 section 12 of the complete works of Tacitus edited by Thomas Gordon this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recorded by Anna Simon the complete works of Tacitus to which our prefixed political discourse is upon that author edited and translated by Thomas Gordon with introductory essays by Thomas Gordon volume one discourse nine upon courts section one of freedom of speech and how reasonable it is to the foregoing discourse upon flattery I thought it might not be unsuitable to subjoin another upon courts the place where that pestilent and unmanly practices want chiefly to prevail during those rains which I have been describing when power was established in terrors and subjection converted into a basement small was the wonder that restrained upon speech was no inconsiderable link in the public chain and care taken that such as presumed to breathe odd but vasalage should not breathe at all this was wretched policy barbarous and impossible to be practiced the passions are not to be extinguished but with life and to forbid people especially a suffering people to speak is to forbid them to feel it is not indeed to be expected that man should be suffered to meet together tumultuously in order to publish their mutual discontents and wrongs and to inflame one another but complaints other than their families or dropped occasionally or communicated to a friend can never affect authority the more men express of their hate and resentment perhaps the less they retain and sometimes they vent the whole that way but these passions where they are smothered will be apt to faster to grow venomous and to discharge themselves by a more dangerous organ than the mouth even by an armed and vindictive hand less dangerous is a reeling mouth than a heart filled and inflamed with bitterness and curses and more terrible to a prince ought to be the secret execrations of his people than their open revilings or then even the assaults of his enemies of all the blood spilled on the Tiberias and the following tyrants for words and for no greater cause of the Luge was spilled how small a part conduce to their security none that I remember but every drop was an indelible stain upon their persons and upon their government every drop derived hatred and consequently weakness and danger upon it rigorous punishment for small faults or for such as in the common opinion pass for none is a mark of ill politics it makes the spirit of the administration look hideous and dreadful and it renders every man who finds himself liable to the like folds a capital enemy surely it ought to be a maximum government that errors which can have no consequences or to have no punishment all of our Cromwell who seems to have seen far into the heart of man was little affected with the hard words and invectives of particulars and as high as he carried authority left people to talk and rail the same is true of the late Regent of France one who well knew human nature and the nature of power it was then common to see Frenchman's swagger and storm as freely as an old Roman would have done against an unpopular magistrate in truth where no liberty is allowed to speak of governors besides that of praising them their praises will be little believed the tenderness in a version to have their conduct examined will be apt to prompt people to think their conduct guilty or weak to suspect their management and designs to be worse than perhaps they are and to become turbulent and seditious rather than be forced to be silent when nothing but incense and applause will be accepted or born all plain dealing all honest counsel and true information will be at an end and banished to make room for deceitful iterations for pleasing and pernicious falsehoods if princes whose memory is disliked had allowed their subjects and contemporaries to have spoken truth to them or of them probably posterity would not have spoken so much ill as it is probable they would not then have deserved it and I am up to believe that it had been better for all of them to have permitted all that could have been said than to have missed hearing what it imported them to have heard better to have heard the disgusts and railings of their people that their people were armed against them or revolted from them a fate which has befallen some of them who having had coaches over complacent or ears over tender learned that they were dethroned before they had learned that they were not beloved and found scarce any interval between the acclimations of flatters and the strokes of an executioner such as the genius of courts where ill tidings are generally concealed or disguised such too often the silence and soothing of coaches who tell only or chiefly what is pleasing and such sometimes the pride and impatience of princes that they will suffer nothing which ruffles their passions to approach their understanding section to the spirit of coaches what some good ones it is something else than zeal for telling truth that carries man to court and keeps the minute to raise an interest or to preserve it is the more prevailing passion and because whoever sets its foot there with any of you to place in favor is always sure of competitors be his person or pretenses what they will ever so considerable or inconsiderable his chief care will be to conquer opposers and secure himself and as there ever will be some opposition real or apprehended that care will be constant hence the spirit of a court selfish suspicious and unfriendly and hence the supple spirit of coaches to love and hate court and avoid praise and persecute the same person with notable suddenness just as he is promoted or disgraced and can help or hurt or as to be deprived of all capacity to do either to be well with the subsisting power with him who holds the reins of authority and distributes or causes to be distributed the blessings and tears of power is the main pursuit his motions are chiefly watched his affections and aversions are studied and adopted and thus a smile or a frown from the throne or from one who is next to the throne is eagerly catched up seizes the phases of a whole drawing room in an instant and is handed down with signal uniformity through all classes of men from a grandee to the lowest clerk in an office a court is a great exchange where one or a few have favors to dispose of where many resort to procure them and we're all therefore strive to out go in the ways of pleasing everyone who has the same aim and study every method to render themselves acceptable. Hence their obsequious countenances flattery insinuations and zeal some passions concealed some disguised and others personated hence to their attachment to such as can help to promote them and their neglect of such as cannot hence with them good fortune however unworthily placed always passes for merit and abilities ever sync with power and hence their falsehood ingratitude and courtes behavior that this is true of the herd of coaches I believe will be allowed without doubt there are exceptions and men of great honor disinterested and friendship are often to be found there men who scorn treachery and baseness and would risk all rather than do a mean thing such were many as lepidus Seneca and Burrus such coxay as Nerva and Julius Agricola and such where the Chancellor the hospital Chancellor Hyde and the Earl Southampton all these great men were coaches and lived in courts full of corruption and dangerous designs all practiced some degrees of suppleness submitted their opinions to the necessity of the times and by defeating many evil measures where the authors of much good though not of all that they would Cardinal Richle makes heavy complaints of the opposition which he found his best designs from the credit and intrigues of women and the whispers and ill offices of malevolent coaches these great men above mentioned were likewise often wronged bad councils which they had hardly opposed were imputed to them and when they concurred with some excesses to opiate much greater just allowances were not made and our motors were spitefully construed thus the Chancellor the hospital was severely centered by the Ugonauts for passing the edict of room around them which bore hard upon them though by that edict he prevented their utter extirpation and the misery of all France by hindering the introduction and establishment of that monstrous and bloody tribunal the inquisition in which design the court and parliament were already agreed and I think the edict for that detestable purpose was ready for such signal and glorious service the Protestants first reeled at him and the papists afterwards cursed him Lord Clarendon too was reproached with the sale of Dunkirk and for many other exorbitancies which the sincere heart of that upright minister report nor could the good councils of Seneca secure him from much envy and defamation and many great ministers thought to be the authors of evil councils have fallen into disgrace or perished for daring to offer such as were benevolent and upright section 3 the arts of coaches their cautiousness and its causes plausibleness and guises are inseparable from quotes men must not seem to understand all that they apprehend or know no more than they must speak all that they think or feel princess often dissembled with their subjects their ministers with them and all with one another and everyone talks as he appears to the best advantage some dissimulation there is absolutely necessary and therefore lawful men are not obliged upon all occasions to speak the truth though whatever they speak upon any occasion ought to be true nor odd anyone to be blamed for hiding his passions and sentiments when the discovery would only serve to hurt himself but few people in private life can be trusted with secrets which published would lessen one's peace or name and in quotes there are much fewer perhaps none particular interests and passions are often shifting there men who are once close united become widely divided friendships old and long are turned into bitter and vindictive enmity and he would once have risked his life for the preferment of his friend would venture as much upon a disgust to bring him to a scaffold this might be exemplified by a thousand instances in all times in histories nothing keeps the passions more awake than the pursuit of power nothing touches the pride of man more sensibly than neglect or disappointment in that pursuit and nothing is more tender and suspicious than pride few have got so much as not to aim at more or have had ever so much assistance but they expect further even where the same is unreasonable or perhaps impossible and from disappointment ensues disgust too rarely seen is that gratitude which looks backward and generously subsists upon favours past without fresh claims and element how much more common is that which must be kept up by daily benefits and when bereft of such food expires nor is the seizing of gratitude the worst that is to be apprehended from selfish and generous man the room of it is too often supplied by spite and revenge and if it be natural to hate such as we have injured this hate must be great in proportion to the injury done and what injury can be greater than that of being barbers to benefactors these considerations are sufficient to make such as frequent quotes and no man slow and wary and confiding and to put them under considerable reserves even where they confide most no one cares to be at the mercy of a friend that may be an enemy hence in the making of friendships anywhere it ought to be one of the first considerations whether there be any probable causes which threaten a rupture whether the business of love or power or fame or anger or interest be never likely to interfere and produce the most bitter of all amenities that of friends this weariness at courts extends even to words and looks the conversing with great man and great affairs naturally produces secrecy and silence for since such is the folly of the world that whatever a great man says however light or accidental shall be deemed deep and mysterious