Tacitus: Annals: Book 11 [1]

The Works of Tacitus

tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb

[1864-1877]

Tacitus: Annals Book 11 [1]

Translator’s Note: The four following books and the beginning of Book XI,
which are lost, contained the history of a period of nearly ten years, from
A.D. 37 to A.D. 47. These years included the reign of Caius Caesar (Caligula),
the son of Germanicus by the elder Agrippina, and the first six years of the
reign of Claudius. Caius Caesar’s reign was three years ten months and eight
days in duration. Claudius (Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus), the brother
of Germanicus, succeeded him, at the age of fifty, and reigned from A.D. 41
to A.D. 54.

A.D. 47, 48

The first part of the Eleventh Book
is lost and opens with the seventh year
of Claudius’s reign.

The Eleventh Book of the Annals opens with the seventh year of Claudius’s
reign. The power of his wife Messalina was then at its height. She was, it seems,
jealous of a certain Poppaea Sabina, who is mentioned in Book XIII., as “having
surpassed in beauty all the ladies of her day.” This Poppaea was the daughter
of the Poppaeus Sabinus alluded to in Book VI., and the mother of the more famous
Poppaea, afterwards the wife of the emperor Nero. Messalina contrived to involve
this lady and her lover, Valerius Asiaticus, in a ruinous charge. Asiaticus
had been twice consul, once under Caius Caesar, a second time under Claudius
in A.D. 46. He was rich as well as noble. The Eleventh Book, as we have it,
begins with the account of his prosecution by means Messalina, who with the
help of Lucius Vitellius, Vitellius, father of the Vitellius, afterwards emperor,
effected his ruin.

1. MESSALINA believed that Valerius Asiaticus, who had been twice consul,
was one of Poppaea’s old lovers. At the same time she was looking greedily at
the gardens which Lucullus had begun and which Asiaticus was now adorning with
singular magnificence, and so she suborned Suilius to accuse both him and Poppaea.
With Suilius was associated Sosibius, tutor to Britannicus, who was to give
Claudius an apparently friendly warning to beware of a power and wealth which
threatened the throne. Asiaticus, he said, had been the ringleader in the murder
of a Caesar, and then had not feared to face an assembly of the Roman people,
to own the deed, and challenge its glory for his own. Thus grown famous in the
capital, and with a renown widely spread through the provinces, he was planning
a journey to the armies of Germany. Born at Vienna, and supported by numerous
and powerful connections, he would find it easy to rouse nations allied to his
house. Claudius made no further inquiry, but sent Crispinus, commander of the
Praetorians, with troops in hot haste, as though to put down a revolt. Crispinus
found him at Baiae, loaded him with chains, and hurried him to Rome.

2. No hearing before the Senate was granted him. It was in the emperor’s
chamber, in the presence of Messalina, that he was heard. There Suilius accused
him of corrupting the troops, of binding them by bribes and indulgences to share
in every crime, of adultery with Poppaea, and finally of unmanly vice. It was
at this last that the accused broke silence, and burst out with the words, “Question
thy own sons, Suilius;they will own my manhood.” Then he entered on his defence.
Claudius he moved profoundly, and he even drew tears from Messalina. But as
she left the chamber to wipe them away, she warned Vitellius not to let the
man escape. She hastened herself to effect Poppaea’s destruction, and hired
agents to drive her to suicide by the terrors of a prison. Caesar meanwhile
was so unconscious that a few days afterwards he asked her husband Scipio, who
was dining with him, why he sat down to table without his wife, and was told
in reply that she had paid the debt of nature.

3. When Claudius began to deliberate about the acquittal of Asiaticus, Vitellius,
with tears in his eyes, spoke of his old friendship with the accused, and of
their joint homage to the emperor’s mother, Antonia. He then briefly reviewed
the services of Asiaticus to the State, his recent campaign in the invasion
of Britain, and everything else which seemed likely to win compassion, and suggested
that he should be free to choose his death. Claudius’s reply was in the same
tone of mercy. Some friends urged on Asiaticus the quiet death of self-starvation,
but he declined it with thanks. He took his usual exercise, then bathed and
dined cheerfully, and saying that he had better have fallen by the craft of
Tiberius or the fury of Caius Caesar than by the treachery of a woman and the
shameless mouth of Vitellius, he opened his veins, but not till he had inspected
his funeral pyre, and directed its removal to another spot, lest the smoke should
hurt the thick foliage of the trees. So complete was his calmness even to the
last.

4. The senators were then convoked, and Suilius proceeded to find new victims
in two knights of the first rank who bore the surname of Petra. The real cause
of their destruction was that they had lent their house for the meetings of
Mnester and Poppaea. But it was a vision of the night that was the actual charge
against one of them. He had, it was alleged, beheld Claudius crowned with a
garland of wheat, the ears of which were turned downwards, and, from this appearance,
he foretold scanty harvests. Some have said that it was a vine-wreath, of which
the leaves were white, which he saw, and that he interpreted it to signify the
death of the emperor after the turn of autumn. It is, however, beyond dispute
that in consequence of some dream, whatever it was, both the man and his brother
perished. Fifteen hundred thousand sesterces and the decorations of the praetorship
were voted to Crispinus. Vitellius bestowed a million on Sosibius, for giving
Britannicus the benefit of his teaching and Claudius that of his counsels. I
may add that when Scipio was called on for his opinion, he replied, “As I think
what all men think about the deeds of Poppaea, suppose me to say what all men
say.” A graceful compromise this between the affection of the husband and the
necessities of the senator.

