The Works of Tacitus

tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb

[1864-1877]


Tacitus: Annals Book 12 [60]

60. That same year the emperor was often heard to say that the legal decisions
of the commissioners of the imperial treasury ought to have the same force as
if pronounced by himself. Lest it might be supposed that he had stumbled inadvertently
into this opinion, its principle was also secured by a decree of the Senate
on a more complete and ample scale than before. It had indeed already been arranged
by the Divine Augustus that the Roman knights who governed Egypt should hear
causes, and that their decisions were to be as binding as those of Roman magistrates,
and after a time most of the cases formerly tried by the praetors were submitted
to the knights. Claudius handed over to them the whole administration of justice
for which there had been by sedition or war so many struggles; the Sempronian
laws vesting judicial power in the equestrian order, and those of Servilius
restoring it to the Senate, while it was for this above everything else that
Marius and Sulla fought of old. But those were days of political conflict between
classes, and the results of victory were binding on the State. Caius Oppius
and Cornelius Balbus were the first who were able, with Caesar’s support, to
settle conditions of peace and terms of war. To mention after them the Matii,
Vedii, and other too influential names of Roman knights would be superfluous,
when Claudius, we know, raised freedmen whom he had set over his household to
equality with himself and with the laws.

61. Next the emperor proposed to grant immunity from taxation to the people
of Cos, and he dwelt much on their antiquity. “The Argives or Coeus, the father
of Latona, were the earliest inhabitants of the island; soon afterwards, by
the arrival of Aesculapius, the art of the physician was introduced and was
practised with much fame by his descendants.” Claudius named them one by one,
with the periods in which they had respectively flourished. He said too that
Xenophon, of whose medical skill he availed himself, was one of the same family,
and that they ought to grant his request and let the people of Cos dwell free
from all tribute in their sacred island, as a place devoted to the sole service
of their god. It was also certain that many obligations under which they had
laid Rome and joint victories with her might have been recounted. Claudius however
did not seek to veil under any external considerations a concession he had made,
with his usual good nature, to an individual.

62. Envoys from Byzantium having received audience, in complaining to the
Senate of their heavy burdens, recapitulated their whole history. Beginning
with the treaty which they concluded with us when we fought against that king
of Macedonia whose supposed spurious birth acquired for him the name of the
Pseudo Philip, they reminded us of the forces which they had afterwards sent
against Antiochus, Perses and Aristonicus, of the aid they had given Antonius
in the pirate-war, of their offers to Sulla, Lucullus, and Pompeius, and then
of their late services to the Caesars, when they were in occupation of a district
peculiarly convenient for the land or sea passage of generals and armies, as
well as for the conveyance of supplies.

63. It was indeed on that very narrow strait which parts Europe from Asia,
at Europe’s furthest extremity, that the Greeks built Byzantium. When they consulted
the Pythian Apollo as to where they should found a city, the oracle replied
that they were to seek a home opposite to the blind men’s country. This obscure
hint pointed to the people of Chalcedon, who, though they arrived there first
and saw before others the advantageous position, chose the worse. For Byzantium
has a fruitful soil and productive seas, as immense shoals of fish pour out
of the Pontus and are driven by the sloping surface of the rocks under water
to quit the windings of the Asiatic shore and take refuge in these harbours.
Consequently the inhabitants were at first money-making and wealthy traders,
but afterwards, under the pressure of excessive burdens, they petitioned for
immunity or at least relief, and were supported by the emperor, who argued to
the Senate that, exhausted as they were by the late wars in Thrace and Bosporus,
they deserved help. So their tribute was remitted for five years.

64. In the year of the consulship of Marcus Asinius and Manius Acilius it
was seen to be portended by a succession of prodigies that there were to be
political changes for the worse. The soldiers’ standards and tents were set
in a blaze by lightning. A swarm of bees settled on the summit of the Capitol;
births of monsters, half man, half beast, and of a pig with a hawk’s talons,
were reported. It was accounted a portent that every order of magistrates had
had its number reduced, a quaestor, an aedile, a tribune, a praetor and consul
having died within a few months. But Agrippina’s terror was the most conspicuous.
Alarmed by some words dropped by Claudius when half intoxicated, that it was
his destiny to have to endure his wives’ infamy and at last punish it, she determined
to act without a moment’s delay. First she destroyed Lepida from motives of
feminine jealousy. Lepida indeed as the daughter of the younger Antonia, as
the grandniece of Augustus, the cousin of Agrippina, and sister of her husband
Cneius, thought herself of equally high rank. In beauty, youth, and wealth they
differed but slightly. Both were shameless, infamous, and intractable, and were
rivals in vice as much as in the advantages they had derived from fortune. It
was indeed a desperate contest whether the aunt or the mother should have most
power over Nero. Lepida tried to win the young prince’s heart by flattery and
lavish liberality, while Agrippina on the other hand, who could give her son
empire but could not endure that he should be emperor, was fierce and full of
menace.

