 Book 3 Part 2 of the Annals by Publius Cornelius Tastus Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Andrew Coleman The Annals by Publius Cornelius Tastus Volume 1 Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Broderib Book 3 AD 20-22 Part 2 A few days afterwards, the Emperor proposed to the Senate to confer the priesthood on Vitellius, Varanius and Servius. To Vulcinius he promised his support in seeking promotion, but warned him not to ruin his eloquence by ranker. This was the end of avenging the death of Germanicus, a subject of conflicting rumors, not only among the people then living, but also in aftertimes. So obscure are the greatest events, as some take for granted any hearsay, whatever its source, others turn truth into falsehood, and both errors find encouragement with posterity. Drusus, meanwhile, quitted Rome to resume his command, and soon afterwards re-entered the city with an ovation. In the course of a few days his mother Vipsania died, the only one of all Agrippa's children, whose death was without violence. As for the rest, they perished. Some it is certain by the sword, others it was believed, by poison or starvation. That same year, Tacferinus, who had been defeated, as I have related, by Camillus in the previous summer, renewed hostilities in Africa, versed by mere desultory raids, so swift as to be unpunished, next by destroying villages and carrying off plunder wholesale. Finally he hemmed in a Roman cohort near the river Pagida. The position was commanded by Decreus, a soldier energetic in action and experienced in war, who regarded the siege as a disgrace. Cheering on his men to offer battle in the open plain, he drew up his line in front of his entrenchments. At the first shock the cohort was driven back, upon which he threw himself fearlessly amid the missiles in the path of the fugitives, and quite shame on the standard bearers for letting Roman soldiers show their backs to a rabble of deserters. At the same moment he was covered with wounds, and though pierced through the eye he resolutely faced the enemy, and ceased not to fight till he fell, deserted by his men. On receiving this information Lucia Sopronius, successor to Camillus, alarmed more by the dishonour of his own men than by the glory of the enemy, ventured on a deed quite exceptional at that time, and derived from old tradition. He flogged to death every tenth man, drawn by lot from the disgraced cohort. So beneficial was this rigor that a detachment of veterans, numbering not more than five hundred, routed those same troops of Takferinas on their attacking a fortress named Thala. In this engagement Rufus Helveus, a common soldier, won the honour of saving a citizen's life, and was rewarded by Sopronius with a neck chain and a spear. To these the emperor added the civic crown, complaining, but without anger, that Sopronius had not used his right as proconsult to bestow this further distinction. Takferinas, however, finding that the Numidians were cowed and had a horror of siege operations, pursued a desultory warfare, retreating when he was pressed, and then again hanging on his enemy's rear. While the barbarian continued these tactics, he could safely insult the baffled and exhausted Romans. But when he marched away towards the coast, and hampered with booty, fixed himself in a regular camp, Cisianus was dispatched by his father, Appronius, with some cavalry and auxiliary infantry, reinforced by the most active of the legionaries, and, after a successful battle with the Numidians, drove them into the desert. At Rome, meanwhile, Lepida, who, beside the glory of being one of the Emiliai, was the great-granddaughter of Lucius Sulla and Nius Pompeius, was accused of pretending to be a mother by Publius Quirinus, a rich and childless man. Then, too, there were charges of adulteries, of poisonings, and of inquiries made through astrologers concerning the imperial house. The accused was defended by her brother, Manius Lepidus. Quirinus, by his relentless enmity, even after his divorce, had procured for her some sympathy, infamous and guilty as she was. One could not easily perceive the emperor's feelings at her trial. So, effectually, did he interchange and blend the outward signs of resentment and compassion. He first begged the Senate not to deal with the charges of treason, and subsequently induced Marcus Civilius, an ex-consul, to divulge what he had seemingly wished to suppress. He also handed over to the consuls Lepida's slaves, who were in military custody, but would not allow them to be examined by torture on matters referring to his own family. Drusus II, the consul-elect, he released from the necessity of having to speak first to the question. Some thought this a gracious act, done to save the rest of the senators from the compulsory assent, while others ascribed it to malignity, on the ground that he would have yielded, only where there was a necessity of condemning. On the days of the games which interrupted the trial, Lepida went into the theatre with some ladies of rank, and as she appealed with piteous wailings to her ancestors and to that very Pompey, the public buildings and statues of whom stood there before their eyes, which aroused such sympathy that people burst into tears and shouted without ceasing savage curses on Querenus, to whose childless old age and miserably obscure family, one once destined to be the wife of Lucius Caesar, and the daughter-in-law of the divine Augustus, was being sacrificed. Then, by the torture of the slaves, her infamies were brought to light, and the motion of rebellious blandus was carried which outlawed her. Grusa supported him, though others had proposed a milder sentence. Subsequently, Scourus, who had had daughter by her, obtained as a concession that her property should not be confiscated. Then at last Iberius declared that he had himself, too, as attained from the slaves of Publius Querenus, that Lebeda had attempted their master's life by poison. It was some compensation for the misfortunes of great houses, for within a short interval the Carpernii had lost Piso and the Milii Lebeda, that Decimus Silanus was now restored to the Junion family. I will briefly relate his downfall. Though the divine Augustus in his public life enjoyed unshaken prosperity, he was unfortunate at home from the profligacy of his daughter and granddaughter, both of whom he banished from Rome and punished their paramours with death or exile. Calling, as he did, a vice so habitual among men and women, by the awful name of sacrilege and treason, he went far beyond the indulgent spirit of our ancestors, beyond indeed his own legislation. But I will relate the deaths of others with the remaining events of that time, if after finishing the work I have now proposed to myself, I prolong my life for further labours. Decimus Silanus, the paramour of the granddaughter of Augustus, though the only severity he experienced was exclusion from the emperor's friendship, saw clearly that it meant exile, and it was not till Tiberius's reign that he ventured to appeal to the senate and to the prince, in reliance on the influence of his brother Marcus Silanus, who was conspicuous both for his distinguished rank and eloquence. But Tiberius, when Silanus thanked him, replied in the senate's presence that he too rejoiced at the brother's return from his long foreign tour, and that this was justly allowable in as much as he had been banished, not by a decree of the senate or under any law. Still, personally, he said, he felt towards him his father's resentment in all its force and the return of Silanus had not cancelled the intentions of Augustus. Silanus, after this, lived at Rome without attaining office. It was next proposed to relax the Papier-Papier Law, which Augustus in his old age had passed subsequently to the Julian statutes, for yet further enforcing the penalties on celibacy, and for enriching the exchequer. And yet marriages and the rearing of children did not become more frequent, so powerful were the attractions of a childless state. Meanwhile there was an increase in the number of persons imperiled, for every household was undermined by the insinuations of informers, and now the country suffered from its laws, as is had hitherto suffered from its vices. This suggests to me a fuller discussion of the origin of law and of the methods by which we have arrived at the present endless multiplicity and variety of our statutes. Mankind in the earliest age lived through a time without a single vicious impulse, without shame or guilt, and consequently without punishment and restraints. Rewards were not needed when everything right was pursued on its own merits, and as men desired nothing against morality, they were debarred