if it has the least allusion to the transactions of the times and since they who hear it will be apt through vanity to quote it great man seldom say anything upon such subjects and even when they hear the talk and sentiments of others they take care that neither their answers nor their countenance shall betray their own sometimes a word thoughtlessly dropped or an unseasonable smile or some mark of surprise has given light into an important design and marded entirely the like circumspection they observe in their discourse upon particulars because their discourse may be easily altered and poisoned by the malice of folly of such as hear it a practice as usual at court as in any country village and many a man has been disgraced by his own words whispered and altered by a virulent breath nay the very same thing reported with a different tone and action as at the same effect and where the alteration of the words was considerable those of them which were forged and criminal have been believed because the rest that were true and innocent were well-attested I shall illustrate this by the story of young Nero the son of Germanicus in the court of Tiberius it excellently shows the jealousies of princes and the spirit of courts that young prince was entirely beloved of the roman people who had adored his father hence the distaste and dark suspicions of the emperor his great uncle and grandfather by adoption so janners who had already poisoned the emperor's son drusas and was plotting the overthrow of the whole reigning house fed the hate and apprehensions of the old prince by malignant reports and infusions concerning the young now the next in succession this he did by the interagency of hollow whispers and tailbears who related and blackened everything that escaped Nero who was also hard used and brow beaten on purpose to extort from him severe and unwary complaints such as might fill up the charge against him moreover his domestics and retainers impatient to see him in power that they might shine in its trappings were continually exciting him to rouse his courage and exert himself to meet the zeal of the people to gratify the passionate wishes of the army as the only experience to daunt and repulse the insolence of sojanas who now despised him as a boy and his grandfather is superannuated the young prince however naturally modest was yet by so many instigations transported beyond the circumspection was the station that he was in and the many eyes that were upon him required and thence gave vent to words which though they betrayed no sign of any treasonable purpose yet being ill guarded and savoring of contumacy where by the spies purposely placed about him carried instantly well heightened and embittered to type areas nor under all these imputations and aspersions was he warned or admitted to vindicate himself but beset on the contrary with several melancholy and boating appearances some of the court carefully shunned to meet him others just greeted him and then instantly left him many with whom he had begun a conversation broke it off abruptly while the creatures and adherents of sojanas looked on with a malicious laugh Tiberius too always received him sternly or with a hollow and a braiding smile and whether the youth spoke or said nothing there were crimes in his words crimes in his silence neither did his bedchamber and the shades of night secure him from his enemies and accusers for even his restlessness and watchings nay his sighs and dreams were by his wife divulged to her mother livia and by her to her adulterer sojanas drusas also his younger brother was by this wicked politician drawn to combine against him as one who stood between himself and the empire and was better beloved by their common mother agropina a fresh cause of emulation and prejudice yet at that very time was sojanas laying a design against the life of the same drusas whom he knew to be of a spirit tempestries and fury and thence the more obnoxious to snares thus he began the tragedy of these two youths and that of their mother but before he had finished theirs suffered his own what is abundantly bloody but abundantly just their brother Caligula was a better culture he studied the temper and manner of Tiberius and in all things conformed to it but was particularly a complete scholar of his in dissimulation upon the condemnation of his mother upon the exile of his brothers not a word not a groan escaped him nor any symptom of resentment or pity the passions are nowhere more agitated than at court yet nowhere are the signs of perturbation more suppressed section four of slanderers and tailbearers in courts the folly of craft the occupation of slander and whispering will like other occupations always thrive according to the encouragement given to it and being easily exercised will be ever engaging fresh adventurers what requires less labor and conscience than to find out or frame or in venom a story to the prejudice of another especially when he is not to be heard in his own defense nor suffered to confront this accuser nor perhaps even knows that he has one there is an endless appetite in mankind for intelligence and secret history and in proportion to that appetite they who feed it are well received and encouraged but of all places they fare best in courts great men are in the power of such people much more than they themselves imagine or mean these are Sidious shadows of theirs who have their ear and know their tempers watch their unwary moments and observe when they are gay and open when disobliged and angry when full of thoughts and business and will be sure to improve the present temper and opportunity they know the characters of men know whom their patron loves whom he dislikes to whom he's all together indifferent with what is likely to be believed of each they extol some decry others flatter him misrepresent all and soothe or alarm or divert him just as his humor and their drift requires if with this they can play the drill and make dry and malicious jests they are accomplished in their way but most villainous is that talent which is good for nothing but to do hurt it is like death and poison fit only to take away life fatinius was a buffoon of this pestilent caste and from working in a stall taken to court at first for jest and diversion but having a malicious spirit and a sarcastical turn soon became a terror to every worthy and illustrious man in so much that in wealth and favor and empowered to do mischief he grew to exceed all the other ministers of iniquity in nearest court in all courts there are many who rise into notice and preferment for no greater merit than that of efficiencies buffoonery and tailbearing and courts are the places in the world where bad and worthless people can do the most harm a barber or porter a valet de chambre or even a child are all capable of doing notable mischief there those instruments let them be ever so mean will find somewhere other to hear them these will find others and a story that has run through a hundred hands and can be traced to no original or to a very low one perhaps the idol cradle of a chambermaid may for all that have no mean influence but whatever reason men have upon all these accounts to keep a guard upon their lips and behavior at court there is still room for great frankness and candle and no necessity of illusion and deceiving though it be often necessary to let people deceive themselves and would be often imprudent and dangerous to undeceive them it is certain that in the transacting of great affairs the rules of morality admit of some realization this is to be lamented but not to be helped such frequently are the exigencies of a state and such always the quickness and depravity of the heart of man that were you to deal openly to tell all that you mean all that you know and all that you aim at you would expose your country to ruin and yourself to school perhaps to the block the most that can be done is to save appearances and be wary of what expressions are used for upon these occasions and many others man are not to be abraded for their silence i know some who have gone through nice embassies some who have concluded intricate negotiations others who have administered the highest offices and still preserve the character of high honor and untainted veracity this shoes the thing to be possible and the promise of assurance just given to serve a turn and therefore not observed afterwards does often more injury to him who made it than the serving that turn did good Cardinal Richelieu was not liberal of money nor promises but he always performed more than he undertook hence the zeal and firm adherence of all who depended upon him Cardinal Mazarin denied nothing performed nothing was believed in nothing and his ill faith was become proverbial hence no man was ever more hated no man in his station more despised he could never rely upon any party for he deceived all parties and all particulars and nothing could support him but the blind obscenity of the queen regent and the mere weight of royal power armed in his defense but in spite of the queen and the authority royal he was forced to run and skulk for his life the parliament set a price upon his head and issued ordinances to the people to fall upon him as a public enemy yet he had never carried sovereign power so high as his predecessor nor ever exerted it so terribly but he had no faith nor honor and therefore no personal friends to this hour Richelieu is considered as a minister who though arbitrary and severe was yet an elevated genius and a man of ferocity to particulars Mazarin as a man not rigorous indeed nor vindictive but sordid addicted to low cunning and lies and with all the eclat of a great minister unable to hide the little tricking Italian craftiness is a despicable quality and undoes itself he who has it and acts by it can never disguise it long and when it becomes apparent it becomes impotent arms everybody against it brings hatred or ridicule at best is perfectly useless and the man even when he deals uprightly is suspected to mean navishly what gained Tiberias by always profound subtlety and wiles but to have his best actions ill construed and his sincerest professions to be disbelieved what gained Philip the second of Spain by that strange and intricate scene of false politics concerted to transfer his own guilt upon the head of his minister Antonio Perez but to bring home the just imputation of that guilt to his own door and to produce full proof where before there was only suspicion sincerity is very consistent with human prudence and often a part of it considering the reputation that always attends it and man even in courts may be very upright without being unguarded nor can courtiers ever do business with one another without some openness and candor i've seen it asserted somewhere that people are often received by distrust done by acts of confidence i have observed as plain dealing in coaches as in any other sort of man in the world it is ridiculous to carry reserve and deepness into everything i know not a more contemptible sort of man than such as mimic business and mystery i've seen some subaltern coaches look as important the mirror and wary as if they had cared great matters and even the weight of the state upon their shoulders this affectation serves to raise their credit amongst their servants and artificers in town and in the country amongst their tenants and neighbors and diverts better judges there are others who really believe themselves to be in secrets who take shrugs and knots mere words and shadows for real confidence and communication and live in happy ignorance under the conceit of high trust and intelligence some few too there are who besides despising the phopery of being thought trusted whether or not are careful to hide it from the world when they are tis man of this turn who chiefly do credit to a court and whoever does it credit does it service section five how much worthless people are bound in courts and why as in a great family where there are numerous domestics in spite of