 Book 4, Part 1 of the Annals by Publius Cornelius Tacitus. The Annals by Publius Cornelius Tacitus translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Broderib. Book 4, AD 23-28, Part 1, The Rise of Sygenus. The year when Caius Asinius and Caius Antistius were consuls was the ninth of Tiberius's reign, a period of tranquillity for the state and prosperity for his own house, for he counted Germanicus' death a happy incident. Suddenly fortune deranged everything. The emperor became a cruel tyrant, as well as an abetter of cruelty in others. Of this the cause and origin was Ilius Sygenus, commander of the Praetorian cohorts, of whose influence I have already spoken. I will now fully describe his extraction, his character, and the daring wickedness by which he grasped at power. Born at Volcinii, the son of Seius Strabo, a Roman knight, he attached himself in his early youth to Caius Caesar, grandson of the divine Augustus, and the story went that he had sold his person to Apisius, a rich debauchee. Soon afterwards he won the heart of Tiberius so effectually by various artifices that the emperor, ever dark and mysterious towards others, was with Sygenus alone, careless, and free-spoken. It was not through his craft, for it was by this very weapon that he was overthrown. It was rather from heaven's wrath against Rome, to whose welfare his elevation and his fall were alike disastrous. He had a body which could endure hardships and a daring spirit. He was one who screamed himself while he was attacking others. He was as cringing as he was imperious. Before the world he affected humility. In his heart he lasted after supremacy for the sake of which he was sometimes lavish and luxurious, but oftener, energetic and watchful, qualities quite as mischievous when hypocritically assumed for the attainment of sovereignty. He strengthened the hitherto moderate powers of his office by concentrating the cohorts scattered throughout the capital into one camp, so that they might all receive orders at the same moment, and that the sight of their numbers and strength might give confidence to themselves while it would strike terror into the citizens. His pretexts were the demoralization incident to a dispersed soldiery, the greater effectiveness of simultaneous action in the event of a sudden peril, and the stricter discipline which would be ensured by the establishment of an encampment at a distance from the temptations of the city. As soon as the camp was completed he crept gradually into the affections of the soldiers by mixing with them and addressing them by name, himself selecting the centurions and tribunes. With the Senate too he sought to ingratiate himself, distinguishing his partisans with offices and provinces, Tiberius readily yielding, and being so biased that not only in private conversation but before the senators and the people, he spoke highly of him as the partner of his toils, and allowed his statutes to be honored in theatres, in forums, and at the headquarters of our legions. There were however obstacles to his ambition in the Imperial House with its many princes, a son in youthful manhood, and grown-up grandsons. As it would be unsafe to sweep off such a number at once by violence, while craft would necessitate successive intervals in crime, he chose on the whole the stealthier way and to begin with Drusus, against whom he had the stimulus of a recent resentment. Drusus, who could not brook a rival and was somewhat irascible, had in the casual dispute raised his fist at Sajanas, and when he defended himself had struck him in the face. On considering every plan, Sajanas thought his easiest revenge was to turn his attention to Livia, Drusus' wife. She was a sister of Germanicus, and though she was not handsome as a girl, she became a woman of surpassing beauty. Pretending an ardent passion for her, he seduced her, and having won his first infamous triumph, and assured that a woman after having parted with her virtue will hesitate at nothing, he lured her on to thoughts of marriage, of a share in sovereignty, and of her husband's destruction. And she, the niece of Augustus, the daughter-in-law of Tiberius, the mother of children by Drusus, for a provincial paramour foully disgraced herself, her ancestors, and her descendants, giving up honour and a sure position for prospects as base as they were uncertain. They took into their confidence Udemus, Livia's friend and physician, whose profession was a pretext for frequent secret interviews. Sajanas, to avert his mistress's jealousy, divorced his wife, Epicaeta, by whom he had had three children. Still the magnitude of the crime caused fear and delay, and sometimes a conflict of plans. Meanwhile, at the beginning of this year, Drusus, one of the children of Germanicus, assumed the dress of manhood with a repetition of the honours decreed by the senate to his brother Nero. The emperor added a speech with warm praise of his son for sharing a father's affection to his brother's children. Drusus, indeed, difficult as it is for power and mutual harmony to exist side by side, had the character of being kindly disposed, or at least not unfriendly, towards the lads. And now the old plan, so often, insincerely broached, of a progress through the provinces, was again discussed. The emperor's pretext was the number of veterans on the eve of discharge, and the necessity of fresh levies for the army. Volunteers were not forthcoming, and even if they were sufficiently numerous, they had not the same bravery and discipline, as it is chiefly the needy and the homeless who adopt by their own choice a soldier's life. Tiberius also rapidly enumerated the legions and the provinces which they had to garrison. I too ought, I think, to go through these details, and thus show what forces Rome then had under arms, what kings were our allies, and how much narrower then were the limits of our empire. Only on both seas was guarded by fleets, at Mesinum and at Revenna, and the contiguous coast of Gaul by ships of war captured in the victory of Actium, and sent by Augustus powerfully manned to the town of Foro-Julium. But chief strength was on the Rhine, as a defense alike against Germans and Gauls, and numbered eight legions. The Rhine, lately subjugated, was held by three. Mauritania was King Juba's, who had received it as a gift from the Roman people. The rest of Africa was garrisoned by two legions, and Egypt by the same number. Next beginning with Syria, all within the entire tract of countries stretching as far as the Euphrates, was kept in restraint by four legions, and on this frontier were Iberian, Albanian, and other kings, to whom our greatness was a protection against any foreign power. Thrace was held by Remotelses and the children of Cotis. The Bank of the Danube by two legions in Pannonia, two in Mesia, and two also were stationed in Dalmatia, which from the situation of the country were in the rear of the other four, and should Italy suddenly require aid, not too distant to be summoned. But the capital was garrisoned by its own special-soldiery, three city, nine Praetorian cohorts, levied for the most part in Etruria and Umbria, or ancient Latium, and the old Roman colonies. There were besides in commanding positions in the provinces allied fleets, cavalry, and light infantry of but little inferior strength. But any detailed account of them would be misleading, since they moved from place to place as circumstances required, and had their numbers increased and sometimes diminished. It is, however, I think, a convenient opportunity for me to review the hitherto prevailing methods of administration in the other departments of the state, in as much as that year brought with it the beginning of a change for the worse in Tiberius's policy. In the first place, public business and the most important private matters were managed by the Senate. The leading men were allowed freedom of discussion, and when they stooped to flattery, the emperor himself checked them. He bestowed honors with regard to noble ancestry, military renown, or brilliant accomplishments as a civilian, letting it be clearly seen that there were no better men to choose. The consul and the preter retained their prestige, inferior magistrates exercised their authority, the laws, too, with the single exception of cases of treason, were properly enforced. As to the duties on corn, the indirect taxes and other branches of the public revenue, they were in the hands of companies of Roman knights. The emperor entrusted his own property to men of the most tried integrity, or to persons known only by their general reputation, and once appointed they were retained without any limitation, so that most of them grew old in the same employments. The city populace, indeed, suffered much from high prices, but this was no fault of the emperor, who actually endeavored to counteract barren soils and stormy seas with every resource of wealth and foresight. And he was also careful not to distress the provinces by new burdens, and to see that in bearing the old they were safe from any rapacity or oppression on the part of governance. Corporal punishments and confiscations of property were unknown. The emperor had only a few estates in Italy, slaves on a moderate scale, and his household was confined to a few freedmen. If ever he had a dispute with a private person, it was decided in the law courts. All this, not indeed with any graciousness, but in a blunt fashion which often alarmed, he still kept up, until the death of Drusus changed everything. While he lived, the system continued, because Segenus, as yet only in the beginning of his power, wished to be known as an upright counsellor, and