from nothing by fear. When, however, they began to throw off equality, and ambition and violence usurped the place of self-control and modesty, despotisms grew up, and became perpetual among many nations. Some from the beginning, or when tired of kings, preferred codes of laws. These were at first simple, while men's minds were unsophisticated. The most famous of them were those of the Cretans, framed by Minos, those of the Spartans, by Lysergis, and subsequently those which Solon drew up for the Athenians on a more elaborate and extensive scale. Romulus governed us as he pleased, then Numer united our people by religious ties at a constitution of divine origin, to which some additions were made by Tullius and Ancus, but Servius Tullius was our chief legislator, to whose laws even kings were to be subject. After Tarquin's expulsion, the people to check cabals among the senators devised many safeguards for freedom for the establishment of unity. Dechemvirs were appointed. Everything specially admirable elsewhere was adopted, and the twelve tables drawn up, the last specimen of equitable legislation. For subsequent enactments, though occasionally directed against evildoers for some crime, were often carried by violence amid class dissensions, with a view to obtain honors not as yet conceded, or to banish distinguished citizens, or for other base ends. Hence the Gracchi and Ceternae, those popular agitators, and Drusus too as flagrant a corruptor in the senate's name, hence the bribing of our allies by alluring promises and the cheating them by tribunes vetoes. Even the Italian and then the civil war did not pass without the enactment of many conflicting laws. Tillucius Sulla, the dictator, by the repeal or alteration of past legislation, and by many additions gave us a brief lull in this process, to be instantly followed by the seditious proposals of Lebedas, and soon afterwards by the tribunes recovering their license to excite the people just as they chose. And now bills were passed, not only for national objects, but for individual cases, and laws were most numerous when the common wealth was most corrupt. Cnius Pompeius was then for the third time elected consul to reform public morals, but in applying remedies more terrible than the evils, and repealing the legislation of which he had himself been the author, he lost by arms what by arms he had been maintaining. Then followed twenty years of continuous strife, custom or law there was none, the valest deeds went unpunished while many noble acts brought ruin. At last in his sixth consulship Caesar Augustus, feeling his power secure, annulled the decrees of his triumvirate and gave us a constitution which might serve us in peace under a monarchy. Henceforth our chains became more galling and spies were set over us, stimulated by rewards under the Papier-Popiah law, so that if men shrank from the privilege of self-fatherhood the state as universal parent might possess their ownerless properties. But this espionage became too searching and Rome and Italy and Roman citizens everywhere fell into its clutches. Many men's fortunes were ruined and over all there hung a terror, til Tiberius, to provide a remedy selected by lot five ex-consuls, five ex-pritols and five senators by whom most of the legal knots were disentangled and some light-temporary relief afforded. About this same time he commended to the senate's favour Nero, Germanicus' son, who was just entering on manhood and asked them, not without smiles of ridicule from his audience, to exempt him from serving as one of the twenty commissioners and let him be a candidate for questorship five years earlier than the law allowed. His excuse was that a similar decree had been made for himself and his brother at the request of Augustus. But I cannot doubt that even then there were some who secretly laughed at such a petition, though the Caesar's were but in the beginning of their grandeur, and ancient usage was more constantly before men's eyes, while also the tie between step-father and step-son was weaker than that between grandfather and grandfather and grand-child. The pontificate was likewise conferred on Nero and on the day on which he first entered the forum a gratuity was given to the city populace who greatly rejoiced at seeing a son of Germanicus now grown to manhood. Their joy was further increased by Nero's marriage to Julia, Drusus' daughter. This news was met with favourable comments but it was heard with disgust that Sagenus was to be the father-in-law of the son of Claudius. The emperor was thought to have polluted the nobility of his house, and to have yet further elevated Sagenus, whom they already suspected of overweening ambition. Two remarkable men died at the end of the year. Lucius Felucius and Celestius Crispus. Felucius was of an old family which had, however, never risen beyond the Preutorship. He brought into it the consulship. He also held the office of censor for arranging the classes of the knights and was the first to pile up the wealth which that house enjoyed to a bowtless extent. Crispus was of equestrian descent and grandson of a sister of Caeus Celestius, that most admirable Roman historian by whom he was adopted and whose name he took. Though his road to preferment was easy he chose to emulate mycenus and without rising to a senator's rank he surpassed in power many who had won triumphs and consulships. He was a contrast to the manners of antiquity in his elegance and refinement and in the sumptuousness of his wealth he was almost a voluptuary. But beneath all this was a vigorous mind equal to the greatest labours, the more active in proportion as he made a show of sloth and apathy. And so while mycenus lived he stood next in favour to him and was afterwards the chief depository of imperial secrets and accessory to the murder of posthumous agrippa. Till in advanced age he retained the shadow rather than the substance of the emperor's friendship. The same too had happened to mycenus so rarely is it the destiny of power to be lasting or perhaps a sense of weariness steals over princes when they have bestowed everything or over favourites when there is nothing left them to desire. Next followed Tiberius' fourth Drusus' second consulship memorable from the fact that father and son were colleagues. Two years previously the association of Germanicus and Tiberius in the same honour had not been agreeable to the uncle nor had it the link of so close a natural tie. At the beginning of this year Tiberius avowedly to recruit his health retired to Campania either as a gradual preparation for long and uninterrupted seclusion or in order that Drusus alone in his father's absence might discharge the duties of the consulship. It happened that a mere trifle which grew into a sharp contest gave the young prince the means of acquiring popularity. Demetius Corpulo, an exprytor complained to the senate that Lucius Sulla, a young noble had not given place to him at a gladiatorial show. Corpulo had age, national usage and the feelings of the older senators in his favour against him. Memercus Scourus, Lucius Aruantius and other kinsmen of Sulla strenuously exerted themselves. There was a keen debate and appeal was made to the precedents of our ancestors as having censured in severe decrees disrespect on the part of the young till Drusus argued in a strain calculated to calm their feelings. Corpulo too received an apology from Memercus who was Sulla's uncle and stepfather and the most fluent speaker of that day. It was the same Corpulo who after raising a cry that most of the roads in Italy were obstructed or impassable through the dishonesty of contractors and the negligence of officials himself willingly undertook the complete management of the business. This proved not so beneficial to the state as ruinous to many persons whose property and credit he mercilessly attacked by convictions and confiscations. Soon afterwards Tiberius informed the Senate by letter that Africa was again disturbed by an incursion of Takferinas and that they must use their judgement choosing as proconsul an experienced soldier of vigorous constitution who would be equal to the war. Sextus Pompeius caught at this opportunity of venting his hatred against Leopards whom he condemned as a poor spirited and needy man who was a disgrace to his ancestors and therefore deserved to lose even his chance of the province of Asia. But the Senate were against him for they thought Leopards gentle rather than cowardly and that his inherited poverty with a high rank in which he had lived without a blot ought to be considered a credit to instead of a reproach. And so he was sent to Asia and with respect to Africa it was decided that the emperor should choose to whom