all the care that can be taken to examine the characters of servants when they're admitted or to regulate and watch their behavior afterwards there will be some still unworthy of their places and a discredit to their master how much more so must it be in a court where not only the officers but even the officers are so numerous where so many have a right to prefer or recommend and where so many do both from strange wretched and selfish motives nay often for considerations altogether dishonorable and scandalous it is therefore no wonder that though the politest men are always found at court so likewise are always a strange rabble of creatures ignorant mercenary ridiculous and disagreeable who owe their preferment to chance whim money dirty services to names affinities nay to impudence and folly and one who has no pretenses to anything else neither to education nor capacity nor honor nor spirit nor even to good looks and common sense shall find pretenses to a place and probably get one nor is this to be remedied since he who gives it does not choose but take and has often stronger reasons to oblige the recommender than to reject the recommended i've known a friend nay a relation of a great minister disappointed twice of an office which was even intended for him but by potent intercession was bestowed elsewhere the first time upon one whom the minister knew not whom the recommender knew not nor whom even the lady who spoke for him knew but one who for a sum of money engaged a gentleman's valet de chambre to engage the lady's woman whom the valet courted to engage her lady whom she governed to engage the last recommender who had took it and succeeded he who had the first pretenses was again put by upon a vacancy and the creature put in whom the minister was known to despise an almost alothe but sacrifices opinion his aversion and his friend to mediation not more honorably obtained at so critical a juncture as that of a rebellion i've heard of one who by a letter written with the same pen which he had used in corresponding with the rebels procured a handsome provision for his brother who wished the rebels as well as he and had distinguished himself in a very public place by acts of disaffection and this loyal health nor in this instance was there any money or intrigue at all the recommender had only once told a hearty lie for a great man in a nice case and sworn to it hence his merit and influence for an act of honor or spirit done to serve the public he might perhaps have found less regard perhaps not so much as excess as befell some who did it is certain great man often prefers such as they dislike and such as to them no credit sometimes with their eyes open frequently through misinformation and in both cases through solicitation and opportunity men have married often want interest often application and boldness whereas one who has no one worthy qualification is the more likely to have opportunity and shamelessness it has indeed been often a notable advantage to a man that he had not sense enough to be ashamed nor bulked nay i have known such a negative accomplishment to be the making of his fortune a rational man will take a rational answer or even a trifling one when he sees it meant for rebuke or refusal or perhaps he has too much pride to press and besiege or to ask above once but he who has no understanding to mislead him from his interest or to apprehend what is said to him he who is incapable of a repulse or to be ashamed of begging and teasing but has an unchangeable front and unwearied nonsense stands in a fair light to have his pretenses considered though he cannot persuade he can tire and he finds the fruit and advantage of talents in the absolute want of them he is despised and promoted a little share of good sense and modesty would have ruined him and he might then have been neither disliked nor minded such is the force of recommendation without reason or against it and such too the power of his utility unencumbered with parts there are strange inconsistencies in the make and turn an education of man there are those who can calmly encounter death and terrors in any shape yet shall tremble in speaking two or three words to a secretary of state a task which would not balk a common footman others can rank readily and boldly before a great assembly yet are struck dumb in the company of women a place where a page or an ignorant bow can be entertaining and eloquent some have talents but not the use of them many of capacity but want application many are hurt by too much application not directed by capacity several have good sense and activity and can apply both to serve a friend but neither to do good to themselves in some you find excellent parts frustrated by predominant passions in others eminent courage and spirit drowned and depreciated by modesty almost childish and numbers there are who under a notorious defect of ability requirements and every amiable quality are pushed up as high as any of these could have pushed them perhaps much higher than all of them would so that in the odd assortment of human things fortune would seem to correspond with the caprice and wantonness of nature i've already owned that it is impossible to keep many worthless people out of a court considering how many ways there are to get in but owing to such is a good measure of the obloquy usually thrown upon courts and ministers as the falsehood the low tricks and spirit of these underlings are all ascribed to the genius of the place and of power and other the character of insincerity and ingratitude it is usual and popular discourse and opinion though it is really very unjust to throw all courtiers together i even believe that there are some of them foolish and basen of to like the reputation of slipperiness and deceiving for the sake of being thought good courtiers from the numbers too and little minds of such we may account for the general outcry and reproach which from that quarter usually follow any worthy minister fallen into disgrace they are for the powers that be and though they be the work of his hands were thrust into place by his late might and are still basking in the sunshine which he led in upon them yet they are ready not only to leave a falling house but to help pull it down it is the temper of renegados the celebrated sancho was first warmly in the interest of the injured bezel one who had lost his mistress for no want of merit but through the superior wealth of his rival gamacho yet the savory skimmings and loaded ladles out of gamacho's kettles so effectually turned the supple spirit of that courtly squire that without more ceremony he began to justify and extol the happy supplanta and to rail plentifully at poor basil under misfortune and disgrace what can ministers expect when they have raised such dust but that with the first contrary wind it will blow into their eyes mean spirits selfish and impudent can never take the impressions of gratitude and honor no more than such as our modest and generous can ever be ungrateful or base yet hard is the task to weed a court of such not only because the same interest that recommends does likewise protect but because there are so many candidates ready to fill their places and supported by so many patrons and intercessors that more will be disobliged than can be gratified by the change and after all perhaps the fresh comma may not prove the more deserving man neither can the great officers easily cure the exorbitances and exactions of the inferior especially when the same are become common and vetted all men even the greatest men desire to live easy with those they have daily to do with and will not carry to incur the clamour and curses of subordinates who though they are but small men yet being numerous and supported by all who are interested in corruption are able by continual complaints and noise to weaken the credit of the most recent minister and to make him very uneasy section six the remarkable fickleness and insincerity of courtiers i'd once an opportunity of seeing the steadiness and gratitude of courtiers put to trial upon an apprehension of a change in the ministry i was strictly curious in my observations and inquiries and my discoveries were such as i fully confirmed me in all my former and present sentiments of these people there were some who gave proofs of signal friendship and constancy to the standing ministry several were wary and silent but many made preposterous haste to shoe their levity and selfishness and from the behavior of most there arose warning enough even to greatness itself to rely for its best security upon wisdom and innocence a little before the death of tiberius then past hopes he was reported to be dead instantly the courtiers crowded about caligula at the next air with a torrent of congratulations and zeal and he was going forth thus attendant to assume the pomp and exercise of sovereignty when sudden tidings came that the emperor who had lain sometime in his soon was revived and calling for some refreshment to strengthen his spirits instant terror seized all most of them dispersed and flat some assumed an air of mourning many feigned utter ignorance caligula was struck speechless and from the highest hopes expecting his last doom macro only remained undaunted he commanded the ancient emperor to be smothered with a great weight of coverings having first ordered everybody to quit the chamber amongst the many good things and excellent sense in the memoirs of cardinal the rats there occur frequent pictures of the court particularly upon the beginning of the commotions in Paris at the palace royal and especially in the cabinet upon that occasion every individual assumed a person and acted a part the coajute acted the innocent and the dupe but was not so mazerin affected to appear resolute but appeared more so than he was by starts and intervals the queen counterfeited great temper and gentleness yet had been at no time more bitter and enraged the duke the long vee feigned extreme affliction yet felt a sensible joy as he was the man in the world the most delighted with the beginnings of all affairs the Duke of Orléans in speaking to the queen shoot great warmth and varmints but presently after fellow whistling a usual habit of his with all the indolence in the world the marshal de Villeroy displayed gaiety and unconcern to make his court to mazerin but to the coajutor he owned with tears in his eyes that the state was upon the brink of her precipice michel de beau trou and michel de nos gens played the buffoons to humor the queen and rolled upon the commotion though both these men knew well that in all probability this farce of theirs would too soon be followed by a tragedy the abbey de la rivière only though the most notorious portrait of the age was persuaded that this popular insurrection was but smoke this he maintained stiffly to the queen and this pleased her to fill up the complement of actors the marshal de la mailleroy who had hitherto joined with the coajutor in representing the terrors and consequences of the tumult all on a sudden changed his past part and took that of the champion with a different tone and other sentiments in an instant he was all rage and contempt and defiance in short the queen and the cardinal took everyone who told him truth for a certain enemy to themselves and for a promoter at least a secret well-wisher of the revolt when this was the reward of plain dealing who would venture his place in favor by dealing plainly thus for want of honest information and sincere advisors and by suspecting or disbelieving such as were so the state had nigh perished the whole detail in the reds is full of curious incidents full of strong and just reflections as is almost the whole book end of discourse nine section 13 of the complete works of tacitus edited by thomas gordon this is the libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information on to volunteer please visit libravox.org recording by lizzie driver the complete works of tacitus to which a prefixed political discourse is upon that author