there was one whose vengeance he dreaded who did not conceal his hatred, and incessantly complained that a stranger was invited to assist in the government while the emperor's son was alive. Paonier was the step of declaring the stranger a colleague. Ambition at first had a steep path before it. When once the way had been entered, zealous adherents were forthcoming. Already at the pleasure of the commander of the guards, a camp had been established, the soldiers given into his hands, his statues were to be seen among the monuments of Gnius Pompeius, his grandsons would be of the same blood as the family of the Druzei, hence forth they must pray that he might have self-control and so be contented. So would Druzeus talk not unfrequently, or only in the hearing of a few persons. Even his confidences, now that his wife had been corrupted, were betrayed. Gnius accordingly thought that he must be prompt and chose a poison the gradual working of which might be mistaken for a natural disorder. It was given to Druzeus by Ligtus, a eunuch, as was ascertained eight years later. As for Tiberius, he went to the Senate house during the whole time of the prince's illness, either because he was not afraid, or to show his strength of mind, and even in the interval between his death and funeral. Seeing the consuls in token of their grief sitting on the ordinary benches, he reminded them of their high office and of their proper place, and when the Senate burst into tears suppressing a groan, he revived their spirits with a fluent speech. He knew indeed that he might be reproached for thus encountering the gaze of the Senate after so recent an affliction. Most mourners could hardly bear even the soothing words of Kinsfolk, or to look on the light of day, and such were not to be condemned as weak. But he had sought a more manly consolation in the bosom of the Commonwealth. Then deploring the extreme age of Augusta, the childhood of his grandsons, and his own declining years, he begged the Senate to summon Germanicus's children the only comfort under their present misery. The consuls went out, and having encouraged the young princes with kind words, brought them in and presented them to the emperor. Taking them by the hand, he said, Senators, when these boys lost their father, I committed them to their uncle, and begged him, though he had children of his own, to cherish and rear them as his own offspring, and train them for himself and for posterity. Drusus is now lost to us, and I turn my prayers to you, and before heaven and your country I adjure you to receive into your care and guidance the great grandsons of Augustus, descendants of a most noble ancestry. So fulfill your duty and mine. To you, Nero and Drusus, these Senators are as fathers. Such is your birth, that your prosperity and adversity must alike affect the state. There was great weeping at these words, and then many a benediction. Had the emperor set bounds to his speech, he must have filled the hearts of his hearers with sympathy and admiration, but he now fell back on those idle and often ridiculed professions about restoring the republic, and the wish that the consuls or someone else might undertake the government, and thus destroyed belief even in what was genuine and noble. The same honours were decreed to the memory of Drusus as to that of Germanicus, and many more were added, such is the way with flattery when repeated. The funeral with its procession of statues was singularly grand. Ineas, the father of the Julian house, all the Albin kings, Romulus, Rome's founder, then the Sabine nobility, Atas Clausus, and the busts of all the other Chlorii, were displayed in a long train. In relating the death of Drusus I have followed the narrative of most of the best historians, but I would not pass over a rumour of the time, the strength of which is not even yet exhausted. Sygenus it is said, having seduced Livia into crime, next secured by the foulest means the consent of Ligdus the eunuch, as from his youth and beauty he was his master's favourite and one of his principal attendants. When those who were in the secret had decided on the time and place of the poisoning, Sygenus with the most consummate daring, reversed his plan and whispering an accusation against Drusus of intending to poison his father, warned Tiberius to avoid the first draft offered him as he was dining at his son's house. Thus deceived the old emperor on sitting down to the banquet, took the cup and handed it to Drusus. His suspicions were increased when Drusus, in perfect unconsciousness, drank it off with youthful eagerness, apparently out of fear and shame, bringing on himself the death which he had plotted against his father. These popular rumours, over and above the fact that they are not vouched for by any good writer, may be instantly refuted. For who, with moderate prudence, far less Tiberius, with his great experience, would have thrust destruction on a son, without even hearing him, with his own hand too, and with an impossibility of returning to better thoughts? Surely he would rather have had the slave who handed the poison tortured, had sought to discover that traitor, in short, would have been as hesitating and tardy in the case of an only son hitherto unconvicted of any crime, as he was naturally, even with strangers. But as Sojanus had the credit of contriving every sort of wickedness, the fact that he was the emperor's special favourite, and that both were hated by the rest of the world, procured belief for any monstrous fiction, and rumour too always has a dreadful side in regard to the deaths of men in power. Besides, the whole process of the crime was betrayed by Apicator, Sojanus's wife, and fully divulged under torture by Eudemus and Ligdus. No writer has been found sufficiently malignant to fix the guilt on Tiberius, though every circumstance was scrutinised and exaggerated. My object in mentioning and refuting this story is, by a conspicuous example, to put down hearsay, and to request all into whose hands my work shall come, not to catch eagerly at wild and improbable rumours in preference to genuine history which has not been perverted into romance. Tiberius pronounced a panigeric on his son before the rostra, during which the senate and people, in appearance rather than in heart, put on the expression and accent of sorrow, while they inwardly rejoiced at the brightening future of the family of Germanicus. This beginning of popularity and the ill-concealed ambition of their mother Agrippina hastened its downfall. Sojanus, when he saw that the death of Drusus was not avenged on the murderers, and was no grief to the people, grew bold in wickedness, and now that his first attempt had succeeded, speculated on the possibility of destroying the children of Germanicus, whose succession to the throne was a certainty. There were three, and poison could not be distributed among them because of the singular fidelity of their guardians and the unassailable virtue of Agrippina. So Sojanus invade against Agrippina's arrogance, and worked powerfully on Augustus' old hatred of her, and on Livia's consciousness of recent guilt, and urged both these women to represent to the emperor that her pride as a mother and her reliance on popular enthusiasm were leading her to dream of empire. Livia availed herself of the cunning of accusers, among whom she had selected Julius Postumus, a man well suited to her purpose, as he had an intrigue with Mutilia Prisca, and was consequently in the confidence of Augusta, over whose mind Prisca had great influence. She thus made her aged grandmother, whose nature it was to tremble for her power, irreconcilably hostile to her grandson's widow. Agrippina's friends, too, were induced to be always inciting her proud spirit by mischievous talk. Livarius, meanwhile, who did not relax his attention to business, and found solace in his work, occupied himself with the causes of citizens at Rome, and with petitions from allies. Decrees of the senate were passed at his proposal for relieving the cities of Sibyra and Aegean in Asia and Acre, which had suffered from earthquakes by a remission of three years' tribute. Vibius Serenus, too, proconsul of further Spain, was condemned for violence in his official capacity, and was banished to the island of Amorgus for his savage temper. Carcidius Cercidus, accused of having helped our enemy attack Ferenus with supplies of grain, was acquitted, as was also Cius Gracchus on the same charge. Gracchus's father, Sempronius, had taken him when a mere child to the island of Cercina to be his companion in exile. There he grew up among outcasts, who knew nothing of a liberal education, and after a while supported himself in Africa and Sicily by petty trade. But he did not escape the dangers of high rank. Had not his innocence been protected by Elias Lamia and Lucius Apronius, successive governors of Africa, the splendid fame of that ill-starred family and the downfall of his father would have dragged him to ruin. This year, too, brought embosses from the Greek communities. The people of Samos and Kos petitioned for the confirmation of the ancient rite of Sancturi for the respective temples of Juno and Isculapius. The Samians relied on a decree of the Amphicteonic Council, which had the supreme decision of all questions when the Greeks, through the cities they had founded in Asia, had possession of the sea coast. Kos could boast equal antiquity, and it had an additional claim connected with the place. Roman citizens had been admitted to the temple of Isculapius when King Mithridates ordered a general massacre of them throughout all the islands and cities of Asia. Next, after various