 Book 12 part 3 of the Annals by Publius Cornelius Tacitus. 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 Philippa. The Annals by Publius Cornelius Tacitus, translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodrib. Book 12 AD 48-54 Part 3 War with the Armenians, Hyberians and Parthians. In the same year war broke out between the Armenians and Iberians, and was the cause of very serious disturbances between Parthia and Rome. Volgices was king of the Parthians. On the mother's side he was the offspring of a Greek concubine, and he obtained the throne by the retirement of his brothers. Pharrasmenes had been long in possession of Iberia, and his brother Mithridates ruled Armenia with our powerful support. There was a son of Pharrasmenes named Radomistus, tall and handsome, of singular bodily strength, trained in all the accomplishments of his countrymen and highly renowned among his neighbours. He boasted so arrogantly and persistently that his father's prolonged old age kept back from him the little kingdom of Iberia as to make no concealment of his ambition. Pharrasmenes, accordingly, seeing the young prince had power in his grasp, and was strong in the attachment of his people, fearing to his own declining years, tempted him with other prospects, and pointed to Armenia, which, as he reminded him, he had given to Mithridates after driving out the Parthians. But open violence, he said, must be deferred, artful measures which might crush him unawares were better. So Radomistus pretended to be at feud with his father, as though his stepmother's hatred was too strong for him, and went to his uncle. While he was treated by him like a son with excessive kindness, he lured the nobles of Armenia into revolutionary schemes without the knowledge of Mithridates, who was actually loading him with honours. He then assumed a show of reconciliation with his father, to whom he returned, telling him all that could be accomplished by treachery was now ready, and that he must complete the affair by the sword. Meanwhile, Pharrasmenes invented pretexts for war, when he was fighting with the king of the Albanians and appealing to the Romans for aid, his brother, he said, had opposed him, and he would now avenge that wrong by his destruction. At the same time he gave a large army to his son, who by a sudden invasion drove Mithridates in terror from the open country, and forced him into the fortress of Gorneas, which was strongly situated and garrisoned by some soldiers under the command of Kylius Polio, a camp-prefect, and Casparius, a centurion. There is nothing of which barbarians are so ignorant as military engines and the skillful management of sieges, while that is a branch of military science which we especially understand. And so, rather misters having attempted the fortified walls in vain or with loss, began a blockade, and finding that his assaults were despised, tried to bribe the rapacity of the camp-prefect. Casparius protested earnestly against the overthrow of an allied king and of Armenia, the gift of the Roman people, through iniquity and greed of gain. At last, as Polio pleaded the overpowering numbers of the enemy and rudermistus the orders of his father, the centurion stipulated for a truce, and retired, intending if he could not deter Pharrasmenes from further hostilities to inform Umidius Quadratus, the governor of Syria, of the state of Armenia. By the centurion's departure the camp-prefect was released, so to say, from surveillance, and he now urged Mithridates to conclude a treaty. He reminded him of the tie of brotherhood, of the seniority and age of Pharrasmenes, and of their other bonds of kindred, how he was united by marriage to his brother's daughter, and was himself the father-in-law of Radimistus. The Iberians, he said, were not against peace, though for the moment they were the stronger. The perfidy of the Armenians was notorious, and he had nothing to fall back on but a fortress without stalls, so he must not hesitate to prefer a bloodless negotiation to arms. As Mithridates wavered, and suspected the intentions of the camp-prefect, because he had seduced one of the king's concubines, and was reputed a man who could be bribed into any wickedness, Casperius, meantime, went to Pharrasmenes, and required of him that the Iberians should raise the blockade. Pharrasmenes to his face replied vaguely and often in a conciliatory tone, while by secret messages he recommended Radimistus to hurry on the siege by all possible means. Then the price of infamy was raised, and polio by secret corruption induced the soldiers to demand peace, and to threaten that they would abandon the garrison. Under this compulsion, Mithridates agreed to a day and a place for negotiation, and quitted the fortress. Radimistus at first threw himself into his embraces, feigning respect and calling him father-in-law and parent. He swore on oath, too, that he would do him no violence either by the sword or by poison. At the same time he drew him into a neighbouring grove, where he assured him that the appointed sacrifice was prepared for the confirmation of peace in the presence of the gods. It is a custom of these princes, whenever they join alliance, to unite their right hands and bind together the thumbs in a tight knot. Then, when the blood has flowed into the extremities, they let it escape by a slight puncture, and suck it in turn. Such a treaty is thought to have a mysterious sanctity as being sealed with the blood of both parties. On this occasion, he who was applying the knot pretended that it has fallen off, and suddenly seizing the knees of Mithridates flung him to the ground. At the same moment a rush was made by a number of persons, and chains were thrown round him. Then he was dragged along by a fetter, an extreme degradation to a barbarian, and soon the common people, whom he had held under a harsh sway, heaped insults on him with menacing gestures, though some, on the contrary, pitied such a reverse of fortune. His wife followed him with his little children, and filled every place with her wailings. They were hidden away in different covered carriages, till the orders of Pharasmenes were distinctly ascertained. The lust of rule was more to him than his brother and his daughter, and his heart was steeled to any wickedness. Still he spared his eyes the seeing them slain before his face. Fradamistas, too, seemingly mindful of his oath, neither unsheathed the sword nor used poison against his sister and uncle, but had them thrown on the ground, and then smothered them under a mass of heavy clothes. Even the sons of Mithridates were butchered for having shed tears over their parents' murder. Quadratus, learning that Mithridates had been betrayed and that his kingdom was in the hands of his murderers, summoned a council, and having informed them of what had occurred, consulted them whether he should take vengeance. Few cared for the honour of the state, most argued in favour of a safe course, saying that any crime in a foreign country was to be welcomed with joy, and that the seeds of strife ought to be actually sown, on the very principle on which Roman emperors had often, under a show of generosity, given away this same kingdom of Armenia to excite the minds of the barbarians. Fradamistas might retain his ill-gotten gains as long as he was hated and infamous, for this was more to Rome's interest than for him to have succeeded with glory. To this view they assented, but that they might not be thought to have approved the crime and received contrary orders from the emperor, envoys were sent to Furasmenes, requiring him to withdraw from Armenian territory and remove his son. Julius Pelignus was then procurator of Cappadocia, a man despised alike for his feebleness of mind and his grotesque personal appearance. He was, however, very intimate with Claudius, who, when in private life, used to beguile the dullness of his leisure with the society of gestures. This Pelignus collected some provincial auxiliaries, apparently with the design of recovering Armenia, but while he plundered allies instead of enemies, finding himself, through the desertion of his men and the raids of the barbarians, utterly defenceless. He went to Fradamistas, whose gift so completely overcame him that he positively encouraged him to assume the ensigns of royalty, and himself assisted at the ceremony, authorizing and abetting. When the disgraceful news had spread far and wide, lest the world might judge of other governors by Pelignus, Helvidius Priscus was sent in command of a legion to regulate, according to circumstances, the disordered state of affairs. He quickly crossed Mount Taurus, and had restored order to a great extent more by moderation than by force, when he was ordered to return to Syria, that nothing might arise to provoke a war with Parthia. For Vologeces, thinking that an opportunity presented itself of invading Armenia, which, though the possession of his ancestors was now, through a monstrous crime held by a foreign prince, raised an army, and prepared to establish Tiridates on the throne, so that not a member of his house might be without kingly power. On the advance of the Parthians, the Iberians dispersed without a battle, and the Armenian cities, Artaxata and Tigrenacerta, submitted to the yoke. Then a frightful winter, or deficient supplies, with pestilence arising from both causes, forced Vologeces to abandon his present plans. Armenia was thus again without a king, and was invaded by Radimistus, who was now fiercer than ever, looking on the people as disloyal and sure to rebel on the first opportunity. They, however, though accustomed to be slaves, suddenly threw off their tameness and gathered round the palace in arms. Radimistus had no means of escape but in the swiftness of the horses which bore him and his wife away. Pregnant as she was, she endured, somehow or other, out of fear of the enemy and love of her husband, the first part of the flight. But after a while, when she felt herself shaken by its continuous speed, she implored to be rescued by an honourable death from the shame of captivity. He at first embraced, cheered and encouraged her, now admiring her heroism, now filled with a sickening apprehension at the idea of her being left to any man's mercy. Finally, urged by the intensity of his love and familiarity with dreadful deeds, he unsheathed his scimitar, and having stabbed her, dragged her to the bank of the Araxes, and committed her to the stream, so that her very body might be swept away. Then, in headlong flight, he hurried to Iberia, his ancestral kingdom. Zenobia, meanwhile, this was her name, as she yet breathed and showed signs of life on the calm water at the river's edge, was perceived by some shepherds, who, inferring from her noble appearance that she was no base-born woman, bound up her wound and applied to it their rustic remedies. As soon as they knew her name and her adventure, they conveyed her to the city of Artaxata, when she was conducted at the public charge to Tiridartis, who received her kindly, and treated her as a royal person. In the consulship of Faustus Sulla and Salveus Otto, Furius Scribignanus was banished on the ground that he was consulting the astrologers about the emperor's death. His mother, Junior, was included in the accusation, as one who still resented the misfortune of exile which she had suffered in the past. His father, Camillus, had raised an armed insurrection in Dalmatia, and the emperor in again sparing a hostile family sought the credit of clemency. But the exile did not live long after this, whether he was cut off by a natural death or by poison was matter of conflicting rumours, according to people's belief. A decree of the senate was then passed for the expulsion of the astrologers from Italy, stringent but ineffectual. Next the emperor in a speech commended all who, from their limited means, voluntarily retired from the senatorian order, while those were degraded from it, who, by retaining their seats, added effrontery to poverty. During these proceedings he proposed to the senate a penalty on women who united themselves in marriage to slaves, and it was decided that those who had thus demeaned themselves without the knowledge of the slave's master should be reduced to slavery, if with his consent should be ranked as freed women. Topalas, who, as the emperor declared, was the author of this proposal, were offered on the motion of Baraea Serranus, consul-elect, the decorations of the pritorship, and fifteen million cesterces. Cornelius