edited and translated by thomas gordon with introductory essays by thomas gordon volume one discourse ten of armies and conquest section one the burden and danger of maintaining great armies too many princes are infatuated with false notions of glory and thence delight in war without doubt it is true glory to excel in war where war is necessary but in the whole course of history where one has been so twenty have been otherwise and to engage in it from the wantonness of ambition or for the sake of laurel or through pivishness and humor is to risqué the blood and treasure and people and being of a state for the fopery of false heroism or to sacrifice the same to the selfish and inglorious view of making a country either that which conquers or that which is conquered or both the prey of the hero for such has been generally the logic of the sword that because it has saved it may therefore oppress and enthrall and for defending a part take the whole wars begat great armies armies begat great taxes heavy taxes waste and impoverish the country even where armies commit to no violences a case seldom to be supposed because it is seldom happened that where great armies are they must be employed and you miss chief abroad to keep them from doing it at home so that the people must be exhausted and oppressed to keep the men of the sword in exercise the great turk to keep the sword of the janissaries from his own throat is forced to plague his neighbors even where he earns nothing but blows and disgrace and thence increases the danger which you would avert for as by his armies he makes all men his slaves he himself is a slave to his armies and often their victim or to escape himself is frequently forced to satiate their fury by the blood of his bravest officers and best counselors if it be the glory of his monarchy that he can put the greatest men and all men to death without reason or form or process he is subject in his own person to the same lawless and expeditious butchery from his own outrageous slaves who being not accustomed to receive any law from him give him none whenever he is in their power which is as often as they think fit and he who is a prince of slaves is judged by slaves and dies like the meanest slave what is there to save him his people who are oppressed want the inclination and being unarmed the power so that he lives in personal servitude to those who are the instruments of public servitude and as others must die to please him so must he to please them it is the law of retaliation and operates as often as its causes operate namely caprice or rage or fear this is the blessing of being absolute and unfettered by human constitutions the same sword which is lifted up for you at the command of whim or passion is with the like wantonness lifted up against you and if you reign in blood you must not think it's strange to die in it section two great armies the best disciplined whether thence the less formidable to a country their temper and views in regard to public liberty armies the best disciplined are not less to be dreaded than the worst but i think more since their relaxation of discipline takes away from their union and sufficiency it renders them weaker and less equal to mighty mischief but where they are strict and united the highest inequalities are not too big for them disorderly troops may rob particulars ravaged towns and harass a country but if you would subdue nations commit universal spoil and enslave empires your forces must be under the best regulations it was with an army victorious and brave and consequently well disciplined the tigathically slaughtered all the nobles of syracuse and brought that illustrious state the noblest of all the greek cities under bondage cromwell's conquest of his country was made by troops the most sober and best disciplined that this or perhaps any other nation has ever seen and it was with the best of all the roman armies that seiza established himself tyrant of rome soldiers know little else but booty and blind obedience whatever their interest or capacity dictates they generally will do and whatever their officers command they must do it is their profession to dispute by force and the sword they too soon learn their own power and where it is an overbalance for the civil power it will always control the civil power and all things they find readily somewhat to say the strongest is ever the best disputant when he carries his reason upon the point of his sword they have done great services they have suffered great wrongs and will therefore reward and redress themselves it is the reasoning of seiza it is nothing to the purpose to say that an army listed among the natives especially the officers being natives and many of them men of fortune will never hurt or oppress their country for such were cromwell's army such were seizes and many other enslaving armies besides armies are soon modelled and officers who are obnoxious are soon changed no government can subsist but by force and wherever that force lies there it is that government is or soon will be free states therefore have preserved themselves and their liberties by arming all their people because all the people are interested in preserving those liberties by drawing out numbers of them thus armed to serve their country occasionally and by dissolving them when that occasion was over into the mass of people again by often changing the chief officers or if they continued to the same by letting their commissions be temporary and always subject to the control of the supreme power often to that of other coordinate power as the dutch generals are to the deputies it is indeed but rare that states who have not taken such precaution have not lost their liberties their generals have set up for themselves and turned the arms put into the hands against their master this did marius sylla seiza dionysus agathocles charles martel oliver cromwell and many others and this they all did by the same means it is still frequently done in the eastern monarchies and by the same means all the christian princes of europe who arbitrary became so for as the experience of all ages shoes us the tall men's views are to retain dominion and riches it is ridiculous to hope that they will not use the means and their power to attain them and madness to trust them with those means they will never want pretenses either from their own safety or the public good to justify the measures which have succeeded and they know well that the success will always justify itself that great numbers will be found to sanctify their power most of the rest will submit to it and in time will think it just and necessary perhaps it'll ask to believe it to be obtained miraculously and should be in the immediate act of heaven section three princes ruling by military power effort the mercy of military men as by these means private men often come at sovereign power so limited princes often become arbitrary but one mischief is inseparable from this sort of government they generally lose their authority by the same method they get it for having attained it by violence they are obliged to keep it by violence and that cannot be done but by engaging in the interest of their oppression a body of men strong enough to maintain it and it will for the most part happen that as these men have no interest but their own in serving a tyrant so when that interest ceases and they can serve themselves better in destroying him they seldom fail of doing it in fact we find that in all great despotic governments in the world the monarchs are slaves to their soldery and they murder and dispose their princes just according to their caprices the general sets up any of the princes of the blood whom he thinks most for his interest and often times upon the death of the possessor they are all set up by one part of the army or another if one cannot get all the rest into his power and murder them and the civil war continues till one has slaughtered all his rivals if this is not done in the modern absolute governments of europe it is because despotic power is not so thoroughly established there and the people have yet some share of property and consequently of power but still they do it as much as they dare in some instances they have set up themselves and in almost all have been the principal engines and instruments in working about revolutions according to their own inclinations and disgusts of this we had many instances in our own country within the compass of not many years how much easy it is to corrupt a few leading officers often necessitous generally ambitious than to persuade a whole kingdom if they are well governed to destroy themselves some will be obliged because not preferred to their wishes or because others are preferred before them they will differ according to their countries or their interests about the person to be their general and to have the power of preferring or recommending officers and that part which is disappointed shall be a faction against that which succeeds wherever commissions are venial there will be no difficulty of buying those who are disaffected into them if they can disguise their disaffection till a proper opportunity in a country where factions are bound and those at the helm can find any account in keeping measures with a contrary faction officers we put in to oblige that faction sometimes to gratify friends or favorites at different times others will be discarded to oblige one party or to modify the other new men by private recommendation or money shall supersede old officers this will create new dissatisfactions and disgusts as soon as they dare shoe them when the administration is changed and another party gets uppermost all those things shall be done over again so that at last an army shall be a mentally of all the factions of a kingdom and all their performance and expectations depending upon the success of those factions each individual will take every safe opportunity to advance his own and for the most part one or rather of these factions sometimes all are ready to join in shuffling the cards anew the sure prelude of a civil war this is and ever must be the case of all countries which subsist by standing armies for there are few instances in history to be given of armies who do not play their own game in times of distress few instances of disableted or unpreferred officers who did not change sides too many have made their peace by some remarkable act of treachery very often they have done it only from the motives of ambition and avarice i wish that we never had had instances among ourselves of any who have done the same or even of generals who played a double game what oliver cromwell monk and very many both of the king's and of the parliament officers did in the civil war we all know as well as what king james's army did more lately i wish we equally knew what intrigues of this kind have been carrying on since in civil wars amongst men of the same country the communication is so easy between friends relations and former acquaintance that there is a very ready transition from one side to another and a little success small intrigues and a few advantages generally make that transition section four instances of the boldness and fury of the roman soldiery it is astonishing from what light and wanton motives by what vile and contemptible instruments armies are often instigated to violence and ravages the sedition of that impanonia after the death of augustus was raised by one common soldier inflamed by another rapian and massacres were committed or defended by almost all they murdered their officers even their general had liked to have been murdered upon the credit of an impudent lie told one of these vile incendiaries who yet could scarcely allege any other grievance than that they had not too much pay and too little discipline nor was the insurrection excited by these two fellows restrained to the panonian legions only but extended to those in Germany who waxed into fury rather greater and outraged all things human and divine it was one common