 Section 5 of the Complete Works of Tacitus, edited by Thomas Gordon. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. 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. Section 1. Discourse 4. Upon Octavius Caesar, afterwards called Augustus. Section 1. Of the base and empires arts by which he acquired the empire. By the death of the usurper, liberty was restored, but lasted not, and Octavius succeeded Caesar by no superior genius, by no military prowess or magnanimity, for tricking and deceit constituted his chief parts. And though he was bold in counsel, he was a coward in the field. But he usurped the empire by methods so low and vile, as brought disgrace even upon usurpation. By a thousand frauds and turns suddenly made, without the common appearances of decency or shame. By thousands of murders deliberately committed, without process or provocation. By multiplied treacheries, assassinations and acts of ingratitude. By employing ruffians, and being himself one. And by destructive wars conducted by the bravery of others. He levied forces without authority, and, under a lying pretense of defending liberty, got to be employed by the state against Anthony. He then robbed the commonwealth of her armies, and was thought to have murdered both her chief magistrates, the consuls, Herschis and Pansa, the former by his own hand in the hurry of battle, and the other after it, by causing poison to be poured into his wound by Glyco, his physician. It is certain that the physician was suspected, seized, and even doomed to the torture, but was saved by the credit of his master Octavius, whose villainy had these father aggravations, that he was generally believed to have been apathic to Herschis for hire, and Pansa had ever a tender regard for him. A regard superior to that which he owed his country, as he manifested by the advice which he gave him before he expired under agonies caused by the hard-hearted contrivance of that his beloved and perfidious friend. With this very army of the commonwealth, he turned head upon the commonwealth, marched in an hostile manner to Rome, and sent a deputation of officers to his masters, the senate, to demand the consulship in the name of the legions, and upon some hesitation shown by that venerable body, one of these armed ambassadors laid his hand upon his sword and told them, if you will not make him consul, this shall. For his first credit with the senate, he was beholden to Cicero, at whose suit he was trusted with command, in conjunction with the consuls, and dignified with the title of propritor. We see how he requited the senate, we see how he served the consuls, and Cicero, his father in council, and the father of the republic, he delivered up to be murdered and mangled by his implacable enemy. Section 2 of the vindictive spirit of Octavius and his horrid cruelties In the battle of Philippi, Octavius was beaten out of the field, his camp seized, and, but for the fortune and valor of Anthony, the day must have been lost. After the victory, he showed as much insolence and cruelty as he had wanted courage in it. He could not forbear manifesting cowardly spite to the dead body of Brutus, before whom he had a little before fled for his life, and sent the head of that excellent person to Rome to be laid ignominiously at the feet of the statue of Caesar. Different was the treatment shown by Anthony, who had saved Octavius and beat Brutus. Anthony beheld his corpse with grief and tears, covered it with his own armor, and treated it with respect and tenderness. Octavius had not greatness of heart enough for such generous humanity, but treated every illustrious captive with bitter words and cowardly insults, and put them to death without mercy, says Suetonius. To one of these, imploring the privilege of burial, the base tyrant answered, that the fowls of the air would soon regulate that matter. When the father begged mercy for his son, and the son for his father, the merciful Octavius commanded the father and son to fight for the survivorship. This barbarous fight he beheld, beheld the son slay his father, and then himself for having done it. Had not the remaining prisoner's reason, when they were brought before Anthony and him, to salute the former with the honorable title of Imperator, and the latter with invectives and contempt? With the same cruel spirit he behaved himself after the siege of Perusia. All who applied to him, whether they pleaded innocence or begged mercy, had won in the same merciless answer. Death is the lot of you all, and they had it. Three hundred of the chief, comprising their nobility and magistrates, were carried in chains to an altar raised to Julius Caesar, and there butchered like cattle, as victims to his ghost, upon the Ides of March, the anniversary of his assassination. The city itself he delivered to the lust and plunder of his soldiers, contrary to articles and his faith given. War was a more tragical and horrible scene. After killing, robbing, and ravishing, what the sword could not destroy, the fire did. In that great and beautiful city, one of the fairest in Italy was reduced to ashes. There were historians who asserted that the quarrel between him and Lucius Antonius, who had shut himself up in that city, was all feigned and a contrivance between them for two reasons, first to try who were real friends and who were covered enemies, and then by the conquest and confiscation of such, to find a fund for paying the veterans their promised largesse. From the citizens of Nursia he took all that they had, their substance and even their city, and sent them forth to wander and starve, for no other crime but that, for their fellow citizens slain at the siege of Modena they had raised a monument with an inscription that they died for the public liberty, though he had, but just before, fought and declared for the same side. It is impossible to paint the whores of the prescription, buy it every considerable man in the Roman world who was disliked or suspected by the triumvirate, to disapprove their tyranny, was doomed to die, it was death to conceal or to help them, and the rewards were given to such as discovered and killed them. Many were betrayed and butchered by their slaves and freedmen, many by their treacherous hosts and relations, and many fled with their wives and tender children to the howling wilderness, and lived or perished amongst woods and wolves. Nothing was to be seen but blood and slaughter, the streets were covered with carcasses, the heads of the illustrious dead were exposed upon the rostra, and their bodies upon the pavement denied the mercy of burial, other than such as they found in the entrails of devouring dogs and ravenous birds. This looked like dooming Rome to perish at once, and when the other two were satiated with so many butcheries, Octavius, who never had enough blood, still persisted to shed more. No sort of men escaped his cruelty, nor nobles, nor knights, strangers, nor coitans, nay, nor his confidence, and favored freedmen, nor even his old companion and tutor, Tyranius, no one knows why, unless for being an honest man and a lover of his country. These victims continued daily for a course of years, the slightest suspicions, the vilest forgeries were grounds for slaughters, for illustrious slaughters, nor could the great quality and venerable station of Quintus Galeus, the praetor, nor his innocence exempt him from the bloody hands of the executioner, nor was execution the worst part of his doom. He was by a band of soldiers seized in his seat of justice, hurried away and subjected to the torture, like the meanest slave, but confessed nothing. Or did all this injustice and barbarity satisfy the gentle Augustus, so much renowned, for moderation and clemency? He had the brutal baseness to dig out the eyes of that magistrate with his own hands before he allowed in the mercy of being murdered outright. One of his favorite ministers showed his sentiments of the clemency of Augustus plainly enough upon the following occasion. That prince was judging some criminals and giving himself over to revenge and bloody decrees without check or compassion. When the minister, who abhorred to see him engaged in such feats of cruelty, sent him a note, told him, he was a butcher, and bade him, come down from his tribunal. Section 3 of the treachery, ingratitude, and further cruelties of Octavius. That the same were wanton and voluntary. The conduct of Octavius in regard to Anthony was, like the rest of his conduct, all one train of perfidiousness. First he made court to Anthony, then suborned rogues to murder him, then made war upon him with the arms of the state, then joined with him against the state. Then by the bravery of Anthony he conquered the empire, and then by plots and the valor of Agrippa he conquered Anthony. Even he was devising ways to destroy Agrippa, and but for an expedient offered by Machanus had destroyed him. Was it strange that against such a prince conspiracies were frequent? As he was a usurper he could not escape some. His falseness and his cruelties begot others. And from considerations public, as well as personal, there was abundant cause for many. To punish one plot with exceeding violence is a sure way to produce more, and when there is no safety found in innocence, further methods will be tried. It is a poor defense for Augustus to say that it was from necessity and to serve himself that he shed so much blood. For besides that his cruelty was natural, wanton and unnecessary, why did he seek to be in a station where acts of blood were necessary? Why did he usurp the state? Why did he make himself a mark for public and private vengeance? Was it not by ambition? Was it not by treachery that he assumed sovereignty? Was he not a public traitor? And was it not his choice to be so? Why did he willingly commit crimes so flagitious that in their defense he must commit more? Can one horrible iniquity efface another? Is a subject justified who, because he has deserved the pains of treason, raises a rebellion against his prince, nay, kills him to be safe? No villainy ever was, or ever can be perpetuated, which such reasoning will not justify. When some were bold and honest enough to talk to Oliver Cromwell about his excesses in usurpation, he asked them, what would you have won in my station due? He was well answered. Sir, we would have no body in your station to vindicate murder from the necessity of committing it in order to conceal robbery is to argue like a murderer and a robber. But it is honest logic to reply, do not rob, and then you need not be tempted to murder. But if you will do one, and consequently both, remember that punishment does or ought to follow crimes, and the more crimes the more punishment. If by repetition of crimes you become too mighty to be punished, you must be content to be accursed and abhorred as an enemy to human race. You must expect to have all men for your enemies, as you are an enemy to all men. And since you make sport of the lives and liberties of men, you must not wonder, nor have you a right to complain if they have all of them memories and feeling, and some of them courage and swords. Section 4 of the popular arts and accidents which raise the character of Augustus. Many things concurred to favor the same of Augustus and to obliterate his reproach. He reigned very long and established a lasting peace, a special blessing and refreshment after a civil war so long and ruinous. 