it was to be assigned. During this debate Severus Chiquina proposed that no magistrate who had obtained a province should be accompanied by his wife. He began by recounting at length how harmoniously he had lived with his wife who had borne him six children and how in his own home he had observed what he was proposing for the public by having kept her in Italy though he had himself served forty campaigns in various provinces. With good reason he said had it been formally decided that women were not to be taken among our allies or into foreign countries a train of women involves delays through luxury in peace and through panic in war and converts a Roman army on the march into the likeness of a barbarian progress. Not only is the sex feeble and unequal to hardship but when it has liberty and spiteful, intriguing and greedy of power they show themselves off among the soldiers and have the centurions at their beck. Lately a woman had presided out the drill of the cohorts and the evolutions of the legions. You should yourselves bear in mind that whenever men are accused of extortion most of the charges are directed against the wives. It is to these that the vileest of the provincials instantly attach themselves. It is they who undertake and settle business. Two persons receive homage when they appear. There are two centres of government and the women's orders are the more despotic and intemplate. Formally they were restrained by the opium and other laws. Now, loosed from every bond, they rule our houses, our tribunals and even our armies. A few heard this speech with approval but the majority clamorously objected that there was no proper motion on the subject and that Kaikina was no fit censor on so grave an issue. Presently, Valerius Messalinas Messala's son in whom the father's eloquence was reproduced replied that much of the sternness of antiquity had been changed into a better and more genial system. Rome, he said, is not now as formally beset with wars nor are the provinces hostile. A few concessions are made to the wants of women but such as are not even a burden to their husbands' homes much less to the allies. In all other respects man and wife share a like and this arrangement involves no trouble in peace. War of course requires that men shall be unencumbered but when they return what worthier solace can they have after their hardships than a wife's society but some wives have abandoned themselves to scheming and rapacity. Well even among our magistrates are not many subject to various passions. Still that is not a reason for sending no one into a province. Husbands have often been corrupted by the vices of their wives. Are then all unmarried men blameless? The opium laws were formally adopted to meet the political necessities of the time and subsequently there was some remission and mitigation of them in terms of expediency. It is idle to shelter our own weakness under other names for it is the husband's fault if the wife transgresses propriety. Besides it is wrong that because of the imbecility of one or two men all husbands should be cut off from their partners in prosperity and adversity and further a sex naturally weak will be thus left to itself and be at the mercy of its own voluptuousness and the passions of others. Even with a husband's personal vigilance the marriage tie is scarcely preserved in violet. What would happen were it for a number of years to be forgotten just as in a divorce? You must not check vices abroad without remembering the scandals of their capital. Drusus added a few words on his own experience as a husband. Princes, he said, must often visit the extremities of their empire. How often had the divine Augustus travel to west and to the east accompanied by Libya. He had himself gone to Illyricum and should it be expedient he would go to other countries not always however with a contented mind if he had to tear himself from a much-loved wife the mother of his many children. Kaikina's motion was thus defeated. At the senate's next meeting came a letter from Tiberius which indirectly censured them for throwing on the emperor every political care and named Marcus Lepidus and Junius Blyces one of whom was to be chosen for consul of Africa. Both spoke on the subject and Lepidus begged earnestly to be excused. He alleged ill health. His children's tender age he's having a daughter to marry and something more of which he said nothing was well understood. The fact that Blyces was uncle of Sejanus and so had very powerful interest. Blyces replied with an affectation of refusal but not with the same persistency nor was he backed up by the acquiescence of flatterers. End of book 3 Part 2 Book 3 Part 3 of the Annals by Publius Cornelius Tastus Volume 1 This is a Librivox recording All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit Librivox.org Recording by Andrew Coleman The Annals by Publius Cornelius Tastus Volume 1 Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Broderib Book 3 AD 20-22 Part 3 Next was exposed and abuse hitherto the subject of many a whispered complaint The vilest wretches used a growing freedom in exciting insult and obliquy against respectable citizens and escaped punishment by clasping some statue of the emperor. The very freedman or slave was often an actual terror to his patron or master whom he would menace by word and gesture. Accordingly Cius Cestius a senator argued that though princes were like deities yet even the gods listened only to righteous prayers from their suppliants and that no one fled to the capital or any other temple in Rome to use it as an auxiliary in crime. There was an end and utter subversion of all law when, in the forum and on the threshold of the senate house Ania Rufila whom he had convicted of fraud before a judge assailed him with insults and threats while he did not himself dare to try legal proceedings because he was confronted by her with the emperor's image. There rose other clamorous voices with even more flagrant complaints and all implored drusas to inflict exemplary vengeance till he ordered Rufila to be summoned and on her conviction to be confined in the common prison. Censidius Iquus too and Colius Cursa Roman knights were punished on the emperor's proposal by a decree of the senate for having attacked the praetor Magius Caicillianus with false charges of treason both these results were represented as an honour to drusas by moving in society at Rome amid popular talk his father's dark policy it was thought was mitigated. Even voluptuousness in one so young gave little offence. Better that he should incline that way spent his days in architecture his knights in banquets than that he should live in solitude cut off from every pleasure and absorbed in a gloomy vigilance and mischievous schemes Tiberius indeed and the informers were never weary and Charius Priscus had prosecuted Caicius Caudus proconsul of Crete for extortion adding a charge of treason which then crowned all indictments Antistius Vetus one of the chief men of Macedonia who had been acquitted of adultery was recalled by the emperor himself with a censure on the judges to be tried for treason as a seditious man who had been implicated in the designs of Rescuporis when that king after the murder of his brother Caudus had meditated war against us the accused was accordingly outlawed with a further sentence that he was to be confined in an island from which neither Macedonia nor Thrace were conveniently accessible as for Thrace since the division of the kingdom between Romitalchus and the children of Caudus who because of their tender age were under the guardianship of Trebellianus Rufus it was divided against itself from not being used to our rule and blamed Romitalchus no less than Trebellianus for allowing the wrongs of his countrymen to go unpunished Poelallatai Odrisai and Di powerful tribes took up arms under different leaders all on a level from their obscurity this hindered them from combining in a formidable war some roused their immediate neighbourhood others crossed Mount Hymus to stir up the remote tribes most of them and the best disciplined besieged the king in the city of Philipopolis founded by the Macedonian Philip when this was known to Poplius Vilius who commanded the nearest army he sent some allied cavalry and light infantry to attack those who were roaming in quest of plunder or of reinforcements when he marched in person with the main strength of the foot to raise the siege the moment successful the pillagers were cut to pieces dissensions broke out among the besiegers and the king made a well-timed sally just as the legion arrived a battle or even a skirmish it did not deserve to be called in which merely half armed stragglers were slaughtered without bloodshed