and usually fruitless complaints from the praetors, the emperor finally brought forward a motion about the licentious behavior of the players. They had often, he said, sought to disturb the public peace and to bring disgrace on private families, and the old Oskun Fass once a wretched amusement for the vulgar had become at once so indecent and so popular that it must be checked by the Senate's authority. The players upon this were banished from Italy. That same year also brought fresh sorrow to the emperor by being fatal to one of the twin sons of Drusus, equally too by the death of an intimate friend. This was Lucilius Longus, the partner of all his griefs and joys, the only senator who had been the companion of his retirement in Rhodes. And so, though he was a man of humble origin, the Senate decreed him a censor's funeral and a statue in the forum of Augustus at the public expense. Everything, indeed, was as yet in the hands of the Senate, and consequently Lucilius Capito, procurator of Asia, who was impeached by his province, was tried by them, the emperor vehemently asserting that he had merely given the man authority over the slaves and property of the imperial establishments, that if he had taken upon himself the powers of a preter and used military force, he had disregarded his instructions, therefore they must hear the provincials. So the case was heard, and the accused condemned. The cities of Asia, gratified by this retribution, and the punishment inflicted in the previous year on Caius Silanus, voted a temple to Tiberius, his mother, and the Senate, and were permitted to build it. So thanked the Senators and his grandfather on their behalf, and carried with him the joyful sympathies of his audience, who, with the memory of Germanicus fresh in their minds, imagined that it was his face they saw, his voice they heard. The youth, too, had a modesty and a grace of person worthy of a prince, the more charming because of his peril from the notorious enmity of Silanus. At the same time the emperor spoke on the subject of electing a priest of Jupiter in the room of Servius Melluginensis, deceased, and of the enactment of a new law. It was, he said, the old custom to nominate together three patricians, sons of parents wedded according to the primitive ceremony, and of these one was to be chosen. Now, however, there was not the same choice as formally, the primitive form of marriage having been given up or being observed only by a few persons. For this he assigned several reasons, the chief being men's and women's indifference, then again the ceremony itself had its difficulties which were purposely avoided, and there was the objection that the man who obtained this priesthood was emancipated from the father's authority as also was his wife as passing into the husband's control. So the senate, Tiberius argued, ought to apply some remedy by a decree of a law as Augustus had accommodated certain relics of a rude antiquity to the modern spirit. It was then decided after a discussion of religious questions that the institution of the priests of Jupiter should remain unchanged. A law, however, was passed that the priestess, in regard to her sacred functions, was to be under the husband's control, but in other respects to retain the ordinary legal position of women. Melluginensis, the son, was chosen successor to his father. To raise the dignity of the priesthood and to inspire the priests with more zeal in attending to the ceremonial, a gift of two million cisterces was decreed to the Vestal Cornelia, chosen in the room of Scantia, and whenever Augusta entered the theatre, she was to have a place in the seats of the Vestals. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Graham Redman. The Annals by Publius Cornelius Tacitus, translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Broderib. Book 4, AD 23-28, Part 2, Sons of Germanicus, Resented by Tiberius. In the consulship of Cornelius Tacitus and Veselius Varro, the Pontiffs, whose example was followed by the other priests in offering prayers for the emperor's health, commended also Nero and Drusus to the same deities, not so much out of love for the young princes as out of sycophancy, the absence and excess of which in a corrupt age are alike dangerous. Tiberius, indeed, who was never friendly to the house of Germanicus, was then vexed beyond endurance at their youth being honored equally with his declining years. He summoned the Pontiffs and asked them whether it was to the entreaties or the threats of Agrippina that they had made this concession, and though they gave a flat denial, he rebuked them, but gently, for many of them were her own relatives or were leading men in the state. However, he addressed a warning to the Senate against encouraging pride in their young and excitable minds by premature honors, for Sajanas spoke vehemently and charged them with rending the state almost by civil war. There were those, he said, who called themselves the party of Agrippina, and unless they were checked there would be more. The only remedy for the increasing discord was the overthrow of one or two of the most enterprising leaders. Accordingly he attacked Gaius Cilius and Titius Serbinus. The friendship of Germanicus was fatal to both. As Cilius, his having commanded a great army for seven years, and one in Germany the distinctions of a triumph for his success in the war with Sacrivia would make his downfall all the more tremendous, and so spread greater terror among others. Many thought that he had provoked further displeasure by his own presumption and his extravagant boasts that his troops had been steadfastly loyal while other armies were falling into mutiny, and that Tiberius's throne could not have lasted had his legions too been bent on revolution. All this the emperor regarded as undermining his own power, which seemed to be unequal to the burden of such an obligation. For benefits received are a delight to us as long as we think we can requite them. When that possibility is far exceeded they are repaid with hatred instead of gratitude. Cilius had a wife, Sosia Gala, whose love of Agrippina made her hateful to the emperor. The two it was decided were to be attacked, but Serbinus was to be put off for a time. Varro the consul was let loose on them, who under color of a hereditary feud humored the malignity of Ser Janeus to his own disgrace. The accused begged a brief respite until the prosecutor's consulship expired, but the emperor opposed the request. It was usual, he argued, for magistrates to bring a private citizen to trial, and a consul's authority ought not to be impaired, seeing that it rested with his vigilance to guard the commonwealth from loss. It was characteristic of Tiberius to veil new devices in wickedness under ancient names, and so with a solemn appeal he summoned the senate, as if there were any laws by which Cilius was being tried, as if Varro were a real consul or Rome a commonwealth. The accused either said nothing, or, if he attempted to defend himself, hinted not obscurely at the person whose resentment was crushing him. A long concealed complicity and sacrifice rebellion, a rapacity which sullied his victory, and his wife Sosia's conduct were alleged against him. Unquestionably they could not extricate themselves from the charge of extortion. The whole affair, however, was conducted as a trial for treason, and Cilius forstalled impending doom by a self-inflicted death. Yet there was a merciless confiscation of his property, though not to refund their money to the provincials, none of whom pressed any demand. But Augustus's bounty was rested from him, and the claims of the imperial exchequer were computed in detail. This was the first instance on Tiberius's part of sharp dealing with the wealth of others. Sosia was banished on the motion of a sinious gallus, who had proposed that half her estate should be confiscated, half left to the children. Marcus Lepidus, on the contrary, was forgiving a fourth to the prosecutors, as the law required, and the remainder to the children. This Lepidus, I am satisfied, was for that age a wise and high-principled man. Many a cruel suggestion made by the flattery of others he changed for the better, and yet he did not want tact, seeing that he always enjoyed an uniform prestige and also the favour of Tiberius. This compels me to doubt whether the liking of princes for some men and their antipathy to others depend, like other contingencies, on a fate and destiny to which we are born, or to some degree on our own plans, so that it is possible to pursue a course between a defiant independence and a debasing civility free from ambition and its perils. Messelinus Cotta, of equally illustrious ancestry as Lepidus, but wholly different in disposition, proposed that the Senate should pass a decree providing that even innocent governors who knew nothing of the delinquencies of others should be punished for their wives offences in the provinces as much as for their own. Proceedings were then taken against Calpurnius Piso, a high-spirited nobleman. He it was, as I have related, who had exclaimed more than once in the Senate that he would quit Rome because of the combinations of the informers, and had dared in defiance of Augustus' power to sue Ergulania and summon her from the emperor's palace. Tiberius submitted to this at the time not ungraciously, but the remembrance of it was vividly impressed on a mind which brooded over its resentments, even though the first impulse of his displeasure had subsided. Quintus Grainius accused Piso of secret, treasonable conversation, and added that he kept poison in his house and wore a dagger whenever he came into the