4, though that war was the child of his ambition, yet in a series of ensuing tranquillity it was forgot. Nay, the greatness of the public calamities was a reason for forgetting them. The generation who felt them were almost all cut off by them, and the next generation which had not suffered, did not remember. What the people had not seen, they did not lament. When he died, there were scarce any living who had beheld the old free state. The people too were deceived into a belief that they still enjoyed their old government because their magistrates had still their old names, though with just as much power as he thought fit to leave them. It was the advice of Malkanus that to the officers of the state the same names, pomp, and ornaments should be continued with all of the appearances of authority without power. They were to have no military command during their term, but to possess the old jurisdiction of of judging all causes finally, except such as were capital. And though some of these last were left to the governor of Rome, an officer newly created by the emperor, yet the chief were reserved. Moreover, Augustus paid great court to the people. The very name that covered his usurpation was a compliment to them. He affected to call it the power of the tribunship. An office first created purely for their protection and as the strongest effort and barrier of popular liberty. It was for their sake and security he pretended to assume this power. Though by it he acted as absolutely as if he had called it the dictatorial power. Such energy there is in words. The office itself was erected as a bulwark against tyranny. And by the name of it tyranny is now supported. In the same manner he used and perverted the consulship. Another magistrate, peculiar to the commonwealth, but by him abused to the ends of his monarchy. He likewise won the hearts of the people by filling their bellies, by cheapness of provisions in plentiful markets. This has infinite effect. If people have plenty at home, they will not be apt to discover many heirs or much iniquity in the public. Which will always be at quiet when particulars are so. But famine or fear of it, children crying for bread, mothers weeping for their children, and husbands and fathers unable to stop their tears and find the necessaries of life for themselves, and such dear relations. All these are terrible materials for tumults, sedition, and even for revolutions. But people in ease and plenty are under no temptation to be inquiring into the title of their prince, or to resent acts of power which they do not immediately feel. He frequently entertained them with shows and spectacles, a notable means to produce or continue good humor in the populace, to beget kind wishes and zeal for the author of so much joy, and to make them forget usurpation, slavery, and every public evil. Things were indeed used for the ends of corruption and servitude. They rendered the people idle, venal, vicious, insensible of private virtue, insensible of public glory or disgrace. But the things were liked, and the ends not seen, or not minded, so that they had their thorough effect. And the Roman people, they who were want to direct mighty wars, to raise and depose great kings, to bestow or take away empires. They who ruled the world, or so directed its rule, were so sunk and debauched, that if they had but bread and shows, their ambition went no higher. By the same arts, Cardinal Mazarin began to soften and debase the minds of the French, and after his death, the like methods for promoting the idleness and luxury were pursued. Shows, debauchery, wantonness, and riot were encouraged and became common. And after the restoration, England adopted the modes of France. Her worst modes. There were some, too many, who, unworthy of their own happiness and liberty, came to admire her government and misfortune, and labored with the spirit of parasites, though without their punishment, to bring ours to the model of that. I cannot admit, observing here, that, by the same means that Caesar and Augustus acquired the empire, they destroyed its force. In the civil wars, great part of the people perished, and the rest they debauched. They had utterly drained or corrupted that source of men which furnished soldiers who conquered the earth. Henceforth, the plebs in Genua became a mere mob, addicted to idleness and their bellies, void of courage, void of ambition, and careless of renown. Armies were, with difficulty, raised amongst them, when raised, not good, or wrapped to corrupt the rest. It was such who excited the sedition and the German legions, after the death of Augustus. The recruits, lately raised in Rome, men accustomed to the softness and gaites of the city, and impatient of military labor and discipline, inflamed the simple minds of all the rest by seditious infusions and harangues, etc. Indeed, the Roman armies, so chiefly in name, were mostly composed of foreigners. To engage new creatures and dependencies, he created many new offices, as the multitude of offices in France has reckoned a great support of the authority royal. He raised many public buildings, repaired many old, and to the city added many edifices and ornaments. He attended business, reformed enormities, showed high regard for the Roman name, was sparing and admitting foreigners to the rights of citizens, preserved public peace, procured public abundance, included public pleasure and festivity, often appeared in person at the public diversions, and in all things studied to render himself dear to the populace. In truth, when he had done all the mischief he could, or that he wanted, and more, he ceased his cruelty and ravages. This too was imputed to him for merit. He was reckoned very good, because he begun to do less mischief. It was a rational saying of that madman Caligula. That calamitous and tragical to the Roman people were the boasted victories of his great-grandfather Augustus, and therefore he forbade them to be solemnized annually for the future. Section 5, though Augustus courted the people and particular senators, he continued to depress public liberty and the Senate. But amidst all these acts of popularity and beneficence, and this plausible behavior of Augustus, the root of the evil remained in spread. The bulwarks of liberty were daily broken down, and having lulled the public asleep, he was sowing his terrors. The best of his government was but the sunshine of tyranny. Augustus was become the center and measure of all things. He was the Senate, magistrate, and laws. The arms of the Republic he had rusted out of her hands. Those who had wielded them for her he had slain. The armies of the state were now the armies of Augustus, and every province, religions were kept or necessary he reserved to himself. Such as were unarmed he left to the Senate and people, in kindness forsoothed to them, for he studied to relieve them from all anxiety and fatigue, and to leave them nothing to do, but would take all the care and trouble to himself. Italy, the original soil of liberty in Freeman, he utterly disarmed, agreeably to the maxims of absolute monarchy. The Roman people and the Roman Senate he had reduced to ciphers and carcassum. Hence all the submissions in duty formally paid to the free state were, with her power, transferred to the emperor, and certain wealth and preferment were the rewards of ready civility and acquiescence. This shows that, however, he depressed the power of the Senate, he paid great court to particular senators, and it is too true that, as men generally love themselves better than their country, they too easily postpone the public interest to their own. Section 6, what fame he derived from the poets and other flattering writers of his time. The renown of Augustus was so notably blazing by the historians and poets of his time, men of excellent wit, but egregious flatters. According to them, Augustus had all the accomplishments to be acquired by men, the magnanimity of heroes, the perfections and genius of the deity, and the innocence peculiar to the primitive race of men. After so many instances of his cruelty, revenge, selfishness, excessive superstition, and defect and courage, after all the crying calamities and afflictions, all the oppression and vassalage that his ambition had brought upon his country and the globe. One would think that such praises must have passed for satire and mockery, but ambition, successful ambition, is a credulous passion. Or whether he believed such praises or no, he received them graciously and caressed the authors. Hence, so much favor to Virgil and Horace, and to such other wits as knew how to be good courtiers. And hence, every admirer of those charming poets is an admirer of Augustus, who is so generous to them and is the chief burden of their pangerics. Suppose he had miscarried, suppose the Commonwealth restored, and had him punished as a traitor instead of gaining the sovereignty. Would not the historians, would not the poets have then spoke as the law spoke? That law by which he had certainly forfeited his life. Would not Brutus and Cassius have then filled their mouths with pangerics as the saviors of the state? Would they have lamented that the usurpation failed and extolled the usurper? Is Cadilline extolled? Or are the usurpations of Sina, Sulla, or Marius? Nor was the conduct and domination of either half so barbarous and tragical, is that of Augustus for a course of years. The truth is, their tyranny was short-lived, unsuccessful, or resigned. Iniquity, unprosperous or punished, no man praises, but wickedness, exceeding great and triumphant, as all men do, as well as decry virtuous attempts defeated. Caesar and Augustus succeeded, and their flattery continued, because their government enraisted. Sick of fancy, is ever a constant attendant upon greatness, says Patriculus, who was himself a scandalous flatterer, and has, in his history, miserably perverted truth, or utterly suppressed it. That he might lie for the Caesars, when truth was treason, who had ventured to speak it? And when flattery bore a vogue and a price, there were enough found to court it, and take it. Hence the partiality or silence of poets and historians. Section 7 of the false glory sought and acquired by Augustus, from the badness of his successors. Another signal advantage to the name and memory of Augustus was the badness of his successors, and for his posthumous luster he was indented to the extreme misery of the Roman people. In proportion, as Tiberius, Caligula, et cetera, were detested, Augustus was regretted. Yet who but Augustus was to be thanked for these monsters of cruelty? There were legacies by him entailed upon that great state, and he was even suspected to have surrendered the Roman people to the tyranny of Tiberius, purely to enhance his own praise with posterity, by the comparison and opposition of their reigns. He sought renown from a council, for which he deserved abhorrence. He had made a faint or two to abdicate the sovereignty. Had he been an earnest, he might at least have contrived that his usurpation should last no longer than his life, and have left for a legacy to the Roman people, that liberty of which he had robbed them, that dominion over themselves, which none but themselves had any right to exercise. The truth is his power and name were dearer to him than the Roman people or human race. He made provisions by a long train of successors against any possible relapse into liberties. While he had no longer any error of his own blood, or none that he liked, he adopted the sons of his wife, and even the worst of them was destined to the secession. If it is to be said that by such adoption he fortified himself, and considered heirs as the stays and security of his domination, this still shows what was uppermost in his views, that he meant to perpetuate slavery. If he had studied the good of Rome, why was not Tiberius, whom he knew to be tyrannical and arrogant, postponed? Why was not his brother Drusus, the most accomplished and popular man in the empire, preferred? Or after his death, Germanicus, his son, one equally deserving and equally beloved? It is even said that he loved Drusus, loved Germanicus, and was suspected to have hated and despised Tiberius. Yet Tiberius was preferred and had the world bequeathed to him. Was it done to please his wife? Then he loved her better than the Roman people. Nay, preferred Hercules to the felicity of humankind. Drusus had declared his purpose to restore the Commonwealth, the same intention as supposed to have been in Germanicus. This perhaps was the reason for setting them aside, as was said of Tiberius. Section eight, the character of Augustus. As to the character of Augustus, he was a man of sense and art, his courage below his capacity, his capacity below his fortune, yet his fortune below his fame, because his fame was the child of evil flattery, as well as a propitious fortune. He was a cunning man, not a great genius, dexterous to apply the abilities of others to his own ends, and had ability enough to be