on our side that same year some states of Gaul under the pressure of heavy debts attempted a revolt its most active instigators were Julius Flores among the trevary and Julius Sacravir among the Iduit both could show noble birth in signal surfaces rendered by ancestors for which Roman citizenship had formally been granted them when the gift was rare and a recompense only of merit in secret conferences to which the fiercest spirits were admitted or any to whom poverty or the fear of guilt was an irresistible stimulus to crime they arranged that Flores was to rouse the Belgi Sacravir the Gauls near a home these men accordingly talked sedition before small gatherings and popular assemblies about the perpetual tributes the oppressive usury the cruelty and arrogance of their governors hinting too disaffection among our soldiers since they had heard of the murder of Germanicus it was, they said a grand opportunity for the recovery of freedom if only they would contrast their own vigor with the exhaustion of Italy the unwarlike character of the city populace and the utter weakness of Rome's armies in all but their foreign element scarcely a single community was untouched by the germs of this commotion first, however, in actual revolt were the Andacavi and Turoni of these the former were put down by an officer, Achilius Aviola who had summoned a cohort which was on garrison duty at Lugnenheim the Turoni were quelled by some legionary troops sent by Veselius Varro who commanded in lower Germany and led by the same Aviola and some Gallic chieftains who brought aid in order that they might disguise their disaffection and exhibit it at a better opportunity Sacrovia too was conspicuous with head uncovered cheering on his men to fight for Rome to display as he said his valor but the prisoners asserted that he sought recognition that he might not be a mark for missiles Tiberius when consulted on the matter disdained the information and fostered the war by his irresolution Florus meanwhile followed up his designs and tried to induce a squadron of cavalry levied among the trevery trained in our service and discipline to begin hostilities by a massacre of the Roman traders he corrupted a few of the men but the majority was steadfast in their allegiance a host however of debtors and dependents took up arms and they were on their way to the forest passes known as the Arduena when they were stopped by legions which Veselius and Cilius had sent from their respective armies by opposite routes to meet them Julius Indus from the same state who was at feud with Florus and therefore particularly eager to render us a service was sent on in advance with a picked force and dispersed the undisciplined rabble Florus after alluding the conquerors by hiding himself in one place after another at last when he saw some soldiers who had barred every possible escape fell by his own hand such was the end of the rebellion of the trevery a more formidable movement broke out among the Aedui proportioned to the greater wealth of the state and the distance of the force which should repress it Sacrovia with some armed cohorts had made himself master of Augusta Dunem the capital of the tribe with the noblest youth of Gaul they're devoting themselves to a liberal education and with such hostages he proposed to unite in his cause their parents and kinsfolk he also distributed among the youth arms which he had had secretly manufactured there were forty thousand one fifth armed like our legionaries the rest had spears and knives and other weapons used in the chase in addition were some slaves who were being trained for gladiators clad after the national fashion in a complete covering of steel they were called croupelarii and though they really adapted for inflicting wounds they were impenetrable to them this army was continually increased not yet by any open combination of the neighbouring states but by zealous individual enthusiasm as well as by strife between the roman generals each of whom claimed the war for himself Varro after a while as he was in firm and aged yielded to Cilius who was in his prime at Rome meanwhile people said that it was not only the trevery and idoe who had revolted but sixty four states of Gaul the Germans in alliance while Spain too was disaffected anything in fact was believed with rumours usual exaggeration all good men were saddened by anxiety for the country but many in their loathing of the present system and eagerness for change rejoiced at their very perils and exclaimed against Tiberius for giving attention amid such political convulsions to the calam needs of informers was Sacravere too they asked to be charged with treason before the senate we have at last found men to check those murderous missives by the sword even war is a good exchange for miserable peace Tiberius all the more studiously assumed an heir of unconcern he changed neither his residence nor his look but kept up his usual demeanour for the whole time either from the profoundness of his reserve or was it that he had convinced himself that the events were unimportant and much more insignificant than the rumours represented Cilius meantime was advancing with two legions and having sent forward some auxiliary troops was ravaging those villages of the Sequani which situated on the border adjoined the Idui and were associated with them in arms he then pushed on by forced marches to Augusta Dunem his standard bearers vying in zeal and even the privates loudly protesting against any halt for their usual rest or during the hours of night only if they said let us have the foe face to face that will be enough for victory 12 miles from Augusta Dunem they saw before them a man in fear at his army in an open plane his men in armour he had posted in the van his light infantry on the wings and the half armed in the rear he himself rode amid the foremost ranks on a splendid charger reminding them of the ancient glories of the Gauls of the disasters they had inflicted on the Romans how grand would be the freedom of the victorious how more intolerable than ever the slavery of a second conquest his words were brief and heard without exultation for now the legions in battle array were advancing and the rabble of townsfolk who knew nothing of war had their faculties of sight and hearing quite paralysed cilius on the one hand though confident hope took away any need for encouragement exclaimed again and again that it was a shame to the conquerors of Germany to have to be led against Gauls as against an enemy only the other day the rebel tyranny had been discomfited by a single cohort the trevary by one cavalry squadron the sequani by a few companies of this very army proved to these ideally once for all that the more they abound in wealth and luxury the more unwarlike are they but spare them when they flee then there was a deafening cheer the cavalry threw itself on the flanks and the infantry charged the van on the wings there was but a brief resistance the men in mail were somewhat of an obstacle as the iron plates did not yield to javelins or swords but our men snatching up hatchets and pickaxes and their armour as if they were battering a wall some beat down the unwieldy mass with pikes and forked poles and they were left lying on the ground without an effort to rise like dead men Sacrovia with his most trustworthy followers hurried first to Augusta Dunham and then from fear of being surrendered to an adjacent country house there by his own hand he fell in raids by mutually inflicted wounds the house was fired over their heads and with it they ruled consumed then at last Tiberius informed the senate by letter of the beginning and completion of the war without either taking away from or adding to the truth but ascribing the success to the loyalty and courage of his generals and to his own policy he also gave the reasons why neither he himself nor Drusus had gone to the war he magnified the greatness of the empire and said it would be undignified for emperors whenever there was a commotion in one or two states to quit the capital the centre of all government now as he was not influenced by fear he would go to examine and settle matters the senate decreed vows for his safe return with thanksgivings and other appropriate ceremonies Cornelius Dolabella alone in endeavouring to outdo the other senators went the length of a preposterous flattery by proposing that he should enter Rome from Campania with an ovation thereupon came a letter from the emperor declaring that he was not so distitute of renown as after having subdued the most savage nations and received or refused so many triumphs in his youth to covet now that he was old an unmeaning honour for a tour in the neighbourhood of Rome about the same