Scipio added that he deserved public thanks for thinking less of his ancient nobility as a descendant from the kings of Arcadia than of the welfare of the state, and allowing himself to be numbered among the emperor's ministers. Claudius assured them that Pallas was content with the honor, and that he limited himself to his former poverty. A decree of the senate was publicly inscribed on a bronze tablet, heaping the praises of primitive frugality on a freedman, the possessor of three hundred million cesterces. Not equally moderate was his brother, Ser. named Felix, who had for some time been governor of Judea, and thought that he could do any evil act with impunity, backed up as he was by such power. It is true that the Jews had shown symptoms of commotion in a seditious outbreak, and when they heard of the assassination of Caius there was no hearty submission, as a fear still lingered that any of the emperors might impose the same orders. Felix, meanwhile, by ill-time dromedies, stimulated disloyal acts, while he had as a rival in the worst wickedness Ventidius Cumanus, who held a part of the province, which was so divided that Galilea was governed by Cumanus Samaria by Felix. The two peoples had long been at feud, and now less than ever restrained their enmity from contempt of their rulers. And accordingly they plundered each other, letting loose bands of robbers, forming ambiscades, and occasionally fighting battles, and carrying the spoil and booty to the two procurators, who had first rejoiced at all this, but, as the mischief grew, they interposed with an armed force, which was cut to pieces. The flame of war would have spread through the province, but it was saved by Quadratus, governor of Syria. In dealing with the Jews, who had been daring enough to slay our soldiers, there was little hesitation about their being capitely punished. Some delay, indeed, was occasioned by Cumanus and Felix, for Claudius, on hearing the causes of the rebellion, had given authority for deciding also the case of these procurators. Quadratus, however, exhibited Felix as one of the judges, admitting him to the bench with the view of cowing the ardour of the prosecutors, and so Cumanus was condemned for the crimes which the two had committed, and tranquillity was restored to the province. Not long afterwards, some tribes of the wild population of Cilicia, known as the Cleti, which had often been in commotion, established a camp under a leader, Troxibor, on their rocky mountains. Whence rushing down on the coast and on the towns, they dared to do violence to the farmers and townsfolk, frequently even to the merchants and ship owners. They besieged the city animurium, and routed some troopers sent from Syria to its rescue under the command of Cirtius Severus, for the rough country in the neighbourhood, suited as it is for the fighting of infantry, did not allow of cavalry operations. After a time Antiochus, king of that coast, having broken the unity of the barbarian forces by cajolery of the people and treachery to their leader, slew Troxibor and a few chiefs, and pacified the rest by gentle measures. About the same time, the mountain between Lake Fuchinas and the river Lyris was bored through, and that this grand work might be seen by a multitude of visitors, preparations were made for a naval battle on the lake, just as formerly Augustus exhibited such a spectacle in a basin he had made this side the Tiber, though with light vessels and on a smaller scale. Claudius equipped galleys with three and four banks of oars, and nineteen thousand men. He lined the circumference of the lake with rafts, that there might be no means of escape at various points, but he still left full space for the strength of the crews, the skill of the pilots, the impact of the vessels, and the usual operations of a sea fight. On the raft stood companies of the Praetorian cohorts and cavalry, with a breastwork in front of them, from which catapults and ballistas might be worked. The rest of the lake was occupied by marines on decked vessels. An immense multitude from the neighbouring towns, others from Rome itself, eager to see the sight or to show respect to the emperor, crowded the banks, the hills, and mountain tops, which thus resembled a theatre. The emperor, with Agrippina seated near him, presided. He wore a splendid military cloak, she a mantle of cloth of gold. A battle was fought with all the courage of brave men, though it was between condemned criminals. After much bloodshed, they were released from the necessity of mutual slaughter. When the sight was over, the outlet of the water was opened. The careless execution of the work was apparent, the tunnel not having been bored down so low as the bottom or middle of the lake. Consequently, after an interval, the excavations were deepened, and to attract a crowd once more, a show of gladiators was exhibited, with floating pontoons for an infantry engagement. A banquet, too, was prepared close to the outflow of the lake, and it was the means of greatly alarming the whole company, for the water, in the violence of his outburst, swept away the adjoining parts, shook the more remote, and spread terror with the tremendous crash. At the same time, Agrippina availed herself of the emperor's fright to charge Narcissus, who had been the agent of the work, with avarice and peculation. He, too, was not silent, but invade against the domineering temper of her sex, and her extravagant ambition. In the consulship of Didius Junius and Quintus Hatterius, Nero, now sixteen years of age, married Octavia, the emperor's daughter. Anxious to distinguish himself by noble pursuits and the reputation of an orator, he advocated the cause of the people of Ilium, and having eloquently recounted how Rome was the offspring of Troy and Ineos the founder of the Julian line, with other old traditions akin to myths, he gained for his clients exemption from all public burdens. His bleeding, too, procured for the colony of Bononia, which had been ruined by a fire, a subvention of ten million cesterces. The Rhodians also had their freedom restored to them, which had often been taken away, or confirmed, according to their services to us in foreign wars, or their seditious misdeeds at home. A palmia, too, which had been shaken by an earthquake, had its tribute remitted for five years. Claudius, on the other hand, was being prompted to exhibit the worst cruelty by the artifices of the same agrippina. On the accusation of Tarquitius Priscus, she ruined Statilius Taurus, who was famous for his wealth, and at whose garden she cast a greedy eye. Priscus had served under Taurus in his proconsular government of Africa, and, after their return, charged him with a few acts of extortion, but particularly with magical and superstitious practices. Taurus, no longer able to endure a false accusation and an undeserved humiliation, put a violent end to his life before the senate's decision was pronounced. Tarquitius was however expelled from the senate, a point which the senators carried, out of hatred for the accuser, notwithstanding the intrigues of agrippina. 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 Pritols 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 Sevilius 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. Caeus Opius and Cornelius Balbus, with a first who were able, with Caesar's support, to settle conditions of peace in terms of war. To mention after them the Mattii, Vedi, and other two 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. Next the emperor proposed to grant immunity from taxation to the people of Caus, and he dwelt much on their antiquity. The Argives, or Caeus, the father of Latona, were the earliest inhabitants of the island. Soon afterwards, by the arrival of Isculapius, 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 Caus 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. 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-Philippe, they reminded us of the forces which they had afterwards sent against Antiochus, Perseus and Aristonicus, of the aid they had given Antonius in the pirate war, of their offers to Sulla, Luculus 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. 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 man's country. This obscure hint pointed to the people of Calcedon, 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 underwater 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. 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. In the year of the consulship of Marcus Asinius and Manius Achilius 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 capital. Births of monsters, half-man, half-beast, and of a pig with hawk's talons were reported. It was accounted apportent that every order of magistrates had had its number reduced, a questor, an edile, 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 wife's 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 grand niece of Augustus, the cousin of Agrippina and sister of her husband Cneus, 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. 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 sentence 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. Messolina and Cilius had been convicted, and now again there were similar grounds for accusation. If Nero were to rule or Britannicus succeeded 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, within treaty that as he grew up he would drive out his father's enemies and also take vengeance on the murderers of his mother. Under this great burden of anxiety he had an attack of illness, and went to Sinuessa to recruit his strength with its barmy 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 a eunuch, Halotus, who was accustomed to bring in and taste the dishes. All the circumstances were subsequently so well known that writers of the time have declared that the poison was infused into some mushrooms, a favorite 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 obliquy of the deed, she availed herself of the complicity of Xenophon, the physician, which she had already secured. Under pretense 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. 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 the 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. At last, at noon on the thirteenth 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. Sarmit 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 solemnised on the same scale as those of Augustus, for Agrippina strove to emulate the magnificence of her great-grandmother, Olivia. But his will was not publicly read, as the preference of the step-son to the son might provoke a sense of wrong and angry feeling in the popular mind. End of Book 12 The Annals of Publius Cornelius Testis, translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Broderib Book 13, AD 54-58 Part 1, The Funeral of Claudius The first death and then a new emperor, that of Junius Solanus, proconsul of Asia, was, without Nero's knowledge, planned by the treachery of Agrippina. Not that Solanus had provoked destruction by any violence of temper, apathetic as he was, and so utterly despised on the former despotisms that Caius Caesar used to call him the golden sheep. The truth was that Agrippina, having contrived the murder of his brother, Lucius Solanus, dreaded his vengeance, for it was the incessant popular talk that preference ought to be given over Nero, who was scarcely out of his boyhood and had gained the empire by crime, to a man of mature age, of blameless life, of noble birth, and as a point then much regarded of the line of the Caesar's. Solanus, in fact, was the son of a great grandson of Augustus. This was the cause of his destruction. The agents of the deed were Publius Sila, Roman Knight, and Helius, a freedman, men who had the charge of the emperor's domains in Asia. They gave the proconsul poison at a banquet, too openly to escape discovery. With no less precipitation, Narcissus, Claudius' freeman, whose quarrels with Agrippina I have mentioned, was driven to suicide by his cruel imprisonment and hopeless plight, even against the wishes of Nero, with whose yet concealed vices he was wonderfully in sympathy from his rapacity and extravagance. And now they had proceeded to further murders, but for the opposition of Afranius Burrus and Aeneas Seneca. These two men guided the emperor's youth with a unity of purpose seldom found where authority is shared, and though their accomplishments were wholly different, they had equal influence. Burrus, with his