counseled by such as had more. His designs were rather incidental and progressive, than vast and conceived at once. He cannot be said to have mastered fortune, but to have been led by it. In the times of the Republic, he would have made but a middling figure, in the station and pursuits of Julius Caesar, none at all. It is not in the least likely that he would have thought or attempted what Caesar accomplished. He wanted Caesar's masterly spirit, the ecla of the consummate warrior, his boundless liberality, his enchanting eloquence. For the eloquence of Augustus, which was easy and flowing, such as became a prince, was quite different from that torrent of language and power of speaking necessary to agitate and control the spirit of Republicans, and came far short of the talent of Julius, who stood in rank with the most distinguished orators. I know not whether the vices of the dictator had not more popular charms than the virtues of Augustus. Caesar made his way to the throne. Augustus found it already made, or where difficulties occurred was conducted by the superior lights and force of others, whom he rewarded with all the meanness of a gratitude and even cruelty, and did many things which the great heart of Caesar would have scorned. No great mind ever delighted in pity mischiefs. Though to do mighty evil in elevated genius is not always necessary. Section nine, of the helps and causes which acquired and preserved the empire to Augustus, his great power and fortune, no proof of extraordinary ability. That Augustus acquired the empire is not a proof of talents grand and surprising. A thousand things concurred to it, times and accidents, friends and enemies, the living and the dead, fought and contrived for him. Caesar, Anthony, the authority of the Senate, the folly and corruption of the people, the eloquence and abilities of Cicero, seasonable conjunctures, the opposition of some, the compliance or intoxication of others, named the charms of Cleopatra and his own treachery and fears. All these coincided to push him forward and to hoist him into sovereignty. Nor indeed wanted he dexterity to improve opportunities, for he was a notable man, judged well and had a turn for business. Nor did it require much genius to hold the empire when he got it. All who can oppose him were slain or subdued. He had armies and guards and the people were disarmed and enslaved. The state was so thoroughly mastered, the Roman spirit so entirely broken that any of the most contemptible wrench among men provided he were but vouched by the armies and called Caesar might rule, insult and lay waste the Roman world at his pleasure. What was Keoligula? What were Nero and Claudius? Were they not monsters? Who but for shape and speech were utterly destroyed from humanity? Yet were not these monsters suffered, nay adored and deified, while they were wallowing in the blood of men and making spoil of the creation? Nor were the savages cut off by any effort of the Roman people but by the instruments of their own cruelty, their wives, soldiers and slaves. Thus it was possible to be master as a mankind, not only without common sense and common mercy and compassion but even armed with intense and settled hate against the race of men and daily exerting it. The rule and havoc of a lion or any other beast of prey would have been less pernicious and less disgraceful to the Roman people though he had required for his assistance a vessel of human blood every day. Nay had the imperial lion kept about him a court and guard of subordinate lions for his instruments and counselors. They could not have been worried and devoured faster than the accusers, freedmen, poisoners and assassins of the emperors. Cruelty inspired by hunger ceases when hunger is assuaged but cruelty created by fear and malice is never satiated nor knows any bounds. So much less dangerous and pernicious with the jaws and rapaciousness of a tiger than the jealousy and rage of a tyrant, his flatterers and executioners. Now where was the difficulty to Augustus? Where the necessity of high wisdom to maintain the sovereignty when such despicable wretches can maintain themselves in it for a course of years? The Romans who were masters of mankind were become the tame property, the vassals and victims of creatures equal to no office in a state, even the meanest and most contemptible office. Creatures void of understanding, void of courage, such without aggravation were the lords of Rome for several successive reigns. Such as were a scandal to human nature, trod upon the necks and wantoned in the blood of humankind. Nay dedicated this work. In the disposal of the Romans life and property to the vilest of their domestics and dependents, their spies, informers and bond-slaves. End of Discourse 4 Section 6 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. 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 1 Discourse 5 Of Governments Free and Arbitrary More especially that of the Caesars, Part 1 Section 1 The Principle of God's Appointing and Protecting Tyrants An Absurdity Not Believed by the Romans I do not find that a servitude so beastly and ignominious was born by the Romans out of principle. Their religion, as vain and superstitious as he was, had never offered such an insult to common sense as to teach them that their deities, as capricious as they thought them, warranted tyranny and sanctified tyrants. That the brutal and bloody Caligula was the beloved and vice-regent of Jove, almighty, all wise and all merciful. That the worst of men had a commission from heaven to oppress all men and to destroy the best. That murder, rapine and misrule were government, and such lawless and bloody robbers were governors divinely appointed. That society had no remedy against devouring lust and the raging sword which were destroying all the ends of society and society itself. These are absurdities below paganism and all its chimeras. Even the superstition of pagans never broached such blasphemies and indignities to God and man, never propagated doctrines which would have turned men into idiots, destitute of reflection and feeling, nay, into beasts of burden and beasts for sacrifice, turned the deities into devils, human society into a chaos of blood and carcasses, and this earth into a place of torments. It never entered into the heart of a Greek or a Roman, nor into any heart which felt the sentiments of virtue and humanity that it was unlawful to defend law, a crime to ward against murder, barbarity and desolation, and an impiety to do the most God-like action which can be done on this side of heaven, that of disarming a tyrant and saving one's country from perishing. It is true that the Romans flattered their tyrants as tyrants ever will be flattered, but as the names and appearances of the old government still subsisted, they pretended to believe that none but the old laws were exercised, and by the old laws the emperors still pretended to act. For several generations after the state was enslaved, and even during the reigns of the worst of the Caesars, the Romans expressed high contempt for nations who were avowedly slaves, and for kings who were avowedly arbitrary, and it then continued usual to behold foreign monarchs attending the levee and train of the Roman magistrates and governors of provinces. Nay, they were sometimes denied access, and treated with great scorn. Government is doubtless a sacred thing, and justly claims all reverence and duty, but in the idea of government is implied that of public protection and security, that it is the terror of evil doers and the encouragement of such as do well. But when what was government ceases, and what is called government is in reality a general oppression, havoc, and spoil, when a power prevails which is swayed by evil doers to the destruction of all who do well, when law and righteousness are banished, lust and iniquity triumph, property is violently invaded, and lives are wantonly destroyed, is this government too? If it be, I should be glad to know what is not government. Section 2 The reasonableness of resisting tyrants asserted from the ends of government and the nature of the deity. Opinions the most impious and extravagant, why taught, and how easily swallowed. It is certainly unlawful to resist government, but it is certainly lawful to resist the deviation from government, and to resist what destroys government and men. To resist the abuse of government is to assist government. It is allowed to be just to help our protectors, but it is equally just to oppose our enemies, madmen, and spoilers. Now what was Nero, what Caligula, and Claudius, one a bloody idiot, the other an inhuman madman, the first like the second and all of them public robbers and butchers? At their course of cruelty and oppression was government, so are plagues, tempests, and inundations, but if their lives and actions were altogether pernicious and detestable, the exterminating of such monsters from amongst men would have been a service to the whole race. Was Tarquin half so black and odious? Yet who has ever blamed his expulsion? Was the insolence and tyranny of Tarquin the ordinance of God? What then was the succeeding government of the people and Senate? If this was the ordinance of God too, then every government, good and bad, or rather misgovernment as well as government, public robbery and ruin as well as public security and protection, may be equally said to be his ordinance, and there are ordinances of his that combat one another, like the two angels contending in one of the prophets. But if the tyranny of Tarquin was, and the establishing of the free state, was not the ordinance of God, then are not the patrons of this opinion obliged to say, and to maintain this gross and blasphemous absurdity, that the divine being disapproves of good government, equity and laws, and delights in injustice, cruelty and confusion, not in the rule of equal justice, but in the ravages of lust and iniquity? To say that all governments, good and bad, are alike to him equally inviolable, is to say that he takes no cognizance of things below, and at this rate there is in his sight no such thing as guilt and innocence. To allege that that government which is best for men is disliked by him, and the rule of lust is preferable to that of laws, is to make him worse than indifferent, than a patron of wantonness and oppression, of foe to order and benevolence, fonder of one man's caprice and violence, than of the happiness of millions, nay, a professed advocate for iniquity, a professed adversary to all public righteousness. If it be said that he approves not of tyranny himself, and yet would not have it resisted by others, this is nonsense added to profane-ness, since what he neither checks nor allows to be checked, he may be said to approve. If I see a man going to commit murder, and by terrible threatening and penalties restrain, such as would restrain him, will it not be construed that I chose to have the murder perpetrated? It makes him besides a hard-hearted being, who forbids to remedy the highest human evil, may willfully dooms humankind to the severest misery. I never heard that he has forbid under any penalty the use of medicines against the plague, and I think I have found the reason why I had never heard it. The plague has no treasures nor dignities to recompense flatterers. Had it been worthwhile to have made such a prohibition a doctrine of religion, that is, had it been pleasing to power, and the way to favour, I doubt not, but it would have gained ground, and many followers, as other doctrines equally absurd have done, where the gain and craft of a few have been followed and defended by the superstition and zeal of many, witness, transubstantiation, purgatory, auricular confession, blind obedience under the rod of tyranny, etc. The Turks, out of bigotry to that of predestination, forbear all precautions against the plague, when raging on every side of them. It is impossible to invent a doctrine so monstrous and mischievous, but it will meet with partisans and admirers, provided the inventors have convenient names and habilents, without which the most illustrious and benevolent truths will hardly pass with a multitude bewitched with the magic of words and