The Works of Tacitus
tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
[1864-1877]
Tacitus: Annals Book 4 [30]
30. The Senate then gave their votes that Serenus should be punished according
to ancient precedent, when the emperor, to soften the odium of the affair, interposed
with his veto. Next, Gallus Asinius proposed that he should be confined in Gyaros
or Donusa, but this he rejected, on the ground that both these islands were
deficient in water, and that he whose life was spared, ought to be allowed the
necessaries of life. And so Serenus was conveyed back to Amorgus. In consequence
of the suicide of Cornutus, it was proposed to deprive informers of their rewards
whenever a person accused of treason put an end to his life by his own act before
the completion of the trial. The motion was on the point of being carried when
the emperor, with a harshness contrary to his manner, spoke openly for the informers,
complaining that the laws would be ineffective, and the State brought to the
verge of ruin. “Better,” he said, “to subvert the constitution than to remove
its guardians.” Thus the informers, a class invented to destroy the commonwealth,
and never enough controlled even by legal penalties, were stimulated by rewards.
31. Some little joy broke this long succession of horrors. Caius Cominius,
a Roman knight, was spared by the emperor, against whom he was convicted of
having written libellous verses, at the intercession of his brother, who was
a Senator. Hence it seemed the more amazing that one who knew better things
and the glory which waits on mercy, should prefer harsher courses. He did not
indeed err from dulness, and it is easy to see when the acts of a sovereign
meet with genuine, and when with fictitious popularity. And even he himself,
though usually artificial in manner, and though his words escaped him with a
seeming struggle, spoke out freely and fluently whenever he came to a man’s
rescue. In another case, that of Publius Suillius, formerly quaestor to Germanicus,
who was to be expelled from Italy on a conviction of having received money for
a judicial decision, he held that the man ought to be banished to an island,
and so intensely strong was his feeling that he bound the Senate by an oath
that this was a State necessity. The act was thought cruel at the moment, but
subsequently it redounded to his honour when Suillius returned from exile. The
next age saw him in tremendous power and a venal creature of the emperor Claudius,
whose friendship he long used, with success, never for good. The same punishment
was adjudged to Catus Firmius, a Senator, for having (it was alleged) assailed
his sister with a false charge of treason. Catus, as I have related, had drawn
Libo into a snare and then destroyed him by an information. Tiberius remembering
this service, while he alleged other reasons, deprecated a sentence of exile,
but did not oppose his expulsion from the Senate.
32. Much what I have related and shall have to relate, may perhaps, I am
aware, seem petty trifles to record. But no one must compare my annals with
the writings of those who have described Rome in old days. They told of great
wars, of the storming of cities, of the defeat and capture of kings, or whenever
they turned by preference to home affairs, they related, with a free scope for
digression, the strifes of consuls with tribunes, land and corn-laws, and the
struggles between the commons and the aristocracy. My labours are circumscribed
and inglorious; peace wholly unbroken or but slightly disturbed, dismal misery
in the capital, an emperor careless about the enlargement of the empire, such
is my theme. Still it will not be useless to study those at first sight trifling
events out of which the movements of vast changes often take their rise.
33. All nations and cities are ruled by the people, the nobility, or by one
man. A constitution, formed by selection out of these elements, it is easy to
commend but not to produce; or, if it is produced, it cannot be lasting. Formerly,
when the people had power or when the patricians were in the ascendant, the
popular temper and the methods of controlling it, had to be studied, and those
who knew most accurately the spirit of the Senate and aristocracy, had the credit
of understanding the age and of being wise men. So now, after a revolution,
when Rome is nothing but the realm of a single despot, there must be good in
carefully noting and recording this period, for it is but few who have the foresight
to distinguish right from wrong or what is sound from what is hurtful, while
most men learn wisdom from the fortunes of others. Still, though this is instructive,
it gives very little pleasure. Descriptions of countries, the various incidents
of battles, glorious deaths of great generals, enchain and refresh a reader’s
mind. I have to present in succession the merciless biddings of a tyrant, incessant
prosecutions, faithless friendships, the ruin of innocence, the same causes
issuing in the same results, and I am everywhere confronted by a wearisome monotony
in my subject matter. Then, again, an ancient historian has but few disparagers,
and no one cares whether you praise more heartily the armies of Carthage or
Rome. But of many who endured punishment or disgrace under Tiberius, the descendants
yet survive; or even though the families themselves may be now extinct, you
will find those who, from a resemblance of character, imagine that the evil
deeds of others are a reproach to themselves. Again, even honour and virtue
make enemies, condemning, as they do, their opposites by too close a contrast.
