THE REIGN OF TIBERIUS, OUT OF THE FIRST SIX ANNALS OF TACITUS;
by
TACITUS
Part 1 out of 5
Anne Soulard, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Aldarondo, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
THE REIGN OF TIBERIUS, OUT OF THE FIRST SIX ANNALS OF TACITUS;
WITH HIS ACCOUNT OF GERMANY, AND LIFE OF AGRICOLA
TRANSLATED BY THOMAS GORDON,
AND EDITED BY ARTHUR GALTON.
"Alme Sol, curru nitido diem qui
Promis et celas, aliusque et idem
Nasceris, possis nihil urbe Roma
Visere maius."
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
THE ANNALS, BOOK I
THE ANNALS, BOOK II
THE ANNALS, BOOK III
THE ANNALS, BOOK IV
THE ANNALS, BOOK V
THE ANNALS, BOOK VI
A TREATISE OF THE SITUATION, CUSTOMS, AND PEOPLE OF GERMANY
THE LIFE OF AGRICOLA; WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE SITUATION, CLIMATE, AND
PEOPLE OF BRITAIN
INTRODUCTION
"I am going to offer to the publick the Translation of a work, which, for
wisdom and force, is in higher fame and consideration, than almost any
other that has yet appeared amongst men:" it is in this way, that Thomas
Gordon begins The Discourses, which he has inserted into his rendering of
Tacitus; and I can find none better to introduce this volume, which my
readers owe to Gordon's affectionate and laborious devotion. Caius
Cornelius Tacitus, the Historian, was living under those Emperors, who
reigned from the year 54 to the year 117, of the Christian era; but the
place and the date of his birth are alike uncertain, and the time of his
death is not accurately known. He was a friend of the younger Pliny, who
was born in the year 61; and, it is possible, they were about the same
age. Some of Pliny's letters were written to Tacitus: the most famous,
describes that eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which caused the death of old
Pliny, and overwhelmed the cities of Pompeii and of Herculaneum. The
public life of Tacitus began under Vespasian; and, therefore, he must have
witnessed some part of the reign of Nero: and we read in him, too, that he
was alive after the accession of the Emperor Trajan. In the year 77,
Julius Agricola, then Consul, betrothed his daughter to Tacitus; and they
were married in the following year. In 88, Tacitus was Praetor; and at the
Secular Games of Domitian, he was one of the _Quindecimviri_: these were
sad and solemn officers, guardians of the Sibylline Verse; and
intercessors for the Roman People, during their grave centenaries of
praise and worship.
_Quaeque Aventinum tenet Algidumque,
Quindecim Diana preces virorum
Curet; et vobis pueorum amicas
Applicet aures._
From a passage in "The Life of Agricola," we may believe that Tacitus
attended in the Senate; for he accuses himself as one of that frightened
assembly, which was an unwilling participator in the cruelties of
Domitian. In the year 97, when the Consul Virginius Rufus died, Tacitus'
was made _Consul Suffectus_; and he delivered the funeral oration of his
predecessor: Pliny says, that "it completed the good fortune of Rufus, to
have his panegyric spoken by so eloquent a man." From this, and from other
sayings, we learn that Tacitus was a famous advocate; and his "Dialogue
about Illustrious Orators" bears witness to his admirable taste, and to
his practical knowledge of Roman eloquence: of his own orations, however,
not a single fragment has been left. We know not, whether Tacitus had
children; but the Emperor Tacitus, who reigned in 275, traced his
genealogy to the Historian. "If we can prefer personal merit to accidental
greatness," Gibbon here observes, "we shall esteem the birth of Tacitus
more truly noble than that of Kings. He claimed his descent from the
philosophic historian, whose writings will instruct the last generations
of mankind. From the assiduous study of his immortal ancestor, he derived
his knowledge of the Roman Constitution and of human nature." This Emperor
gave orders, that the writings of Tacitus should be placed in all the
public libraries; and that ten copies should be taken annually, at the
public charge. Notwithstanding the Imperial anxiety, a valuable part of
Tacitus is lost: indeed we might argue, from the solicitude of the
Emperor, as well as from his own "distinction," that Tacitus could not be
generally popular; and, in the sixteenth century, a great portion of him
was reduced to the single manuscript, which lay hidden within a German
monastery. Of his literary works, five remain; some fairly complete, the
rest in fragments. Complete, are "The Life of Julius Agricola," "The
Dialogue on Orators," and "The Account of Germany": these are,
unfortunately, the minor works of Tacitus. His larger works are "The
History," and "The Annals." "The History" extended from the second
Consulship of Galba, in the year 69, to the murder of Domitian, in the
year 96; and Tacitus desired to write the happy times of Nerva, and of
Trajan: we are ignorant, whether infirmity or death prevented his design.
Of "The History," only four books have been preserved; and they contain
the events of a single year: a year, it is true, which, saw three civil
wars, and four Emperors destroyed; a year of crime, and accidents, and
prodigies: there are few sentences more powerful, than Tacitus'
enumeration of these calamities, in the opening chapters. The fifth book
is imperfect; it is of more than common interest to some people, because
Tacitus mentions the siege of Jerusalem by Titus; though what he says
about the Chosen People, here and elsewhere, cannot be satisfactory to
them nor gratifying to their admirers. With this fragment, about revolts
in the provinces of Gaul and Syria, "The History" ends. "The Annals" begin
with the death of Augustus, in the year 14; and they were continued until
the death of Nero, in 68. The reign of Tiberius is nearly perfect, though
the fall of Sejanus is missing out of it. The whole of Caligula, the
beginning of Claudius, and the end of Nero, have been destroyed: to those,
who know the style of Tacitus and the lives and genius of Caligula and
Nero, the loss is irreparable; and the admirers of Juvenal must always
regret, that from the hand of Tacitus we have only the closing scene, and
not the golden prime, of Messalina.