superstition. It is impossible for the hearts of men to contrive a principle more absurd and wicked than that of annexing divine and everlasting vengeance to the resisting of the most flagrant mischief which can possibly befall the sons of men, yet it has found inventors and vouchers. It is plain from this instance and from a thousand more, that there is no wickedness of which the hearts of men are not capable, and that the wretchedness of the whole race weighs not so much with them as their own profit and pleasure. It would seem from hence as if we had lived in the dregs and barbarism of time since to the late age, at least here in Christendom, was reserved the infamy of hatching a monster so horrible that to its birth was sacrificed all sense and humanity, all the considerations and even the essence of truth, order, and liberty. The advocates for this impious tenet, which represents the great and good God as incensed with men for striving to remove their chains and sorrows, are, by defending tyranny, so much worse than tyrants, as a scheme of barbarity, coolly and deliberately contrived or defended, is more heinous than particular acts of barbarity committed in the heat and hurry of passion, and as murder is a greater crime than manslaughter. What avail laws and liberty ever so excellently framed when they are at the mercy of lawless rage and caprice? If we are forbid by God to defend laws, why do we make them? Is it not unlawful to make what it is unlawful to defend? What else is the end of government but the felicity of men? And why are some raised higher in society than others, but that all may be happy? Has God ever interposed against the establishment of society upon a good foot? If he has not, but wills the good of society and of men, how comes he to interpose against the defense of an establishment which he nowhere forbids, and against that good which he has said to will? What more right had Nero to take away the lives of innocent men than any other assassin? What more title to their fortune than any other robber? What better right to spill their blood than any tiger? And it is unlawful to resist robbers and assassins and beasts of prey? Did the Almighty ever say of that beastly tyrant, touch not Nero my anointed, nor do his ruffians any harm? Did Nero's station lessen or abrogate his crimes? What idea does it give of God, the father of mercies and of men, to represent him screening that enemy to God and man as a person sacred and inviolable, and holding his authority from himself, the merciful and holy Jehovah, protecting an inhuman destroyer? What more relation could there be between God and Nero than between God and an earthquake, God and a conflagration or massacre? The very phrase is shocking to the soul. Is such representation likely to make the name and nature of God amiable to men, likely to excite to them to love and reverence him? Satan is said to be delighted with the miseries and calamities of men, and to suppose that wicked being concerned for the security of a tyrant, whose office it is to debase and afflict human race, is natural and consistent with his character. But I wish men would not father upon the author of all good such counsels and inclinations, as can only suit the father of cruelties and lies. Section 3 The danger of slavish principles to such as trust in them, and the notorious insecurity of lawless might. Neither have tyrants and oppressors been much obliged to this enslaving doctrine, which has generally filled them with false confidence and security. It has always made them worse, seldom safer, and without doing any good, been the cause of much evil to their poor subjects. The Turks hold it as an article of faith, and it is one worthy of Turkish grossness and barbarity. Yet where has the deposing and murdering of princes been so common as in Turkey? The monarch is told he may do what he pleases, their religion tells him so, the Holy Mufti, who explains it, tells him so, and from God he tells him so, but notwithstanding all these holy authorities, this person so sacred, and guarded with securities human and divine, is often butchered with less form than a common male factor, and even with the Mufti's consent and assistance. Thus it has happened to several in a century, had not their power been so great, their security would have been greater. An absolute prince is of all others the most insecure, as he proceeds by no rule of law, he can have no rule of safety, he acts by violence, and violence is the only remedy against him. Now violence which is confined to no rule, but as various and unlimited as the passions and devices of men, can never be parried by any certain provision or defence. His acts of cruelty upon particulars, whether done for revenge or prevention, do but alarm other particulars to save themselves by destroying him. Men who apprehend their lives to be in danger will venture anything to preserve them, or if they do more than apprehend and be already become desperate, we know to what lengths disfair will push them. Thus Caligula, thus Domitian, and Commodus were slaughtered by those whom they had doomed to slaughter. Nor armies, nor guards, can prevent the machinations and efforts of a secret enemy. Even amongst his armies and guards such a one may be found, nay, in his household, in his bed chamber, amongst his kindred, nay, amongst his children. When princes act by law, in case of hardship upon particulars, there is a remedy to be sought from the law, and when the law fairly administered will afford none, they will acquiesce, or if they blame anything, they will blame the law, but a remedy they will be apt to seek, and when they suffer not from law, but from mere violence, they will have recourse to violence. Neither can a people be ever so sunk or deadened by oppression, but much provocation, some management, and a skillful leader will find or raise some spirit in them, often enough to accomplish great revolutions, witness Sicily under the French, Switzerland under the yoke of Austria, and the Low Countries under that of Spain, nay, the most consummate and professed slaves, those of Turkey, often rouse themselves, and casting their proud rider to the earth, trample him to death. Indeed, slaves enraged are the most dangerous populace, because, having no other resource against oppression, they repel violence without rage. A little spark often raises a great flame, and a flame soon spreads to a conflagration, where materials are prepared, as they almost eternally are, in governments that are absolute, or aiming to be so. The commotions at Paris, during the minority of the late king, were followed by others all over France, though the whole kingdom had been for a great while before, by the tyranny of the administration, frightened, despairing, and even lethargic. But the resentment and convulsions that followed this false calm had like to have overset the monarchy. Nor can any public calm be certain, or any government secure, where the people are pillaged and oppressed. People that are used like beasts will act like beasts, and be mad and furious, when buffeted and starved. Section 4 A princes of little and bad minds, most greedy of power. Princes of large and good minds, choose to rule by law and limitations. It is poor and contemptible ambition in a prince, that of swelling his prerogative and catching at advantages over his people. It is separating himself from the tender relation of a father and protector, a character which constitutes the glory of a king, and assuming that of a foe and an ensnare. This is what a prince of a great and benevolent spirit will consider, not himself as a lordly tyrant, nor them as his property and slaves, but himself and them under the amiable and engaging ties of magistrate and fellow citizens. Such was the difference between a Queen Elizabeth, and a Richard II. How glorious and prosperous the reign of the one, how infamous and unhappy that of the other, what renown accompanies her memory, what scorn his. It is indeed apparent from our history, that those of our princes who thirsted most violently after arbitrary rule, were chiefly such as were remarkable for poor spirit and small genius, pedants, bigots, the timorous and effeminate. The French historians observe that the worst and weakest of their kings were fondest of dominion, and their best and wisest contended with stinted power and the rule of laws. Louis XI says Cardinal de Retz was more crafty than wise. He was in truth a genuine tyrant. He trampled upon the laws of the kingdom and the lives of his subjects, pillaged and oppressed all manner of ways, and followed no council but that of his lust and caprice. But what advantage or content, what security or fame did he draw from his exorbitant encroachments and power? No man ever lived under a blacker series of fears and cares and suspicions, or died in greater misery and terrors, and in his life and death and memory he is equally detestable. Louis XIII, a man naturally harmless but silly, was jealous of his authority, purely because he was ignorant about it. But Henry IV, who was born with a soul great and generous, never distrusted the laws, because he trusted in the uprightness of his own designs. Il ne sait des fois pas de loi parce qu'il se furet en lui-même, says de Retz. Another French monarch of great name loved and enjoyed un bridal dominion, but had no greatness of mind or genius answerable to the measure of his ambition. He had a sort of stiffness and perseverance by his flatterers styled fortitude and firmness, but in reality arising from arrogance or obstinacy, qualities found in the weakest woman and eminently in his mother. In religion he was a bigot, in politics false, suspicious and timid, in government insolent and oppressive, the property of his mistresses, the pupil of his confessors, the dupe of his ministers, a sore plague to his neighbours, a saura to his own people, vainly addicted to war without the talents of a warrior, a dishonourable enemy, a faithless ally, and, with small abilities, a great troubler of the world. It was natural to such an imperial wolf as Caligula to delight in power as savage as his own bloody spirit, and to boast that he had an unlimited privilege to do whatever his will or fury suggested. But worthy of the benevolent and humane heart of Trajan were the words by him used to his chief officers when he presented them with the sword. This sword, this badge of authority, you hold from me, but turn it, if I deserve it, against me. Now, did the challenging and exercise of this monstrous power secure Caligula, or did the disavowing of it lessen the security of Trajan? Quite otherwise the former was appalled and assassinated as a tyrant, the latter was adored living and died lamented as a public father and guardian. Trajan knew no other purpose of imperial prerogative but that of protecting the people, nor indeed is there any other use of emperors and prerogatives upon earth. Cardinal de Retz says that with all the arguments and pains he could use he could never bring the queen regent to understand the meaning of these words, the public. She thought that to consult the interest of the people was to be a republican, and had no notion that the government of a prince was anything else but royal will and authority rampant and without binds. Was it any wonder that the people of France gasped under oppressions and taxes when the government was swayed by such a woman, herself blindly governed by Mazary in a public thief, if ever there was any, one convicted to have stolen from the finance his nine millions in a few years, one who spent his younger years in low rogueries, who had no maxims of rule but such as were adapted to the severest tyranny in Italy, that of the Pope, and one who, in the highest post of First Minister, could never help showing the base spirit of a little sharper. Le vilain cas par reçoit toujours au travers, says de Retz. The Duke of Orleans called him un sclera, et ministre incapable est aborré du genre humain, une menteur fiefée. Section 5. The Wisdom and Safety of Ruling by Standing Laws to Prince and People It was a fine answer of Theopompus king of Lackadimer and to his wife, who reproached him that he would leave the kingship diminished to his sons by