time he requested the senate to let the death of Sulpichius Querenus be celebrated with a public funeral with the old patrician family of the Sulpichii this Querenus who was born in the town of Lanuvium was quite unconnected an indefatigable soldier he had by his zealous surfaces won the consulship under the divine Augustus and subsequently the honours of a triumph for having stormed some fortresses of the Hormono Densses in Cilicia he was also appointed advisor to Chia Caesar in the government of Armenia and had likewise paid court to Tiberius who was then at Rhodes the emperor now made all this known to the senate and extolled the good offices of Querenus to himself while he censured Marcus Lolius whom he charged with encouraging Chia Caesar in his perverse and quarrelsome behaviour but people generally had no pleasure in the memory of Querenus because of the perils he had brought as I have related and the meanness and dangerous power of his last years at the close of the year Caius Lutorius Priscus a Roman knight who after writing a popular poem bewailing the death of Germanicus had received a reward in money from the emperor was fastened on by an informer and charged with having composed another during the illness of Drusus which in the event of the prince's death might be published with even greater profit to himself he had in his vanity read it in the house of Publius Petronius before Vitelia Petronius' mother-in-law and several ladies of rank as soon as the accuser appeared all but Vitelia were frightened into giving evidence she alone swore that she had heard not a word but those who criminated him fatally were rather believed on the motion of Heterius Agrippa the consul-elect the last penalty was invoked on the accused Marcus Lepidus spoke against the sentence as follows Senators if we look to the single fact of the infamous utterance with which Lutorius has polluted his own mind and the ears of the public neither dungeon nor halter nor tortures fit for a slave enough for him but though vice and wicked deeds have no limit penalties and correctives are moderated by the clemency of the sovereign and by the precedence of your ancestors and yourselves folly differs from wickedness evil words from evil deeds and thus there is room for a sentence by which this offence may not go unpunished and will have no cause to regret either leniency or severity often have I heard our emperor complain when anyone has anticipated his mercy by a self-inflicted death Lutorius's life is still safe if spared he will be no danger to the state if put to death he will be no warning to others his productions are as empty and ephemeral as they are replete with folly nothing serious or alarming is to be apprehended from the man who is the betrayer of his own shame and works on the imaginations not of men but of silly women however let him leave Rome lose his property and be outlawed that is my proposal just as though he were convicted of war of treason only one of the ex-consuls rebellious blanders supported Leopards the rest voted with a gripper Priscus was dragged off to prison and instantly put to death of this Tiberius complained to the senate with his usual ambiguity extolling their loyalty in so sharply avenging the very slightest insults to the sovereign though he deprecated such hasty punishment of mere words praising Leopards and not censuring a gripper so the senate passed a resolution that their decrees should not be registered in the treasury till nine days had expired and so much respite was to be given to condemned persons still the senate had not liberty to alter their purpose and lapse of time never softened Tiberius Caius Sulpicius and Didius Hatterius were the next consuls it was a year free from commotions abroad while at home stringent legislation was apprehended against the luxury which had reached boundless excess in everything on which wealth is lavished some expenses though very serious were generally kept secret by a concealment of the real prices but the costly preparations for gluttony and dissipation were the theme of incessant talk and had suggested a fear that a prince who clung to old fashioned frugality would be too stern in his reforms in fact when the Edal Caius Bibulus broached the topic all his colleagues had pointed out that the sumptuary laws were disregarded and prohibited prices for household articles were every day on the increase and that moderate measures could not stop the evil the senate on being consulted had without handling the matter referred it to the emperor Tiberius after long considering whether such reckless tastes could be repressed whether the repression of them would not be still more hurtful to the state how undignified it would be to meddle with what he could not succeed in or what, if affected would necessitate the disgrace and infamy of men of distinction at last addressed a letter to the senate to the following purport perhaps in any other matter senators it would be more convenient that I should be consulted in your presence and then state what I think to be for the public good in this debate it was better that my eyes should not be on you for while you were noting the anxious faces of individual senators charged with shameful luxury I too myself might observe them and, as it were detect them had those energetic men are edals first taking council with me I do not know whether I should not have advised them to let alone voices so strong and so matured rather than merely attain the result of publishing what other corruptions with which we cannot cope they however have certainly done their duty as I would wish all other officials likewise to fulfill their parts for myself it is neither seemly to keep silence nor is it easy to speak my mind as I do not hold the office of edal praetor or council something greater and loftier is expected of a prince and while everybody takes to himself the credit of right policy one alone has to bear the odium of every person's failures for what am I first to begin with restraining and cutting down to the old standard the vast dimensions of country houses the number of slaves of every nationality the masses of silver and gold the marvels in bronze and painting the apparel worn indiscriminately by both sexes or that peculiar luxury of women which, for the sake of jewels, diverts our wealth to strange or hostile nations I am not unaware that people at entertainments and social gatherings condemn all this and demand some restriction but if a law were to be passed at a penalty imposed those very same persons will cry out that the state is revolutionised that ruin is plotted against all our most brilliant fashion that not a citizen is safe from incrimination yet as even bodily disorders of long standing and growth can be checked only by sharp and painful treatment so the fever of a diseased mind itself polluted and a pollution to others can be quenched only by remedies as strong as the passions which inflame it of the many laws devised by our ancestors of the many passed by the divine Augustus the first have been forgotten while his all the more to our disgrace have become obsolete through contempt and this has made luxury bolder than ever the truth is that when one craves something not yet forbidden there is a fear that it may be forbidden but when people once transgress prohibitions with impunity there is no longer any fear or any shame why then in old times was economy in the ascendant because everyone practised self control because we were all members of one city nor even afterwards had we the same temptations while our dominion was confined to Italy victories over the foreigner taught us how to waste the substance of others victories over ourselves how to squander our own what a poetry matter is this of which the edals are reminding us what a mere trifle if you look at everything else no one represents to the senate that Italy requires supplies from abroad and that the very existence of the people of Rome is daily at the mercy of uncertain waves and storms and unless masters slaves and estates have the resources of the provinces as their mainstay are shrubberies for sooth and our country houses will have to support us such senators are the anxieties which the prince has to sustain and the neglect of them will be utter ruin to the state the cure for other evils must be sought in our own hearts let us be led to amendment the poor by constraint the rich by satiety or if any of our officials give promise of such energy and strictness as can stem the corruption I praise the man and I confess that I am relieved of a portion of my burdens but if they wish to denounce vice and when they have gained credit for so doing they arouse resentments and leave them to me be assured