Senate. This was passed over as too atrocious to be true. He was to be tried on the other charges, a multitude of which were heaped on him, but his timely death cut short the trial. Next was taken the case of Cassius Severus, an exile, a man of mean origin and a life of crime, but a powerful pleader he had brought on himself by his persistent quarrelsomeness, a decision of the Senate under oath which banished him to Crete. There, by the same practices, he drew on himself fresh odium and revived the old. Stripped of his property and outlawed, he wore out his old age on the rock of Seraphus. About the same time, Plosius Sylvainus, the preter, for unknown reasons, threw his wife, Apronia, out of a window. When summoned before the Emperor by Lucius Apronius, his father-in-law, he replied incoherently, representing that he was in a sound sleep and consequently knew nothing, and that his wife had chosen to destroy herself. Without a moment's delay, Tiberius went to the house and inspected the chamber, where were seen the marks of her struggling and of her forcible ejection. He reported this to the Senate, and as soon as judges had been appointed, Ergulania, the grandmother of Sylvainus, sent her grandson a dagger. This was thought equivalent to a hint from the Emperor, because of the known intimacy between Augusta and Ergulania. The accused tried the steel in vain, and then allowed his veins to be opened. Shortly afterwards, Neumontina, his former wife, was charged with having caused her husband's insanity by magical incantations and potions, but she was acquitted. This year, at last, released Rome from her long contest with the Numidian Tachthorinus. Former generals, when they thought that their successes were enough to ensure them triumphal distinctions, left the enemy to himself. There were now in Rome three laurel statues, and yet Tachthorinus was still ravaging Africa, strengthened by reinforcements from the Moors, who, under the boyish and careless rule of Ptolemaeus, Tiber's son, had chosen war in preference to the despotism of freedmen and slaves. He had the King of the Garamantes to receive his plunder and to be the partner of his raids, not indeed with a regular army, but with detachments of light troops whose strength, as they came from a distance, rumour exaggerated. From the province itself, every needy and restless adventurer hurried to join him. For the emperor, as if not an enemy, remained in Africa after the achievements of Blazers, had ordered the 9th Legion home, and Pumblius Dolabela, proconsul that year, had not dared to retain it because he feared the sovereign's orders more than the risks of war. Tachthorinus accordingly spread rumours that elsewhere also nations were rending the Empire of Rome, and that therefore her soldiers were gradually retiring from Africa, and that the rest might be cut off by a strong effort on the part of all who loved freedom more than slavery. He thus augmented his force, and having formed a camp, he besieged the town of Tobuscum. Dolabela, meanwhile, collecting all the troops on the spot, raised the siege at his first approach by the terror of the Roman name, and because the Numidians cannot stand against the charge of infantry. He then fortified suitable positions, and at the same time beheaded some chiefs of the Musulamii who were on the verge of rebellion. Next, as several expeditions against Tachthorinus had proved the uselessness of following up the enemy's desilatory movements with the attack of heavy troops from a single point, he summoned to his aid King Ptolemaus and his people, and equipped four columns under the command of his lieutenants and tribunes. Marauding parties were also led by Pict Moors, Dolabela in person directing every operation. Soon afterwards news came that the Numidians had fixed their tents and encamped near a half-demolished fortress by name Orsia, to which they had themselves formally set fire, and on the position of which they relied as it was enclosed by vast forests. Immediately the light infantry and cavalry, without knowing whether they were being led, were hurried along at quick march. Day dawned, and with the sound of trumpets and fierce shouts, they were on the half-asleep barbarians whose horses were tethered or roaming over distant pastures. On the Roman side the infantry was in close array, the cavalry in its squadrons, everything prepared for an engagement, while the enemy utterly surprised, without arms, order, or plan, was seized, slaughtered, or captured like cattle. The infuriated soldiers, remembering their hardships and how often belonged for conflict had been eluded, sated themselves to a man with vengeance and bloodshed. The word went through the companies that all were to aim at securing Tacferinus, whom, after so many battles, they knew well, as there would be no rest from war except by the destruction of the enemy's leader. Tacferinus, his guards slain round him, his son a prisoner, and the Romans bursting on him from every side, rushed on the darts, and by a death which was not avenged, escaped captivity. This ended the war. Dolabela asked for triumphal distinctions, but was refused by Tiberius out of compliment to Sejanus, the glory of whose uncle Blesus he did not wish to be forgotten. But this did not make Blesus more famous, while the refusal of the honor heightened Dolabela's renown. He had, in fact, with a smaller army, brought back with him illustrious prisoners and the fame of having slain the enemy's leader and terminated the war. In his train were envoys from the Garamantes, a rare spectacle in Rome. The nation, in its terror at the destruction of Tacferinus, and innocent of any guilty intention, had sent them to crave pardon of the Roman people. And now that this war had proved the zealous loyalty of Ptolemyus, a custom of antiquity was revived, and one of the senators was sent to present him with an ivory scepter and an embroidered robe, gifts anciently bestowed by the senate, and to confer on him the titles of king, ally, and friend. The same summer the germs of a slave war in Italy were crushed by a fortunate accident. The originator of the movement was Titus Cotisius, once a soldier of the Praetorian Guard. First by secret meetings at Brandisium and the neighboring towns, then by placards publicly exhibited, he incited the rural and savage slave population of the remote forests to assert their freedom. By divine providence three vessels came to land for the use of those who traversed that sea. In the same part of the country, too, was Cersius Lupus, the Queester, who, according to ancient precedent, had had the charge of the woodland pastures assigned to him. Putting in motion a force of marines, he broke up the seditious combination in its very first beginnings. The emperor at once sent Staius a tribune with a strong detachment by whom the ringleader himself, with his most daring followers, were brought prisoners to Rome, where men already trembled at the vast scale of the slave establishments, in which there was an immense growth, while the freeborn populace daily decreased. That same consulship witnessed a horrible instance of misery and brutality. A father as defendant, a son as prosecutor, Vibius Serenas was the name of both, were brought before the Senate. The father dragged from exile in filth and squalor, now stood in irons, while the son pleaded for his guilt. With studious elegance of dress and cheerful looks, the youth at once accuser and witness alleged a plot against the emperor, and that men had been sent to Gaul to excite rebellion, further adding that Sicilius Cornutus and ex-preta had furnished money. Cornutus, weary of anxiety and feeling that peril was equivalent to ruin, hastened to destroy himself. But the accused with fearless spirit looked his son in the face, shook his chains, and appealed to the vengeance of the gods with a prayer that they would restore him to his exile, where he might live far away from such practices, and that as for his son punishment might sooner or later overtake him. He protested too that Cornutus was innocent, and that his terror was groundless, as would easily be perceived if other names were given up, for he never would have plotted the emperor's murder and a revolution with only one confederate. Upon this the prosecutor named Nius Lentulus and Sirius Tubero, to the great confusion of the emperor at finding a hostile rebellion and disturbance of the public piece charged on two leading men in the state, his own intimate friends, the first of whom was in extreme old age, and the second in very feeble health. They were, however, at once acquitted. As for the father, his slaves were examined by torture, and the result was unfavorable to the accuser. The man, maddened by remorse and terror stricken by the popular voice which menaced him with the dungeon, the rock, or a parasite's doom, fled from Rome. He was dragged back from Ravenna and forced to go through the prosecution, during which Tiberius did not disguise the old grudge he bore the exile Serenas. For after Liber's conviction Serenas had sent the emperor a letter, upbraiding him for not having rewarded his special zeal in that trial, with further hints more insolent than could be safely trusted to the easily offended ears of a despot. All this Tiberius revived eight years later, charging on him various misconduct during that interval, even though the examination by torture owing to the obstinacy of the slaves had contradicted his guilt. The senate then gave their votes that Serenas should be punished according to ancient precedent, when the emperor to soften the odium of the affair interposed with his veto. Next Gallus Asinius proposed that he