The works of Tacitus are too great for a Camelot volume; and, therefore, I
have undertaken a selection of them. I give entire, "The Account of
Germany" and "The Life of Agricola": these works are entertaining, and
should have a particular interest for English readers. I have added to
them, the greater portion of the first six books of "The Annals"; and I
have endeavoured so to guide my choice, that it shall present the history
of Tiberius. In this my volume, the chapters are not numbered: for the
omission, I am not responsible; and I can only lament, what I may not
control. But scholars, who know their Tacitus, will perceive what I have
left out; and to those others, who are not familiar with him, the omission
can be no affront. I would say briefly, that I have omitted some chapters,
which describe criminal events and legal tragedies in Rome: but of these,
I have retained every chapter, which preserves an action or a saying of
Tiberius; and what I have inserted is a sufficient specimen of the
remainder. I have omitted many chapters, which are occupied with wearisome
disputes between the Royal Houses of Parthia and Armenia: and I have
spared my readers the history of Tacfarinas, an obscure and tedious rebel
among the Moors; upon whose intricate proceedings Tacitus appears to have
relied, when he was at a loss for better material. To reject any part of
Tacitus, is a painful duty; because the whole of him is good and valuable:
but I trust, that I have maintained the unity of my selection, by
remembering that it is to be an history of Tiberius.
Tiberius Claudius Nero Caesar, the third master of the Roman world,
derived his origin, by either parent, from the Claudian race; the proudest
family, and one of the most noble and illustrious, in the ancient
Commonwealth: the pages of Livy exhibit the generosity, the heroism, and
the disasters, of the Claudii; who were of unequal fortune indeed, but
always magnificent, in the various events of peace and war. Suetonius
enumerates, among their ancestral honours, twenty-eight Consulships, five
Dictators, seven Censorial commissions, and seven triumphs: their
_cognomen_ of Nero, he says, means in the Sabine tongue "vigorous and
bold," _fortis et strenuus_; and the long history of the Claudian House
does not belie their gallant name. Immediately after the birth of
Tiberius, or perhaps before it, his mother Livia was divorced from
Claudius, and married by Augustus: the Empress is revealed mysteriously
and almost as a divine being, in the progress of "The Annals." The Emperor
adopted the offspring of Claudius: among the Romans, these legal adoptions
were as valid as descent by blood; and Tiberius was brought up to be the
son of Caesar. His natural parts were improved and strengthened, by the
training of the Forum and the camp. Tiberius became a good orator; and he
gained victory and reputation, in his wars against the savages of Germany
and Dalmatia: but his peculiar talent was for literature; in this, "he was
a great purist, and affected a wonderful precision about his words." He
composed some Greek poems, and a Latin Elegy upon Lucius Caesar: he also
wrote an account of his own life, an _Apologia_; a volume, which the
Emperor Domitian was never tired of reading. But the favourite pursuit of
Tiberius was Greek divinity; like some of the mediaeval Doctors, he
frequented the by-ways of religion, and amused his leisure with the more
difficult problems in theology: "Who was Hecuba's mother?" "What poetry
the Sirens chaunted?" "What was Achilles' name, when he lay hid among the
women?" The writings of Tiberius have all perished; and in these days, we
have only too much cause to regret, that nothing of his "precision" has
come down to us. The battles of Tiberius are celebrated in the Odes of
Horace: one of the Epistles is addressed to him; and in another, written
to Julius Florus, an officer with Tiberius, Horace enquires about the
learned occupations of the Imperial cohort.
_Quid studiosa Cohors operum struit? Hoc quoque curo._
It was from his commerce with the Ancients, as I always think, that George
Buchanan derived his opinion, strange to modern ears, that "a great
commander must of necessity have all the talents of an author." Velleius
Paterculus, who served with Tiberius in his campaigns, tells us of his
firm discipline, and of his kindness to the soldiers.
The Caesars Caius and Lucius, grandsons of Augustus, Marcellus his nephew,
and Drusus the brother of Tiberius, all died: they died young, rich in
promise, the darlings of the Roman People; "Breves et infaustos Populi
Romani amores;" and thus, in the procession of events, Tiberius became the
heir. "The Annals" open with his accession, and Tacitus has narrated the
vicissitudes of his reign. Velleius Paterculus has written its happier
aspects: he describes how the "Pax Augusta," the "Roman Peace," delivered
every quarter of the world from violence. He celebrates the return of
Justice and prosperity, of order, of mild and equable taxation, of
military discipline and magisterial authority. It is like the Saturnian
Reign, which Virgil sings in the Eclogue "Pollio." The first action of
Tiberius was to canonise his father, and Augustus was translated to the
banquet of the Gods:
_Quos inter Augustus recumbens,
Purpureo bibit ore nectar._
Augustus was his great example; "he not only called him, but considered
him, divine;" "non appelavit eum, sed facit Deum." The Latin of Paterculus
is here so elegant and happy, that, for the pleasure of the learned, I
transcribe it: for others, I have already given something of the sense.
"Revocata in forum fides; submota e foro seditio, ambitio campo, discordia
curia: sepultaeque ac situ obsitae, justitia, aequitas, industria,
civitati, redditae; accessit magistratibus auctoritas, senatui majestas,
judiciis gravitas; compressa theatralis seditio; recte faciendi, omnibus
aut incussa voluntas aut imposita necessitas. Honorantur recta, prava
puniuntur. Suspicit potentem humilis, non timet. Antecedit, non contemnit,
humiliorem potens. Quando annona moderatior? Quando pax laetior? Diffusa
in Orientis Occidentisque tractus, quidquid meridiano aut septentrione
finitur, Pax Augusta, per omnes terrarum orbis angulos metu servat
immunes. Fortuita non civium tantummodo, sed Urbium damna, Principis
munificentia vindicat. Restitutae urbes Asiae: vindictae ab injuriis
magistratuum provinciae. Honor dignis paratissimus: poena in malos sera,
sed aliqua. Superatur aequitate gratia, ambitio virtute: nam facere recte
cives suos, Princeps optimus faciendo docet; cumque sit imperio maximus,
exemplo major est."