soldier who gave the empire to claudius by saluting him emperor while the poor dastardly wretch was lurking in a corner and expecting death instead of sovereignty under galba two private sentinels undertook to transfer the empire to another and actually transferred it it is shocking to reflect with what eagerness these bloodthirsty assassins hastened to murder that good old prince for no charge of misgovernment nor for defrauding them of their pay but because he would not exhaust the public to glut them with bounties they were such abandoned russians that they sought to kill maria celsus purely because he was an able and virtuous man they judged him an enemy to themselves who delighted only in blood and wickedness and spoil it would require a volume to recount the behavior the treacherous and inhuman exploits of these sons of violence thence forward they're murdering and promoting of emperors sometimes two or three sometimes more once thirty at a time they're selling the empire for money they're besieging threatening to soothe the senate they're burning the capital setting fire to the imperial city pillaging and butchering its inhabitants and using them as slaves and captives with other instances of their insolence barbarity and misrule in the third and fourth volumes of this work much of this will be seen recounted by tacitus the gothic governments were military in their first settlement the general was king the officers were the nobles and the soldiers their tenants but by the nature of the settlement out of an army a country militia was produced the prince had many occasional troops but no standing troops hence he grew not absolute like the great turk who having can turned out the conquered countries amongst his horsemen must by doing it have lost his arbitrary power but that he kept a large body of many norms called the janissaries great britain has preserved its liberties so long because it has preserved itself from great standing armies which wherever they are strong enough to master their country will certainly first or last master it some troops you must have for guards and garrisons enough to prevent sudden insurrections and sudden revolutions watch numbers are sufficient for this the experience of past times and the sense of our parliaments have shown section five the humor of conquering how injudicious vain and destructive the athenians began the ruin of their state by a mad and expensive war upon citilly and from an ambition of conquering a people who had never offended them exposed themselves to the attacks of the lacedemonians to the revolt of their own subjects to domestic disorders and the change of their government and though upon the recalling of alcibiades they won some victories and for a while made some figure they were at last conquered entirely by lasander their walls thrown down the state subject to them set at liberty and they themselves subjected to the domination of 30 tyrants they never after recovered their former glory the lacedemonians fell afterwards into the same warlike folly and their folly had the same fate by lauding over greece they drew upon themselves a combination of greek cities which together especially the thebians under the famous ipamin especially the thebians under the famous ipaminondas dispoiled them of their authority soon after their triumph over athens the thebans too abused their good fortune they were equally fond of fighting and conquest and by it drew another confederacy against them in truth every one of these states had been so long weakening themselves and one another by the propensity to war that at last they fell under the servitude to the kings of macedon a country formally depending upon or rather under the vassalage to athens and sparta these states acted like some of the princes of our time by trusting to their own superior prowess they invaded their neighbors and taught them art enough to beat themselves thus the muscovite by falling upon the late king of sweden yet in his minority roused a tempest that had well nigh overturned his throne and thus that's the king by refusing the most honorable conditions of peace and by urging his fate and revenge too far taught the russians that bravery and discipline which nothing could ever teach them before saw his own brave army utterly routed by forces that he despised himself driven from his dominions and a fugitive in the country of infidels and his provinces can turned out amongst enemies who before he had tempted his good fortune to leave him would have been glad to have compounded with him for a moiety of their own dominions. Charles, Duke of Burgundy, had had his head so turned with gaining the battle of Monlery that he never listened afterwards to any council but that of his own headstrong humor nor ceased plunging himself into wars till in that against the switzers who had given him no just provocation he lost his army his dominions and his life if Philip II had kept his oath with the low countries he might have preserved his authority over them all but nothing less would humor his pride than the subduing of their liberties and conscience and in defense of their conscience and property he drove them to the use of arms which a people employed in trade and manufacture as they were had no list to nor skill in everybody knows the issue he lost the seven provinces and their revenue forever with many millions of money and almost half a million of lives thrown away to recover them by his mighty and boasted Armada designed to conquer England what else did he conquer but his own power at sea he had prepared he had been for some years preparing a naval force mighty as his own arrogance but it all proved to be only measures taken for baffling his arrogance and for destroying the maritime force of Spain and all the while that he was vainly meditating the destruction of England he was in reality taken the part of England against himself and with all his might weakening its greatest enemy had he husbanded that mighty strength had he employed it at times and in parcels against these dominions he might have had some success but he combined against his own hopes how foolish is the reasoning of passion it leads men to throw away strength to gain weakness even where these sons of violence succeed they may be justly said to acquire nothing beyond the praise of mischief what is the occupation and end of princes and governors but to rule men for their own good and to keep them from hurting one another now what conqueror is there who mends the condition of the conquered Alexander the Great though he well knew the difference between limited and a lawless monarchy did not pretend that his invasion of Persia was to mend the condition of the Persians it was a pure struggle for dominion when he had gained it he assumed the throne upon the same arbitrary terms upon which their own monarchs had held it nor knew any law but his own the subject only felt the violence of the change without any benefit or relaxation from slavery his glory therefore is all false and deceitful as is all glory which is gained by the blood of men without mending the state of mankind this spirit of fighting and conquering continued in his successors who plagued to the earth as he had done and wilted in the blood of one another till they were almost all destroyed by the sword or poison with the whole family of Alexander it was no part of the dispute amongst them which of them could bestow most happiness upon the afflicted world about which they strove but who should best exalt himself and enslave all the state of Carthage after many countries conquered but not bettered by her arms was almost dissolved by her own barbarous mercenaries and at last conquered and destroyed by the Romans who were in truth the most generous conquerors that the world has known and most countries found the Roman government better than their own this continued for some time till the provincial magistrates grew rapacious and turned the provinces into spoil Rome itself perished by her conquests which being made by great armies occasioned such power and insolence in their commanders and set some citizens so high above the rest and inequality pernicious to free states that she was enslaved by ingrates whom she had employed to defend her Rome vanquished foreign nations foreign luxury debauched Rome and traitorous citizens seized upon their mother with all her acquisitions all her great blaze and grandeur served only to make her righteousness more conspicuous and her chains more intensely felt upon a throldom there ensued such a series of tyranny and misery treachery oppression cruelty death and affliction in all shapes that her agonies was scarce ever suspended till she finally expired when her own tyrants became through tyranny impotent could no longer afflict her for protection was none of their business a host of barbarians only known for ravages and acts of inhumanity finished the work of desolation and closed her civil doom she has been since racked under a tyranny more painful as it is more slow and more base as it is scarce a domination of men i mean her vacillage to a sort of beings of all others the most merciless and contemptible monks inspectors section six the folly of conquering further urged and exemplified the Turks like other conquerors know not when to leave off they sacrifice the people to gain more territories and the more they conquer the greater is their loss they lavish men and treasure to gain waste ground what is the use of earth and water when there are no inhabitants for these elements to support the strength of a government consists in numerous subjects industries and happy not in extent of territory desolate or ill peopled or peopled with inhabitants poor and idle it is incredible what a profusion of wealth and lives their attempts upon pleasure have cost them always with fatal success even under their wisest and most warlike princes and at a time when their empire flourished most yet these attempts are continued at a season when their affairs are at the lowest their province is exhausted their people and revenue decayed their soldiery disorderly and all things conspiring to the final dissolution of their empire those who will be continually exerting their whole strength whether they be societies or particular men will at last have none to exert the Turks have been for ages wasting their vitals so widen their extremities and to extend their limbs which by being unnaturally stretched are quite disjointed and benumbed for want of nourishment from the seat of life and must therefore like modified members soon drop off they have been long spinning out their own vitals now if they had conquered Persia what benefit would the conquest have derived to the Persians none at all but on the contrary fresh oppression and probably persecution since the Turks deemed them heretics for the color of their caps and for their obstinate refusal to change one name for another in the list of Muhammad's successors thus these barbarians destroy themselves to destroy others and Christian princes imitate these barbarians the Spaniard to secure to himself the possession of America destroyed more lives than he had subjects in Europe and his mighty empire there with his mountains of treasure bears indeed an awful sound yet it is allowed that he has lost much more than he got besides the crying guilt of murdering a large part of the globe his conquest there together with his expulsion of the Moors at home have dispeopled Spain and the inhabitants who remain trusting to their American wealth are too proud and lazy to be industrious so that most of their gold goes to other nations for the manufacturers wanted in the Spanish West Indies hence multitudes and diligence and diligence often creates multitudes as by multitudes diligence is created are better than mountains of gold and will certainly attract such mountains though others have the name and first property had he kept the industrious Moors and expelled the barbarous inquisitors encouraged liberty and trade and consequently