creating the euphoria. Yes, says he, I shall leave it smaller, but I shall leave it more permanent. Valerius Maximus explains this by a very just reflection. Theopompus' reason was full of pertinence and force. For in reality the authority which bounds itself and offers no injuries is exposed to none. The king, therefore, by restraining royalty within the just limits of laws, did as much endear it to the affections of his countrymen, as he pruned it of all licentiousness and terrors. It is as rare for a prince limited by laws and content with his power to reign in sorrow, or to die tragically, as it is uncommon for those who have no bounds set them, or will suffer none to escape a miserable reign and unbloody end. The power of the Roman kings was, from the first establishment, very short. They had no negative voice in the Senate and could neither make war nor peace. What Tacitus says of Romulus can only mean his administering justice as the chief magistrate between man and man, or perhaps his encroachments upon the Senate towards his latter end, for which it is thought he paid dear. Where the government is arbitrary and severe, the oppressed people will be apt to think that no change can make their condition worse, and, therefore, will be ready to wish for any, nay to risk a civil war, risk fresh evils and calamities to get rid of the present, and to be revenged on their oppressor. Such was the temper of the Romans upon the revolt of Sacrovia. They even rejoiced in it, and, in hatred to Tiberius, wished success to the public enemy. People will be quiet and patient under burdens, however heavy which law lays on, for they suppose that laws are founded upon reason and necessity, but impositions the most reasonable will be apt to appear unreasonable and tyrannical, where they proceed from the will of one. Mere will is supposed to act without reason, and to be only the effect of wantonness, hence the acquiescence of a free people, however taxed, and from their acquiescence the safety of their governors, hence to the industry and wealth, and consequently the peaceableness of the country, for industry and wealth are things exceeding quiet and tame, and only aim at securing themselves, whereas idleness and indigence are uneasy, tumultuous, and desperate. Besides, he who pays twenty shillings in a free government, and pays it cheerfully, would not, perhaps, were the government changed, pay willingly ten, nay, perhaps be unable to pay it, though by the change no new taxes were added. While the law requires it, he will imagine that no more than enough is required, and as the same law leaves him all the rest to himself, he will be industrious to acquire more, and as much as he can, but when the quantity of his tax depends on the caprice or avarice of one, when the more he is worth, the more he will be taxed, or even fancies that he will be, he will grow idle, discontented, and desponding, and rather live poor and lazy, than labour to make his tax-master rich. Not to mention the furious monarchies of the east destructive of all diligence and arts. The Comte de Boulinvilliers in his Éle de Hose says that in some provinces in France the soil is left uncultivated, and several trades and professions are disused, because the labour of the husbandmen, and the skill and application of the artist, are rendered abortive by rigorous impositions. They choose rather to starve in idleness than to work and starve. Section 6 The Condition of Free States How preferable to that of such as are not free. No arbitrary prince upon earth could have raised from the states of Holland the fifth part of what they have, as a free state, paid to their own magistrates, nor could have found wents to have raised it. I will venture to say the same of England. Under a monarchy of the late King James's model, was it possible to have supported two wars so long and consuming as the two last, or to have raised some so immense to carry them on? It would be madness to assert it. By this time, numbers of our people would have been driven from their country much of our soil been waste, many of our manufactures laid aside, our trade sunk, our wealth fled, and the condition of England have resembled that of France, as well as our government theirs, and for the same reason. It is in vain, boasted of the House of Medici, that in a long course of years they had laid no new tax upon a country where their power was absolute. Since the cities and territories under their sovereignty are by it reduced from great wealth and populousness to such miserable desolation and poverty, that it is downright oppression to oblige them to pay any considerable part of the old, much more all. To reason from experience and examples is the best reasoning. Compare any free state with any other that is not free. Compare the former and present condition of any state formerly free, or once enslaved, and now free. Compare England with France, Holland with Denmark, or the seven provinces under the states with the same seven provinces under Philip II. You will find in these and every other instance that happiness and wretchedness are the exact tallies to liberty and bondage. Florence was a commonwealth ill-framed at first, and consequently subject to frequent convulsions, factions, parties, and subdivision of parties. Yet by the mere blessing and vigor of liberty she flourished in people, riches, and arms, till with her liberty she lost all spirit and prosperity, and became languishing, little and contemptible, under a small prince with a great name. She has long been cured of all her former frolics and tumults by an effectual remedy, servitude, and beggary the child of servitude, and by depopulation the offspring of both. All arguments for absolute power are confuted by facts. No country governed by mere will was ever governed well. Passion governs the will. The will becomes the measure of right and wrong and of all things, and caprice the balance of the will. And I know not, but it may be maintained, that a free state the worst constituted, as was that of Florence, is with all its disorders, factions, and tumults, preferable to any absolute monarchy, however calm. Section 7 The misery and insecurity of the Caesars from their overgrown power These emperors of Rome, who had sacrificed their country and all things to their supreme power, found little ease and security from it being supreme. From Caesar the dictator, who had sacrificed public liberty, and was himself sacrificed to Hermanes, till Charlemagne, above thirty of them, were murdered, and four of them murdered themselves. The soldiery were their masters, and upon every peak put them to death. If the prince was chosen by the senate, this was reason enough for shedding his blood by the armies, or if the armies chose him, this choice of their own never approved an obstacle against shedding it. It was the soldiers that dispatched the emperor Pertinax, after he had been forced to accept the empire. These lofty sovereigns having drawn under foot the senate, people, and laws, the best supports of legitimate power, held their scepter and their lives upon the courtesy of their masters the soldiers. He who swayed the universe, was a slave to his own mercenaries. Though Augustus had reigned so long and so thoroughly enfeebled or extinguished the maxims of liberty, and introduced and settled those of monarchy, Tiberius, his immediate successor, thought himself so little safe, that he lived in perpetual vassalage to his own fears. By making all men slaves, he could not make himself free, and was only the most overgrown and gaudy slave in the empire, so much to Prince's gain by being above law. They who will be content with no terms of reigning, but such as make all men fear them, will find reasons to fear all men. Tiberius did so, and the many sacrifices which he made to his fear, far from lessening, did but increase it, as such sacrifices did but multiply enemies and terrors. First he dreaded a gripper posthumous, and murdered him, but the murder ensured not his repose even from that quarter, for a slave of that prince personated his master, and alarmed Tiberius more than a gripper had done. He dreaded Germanicus, and when that excellent person was dead, by no fair means it was supposed, he dreaded Agrippina his wife, and her little children, and when by all manner of treachery and cruelty he had oppressed them, he was seized with new dread from Sejanus, the greatest injustice of all, nor ceased his dread after the execution of Sejanus, in so much that he commanded a general massacre of all his family, friends, and adherents. Next, his fears still continuing, he doomed to the most barbarous death his own grandsons by Germanicus, for there being already under miserable imprisonment and exile did not suffice, and when the family of Germanicus was destroyed, he had remaining fears from the friends and dependents of that house. These were the next objects of his vengeance which he executed fiercely, nor small was the terror which he entertained of his own mother, and when she was gone he let loose his rage upon the favourites and adherents of his mother. Now, after all these precautions so many and so bloody did his suspicions abate? No, they were rather wetted and inflamed. Of the great lords of the Senate he was under perpetual apprehensions and making daily victims. Their wealth and race, nay, their poverty, names, and qualities frightened him. He feared friends and enemies, those who advised him in counsel, those who diverted him at his leisure hours, his confidence, counsellors, and bottle companions were all martyrs to his jealousy and fury. He was so afraid of considerable men, or giving them employments which made them so, that some who were appointed governors of provinces were never permitted to go thither, and great provinces for a course of years left destitute of their governors, and though he dreaded stirs and innovations above all things, yet he suffered the loss and devastation of provinces, the insults and invasion of enemies, rather than trust any one with the power of avenging the state, and repulsing the public foe. Thus he left Armenia to be seized by the Parthians, Moesia by the Dacians and other Barbarians, and both the Gauls to be ravaged by the Germans, says Suetonius. End of Discourse 5 Part 1 Section 7 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. 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 1 Discourse 5 Of Governments Free and Arbitrary, more especially that of the Caesars. Part 2 Section 8 A representation of the torments and horrors under which Tiberius lived. What joy! What tranquillity did Tiberius reap from his great and unaccountable sovereignty? Did it exempt him from disquiet, or could all his efforts, all the terrors of his power, prevent or remove his own? Did his numerous armies protect him from the assaults of fear and apprehension? Did he sleep the sounder for his Praetorian bands? Did the rocks of Capri, hardly accessible to men, keep off those horrors of mind which haunted him at Rome and on the Continent? Or rather, with all the eclat of empire, with all his policy and all his guards, was he not the most miserable being in his dominions? Darkly he was. Other particulars, the most obnoxious and threatened, had but some things and some persons to fear. Tiberius dreaded all men and everything. Was his power unlimited? So was his misery. The more he made others suffer, the faster he multiplied his own torments. He himself confessed that all the anger of the deities could not doom him to more terrible anguish than that under which he felt himself perishing daily. Imagine this great prince, this sovereign of Rome, in hourly fear of secret assassins, daily dreading and expecting the news of armies revolted, a new emperor created, and himself deposed. Imagine him fixed upon a high rock and watching there from day to day with a careful eye and an anxious and boating heart for signals from the Continent, whether he must stay or fly. Imagine him every moment ready to commit himself to the waves and tempests and to escape whether he could for life and shelter. Imagine him, even after a conspiracy suppressed, lurking for nine months together in one lodge under such terrors as not to dare to