Tiberius reigned from the year 14, to the year 37. He died in the villa of
Lucullus, and he was buried in the mausoleum of the Caesars. The manner of
his death is variously related: Tacitus gives one account; Suetonius,
another. According to the last writer, he died like George II., alone,
having just risen from his bed; and he was thus found by his attendants:
"Seneca cum scribit subito vocatis ministris, ac nemine respondente,
consurrexisse; nec procul a lectulo, deficientibus viribus, concidisse."
Tiberius was tall, and beautiful. Suetonius tells us of his great eyes,
which could see in the dark; of his broad shoulders, his martial bearing,
and the fine proportion of his limbs: he describes, too, the unusual
strength of his hands and fingers, especially of the left hand. His health
was good; because, from his thirtieth year, he was his own physician.
"Valetudine prosperrima usus est, tempore quidem principatus paene toto
prope illesa; quamvis a trigesimo aetatis anno arbitratu eam suo rexerit,
sine adjutamento consiliove medicorum." The Emperor Julian describes him
"severe and grim; with a statesman's care, and a soldier's frankness,
curiously mingled:" this was in his old age.
_Down the pale cheek, long lines of shadow slope;
Which years, and curious thought, and suffering give._
At Rome, is a sculpture of Tiberius; he is represented young, seated,
crowned with rays, exceedingly handsome and majestic: if the figure were
not known to be a Caesar, the beholder would say it was a God.
There is another personage in "The Annals," whose history there is
mutilated, and perhaps dissembled; of whose character my readers may like
to know something more, than Tacitus has told them: I mean Sejanus, a man
always to be remembered; because whatever judgment we may form about his
political career, and on this question the authorities are divided, yet it
is admitted by them all, that he introduced those reforms among the
Praetorian Cohorts, which made them for a long time, proprietors of the
throne, and the disposers of the Imperial office. To this minister,
Paterculus attributes as many virtues as he has bestowed upon Tiberius: "a
man grave and courteous," he says, "with 'a fine old-fashioned grace';
leisurely in his ways, retiring, modest; appearing to be careless, and
therefore gaining all his ends; outwardly polite and quiet, but an eager
soul, wary, inscrutable, and vigilant." Whatever he may have been in
reality, he was at one time valued by Tiberius. "The whole Senate," Bacon
says, "dedicated an altar to Friendship as to a Goddess, in respect of the
great Dearness of Friendship between them two:" and in the Essay "Of
Friendship," Bacon has many deep sentences about the favourites of Kings,
their "Participes Curarum." I would summon out of "The Annals," that
episode of Tiberius imprisoned within the falling cave, and shielded by
Sejanus from the descending roof. "Coelo Musa beat:" Sejanus has
propitiated no Muse; and although something more, than the "invida
taciturnitas" of the poet, lies heavy upon his reputation, he shall find
no apologist in me. But over against the hard words of Tacitus, it is only
fair to place the commendations of Paterculus, and even Tacitus remarks,
that after the fall of Sejanus, Tiberius became worse; like Henry VIII.,
after the fall of Wolsey. Livia and Sejanus are said by Tacitus, to have
restrained the worst passions of the Emperor. The two best authorities
contradict one another; they differ, as much as our political organs
differ, about the characters of living statesmen: and who are we, to
decide absolutely, from a distance of two thousand years, at our mere
caprice, and generally without sufficient evidence, that one ancient
writer is correct; and another, dishonest or mistaken? This is only less
absurd, than to prefer the groping style and thoughts of a modern pedant,
usually a German as well, to the clear words of an old writer, who may be
the sole remaining authority for the statements we presume to question; or
for those very facts, upon which our reasonings depend. And how easy it is
to misunderstand what we read in ancient histories, to be deceived by the
plainest records, or to put a sinister interpretation upon events, which
in their own time were passed over in silence or officially explained as
harmless! Let me take an illustration, of what I mean, from something
recent. Every one must remember the last hours of the Emperor Frederick:
the avenues to his palace infested by armed men; the gloom and secrecy
within; without, an impatient heir, and the posting to and fro of
messengers. We must own, that the ceremonials of the Prussian Court
departed in a certain measure from the ordinary mild usage of humanity;
but we attributed this to nothing more, than the excitement of a youthful
Emperor, or the irrepressible agitation of German officials. But if these
events should find a place in history, or if the annals of the Kings of
Prussia should be judged worth reading by a distant Age; who could blame
an historian for saying, that these precautions were not required for the
peaceful and innocent devolution of the crown from a father to his son.
Would not our historian be justified, if he referred to the tumults and
intrigues of a Praetorian election; if he compared these events to the
darkest pages in Suetonius, or reminded his readers of the most criminal
narratives in the authors of the "Augustan History"? From Sejanus and the
Emperor William, I return once more to Tiberius; from the present
_Kaiser_, to a genuine Caesar.
It is not my purpose here to abridge Tacitus, to mangle his translator,
nor to try and say what is better said in the body of the volume: but when
my readers have made themselves acquainted with Tiberius, they may be glad
to find some discussion about him, as he is presented to us in "The
Annals"; and among all the personages of history, I doubt if there be a
more various or more debated character. Mr. Matthew Arnold thus describes
him:
_Cruel, but composed and bland,
Dumb, inscrutable and grand;
So Tiberius might have sat,
Had Tiberius been a cat._
And these verses express the popular belief, with great felicity: I must
leave my readers, to make their own final judgment for themselves. Whether
Tacitus will have helped them to a decision, I cannot guess: he seems to
me, to deepen the mystery of Tiberius. At a first reading, and upon the
surface, he is hostile to the Emperor; there is no doubt, that he himself
remained hostile, and that he wished his readers to take away a very bad
impression: but, as we become familiar with his pages, as we ponder his
words and compare his utterances, we begin to suspect our previous
judgment; another impression steals upon us, and a second, and a third,
until there grows imperceptibly within us a vision of something different.