senators that I too am by no means eager to incur enmities and though for the public good I encounter formidable and often unjust enmities yet I have a right to decline such as our unmeaning and purposeless and will be of use neither to myself nor to you when they had heard the emperor's letter the edals were excused from so anxious a task and that luxury of the table which from the close of the war ended at Actium to the armed revolution in which Servius Galba rose to empire had been practised with profuse expenditure gradually went out of fashion it is as well that I should trace the causes of this change formerly rich or highly distinguished noble families often sank into ruin from a passion for splendour even then men were still at liberty to court and be courted by the city populace by our allies and by foreign princes and everyone who from his wealth his mansion and his establishment was conspicuously grand gained too proportionate luster by his name and his numerously entail after the savage massacres in which greatness of renown was fatal the survivors turned to wiser ways the new men who were often admitted into the senate from the towns, colonies and even the provinces introduced their household thrift and though many of them by good luck or energy attained an older age of wealth still their former tastes remained but the chief the chief encourager of strict manners was Vespasian himself old fashioned both in his dress and diet henceforth a respectful feeling towards the prince and a love of emulation proved more efficacious than legal penalties or terrors or possibly there is in all things a kind of cycle and there may be moral revolutions just as there are changes of seasons nor was everything better in the past but our own age too has produced many specimens of excellence and culture for posterity to imitate may we still keep up with our ancestors a rivalry in all that is honourable end of book 3 part 3 book 3 part 4 of the Annals by Publius Cornelius Tastus volume 1 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Andrew Coleman the Annals by Publius Cornelius Tastus volume 1 translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Broderick book 3 AD 20-22 part 4 Tiberius having gained credit for forbearance by the check he had given to the growing terror of the informers wrote a letter to the senate requesting the tribunition power for Drusus this was a phrase which Augustus devised as a designation of supremacy so that without assuming the name of king or dictator he might have some title to mark his elevation above all other authority he then chose Marcus Agrippa to be his associate in this power and on Agrippa's death Tiberius Nero that there might be no uncertainty as to the succession in this manner he thought to check the perverse ambition of others one he had confidence in Nero's moderation and in his own greatness following this precedent Tiberius now placed Drusus next to the throne though while Germanicus was alive he had maintained an impartial attitude towards the two princes however at the beginning of his letter he implored heaven to prosper his plans on behalf of the state and then added a few remarks without falsehood or exaggeration on the character of the young prince he had, he reminded them a wife and three children at his age was the same as that at which he had himself been formally summoned by the divine Augustus to undertake this duty nor was it a precipitous step it was only after an experience of eight years after having quelled mutinies and settled wars after a triumph and two consulships that he was adopted as a partner in trials already familiar to him the senators had anticipated this message and hence their flattery was the more elaborate but they could devise nothing but voting statues of the two princes shrines to certain deities temples arches and the usual routine except that Marcus Salinas sought to honour the princes by a slur on the consulate and proposed that on all monuments public or private should be inscribed to mark the date, the names not of the consuls but of those who were holding the ignition power Quintus Herterius when he brought forward a motion that the decrees passed that day should be set up in the senate house in letters of gold was laughed at as an old dotard who would get nothing but infamy out of such utterly loathsome sycophancy meantime Junius Blyces received an extension of his government of Africa and the synagogonensis the priest of Jupiter demanded to have Asia allotted to him it was he asserted a popular error that it was not lawful for the priests of Jupiter to leave Italy in fact his own legal position differed not from that of the priests of Mars and of Quirinas if these latter had provinces allotted to them why was it forbidden to the priests of Jupiter there were no resolutions of the people or anything to be found in the books of ceremonies on the subject Pontiffs had often performed the rites to Jupiter when his priest was hindered by illness or by public duty for 75 years after the suicide of Cornelius Meriola no successor to his office had been appointed yet religious rites had not ceased if during so many years it was possible for there to be no appointment without any prejudice to religion with what comparative ease might he be absent for one year's pro-consulate that these priests in former days were prohibited by the pontiff from going into the provinces was the result of private feuds now, thank heaven the supreme pontiff was also the supreme man and was influenced by no rivalry, hatred or personal feeling as the auger Lentulus and others argued on various grounds against this view the result was that they awaited the decision of the supreme pontiff Tiberius deferred any investigation into the priest's legal position but he modified the ceremonies which had been decreed in honour of Drusus's tribunation power with special censure and extravagance of the proposed inscription in gold so contrary to national usage letters also from Drusus were read which those studiously modest in expression were taken to be extremely supercilious we have fallen so low people said that even a mere youth who has received so high an honour does not go as a worshipper to the city's gods does not enter the senate does not so much as take the auspices on his country's soil there is a war for Seuth or he is kept from us in some remote part of the world why, at this very moment he is on a tour amid the shores and lakes of Campania such is the training of the future ruler of mankind such the lesson he first learns from his father's councils an aged emperor may indeed shrink from the citizens gaze and plead the weariness of declining years and the toils of the past but as for Drusus what can be his hindrance but pride Tiberius meantime while securing to himself the substance of imperial power allowed the senate some shadow of its old constitution by referring to its investigation certain demands of the provinces in the greek cities license and impunity in establishing sanctuaries were on the increase temples were thronged with the valest of the slaves the same refuge screened the debtor against his creditor as well as men suspected of capital offences no authority was strong enough to check the turbulence of a people which protected the crimes of men as much as the worship of the gods it was accordingly decided that the different states were to send their charters and envoys to Rome some voluntarily relinquished privileges which they had groundlessly usurped many trusted to old superstitions or to their services to the Roman people it was a grand spectacle on that day when the senate examined grants made by our ancestors treaties with allies even decrees of kings who had flourished before Rome's ascendancy and the forms of worship of the very deities with full liberty as informer days to ratify or to alter first of all came the people of Ephesus they declared that Diana and Apollo were not born at Delos as was the vulgar belief they had in their own country a river centrius a grove ortegia where Latona as she leaned in the pangs of labour on an olive still standing gave birth to those two deities whereupon the grove and the divine intimation was consecrated there Apollo himself after the slaughter of the cyclops shunned the wrath of Jupiter there too father Bacchus when victorious in war pardoned the suppliant amazons who had gathered around the shrine subsequently by the permission of Hercules when he was subduing Lydia the grandeur of the temple ceremonial was augmented and during the Persian rule its privileges were not curtailed they had afterwards been maintained by the Macedonians then by ourselves next the people of Magnesia relied on arrangements made by Lucia