liberty of conscience Spain would have been a more powerful nation and he consequently a greater king than all his wide and guilty conquests have made him so what a rally says that the low countries alone did for revenue equal his West Indies notwithstanding his many kingdoms his empire in both hemispheres and that the sun never sets upon all his dominions at once the small republic of Holland small encompass of territory has been an over match for him a late neighbouring prince was a busy conqueror but did his people and country gain by his conquests he drained them of men and money by millions only to add to their poverty servitude and wretchedness and from their chains and misery derived his own glory nor do I know any reason why a prince who reduces his people his nobles and all degree of men in his dominions to poverty and littleness should have the title of great unless for the greatness of the evils which he bought upon his own kingdom and all Europe let the latent present condition of that monarchy declare what advantages that noble country owes to his glory and victories had it not been for his wanton wars and oppressive taxes there is no pitch of felicity which the goodness of their soil and climate their number and industry of the natives their many manufacturers and the advantage of their situation might not have raised them to but all were sacrificed to the ambition and bigotry of one how many resources that kingdom had within itself and to what happiness it is capable of rising under a just and gentle administration is manifest from the suddenness with which it recovered itself under the good government of Henry IV how many millions it paid how many put it into the Exchequer and what a flourishing condition it was arrived to after Sophia's so long and so consuming a civil war and what a flourishing condition it was arrived to after Sophia's so long and so consuming a civil war and after two such profuse and profligate reigns as that of Charles the ninth and that of Henry the third but what avails all this when one short edict and the maggot of a minute can dissipate all its wealth and all its happiness I might hear display what ridiculous causes do often peak and awaken the vanity and ambition of princes and prompt them to lavish lives and treasure and utterly undo those whom they should tenderly protect for a beast of burden or even for the tooth of a beast for a mistress for a river for a senseless word hastily spoken for words that had a foolish meaning or no meaning at all for an empty sepulcher or an empty title to dry the tears of a coquette to comply with the whims of a pendant or to execute the curses of a bigot important wars has sometimes been waged and nations animated to destroy one another nor is there any security against such destructive follies where the sense of every man must acquiesce in the wild passion of one and where the interest and peace and preservation of a state are found too light to balance his rage or caprice hence the policy of the Romans to tame a people not easy to be subdued they committed such to the domination of tyrants thus they did in Armenia and thus in Britain and these instruments did not only enslave their subjects but by continual fighting with one another consume them necessary wars are accomplished with evils more than enough and who can bear or forgive calamities courted and sought the roman state owed her greatness in a good measure to a misfortune it was founded in war and nourished by it the same may be said of the turkish monarchy but states formed for peace though they did not arrive to such immensity and grandeur are more lasting and secure witness sparta and venice the former lasted 800 years and the other has lasted 1200 without any revolution what errors they both committed were owing to their attempts to conquer for which they were not formed though the Spartans were exceedingly brave and victorious but they wanted the plebes in genua which formed the strength of the roman armies as the janissaries a militia formally accidentally trained and disciplined formed those of the turk with the latter fighting and extended their dominions is an article of their religion as false and barbarous in this as in many of its other principles and as little calculated for the good of men end of discourse 10 section 14 of the complete works of tacitus edited by thomas gordon this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org recorded by laura koskinen the complete works of tacitus to which are prefixed political discourses upon that author edited and translated by thomas gordon with introductory essays by thomas gordon volume one the annals book one part one the reign of augustus kings were the original magistrates of rome lucius brutus founded liberty and the consulship dictators were chosen only in pressing exigencies little more than two years prevailed the supreme power of the decemberate and the consular jurisdiction of the military tribunes not very many the domination of sinna was but short that of sulla not long the authority of pompey and crassus was quickly swallowed up in caesar that of lepidus and anthony in augustus the commonwealth then long distressed and exhausted by civil dissensions fell easily into his hands and over her he assumed sovereign dominion softened with the popular title of prince of the senate but the several revolutions in the ancient free state of rome and all her happy or disastrous events are already recorded by writers of signal renown nor even in the reign of augustus were there wanting authors of distinction and genius to have composed his story till by the prevailing spirit of flattery and abasement they were checked as to the succeeding princes tiberius colligula claudius and nero the dread of their tyranny whilst they yet reigned falsified their history and after their fall the fresh detestation of their cruelties inflamed their historians hence my own design of recounting briefly certain incidents in the reign of augustus chiefly towards his latter end and of entering afterwards more fully into that of tiberius and the other three unbiased by any resentment or any affection the influences of such personal passions being far from me when after the fall of brudus and caches there remained none to fight for the commonwealth and her arms were no longer in her own hands when sexist Pompeus was utterly defeated in Sicily lepidus bereft of his command mark anthony slain and of all the chiefs of the late dictator's party only octavius his nephew was left he put off the invidious name of triumph here and styling himself consul pretended that the jurisdiction attached to the tribune ship was his highest aim as in it the protection of the populace was his only view but when once he had secured the soldiery by liberality and donations gained the people by store of provisions and charmed all by the blessings and sweetness of public peace he began by politic gradations to exalt himself and with his own power to consolidate the authority of the senate jurisdiction of the magistrate and weight and force of the laws usurpations in which he was thwarted by no man all the most determined republicans had fallen in battle or by the late sanguinary proscriptions and for the surviving nobility they were covered with wealth and distinguished with public honors according to the measure of their debasement and promptness to bondage add that all who in the loss of public freedom had gained private fortunes preferred a servile condition safe and possessed to the revival of ancient liberty with personal peril neither were the provinces averse to the present revolution since under the government of the people and senate they had lived in constant fear and mistrust from the raging competition amongst our grandees as well as from the rapine and exactions of our magistrates in vain too had been their appeal to the laws which were utterly enfeebled and borne down by violence by parties nay even by subordination and money moreover augustus to fortify his domination with collateral bulwarks raised his sister's son claudius marcellus a perfect youth to the dignity of pontiff and that of edile preferred marcus agrippa to two successive consul ships a man in truth meanly born but an accomplished soldier and the companion of his victories and marcellus the husband of julia soon after dying chose him for his son-in-law even the sons of his wife tiberius nero and claudius drusus he dignified with high military titles and commands though his house was yet supported by descendants of his own blood four into the julian family and name of the caesars he had already adopted lucius and gaius the sons of agrippa and though they were but children neither of them seventeen years old vehement had been his ambition to see them declared princes of the roman youth and even designed to the consul ship while openly he was protesting against admitting these early honors presently upon the decease of agrippa were these his children snatched away either by their own natural but hasty fate or by the deadly fraud of their stepmother livia lucius on his journey to command the armies in spain gaius in his return from armenia ill of a wound and as drusus one of her own sons had been long since dead tiberius remained sole candidate for the succession upon this object centered all princely honors he was by augustus adopted for his son assumed colleague in the empire partner in the jurisdiction tribunitial and presented under all these dignities to the several armies instances of grandeur which were no longer derived from the secret schemes of his mother as in times past while her husband had unexceptionable errors of his own but thenceforth bestowed at her open suit for as augustus was now very aged she had obtained over him such absolute sway that for her pleasure he banished into the isle of planasia his only surviving grandson agrippa posthumous destitute in truth of a laudable accomplishments in his temper untractable and stupidly conceded of his mighty strength but branded with no misdemeanor or transgression the emperor had with all set germanicus the son of drusus over eight legions quartered upon the rine and obliged tiberius to adopt him though tiberius had then a son of his own one of competent ears but it was the study of augustus to secure himself and the succession by variety of stays and engraftments more at that time there was none except that in germany kept on foot rather to abolish the disgrace sustained by quintileus varus their slain with his army then from any ambition to enlarge the empire or for any other valuable advantage in profound tranquility were affairs at Rome to the magistrates remained their wanted names of the romans the younger sort had been born since the battle of actium and even most of the old during the civil wars how few were then living who had seen the ancient free state the frame and economy of Rome being thus totally overturned amongst the romans were no longer found any traces of their primitive spirit or attachment to the virtuous institutions of antiquity but as the equality of the whole was extinguished by the sovereignty of one all men regarded the orders of the prince as the only rule of conduct and obedience nor felt they any anxiety while augustus yet retained vigor of life and upheld the credit of his administration with public peace and the imperial fortune of his house but when he became broken with age and infirmities when his end was at hand and thence a new source of hopes and views was presented some few there were who began to reason idly about the blessings and recovery of liberty many dreaded a civil war others longed for one while far the greater part were uttering their several apprehensions of their future masters that naturally stern and savage was the temper of a grippa and by his public contumally enraged into fury and neither in age nor experience was he equal to the weight of empire tiberius indeed had arrived at fullness of years and was a distinguished captain but possessed the inveterate