should be confined in Gallaros or Donusa, but this he rejected on the ground that both these islands were deficient in water, and that he whose life was spared ought to be allowed the necessaries of life. And so Serenas was conveyed back to Amorgos. In consequence of the suicide of Cornutus, it was proposed to deprive informers of their rewards whenever a person accused of treason put an end to his life by his own act before the completion of the trial. The motion was on the point of being carried when the emperor, with a harshness contrary to his manner, spoke openly for the informers complaining that the laws would be ineffective, and the state brought to the verge of ruin. Better, he said, to subvert the constitution than to remove its guardians. Thus the informers, a class invented to destroy the commonwealth and never enough controlled even by legal penalties, were stimulated by rewards. Some little joy broke this long succession of horrors. Caius Cominius, a Roman knight, was spared by the emperor, against whom he was convicted of having written libelous verses, at the intercession of his brother, who was a senator. Hence it seemed the more amazing that one who knew better things and the glory which waits on mercy should prefer harsher courses. He did not indeed err from dullness, and it is easy to see when the acts of a sovereign meet with genuine, and when with fictitious popularity. And even he himself, though usually artificial in manner, and though his words escaped him with a seeming struggle, spoke out freely and fluently whenever he came to a man's rescue. In another case, that of Publius Seulius, formally queester to Germanicus, who was to be expelled from Italy on a conviction of having received money for a judicial decision, he held that the man ought to be banished to an island, and so intensely strong was his feeling that he bound the Senate by an oath that this was a state necessity. The act was thought cruel at the moment, but subsequently it redounded to his honour when Seulius returned from exile. The next age saw him in tremendous power and a venal creature of the emperor Claudius, whose friendship he long used with success never for good. The same punishment was adjudged to Catus Firmius, a senator, for having it was alleged assailed his sister with a false charge of treason. Catus, as I have related, had drawn Lybo into a snare, and then destroyed him by an information. Tiberius, remembering this service, while he alleged other reasons, deprecated a sentence of exile, but did not oppose his expulsion from the Senate. Much of what I have related, and shall have to relate, may perhaps I am aware seem petty trifles to record, but no one must compare my annals with the writings of those who have described Rome in old days. They told of great wars, of the storming of cities, of the defeat and capture of kings, or whenever they turned by preference to home affairs, they related, with a free scope for digression, the stripes of consuls with tribunes, land and corn-laws, and the struggles between the commons and the aristocracy. My labours are circumscribed and inglorious, peace wholly unbroken, or but slightly disturbed, dismal misery in the capital, and emperor careless about the enlargement of the empire, such is my theme. Still it will not be useless to study those at first sight trifling events out of which the movements of vast changes often take their rise. All nations and cities are ruled by the people, the nobility, or by one man. A constitution formed by selection out of these elements it is easy to commend, but not to produce, or if it is produced it cannot be lasting. Formerly when the people had power, or when the patricians were in the ascendant, the popular temper and the methods of controlling it had to be studied, and those who knew most accurately the spirit of the senate and aristocracy had the credit of understanding the age and of being wise men. So now, after a revolution, when Rome is nothing but the realm of a single despot, there must be good in careful in noting and recording this period, for it is but few who have the foresight to distinguish right from wrong, or what is sound from what is hurtful, while most men learn wisdom from the fortunes of others. Still, though this is instructive, it gives very little pleasure. Descriptions of countries, the various incidents of battles, glorious deaths of great generals, enchain and refresh a reader's mind. I have to present in succession the merciless biddings of attirent, incessant prosecutions, faithless friendships, the ruin of innocence, the same causes issuing in the same results, and I am everywhere confronted by a wearisome monotony in my subject matter. Then again an ancient historian has but few disparages, and no one cares whether you praise more heartily the armies of Carthage or Rome, but of many who endured punishment or disgrace under Tiberius, the descendants yet survive, or even though the families themselves may be now extinct, you will find those who, from a resemblance of character, imagined that the evil deeds of others are a reproach to themselves. Again even honour and virtue make enemies condemning as they do their opposites by too close a contrast. But I return to my work. In the year of the consulship of Cornelius Cossus and Asinius Agrippa, Cremucius Cordus was arraigned on a new charge now for the first time heard. He had published a history in which he had praised Marcus Brutus and called Gaius Cassius the last of the Romans. His accusers were Satreus Secundus and Pinarius Natta, creatures of Sygenus. This was enough to ruin the accused, and then too the emperor listened with an angry frown to his defense, which Cremucius resolved to give up his life began thus. It is my words, Senators, which are condemned, so innocent am I of any guilty act. Yet these do not touch the emperor or the emperor's mother, who are alone comprehended under the law of treason. I am said to have praised Brutus and Cassius, whose careers many have described and no one mentioned without eulogy. Titus Livius, preeminently famous for eloquence and truthfulness, extolled Cnius Pompeius in such a panegyric that Augustus called him Pompeianus, and yet this was no obstacle to their friendship. Scipio, afranius, this very Cassius, this same Brutus, he nowhere describes as brigands and traitors terms now applied to them, but repeatedly as illustrious men. Asinius Polio's writings too hand down a glorious memory of them, and Messala Corvinus used to speak with pride of Cassius as his general, yet both these men prospered to the end with wealth and preferment. Again that book of Marcus Cicero, in which he lauded Cato to the skies, how else was it answered by Caesar the dictator, than by a written oration in reply as if he was pleading in court. The letters of Antonius, the harangs of Brutus, contain reproaches against Augustus, false indeed, but urged with powerful sarcasm. The poems which we read of Bibaculus and Catullus are crammed with invectives on the Caesars, yet the Divine Julius, the Divine Augustus themselves bore all this, and let it pass, whether in forbearance or in wisdom I cannot easily say. Assuredly what is despised is soon forgotten, when you resent a thing you seem to recognize it. Of the Greeks I say nothing, with them not only liberty but even license went unpunished, or if a person aimed at chastising, he retaliated on satire by satire. It has, however, always been perfectly open to us without anyone to censure, to speak freely of those whom death has withdrawn alike from the partialities of hatred or esteem. Arcasius and Brutus now in arms on the fields of Philippi, and am I with them rousing the people by harangs to stir up civil war? Did they not fall more than seventy years ago, and as they are known to us by statues which even the conqueror did not destroy, so too is not some portion of their memory preserved for us by historians. To every man posterity gives his due honor, and if a fatal sentence hangs over me, there will be those who will remember me as well as Cassius and Brutus. He then left the Senate, and ended his life by starvation. His books, so the Senators decreed, were to be burned by the Ediles, but some copies were left which were concealed and afterwards published, and so one is all the more inclined to laugh at the stupidity of men who suppose that the despotism of the present can actually efface the remembrances of the next generation. On the contrary, the persecution of genius fosters its influence. Foreign tyrants and all who have imitated their oppression have merely procured infamy for themselves and glory for their victims. That year was such a continuous succession of prosecutions that on the days of the Latin Festival when Drusus as city prefect had ascended his tribunal for the inauguration of his office, Calpurnius Salvienus appeared before him against Sextus Marius. This the emperor openly censured, and it caused the banishment of Salvienus. Next the people of Scyzacus were accused of publicly neglecting the established worship of the divine Augustus, and also of acts of violence to Roman citizens. They were deprived of the franchise which they had earned during the war with Mithridates when their city was besieged, and when they repulsed the king as much by their own bravery as by the aid of Lucullus. Then followed the acquittal of Fontaeus Capito, the late proconsul of Asia, on proof that charges brought against him by Bibius Serenus were fictitious. Still this did not injure Serenus to whom public hatred was actually a protection. Indeed any conspicuously restless informer was, so to say, inviolable. Only the insignificant and