 Book 6 Part 3 of The Annals by Publius Cornelius Tastus This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Andrew Coleman The Annals by Publius Cornelius Tastus This is translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Broderib Book 6 AD 32-37 Part 3 Administrative Settlements in the East In the consulship of Caesches and Marcus Sevilius, Sampathian nobles came to Rome without the knowledge of their king Artabanus. Dread of Germanicus had made that prince faithful to the Romans and just to his people, but he subsequently changed this behaviour for insolence towards us and tyranny to his subjects. He was elated by the wars which he had successfully waged against the surrounding nations, one he disdained the aged and, as he thought, unwarlike Tiberius, eagerly coveting Armenia, over which, on the death of Artaxius, he placed Arsakis, his eldest son. He further added insult and sent envoys to reclaim the treasures left by Venonis in Syria and Silesia. Then, too, he insisted on the ancient boundaries of Persia and Macedonia and intimated, with a vain glorious threat, that he meant to seize on the country possessed by Saras and afterwards by Alexander. The chief advisor of the Pathians in sending the secret embassy was Sinakis, a man of distinguished family and corresponding wealth. Next in influence was Abdes, an eunuch, a class which, far from being despised among barbarians, actually possesses power. These, with some other nobles whom they admitted to their councils, as there was not a singular circuit whom they could put on the throne, most of the family having been murdered by Artabanas or being underage, demanded that Friates, son of King Friates, should be sent from Rome. Only a name, they said, and on authority were wanted, only in fact that with Caesar's consent a scion of the house of Arsakis should show himself on the banks of the Euphrates. This suited the wishes of Tiberius. He provided Friates with what he needed for assuming his father's sovereignty, one he clung to his purpose of regulating foreign affairs by a crafty policy and keeping war at a distance. Artabanas, meanwhile, hearing of the treacherous arrangement, was one moment perplexed by apprehension, the next fired with a longing for revenge. With barbarians, indecision is a slave's weakness. Prompt action king-like. But now, expediency prevailed, and he invited Abdus under the guise of friendship to a banquet and disabled him by a lingering poison. Sinakis he brought off by pretexts and presents and also by various employments. Friates, meanwhile, on arriving in Syria where he threw off the Roman fashions to which for so many years he had been accustomed and adapted himself to path in habits unable to endure the customs of his country, was carried off by an illness. Still, Tiberius did not relinquish his purpose. He chose Tiridates, of the same stock as Artabanas, to be his rival, and the Iberian Mithridates to be the instrument of recovering Armenia, having reconciled him to his brother Varysmanes, who held the throne of that country. He then entrusted the whole of his eastern policy to Lucius Vitelius. The man, I am aware, had a bad name at Rome, and many a foul story was told of him. But in the government of provinces he acted with the virtue of ancient times. He returned, and then, through fear of Chia Caesar and intimacy with Claudius, he degenerated into a civility so base that he is regarded by an after-generation as the type of the most degrading adulation. The beginning of his career was forgotten in its end. At an old age of infamy, a faced the virtues of youth. Of the petty chiefs, Mithridates was the first to persuade Varysmanes to aid his enterprise by strategy and force, and agents of corruption were found who tempted the servants of Arsarches into crime by a quantity of gold. At the same instant the Iberians burst into Armenia with a huge host, and captured the city of Artaxata. Artabanes, on hearing this, made his son Arodes the instrument of vengeance. He gave him the Parthian army and dispatched men to her auxiliaries. Varysmanes, on the other hand, allied himself with the Albanians and procured aid from the Samate, whose highest chiefs took bribes from both sides after the fashion of their countrymen and engaged themselves in conflicting interests. But the Iberians, who were masters of the various positions, suddenly poured the Samate into Armenia by the Caspian route. Meanwhile, those who were coming up to the support of the Parthians were easily kept back, all other approaches having been closed by the enemy except one, between the sea and the mountains on the Albanian frontier, which some are rendered difficult as there the shallows are flooded by the force of the Aetesian Gaels. The south wind in winter rolls back the waves and when the sea is driven back upon itself the shallows along the coast are exposed. Meantime, while Arodes was without an ally, Varysmanes, now strengthened by reinforcements, challenged him to battle, taunted him on his refusal, rode up to his camp and harassed his foraging parties. He often hemmed him in with his piques in the fashion of a blockade till the Parthians, who were unused to such insults, gathered round the king and demanded battle. Their sole strength was in cavalry. Varysmanes was also powerful in infantry for the Iberians and Albanians inhabiting as they did a densely