Scipio and Lucia Sulla these generals after respectively defeating Antiochus and Mithridatis honoured the fidelity and courage of the Magnesians by allowing the temple of Diana of the white brow to be an inviolable sanctuary then the people of Aphrodisia produced a decree of the dictator Caesar for their old services to his party and those of Strattonisia one lately passed by the divine Augustus in which they were commended for having endured the Parthian invasion without wavering in their loyalty to the Roman people Aphrodisia maintained the worship of Venus Strattonisia that of Jupiter and of Diana of the crossways Harrow Caesarea went back to a higher antiquity and spoke of having a Persian Diana whose fame was consecrated in the reign of Cyrus they quoted too the names of Perpina, Isoricus and many other generals who had conceded the same sacred character not only to the temple but to its precincts for two miles then came the Cyprians on behalf of three shrines the oldest of which had been set up by their founder Aearius to the Parthian Venus the second by his son Amathas to Venus of Amathas and the last to Jupiter of Salamis by Tuca when he fled from the wrath of his father Telemann audience was also given to embassies from other states the senators wearied by their multiplicity and seeing the party spirit that was being roused entrusted the inquiry to the consuls who were to sift each title and see if it involved any abuse and then refer back the entire matter to the senate besides the states already mentioned the consuls reported that they had ascertained that at Pergamos there was a sanctuary of Ischulapias but that the rest relied on an origin lost in the obscurity of antiquity for example the people of Smyrna quoted an oracle of Apollo which had commanded them to dedicate a temple to Venus Trestonicus and the islanders of Tenos and utterance from the same deity bidding them consecrate a statue and a feign to Neptune Sardis preferred a more modern claim a grant from the victorious Alexander so again Miletus relied on King Darius but in each case their religious worship was that of Diana or Apollo the Cretans too demanded a like privilege for a statue of the divine Augustus decrees of the senate were passed which though very respectful still prescribed certain limits and the petitioners were directed to set up bronze tablets in each temple to be a sacred memorial and to restrain them from sinking into selfish aims under the mask of religion about this time Julia Augusta had an alarming illness which compelled the emperor to hasten his return to Rome for hitherto there had been a genuine harmony between the mother and son or a hatred well concealed not long before for instance Julia in dedicating a statue to the divine Augustus near the theatre of Marcellus had inscribed the name of Tiberius below her own and it was surmised that the emperor regarding this as a slight honour sovereign's dignity had brooded over it with deep and disguised resentment however the senate now decreed supplications to the gods and the celebration of the great games which were to be exhibited by the pontiffs, orgas the colleges of the 15 and of the 7 with the Augustal brotherhood Lucia Sopronius moved that the heralds too should preside over these games this the emperor opposed distinguishing the peculiar privileges of the sacred guilds and quoting precedents never he argued had the heralds this dignity the Augustal priests were included expressly because their sacred office was specially attached to the family for which vows were being performed my purpose is not to relate at length every motion but only such as were conspicuous for excellence or notorious for infamy this I regard as history's highest function to let no worthy action be uncommemorated and to hold out the reprobation of posterity as a terror to evil words and deeds so corrupted indeed and debased was that age by sycophancy that not only the foremost citizens who were forced to save their grandeur by civility but every ex-console most of the ex-pritols and a host of inferior senators would rise in ego rivalry to propose shameful and preposterous motions tradition says that Iberius as often as he left the senate house used to exclaim in greek how ready these men are to be slaves clearly even he the public freedom was disgusted at the abject abasement of his creatures from unseemly flatteries they passed by degrees to savage acts Caia Selanus proconsolovatia was accused by our allies of extortion where upon mermercas scours an ex-console junius otho a pritore brutidius niger simultaneously fastened on him and charged him with sacrilege to the divinity of augustus and contempt of the majesty of tiberius while mermercas scours quoted old precedence the prosecutions of lucius cotta by scipio africanus of servius galba by cato the censor and of publius rutilius by scours as if indeed scipios and cato's vengeance fell on such offences or that of the famous scours whom his great-grandson ablot on his ancestry this mermercas was now disgracing by his infamous occupation junius otho's old employment had been the keeping of a preparatory school subsequently becoming a senator by the influence of sergenus he shamed his origin low as it was by his unblushing effronteries rutilius who was rich in excellent accomplishments and was sure had he pursued a path of virtue to reach the most brilliant distinction was goaded on by an eager impatience when he strove to outstrip his equals then his superiors and at last even his own aspirations many have thus perished even good men having slow and safe success and hurrying on even at the cost of ruin to premature greatness gelius publicola and marcus peconius respectively coistor and lieutenant of selenus swelled the number of the accusers no doubt was felt as to the defendant's conviction for oppression and extortion but there was a combination against him in perilous even to an innocent man besides a host of adverse senators there were the most accomplished orators of all asia who as such had been retained for the prosecution and to these he had to reply alone without any experience in pleading and under that personal apprehension which is enough to paralyze even the most practised eloquence for tiberius did not refrain from pressing him with angry voice and look himself putting incessant questions without allowing him to rebut or evade them and he had often even to make admissions that the questions might not have been asked in vain his slaves too were sold by auction to the state agent to be examined by torture and that not a friend might help him in his danger charges of treason added a binding guarantee for sealed lips accordingly he begged a few days respite and at last abandoned his defence after venturing on a memorial to the emperor in which he mingled reproach and entreaty tiberius that his proceedings against selenus might find some justification in precedent ordered the divine augustus's appointment of releaseus messala also a proconsul of asia and the senate's sentence on him to be read he then asked lucius piezo his opinion after a long preliminary eulogy on the prince's clemency piezo pronounced that selenus ought to be outlawed and banished to the island of gyarus the rest concurred with the exception of cnius lentulus who with the ascent of tiberius proposed that the property of selenus's mother as she was very different from him should be exempted from confiscation and given to the son cornelius dollabella however by way of carrying flattery yet further sharp police censured the morals of selenus and then moved that no one of disgraceful life and notorious infamy should be eligible for a province and that of this the emperor should be judged laws indeed he said punish crimes committed but how much more merciful would it be to individuals how much better for our allies to provide against their commission the emperor opposed the motion although he said i am not ignorant of the reports about selenus still we must decide nothing by hearsay many a man has behaved in a province quite otherwise than was hoped or feared of him some aroused to hire things by great responsibility others are paralyzed by it it is not possible for a prince's knowledge to embrace everything and it is not expedient that he should be exposed to the ambitious schemings of others laws are ordained to meet facts in as much as the future is uncertain it was the rule of our ancestors that whenever there was first an offense some penalty should follow let us not revolutionize a wisely devised and ever approved system princes have enough burdens and also enough power rights are invariably abridged as despotism increases nor ought we to fall back on imperial authority when we can