pride entailed upon the claudian race and many indications of a cruel nature escaped him in spite of all his arts to disguise it besides that from his early infancy he was trained up in a reigning house and even in his youth inured to an accumulation of power and honors consulships and triumphs nor during the several years of his abode at Rhodes where under the plausible name of retirement a real banishment was covered did he exercise other occupation than that of meditating future vengeance studying the arts of treachery and practicing secret and abominable sensualities add to these considerations that of his mother a woman inspired with all the tyranny of her sex that the Romans must be under bondage to a woman and moreover enthralled by two youths who would first combine to oppress the state then falling into dissension rend it piecemeal while the public was engaged in these and the like debates the illness of Augustus daily increased and some strongly suspected the pestilent practices of his wife for there had been some months before a rumor abroad that Augustus having singled out a few of his most faithful servants had taken Fabius Maximus for his only companion and sailed secretly over to the island of Planasia there to visit his grandson Agrippa that many tears were shed on both sides many tokens of mutual tenderness shown and hopes from thence conceived that the unhappy youth would be restored to his own place in his grandfather's family that Maximus had disclosed it to Marsha she to Livia and thence the emperor knew that the secret was betrayed that Maximus being soon after dead dead as it was doubted through fear by his own hands Marsha was observed in her lamentations and groans at his funeral to accuse herself as the sad cause of her husband's destruction whatever truth was in all this Tiberius was scarce entered Illyricum but he was hastily recalled by his mother's letters nor is it fully known whether at his return to Nola he found Augustus yet breathing or already breathless for Livia had carefully beset the palace and all the avenues to it with detachments of the guards and good news of his recovery were from time to time given out when she had taken all measures necessary in so great a conjuncture in one and the same moment was published the departure of Augustus and the accession of Tiberius end of section 14 section 15 of the complete works of Tacitus edited by Thomas Gordon this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org recorded by Father Xyle of Detroit recorded November 2007 the complete works of Tacitus to which are prefixed political discourses upon that author edited and translated by Thomas Gordon with introductory essays by Thomas Gordon volume one the annals book one part two Tiberius takes the throne the first feat of this new reign was the murder of young Agrippa the assassin a bold and determined centurion found him destitute of arms and little apprehending such a destiny yet was scarce able to dispatch him of this transaction Tiberius avoided any mention in the Senate he would have it pass for done by the commands of Augustus as if he had transmitted written orders to the tribune who guarded Agrippa quotes open to slay him the instant he heard of his grandfather's deceased quotes closed it is very true that Augustus had made many envioment complaints of the young man's obstinate and unruly demeanor and even solicited from the Senate a decree to authorize his banishment but he had never hardened himself against the sentiments of nature nor in any instance dipped his hands in his own blood neither is it credible that he would sacrifice the life of his grandson for the security and establishment of his stepson more probable it is that this hasty murder was purely the work of Tiberius and Livia that the young prince hated and dreaded by both fell thus untimely to rid the one of his apprehensions and arrival and to satiate in the other the rancorous spirit of a stepmother when the centurion according to the custom of the army acquainted Tiberius quotes open that his commands were executed quotes closed he answered quotes open he had commanded no such execution and the centurion must appear before the senate and for it be answerable to them quotes closed this alarmed solitius chrispus who shared in all his secret councils and had sent the centurion the warrant he dreaded that he should be arraigned for the assassination and knew it equally perilous either to confess the truth and charge the emperor or falsely to clear the emperor and accuse himself hence he had recourse to Livia and warned her quotes open never to divulge the secrets of the palace never to expose to public examination the ministers who advised nor the soldiers who executed Tiberius should be aware of relaxing the authority of the prince by referring all things to that of the senate since it was the indispensable prerogative of sovereignty for all men to be accountable to one quotes closed now at Rome consuls senators and roman knights were all rushing with emulation into bondage the higher the quality of each the more false and forward the men all careful so to frame their faces as to reconcile false joy for the accession of Tiberius with feigned sadness for the loss of Augustus hence the intermingled tears with gladness wailings with congratulations and all with syrival flattery sexist Pompeius and sexist Apoleus at that time consuls took first the oath of fidelity to Tiberius then administered it to Seus Strabo and Caus Teranius the former captain of the Praetorian guards the other intendant of the public stores the oath was next given to the senate to the people and to the soldiery all by the same consuls for Tiberius affected to derive all public transactions from the legal ministry of the consuls as if the ancient republic still subsisted and he were yet unresolved about embracing the sovereign rule he even owned in his edict for summoning the senate that he issued it by virtue of the tribunitial power granted him under Augustus the edict too was short and unexceptionably modest it imported that quotes open they were to consider of the funeral honors proper to be paid his deceased father for he himself would not depart from the corpse and further that this edict implied he claimed no share in the public administration quotes closed yet from the moment Augustus was dead he usurped all the prerogatives of imperial state gave the word to the Praetorian cohorts had soldiers about the palace guards about his person went guarded in the street guarded to the senate and bore all the marks of majesty nay he writ letters to the several armies in the undisguised style of one already their prince nor did he ever hesitate or speak with ambiguity about it but when he spoke to the senate the chief cause of his reserve and obscurity there proceeded from his fear of Germanicus he dreaded that he who was master of so many legions of numberless auxiliaries and of all the allies of Rome he who was the darling of the people might wish rather to possess the empire than to wait for it he likewise aimed at false glory and would rather seem by the commonwealth chosen and called to the empire than to have crept darkly into it by the intrigues of a woman or by adoption from a superannuated prince it was also afterwards found that by this obstruceness and counterfeit irresolution he meant to penetrate into the designs and inclinations of the great men for his jealous spirit construed all their words all their looks into crimes and stored them up in his heart against a day of vengeance when he first met the senate he would bear no other business to be transacted but that about the funerals of augustus his last will was brought in by the vestal virgins in it tiberius and livia were appointed his heirs livia adopted into the julian family and dignified with the name of augusta into the next and second degree of airship he adopted his grandchildren and their children and in the third degree he named the great men of rome most of them hated by him but out of vain glory he named them and for future renown his legacies were not beyond the usual bounds only he left to the roman people 400 000 great cistercia to the populace or common sort 35 000 to every common soldier of the praetorian guards a thousand small cisterci and to every soldier of the roman legions 300 the funeral honors were next considered the chief presented were these ascinius gallus proposed that quotes open the funeral should pass through the triumphal gate quotes closed lucius aruntius quotes open that the titles of all the laws which he had made and the names of all the nations which he had conquered should be carried before the corpse quotes closed malaria's mesala added quotes open that the oath of allegiance to tiberius should be renewed every year quotes closed and being asked by tiberius quotes open whether at his instigation he had made that motion i spoke it as my opinion says mesala nor will i ever be determined by any but my own in things which concern the common wheel let who will be provoked by my freedom quotes closed only this new turn was wanting to complete the prevailing flattery of the time the senators then concurred in a loud cry quotes open that upon their own shoulders they must bear the body to the pile quotes closed but tiberius declined the offer from an arrogant show of moderation moreover he cautioned the people by an edict quotes open not to disturb the funeral functions with a zeal over passionate as they had those of julius cesar nor to insist that the corpse of augustus should be burnt rather in the forum than in the field of mars which was the place appointed quotes closed on the funeral day the soldiers under arms kept guard a mighty mockery to those who had either seen or heard their fathers describe the day when cesar the dictator was slain servitude was then new its sorrows yet fresh and bitter and liberty unsuccessfully retrieved by a deed which while it seemed impious to some was thought altogether glorious by others and hence tore Rome into tumults and the violence of parties they ridiculed the grimace of quotes open calling an aid of soldiers to secure a peaceable burial to a prince who had grown old in peace and power and even provided against the relapse into liberty by a long train of successors quotes closed hence much and various matter of observation concerning augustus the superstitious multitude admired the fortuitous events of his fortune quotes open that the last day of his life and the first of his reign was the same that he died at nola in the same village in the same house and in the same chamber where his father octavius died they observed to his glory his many consul ships equal a number to those of valerius corvinus and of caeus marius joined together that he had exercised the power of the tribune ship seven and thirty years without interruption that he was one and twenty times proclaimed imperator with many other numerous honors repeated to him or created for him quotes closed men of deeper discernment entered further into his life but differed about it his admirers said that his quotes open filial piety to his father's Caesar and the distractions of the republic where the laws no longer governed had driven him into a civil war which whatever be the first cause can never be begun or carried on by just and gentle means indeed to be revenged on the murders of his father he had made many great sacrifices to anthony many to lepidus but when lepidus was become sunk and superannuated in sloth when anthony was lost headlong in sensuality there was then no other remedy for the distracted state rent piecemeal by its chiefs but the sovereignty of one augustus however never had assumed to rule over his country as king or dictator but settled the government under the legal name of prince of the senate he had extended the empire and set for its bounds the distant ocean and rivers far remote the several parts and forces of the state the legions the provinces the navy were all properly balanced and connected