soldiers' discipline and severe manners, Seneca, with lessons of eloquence and a dignified courtesy, strove alike to confine the frailty of the prince's youth, should elothe virtue, within allowable indulgences. They had both the like to struggle against the domineering spirit of Agrippina, who, inflamed with all the passions of an evil ascendancy, had palace on her side, at whose suggestion Claudius had ruined himself by an incestuous marriage and a fatal adoption of a son. Nero's temper, however, was not one to submit to slaves, and palace, by a surly arrogance quite beyond a freedman, had provoked disgust. Still every honour was openly heaped on Agrippina, and to a tribune who, according to military custom, asked the watchword Nero gave the best of mothers. The senate also decreed her to lictus, with the office of priestess to Claudius, and voted to the late emperor, a censor's funeral, which was soon followed by deification. On the day of the funeral, the prince pronounced Claudius as panagiric, and while he dwelled on the antiquity of his family and on the consulships and triumphs of his ancestors, there was enthusiasm, both in himself and in his audience. The praise of his graceful accomplishments and the remark that during his reign no disaster had befallen Rome from the foreigner were heard with favour. When the speaker passed on to his foresight and wisdom, no one could refrain from laughter, though the speech which was composed by Seneca exhibited much elegance, as indeed that famous man had an attractive genius which suited the popular ear of the time. Elderly man, whom used our leisure with comparing the past and the present, observed that Nero was the first emperor who needed another man's eloquence. The dictator Caesar rivaled the greatest orators, and Augustus had an easy and fluent way of speaking, such as became a sovereign. Tiberius, too, thoroughly understood the art of balancing words, and was sometimes forcible in the expression of his thoughts, or else intentionally obscure. Even Caio Caesar's disordered intellect did not wholly marre his faculty of speech, nor did Claudius, when he spoke with preparation, lack elegance. Nero, from early boyhood, turned his lively genius in other directions. He carved, painted, sang, or practised the management of horses, occasionally composing verses which showed that he had the rudiments of learning. When he had done with his mimicries of sorrow, he entered the senate, and having first referred to the authority of the senators and the concurrence of the soldiery, he then dwelled on the councils and examples which he had to guide him in the right administration of empire. His boyhood, he said, had not had the taint of civil wars or domestic feuds, and he brought with him no hatreds, no sense of wrong, no desire of vengeance. He then sketched the plan of his future government, carefully avoiding anything which had kindled recent odium. He would not, he said, be judged in all cases, or, by confining the accuser and the accused within the same walls, let the power of a few favourites grow dangerously formidable. In his house there should be nothing venal, nothing open to intrigue. His private establishment and the state should be kept entirely distinct. The senate should retain its ancient powers. Italy and the state provinces should plead their causes before the tribunals of the consuls, who would give them a hearing from the senators. Of the armies he would himself take charge, especially entrusted to him. He was true to his word, and several arrangements were made on the senate's authority. No one was to receive a fee or a present for pleading a cause. The questers elect were not to be under the necessity of exhibiting gladiatorial shows. This was opposed by a grapina as a reversal of the legislation of Claudius, but it was carried by the senators who used to be summoned to the palace in order that she might stand close to a hidden door behind them, screened by a curtain which was enough to shut her out of sight but not out of hearing. When envoys from Armenia were pleading their nation's cause before Nero, she actually was on the point of mounting the emperor's tribunal and of presiding with him, but Seneca, when everyone else was paralyzed with alarm, motioned to the prince to go and meet his mother. Thus, by an apparently dutiful act, a scandalous scene was prevented. With the close of the year came this quieting rumours that the Parsons had again broken their bounds and were ravaging Armenia, from which they had driven Radamistus, who, having often possessed himself of the kingdom and has often been thrust out of it, had now relinquished hostilities. Rome, with its love of talking, began to ask how a prince of scarce seventeen was to encounter and avert this tremendous peril and how they could fall back on one who was ruled by a woman, or whether battles and sieges and the other operations of war could be directed by tutas. Some, on the contrary, argued that this was better than it would have been, had Claudius in his feeble and spiritless old age when he would certainly have yielded to the bidding of slaves being summoned to the hardships of a campaign. Burrus at least and Seneca were known to be men of very varied experience and, as for the emperor himself, how far was he really short of mature age when Cnaeus, Pompeius and Caesar Octavianus, in their eighteenth and nineteenth years, respectively, bore the brunt of civil wars. The highest rank chiefly worked through its prestige and its councils more than by the sword at hand. The emperor would give a plain proof whether he was advised by good or bad friends by putting aside all jealousy and selecting some eminent general rather than by promoting out of favoritism a rich man backed up by interest. Amidst this and like popular talk, Nero ordered the young recruits levied in the adjacent provinces to be brought up for the supply of the legions of the east and the legions themselves to take up a position on the Armenian frontier while two princes of old standing, Agrippa and Antiochus, were to prepare a force for the invasion of the Persian territories. The Euphrates, too, was to be spanned by bridges. Lesser Armenia was entrusted to Aristopelus, Sofine to Sohemus, each with the ensigns of royalty. There rose up at this crisis a rival to follow Jesus in his son Fardanus, and the Partians quitted Armenia, apparently intending to defer hostilities. All this, however, was described with exaggeration to the senate in the speeches of those members who proposed a public thanksgiving and that on the days of the thanksgiving the prince should wear the triumphal robe and enter Rome in ovation. Lastly, they should have statues on the same scale as those of Marcy Avenger and the same temple. To their habitual flattery was added a real joy at his having appointed Domitius Corbulo to secure Armenia, this opening as it seemed a field to merit. The armies of the east were so divided that half the auxiliaries and two legions were to remain in the province of Syria under its governor, Quadratus Umidius, while Corbulo was to have an equal number of citizen and allied troops together with the auxiliary infantry and cavalry which were in winter quarters in Cappadocia. The confederate kings were instructed to obey orders just as the war might require, but they had especially strong liking for Corbulo. That general, with a view to the prestige which in a new enterprise is supremely powerful, speedily accomplished his march and at Eidye, a city of Selicia, met Quadratus, who had advanced to the place under an apprehension that, should Corbulo once enter Armenia to take command of the army, he would draw all eyes on himself by his noble stature, his imposing eloquence and the impression he would make not only by his wisdom and experience but also by the mere display of showy attributes. Meantime, both sent messages to King Vologesis, advising him to choose peace rather than war and to give hostages and so continue the habitual reverence of his ancestors towards the people of Rome. Vologesis, wishing to prepare for war at an advantage or to rid himself of suspected rivals and that a name of hostages delivered up some of the noblest of the arsecates. A centurion, Instius, sent perhaps by a medias on some previous occasion, received them after an interview with the king. Corbulo, unknowing this, ordered Arius Verus, commander of a cohort, to go and take the hostages. Hands arose a quarrel between the commander and the centurion and to stop such a scene before foreigners the decision of the meta was left to the hostages and to the envoys who conducted them. They preferred Corbulo for his recent renown and from a liking which even enemies felt for him. Then there was a feud between the two generals. Eumidius, complained that he was robbed of what his prudence had achieved, while Corbulo, on the other hand, appealed to the fact that Vologesis had not brought himself to offer hostages till his own appointment to the conduct of the war turned the king's hopes into fears. Nero, to compose their differences, directed the issue of a proclamation that for the successes of Quadratus and Corbulo the laurel was to be added to the imperial facies. I have closely connected these events, though they extend into another consulship. The emperor in the same year asked the senate for a statue to his father Domitius, and also that the consular decorations might be conferred on Asconius' labio, who had been his guardian. Statues to himself of solid gold and silver he forbade in opposition to offers made, and although the senate passed a vote that the year should begin with the month of December in which he was born, he retained for its commencement the old sacred association to the first of January. Nor would he allow the prosecution of Carina Cila, a senator whom a slave accused, or of Julius Densis, a knight whose partiality for Britannicus was construed into a crime. In the year of his consulship with Lucius Anticius, when the magistrates were swearing obedience to imperial legislation, he forbade his colleague to extend the oath to his own enactments, for which he was warmly praised by the senators in the hope that this youthful spirit elated with the glory won by trifles would follow on to nobler aspirations. Then came an act of mercy to plosious lateranus who had been degraded from his rank for adultery with Masalina and whom he now restored, assuring them of his clemency in a number of speeches which Seneca, to show the purity of his teaching or to display as genius, published to the world by the emperor's mouth. Meanwhile, the mother's influence was gradually weakened as Nero fell in love with the freedwoman, Acti by name, and took into his confidence Otto and Claudius Sinicio, two young men of fashion, the first of whom was descended from a family of consular rank while Sinicio's father was one of the emperor's freedmen. Without the mother's knowledge, then, in spite of her opposition, they had crept into his favour by debaucheries and equivocal secrets, and even the prince's older friends did not thwart him, for here was a girl who without harm to anyone gratified his desires when he loathed his wife Octavia, high-born as she was and of approved virtue, either from some fatality or because vice is overpoweringly attractive. It was fear, too, that he might rush into outrages on noble ladies where he debauched from this indulgence. Agrippina, however, raved with a woman's fury about having a freedwoman for a rival, a slave girl for a daughter-in-law, with like expressions, nor would she wait till her son repented or rared of his passion. The fowler her reproaches, the more powerfully did they inflame him, till, completely massed by the strength of his desire, he threw off all respect for his mother and put himself under the guidance of Seneca, one of whose friends, Aeneas Serenas, had veiled the young prince's intrigue in its beginning by pretending to be in love with the same woman and had lent his name as the ostensible giver of the presence secretly sent by the emperor to the girl. Then Agrippina, changing her tactics, plied the lad with various blandishments and even offered the seclusion of her chamber for the concealment of indulgences which youth and the highest rank might claim. She went further, she pleaded guilty to an ill-timed strictness and handed over to him the abundance of her wealth which nearly approached the imperial treasures and, from having been of late extreme in her restraint of her son, became