wooded country were more inured to hardship and endurance. They claimed to have been descended from the Thessalians at the period when Jason, after the Departure of Media and the children born of her, returned subsequently to the empty palace of Aetes and the vacant kingdom of Kolci. They have many traditions connected with his name and with the oracle of Frixus. No one among them would think of sacrificing a ram, the animals supposed to have conveyed Frixus, whether it was really a ram or the figurehead of a ship. Both sides having been drawn up in battle array, the Parthian leader expatiated on the Empire of the East and the renown of the Arsarchids in contrast to the despicable Iberian chief with his harling soldiery. Varysmanes reminded his people that they had been free from Parthian domination and that the grander their aims, the more glory they would win if victorious. The more disgrace and peril they would incur if they turned their backs. He pointed, as he spoke, to his own menacing array and to the Median bands with their golden embroidery. Warriors, as he said, on one side, spoil on the other. Among the Samartai the general's voice was not alone to be heard. They encouraged one another not to begin the battle with volleys of arrows. They must, they said, anticipate attack by a hand-to-hand charge. Then followed every variety of conflict. The Parthians, accustomed to pursue or fly with equal science, deployed their squadrons and sought scope for their missiles. The Samartai, throwing aside their bows which at a shorter range are effective, rushed on with pikes and swords. Sometimes, as in a cavalry action, there will be alternate advances and retreats. Then again close fighting in which rest to rest with the clash of arms they repulsed the foe or were themselves repulsed. And now the Albanians and Iberians seized and hurled the Parthians from their steeds and embarrassed their enemy with a double attack pressed as they were by the cavalry on the heights and by the nearer blows of the infantry. Meanwhile, Pharasmanis and Orodis, who as they cheered on the brave and supported the wavering, were conspicuous to all and so recognized each other, rushed to the combat with a shout with javelins and galloping charges. Pharasmanis with a greater impetuousity for he pierced his enemy's helmet at a stroke. But he could not repeat the blow as he was hurried onwards by his horse and the wounded man was protected by the bravest of his guards. A rumour that he was slain, which was believed by mistake struck panic into the Parthians and they yielded the victory. Artabanis very soon marched with the whole strength of his kingdom intent on vengeance. The Iberians from their knowledge of the country fought at an advantage. Still Artabanis did not retreat till Vitellius had assembled his legions and by starting a report that he meant to invade Mesopotamia raised an alarm of war with Rome. Armenia was then abandoned and the fortunes of Artabanis were overthrown. Vitellius persuading his subjects to forsake a king who was a tyrant in peace and ruinously unsuccessful in war. And so Cynarches, whose enmity to the prince I have already mentioned drew into actual revolt his father Abdeghesis and others who had been secretly in his council and were now after their continued disasters more eager to fight. By degrees many flocked to him who, having been kept in subjection by fear rather than by good will took courage as soon as they found leaders. Artabanis had now no resources but in some foreigners who guarded his person men exiled from their own homes who had no perception of honour or any scruple about a base act mere higher link instruments of crime. With these attendants he hastened his flight into the remote country on the borders of Scythia in the hope of aid as he was connected by marriage alliances with the Hurcanians and Carmanians. Meantime the Parthians, he thought, indulgent as they are to an absent prince though restless under his presence might turn to a better mind. Vitellius, as soon as Artabanis had fled and his people were inclined to have a new king, urged Tiridates to seize the advantage thus offered and then led the main strength of the legions and the allies to the banks of the Euphrates. While they were sacrificing the one after Roman custom offering a swine, a ram and a bull the other a horse which he had duly prepared as a propitiation to the river-god they were informed by the neighbouring inhabitants that the Euphrates, without any violent rains was of itself rising to an immense height and that the white foam was curling into circles like a diadem, an omen of a prosperous passage. Some explained it with more subtlety of a successful commencement to the enterprise which, however, would not be lasting on the ground that though a confident trust might be placed in prognostics given in the earth or in the heavens, the fluctuating character of rivers exhibited omens which vanished at the same moment. A bridge of boats having been constructed and the army having crossed the first to enter the camp was Orna Spades with several thousand cavalry. Formally an exile he had rendered conspicuous aid to Tiberius in the completion of the Dalmatic War and had for this been rewarded with Roman citizenship. Subsequently he had again sought the friendship of his king by whom he had been raised to high honour and appointed