undistinguished were punished. About the same time further Spain sent a deputation to the Senate with a request to be allowed, after the example of Asia, to erect a temple to Tiberius and his mother. On this occasion the emperor, who had generally a strong contempt for honours, and now thought it right to reply to the rumour which reproached him with having yielded to vanity, delivered the following speech. I am aware, senators, that many deplore my want of firmness in not having opposed a similar recent petition from the cities of Asia. I will therefore both explain the grounds of my previous silence and my intentions for the future. Inasmuch as the divine Augustus did not forbid the founding of a temple at Pergamos to himself and to the city of Rome, I, who respect as law all his actions and sayings, have the more readily followed a precedent once approved, seeing that with the worship of myself was linked an expression of reverence towards the Senate. But though it may be pardonable to have allowed this once, it would be a vain and arrogant thing to receive the sacred honour of images representing the divine throughout all the provinces, and the homage paid to Augustus will disappear if it is vulgarized by indiscriminate flattery. For myself, senators, I am mortal and limited to the functions of humanity, content if I can adequately fill the highest place. Of this I solemnly assure you and would have posterity remember it. They will more than sufficiently honour my memory by believing me to have been worthy of my ancestry, watchful over your interests, courageous in danger, fearless of enmity when the state required it. These sentiments of your hearts are my temples, these my most glorious and abiding monuments. Those built of stone are despised as mere tombs if the judgment of posterity passes into hatred, and therefore this is my prayer to our allies, our citizens, and to heaven itself. To the last that to my life's close it grant me a tranquil mind which can discern alike human and divine claims, to the first that when I die they honour my career and the reputation of my name with praise and kindly remembrance. Henceforth Tiberius, even in private conversations, persisted in showing contempt for such homage to himself. Some attributed this to modesty, many to self distrust, a few to a mean spirit. The noblest men, it was said, have the loftiest aspirations, and so Hercules and Bacchus among the Greeks and Quirinus among us were enrolled in the number of the gods. Augustus did better seeing that he had aspired. All other things princes have as a matter of course. One thing they ought insatiably to pursue, that their memory may be glorious. For to despise fame is to despise merit. End of book four, part two, recording by Graham Redmond. Book four, part three of The Annals by Publius Cornelius Tacitus. This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org. The Annals by Publius Cornelius Tacitus. Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Broderib. Book four, AD 23-28, part three. Sarjanus desires the widow of Drusus in marriage. Sarjanus meanwhile, dazed by his extravagant prosperity, and urged on too by a woman's passion, Livia now insisting on his promise of marriage, addressed a memorial to the emperor. For it was then the custom to apply to him by writing, even though he was at Rome. This petition was to the following effect. The kindness of Augustus, the father, and then the many favorable testimonies of Tiberius, the son, had engendered the habit of confiding his hopes and wishes to the ears of emperors, as readily as to those of the gods. The splendour of high distinctions he had never craved. He had rather chosen watchings and hardships, like one of the common soldiers, for the emperor's safety. But there was one most glorious honour he had won. The reputation of being worthy of an alliance with a Caesar. This was the first motive of his ambition, as he had heard that Augustus, in marrying his daughter, had even entertained some thoughts of Roman knights. So if a husband was sought for Livia, he hoped Tiberius would bear in mind a friend who would find his reward simply in the glory of the alliance. He did not wish to rid himself of the duties imposed on him. He thought it enough for his family to be secured against the unjustest pleasure of a grippaner, and this for the sake of his children. For, as for himself, enough and more than enough for him would be a life completed while such a sovereign still reigned. Tiberius, in reply, after praising the loyal sentiments of Sajanas, and briefly enumerating the favours he had bestowed on him, asked time for impartial consideration, adding that while other men's plans depended on their ideas of their own interest, princes, who had to regulate their chief actions by public opinion, were in a different position. Hence, he said, I do not take refuge in an answer which it would be easy to return, that Livia can herself decide whether she considers that, after Drusus, she ought again to marry, or rather to endure life in the same home, and that she has in her mother and grandmother counsellors nearer and dearer to her. I will deal more frankly. First, as to the enmity of a grippaner, I maintain that it will blaze out more fiercely if Livia's marriage rends, so to say, the house of the Caesars into two factions. Even as it is, feminine jealousies break out, and my grandsons are torn asunder by the strife. What will happen if the rivalry is rendered more intense by such a marriage? For you are mistaken, Sir Janus, if you think that you will then remain in the same position, and that Livia, who has been the wife of Caesars Caesar, and afterwards of Drusus, will have the inclination to pass her old age with a mere Roman knight. Though I might allow it, do you imagine it would be tolerated by those who have seen her brother, her father, and our ancestors in the highest offices of state? You indeed desire to keep within your station, but those magistrates and nobles who intrude on you against your wishes, and consult you on all matters, openly give out that you have long overstepped the rank of a knight, and gone far beyond my father's friendships, and from there dislike of you they also condemn me. But, you say, Augustus had thoughts of giving his daughter to a Roman knight. Is it surprising that, with so many distracting cares, for seeing too the immense elevation to which a man would be raised above others by such an alliance, he talked of Caes preculious and certain persons of singularly quiet life, wholly free from political entanglements? Still, if the hesitation of Augustus is to influence us, how much stronger is the fact that he bestowed his daughter on Mark as a gripper than on myself? All this, as a friend, I have stated without reserve, but I will not oppose your plans or those of Livia. My own earnest thoughts, and the ties with which I am still purposing to unite you to myself, I shall for the present forbear to explain. This only I will declare that nothing is too grand to be deserved by your merits, and your good will towards me. When an opportunity presents itself, either in the senate, or in a popular assembly, I shall not be silent. Sajanas, no longer thinking of his marriage, but filled with a deeper alarm, rejoined by deprecating the whispers of suspicion, popular rumour, and the gathering storm of odium. That he might not impair his influence by closing his doors on the throngs of his many visitors, or strengthen the hands of accusers by admitting them, he made it his aim to induce Tiberius to live in some charming spot at a distance from Rome. In this he foresaw several advantages, access to the emperor would be under his own control, and letters, for the most part, being conveyed by soldiers, would pass through his hands. Caesar, too, who was already in the decline of life, would soon, when enervated by retirement, more readily transfer to him the functions of empire, envy towards himself would be lessened when there was an end to his crowded levies, and the reality of power would be increased by the removal of its empty show. So he began to declaim against the laborious life of the capital, the bustling crowds and streaming multitudes, while he praised repose and solitude with their freedom from vexations and misunderstandings, and their special opportunities for the study of the highest questions. It happened that the trial at this time of Vashina's Montanus, a popular wit, convinced the hesitating Tiberius that he ought to shun all assemblies of the senate, where speeches, often true and offensive, were flung in his very face. Vashina's was charged with insulting expressions towards the emperor, and while the witness, Emilius, a military man in his eagerness to prove the case, repeated the whole story and a mid-angry clamour struggled on with loud assertion. Tiberius heard the reproaches by which he was assailed in secret, and was so deeply impressed that he exclaimed that he would clear himself either at once or on a legal inquiry, and the entreaties of friends, with the flattery of the whole assembly, hardly restored his composure. As for Vashina's, he suffered the penalty of treason, but the emperor, clinging all the more obstinately to the harshness with which he had been reproached in regard to accused persons, punished Aquilia with exile for the crime of adultery with various legue, although Lentulus Gaetulicus, the consul-elect, had proposed that she should be sentenced under the Julian law. He next struck off Apidius Merila from the register of the senate for not having sworn obedience to the legislation of the divine Augustus. Then a hearing was given to embassies from