But I return to my work.
34. In the year of the consulship of Cornelius Cossus and Asinius Agrippa,
Cremutius Cordus was arraigned on a new charge, now for the first time heard.
He had published a history in which he had praised Marcus Brutus and called
Caius Cassius the last of the Romans. His accusers were Satrius Secundus and
Pinarius Natta, creatures of Sejanus. This was enough to ruin the accused; and
then too the emperor listened with an angry frown to his defence, which Cremutius,
resolved to give up his life, began thus: – “It is my words, Senators, which
are condemned, so innocent am I of any guilty act; yet these do not touch the
emperor or the emperor’s mother, who are alone comprehended under the law of
treason. I am said to have praised Brutus and Cassius, whose careers many have
described and no one mentioned without eulogy. Titus Livius, pre-eminently famous
for eloquence and truthfulness, extolled Cneius Pompeius in such a panegyric
that Augustus called him Pompeianus, and yet this was no obstacle to their friendship.
Scipio, Afranius, this very Cassius, this same Brutus, he nowhere describes
as brigands and traitors, terms now applied to them, but repeatedly as illustrious
men. Asinius Pollio’s writings too hand down a glorious memory of them, and
Messala Corvinus used to speak with pride of Cassius as his general. Yet both
these men prospered to the end with wealth and preferment. Again, that book
of Marcus Cicero, in which he lauded Cato to the skies, how else was it answered
by Caesar the dictator, than by a written oration in reply, as if he was pleading
in court? The letters Antonius, the harangues of Brutus contain reproaches against
Augustus, false indeed, but urged with powerful sarcasm; the poems which we
read of Bibaculus and Catullus are crammed with invectives on the Caesars. Yet
the Divine Julius, the Divine Augustus themselves bore all this and let it pass,
whether in forbearance or in wisdom I cannot easily say. Assuredly what is despised
is soon forgotten; when you resent a thing, you seem to recognise it.”
35. “Of the Greeks I say nothing; with them not only liberty, but even license
went unpunished, or if a person aimed at chastising, he retaliated on satire
by satire. It has, however, always been perfectly open to us without any one
to censure, to speak freely of those whom death has withdrawn alike from the
partialities of hatred or esteem. Are Cassius and Brutus now in arms on the
fields of Philippi, and am I with them rousing the people by harangues to stir
up civil war? Did they not fall more than seventy years ago, and as they are
known to us by statues which even the conqueror did not destroy, so too is not
some portion of their memory preserved for us by historians? To every man posterity
gives his due honour, and, if a fatal sentence hangs over me, there will be
those who will remember me as well as Cassius and Brutus.” He then left the
Senate and ended his life by starvation. His books, so the Senators decreed,
were to be burnt by the aediles; but some copies were left which were concealed
and afterwards published. And so one is all the more inclined to laugh at the
stupidity of men who suppose that the despotism of the present can actually
efface the remembrances of the next generation. On the contrary, the persecution
of genius fosters its influence; foreign tyrants, and all who have imitated
their oppression, have merely procured infamy for themselves and glory for their
victims.