5. Suilius after this plied his accusations without cessation or pity, and
his audacity had many rivals. By assuming to himself all the functions of laws
and magistrates, the emperor had left exposed everything which invited plunder,
and of all articles of public merchandise nothing was more venal than the treachery
of advocates. Thus it happened that one Samius, a Roman knight of the first
rank, who had paid four hundred thousand sesterces to Suilius, stabbed himself
in the advocate’s house, on ascertaining his collusion with the adversary. Upon
this, following the lead of Silius, consul-elect, whose elevation and fall I
shall in due course relate, the senators rose in a body, and demanded the enforcement
of the Cincian law, an old enactment, which forbade any one to receive a fee
or a gift for pleading a cause.

6. When the men, at whom this strong censure was levelled, loudly protested,
Silius, who had a quarrel with Suilius, attacked them with savage energy. He
cited as examples the orators of old who had thought fame with posterity the
fairest recompense of eloquence. And, “apart from this,” he said, “the first
of noble accomplishments was debased by sordid services, and even good faith
could not be upheld in its integrity, when men looked at the greatness of their
gains. If law suits turned to no one’s profit, there would be fewer of them.
As it was, quarrels, accusations, hatreds and wrongs were encouraged, in order
that, as the violence of disease brings fees to the physician, so the corruption
of the forum might enrich the advocate. They should remember Caius Asinius and
Messala, and, in later days, Arruntius and Aeserninus, men raised by a blameless
life and by eloquence to the highest honours.” So spoke the consul-elect, and
others agreed with him. A resolution was being framed to bring the guilty under
the law of extortion, when Suilius and Cossutianus and the rest, who saw themselves
threatened with punishment rather than trial, for their guilt was manifest,
gathered round the emperor, and prayed forgiveness for the past.

7. When he had nodded assent, they began to plead their cause. “Who,” they
asked, “can be so arrogant as to anticipate in hope an eternity of renown? It
is for the needs and the business of life that the resource of eloquence is
acquired, thanks to which no one for want of an advocate is at the mercy of
the powerful. But eloquence cannot be obtained for nothing; private affairs
are neglected, in order that a man may devote himself to the business of others.
Some support life by the profession of arms, some by cultivating land. No work
is expected from any one of which he has not before calculated the profits.
It was easy for Asinius and Messala, enriched with the prizes of the conflict
between Antony and Augustus, it was easy for Arruntius and Aeserninus, the heirs
of wealthy families, to assume grand airs. We have examples at hand. How great
were the fees for which Publius Clodius and Caius Curio were wont to speak!
We are ordinary senators, seeking in the tranquillity of the State for none
but peaceful gains. You must consider the plebeian, how he gains distinction
from the gown. Take away the rewards of a profession, and the profession must
perish.” The emperor thought that these arguments, though less noble, were not
without force. He limited the fee which might be taken to ten thousand sesterces,
and those who exceeded this limit were to be liable to the penalties of extortion.

8. About this same time Mithridates, of whom I have before spoken as having
ruled Armenia, and having been imprisoned by order of Caius Caesar, made his
way back to his kingdom at the suggestion of Claudius and in reliance on the
help of Pharasmanes. This Pharasmanes, who was king of the Iberians and Mithridates’
brother, now told him that the Parthians were divided, and that the highest
questions of empire being uncertain, lesser matters were neglected. Gotarzes,
among his many cruelties, had caused the death of his brother Artabanus, with
his wife and son. Hence his people feared for themselves and sent for Vardanes.
Ever ready for daring achievements, Vardanes traversed 375 miles in two days,
and drove before him the surprised and terrified Gotarzes. Without moment’s
delay, he seized the neighbouring governments, Seleucia alone refusing his rule.
Rage against the place, which indeed had also revolted from his father, rather
than considerations of policy, made him embarrass himself with the siege of
a strong city, which the defence of a river flowing by it, with fortifications
and supplies, had thoroughly secured. Gotarzes meanwhile, aided by the resources
of the Dahae and Hyrcanians, renewed the war; and Vardanes, compelled to raise
the siege of Seleucia, encamped on the plains of Bactria.

9. Then it was that while the forces of the East were divided, and hesitated
which side they should take, the opportunity of occupying Armenia was presented
to Mithridates, who had the vigorous soldiers of Rome to storm the fortified
heights, while his Iberian cavalry scoured the plain. The Armenians made no
resistance after their governor, Demonax, had ventured on a battle and had been
routed. Cotys, king of Lesser Armenia, to whom some of the nobles inclined,
caused some delay, but he was stopped by a despatch from Claudius, and then
everything passed into the hands of Mithridates, who showed more cruelty than
was wise in a new ruler. The Parthian princes however, just when they were beginning
battle, came to a sudden agreement, on discovering a plot among their people,
which Gotarzes revealed to his brother. At first they approached each other
with hesitation; then, joining right hands, they promised before the altars
of their gods to punish the treachery of their enemies and to yield one to the
other. Vardanes seemed more capable of retaining rule. Gotarzes, to avoid all
rivalry, retired into the depths of Hyrcania. When Vardanes returned, Seleucia
capitulated to him, seven years after its revolt, little to the credit of the
Parthians, whom a single city had so long defied.

Next: Book 11 [10]