have recourse to the laws such constitutional sentiments were so rare with tiberias that they were welcomed with all the heartier joy knowing as he did how to be forbearing when he was not under the stimulus of personal resentment he further said that guiaris was a dreary and uninhabited island and that as a concession to the junion family and to a man of the same order as themselves they might let him retire by preference to kithness this he added was also the request of torquata selenis's sister a vestal of primitive purity the motion was carried after a division audience was next given to the people of sirini and on the prosecution of vancharius priscus caesius cordus was convicted of extortion lucius enius a roman knight was accused of treason for having converted a statue of the emperor to the common use of silver plate but the emperor forbade his being put upon his trial though atius capitol openly remonstrated with a show of independence the senate he said ought not to have rested from it the power of deciding a question and such a crime must not go unpunished granted that the emperor might be indifferent to a personal grievance still he should not be generous in the case of wrongs to the commonwealth tabirus interpreted the remark according to its drift rather than its mere expression and persisted in his veto capitol's disgrace was the more conspicuous for, versed as he was in the science of law human and divine he had now dishonoured a brilliant public career as well as a virtuous private life next came a religious question as to the temple in which ought to be deposited the offering which the roman knights had vowed to fortune of the knights for the recovery of augusta although that goddess had several shrines in Rome there was none with this special designation it was ascertained that there was a temple so called at antium and that all sacred rites in the towns of italy as well as temples and images of deities were under the jurisdiction and authority of Rome accordingly the offering was placed at antium as religious questions were under discussion the emperor now produced his answer to servius malogenesis Jupiter's priest which he had recently deferred and read the pontifical decree prescribing that whenever illness attacked a priest of Jupiter he would fight with the supreme pontif's permission be absent more than two nights provided it was not during the days of public sacrifice or more than twice in the same year this regulation of the emperor augustus sufficiently proved that a years absence and a provincial government were not permitted to the priests of Jupiter there was also cited the precedent of lucius metellus supreme pontif who had detained at Rome the priest augus posthumius and so asia was allotted to the ex-console next in seniority to malogenesis about the same time levedus asked the senate's leave to restore and embellish at his own expense the basilica of paulus that monument of the emelian family public spirited munificence was still in fashion and augustus had not hindered philipus from applying the spoils of war or their superfluous wealth to adorn the capital and to win the admiration of posterity following these examples levedus though possessed of a moderate fortune now revived the glory of his ancestors pompaeus's theater which had been destroyed by an accidental fire the emperor promised to rebuild simply because no member of the family was equal to restoring it but pompaeus's name was to be retained at the same time he highly extolled sergenus on the ground that it was through his exertions and vigilance that such fury of the flames had been confined to the destruction of a single building the senate voted sergenus a statue which was to be placed in pompaeus's theater and soon afterwards the emperor in honoring junius blicis proconsul of africa with triumphal distinctions said that he granted them as a compliment to sergenus whose uncle blicis was still the career of blicis merited such a reward for takfarinas though often driven back had recruited his resources in the interior of africa and had become so insolent as to send envoys to tiberius actually demanding a settlement for himself and his army or else threatening us with an interminable war never, it is said was the emperor so exasperated by an insult to himself and the roman people as by a deserter and brigand assuming the character of a belligerent even spartacus when he had destroyed so many consular armies and was burning italy with impunity those estate was staggering under the tremendous wars of sartorius and mithridatis had not the offer of an honorable surrender on stipulated conditions far less in roman's most glorious height of power should a robber like takfarinas be bought off by peace and concessions of territory he entrusted the affair to blicis who was to hold out to the other rebels the prospect of laying down their arms without hurt themselves while he was by any means to secure the person of the chief many surrendered themselves on the strength of this amnesty before long the tactics of takfarinas were encountered in a similar fashion unequal to us in solid military strength but better in a war of surprises he would attack would elude pursuit and still arrange ambascades with a multitude of detachments and so we prepared three expeditions and as many columns one of the three under the command of cornelius skipio blicis's lieutenant was to stop the enemies forasia on the leptitani and his retreat to the garamantes in another quarter blicis's son led a separate force of his own to save the villages of kerter from being ravaged with impunity between the two was the general himself with some picked troops by establishing redoubts and fortified lines in commanding positions he had rendered the whole country embarrassing and perilous to the foe whichever way he turned a body of roman soldiers was in his face or on his flank or frequently in the rear many were thus slain or surprised blicis then further divided his triple army into several detachments under the command of centurions of tried vala at the end of the summer he did not, as was usual withdraw his troops and let them rest in winter quarters in the old province by a chain of forts as though he were on the threshold of a campaign he drove tachforinas by flying columns well acquainted with the desert from one set of huts to another till he captured the chief's brother and then returned too soon however for the welfare of our allies as they yet remained those who might renew hostilities Tiberius however considered the war as finished and awarded blicis the further distinction of being held imperator by the legions an ancient honour conferred on generals who for good service to the state were saluted with cheers of joyful enthusiasm by a victorious army several men bore the title at the same time without preeminence above their fellows Augustus too granted the name to certain persons and now for the last time Tiberius gave it to blicis two illustrious men died that year one was Asinius Saloninus distinguished as the grandson of Marcus Agrippa and Asinius Polio as the brother of Drusus and the intended husband of the emperor's granddaughter the other was Capto Ateas already mentioned who had won a foremost position in the state by his legal attainments though his grandfather was but a centurion in Sulla's army his father having been a praetor he was prematurely advanced to the consulship by Augustus so that he might be raised by the honour of this promotion above Labio Antisius a conspicuous member of the same profession that age indeed produced at one time two brilliant ornaments of peace but while Labio was a man of sturdy independence and consequently of wider fame Capito's obsequiousness was more acceptable to those in power Labio because his promotion was confined to the praetorship gained in public favour through the wrong Capito in obtaining the consulship incurred the hatred which grows out of envy Junior II the niece of Cato Marcius and sister of Marcus Brutus died this year the 64th after the battle of Phylipae her will was the theme of much popular criticism for with her vast wealth after having honourably mentioned almost every nobleman by name she passed over the emperor Tiberius took the omission graciously and did not forbid a panegyric before the rostra with the other three funeral honours the busts of twenty most illustrious families were born in the procession with the names of Manlius Quinctius and others of equal rank but Cassius and Brutus outshone them all from the very fact that their likenesses were not to be seen end of book three end of the annals by Publius Cornelius Tastus volume one translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Broderick