venture an airing even in his beloved Capri, however walled with rocks and defended with guards. In short, he feared everything but to do evil, which yet was the sole cause of his fears. Such was his situation and life and such the blessing of lawless night. Too Tiberius, not his imperial fortune, not his gloomy and inaccessible solitude, could ensure repose, nor keep him from feeling, nor even from avowing the rack in his breast and the avenging furies that pursued him. His death, too, was like his life and reign, tragical and bloody. Section 9 The terrible operation of lawless power upon the minds of princes and how it changes them. Tiberius was an able man. He had talents for affairs. He had eminent sufficiency in war. During the Commonwealth he would have well supported the dignity of a senator. He would have filled the first offices of the state. He would have probably been zealous for public liberty. He had, even under Augustus, while he was yet a subject acquired a signal name and estimation. Nay, it is likely he might have left behind him a high reputation and applause, for he had art enough to have hid or suppressed the ill qualities which were naturally in him, so that he might have lived happy and admired and died in renown. But, being unhappily for himself and his country, invested with power without control, he let loose all his passions, and he, who might have proved an excellent and useful member of a free state, became a prince altogether merciless and pernicious, a terrible tyrant, void of natural affection for his own blood and family, void of all regard and tenderness for his people, and possessed with intense hate towards the Senate and nobility. One of his discernment was not to be deceived by flattery. He knew that whatever submissions and even prostrations were made him, the yoke of sovereignty was grating and grievous to the Romans, and he sought revenge upon their persons for hating his usurpation. This conduct made him more hated, and this hatred enraged him so that, at last renouncing all shame and throwing away his beloved arts of dissimulation, he commenced as it were an open enemy to his people, surrendered himself over to every act of cruelty and to every abomination, even to rapaciousness and plunder, a vice to which, for a long time, he seemed to have no bias. But what is not to be apprehended from power without control, and who is to be trusted with it, when a man of such strong parts and long experience as Tiberius was so entirely mastered and perverted by it? It is a task too mighty for the soul of man and fit for none but God, who cannot change, cannot act passionately, cannot be mistaken, and is omnipresent. There are few instances of men who have not been corrupted and intoxicated with it, and many of whom the highest hopes were conceived, have degenerated notoriously under it. When men are once above fear of punishment, they soon grow to be above shame. Besides, the genius and abilities of men are limited, but their passions and vanity boundless, hence so few can be perfectly good, and so many are transcendently evil, and so many are transcendently evil. They mistake good fortune for great merit, and are apt to rise in their own conceit, as high at least as fortune can raise them. Galba was, in the opinion of all men, worthy of empire, and that option would have ever continued, had he never been tried, and Vespasian was till then the only instance of an emperor by power changed for the better. Section 10 The wretched fears accompanying the possession of arbitrary power exemplified in Caligula and the other Roman emperors. Nor was this anguish and these fears peculiar to Tiberius, his successors felt them eminently, as did everyone who reigned as he reigned. Caligula was so haunted by inward horrors, and his imagination so terrified that he became almost a stranger to sleep, and used to roam about the palace, while others slept, afraid of the night, and invoking the return of day. Upon an alarm from Germany, he prepared to run away from Rome, and was always provided with exquisite poison against an exigency. Claudius, scarce, lived a moment of his reign free from affrights and suspicions. Nor was there any accident so trivial, or any man, woman, or slave, or child so contemptible as not to dismay him, and set him upon sanguinary precautions and punishments. He was several times almost frightened out of his sovereignty, and willing to creep away into safety and solitude. Even before the Senate, which upon the sight of a dagger he had summoned in great haste and earnestness, the poor, unmanly wretch burst into tears and howling, bewailed his perilous condition, that in no place or circumstance could he be out of the way of danger. His whole life was governed by fears, and his fears by his wives and freed men, hence his excessive cruelty, according to the measure of his own timidity, or of their ambition, vindictiveness, and rapacity. The horrors of Nero's guilt never foresook him. They were sometimes so violent that every joint about him trembled. He dreaded his mother's ghost as much as he had her living spirit, and made doleful complaints that the Furies pursued him with stripes, and rage, and burning torches, and that he was alarmed with horrid shrieks and groans from his mother's tomb. What else did Helia Gabalus apprehend but a violent death, when he went always provided with a silken halter, and a golden poignard as expedience to escape death by the hand of an enemy? For the like purpose Caracalla made himself a copious provision of poisons. This barbarous parasite was wont to complain that the ghost of his father, and that of his brother, by him murdered, terrified and pursued him with drawn swords. So sorely did the bloody horrors of their crimes and infamy haunt these men of blood, and become their executioners. What availed their power and armies against the alarms of their conscience? Could all their titles and might, all the guards at their gate scare away reflection, or rescue them from the agonies and gawrings of their own breasts? Section 11 What it is that constitutes the security and glory of a prince, and how a prince and people become estranged from each other. What then is it that a prince may rely on for the security of his person and the quiet of his soul? Hear the opinion of a great and good prince Marcus Antonius delivered to his friends and counsellors just before he expired. Verily it is neither the influence of revenue and treasures, nor the multitude of guards that can uphold a prince, or assure him of obedience, unless with the duty of obedience the zeal and affections of his people do concur. Surely only long and secure is the reign of such a one as by actions of benignity stamps upon the hearts of his people the impressions of love, not those of fear by acts of cruelty. He adds that a prince has nothing to fear from his people as long as their obedience flows from inclination and is not constrained by servitude, and that subjects will never refuse obedience when they are not treated with contumely and violence. A man who means no ill would not seek the power to do it, and he who seeks that power or has it will be eternally suspected to mean no good. Now the only way to obviate such suspicion is to act by known rules of law. He who rules by consent is obnoxious to no blame. Such restraint may probably at some times keep a just prince from doing good, but it certainly withholds a bad one from doing much greater mischief. An arbitrary prince who can do what he will is forever liable to be suspected of willing all that he can, hence his people mistrust him, hence his indignation for their mistrust, and hence the root of eternal jealousy and uneasiness between him and them. The people likewise expect complacence from the prince, expect to have their sentiments and humours considered, while the prince probably thinks that they have no right to form any judgment of public matters or to make any demands upon him. But, on the contrary, requires of them blind reverence and obedience to his authority, and acquiescence in his superior conduct and skill that all his doings should pass for just, himself for a person altogether sacred and unaccountable, and his words for laws. If their behaviour towards him does not happen to square exactly, with these his sovereign notions and high conceit of himself, he will be apt to think, or some officious flatterer will be ready to persuade him, his royal authority is set at naught, the people are revolted and what remains but that they take arms. To punish, therefore, their disobedience he proceeds to violence and exercises real severity for imaginary guilt. Mischief is prolific. Violence in him begets resentment in them, the people murmur and exclaim the prince is then provoked and studies vengeance. When one act of vengeance is resented and exposed, as it ever will be, more will follow. Thus things go on. Affection is not only lost, but irrecoverable on either side. Heat-trud is begun on both, and prince and people consider themselves no longer as magistrate and subject, but one another as enemies. Hence, perhaps, colligial as in human wish, that he could murder all his people at a blow. The sequel of all this is easy to be guessed. He is continually destroying them. They are continually wishing him destroyed. Section 12 How nearly it behoves a prince to be beloved and esteemed by his subjects, the terrible consequences of their mutual mistrust and hatred. How much does it import princes to preserve the good opinion of their people? When it is once lost, it is scarce ever to be recalled. When once they come to believe ill of their prince, there is nothing so ill that they will not believe, as in the instance of Tiberias, of whom things the most improbable and horrid were believed. It is hardly possible for any merit, the most genuine and exalted, to preserve popular favour for a long time. Accidents and disasters will be falling in to sour the spirits of the populace, or some fresh merit. More new or more glaring may appear, and lessen or intercept their admiration of the other. Or the same person may not always have the same opportunities to oblige them, so that the best care and conduct can only serve to retain it to a certain degree. And this, by good conduct, is certainly and always to be done. But when the reputation of the prince with his subjects is entirely gone, something worse than the bear want of it will ensue. Between a prince's forfeiting the public affection, and his incurring the public hatred, there is scarce any medium, and even that medium is a terrible one, since it is to be scorned, as not much better than to be hated, and often infers it. Would a prince live in security, ease and credit? Let him live and rule by a standard, certain and fixed, that of laws, nor grasp, but more than is given him. Many, by seeking too much, have lost all, and forfeited their crown, through the wantonness and folly of loading it with false and invidious ornaments. While nothing would serve them but lawless power, even their legitimate authority grew odious and was rent from them. They set their people, the example of assuming what was none of theirs, to do acts of violence in defence of violated laws, to judge for themselves, and to sanctify by the title of right whatever they could accomplish by force. Rather than live upon bad terms, people will be apt to make their own terms, and think no fealty is due, where no sooth is kept. Who would not rejoice more in a free gift than in plunder? For such is the difference between power conferred and power usurped. What new prerogative acquired to the crown, or what new revenue can make amends for the hearts of the people estranged and embittered. This is such a loss as no acquisition, no pomp of power whatever, can atone for. We have seen under what gloom, affright and despair, the caesars lived and swayed, though their sway was without check and bounds. Machiavelle says that when a prince has once incurred the public hate, there is no person nor thing which he ought not to dread. He who does know ill fears none. But such as are continually creating terrors and calamities to others have abundant reason to be under continual apprehensions themselves. How much more