Out of these dim and floating visions, a clearer image is gradually
formed, with lineaments and features; and, at length, a new Tiberius is
created within our minds: just as we may have seen a portrait emerge under
the artist's hand, from the intricate and scattered lines upon an easel.
Then it dawns upon us, that, after all, Tacitus was not really an intimate
at Capri; that he never received the secret confidences of Tiberius, nor
attended upon his diversions. And at last it is borne in upon us, as we
read, that, if we put aside rumours and uncertain gossip, whatever
Tiberius does and says is unusually fine: but that Tacitus is not
satisfied with recording words and actions; that he supplies motives to
them, and then passes judgment upon his own assumptions: that the evidence
for the murder of Germanicus, for instance, would hardly be accepted in a
court of law; and that if Piso were there found guilty, the Emperor could
not be touched. At any rate, we find it stated in "The Annals," that
"Tiberius by the temptations of money was incorruptible;" and he refused
the legacies of strangers, or of those who had natural heirs. "He wished
to restore the people to severer manners," like many sovereigns; unlike
the most of them, "in his own household, he observed the ancient
parsimony." Besides the "severa paupertas" of Camillus and Fabricius, he
had something of their primitive integrity; and he declined, with scorn,
to be an accomplice in the proposed assassination of Arminius: "non fraude
neque occultis, sed palam et armatum, Populum Romanum hostes suos
ulcisci." He protected magistrates and poor suitors, against the nobles.
He refused to add to the public burdens, by pensioning needy Senators: but
he was charitable to poor debtors; and lavish to the people, whether
Romans or Provincials, in times of calamity and want. Not least admirable
was his quiet dignity, in periods of disturbance and of panic: he refused
to hurry to the mutinous legions, or to a mean rebellion in Gaul; and he
condescended to reason excellently about his behaviour, when his people
were sane enough to listen. He was both sensible and modest: he restrained
the worship of Augustus, "lest through being too common it should be
turned into an idle ceremony;" he refused the worship of himself, except
in one temple dedicated equally to the Senate and to the Emperor. Tiberius
could be pathetic, too: "I bewail my son, and ever shall bewail him," he
says of Germanicus; and again, "Eloquence is not measured by fortune, and
it is a sufficient honour, if he be ranked among the ancient orators."
"Princes are mortal;" he says again, "the Commonwealth, eternal." Then his
wit, how fine it was; how quick his humour: when he answered the tardy
condolences from Troy, by lamenting the death of Hector: when he advised
an eager candidate, "not to embarrass his eloquence by impetuosity;" when
he said of another, a low, conceited person, "he gives himself the airs of
a dozen ancestors," "videtur mihi ex se natus:" when he muttered in the
Senate, "O homines ad servitutem paratos:" when he refused to become a
persecutor; "It would be much better, if the Gods were allowed to manage
their own affairs," "Deorum injurias Dis curae." In all this; in his
leisured ways, in his dislike of parade and ceremonial, in his mockery of
flatterers and venal "patriots"; how like to Charles II., "the last King
of England who was a man of parts." And no one will deny "parts" to
Tiberius; he was equal to the burden of Imperial cares: the latest
researches have discovered, that his provincial administration was most
excellent; and even Tacitus admits, that his choice of magistrates "could
not have been better." He says, in another passage, "The Emperor's domains
throughout Italy, were thin; the behaviour of his slaves modest; the
freed-men, who managed his house, few; and, in his disputes with
particulars, the courts were open and the law equal." This resembles the
account of Antoninus Pius, by Marcus Aurelius; and it is for this modesty,
this careful separation between private and public affairs, that Tacitus
has praised Agricola. I am well contented, with the virtues of the
Antonines; but there are those, who go beyond. I have seen a book entitled
"The History of that Inimitable Monarch Tiberius, who in the xiv year of
his Reign requested the Senate to permit the worship of Jesus Christ; and
who suppressed all Opposition to it." In this learned volume, it is proved
out of the Ancients, that Tiberius was the most perfect of all sovereigns;
and he is shown to be nothing less than the forerunner of Saint Peter, the
first Apostle and the nursing-father of the Christian Church. The author
was a Cambridge divine, and one of their Professors of mathematics: "a
science," Goldsmith says, "to which the meanest intellects are equal."
Upon the other hand, we have to consider that view of Tiberius, which is
thus shown by Milton;
_This Emperor hath no son, and now is old;
Old and lascivious: and from Rome retired
To Capreae, an island small but strong,
On the Campanian shore; with purpose there,
His horrid lusts in private to enjoy._
This theme is enlarged by Suetonius, and evidently enjoyed: he represents
Tiberius, as addicted to every established form of vice; and as the
inventor of new names, new modes, and a new convenience, for unheard-of
immoralities. These propensities of the Emperor are handled by Tacitus
with more discretion, though he does not conceal them. I wish neither to
condemn nor to condone Tiberius: I desire, if it be possible, to see him
as he is; and whether he be good or bad, he is very interesting. I have
drawn attention to what is good in "The Annals," because Tacitus leans
with all his weight upon the bad; and either explains away what is
favourable, or passes over it with too light a stroke. At the end, I must
conclude, as I began, that the character of Tiberius is a mystery. It is a
commonplace, that no man is entirely good nor entirely evil; but the
histories of Tiberius are too contradictory, to be thus dismissed by a
platitude. It is not easy to harmonise Paterculus with Suetonius: it is
impossible to reconcile Tacitus with himself; or to combine the strong,
benevolent ruler with the Minotaur of Capri. The admirers of an almost
perfect prose, must be familiar with a story, which is not the highest
effort of that prose: they will remember a certain man with a double
nature, like all of us; but, unlike us, able to separate his natures, and
to personate at will his good or evil genius. Tiberius was fond of magic,
and of the curious arts: it may be, that he commanded the secrets of which
Mr. Stevenson has dreamed!