the Lassidemonians and Messonians on the question of the temple of Diana in the marshes. The Lassidemonians asserted that it had been dedicated by their ancestors and in their territory, and appealed to the records of their history and the hymns of poets, but it had been rested from, they said, by the arms of the Macedonian Philip, with whom they had fought, and subsequently restored by the decision of Caius Caesar and Marcus Antonius. The Messonians, on the contrary, alleged the ancient division of the Peloponnesus among the descendants of Hercules in which the territory of Denthilia, where the temple stood, had fallen to their king. Records of this event still existed engraving on stone and ancient bronze, but if they were asked for the testimony of poetry and of history, they had it, they said, in greater abundance and authenticity. Philip had not decided arbitrarily, but according to fact, and King Antigonus, as also the general Momeus, had pronounced the same judgment. Such too had been the award of the Milesians to whom the arbitration had been publicly entrusted, and finally, of Artidius Germanus, the preter of Achaia. And so the question was decided in favour of the Messonians. Next the people of Sugesta petitioned for the restoration of the temple of Venus at Mount Erics, which had fallen to a ruin from its antiquity. They repeated the well-known story of its origin, which delighted Tiberius. He undertook the work willingly as being a kinsman of the goddess. After this was discussed a petition from the city of Messilia, and sanction given to the president of Publius Retilius, who having been legally banished from Rome, had been adopted as a citizen by the people of Smyrna. Volcaeus Moscus, also an exile, had been received with a similar privilege by the inhabitants of Messilia, and had left his property to their community as being now his own country. Two men of noble rank died in that year, Naus Lentulis and Lucius Demitius. It had been the glory of Lentulis, to say nothing of his consulship, and his triumphal distinctions over the Gaetuli, to have borne poverty with a good grace, then to have attained great wealth, which had been blamelessly acquired, and was modestly enjoyed. Demitius derived Luster from a father who during the civil war had been master of the sea, till he united himself to the party of Antonius, and afterwards to that of Caesar. His grandfather had fallen in the battle of Messilia, fighting for the aristocracy. He had himself been chosen to be the husband of the younger Antonia, daughter of Octavia, and subsequently led an army across the Elbe, penetrating further into Germany than any Roman before him. For this achievement he gained triumphal honours. Lucius Antonius too then died, of the most illustrious but unfortunate family. His father, Julius Antonius, was capitally punished for adultery with Julia, and the son, Winamir Youth, was banished by Augustus, whose sister's grandson he was to the city of Messilia, where the name of exile might be master under that of student. Yet Honour was paid him in death, and his bones, by the senate's degree, were consigned to the sepulchre of the Octavia. While the same consuls were in office, an atrocious crime was committed in nearer Spain by a peasant of the Temestine tribe. Suddenly attacking the preter of the province, Lucius Piso, as he was travelling in all the carelessness of peace, he killed him with a single wound. He then fled on a swift horse, and reached a wooded country, where he parted with his steed, and eluded pursuit amid rocky and pathless wilds. But he was soon discovered. The horse was caught, and led through the neighbouring villages, and its owner ascertained. Being found and put to the torture that he might be forced to reveal his accomplices, he exclaimed in a loud voice, in the language of his country, that it was in vain to question him. His comrades might stand by and look on, but that the most intense agony would not bring the truth from him. Next day, when he was dragged back to torture, he broke loose from his guards, and dashed his head against a stone with such violence that he instantly fell dead. It was, however, believed that Piso was treacherously murdered by the Temestine. Some public money had been embezzled, and he was pressing for its payment too rigorously for the patience of barbarians. In the consulship of Len Tuulis Gaetulicus and Caes Calvicius, triumphal distinctions were decreed to papayas Sabanus, for a crushing defeat of some Thracian tribes, whose wildlife in the highlands of a mountainous country made them unusually fierce. Besides their natural ferocity, the rebellion had its origin in their scornful refusal to endure levies and to supply our armies with their bravest men. Even native princes they would obey only according to their caprice, and if they sent aid, they used to appoint their own leaders and fight only against their neighbours. A rumour had then spread itself amongst them that, dispersed and mingled with other tribes, they were to be dragged away to distant countries. Before, however, they took up arms, they sent envoys with assurances of their friendship and loyalty, which they said would continue if they were not tried by any fresh burden, but if they were doomed to slavery as a conquered people, they had swords and young warriors, and a spirit bent on freedom, or resigned to death. As they spoke, they pointed to fortresses amid rocks, whether they had conveyed their parents and their wives, and threatened us with a difficult, dangerous and sanguinary war. Sabanus, meantime, while he was concentrating his troops, returned gentle answers. But on the arrival of Pomponius Labeo with a legion from Messia, and of King Remitalces with some reinforcements from his subjects who had not thrown off their allegiance. With these and the force he had on the spot, he advanced on the enemy, who were drawn up in some wooded defiles. Some ventured to show themselves on the open hills, these the Roman general approached in fighting order and easily dislodged them with only a small slaughter of the barbarians who had not far to flee. In this position, he soon established a camp and held with a strong detachment a narrow and unbroken mountain ridge, stretching as far as the next fortress, which was garrisoned by a large force of armed soldiers along with some irregulars. Against the boldest of these, who after the manner of their country were desporting themselves with songs and dances in front of the rampart, he sent some picked archers who, discharging distant volleys, inflicted many wounds without loss to themselves. As they advanced, a sudden sortie put them to the route and they fell back on the support of a Segumbrian cohort, drawn up at no great distance by the Roman general, ready for any emergency and as terrible as the foe with the noise of their war songs and the clashing of their arms. He then moved his camp near to the enemy, leaving in his former entrenchments the Thracians who, as I have mentioned, were with us. These had permissioned to ravage, burn and plunder, provided they confined their forays to daylight and passed the night securely and vigilantly in their camp. This at first they strictly observed. Soon they resigned themselves to enjoyment and, enriched by plunder, they neglected their guards and amid feasts and mirth sank down in the carelessness of the banquet of sleep and of wine. So the enemy, apprised of their heedlessness, prepared two detachments, one of which was to attack the plunderers, the other to fall on the Roman camp, not with the hope of taking it, but to hinder the din of the other battle from being heard by our soldiers who, with shouts and missiles around them, would be all intent on their own peril. Night two was chosen for the movement to increase the panic. Those, however, who tried to storm the entrenchment of the legions were easily repulsed. The Thracian axilleries were dismayed by the suddenness of the onset, for those some were lying close to their lines, far more were struggling beyond them, and the massacre was all the more savage, inasmuch as they were taunted with being fugitives and traitors and bearing arms for their own and their countries' enslavement. Next day, Sabinus displayed his forces in the plain, on the chance of the Barbarians being encouraged by the night's excess to risk an engagement. Finding that they did not quit the fortress and the adjoining hills, he began a siege by means of the works which he had opportunally began to construct. Then he drew a fuss and stockade, enclosing an extent of four miles, and by degrees contracted and narrowed his lines with the view of cutting off their water and forage. He also threw up a rampart from which to discharge stones, darts and brands on the enemy, who was now within range. It was thirst, however, which chiefly distressed them, for there was only one spring for the use of a vast multitude of soldiers and non-combatants. Their cattle, too, penned up close to them after the fashion of Barbarians, were dying of want of fodder. Near them lay human bodies which had perished from wounds or thirst, and the whole place was befouled with rotting carcasses and stench and infection. To their confusion was added the growing misery of discord, some thinking of surrender, others of destruction by mutual blows. Some there were who suggested a sortie instead of an avenged death, and there were all men of spirit, and these were all men of spirit, though they differed in their plans. One of their chiefs, Dynas, an old man who well knew by long experience both the strength and clemency of Rome, maintained that they must lay down their arms, this being