65. It was charged on Lepida that she had made attempts on the Emperor’s
consort by magical incantations, and was disturbing the peace of Italy by an
imperfect control of her troops of slaves in Calabria. She was for this sentenced
to death, notwithstanding the vehement opposition of Narcissus, who, as he more
and more suspected Agrippina, was said to have plainly told his intimate friends
that “his destruction was certain, whether Britannicus or Nero were to be emperor,
but that he was under such obligations to Claudius that he would sacrifice life
to his welfare. Messalina and Silius had been convicted, and now again there
were similar grounds for accusation. If Nero were to rule, or Britannicus succeed
to the throne, he would himself have no claim on the then reigning sovereign.
Meanwhile, a stepmother’s treacherous schemes were convulsing the whole imperial
house, with far greater disgrace than would have resulted from his concealment
of the profligacy of the emperor’s former wife. Even as it was, there was shamelessness
enough, seeing that Pallas was her paramour, so that no one could doubt that
she held honour, modesty and her very person, everything, in short, cheaper
than sovereignty.” This, and the like, he was always saying, and he would embrace
Britannicus, expressing earnest wishes for his speedy arrival at a mature age,
and would raise his hand, now to heaven, now to the young prince, with entreaty
that as he grew up, he would drive out his father’s enemies and also take vengeance
on the murderers of his mother.

66. Under this great burden of anxiety, he had an attack of illness, and
went to Sinuessa to recruit his strength with its balmy climate and salubrious
waters. Thereupon, Agrippina, who had long decided on the crime and eagerly
grasped at the opportunity thus offered, and did not lack instruments, deliberated
on the nature of the poison to be used. The deed would be betrayed by one that
was sudden and instantaneous, while if she chose a slow and lingering poison,
there was a fear that Claudius, when near his end, might, on detecting the treachery,
return to his love for his son. She decided on some rare compound which might
derange his mind and delay death. A person skilled in such matters was selected,
Locusta by name, who had lately been condemned for poisoning, and had long been
retained as one of the tools of despotism. By this woman’s art the poison was
prepared, and it was to be administered by an eunuch, Halotus, who was accustomed
to bring in and taste the dishes.

67. All the circumstances were subsequently so well known, that writers of
the time have declared that the poison was infused into some mushrooms, a favourite
delicacy, and its effect not at the instant perceived, from the emperor’s lethargic,
or intoxicated condition. His bowels too were relieved, and this seemed to have
saved him. Agrippina was thoroughly dismayed. Fearing the worst, and defying
the immediate obloquy of the deed, she availed herself of the complicity of
Xenophon, the physician, which she had already secured. Under pretence of helping
the emperor’s efforts to vomit, this man, it is supposed, introduced into his
throat a feather smeared with some rapid poison; for he knew that the greatest
crimes are perilous in their inception, but well rewarded after their consummation.

68. Meanwhile the Senate was summoned, and prayers rehearsed by the consuls
and priests for the emperor’s recovery, though the lifeless body was being wrapped
in blankets with warm applications, while all was being arranged to establish
Nero on the throne. At first Agrippina, seemingly overwhelmed by grief and seeking
comfort, clasped Britannicus in her embraces, called him the very image of his
father, and hindered him by every possible device from leaving the chamber.
She also detained his sisters, Antonia and Octavia, closed every approach to
the palace with a military guard, and repeatedly gave out that the emperor’s
health was better, so that the soldiers might be encouraged to hope, and that
the fortunate moment foretold by the astrologers might arrive.

69. At last, at noon on the 13th of October, the gates of the palace were
suddenly thrown open, and Nero, accompanied by Burrus, went forth to the cohort
which was on guard after military custom. There, at the suggestion of the commanding
officer, he was hailed with joyful shouts, and set on a litter. Some, it is
said, hesitated, and looked round and asked where Britannicus was; then, when
there was no one to lead a resistance, they yielded to what was offered them.
Nero was conveyed into the camp, and having first spoken suitably to the occasion
and promised a donative after the example of his father’s bounty, he was unanimously
greeted as emperor. The decrees of the Senate followed the voice of the soldiers,
and there was no hesitation in the provinces. Divine honours were decreed to
Claudius, and his funeral rites were solemnized on the same scale as those of
Augustus; for Agrippina strove to emulate the magnificence of her great-grandmother,
Livia. But his will was not publicly read, as the preference of the stepson
to the son might provoke a sense of wrong and angry feeling in the popular mind.
animos vulgi turbaret.


Next: Book 13 [1]