desirable, how much more just and easy and safe is the condition of a prince who lives and rules by laws over a free people by their own consent? Both people and laws are his guard, and what secures them secures him. They see that he loves them, and he is conscious that they ought to love him. This is government and the effects of it, not the triumph of boundless arrogance or folly, not the insults of one over all, nor, consequently his distrust of them, nor their slavish dread of him, but the equal administration of eternal righteousness and stated laws, an endearing intercourse of fatherly care and protection, and a filial gratitude and duty. How amiable must it be, how refreshing to a generous spirit to oblige and solace a whole people, to have a whole people adore and bless him. What master of slaves, even the highest and most unbounded master, can boast so much of himself and his slaves. The grandeur of such a prince is all false and tinsel, painted and hollow. He is never secure, because he is not innocent. He is not innocent, because he is an oppressor. To rule by mere will is to rule by violence, and violence is war. He who puts himself in a state of hostility with his subjects invites hostility from them, as did the late King James, who, having no confidence in the laws which he had violated, nor in his people whom he had oppressed, put himself in a posture of war against his subjects, so that when they too had recourse to arms they did but stand in their own defence. They had no quarrel to that King James who had taken an oath to rule by law. But when that King assumed another person, and in spite of oaths and laws, would oppress and spoil, they who owed this man of violence no allegiance opposed might to might. Since he would abide by no law. It was not their prince, therefore, that they resisted, but their enemy and spoiler. He, in truth, had no more right to what the law gave him not, than the great Turk had. They therefore opposed not an English monarch, but an invader and a tyrant. Nor do I know of any people who threw off their monarchy wantonly. And if they did it through oppression, the oppressor might blame himself. Had he conquered his subjects, what would he have gained but the detestable glory of a triumphant oppressor, of seeing a rich country reduced by servitude to poverty, and of bearing the curses of a free people oppressed? Whoever has beheld the condition of a great neighbouring kingdom, naturally the finest in Europe, has seen in the condition of the inhabitants, poor, pale, nasty and naked, what genuine glory their princes have reaped by reducing all the law of their country into one short one, that of royal will and pleasure. Section 13. Public happiness only then certain when the laws are certain and inviolable. It is allowed that amongst the Roman emperors there were some excellent ones. But was not all this chance? They might have proved like the rest who were incredibly mischievous and vile. They had nothing but their own inclinations to restrain them. And is human society to depend for security and happiness upon uncertain inclinations and will? They were good by conformity to the laws, as laws are the only defence against such as our bad. The bad ones had almost sunk the empire to a chaos, before there appeared one prince of tolerable capacity and virtue to retrieve it. In so much that Vespasian declared it to be absolutely necessary to raise a fund of above three hundred millions of money, of our money, purely to save the state from absolute ruin and dissolution. After the mission there succeeded five good reigns, during which law and righteousness prevailed, and the emperors took nothing, neither power nor money, but what laws long established gave them, and professed to derive everything from the law, and to occupy nothing in their own name. But, as the emperor might still be a tyrant if he would, that wild prince-commodus resumed the old measures of violence, and, becoming a second Caligula, dissipated and overturned in a few years all the treasure, wise provisions and establishments, contrived and gathered by his predecessors, during the best part of a century. To conclude, if princes would never encroach, subjects would hardly ever rebel, and if the former knew that they would be resisted they would not encroach. Every subject knows that if he resist against law he will die by law. It is certain mischief to both prince and people, to assert slavish doctrines and no security to either, since nature oppressed will depart from passive principle. But, to assert the reasonableness of vindicating violated laws is no more than asserting that laws ought not to be violated, as they ever will be where there is no penalty annexed. The least attempt upon public liberty is therefore alarming. If it is suffered once, it will be apt to be repeated often. A few repetitions create a habit, habit, claims prescription and right. Such also is the nature of man, that when public affairs are once disconcerted it is hard, sometimes impossible to restore them to their first firmness, numbers become engaged in the corruption, and will be trying all their arts and power to support it. Where it grows extensive and general, the public authority will probably espouse and defend it, and even where that authority is against it, the torrent may be so strong as to bear down authority itself. How many great and good men have fallen themselves while they strove to restore the state? Attempts to reform the soldiery, to reform the clergy, to reform the civil administration have often drawn down a tragical doom upon the authors of them. It is much easier to prevent than to cure. End of Discourse 5, Part 2 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 are prefixed political discourses upon that author, edited and translated by Thomas Gordon, with introductory essays by Thomas Gordon. Volume 1, Discourse 6 Of the Old Law of Treason by the Empires Perverted and Extended Section 1 The Ancient Purpose of that Law The Politics of Augustus in Stretching It I proceed now to shoe by what arts and supports the tyranny was preserved and exerted, how the old laws, especially that of treason, were perverted, and to explain the instrumental reckony. This law, says Tacitus, in the days of our ancestors, had indeed the same name, but implied different arraignments and crimes, namely those against the state, as when an army was betrayed abroad, when seditions were erased at home, in short, when the public was faithlessly administered, and the majesty of the Roman people was debased. These were actions, and actions were punished, but words were free. Augustus was the first who brought libals under the penalties of this rested law. In that sense of this law, and doubtless it is the true sense, the emperors were the criminals. They who had enslaved senate and people, usurped and destroyed the state. But they had got the power of interpreting laws, or of directing those who did, and consequently were become the law makers. As laws observed had defended liberty, laws rested, secured the usurpers. Hence the old law of treason was degraded and perverted to involve in its penalties the authors of lampoons and pasquinades. This law of majesty was so much and so long prostituted and abused, so much bloodshed and oppression was committed by the succeeding emperors under its name, that at last every sentence and punishment, however just, which was pronounced by virtue of it, was thought unlawful and cruel, so that out of detestation to this abused law many other good laws perished. Doubtless reputation is a tender thing and ought no more to be violated than property or life, and they who attack and blacken it are as vile offenders as they who rob and steal. But there was no better pretense for making it treasonable than for consturing any other offence against particulars, to be an offence against the public. In truth Augustus could have no other view in this than the suppressing of that freedom of speech which was an effect of the freedom of the ancient government and inconsistent with its usurpation. When words were made treason it was time to be wary of one's expressions, especially when the construction of them was merely arbitrary, and the law that made them so was utterly silent about them. There remained no sort of rule to know when they were otherwise, nor had he was to be judge any rule but his own suspicion, anger, and partiality. For every word, for every action, men were involved in process for treason, provided there appeared but an informant to charge him and call it so. It is to no purpose to say that Augustus sometimes overlooked or pardoned invectives against himself. It was all grimace and false generosity. Since after this law was so terribly inverted there was little likelihood that men would run such capital risks. If costuminies upon private persons were high treason, what must it be to meddle with the prince or his administration? He took care of himself without seeming to do so. He found his own sanctuary in providing one for others, and regulations made for his own defence and gratification had an appearance of a spirit altogether public and disinterested. But it was a downright insult upon the sense of mankind to convert a patulent imagination and a few wanton words into a crime against the state. He who exposed the gallantries of a lady of quality, or the faults and foibles of a patrician, was, forsooth, deemed to bear hostile purposes against the Commonwealth, for this is the construction of treason by the lawyers. Yet Augustus himself had made obscene libelies, particularly upon Fulvia, the wife of Anthony. This multiplying of treasons from words and writings had a melancholy aspect, for, besides that treasons multiplied other bulwarks and engines of tyranny, looks at last became treasonable, as did natural sympathy and sorrow, nay, sighs and silence. Augustus was cunning enough to know the advantages of treasons multiplied to his own domination, and rested adultery also into a crime of state. His daughter and her daughter were prostitutes, and all their gallants, according to this merciful monarch, were traitors, and because this sort of traitors were very numerous, as well as considerable for quality and credit, he had here a good pretence to get rid of many considerable Romans, who gave him uneasiness and jealousy. With death or banishment therefore he punished their gallants, for to a crime common between men and women he gave the grievous name of treason and sacrilege, and trod upon the moderation of antiquity. Nor was this sort of treason limited to the reigning house and the blood of the Caesar's, it was universal, and every adulterer was a traitor, by which he made himself the greatest traitor in Rome, as he was the most universal adulterer. Nor were his own severe laws any check upon him, no more than the sacred ties of friendship, for he spared not the wife of his own favourite and faithful councillor Messinas. This was not extreme prudence in so great a politician to be daily violating institutions of his own making, especially when by the rigor of the penalties and the formidable name which he had given to the crime he had shown how important and unpardonable he thought it. Unless, like the princes of Italy in Machiavelle's time, he broke penal laws to encourage others to do so on purpose to ensnare delinquents and gain confiscations. Section 2. The deification of the emperors, what an engine of tyranny and snare to the Roman people. The deification of Augustus and his usurping even in his lifetime the attributes and prerogatives of a deity was another snare for power and crimes. Henceforth every offence offered to this new deity was high treason against the gods, for he was a guard as well as the best of them, and indeed more to be dreaded than all of them. It became a high crime to swear falsely by his name, the same as if the name of Jupiter had been falsified, nay to sell his statue in the sale of a house or gardens, and the citizens of Cisacus, notwithstanding their faithful adherents and strenuous services to the Romans in the methrodetic war, were bereft of their freedom for neglecting the worship of the deified Augustus. The name of Apidius Marilla was raised