The readers of "The Annals" have seen enough of blood, of crime, and of
Tiberius; and I would now engage their attention upon a more pleasing
aspect of Imperial affairs: I wish to speak about the Empire itself; about
its origin, its form, its history: and, if my powers were equal to the
task, I would sketch a model Emperor; Marcus Aurelius, or the elder
Antonine. Gibbon has described the limits of the Roman Empire; which
"comprised the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilised portion
of mankind." Its boundaries were "the Rhine and Danube, on the north; the
Euphrates, on the east; towards the south, the sandy deserts of Arabia and
Africa;" and upon the west, the Atlantic ocean. It was over this extensive
monarchy, that Caesar reigned; by the providence of Caesar, was the whole
defended and administered.
_Quis Parthum paveat? Quis gelidum Scythen
Quis, Germania quos horrida parturit
Fetus, incolumi Caesare?_
The frontiers of the Empire, and its richest provinces, had been obtained
for the most part in the long wars of the Republic. The conquest of Gaul,
and the establishment of the Empire, was achieved by Julius Caesar; and to
him, the civilised world is indebted for that majestic "Roman Peace,"
under which it lived and prospered for nearly nineteen centuries: the
Eastern Empire was maintained in Constantinople, until 1453; and the
Empire of the West continued, though in waning splendour, until the last
Caesar abdicated his throne at the order of Napoleon. The nations of
modern Europe were developed out of the ruin of Caesar's Empire; and from
that, the more civilised among them have obtained the politer share of
their laws, their institutions, and their language: and to Caesar, we are
indebted for those inestimable treasures of antiquity, which the Roman
Empire and the Roman Church have preserved from the barbarians, and have
handed on for the delight and the instruction of modern times. There are
those, who can perceive in Caesar nothing but a demagogue, and a tyrant;
and in the regeneration of the Commonwealth, nothing but a vulgar crime:
among these, I am sorry to inscribe the name of Thomas Gordon. The
supporters of this view are generally misled, by the specious allurements
of the term "Republic." Tiberius, it may be, was not a perfect ruler, and
other sovereigns were even more ferocious; but the excesses of the most
reckless Emperor are hardly to be compared to the wholesale massacres and
spoliations, which attended the last agonies of the expiring Commonwealth.
After the Macedonian and Asiatic wars, we find a turbulent and servile
crowd, instead of the old families and tribes of Roman citizens; instead
of allies, oppressed and plundered provinces; instead of the heroes of the
young Republic, a set of worn-out, lewd, and greedy nobles. By these, the
spoils of the world were appropriated, and its government abused: Caesar
gave the helpless peoples a legal sovereign, and preserved them from the
lawless tyranny of a thousand masters. He narrates himself, that "he found
the Romans enslaved by a faction, and he restored their liberty:" "Caesar
interpellat; ut Populum Romanum, paucorum factione oppressum, in
libertatem vindicat." The march of Caesar into Italy was a triumphal
progress; and there can be no doubt, that the common people received him
gladly. Again he says, "Nihil esse Rempublicam; appellationem modo, sine
corpore et specie;" "The Republic is nothing but an empty name, a phantom
and a shadow." That Caesar should have seen this, is the highest evidence
of his genius: that Cicero did not see it, is to himself, and to his
country, the great misfortune of his career; and to his admirers, one of
the most melancholy events in Roman history. The opinions of Tacitus were
not far removed from the opinions of Cicero, but they were modified by
what he saw of Nerva and of Trajan: he tells us, how Agricola looked
forward to the blessings of a virtuous Prince; and his own thoughts and
writings would have been other, than they are, had he witnessed the
blameless monarchy of Hadrian and the Antonines. The victims of a bad
Emperor were taken usually from among the nobles; many of them were little
better, than their destroyer; and his murders were confined, almost
invariably, within the walls of Rome: but the benefits of the Imperial
system were extended into all the provinces; and the judgment-seat of
Caesar was the protection of innumerable citizens. Many were the mistakes,
many the misfortunes, deplorable the mischiefs, of the Imperial
administration; I wish neither to deny, nor to conceal them: but here I
must content myself with speaking broadly, with presenting a superficial
view of things; and, upon the whole, the system of the Emperors was less
bad than the decayed and inadequate government, out of which it was
developed. For the change from the Republic to the Empire was hardly a
revolution; and the venerable names and forms of the old organisation were
religiously preserved. Still, the Consuls were elected, the Senate met and
legislated, Praetors and Legates went forth into the provinces, the
Legions watched upon the frontiers, the lesser Magistrates performed their
office; but above them was Caesar, directing all things, controlling all
things; the _Imperator_ and Universal Tribune, in whose name all was done;
the "Praesens Divus," on whom the whole depended; at once the master of
the Imperial Commonwealth, and the minister of the Roman People.
"The Annals," and the history of Tiberius, have detained us, for the most
part, within the capital: "The Agricola" brings us into a province of the
Empire; and "The Account of Germany" will take us among the savages beyond
the frontier. I need scarcely mention, that our country was brought within
the Roman influence by Julius Caesar; but that Caesar's enterprise was not
continued by Augustus, nor by Tiberius; though Caligula celebrated a
fictitious triumph over the unconquered Britons: that a war of about forty
years was undertaken by Claudius, maintained by Nero, and terminated by
Domitian; who were respectively "the most stupid, the most dissolute, and
the most timid of all the Emperors." It was in the British wars, that
Vespasian began his great career, "monstratus fatis"; but the island was
not really added to the Empire, until Agricola subdued it for Domitian.