governor of the plains which, being surrounded by the waters of those famous rivers the Euphrates and Tigris have received the name of Miso Potamia. Soon afterwards, Sinarches reinforced the army and Abdeghisis, the mainstay of the party came with the royal treasure and what belonged to the crown. Vitellius thought it enough to have displayed the arms of Rome and he then bade Tiridates remember his grandfather Friates and his foster father Caesar and all that was glorious in both of them while the nobles were to show obedience to their king and respect for us each maintaining his honour and his loyalty. This done he returned with the legions to Syria. I have related in sequence the events of two summer campaigns as a relief to the reader's mind from our miseries at home though three years had elapsed since the destruction of Sajanas neither time in treaties nor sated gratification all which have a soothing effect on others softened Tiberius or kept him from punishing doubtful or forgotten offences as most flagrant and recent crimes. Under this dread, Fulcinius Trio unwilling to face an onslaught of accusers inserted in his will several terrible imputations on macro and on the emperor's principal freedman while he taunted the emperor himself with a mental decay of old age and the virtual exile of continuous retirement. Tiberius ordered these insults which Trio's heirs had suppressed to be publicly read thus showing his tolerance of free speech in others and despising his own shame or possibly because he had long been ignorant of the villainies of Sajanas and now wished any remarks however reckless to be published and so to ascertain through invective if it must be so the truth which flattery obscures. About the same time Granius Marcianes, a senator who was accused of treason by Caesgracus laid hands on himself. Tarius Gratianus too, an ex-Prytor was condemned under the same law to capital punishment. A similar fate befell Trebellianus Rufus and Sextius Peconianus. Trebellianus perished by his own hand. Peconianus was strangled in prison for having there written some lampoons on the emperor. Tiberius received the news no longer parted by the sea as he had been once or through messengers from a distance but in close proximity to Rome so that on the same day or after the interval of a single night he could reply to the despatches of the consuls and almost behold the bloodshed as it streamed from house to house and the strokes of the executioner. At the years close Popias Sabinas died, a man of somewhat humble extraction who had risen by his friendship with two emperors to the consulship and the owners of a triumph. During twenty-four years he had the charge of the most important provinces not for any remarkable ability but because he was equal to business and was not too great for it. Quintus Plortius and Sextius Papinius were the next consuls. The fact that that year Lucius Erosius was put to death did not strike men as anything horrible from their familiarity with evil deeds. But there was a panic when Vibuelanus Agrippa, a Roman knight as soon as his accusers had finished their case took from his robe in the very Senate house a dose of poison, drank it off and as he fell expiring was hurried away to prison by the prompt hands of Lictors where the neck of the now lifeless man was crushed with a halter. Even Tigranis who had once ruled Armenia and was now impeached did not escape the punishment of an ordinary citizen on the strength of his royal title. Caes Galba, meanwhile and the Blysea perished by a voluntary death. Galba, because a harsh letter from the emperor forbade him was allotted to him. While as for the Blysea the priesthoods intended for them during the prosperity of their house Tiberius had withheld when that prosperity was shaken and now conferred as vacant offices on others. This they understood as a signal of their doom and acted on it. Emilia Leopoda too whose marriage with the younger Drusus I have already related and pursued her husband with ceaseless accusations remained unpunished infamous as she was as long as her father Leopoda's lived subsequently fell a victim to the informers for adultery with a slave. There was no question about her guilt and so without an attempt at defence she put an end to her life. At this same time the Clity a tribe subject to the Capitose retreated to the heights of Mount Taurus because they were compelled in Roman fashion to render an account of their revenue and submit to tribute. There they defended themselves by means of the nature of the country against the king's unwarlike troops. To Marcus Trebellius whom Vitellius the governor of Syria sent as his lieutenant with four thousand legionaries and some picked auxiliaries surrounded with his lines occupied by the Barbarians the lesser of which was named Cardra the other Devarra those who dared to sally out he reduced to surrender by the sword the rest by drought. To Radartes meanwhile with the consent of the Parthians received the submission of Nicaforium Anthemosius and the other cities which having been founded by Macedonians claim Greek names also of the Parthian towns Haleus and Artemita there was a rivalry of joy among the inhabitants who detested Art of Barnas bred as he had been among the Scythians for his cruelty and hoped to find into Radartes a kindly spirit from his Roman training. Seleucia a powerful and fortified city which had never lapsed into barbarism but had clung loyally to its founder Seleucus assumed the most marked tone of flattery. 