now, on the other hand, lax to excess. The change did not escape Nero, his most intimate friends dreaded it and begged him to beware of the art of a woman who was always daring and was now false. It happened at this time that the emperor, after inspecting the apparel in which wives and mothers of the imperial house had been seen to glitter, selected a jeweled robe and sent it as a gift to his mother, with the unsparing liberality of one who was bestowing by preference on her a choice and much coveted present. Agrippina, however, publicly declared that so far from her wardrobe being furnished by these gifts, she was really kept out of the remainder and that her son was merely dividing with her what he derived wholly from herself. Some there were who put even a worse meaning on her words, and so Nero, furious with those who abetted such arrogance in a woman, removed Pallas from the charge of the business with which he had been entrusted by Claudius and in which he acted, so to say, as the controller of the throne. The story went that as he was departing with a great retinue of attendance, the emperor rather wittily remarked that Pallas was going to swear himself out of office. Pallas had in truth stipulated that he should not be questioned for anything he had done in the past and that his account with the state would be considered as balanced. Thereupon, with instant fury, Agrippina rushed into frightful menaces, sparing not the prince's ears her solemn protest, quote, that Britannicus was now of full age, he was the true and worthy heir of his father's sovereignty, which his son, by mere admission and adoption, was abusing in outrages on his mother. She shrank not from an utter exposure of the wickedness of that ill-starred house of her own marriage to begin with and of her poisonous craft. All that the gods and she herself had taken care of was that her sub-son was yet alive. With him she would go to the camp, where on one side should be heard the dulcimer of Germanicus, on the other the crippled borers and the exiled Seneca claiming forsooth with disfigured hand and a pedant's tongue the government of the world, end quote. As she spoke she raised her hand in menace and heaped insults on him, as she appealed to the deified Claudius, to the infernal shades of the Silani and to those many fruitless crimes. Nero was confounded at this and as the day was near on which Britannicus would complete his fourteenth year, he reflected now on the domineering temper of his mother and now again on the character of the young prince, which a trifling circumstance had lately tested, sufficient however, to gain for him wide popularity. During the Feast of Saturn amid other pastimes of his playmates, at a game of lot drawing for king, the lot fell to Nero, upon which he gave all his other companions different orders and such as would not put them to the blush. But when he told Britannicus to step forward and begin a song, hoping for a laugh at the expense of a boy who knew nothing of sober, much less of rioter society, the lad with perfect coolness commenced some verses which hinted at his expulsion from his father's house and from supreme power. This procured him pity, which was a more conspicuous as night with its merriment had stripped off all disguise. Nero saw the reproach and redoubled his hate. Pressed by Agropina's menaces, having no charge against his brother and not daring openly to order his murder, he meditated a secret devise and erected poison to be prepared through the agency of Julius Polio, tribune of one of the Praetorian cohorts, who had in his custody a woman under sentence for poisoning, Locuste by name, with a vast reputation for crime, that everyone about the person of Britannicus should care nothing for right or honour had long ago been provided for. He actually received his first dose of poison from his tutors and passed it off his bowels as it was rather weak or so qualified as not at once to prove deadly. But Nero, impatient at such slow progress in crime, threatened a tribune and ordered the poisoner to execution for prolonging his anxiety while they were thinking of the popular talk and planning their own defence. Then they promised that death should be as sudden as if it were the hurried work of the dagger and a rapid poison of previously tested ingredients was prepared close to the emperor's chamber. It was customary for the imperial princes to sit during their meals with other nobles of the same age in the sight of their kinsfolk at a table of their own furnished somewhat frugally. There Britannicus was dining and as what he ate and drank was always tested by the taste of a select attendant, the following device was contrived that the usage might not be dropped or the crime betrayed by the death of both prince and attendant. A cup as yet harmless but extremely hot and already tasted was handed to Britannicus. Then, on his refusing it because of its warmth, poison was poured in with some cold water and this so penetrated his entire frame that he lost a like voice and breath. There was a stir among the company, some, taken by surprise, ran hither and thither, while those whose discernment was keener remained motionless, with their eyes fixed on Nero, who, as he still reclined in seeming and consciousness, said that this was a common occurrence from a periodical epilepsy with which Britannicus had been afflicted from his earliest infancy and that his sight and senses would gradually return. As for Agropina, her terror and confusion, though her countenance struggled to hide it, so visibly appeared that she was clearly just as ignorant as was Octavia, Britannicus' own sister. She saw in fact that she was robbed of her only remaining refuge and that here was a precedent for parasite. Even Octavia, notwithstanding her youthful inexperience, had learned to hide her grief, her affection and indeed every emotion. And so, after a brief pause, the company resumed its mirth. One on the same night witnessed Britannicus' death and funeral. Appropriations having been already made for his obsequies, which were on a humble scale. He was, however, buried in the campus marshes amid storms so violent that in the popular belief they pretended the wrath of heaven against the crime which many were even inclined to forgive when they remembered the immemorial feuds of brothers and the impossibility of a divided throne. It is related by several writers of the period that many days before the murder Nero had offered the worst insult to the boyhood of Britannicus so that his death could no longer seem a premature or dreadful event that would happen at the sacred board without even a moment for the embraces of his sisters hurried on, too, as it was under the eyes of an enemy on the sole surviving offspring of the Claudii, the victim first of dishonour, then of poison. The Emperor apologised for the hasty funeral by reminding people that it was the practice of our instances to withdraw from view any grievously untimely death and not to dwell on it with penetrics or display. For himself he said that as he had now lost a brother's help his remaining hopes centred in the state and all the more tenderness ought to be shown by the senate and people towards a prince who was the only survivor of a family born to the highest greatness. End of Book 13, Part 1 Book 13, Part 2 of the Annals by Publius Cornelius Testus 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 Anna Simon. The Annals by Publius Cornelius Testus, translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Broderip. Book 13, AD 54 to 58, Part 2, The Beginning of the Rain of Nero He then enriched his most powerful friends with liberal presence. Some there were who approached men of austere professions with having on such an occasion divided houses and estates among themselves like so much spoil. It was the belief of others that a pressure had been put on them by the Emperor who, conscious as he was of guilt, hoped for merciful consideration to secure the most important men by wholesale bribery. But his mother's rage, no lavish bounty could allay. She would clasp Octavia to her arms and have many a secret interview with her friends. With more than her natural rapacity, she clutched that money everywhere, seemingly for a reserve, and courageously received tribunes and centurions. She honored the names and virtues of the nobles who still were left seeking apparently a party and a leader. Of this Nero became aware and he ordered the departure of the military guards now kept for the Emperor's mother as it had formerly been for the Imperial Concert along with some German troops added as a further honor. He also gave her a separate establishment that throngs of visitors might no longer wait on her and removed her to what had been Antonia's house. And whenever he went there himself he was surrounded by a crowd of centurions and used to leave her after a hurried kiss. Of all things human the most precarious and transitory is a reputation for power which has no strong support of its own. In a moment Agrippina's doors were deserted. There was no one to comfort or to go near her except a few ladies whether out of love or malice was doubtful. One of these was Junior Solana whom a Salina had driven from her husband Caius Cilius as I have already related. Conspicuous for her birth, her beauty and her wantonness she had long been a special favorite of Agrippina. Till after a while there were secret mutual dislikes because sexious Africanus a noble youth had been deterred from marrying Solana by Agrippina who repeatedly spoke of her as an immodest woman in the decline of life not to secure Africanus for herself but to keep the childless and wealthy widow out of her husband's control. Solana having now a prospect of vengeance suborned as accusers two of her creatures Iterius and Calviges not with the old and often repeated charges about Agrippina's mourning the death of Britannicus or publishing the wrongs of Actavia but with a hint that it was her purpose to encourage in revolutionary designs rebellious plotters who at his mother's side was as nearly connected as Nero with the divine Augustus and then by marrying him and making him emperor again seized the control of the state. All this Iterius and Calviges diverged to Atomedes a freedman of Domitia, Nero's aunt exulting in the opportunity for Agrippina and Domitia were in bitter rivalry Atomedes urged Paris who was himself also a freedman of Domitia to go at once and put the charge in the most dreadful form. Knight was far advanced and Nero was still sitting over his cups when Paris entered who was generally wanted such times to heighten the emperor's enjoyment but who now wore gloomy expression. He went through the whole evidence in order and so frightened his hearer as to make him resolve not only on the destruction of his mother and of plotters but also on the removal of Burrus from the command of the guards as a man who had been promoted by Agrippina's interest and was now showing his gratitude. We have it on the authority of Fabius Rusticus that a note was written to Cicina Tuscus entrusting to him the charge of the Praetorian cohorts but that through Seneca's influence that distinguished post was retained for Burrus. According to Plinius and Cluvius no doubt was felt by the commander's loyalty. Fabius suddenly inclines to the praise of Seneca through whose friendship he rose to honour. Proposing as I do to follow the consentions testimony of historians I shall give the differences in their narratives under the writer's names Nero in his bewilderment and impatience to destroy his mother could not be put off till Burrus answered for her death should she be convicted of the crime but anyone, he said, much more apparent must be allowed a defence. Accuses there were none forthcoming yet before them only the word of a single person from an enemy's house and this the night with its darkness and prolonged festivity and everything savouring of recklessness and folly was enough to refute. Having thus allayed the princess fears they went at daybreak to Agrippina that she might know the charges against her and either rebut them or suffer the penalty. Burrus fulfilled his instructions in Seneca's presence and some of the Freedmen were present to witness the interview. Then Burrus, when he had fully explained the charges with the author's names assumed an air of menace. Instantly Agrippina, calling up all her high spirit, exclaimed I wonder not that Solana, who has never borne offspring knows nothing of her mother's