from the list of senators because he had not sworn upon the acts of the deified Augustus. One of the articles charged against C. Salanas, proconsul of Asia, was that he violated the deity of Augustus. Ferylia, in the opinion of Tiberius, deserved to be condemned if she had uttered old irreligiously concerning the deified Augustus, for this was treason and blasphemy. Such was the awe and reference paid to this fresh deity, and such care had he taken to tie up the tongues of men from sendering him living or dead. He was in star omnium deorum. You might say what you would of other gods, but beware of injuring a deified emperor. He had done more mischief, committed higher oppressions, spilled more human blood than all the men in the world, and was made a deity. Nor was it out of any principle of superstition that Tiberius guarded the fame and godhead of Augustus with such severe sanctions, for he little mattered the gods and godly rites being himself a fatalist, and only infatuated with notions of astrology. Neither was it from any regard to Augustus, who was suspected to have been poisoned to make way for him, and whose blood and posterity he was daily destroying, a proceeding inconsistent with the iterations and sacrifices which he affected to offer him, as Agrippina truly told him. But he did it to promote superstition in others, and rivet the public slavery. Since in religious devotion paid to a prince civil submission was included and enforced. It in truth imported him nearly to have all the laws and doings of Augustus pass for sacred, and to set an example himself that he thought them so. Augustus had left him as he pretended his successor, and it behoved him that Augustus should pass for a prince of consummate wisdom. For had he erred in other great councils and events, he might have erred in that. Besides, Augustus was a popular prince, and it would have been unpopular to have neglected him or rescinded his deeds. Nero II acquired the sovereignty by the murder of Claudius, and, to keep it, murdered his children and kindred. Yet he at first treated his memory with high regard, vindicated the reign, and even extolled the parts and prudence of this deified fool. For Claudius, too, was listed among the gods. He would be the most stupid, cowardly, and bloody idiot that could possibly wear and disgrace a diadem. This strange animal or human monster just begun by nature, but never finished, as his mother used to say, was utterly unfit for any office in the empire or private life, yet came to be an emperor and a god. So that to bear sovereign rule, or to be exalted to a god, no qualification at all was necessary. His grandmother Livia contempt him even to loathing. She could not bear to speak to him. His nephew Caligula, when he had butchered many of his kindred, saved Claudius purely to keep him for a laughing stock. He was held in the same scorn by his sister Livila, by Augustus and all his family. He was the jest of the court. The kindest word Augustus gave him was that of misalice, wretching. Section 3. The images of the emperors. How sacred they became and how pernicious. As flattery begot servitude, so it was by servitude propagated, and whatever tended to sink and debase the spirit of the people, as sycophancy did, exalted the tyrants. Nay, their images and statues became sacred and revered, and any villain nor profligate might offer what outrage he pleased to every worthy man, every slave insulted lord, every criminal escaped justice, by sheltering himself under the emperor's statue, or by carrying his effigies about him. Nor could so considerable a man as a senator of Rome, even in the face of the tribunal and in the very portal of the senate, escape the insults and menaces of a profligate woman who thus defended herself with the image of Tiberius, though he had legally convicted her of forgery, so far was he from daring to bring her to judgment, so that in this empire's reverence to a silent stone, all law and punishment and protection was swallowed up. This gives probability to what Philostratus tells us in the life of Apollonius Tyaneus, that a master was condemned as one sacrilegious and accursed for having chastised a slave who happened to have about him a small coin impressed with the effigies of Tiberius. So vastly had servitude grown upon the Romans so early as the reign of Tiberius, and in the best part of his reign, even while he yet kept tolerable measures with law and liberty, and wherely avoided all excesses of power and cruelty. Yet in his second year, Grainius Marcellus being arranged of high treason, it was one of the articles that the statue of Marcellus stood higher than that of the Caesar's, and from that of Augustus the head had been taken off and the head of Tiberius put on. At the recital of this, Tiberius waxed into such a flame and fury that, departing from his wanted caution and silence, he cried aloud he would vote in this cause himself under the tie of an oath. He was excellently answered by Cneus Pisa who asked him, in what place Caesar will you choose to vote? If first I shall have your example to follow, if last I fear through ignorance I may happen to differ from you. Hence the reflection of Tessitus, that there even then remained some faint traces of expiring liberty. It is not strange, however hideous, to find afterwards these statues, these dead representatives of the dead, invested with such extravagant and inviolable sanctity, that it was death without redemption for a master to chastise his slave near the picture or image of Augustus. Death to change one's garments there. Death to carry a coin or a ring with his image into the privy or into the stews. Death to drop a word that seemed to sender any action or any saying of his. And death was the portion of that unhappy man who suffered some public honour to be decreed to him by his colony, on the anniversary of the same day when Augustus had once public honours decreed to him. The execrable Caligula, who was a professed foe to the human race, a monster gorged with blood and died in it, assumed Godhead as well as the rest, and claimed all the apparatus of divinity, a temple and altars, worship and choice sacrifices. It is incredible what dreadful punishments he inflicted upon many, even of principle fashion, for no other crime than that they had never invoked his celestial genius by an oath. This was capital, it was majesty violated, and for it the offenders, after they had been first torn and mangled with stripes, were doomed to the mines or to the drudgery of mending the public roads, or to be thrown to wild beasts, and some were sought asunder. A bloody deity! Had he been omnipotent, the rays of men must have been extinct. All his own murders, all the efforts of his malice and rage were not able to accomplish it, and he wished to derive the glory of his reign from some signal calamities happening in it, as if the monster himself had not been cursed in calamity enough. He envied Augustus the happiness of an army massacred, and Tiberius the sad disaster at Fidenai, where fifty thousand souls were maimed or perished outright by the fall of the amphitheatre there. Hence he longed passionately for the blessing of some public calamities, great and dreadful, the slaughter of great armies, famine, pestilence, conflagrations, and earthquakes. The acclamations of the crowd in the theatre differing from his, he uttered a godlike wish, that the whole Roman people had but one common neck, for then one execution would have dispatched them all. To complete the character of his benevolent deity, he boasted that of all his great qualities none delighted him so much as his defiance of all shame. These celestial titles and worship divine were sometimes bestowed upon the wives of the emperors, their sisters, harlots, and infants. Caligula was one to swear by the divinity of Drisla his sister, and concubine. Claudius had divine honors decreed to Livia his grandmother. Nero's daughter, by Papaya, was deified. Worship, priest, and chapel were assigned her, and it was one of the crimes imputed to Thrasia, Pautus, that he did not believe for Papaya herself to be a divinity. Nay, it would seem as if Nero's voice had been created a divinity, since I think it was Treason never to have sacrificed to it, a crime imputed to the same Thrasia. The mission likewise adjudged himself a god, and proved much such another as Caligula. Section 4 What a destructive calamity the law of mages to grew, and how fast Treason's multiplied under its name. I have said so much of this humor of deifying princes living or dead, not so much to expose it as to shoe the wicked effects it had upon liberty and the state. It opened a new source of flattery, and accusations, and punishments, and strengthened the hand of tyranny. Of this I have given sufficient instances, and many more might be given, all manifestly proving with what impudence and cruelty the law of majesty was stretched and embittered. In this law all laws were swallowed up, and therefore all crimes brought under the article of Treason, as Treason was the highest crime, as in the case of C. Cilius, whose chief offence was overmatched service done to Tiberias, thence that refined observation of Tacitus, quote, that benefits are only so far acceptable, as it seems possible to discharge them, but when once they have exceeded all retaliation, hatred is returned for gratitude, end quote. Under Tiberias, says Seutonius, every fault passed for capital, even that of words, however few and undesigning. When C. Salanas was arraigned for male administration in Asia, Tacitus says that besides all the other methods of artifice and violence, manifold and barbers used to destroy him, that none of his relations might dare to aid him and plead for him in his trial. Articles of Treason were so joined, a sure bar to all assistance, and a seal upon their lips. One of the great charges against Libo Drusus was that he asked the fortune-tellers whether he should not one day be immensely rich. This, too, was the sin of majesty violated, and for it he was pursued to death, and his estate seized. Note that these were two men of high quality akin to the Caesar's and obnoxious to Tiberias. This seems to have been their real crime. Caesius Cordus was accused of rare pine in his government of Crete, but to make sure of the criminal he was likewise charged with the crime of violated majesty, a charge, says Tacitus, which in those days proved the sum and bulwark of all accusations whatsoever. It was Treason in Cremucius Cordus to have inserted in his history the praises of Brutus, Treason to have styled Cassius the last of the Romans, though in doing it he only quoted the words of Brutus. Treason and Cicius Sabinus to have been a follower of Germanicus, and after his death a faithful friend to his wife and children. Treason and Pompeia Macrina, Treason and her father and brother, the former and illustrious Roman knight, the latter once Preta, to have been descended from Theophanus of Mitalin, a noble Greek in great confidence with Pompey the Great. Treason and El Aeneas, a Roman knight, to have turned the effigies of the emperor into money. Treason and Littorius Priscus, another Roman knight, to have composed during the illness of Drusus a poem from an allergy in case he died. Treason in Mamercas Scorus, an illustrious orator nobly born that in the tragedy by him composed there were certain verses capable of two meanings. Treason in Trocata's Salenus, a nobleman of the first rank in Rome, to lives plenitly and entertain several principal servants. Another Salenus, his nephew, died soon after for the very same sort of treason. In another nobleman it was Treason to have preserved the image of Cassius amongst those of his ancestors. Treason and the two brothers surnamed Petri, both illustrious Roman knights, to have dreamt something about Claudius. Treason and Apius Salenus, that Messalina the Empress and Narcissus the Freedman, had forged a dream concerning him. And, to add no more, it was Treason, it was Majesty, violated, for a poor distressed lady to have bewailed the blood of her son, spilt to satiate an implacable tyrant incensed by his gay railery. This was Fugius Geminis, lately consul, and his ancient mother was murdered for