the only remedy for their wretched plight, and he was the first to give himself up with his wife and children to the conqueror. He was followed by all whom age or sex unfitted for war, by all two who had a stronger love of life than of renown. The young were divided between Tarsa and Theresis, both of whom had resolved to fall together with their freedom. Tarsa however kept urging them to speedy death and to the instant breaking off of all hope and fear, and, by way of example, plunged his sword into his heart. And there were some who chose the same death. Theresis and his band waited for a night, not without the knowledge of our general. Consequently, the centuries were strengthened with denser masses of troops. Night was coming on with a fierce storm, and the foe, one moment with a tumultuous uproar, another in awful silence, had perplexed the besiegers, when saboness went round the camp in treating the men not to give a chance to their stealthier salons by heeding embarrassing noises, or being deceived by quiet, but to keep everyone to his post without moving or discharging their darts on false alarms. The Barbarians, meanwhile, rushed down with their bands, now hurling at the entrenchment stones such as the hand could grasp, stakes with points hardened by fire, and bows locked from oaks, now filling up the fosters with bushes and hurdles and dead bodies, while others advanced up to the breastwork with bridges and ladders, which they had constructed for the occasion, seized it, tore it down, and came to close quarters with the defenders. Our soldiers on the other side drove them back with missiles, repelled them with their shields, and covered them with a storm of long-siege javelins and heaps of stones. Success already gained, and the more marked disgrace which would follow repulse were a stimulus to the Romans, while the courage of the foe was heightened by this last chance of deliverance, and the presence of many mothers and wives with mournful cries. Darkness, which increased the daring of some and the terror of others. Random blows, wounds not foreseen, failure to recognize friend or enemy, echoes seemingly in their rear from the winding mountain valleys, spread such confusion that the Romans abandoned some of their lines in the relief that they had been stormed. Only, however, a very few of the enemy had broken through them. The rest, after their bravest men had been beaten back or wounded, were towards daybreak pushback to the upper part of the fortress, and there at last compelled to surrender. Then the immediate neighborhood, by the voluntary action of the inhabitants, submitted. The early and severe winter of Mount Hamas saved the rest of the population from being reduced by assault or blockade. At Rome, meanwhile, besides the shocks already sustained by the imperial house, came the first step towards the destruction of Agrippina, Claudia Poultre, her cousin, being prosecuted by Demetius Affur, lately a preter, a man of but moderate position, and eager to become notorious by any sort of deed. Afer charged her with unchastity, with having fernias for her paramour, and with attempts on the emperor by poison and sorcery. Agrippina, always impetuous, and now kindled into fury by the peril of her kin's woman, went straight to Tiberius and found him, as it happened, offering a sacrifice to his father. This provoked an indignant outburst. It is not, she exclaimed, for the same man to slay victims to the divine Augustus, and to persecute his posterity. The celestial spirit has not transferred itself to the mute statue. Here is the true image, sprung of heavenly blood, and she perceives her danger, and assumes its mournful emblems. Poultre's name is a mere blind. The only reason for her destruction is that she has, in utter folly, selected Agrippina for her admiration, forgetting that Sosia was thereby ruined. These words rung from the emperor one of the rare utterances of that inscrutable breast. He rebuked Agrippina with a Greek verse, and reminded her that she was not wronged because she was not a queen. Poultre and fernias were condemned. Afer was ranked with the foremost orators for the ability which he displayed, and which one strong praise from Tiberius, who pronounced him a speaker of natural genius. Henceforward, as a counsel for the defense or the prosecution, he enjoyed the fame of eloquence rather than of virtue, but old age robbed him of much of his speaking power, while, with a failing intellect, he was still impatient of silence. Agrippina, in stubborn rage, with the grasp of disease yet on her, when the emperor came to see her, wept long and silently, and then began to mingle reproach and supplication. She begged him to relieve her loneliness, and provide her with a husband, her youth still fitted her for marriage, which was a virtuous woman's only solace, and there were citizens in Rome who would not disdain to receive the wife of Germanicus and his children. But the emperor, who perceived the political aims of her request, but did not wish to show displeasure or apprehension, left her, notwithstanding her urgency, without an answer. This incident, not mentioned by any historian, I have found in the memoirs of the younger Agrippina, the mother of the emperor Nero, who handed down to posterity the story of her life and of the misfortunes of her family. Sojanus, meanwhile, yet more deeply alarmed the sorrowing and unsuspecting woman by sending his agents under the guise of friendship, with warnings that poison was prepared for her, and that she ought to avoid her father-in-law's table. Knowing not how to dissemble, she relaxed neither her features nor tone of voice, as she sat by him at dinner, nor did she touch a single dish, to let last Iberius noticed her conduct, either casually or because he was told of it. To test her more closely, he praised some fruit as it was set on the table, and passed it with his own hand to his daughter-in-law. This increased the suspicions of Agrippina, and without putting the fruit to her lips, she gave it to the slaves. Still no remark fell from Tiberius before the company, but he turned to his mother and whispered that it was not surprising if he had decided on harsh treatment against one who implied that he was a poisoner. Then there was a rumor that a plan was laid for her destruction, that the emperor did not dare to attempt it openly, and was seeking to veil the deed in secrecy. Tiberius, to divert people's talk, continually attended the senate, and gave an audience of several days to embassies from Asia on a disputed question as to the city in which the temple before mentioned should be erected. Eleven cities were rivals for the honour, of which they were all equally ambitious, though they differed widely in resources. With little variation they dwelt on antiquity of race and loyalty to Rome throughout her wars, with Perseus, Aristonicus, and other kings. But the people of High Paper, Trolles, Laudicea, and Magnesia were passed over as too insignificant. Even Ilium, though it boasted that Troy was the cradle of Rome, was strong only in the glory of its antiquity. There was a little hesitation about Heliconisus, as its inhabitants affirmed that for 1200 years their homes had not been shaken by an earthquake, and that the foundations of their temple were on the living rock. Pogamos, it was thought, had been sufficiently honoured by having a temple of Augustus in the city, on which very fact they relied. The Ephesians and Milesians had, it seemed, wholly devoted their respective towns to the worships of Apollo and Diana. And so the question lay between Sardis and Smyrna. The envoys from Sardis read a decree of the Atrurians with whom they claimed kindred. Tyhenous and Lydus, it was said, the sons of King Attis divided the nation between them because of its multitude. Lydus remained in the country of his fathers. Tyhenous had the work assigned him of establishing new settlements, and names taken from the two leaders were given to the one people in Asia and to the other in Italy. The resources of the Lydians were yet further augmented by the immigration of nations into that part of Greece which afterwards took its name from Pelops. They spoke two of letters from Roman generals of treaties concluded with us during the Macedonian War and of their copious rivers of their climate and the rich countries around them. The envoys from Smyrna, after tracing their city's antiquity back to such founders as either Tantalus the son of Jupiter or Theseus, also of divine origin, or one of the Amazons, passed on to that on which they chiefly relied, their services to the Roman people, whom they had helped with naval armaments, not only in wars abroad, but in those under which we struggled in Italy. They had also been the first, they said, to build a temple in honour of Rome during the consulship of Marcus Porcius Cato, when Rome's power indeed was great, but not yet raised to the highest point in as much as the Punic capital was still standing and there were mighty kings in Asia. They appealed too to the of Lucius Sola, whose army was once in terrible jeopardy from a severe winter and want of clothing, and this having been announced at Smyrna in a public assembly, all who were present stripped their clothes off their backs and sent them to our legions. And so the senate, when the question was put, gave the preference to Smyrna. Vibious Marcis moved that Marcus Lepidus, to whom the province of Asia had been assigned, should have under him a special commissioner to undertake the charge of this temple. As Lepidus himself, out of modesty, declined to a point, Valerius Neso, one of the ex-preters, was chosen by Lot and sent out.