"The Life of Agricola" is of general interest, because it preserves the
memory of a good and noble Roman: to us, it is of special interest,
because it records the state of Britain when it was a dependency of the
Caesars; "adjectis Britannis imperio." Our present fashions in history
will not allow us to think, that we have much in common with those
natives, whom Tacitus describes: but fashions change, in history as in
other things; and in a wiser time we may come to know, and be proud to
acknowledge, that we have derived a part of our origin, and perhaps our
fairest accomplishments, from the Celtic Britons. The narrative of Tacitus
requires no explanation; and I will only bring to the memory of my
readers, Cowper's good poem on Boadicea. We have been dwelling upon the
glories of the Roman Empire: it may be pardonable in us, and it is not
unpleasing, to turn for a moment, I will not say to "the too vast orb" of
our fate, but rather to that Empire which is more extensive than the
Roman; and destined to be, I hope, more enduring, more united, and more
prosperous. Horace will hardly speak of the Britons, as humane beings, and
he was right; in his time, they were not a portion of the Roman World,
they had no part in the benefits of the Roman government: he talks of
them, as beyond the confines of civility, "in ultimos orbis Britannos;" as
cut off by "the estranging sea," and there jubilant in their native
practices, "Visum Britannos hospitibus feros." But Cowper says, no less
truly, of a despised and rebel Queen;
_Regions Caesar never knew,
Thy posterity shall sway;
Where his Eagles never flew,
None invincible as they._
The last battles of Agricola were fought in Scotland; and, in the pages of
Tacitus, he achieved a splendid victory among the Grampian hills. Gibbon
remarks, however, "The native Caledonians preserved in the northern
extremity of the island their wild independence, for which they were not
less indebted to their poverty than to their valour. Their incursions were
frequently repelled and chastised; but their country was never subdued.
The masters of the fairest and most wealthy climates of the globe turned
with contempt from gloomy hills assailed by the winter tempest, from lakes
concealed in a blue mist, and from cold and lonely heaths, over which the
deer of the forest were chased by a troop of naked barbarians." The Scotch
themselves are never tired of asserting, and of celebrating, their
"independence"; Scotland imposed a limit to the victories of the Roman
People, Scaliger says in his compliments to Buchanan:
_Imperii fuerat Romani Scotia lines._
But it may be questioned, whether it were an unmixed blessing, to be
excluded from the Empire; and to offer a sullen resistance to its
inestimable gifts of humane life, of manners, and of civility.
To these things, the Germans also have manifested a strong dislike; and
they are more censurable than the Scotch, because all their knowledge of
the Romans was not derived from the intercourse of war. "The Germany" of
Tacitus is a document, that has been much discussed; and these discussions
may be numbered among the most flagrant examples of literary intemperance:
but this will not surprise us, when we allow for the structure of mind,
the language, and the usual productions of those, to whom the treatise is
naturally of the greatest importance. In the description of the Germans,
Tacitus goes out of his way to laugh at the "licentia vetustatis," "the
debauches of pedants and antiquarians;" as though he suspected the
fortunes of his volume, and the future distinctions of the Teutonic
genius. For sane readers, it will be enough to remark, that the Germany of
Tacitus was limited, upon the west, by the natural and proper boundary of
the Rhine; that it embraced a portion of the Low Countries; and that,
although he says it was confined within the Danube, yet the separation is
not clear between the true Germans and those obscurer tribes, whose
descendants furnish a long enumeration of titles to the present melancholy
sovereign of the House of Austria. Gibbon remarks, with his usual sense,
"In their primitive state of simplicity and independence, the Germans were
surveyed by the discerning eye, and delineated by the masterly pencil of
Tacitus, the first historian who supplied the science of philosophy to the
study of facts. The expressive conciseness of his descriptions has
deserved to exercise the diligence of innumerable antiquarians, and to
excite the genius and penetration of the philosophic historians of our own
time." Upon a few sentences out of the "Germania"; which relate to the
kings, to the holding of land, to the public assemblies, and to the army;
an imposing structure of English constitutional history has been erected:
our modern historians look upon this treatise with singular approval;
because it shows them, they say, the habits of their own forefathers in
their native settlements. They profess to be enchanted with all they read;
and, in their works, they betray their descent from the ancestors they
admire. Gibbon says, prettily, "Whenever Tacitus indulges himself in those
beautiful episodes, in which he relates some domestic transaction of the
Germans or of the Parthians, his principal object is to relieve the
attention of the reader from an uniform scene of vice and misery." Whether
he succeeds, I must leave my readers to decide. Tacitus describes the
quarrels of the Germans; fought, then with weapons; now, with words: their
gambling, their sloth, their drunkenness. "Strong beer, a liquor extracted
with very little art from wheat or barley, and _corrupted_ (as it is
strongly expressed by Tacitus) into a certain semblance of wine, was
sufficient for the gross purposes of German debauchery." Tacitus informs
us, too, "that they sleep far into the day; that on rising they take a
bath, usually of warm water; then they eat." To pass an entire day and
night in drinking, disgraces no one: "Dediti somno ciboque," he says; a
people handed over to sloth and gluttony. Some of these customs are now
almost obsolete; the baths, for instance. In others, there has been little
alteration since the Age of Tacitus; and the Germans have adhered, with