300 citizens chosen for wealth or wisdom form a kind of senate and the people have powers of their own when both act in concert they look with contempt on the Parthians as soon as they are at discord and the respective leaders invite aid for themselves against their rivals the allies summoned to help a faction crushes them all This had lately happened in the reign who for his own interest put the people at the mercy of the nobles As a fact popular government almost amounts to freedom while the rule of the few approaches closely to a monarch's caprice Seleucia now celebrated the arrival of Tiridartes with all the honors paid to princes of old and all which modern times with the more copious inventiveness have devised which is where at the same time heaped on Art of Bonus as an Arsarchid indeed on his mother's side but as in all else degenerate Tiridartes gave the government of Seleucia to the people soon afterwards as he was deliberating on what day he should inaugurate his reign he received letters from Friarities and Harrow who held two very powerful provinces imploring a brief delay it was thought best to wait for men for such commanding influence and meanwhile Ctesiphon the seat of Empire was their chosen destination but as they postponed their coming from day to day the Serena in the presence of an approving throng crowned Tiridartes according to the national usage with the royal diadem and now had he instantly made his way to the heart of the country and to its other tribes the reluctance of those who wavered would have been overpowered and all to a man would have yielded by besieging a fortress into which Art of Bonus had conveyed his treasure and his concubines he gave them time to disown their compact Friarities and Harrow with others who had not united in celebrating the day fixed for the coronation some from fear some out of jealousy of abdigeces who then ruled the court and the new king transferred their allegiance to Art of Bonus they found him in Hercania covered with filth and procuring sustenance with his bow he was at first alarmed under the impression that treachery was intended but when they pledged their honour that they had come to restore to him his dominion his spirit revived and he asked what the sudden change meant Harrow then spoke insultingly of the boyish years of Tiridartes hinting that the throne was not held by an Ars Arquit but that a mere empty name was enjoyed by a feeble creature bred in foreign effeminacy while the actual power was in the house of abdigeces an experienced king Art of Bonus knew that men do not necessarily feign hatred because they are false infringement he delayed only while he was raising auxiliaries in Scythia and then pushed on in haste thus anticipating the plots of enemies and the fickleness of friends wishing to attract popular sympathy he did not even cast off his miserable garb he stooped to wiles and to entreaties to anything indeed by which he might allure the wavering and confirm the willing he was now approaching the neighbourhood of Scythia with a large force while Tiridartes, dismayed by the rumour and then by the king's presence in person was divided in mind and doubted whether he should march against him or prolong the war by delay those who wished for battle with its prompt decision argued that ill-arrayed levees fatigued by a long march could not even in heart be thoroughly united in obedience traitors and enemies as they had lately been to the prince whom now again they were supporting Abdigeces however advised a retreat into Mesopotamia there with a river in their front they might in the interval summoned their aid the Armenians and Elimians to other nations in their rear and then reinforced by allies and troops which would be sent by the Roman general they might try the fortune of war this advice prevailed for Abdigeces had the chief influence and Tiridartes was a coward in the face of danger but their retreat resembled a flight the Arabs made a beginning and then the rest went to their homes or to the camp of Art Barnas till Tiridartes returned to Scythia with a few followers who moved all from the disgrace of desertion that same year Rome suffered from a terrible fire and part of the circus near the Aventine hill was burnt as well as the Aventine quarter itself this calamity the emperor turned to his own glory by paying the values of the houses and blocks of tenements a hundred million of Cisterces was expended in this munificence a boon all the more acceptable to the populace as Tiberius was rather sparing in building at his private expense he raised only two structures even at the public cost the temple of Augustus and the stage of Pompey's theatre and when these were completed he did not dedicate them either out of contempt for popularity or from his extreme age for commissioners all husbands of the emperor's granddaughters Nius Demisius Cassius Longinus Marcus Vinicius Rebellius Blandus were appointed to assess the damage in each case and Publius Petronius was added to their number on the nomination of the consuls various honors were devised and creed to the emperor such as each man's ingenuity suggested it is a question which of these he rejected or accepted as the end of his life was so