The Works of Tacitus
tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
[1864-1877]
Tacitus: Annals Book 16 [30]
30. And meanwhile Ostorius Sabinus, the accuser of Soranus, entered, and began
by speaking of his friendship with Rubellius Plautus and of his proconsulate
in Asia which he had, he said, adapted to his own glory rather than to the public
welfare, by fostering seditious movements in the various states. These were
bygones, but there was a fresh charge involving the daughter in the peril of
the father, to the effect that she had lavished money on astrologers. This indeed
had really occurred through the filial affection of Servilia (that was the girl’s
name), who, out of love for her father and the thoughtlessness of youth, had
consulted them, only however about the safety of her family, whether Nero could
be appeased, and the trial before the Senate have no dreadful result. She was
accordingly summoned before the Senate, and there they stood facing one another
before the consuls’ tribunal, the aged parent, and opposite to him the daughter,
in the twentieth year of her age, widowed and forlorn, her husband Annius Pollio
having lately been driven into banishment, without so much as a glance at her
father, whose peril she seemed to have aggravated.
31. Then on the accuser asking her whether she had sold her bridal presents
or stript her neck of its ornaments to raise money for the performance of magical
rites, she at first flung herself on the ground and wept long in silence. After
awhile, clasping the altar steps and altar, she exclaimed, “I have invoked no
impious deities, no enchantments, nor aught else in my unhappy prayers, but
only that thou, Caesar, and you, senators, might preserve unharmed this best
of fathers. My jewels, my apparel, and the signs of my rank I gave up, as I
would have given up my life-blood had they demanded it. They must have seen
this, those men before unknown to me, both as to the name they bear and the
arts they practise. No mention was made by me of the emperor, except as one
of the divinities. But my most unhappy father knows nothing, and, if it is a
crime, I alone am guilty.”
32. While she was yet speaking, Soranus caught up her words, and exclaimed
that she had not gone with him into the province; that, from her youth, she
could not have been known to Plautus, and that she was not involved in the charges
against her husband. “Treat separately,” he said, “the case of one who is guilty
only of an exaggerated filial piety, and as for myself, let me undergo any fate.”
He was rushing, as he spoke, into the embraces of his daughter who hurried towards
him, but the lictors interposed and stopped them both. Place was then given
to the witnesses, and the appearance among them of Publius Egnatius provoked
as much indignation as the cruelty of the prosecution had excited pity. A client
of Soranus, and now hired to ruin his friend, he professed the dignified character
of a Stoic, and had trained himself in demeanour and language to exhibit an
ideal of virtue. In his heart, however, treacherous and cunning, he concealed
greed and sensuality. As soon as money had brought these vices to light, he
became an example, warning us to beware just as much of those who under the
guise of virtuous tastes are false and deceitful in friendship, as of men wholly
entangled in falsehoods and stained with every infamy.
33. That same day brought with it a noble pattern in Cassius Asclepiodotus,
whose vast wealth made him a foremost man in Bithynia. He had honoured Soranus
in his prosperity with a respect which he did not cast off in his fall, and
he was now stript of all his property and driven into exile; so impartially
indifferent is heaven to examples of virtue and vice. Thrasea, Soranus, and
Servilia were allowed the choice of death. Helvidius and Paconius were banished
from Italy. Montanus was spared to his father’s intercessions on the understanding
that he was not to be admitted to political life. The prosecutors, Eprius and
Cossutianus, received each five million sesterces, Ostorius twelve hundred thousand,
with the decorations of the quaestorship.
34. Then, as evening approached, the consul’s quaestor was sent to Thrasea,
who was passing his time in his garden. He had had a crowded gathering of distinguished
men and women, giving special attention to Demetrius, a professor of the Cynic
philosophy. With him, as might be inferred from his earnest expression of face
and from words heard when they raised their voices, he was speculating on the
nature of the soul and on the separation of the spirit from the body, till Domitius
Caecilianus, one of his intimate friends, came to him and told him in detail
what the Senate had decided. When all who were present, wept and bitterly complained,
Thrasea urged them to hasten their departure and not mingle their own perils
with the fate of a doomed man. Arria, too, who aspired to follow her husband’s
end and the example of Arria, her mother, he counselled to preserve her life,
and not rob the daughter of their love of her only stay.
35. Then he went out into a colonnade, where he was found by the quaestor,
joyful rather than otherwise, as he had learnt that Helvidius, his son-in-law,
was merely excluded from Italy. When he heard the Senate’s decision, he led
Helvidius and Demetrius into a chamber, and having laid bare the arteries of
each arm, he let the blood flow freely, and, as he sprinkled it on the ground,
he called the quaestor to his side and said, “We pour out a libation to Jupiter
the Deliverer. Behold, young man, and may the gods avert the omen, but you have
been born into times in which it is well to fortify the spirit with examples
of courage.” Then as the slowness of his end brought with it grievous anguish,
turning his eyes on Demetrius . . .
(At this point the Annals are broken off. Much remained to be told about
the last two years of Nero’s reign.)
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