obstinate fidelity, to their primitive habits. Tacitus thought less of
their capacity, upon the whole, than it is usual to think now: "The
Chatti," he says, "for Germans, have much intelligence;" "Leur
intelligence et leur finesse etonnent, dans des Germains." But let us
forget these "Tedeschi lurchi, non ragionam di lor;" and pass on to those
manly virtues, which Tacitus records: To abandon your shield, is the
basest of crimes, "relicta non bene parmula;" nor may a man thus disgraced
be present at their sacred rites, nor enter their council; many, indeed,
after escaping from battle, have ended their infamy with the halter. And
to more shameful crimes, they awarded a sterner punishment:
_Behind flock'd wrangling up a piteous crew
Greeted of none, disfeatured and forlorn:
Cowards, who were in sloughs interr'd alive;
And round them still the wattled hurdles hung
Wherewith they stamp'd them down, and trod them deep,
To hide their shameful memory from men._
Having now surveyed the compositions in this volume, it is proper that we
should at length devote some of our notice to Gordon himself, and to his
manner of presenting Tacitus. Thomas Gordon was born in Scotland; the date
has not yet been ascertained. He is thought to have been educated at a
northern university, and to have become an Advocate. Later, he went to
London; and taught languages. Two pamphlets on the Bangorian controversy
brought him into notice; and he wrote many religious and political
dissertations. "A Defence of Primitive Christianity, against the
Exhorbitant Claims of Fanatical and Dissaffected Clergymen;" "Tracts on
Religion, and on the Jacobite Rebellion of '45;" "The Pillars of
Priestcraft and Orthodoxy Shaken;" "A Cordial for Low Spirits;" are the
titles of some of his compositions. In politics, and in theology, he was a
republican and free-thinker: he translated and edited "The Spirit of
Ecclesiastics in All Ages;" he was a contributor to "The Independent
Whig;" and in a series of "Cato's Letters," he discoursed at ease upon his
usual topics. The Tacitus was published in 1728, in two volumes folio:
long dissertations are inserted in either volume; the literature in them
excellent, the politics not so good: the volumes, as well as the several
parts of them, are dedicated to some Royal and many Noble Patrons. Gordon
has also turned Sallust into English: the book was published in 1744, in
one handsome quarto; "with Political Discourses upon that Author and
Translations of Cicero's Four Orations against Cataline." Walpole made
Gordon the first commissioner of wine licences. It is handed down, that
Gordon was a burly person, "large and corpulent." It is believed, that he
found his way into "The Dunciad," and that he is immortalised there among
the "Canaille Ecrivante;" the line
_Where Tindal dictates and Silenus snores_,
is taken to be Pope's description of him. Gordon died in 1750; at the same
time as Dr. Middleton, the elegant biographer of Cicero: Lord Bolingbroke
is said to have observed, when the news was told him, "Then is the best
writer in England gone, and the worst." That Bolingbroke should have
disliked Gordon and his politics, does not surprise me; but I cannot
understand for what reason he, and other good judges, despised his
writings. "The chief glory of every people arises from its authors," Dr.
Johnson says; and happy the people, I would assert, who have no worse
writers than Thomas Gordon. I wish to draw attention to Gordon's correct
vocabulary, to his bold and pregnant language, and to his scholarly
punctuation. Among our present writers, the art of punctuation is a lost
accomplishment; and it is usual now to find writings with hardly anything
but full stops; colons and semicolons are almost obsolete; commas are
neglected, or misused; and our slovenly pages are strewn with dashes, the
last resources of an untidy thinker, the certain witnesses to a careless
and unfinished sentence. How different, and how superior, is the way of
Gordon; who, though he can be homely and familiar, never lays aside the
well-bred and courteous manners of a polished Age. In his writings, the
leading clauses of a sentence are distinguished by their colons: the minor
clauses, by their semicolons; the nice meaning of the details is
expressed, the pleasure and the convenience of his readers are alike
increased, by his right and elegant use of commas. The comma, with us, is
used as a loop or bracket, and for little else: by the more accurate
scholars of the last Age, it was employed to indicate a finer meaning; to
mark an emphasis, or an elision; to introduce a relative clause; to bring
out the value of an happy phrase, or the nice precision of an epithet. And
thus the authors of the great century of prose, that orderly and spacious
time, assembled their words, arranged their sentences, and marshalled them
into careful periods: without any loss to the subtile meaning of their
thought, or any sacrifice of vigour, they exposed their subject in a
dignified procession of stately paragraphs; and when the end is reached we
look back upon a perfect specimen of the writer's art. We have grown
careless about form, we have little sense for balance and proportion, and
we have sacrificed the good manners of literature to an ill-bred liking
for haste and noise: it has been decided, that the old way of writing is
cumbersome and slow; as well might some guerilla chieftain have announced
to his fellow-barbarians, that Caesar's legions were not swift and
beautiful in their manoeuvres, nor irresistible in their advance. I have
spoken of our long sentences, with nothing but full stops: they are
variegated, here and there, with shorter sentences, sometimes of two
words; this way of writing is common in Macaulay or in the histories of
Mr. Green, and I have seen it recommended in Primers of Literature and
Manuals of Composition. With the jolting and unconnected fragments of
these authorities, I would contrast the musical and flowing periods of Dr.
Johnson's "Lives of the Poets": to study these works in solitude, will
probably be sufficient to justify my preference; but to hear them read
aloud, should convert the most unwilling listener into an advocate of my
opinion.
