected with the place. Roman citizens had been admitted to the temple
of Aesculapius, when king Mithridates ordered a general massacre of them throughout
all the islands and cities of Asia. Next, after various and usually fruitless
complaints from the praetors, the emperor finally brought forward a motion about
the licentious behaviour of the players. “They had often,” he said, “sought
to disturb the public peace, and to bring disgrace on private families, and
the old Oscan farce, once a wretched amusement for the vulgar, had become at
once so indecent and so popular, that it must be checked by the Senate’s authority.
The players, upon this, were banished from Italy.

15. That same year also brought fresh sorrow to the emperor by being fatal
to one of the twin sons of Drusus, equally too by the death of an intimate friend.
This was Lucilius Longus, the partner of all his griefs and joys, the only senator
who had been the companion of his retirement in Rhodes. And so, though he was
a man of humble origin, the Senate decreed him a censor’s funeral and a statue
in the forum of Augustus at the public expense. Everything indeed was as yet
in the hands of the Senate, and consequently Lucilius Capito, procurator of
Asia, who was impeached by his province, was tried by them, the emperor vehemently
asserting “that he had merely given the man authority over the slaves and property
of the imperial establishments; that if he had taken upon himself the powers
of a praetor and used military force, he had disregarded his instructions; therefore
they must hear the provincials.” So the case was heard and the accused condemned.
The cities of Asia, gratified by this retribution and the punishment inflicted
in the previous year on Caius Silanus, voted a temple to Tiberius, his mother,
and the Senate, and were permitted to build it. Nero thanked the Senators and
his grandfather on their behalf and carried with him the joyful sympathies of
his audience, who, with the memory of Germanicus fresh in their minds, imagined
that it was his face they saw, his voice they heard. The youth too had a modesty
and a grace of person worthy of a prince, the more charming because of his peril
from the notorious enmity of Sejanus.

16. About the same time the emperor spoke on the subject of electing a priest
of Jupiter in the room of Servius Maluginensis, deceased, and of the enactment
of a new law. “It was,” he said, “the old custom to nominate together three
patricians, sons of parents wedded according to the primitive ceremony, and
of these one was to be chosen. Now however there was not the same choice as
formerly, the primitive form of marriage having been given up or being observed
only by a few persons.” For this he assigned several reasons, the chief being
men’s and women’s indifference; then, again, the ceremony itself had its difficulties,
which were purposely avoided; and there was the objection that the man who obtained
this priesthood was emancipated from the father’s authority, as also was his
wife, as passing into the husband’s control. So the Senate, Tiberius argued,
ought to apply some remedy by a decree of a law, as Augustus had accommodated
certain relics of a rude antiquity to the modern spirit. It was then decided,
after a discussion of religious questions, that the institution of the priests
of Jupiter should remain unchanged. A law however was passed that the priestess,
in regard to her sacred functions, was to be under the husband’s control, but
in other respects to retain the ordinary legal position of women. Maluginensis,
the son, was chosen successor to his father. To raise the dignity of the priesthood
and to inspire the priests with more zeal in attending to the ceremonial, a
gift of two million sesterces was decreed to the Vestal Cornelia, chosen in
the room of Scantia; and, whenever Augusta entered the theatre, she was to have
a place in the seats of the Vestals.

17. In the consulship of Cornelius Cethegus and Visellius Varro, the pontiffs,
whose example was followed by the other priests in offering prayers for the
emperor’s health, commended also Nero and Drusus to the same deities, not so
much out of love for the young princes as out of sycophancy, the absence and
excess of which in a corrupt age are alike dangerous. Tiberius indeed, who was
never friendly to the house of Germanicus, was then vexed beyond endurance at
their youth being honoured equally with his declining years. He summoned the
pontiffs, and asked them whether it was to the entreaties or the threats of
Agrippina that they had made this concession. And though they gave a flat denial,
he rebuked them but gently, for many of them were her own relatives or were
leading men in the State. However he addressed a warning to the Senate against
encouraging pride in their young and excitable minds by premature honours. For
Sejanus spoke vehemently, and charged them with rending the State almost by
civil war. “There were those,” he said, “who called themselves the party of
Agrippina, and, unless they were checked, there would be more; the only remedy
for the increasing discord was the overthrow of one or two of the most enterprising
leaders.”

18. Accordingly he attacked Caius Silius and Titius Sabinus. The friendship
of Germanicus was fatal to both. As for Silius, his having commanded a great
army for seven years, and won in Germany the distinctions of a triumph for his
success in the war with Sacrovir, would make his downfall all the more tremendous
and so spread greater terror among others. Many thought that he had provoked
further displeasure by his own presumption and his extravagant boasts that his
troops had been steadfastly loyal, while other armies were falling into mutiny,
and that Tiberius’s throne could not have lasted had his legions too been bent
on revolution. All this the emperor regarded as undermining his own power, which
seemed to be unequal to the burden of such an obligation. For benefits received
are a delight to us as long as we think we can requite them; when that possibility
is far exceeded, they are repaid with hatred instead of gratitude.

19. Silius had a wife, Sosia Galla, whose love of Agrippina made her hateful
to the emperor. The two, it was decided, were to be attacked, but Sabinus was
to be put off for a time. Varro, the consul, was let loose on them, who, under
colour of a hereditary feud, humoured the malignity of Sejanus to his own disgrace.
The accused begged a brief respite, until the prosecutor’s consulship expired,
but the emperor opposed the request. “It was usual,” he argued, “for magistrates
to bring a private citizen to trial, and a consul’s authority ought not to be
impaired, seeing that it rested with his vigilance to guard the commonwealth
from loss.” It was characteristic of Tiberius to veil new devices in wickedness
under ancient names. And so, with a solemn appeal, he summoned the Senate, as
if there were any laws by which Silius was being tried, as if Varro were a real
consul, or Rome a commonwealth. The accused either said nothing, or, if he attempted
to defend himself, hinted, not obscurely, at the person whose resentment was
crushing him. A long concealed complicity in Sacrovir’s rebellion, a rapacity
which sullied his victory, and his wife Sosia’s conduct, were alleged against
him. Unquestionably, they could not extricate themselves from the charge of
extortion. The whole affair however was conducted as a trial for treason, and
Silius forestalled impending doom by a self-inflicted death.

Next: Book 4 [20]