feelings. Parents do not change their children as lightly as a shameless woman does her paramours and if aeterias and calvisias after having wasted their whole fortunes are now as our last resource repaying an old hag for their hire by undertaking to be informers it does not follow that I am to incur the infamy of plotting a son's murder or that a Caesar is to have the consciousness of like guilt. As for the vicious enmity I should be thankful for it where she'd divide with me in good will towards my Nero. Now through her paramour at Timitas and the actor Paris she is so to say concocting a drama for the stage. She at her bay was increasing the magnificence of her fishponds when I was planning in my council's his adoption with her proconsul's powers and a consul-elect's rank and every other step to empire. Only let a man come forward who can charge me with having tempered with the praetorian cohorts in the capital with having sept the loyalty of the provinces or in a word with having bribed slaves and freedmen into any wickedness. Could I have lived with Britannicus in the possession of Powell? And if plotters or any other were to become master of the state so as to sit in judgment on me accusers for sooth would not be forthcoming to charge me not merely with a few unconscious expressions prompted by the eagerness of affection but with guilt from which a son alone could absolve me. End quote. There was profound excitement among those present and they even tried to soothe her agitation but she insisted on an interview with her son. Then instead of pleading her innocence as though she lacked confidence or her claims on him by way of reproach she obtained vengeance on her accusers and rewards for her friends. The superintendents of the corn supply was given to Phineas Rufus the direction of the games which the emperor was preparing to Oryntius Stella and the province of Egypt to Caius Balbillus. Syria was to be assigned to Publius Antius but he was soon put off by various artifices and finally detained at Rome. Silana was banished. Calvicius and Aetirius exiled for a time. Atemetus was capitally punished while Paris was too serviceable to the emperor's profligacy to allow of his suffering any penalty. Plautus for the present was silently passed over. Next, Palos and Burs were accused of having conspired to raise Cornelia Stella to the throne because of his noble birth and connection with Claudius whose son-in-law he was by his marriage with Antonia. The promoter of the prosecution was Juan Paitis who had become notorious by frequent purchases of property confiscated to the ex-chequer and was now convicted clearly of imposture. But the proved innocence of Palos did not please men so much as his arrogance offended them. When his freedmen, his alleged accomplices, were called he replied that at home he signified his wishes only by a nod or a gesture or if further explanation was required he used writing so as not to degrade his voice in such company. Burs, though accused, gave his verdict as one of the judges. The prosecutor was sentenced to exile and the account books in which he was reviving forgotten claims of the ex-chequer were burned. At the end of the year the cohort usually on guard during the games was withdrawn that there might be a greater show of freedom that the soldiery too might be less demoralized when no longer in contact with the license of the theatre and that it might be proved whether the populace in the absence of a guard would maintain their self-control. The emperor, on the advice of the augurs purified Rome by illustration as the temples of Jupiter and Minerva had been struck by lightning. In the consulship of Quintus Volusius and Publius Scipio there was peace abroad by the disgusting licentiousness at home on the part of Nero who, in a slave's disguise so as to be unrecognized would wander through the streets of Rome to brothels and taverns with comrades who seized on goods exposed for sale and inflicted wounds on any whom they encountered some of these last knowing him so little that he even received blows himself and showed the marks of them in his face. When it was notorious that the emperor was the assailant and the insults of men and women of distinction were multiplied other persons too on the strength of a license once granted in their Nero's name ventured with impunity on the same practices and had gangs of their own till night presented the scenes of a captured city. Julius Montanus, a senator but one who had not yet held any office happened to encounter the prince in the darkness and because he fiercely repulsed his attack and then on recognizing him begged for mercy as though this was a reproach was forced to destroy himself. Nero was for the future more timid and surrounded himself with soldiers and a number of gladiators who, when afraid began on a small scale and seemed a private affair were to let it alone but if the injured persons resisted stoutly they rushed in with their swords. He also turned the license of the games and the enthusiasm for the actors into something like a battle by the impunity he allowed and the rewards he offered and especially by looking on himself sometimes concealed but often in public view till with the people at strife and the fear of a worse commotion the only remedy which could be devised was the expulsion of the offending actors from Italy and the presence once more of the soldiery in the theatre. During the same time there was a discussion in the senate on the misconduct of the freedmen class and a strong demand was made that as a check on the undeserving patrons should have the right of revoking freedom. There were several who supported this but the consuls did not venture to put the motion without the emperor's knowledge though they recorded the senate's general opinion to see whether he would sanction the arrangement considering that only a few were opposed to it while some loudly complained that the irreverent spirit which freedom had fostered had broken into such excess that freedmen would ask their patrons advice as to whether they should treat them with violence or as legally their equals and would actually threaten them with blows at the same time recommending them not to punish. What right it was asked was conceded to an injured patron but that of temporarily banishing the freedmen a hundred miles off to the shores of Campania in everything else legal proceedings were equal and the same for both some weapon ought to be given to the patrons which could not be despised it would be no grievance for the enfranchised to have to keep their freedom by the same respectful behaviour which have procured it for them but as for notorious offenders they deserved to be dragged back into slavery that fear might be a restraint where kindness had had no effect it was argued in reply that though the guilt of a few ought to be the ruin of the men themselves there would be no diminution of the right of the entire class for it was, they contended a widely diffused body from it the city tribes the various public functionaries the establishments of the magistrates and priests were for the most part supplied as well as the cohorts of the city guard very many two of the knights and several of the senators they arrived their origin from no other source if freedmen were to be a separate class the paucity of the freeborn not without good reason had our ancestors in distinguishing the position of the different orders thrown freedom open to all again two kinds of enfranchisement had been instituted so as to leave room for retracting the boon or for a fresh act of grace those whom the patron had not emancipated with the freedom giving rod were still held as it were by the bonds of slavery every master should carefully consider the merits of each case and be slow to grant what once given could not be taken away this view prevailed and the emperor replied to the senate that whenever freedmen were accused by their patrons they were to investigate each case separately and not to annul any right to their common injury soon afterwards his aunt Demicia had her freedmen Paris taken from her avowedly by civil law much to the emperor's disgrace by whose direction a decision that it was freeborn was obtained still there yet remained some shadow a contest arose between Fibulius the praetor and Odysseus a tribune of the people for the tribune had ordered the release of some disorderly applauders of certain actors whom the praetor had imprisoned the senate approved the imprisonment and censured the presumption of Odysseus tribunes were also forbidden to usurp the authority of praetors and consuls or to summon from any part of Italy persons liable to legal proceedings it was further proposed by Lucius Piso consul-elect that tribunes were not to try any case in their own houses that a fine imposed by them was not to be entered on the public books by the officials of the exchequer till four months had expired and that in the meantime appeals were to be allowed which the consuls were to decide restrictions were also put on the powers of the edals and the limit fixed to the amount of bail or penalty which curil and plebeian edals could respectively exact on this Helvidius Priscus a tribune of the people followed up a personal quarrel he had with Obaltronius Sabinus one of the officials of the exchequer by insinuating that he stretched his right of confiscation with merciless rigor against the poor the emperor then transferred the charge of the public accounts from these officers to the commissioners the arrangement of this business had been variously and frequently altered Augustus allowed the senate to appoint commissioners when corrupt practices were suspected in the voting men were chosen by lot for the office out of the whole number of pretors this did not last long as the lot strayed away to unfit persons Claudius then again appointed questers and that they might not be too lax in their duties from fear of offending he promised them promotion out of the usual course but what they lacked was the firmness of a mature age entering as they did on this office as their first step and so Nero appointed ex pretors of approved competency during the same consulship Vipsanius Lienus was condemned for a rapacity in his administration of the province of Sardinia Sistius procures was acquitted of extortion his accusers dropping the charge Claudius Quirinalis having when in command of the crews at Revena caused grievous distress to Italy by his profligacy and cruelty just as if it were the most contemptible of countries forstalled his doom by poison Caninius Rebilis one of the first men in legal knowledge and vastness of wealth escaped the miseries of an old age of broken health by letting the blood trickle from his veins though men did not credit him with sufficient resolution for a self inflicted death because of his infamous effeminacy Lucius Felucius on the other hand died with a glorious name there was his long life of 93 years his conspicuous wealth honorably acquired and his wise avoidance of the malignity of so many emperors during Nero's second consulship with Lucius Piso for his colleague little occurred deserving mention unless one were to take pleasure in filling volumes with the praise of the foundations and timber work on which the emperor piled the immense amphitheater in the field of Mars but we have learned that it suits the dignity of the Roman people to reserve history for great achievements and to leave such details to the city's daily register I may mention that the colonies of New Syria and Capua were strengthened by an addition of veterans to every member of the city populace 400 cisterces were given and 40 million paid into the exchequer to maintain the credit of the citizens a tax also of 4% on the sale of slaves was remitted an apparent more than a real boon for as the seller was ordered to pay it purchases found that it was as part of the price the emperor by an edict forbade any magistrate or procurator in the government of a province to exhibit a show of gladiators or of wild beasts or indeed any other public entertainment for hitherto our subjects had been as much oppressed by such bribery as by actual extortion while governors sought to screen by corruption the guilty deeds of arbitrary caprice the senate next passed a decree providing a like for punishment and safety if a master were murdered by his slaves all those who were enfranchised by his will and lived under the same roof were to suffer the capital punishment with his other slaves