the citizens lived dutifully under the protection of the law the allies in terms of respect and roam itself was adorned with magnificent structures indeed in a few instances he had exerted the arbitrary violence of power and in but a few only to secure the peace of the whole quotes closed in answer to all this it was urged that quotes open his filial piety and the unhappy situation of the republic were pure pretenses but the ardent lust of reigning his true and only motive with this spirit he had solicited into his service by bribery a body of veteran soldiers and though a private youth levied an army with this spirit he had debauched and bought the roman legions under the consuls while he was falsely feigning a coalition with pompe's republican party that soon after when he had procured from the senate or rather usurp the honors and authority of the praetor ship and when heritius and panza the two consuls were slain he seized both their armies that it was doubted whether the consuls fell by the enemy or whether panza was not killed by pouring poison into his wounds and heritius slain by his own soldiers and whether the young Caesar was not the contriver of this bloody treason that by terror he had exhorted the consul ship in spite of the senate and turned against the commonwealth the very arms with which the commonwealth had trusted him for her defense against anthony add to all this his cruel prescriptions and the massacre of so many citizens his seizing from the public and distributing to his own creatures so many lands and possessions a violation of property not justified even by those who gained by it but allowing him to dedicate to the manese of the dictator the lives of brutus and cassius though more to his honor had it been to have postponed his own personal hate to public good did he not betray the young pompe by an insidious peace betray lepidus by a deceitful show of friendship did he not next ensnare mark anthony first by treaties those of torrentum and brindusium then by a marriage that of his sister octavia and did not anthony at last pay with his life the penalty of that sub dullis alliance after this no doubt there was peace but illegible bloody peace bloody in the tragical defeat of lolius and that avaris in germany and at roam the varones the egg nati the julie illustrious names were put to death quotes closed nor was his domestic life spared upon this occasion quotes open he had arbitrarily rob nero of his wife big with child by her husband and mocked the gods by consulting the priests whether religion permitted him to marry her before her delivery or obliged him to stay till after his minions tedious and various polio had lived in scandalous and excessive luxury his wife livia who wholly controlled him had proved a cruel governess to the commonwealth and to the julian house a more cruel stepmother he had even invaded the incommunicable honors of the gods and setting up for himself temples like theirs would like them be adored in the image of a deity with all the sacred solemnity of priests and sacrifices nor had he adopted tiberius for his successor either out of affection for him or from concern for the public welfare but having discovered in him a spirit proud and cruel he sought future glory from the blackest opposition and comparison quotes closed for augustus when a few years before he solicited the senate to grant to tiberius another term of the authority of the tribune ship though he mentioned him with honor yet taking notice of his odd humor behavior and manners dropped some expressions which while they seemed to excuse him exposed and up braided him as soon as the funeral of augustus was over a temple and divine worship were forthwith decreed him the senate then turned their supplications to tiberius to fill his vacant place but received an abstruse answer touching the greatness of the empire and his own distrust of himself he said that quotes open nothing but the divine genius of augustus was equal to the mighty task for himself who had been called by him into a participation of his cares he had learned by feeling them what a daring what a difficult toil was that of government and how perpetually subject to the caprices of fortune that in a state supported by so many illustrious patriots they ought not to cast the whole administration upon one and more easy to be administered were the several offices of the government by the united pains and sufficiency of many quotes closed a speech much more specious and sounding than cordial and sincere tiberius even upon subjects which needed no disguises used words dark and cautious perhaps from his diffident nature perhaps from a habit of disembling at this juncture indeed as he labored wholly to hide his heart his language was the more carefully wrapped up in equivocase and obscurity but the senators who dreaded nothing so much as to seem to understand him burst into tears planes and vows with extended arms they supplicated the gods invoke the image of augustus and embrace the knees of tiberius he then commanded the imperial register to be produced and recited it contained a summary of the strength and income of the empire the number of romans and exiliaries in pay the condition of the navy of the several kingdoms paying tribute and of the various provinces and their revenues with the state of the public expense the issues of the x checker and all the demands upon the public this register was all written by the hand of augustus and in it he had subjoined his council to posterity that the present boundaries of the empire should stand fixed without further enlargement whether this council was dictated by fear for the public or by envy towards his successors is uncertain now when the senate was stooping to the vilest importunity and prostrations tiberius happened to say that quotes open as he was unequal to the weight of the whole government so if they entrusted him with any particular part whatever it were he would undertake it quotes closed here asenius gallus interposed quotes open i beg to know cesar says he what part of the government you desire for your share quotes closed he was astonished with the unexpected question and for a short space mute but recovering himself answered that quotes open it ill became his modesty to choose or reject any particular branch of the administration when he desired rather to be excused from the whole quotes closed gallus who from his looks inferred deep displeasure again accosted him and said quotes open by this question i did not mean that you should share that power which cannot be separated but to reason you into a confession that the commonwealth is but one body and can be governed only by one soul quotes closed he added an incomium upon augustus and reminded tiberius himself of his many victories of the many civil employments which he had long and nobly sustained nor even thus could he mollify the wrath of tiberius who had long hated him for that gallus had married vipsania daughter of marcus agrippa formerly wife to tiberius who then suspected that he meant to soar above the rank of a subject and possessed to the bold and haughty spirit of assenius polio his father lucius arruntius incurred his displeasure next by a speech not much unlike that of gallus it is true that towards him tiberius bore no old ranker but arruntius had mighty opulence prompt parts noble accomplishments with equal popularity and renown and hence was marked by him with a fell eye of suspicion for as augustus shortly before his decease was mentioning those among great men who were capable of the supreme power but would not accept it or unequal to it yet wished for it or such as had both ambition and sufficiency he had said that marcus lepidus was qualified but would reject it assenius would be aspiring but had inferior talents and that lucius arruntius wanted no sufficiency and upon a proper occasion would attempt it quotes closed that he spoke thus of lepidus and assenius is agreed but instead of arruntius some writers have transmitted the name of snaeus piso and every one of these great men except lepidus were afterwards cut off under the imputation of various crimes all darkly framed by tiberius quintus hatterius and mammarchus scaros did also incense his distrustful spirit the first by asking him quotes open how long Caesar wilt thou suffer the commonwealth to remain destitute of a head quotes closed scaros because he had said there was room to hope that the prayers of the senate would not prove abortive since he had not interposed the tribuncial power and then obstructed the motion of the consuls in his behalf quotes closed with hatterius he fell into instant rage towards scaros his resentment was more deep and implacable and in profound silence he hit it wearied at last with public importunity and clamor and with particular expostulations he began to unbend a little not that he would own his undertaking the empire but only avoid the uneasiness of perpetual solicitations and refusals it is certain that hatterius when he went next day to the palace to implore pardon and throwing himself at the feet of tiberius embraced his knees narrowly escaped being slain by the soldiers because tiberius who was walking tumbled down whether by chance or whether his legs were entangled in the arms of hatterius neither was he a jot mollified by the danger which threatens so great a man who was at length forced to supplegate augusta for protection nor could even she obtain it but after the most labored in treaties towards livia likewise exorbitant was the flattering court of the senate some were for decreeing her the general title of mother others the more particular one of mother of her country and almost all proposed that to the name of tiberius should be added the son of julia tiberius urged in answer that quotes open public honors to women ought to be adjudged with a sparing hand and that with the same measure of moderation he would receive such as were presented to himself quotes closed in truth from envy and solicitude lest his own grandeur should sink as that of his mother rose he would not suffer so much as a liquor to be decreed her and even forbade the raising her an altar upon her late adoption or paying her any such solemnities yet for germanicus he asked the proconsular power and to carry him that dignity honorable deputies were sent as also to mollify his sorrow for the death of augustus if for drusas he demanded not the same honor it was because drusas was present and already consul designed he then named 12 candidates for the praetorship the same number settled by augustus and though the senate requested him to increase it he bound himself by an oath never to exceed the privilege of creating magistrates was now first translated from the assemblies of the people to the senate for though the emperor had before conducted all affairs of moment at his pleasure yet till that day some were still transacted by the tribes and carried by their bent and suffrages neither did the regret of the people for the seizure of these their ancient rights rise higher than some impotent grumbling the senate too like the change as by it they were released from the charge of buying votes and from the shame of begging them and so moderate was tiberius that of the 12 candidates he only reserved to himself the recommendation of four to be accepted without opposition or cabaling at the same time the tribunes of the people asked leave to celebrate at their own expense certain plays in honor of augustus such as were to be called after his name and inserted in the calendar but it was decreed that out of the exchequer the charge should be defrayed and the tribunes should in the circus where the triumphal robe but to be carried in chariots was denied them the annual celebration of these plays was for the future transferred to one of the praetors him in particular to whom should fall the jurisdiction of deciding suits between citizens and strangers and of section 15 of the complete works of tacitus edited by thomas gordon recording by father xyle