near for soon afterwards Tiberius's last consuls Nius Acheronius and Caius Pontius entered on office macro's power being now excessive every day the man cultivated more assiduously than ever the favour of Caius Caesar which indeed he had never neglected and after the death of Claudia who had, as I have related been married to Caius he had prompted his wife Enya to unveil the young prince by a pretence of love and to bind him by an engagement of marriage and the lad provided he could secure the throne shrunk from no conditions for though he was of an excitable temper he had thoroughly learnt the falsehoods of hypocrisy under the loving care of his grandfather this the emperor knew and he therefore hesitated about bequeathing the empire first between his grandsons of these the son of Drusus was nearest in blood and natural affection but he was still in his childhood Germanicus's son was in the vigor of youth and enjoyed the people's favour a reason for having his grandfathers hatred Tiberius had even thought of Claudius as he was of sedate age and had a taste for liberal culture but a weak intellect was against him if however he would seek a successor outside of his house he feared that the memory of Augustus and the name of the Caesars would become a laughing stock at a scorn it was in fact not so much popularity in the present for which he cared as for glory in the future perplexed in mind exhausted in body he soon left destiny a question to which he was unequal though he threw out some hints from which it might be inferred that he foresaw what was to come he taunted macro in no obscure terms with forsaking the setting and looking to the rising sun once too when Caesars in a casual conversation ridiculed Lucius Sulla he predicted to him that he would have all Sulla's vices but even one of his virtues at the same moment he embraced the younger of his two grandsons with a flood of tears and noting the savage face of the other said you will slay this boy and will be yourself slain by another but even one his strength was fast failing he gave up none of his debaucheries in his sufferings he would simulate health and was wont to jest at the arts of the physician and at all who after the age of 30 bequire another man's advice to distinguish between what is beneficial or hurtful to their constitutions at Rome meanwhile were being sown the seeds of bloodshed to come even after Tiberius's death Acutea formerly the wife of Publius Vitelius had been accused of treason by Lilius Balbus when on her condemnation a reward was being voted to her prosecutor Junius Otho, tribune of the people interposed his veto hence a feud between Vitelius and Otho ending in Otho's banishment then Albuquila notorious for the number of her lovers who had been married to Satrius Secundus the betrayer of the late conspiracy was charged with irreverence towards the emperor with her were involved as her accomplices and paramours Nius Demisius Vibius Marces and Lucius Aruntius I have already spoken of the illustrious rank of Demisius Marces too was distinguished by the honours of his ancestors and by his own attainments it was however stated in the notes of the proceedings furnished of the senate that macro had superintended the examination of the witnesses and the torture of the slaves and the fact that there was no letter from the emperor against the defendants caused a suspicion that while he was very feeble and possibly ignorant of the matter the charge was to a great extent invented to gratify macro's well known enmity against Aruntius and so Demisius and Marces prolonged their lives Demisius preparing his defense Marces having apparently resolved on starvation Aruntius when his friends advised delay and temporizing replied that the same conduct was not becoming in all persons he had had enough of life and all he regretted was that he had endured amid scorn and peril an old age of anxious fears long detested by Sagenius now by macro always indeed by some powerful minister not for any fault but as a man who could not tolerate gross iniquities granted the possibility of passing safely through the few last days of Tiberius how was he to be secure under the youth of the coming sovereign was it probable that when Tiberius with his long experience of affairs was under the influence of absolute power wholly perverted and changed Chia Caesar who had hardly completed his boyhood was thoroughly ignorant and bred under the wireless training would enter on a better course with macro for his guide who having been selected for his superior wickedness to crush Sagenius had by yet more numerous crimes been the scourge of the state he now foresaw a still more galling slavery and therefore sought to flee alike from the past and from the impending future while he thus spoke like a prophet he opened his veins what followed will be a proof that Arunius rightly chose death a book killer having stabbed herself with an ineffectual wound and his order carried off to prison those who had ministered to a profligacy Carcidius Saccados and ex-Prytor and Pontius Fregalanus were sentenced respectively to transportation to an island and to loss of a senator's rank alike punishment was adjudged in the case of Lilius Belbus and indeed with intense satisfaction as Belbus was noted for his savage eloquence and his eagerness to assail the innocent about the same time Sextus Papinius