Lucius Varius, an ex-console who had been crushed in the past under charges of extortion, was restored to his rank as a senator Pomponius Grisina, a distinguished lady, wife of the Plothiers who returned from Britain with innovation was accused of some foreign superstition and handed over to her husband's judicial decision following ancient precedent he heard his wife's cause in the presence of kinsfolk involving as it did her legal status and character and he reported that she was innocent this Pomponius lived a long life of unbroken melancholy after the murder of Julia Drusas's daughter by Masalina's treachery for forty years she wore only the attire of a mourner with a heart ever sorrowful for this, during Claudius's reign she escaped unpunished and it was afterwards counted a glory to her the same year so many impeached one of these probably is Scylla prosecuted by the province of Asia the emperor could not acquit and so he put off the case till the man died of old age Scylla, as I've related had murdered Solanus, the proconsul and the magnitude of this crime Kosothianus Capito was accused by the people of Cilicia he was a man stained with the foulest guilt and had actually imagined that his audacious wickedness had the same rights in a province as he had claimed for it at Rome but he had to confront a determined prosecution and at last abandoned his defense Iprius Marcellus from whom Licia demanded compensation was so powerfully supported by corrupt influence that some of his accusers were punished with exile as though they had imperiled an innocent man end of book 13 part 2 Nero entered on his third consulship with Valerius Micella whose great-grandfather the orator Corvinus was still remembered by a few old men as having been the colleague of the Divine Augustus Nero's great-grandfather in the same office but the honor of a noble house was further increased but the honor of a noble house was further increased but the honor of a noble house was further increased by an annual grant of 500,000 cestercas on which Micella might support virtuous poverty Aurelius Cata, too, and Hitorius Antonius had yearly stipends assigned them by the emperor though they had squandered their ancestral wealth in profligacy early in this year a war between Parthia and Rome about the possession of Armenia which feebly begun had hitherto dragged on and adversely resumed for vulgices would not allow his brother to erratities to be deprived of a kingdom in which he had himself given him or to hold it as a gift from a foreign power and Corbolo, too, thought it due the grandeur of Rome that he should recover what Lucullus and Pompeius had formerly won Besides, the Armenians in the fluctuation of their allegiance sought the armed protection in both empires though by their country's position and by the ties of intermarriage they were more connected with the Parthians to whose subjection in their ignorance of freedom they rather inclined Corbolo, however, had more to struggle against in the supineness of his soldiers than in the treachery of the enemy His legions, indeed, transferred as they had been from Syria and demoralized by a long peace endured most impatiently the duties of a Roman camp It was well known on P.K. duty or on Nightguard and to whom the Rampart and the Foss were new and strange sights Men without helmets or breastplates sleek, money-making traitors who had served their time in towns Corbolo, having discharged all who were old or in ill health sought to supply their places and levies were held in Galatia and Cappadocia and to those were added a legion from Germany with all its auxiliary cavalry and light infantry The entire army was kept under canvas though the winter was so severe that the ground, covered as it was with ice did not yield a place for tents without being dug up Many of the men had their limbs frost-bitten through the intensity of the cold and some perished on guard A soldier was observed whose hands mortified as he was carrying a bundle of wood so that sticking to their burden they dropped off from his arms now mere stumps with head uncovered was continually with his men on the march amid their labors he had praise for the brave comfort for the feeble and was a good example to all and then as many shrank from the rigor of the climate and of the service and deserted he sought a remedy in strictness of discipline not as in other armies was a first or a second offense condoned but the soldier who had quitted his colors instantly paid the penalty with his life This was shown by experience to be a wholesome measure better than mercy for there were fewer desertions in that camp than in those in which leniency was habitual Meanwhile Corbulog kept his legions within the camp till spring weather was fairly established and having stationed his auxiliary infantry at suitable points he directed them not to begin an engagement the charge of these defensive positions he entrusted to Paseus Orphatus who had held the post of the first rank centurion though this officer had reported that the barbarians were heedless and that an opportunity for success presented itself he was instructed to keep within his entrenchments and wait for a stronger force but he broke the order and on the arrival of a few cavalry squadrons from the nearest forts who in their inexperience insisted on fighting he engaged the enemy and was routed panicked stricken by his disaster he sought to have given him support returned in precipitant flight to their respective encampments Corbulog heard of this with displeasure he sharply censured Paseus the officers and soldiers and ordered them to have their quarters outside the lines there they were kept in disgrace and were released only on the intercession of the whole army Tiridotus, meantime who, besides his own dependencies had the powerful aid of his brother Ravaged Armenia not in stealthy raids as before but in open war plundering all whom he thought loyal to Rome while he eluded in action with any force which was brought against him and thus flying hither and thither he spread panic more widely by rumour than arms so Corbulog frustrated in his prolonged efforts to bring on an engagement and compelled like the enemy to carry hostilities everywhere, divided his army so that his generals and officers might attack several points simultaneously he at the same time instructed King Antiochus to hasten to the provinces on his frontier as per Asmenis after having slain his son Radiministus as a traitor to prove his loyalty to us was following up more keenly than ever his old feud with the Armenians then for the first time we won the friendship of the Mashi a nation which became preeminently attached to Rome and they overran the wilds of Armenia thus the intended plans of teretities were wholly reversed and he sent envoys to ask on behalf of himself and of the Parthians why, when hostages had lately been given and a friendship renewed which might open the way up to further acts of good will he was thus driven from Armenia his ancient possession as yet he said Volodgeses had not bestowed himself simply because they preferred negotiation to violence should, however, war be persisted in the Aracids would not want the courage and good fortune which had already been proved more than once by disaster to Rome Corbulo, in reply, when he was certain that Volodgeses was detained by the revolt of Hercania advised teretities to address a petition to the emperor assuring him that he might reign securely and without bloodshed the prospect in the remote future for the sake of one more solid within his reach as no progress was made towards a final settlement of peace by the interchange of messages it was at last decided to fix the time in a place for an interview between the leaders a thousand troopers, teretities said would be his escort what force of every kind was to be with Corbulo he did not prescribe provided they came in peaceful fashion without breastplates and helmets any human being to say nothing of an old and wary general would have seen through the barbarians cunning which assigned a limited number on one side and offered a larger on the other expressly with a treacherous intent for were they to be exposed to a cavalry trained in the use of arrows with the person undefended numbers would be unavailing Corbulo, however, pretending not to understand this replied that they would do better to discuss matters requiring consideration for their common good of the entire armies and he selected a place partly consisting of gently sloping hills suited for ranks of infantry partly of a spreading plain where troops of cavalry could maneuver on the appointed day arriving first he posted his allied infantry with the king's auxiliaries on the wings the sixth legion in the center with which he had united three thousand men of the third brought up in the night from another camp with one eagle so as to look like a rebel legion Teradities, towards evening, showed himself at some distance once he could be seen rather than heard and so the Roman general, without any conference, ordered his troops to retire to their respective camps the king either suspected a stratagem from those simultaneous movements in different directions or intending to cut off our supplies as they were coming up from the sea of Pontus and the town of Trapezes hastily withdrew to take any attack on the supplies as they were brought over mountains in the occupation of our forces Corbulo, that war might not be uselessly protracted and also to compel the Armenians to defend their possessions prepared to destroy their fortresses himself undertaking the assault on the strongest of all in that province named Volatim the weaker he assigned to Cornelius Flossus, his lieutenant and to Instaeus Capito having then surveyed the defenses and provided everything suitable for storming them he exhorted his soldiers to strip off his home this vagabond foe who was preparing neither for peace nor for war but who confessed his treachery and cowardice by flight and so to secure a like, glory and spoil then forming his army into four divisions he led one in the dense array of the Testudo close up to the rampart to undermine it while others were ordered to apply scaling ladders to the walls and many more were to discharge brands and javelins from engines the slingers and artillery men had a portion assigned to them from which to hurl their missiles at a distance so that with equal tumult everywhere no support might be given from any point to such as were pressed so impetuous were the efforts of the army that within a third part of one day the walls were stripped of their defenders the barriers of the gates overthrown the fortifications scaled and captured and all the adult inhabitants massacred without the loss of a soldier and with but very few wounded the non-military population were sold by auction the rest of the booty fell to the conquerors Corbulo's lieutenant and Camp Prefect met with similar success three forts were stormed by them in one day and the remainder some from panic others by the consent of the occupants capitulated this inspired them with confidence to attack the capital of the country our taxata the legions however were not marched by the nearest route for should they cross the river of axes which washes the city's walls by a bridge they would be within missile range they passed over it at a distance where it was broad and shallow meantime Teradites ashamed of seeming utterly powerless by not interfering with the siege and afraid that in attempting to stop it he would entangle himself in his cavalry on difficult ground resolved finally to display his forces and either give battle on the first opportunity or by a pretended flight prepare the way for some stratagem suddenly he threw himself on the Roman columns without however surprising our general who had formed his army for fighting as well as for marching on the right and left flanks marched the third and sixth legions with some picked men of the tenth and the center the baggage was secured within the lines and the rear was guarded by a thousand cavalry who were ordered to resist any close attack of the enemy but not to pursue his retreat on the wings were the foot archers and the remainder of the cavalry with a more extended line along the left wing along the base of some hills so that should the enemy penetrate the center he might be encountered both in front and flank Teradites faced us in skirmishing order but not within missile range now threatening attack now seemingly afraid with