36. That year was such a continuous succession of prosecutions that on the
days of the Latin festival when Drusus, as city-prefect, had ascended his tribunal
for the inauguration of his office, Calpurnius Salvianus appeared before him
against Sextus Marius. This the emperor openly censured, and it caused the banishment
of Salvianus. Next, the people of Cyzicus were accused of publicly neglecting
the established worship of the Divine Augustus, and also of acts of violence
to Roman citizens. They were deprived of the franchise which they had earned
during the war with Mithridates, when their city was besieged, and when they
repulsed the king as much by their own bravery as by the aid of Lucullus. Then
followed the acquittal of Fonteius Capito, the late proconsul of Asia, on proof
that charges brought against him by Vibius Serenus were fictitious. Still this
did not injure Serenus, to whom public hatred was actually a protection. Indeed
any conspicuously restless informer was, so to say, inviolable; only the insignificant
and undistinguished were punished.
37. About the same time Further Spain sent a deputation to the Senate, with
a request to be allowed, after the example of Asia, to erect a temple to Tiberius
and his mother. On this occasion, the emperor, who had generally a strong contempt
for honours, and now thought it right to reply to the rumour which reproached
him with having yielded to vanity, delivered the following speech:- “I am aware,
Senators, that many deplore my want of firmness in not having opposed a similar
recent petition from the cities of Asia. I will therefore both explain the grounds
of my previous silence and my intentions for the future. Inasmuch as the Divine
Augustus did not forbid the founding of a temple at Pergamos to himself and
to the city of Rome, I who respect as law all his actions and sayings, have
the more readily followed a precedent once approved, seeing that with the worship
of myself was linked an expression of reverence towards the Senate. But though
it may be pardonable to have allowed this once, it would be a vain and arrogant
thing to receive the sacred honour of images representing the divine throughout
all the provinces, and the homage paid to Augustus will disappear if it is vulgarised
by indiscriminate flattery.
38. “For myself, Senators, I am mortal and limited to the functions of humanity,
content if I can adequately fill the highest place; of this I solemnly assure
you, and would have posterity remember it. They will more than sufficiently
honour my memory by believing me to have been worthy of my ancestry, watchful
over your interests, courageous in danger, fearless of enmity, when the State
required it. These sentiments of your hearts are my temples, these my most glorious
and abiding monuments. Those built of stone are despised as mere tombs, if the
judgment of posterity passes into hatred. And therefore this is my prayer to
our allies, our citizens, and to heaven itself; to the last, that, to my life’s
close, it grant me a tranquil mind, which can discern alike human and divine
claims; to the first, that, when I die, they honour my career and the reputation
of my name with praise and kindly remembrance.” Henceforth Tiberius even in
private conversations persisted in showing contempt for such homage to himself.
Some attributed this to modesty; many to self-distrust; a few to a mean spirit.
“The noblest men,” it was said, “have the loftiest aspirations, and so Hercules
and Bacchus among the Greeks and Quirinus among us were enrolled in the number
of the gods. Augustus, did better, seeing that he had aspired. All other things
princes have as a matter of course; one thing they ought insatiably to pursue,
that their memory may be glorious. For to despise fame is to despise merit.”
39. Sejanus meanwhile, dazed by his extravagant prosperity and urged on too
by a woman’s passion, Livia now insisting on his promise of marriage, addressed
a memorial to the emperor. For it was then the custom to apply to him by writing,
even though he was at Rome. This petition was to the following effect: – The
kindness of Augustus, the father, and then the many favourable testimonies of
Tiberius, the son, had engendered the habit of confiding his hopes and wishes
to the ears of emperors as readily as to those of the gods. The splendour of
high distinctions he had never craved; he had rather chosen watchings and hardships,
like one of the common soldiers, for the emperor’s safety. But there was one
most glorious honour he had won, the reputation of being worthy of an alliance
with a Caesar. This was the first motive of his ambition. As he had heard that
Augustus, in marrying his daughter, had even entertained some thoughts of Roman
knights, so if a husband were sought for Livia, he hoped Tiberius would bear
in mind a friend who would find his reward simply in the glory of the alliance.
He did not wish to rid himself of the duties imposed on him; he thought it enough
for his family to be secured against the unjust displeasure of Agrippina, and
this for the sake of his children. For, as for himself, enough and more than
enough for him would be a life completed while such a sovereign still reigned.
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