who belonged to a family of consular rank chose a sudden and shocking death by throwing himself from a height the cause was ascribed to his mother who, having been repeatedly repulsed in her overtures had at last by her arts and seductions drove him to an extremity from which he could find no escape but death she was accordingly put on her trial before the senate and although she groveled at the knees of the senators and long urged of parents' grief the greater weakness of a woman's mind under such an affliction and other sad and pitful pleas of the same painful kind she was after all banished from Rome for ten years till her younger son would have passed the frail period Tiberius's bodily powers were now leaving him but not his skill in dissembling there was the same stern spirit he had his words and looks under strict control and occasionally would try to hide his weakness evident as it was by a forced politeness after frequent changes of place he at last settled down on the promontory of mycenum in a country house once owned by Lucius Lucullus there it was noted in this way that he was drawing near his end there was a physician distinguished in his profession of the name of Charakles usually employed not indeed to have the direction of the emperor's varying health but to put his advice at immediate disposal this man as if he were leaving on business his own clasped his hand with a show of homage and touched his pulse Tiberius noticed it whether he was displeased and strove the more to hide his anger is a question at any rate he ordered the banquet to be renewed and sat at the table longer than usual by way apparently of showing honour to his departing friend Charakles however assured Macro that his breath was failing and that he would not last more than two days all was at once hurry there were conferences among those on the spot and dispatches to the generals and armies on the 15th of March his breath failing he was believed to have expired and Charakles Caesar was going forth with a numerous throng of congratulating followers to take the first possession of the emperor when suddenly news came that Tiberius was recovering his voice and sight and calling for persons to bring him food to revive him from his faintness then ensued a universal panic and while the rest fled hither and thither everyone feigning grief or ignorance Charakles Caesar in silent stupor passed from the highest hopes to the extremity of apprehension Macro nothing daunted ordered the old emperor to be smothered and a huge heap of clothes and all to quit the entrance hall and so died Tiberius in the 78th year of his age Nero was his father and he was on both sides descended from the Claudian house though his mother passed by adoption first into the Livian then into the Julian family from earliest infancy perilous vicissitudes were his lot himself in exile he was the companion of a prescribed father and on being admitted as a stepson into the house of Augustus he had to struggle with many rivals so long as Marcellus and Agrippa and subsequently Caus and Lucia Caesar were in their glory again his brother Drusus enjoyed in a greater degree the affection of the citizens but he was more than ever on dangerous ground after his marriage with Julia whether he tolerated or escaped from his wife's profligacy on his return from Rome on his return from Rhodes he ruled the emperor's now airless house for 12 years and the Roman world with absolute sway for about 23 his character too had its distinct periods it was a bright time in his life and reputation while under Augustus he was a private citizen or held high offices a time of reserve and crafty assumption of virtue long as Germanicus and Drusus were alive again while his mother lived he was a compound of good and evil he was infamous for his cruelty though he veiled his debaucheries while he loved or feared sojenas finally he plunged into every wickedness and disgrace when fear and shame being cast off he simply indulged his own inclinations note the four following books in the beginning of book 11 which are lost contains the history of a period of nearly 10 years from 8037 to 8047 these years included the reign of Caesars the son of Germanicus by the elder Agrippina and the first six years of the reign of Claudius Caesars reign was three years three months and eight days in duration Claudius Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus the brother of Germanicus succeeded him at the age of 50 and reigned from AD 41 to AD 54 the 11th book of the annals opens with the seventh year of Claudius's reign the power of his wife Messalina was then at its height she was it seems jealous of a certain Popia Sabina who is mentioned in book 13 as having surpassed in beauty all the ladies of her day this Popia was the daughter of the Popia Sabinas alluded to in book 6 and the mother of the more famous Popia afterwards the wife of the Emperor Nero Messalina contrived to involve this lady at her lover Valerius Asiaticus in a ruinous charge Asiaticus had been twice consul once under Caesars Caesar a second time under Claudius in AD 46 he was rich as well as noble the 11th book as we have it begins with the account of his prosecution by means Messalina who with the help of Lucius Vitelius Vitelius father of the Vitelius afterwards emperor affected his ruin end of note end of book 6 recording by Andrew Coleman