the view of loosening our formation and falling on isolated divisions finding that there was no breaking of our ranks from rashness and that only one cavalry officer advanced too boldly and that he falling pierced with arrows conformed the rest in obedience by the warning he retired on the approach of darkness Corbulo then encamped on the spot and considered whether he should push on his legions without their baggage to our taxata and blockade the city on which he supposed Teradites had fallen back when his scouts reported that the king had undertaken a long march and that it was doubtful whether Medea or Albania was its destination he waited for daylight and then sent on his light arm troops which were meanwhile to hover round the walls and begin the attack from a distance the inhabitants however took their own accord and surrendered themselves and their property to the Romans this saved their lives the city was fired, demolished and leveled to the ground as it could not be held without a strong garrison from the extent of the walls and we had not sufficient force to be divided between adequately garrisoning it and carrying on the war if again the place were left untouched and unguarded no advantage or glory would accrue from its capture a powerful occurrence almost a divine interposition while the whole space outside the town up to its buildings was bright with sunlight the enclosure within the walls was suddenly shrouded in a black cloud seamed with lightning flashes and thus the city was thought to be given up to destruction as if heaven was wroth against it for all this Nero was unanimously saluted emperor and by the senate's decree a thanksgiving was held statues also and successive consulships were voted to him and among the holy days were to be included the day on which the victory was won that on which it was announced and that on which the motion was brought forward other proposals too of a like kind were carried on a scale so extravagant that Cais Caches after having assented to the rest of the honors argued that if the gods were to be thanked for the bountiful favors of fortune even a whole year would not suffice and therefore there ought to be a classification of sacred and business days so they might observe divine ordinances and yet not interfere with human affairs a man who had struggled with various calamities and earned the hate of many was then impeached and condemned but not without angry feelings towards Seneca this was Publius Swellius he had been terrible and venal while Claudius reigned and when times were changed he was not so much that his enemies wished and was one who would rather seem a criminal than a suppliant with the intent of crushing him so men believed a decree of the senate was revived along with the penalty of the Sincian law against persons who had pleaded for hire Swellius spared not complaint or indignant remonstrance free-spoken because of his extreme age as well as from his insolent temper he taunted Seneca with his savage enmity against the friends of Claudius under whose reign he had endured a most righteously deserved exile the man he said familiar as he was only with profitless studies and with the ignorance of boyhood envied those who employed a lively and genuine eloquence in the defense of their fellow citizens he had been Germanicus's quester while Seneca had been a paramour in his house was it to be thought a worse offense to obtain a reward for honest service with the litigants consent to loot the chambers of the imperial ladies by what kind of wisdom or maxims of philosophy had Seneca within four years of royal favour amassed three hundred millions cestercas at Rome the wills of the childless were so to say caught in his snare while Italy and the provinces were drained by boundless usury his own money on the other hand had been acquired by industry and was not excessive he would suffer persecutions, perils and in the exact words or with the worst sense put upon it accusers were also found who alleged that our allies had been plundered when swelias governed the province of Asia and that there had been embezzlement of public monies then as an entire year had been granted to them for inquiries he deemed a shorter plan to begin with his crimes at Rome the witnesses of which were on the spot these men charged swelias with having driven Quintus Pomponius by a relentless prosecution into the extremity of civil war with having forced Julia, Drus' daughter and Sabina Poppea to suicide with having treacherously ruined Valerius, Asiaticus Lucius, Cetarninus and Cornelius Lupus in fact with the wholesale conviction of troops of Roman knights and with all the cruelty of Claudius his defense was that of all this he had done nothing on his own responsibility but had simply obeyed the emperor till Nero stopped such pleadings by stating that he had ascertained from his father's notebooks that he had never compelled the prosecution of a single person swelias then sheltered himself under Messolina's orders and the defense began to collapse why it was asked chosen to put his tongue at the service of that savage harlot we must punish the instruments of atrocious acts when having gained the rewards of wickedness they impute the wickedness to others and so with the loss of half his property his son and granddaughter being allowed to retain the other half and what they had inherited under their mothers or grandmothers wills also being exempted from confiscation swelias was banished to the Beleric Isles neither in the crisis of his peril nor after his condemnation did he quail in spirit rumors said that he supported that lonely exile by a life of ease and plenty when the accusers attacked his son Nerolynas on the strength of the men's hatred of the father and of some charges of extortion the emperor interposed as if implying that vengeance was fully satisfied End of Book 13, Part 3A Book 13, Part 3B of the Annals by Publius Cornelius Tacitus this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Annals by Publius Cornelius Tacitus translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Broadrib Book 13, A.D. 54-58 Part 3B Military Actions in the East about the same time Octavius Sagida a tribune of the people who was enamored to frenzy of Pontia, a married woman bribed her by most costly presence into an intrigue and then into abandoning her husband he had offered her marriage and had won her consent but as soon as she was free she devised delays pretending that her father's wishes were against it and having secured the prospect of a richer husband she dedicated her promises Octavius, on the other hand now remonstrated, now threatened his good name he protested was lost his means exhausted and as for his life which was all that was left to him he surrendered it to her mercy when she spurned him he asked the solace of one night with which to soothe his passion that he might set bounds to it for the future a night was fixed and Pontia entrusted the charge of her chamber to a female slave Octavius, attended by one freed man entered with a dagger concealed under his dress then as usual in lovers' quarrels there were tidings and treaties reproaches, excuses and some period of the darkness was given up to passion then when seemingly about to go and she was fearing nothing he stabbed her with the steel and having wounded and scared away the slave girl who was hurrying to her rushed out of the chamber next day the murder was notorious and there was no question as to the murderer for it was proved that he had passed some time with her the freed man, however, declared the deed was his that he had, in fact, avenged his patron's wrongs he had made some impression by the nobleness of his example when the slave girl recovered and revealed the truth Octavius, when he ceased to be tribune was prosecuted before the consuls by the father of the murdered woman and was condemned by the sentence of the senate under the law concerning assassins a profligacy equally notorious in that same year proved the beginning of the great evils to the state there was at Rome one Sabina Popaea her father was Titus Olius but she had assumed the name of her maternal grandfather Popaeus Sabinus a man of illustrious memory and preeminently distinguished by the honors of a consulship and a triumph as for Olius, before he attained promotion the friendship of Shajanas was his ruin this Popaea had everything but a right mind her mother, who surpassed in personal attractions all the ladies of her day had bequeathed alike her fame and beauty her fortune adequately corresponded to the nobility of her descent her conversation was charming and her wit anything but dull she professed virtue while she practiced laxity seldom did she appear in public and it was always with her face partly veiled either to disappoint men's gaze or to set off her beauty her character she never spared making no distinction between a husband and a paramour while she was never a slave to her own passion or that of her lover wherever there was a prospect of advantage there she transferred her favors and so while she was living as the wife of Rufius Crispinus a Roman knight by whom she had a son she was attracted by the youth and fashionable elegance of Otto and by the fact, too, that he was reputed to have Nero's most ardent friendship without any delay the intrigue was followed by marriage Otto now began to praise his wife's beauty and accomplishments to the emperor either from a lover's thoughtlessness or to inflame Nero's passion in the hope of adding to his own influence by the further tie which would arise out of the possession of the same woman often as he rose from the emperor's table he was heard repeatedly to say that he was going to her to the high berth and beauty which had fallen to his lot to that which all men pray for the joy of the fortunate these and like incitements allowed but of brief delay once having gained admission Popea won by her way of artful blandishments pretending that she could not resist her passion and that she was captivated by Nero's person soon as the emperor's love grew ardent she would change and be supercilious and if she were detained more than one or two nights would say again and again that she was a married woman and could not give up her husband attached as she was to Otto by a manner of life which no one equalled his ideas and his style were grand at his house everything worthy of the highest fortune was ever before her eyes Nero on the contrary with his slave girl mistress tied down by his attachment to Acti had derived nothing from his slave's associations but what was low and degrading Otto was now cut off from Nero's usual familiar intercourse and then even from interviews and from the royal suite and at last was appointed governor of the province of Lusitania that he might not be the emperor's rival at Rome there he lived up to the time of the civil wars not in the fashion of his disgraceful past but uprightly and virtuously a pleasure-loving man when idle and self-restrained when in power hitherto Nero had sought avail for his abominations and wickedness he was particularly suspicious of Cornelius Sulla whose apathetic temper he interpreted as really the reverse inferring that he was, in fact, an artful assembler Graptus, one of the emperor's freedmen whose age and experience had made him thoroughly acquainted with the imperial household from the time of Tiberius quickened these apprehensions by the following falsehood the Mulvian bridge was then a famous haunt of nightly profligacy and Nero used to go there that he might take his pleasures more freely outside the city so Graptus taking advantage of an idle panic into which the royal attendants had chance to have been thrown on their return by one of those youthful frolics which were then everywhere practised invented a story that a treacherous attack had been planned on the emperor should he go back by the Flaminian road and that through the favour of destiny he had escaped it as he went home by a different way to Sulla's gardens Sulla, he said, was the author of this plot not one, however, of Sulla's slaves or clients was recognised and his character, despicable as it was and incapable of a daring act, was utterly at variance with the charge still, just as if he had been found guilty he was ordered to leave his country and confine himself within the walls of Massilia during the same council-ship a hearing was given to two conflicting deputations from Putioli sent to the senate by the town council and by the populace the first spoke bitterly of the violence of the multitude the second of the rapacity of the magistrates and of all the chief citizens that the disturbance which had gone as far as stoning and threats of fire might not lead on to bloodshed and armed fighting, Cias Cassius was appointed to apply some remedy as they would not endure his rigor the charge of the affair was, at his own request, transferred to the brothers Scrobonia to whom was given a praetorian cohort the terror of which, coupled with the execution of a few persons, restored peace to the townspeople I should not mention a very trivial decree of the senate which allowed the city of Syracuse to exceed the prescribed number in their gladiatorial shows had not Paceus Thrasius spoken against it and furnished his traducers with the ground for censuring his motion why, it was asked, if he thought that the public welfare required freedom of speech in the senate did he pursue such trifling abuses why should he not speak for or against peace and war or on the taxes and laws and other matters involving Roman interests the senators, as often as they received the privilege of stating an opinion were at liberty to say what they pleased and to claim that it should be put to the vote was it the only worthy object of reform to provide that the Syracusans should not give shows on a larger scale were all other matters in every department of the empire as admirable as if Thracia and not Nero had the direction of them but, if the highest affairs were passed by and ignored how much more ought there to be no meddling with things wholly insignificant Thracia, in reply, when his friends asked an explanation said that it was not an ignorance of Rome's actual condition that he sought to correct such decrees but that he was giving what was due to the honour of the senators in making it evident that those who attended even to the nearest trifles would not disguise their responsibility for important affairs that same year repeated demands on the part of the people who denounced the excessive greed of the revenue collectors made Nero doubt whether he should not order the repeal of all indirect taxes and so confer a most splendid boon on the human race but this sudden impulse was checked by the senators who having first heartily praised the grandeur of his conception pointed out that the dissolution of the empire must ensue if the revenues which supported the state were to be diminished for as soon as the customs were swept away there would follow a demand for the abolition of the direct taxes many companies for the collection of the indirect taxes had been formed by consuls and tribunes when the freedom of the Roman people was still in its figure and arrangements were subsequently made to ensure an exact correspondence between the amount of income and the necessary disbursements certainly some restraint they admitted must be put on the cupidity of the revenue collectors that they might not by new oppressions bring into odium what for so many years had been endured without a complaint accordingly the emperor issued an edict that the regulations about every branch of the public service which had hitherto been kept secret should be published that claims which had been dropped should not be revived after a year that the praetor at Rome the apropraetor or proconsul in the provinces should give judicial precedence to all cases against the collectors that the soldiers should retain their immunities except when they traded for profit with other very equitable arrangements which for a short time were maintained and were subsequently disregarded however the repeal of the 2% and 2.5% tax remains in force as well as that of others bearing names invented by the collectors to cover their illegal exactions in our trans marine provinces the conveyance of corn was rendered less costly and it was decided that merchant ships should not be assessed with their owner's property and that no tax should be paid on them two men under prosecution from Africa in which province they had held proconsular authority sepulcius comarinus and pomponius sylvanus were acquitted by the emperor comarinus had against him few private persons who charged him with cruelty rather than with extortion sylvanus was beset by a host of accusers who demanded time for summoning their witnesses while the defendant insisted on being at once put on his defence and he was successful through his wealth his childlessness and his old age which he prolonged beyond the life of those by whose corrupt influence he had escaped up to this time everything had been quiet in Germany from the temper of the generals who, now that triumphal decorations had been vulgarized hoped for greater glory by the maintenance of peace polinus pompaeus and lucius vetis were then command of the army still to avoid keeping the soldiers in idleness the first completed the embankment began sixty-three years before by juices to confine the waters of the Rhine while Vestis prepared to connect the Moselle and the Erar by a canal so that troops crossing the sea and then conveyed on the Rhine and Erar might sail by this canal into the Moselle and the Rhine and thence to the ocean thus the difficulties of the route being removed there would be communication for ships between the shores of the west and of the north alias Gracilis, the governor of Belgica discouraged the work by seeking to deter vetis from bringing his legions into another man's province and so drawing to himself the attachment of Gaul this result he repeatedly said would excite the fears of the emperor an assertion by which meritorious undertakings are often hindered meantime from the continued inaction of our armies a rumor prevailed that the commanders had been deprived of the right of leading them against the enemy thereupon the frisi moved up their youth to the forests and swamps and their non-fighting population over the lakes to the riverbanks and established themselves in unoccupied lands reserved for the use of our soldiers under the leadership of Veritas and Malarex the kings of the tribe as far as the Germans are under kings already they had settled themselves in houses and had sown the fields and were cultivating the soil as if it had been their ancestors when dubious avatars who had succeeded to pollinus in the province by threatening them with a Roman attack if they did not retire into their old country or obtain a new territory from the emperor constrained Veritas and Malarex to become suppliants they went to Rome and while they waited for Nero who was intent on other engagements among the sites shown to the barbarians they were admitted into Pompey's theater where they might behold the vastness of the Roman people there at their leisure for in the entertainment ignorant as they were they found no amusement they asked questions about the crowd on the benches about the distinctness of classes who were the knights where was the senate till they observed some persons in foreign dress on the seats of the senators having asked who they were when they were told that this honor was granted to envoys from those nations which were distinguished for their bravery and their friendship to Rome they exclaimed that no men on earth surpassed the Germans in arms or in loyalty then they went down and took their seat among the senators the spectators hailed the act goodnaturally as due to the impulsiveness of a primitive people and to an honorable rivalry Nero gave both of them the Roman franchise and ordered the Friesi to withdraw from the territory in question when they disdained obedience some auxiliary cavalry by a sudden attack made it a necessity for them capturing or slaughtering those who obstinately resisted of this same territory the Ampsavari now possessed themselves a tribe more powerful not only from their numbers but from having the sympathy of the neighboring peoples as they had been expelled by the Chossi and had to beg as homeless outcasts a secure exile their cause was pleaded by a man famous among those nations and loyal to Rome Biocallus by name who reminded us that on the Cheriscan revolt he had been imprisoned by the order of Arminius that afterward he had served under the leadership of Tiberius and Germanicus and that to a fifty years obedience he was adding the merit of subjecting his tribe to our dominion what an extent of plain he would say lies open into which the flocks and herds of the Roman soldiers may someday be sent let them by all means keep retreats for their cattle while men are starving only let them not prefer a waste and a solitude to friendly nations once these fields belong to the Chamavi then to the Tabantis after them to the Usipi as heaven is for the gods so the earth has been given to mankind lands unoccupied are common to all then looking up to the sun and invoking the other heavenly bodies he asked them as though standing in their presence whether they wished to behold an empty soil rather let them submerge it beneath the sea against the plunderers of the land Avidus was impressed by this language and said that people must submit to the rule of their betters that the gods to whom they appealed had willed that the decision as to what should be given or taken from them was to rest with the Romans who would allow none but themselves to be judges this was his public answer to the Ampsavari to Biocalis his reply was that in remembrance of past friendship he would cede the lands in question Biocalis spurned the offer as the price of treason adding we may lack a land to live in we cannot lack one to die in and so they parted with mutual exasperation the Ampsavari now called on the Brook Terry the tank Terry and yet more distant tribes to be their allies in war Avidus having written to Cretilius Mancia commander of the upper army asking him to cross the Rhine and display his troops in the enemy's rear himself led his legions into the territory of the tank Terry and threatened them with extermination unless they disassociated themselves from the cause when upon this the tank Terry stood aloof the Brook Terry were cowed by alike terror and so as the rest two were for a verning perils which did not concern them the Ampsavarian tribe in its isolation retreated to the UCP and Tubantis driven out of these countries they sought refuge with the Chutty and then with the Cheruski and after long wanderings as destitute outcasts received now as friends and now as foes their entire youth were slain in a strange land and all who could not fight were apportioned as booty the same summer a great battle was fought between the Hermunduri and the Chutty both forcibly claiming a river which produced salt and plenty and bounded their territories they had not only a passion for settling every question by arms but also a deep rooted superstition that such localities are specially near to heaven and that mortal prayers are nowhere more attentively heard by the gods it is they think through the bounty of divine power that in that river and in those forests salt is produced not as in other countries by the drying up of an overflow of the sea but by the combination of two opposite elements fire and water when the ladder had been poured over a burning pile of wood the war was a success for the Hermunduri and the more disastrous to the Chutty because they had devoted in the event of victory the enemies army to Mars and Mercury a vow which consigns horses men everything indeed on the vanquished side to destruction and so the hostile threat recoiled on themselves meanwhile a state in alliance with us that of the Ubi suffered grievously from an unexpected calamity fires suddenly bursting from the earth seized everywhere on country houses crops and villages and were rushing on to the very walls of the newly founded colony nor could they be extinguished by the fall of rain or by river water or by any other moisture till some countrymen in despair of a remedy and infuriate the disaster flung stones from a distance and then approaching nearer as the flames began to sink tried to scare them away like so many wild beasts with the blows of clubs and other weapons at last they stripped off their clothes and threw them on the fire which they were the more likely to quench the more they had been soiled by common use that same year the fact that the tree and the Khametiam which 840 years before had sheltered the infancy of Romulus and Remus was impaired by the decay of its bows and by the withering of its stem was accounted important till it began to renew its life with fresh chutes End of book 13