Dr. Birkbeck Hill, in the delightful Preface to his Boswell, explains how
he was turned by a happy chance to the study of the literature of the
eighteenth century; and how he read on and on in the enchanting pages of
"The Spectator." "From Addison in the course of time I passed on," he
continues, "to the other great writers of his and the succeeding age,
finding in their exquisitely clear style, their admirable common-sense,
and their freedom from all the tricks of affectation, a delightful
contrast to so many of the eminent authors of our own time." These words
might be used of Gordon: I do not claim for him the style of Addison, nor
the accomplished negligence of Goldsmith; these are graces beyond the
reach of art; but he exhibits the common-sense, and the clear style, of
the eighteenth century. Like all the good writers of his time, he is
unaffected and "simplex munditiis"; he has the better qualities of Pyrrha,
and is "plain in his neatness." In Mr. Ward's edition of the English
Poets, there may be read side by side a notice of Collins and of Gray; the
one by Mr. Swinburne, the other by Mr. Matthew Arnold: I make no allusion
here to the greatness of either poet, to the merits of either style, nor
to the value of either criticism. But the essay upon Gray is quiet in
tone; it has an unity of treatment, and never deserts the principal
subject; it is suffused with light, and full of the most delicate
allusions: the essay on Collins, by being written in superlatives and
vague similes, deafens and perplexes the reader; and the author, by
squandering his resources, has no power to make fine distinctions, nor to
exalt one part of his thesis above another. These two performances
illustrate the last quality in Gordon, and in the old writers, to which I
shall draw attention: they were always restrained in their utterances, and
therefore they could be discriminating in their judgments; they could be
emphatic without noise, and deep without obscurity, ornamental but not
vulgar, carefully arranged but not stiff or artificial. They exhibit the
three indispensable gifts of the finest authorship: "simplicitas
munditiis," "lucidus ordo," "curiosa felicitas."
In this volume, Gordon's punctuation has been generally followed: his
orthography has been modernised a little, though not by my hands, nor with
my consent; and I have observed without regret, that some of Gordon's
original spellings have eluded the vigilance of the printer: that stern
official would by no means listen to my entreaties for the long "SS," the
turn-over words, or the bounteous capitals, which add so much to the
seductive and sober dignity of an eighteenth-century page; but, on the
whole, we have given a tolerable reproduction of Gordon's folio. In the
second edition, he himself made more changes than improvements. I will not
say, that Gordon has always conveyed the exact meaning of the sentences of
Tacitus: but he has done what is better, and more difficult; he has
grasped the broad meaning of his author, and caught something of his lofty
spirit. "A translation," he says, "ought to read like an original;" and
Gordon has not failed, I think, to reach this perfection. It is not
commonly attained among translators: Gordon says, of one rendering of
Tacitus, "'Tis not the fire of Tacitus, but his embers; quenched with
English words, cold and Gothick." Of the author of another version, he
says "Learning is his chief accomplishment, and thence his translation is
a very poor one." This judgment is true of most modern translations from
the Ancients; they may be correct versions, but are miserable English: the
authors, while studying the most perfect models of the art of writing,
have produced copies which are not literature at all. From this low
company, I would rescue Sir Charles Bowen's "Virgil": a delightful poem,
to those who are ignorant of Latin; an exquisite production, and an
amazing triumph, to those who converse with the original. There are many
English translations of Tacitus: the first, by Sir Henry Savile and "one
Greenway"; the former, says Gordon, "has performed like a schoolmaster,
the latter like a school-boy." Anthony a Wood writes in another strain, in
the "Athenae Oxonienis": "A rare Translation it is, and the Work of a very
Great Master indeed, both in our Tongue and that Story. For if we consider
the difficulty of the Original, and the Age wherein the Translation lived,
it is both for the exactness of the version, and the chastity of the
Language, one of the most accurate and perfect translations that ever were
made into English." There is a rendering by Murphy, diffuse and poor; a
dilution of Gordon, worthy neither of Tacitus nor of the English tongue.
There are translations, too, into almost every modern language: I would
give the highest praise to Davanzati; a scholar of Tuscany, who lived in
the sixteenth century. In French, I cannot but admire the labours of M.
Burnouf: although the austere rules, the precise constructions, and the
easy comportment of the French prose are not suited to the style of
Tacitus, and something of his weight and brevity are lost; yet the
translator never loses the depth and subtilty of his author's meaning; his
work is agreeable to read, and very useful to consult. The maps and the
genealogical tables in the three volumes of Messrs. Church and Brodribb's
translation are also of the greatest service, and the notes are sometimes
most amusing.
Of Tacitus himself, there is little for me to say: those, who know him,
can judge for themselves; to those who do not, no words are able to convey
an adequate impression. "Who is able to infuse into me," Cardinal Newman
asks, "or how shall I imbibe, a sense of the peculiarities of the style of
Cicero or Virgil, if I have not read their writings? No description,
however complete, could convey to my mind an exact likeness of a tune, or
an harmony, which I have never heard; and still less of a scent, which I
have never smelled: and if I said that Mozart's melodies were as a summer
sky, or as the breath of Zephyr, I shall be better understood by those who
knew Mozart, than by those who did not." These truths are little
remembered by modern critics: though, indeed, it is not possible to convey
to a reader adequate notions about the style of an author, whom that
reader has not pondered for himself; about his thoughts or his subjects,
it may be different. Still, I may write something about the manner of
Tacitus, which will not violate Cardinal Newman's laws, nor be an outrage
to taste and common-sense. "It is the great excellence of a writer," says
Dr. Johnson, "to put into his book as much as it will hold:" and if this
judgment be sound, then is Tacitus the greatest of all writers in prose.
Gordon says of him, "He explains events with a redundancy of images, and a
frugality of words: his images are many, but close and thick; his words
are few, but pointed and glowing; and even his silence is instructive and
affecting. Whatever he says, you see; and all, that you see, affects you.
Let his words be ever so few, his thought and matter are always abundant.
His imagination is boundless, yet never outruns his judgment; his wisdom
is solid and vast, yet always enlivened by his imagination. He starts the
idea, and lets the imagination pursue it; the sample he gives you is so
fine, that you are presently curious to see the whole piece, and then you
have your share in the merit of the discovery; a compliment, which some
able writers have forgot to pay to their readers." I would remark here,
that many of the old writers give me the sense of handling things, they
are definite and solid; while some of the moderns appear to play with
words only, and never to come up with the objects of their pursuit: "we
are too often ravished with a sonorous sentence," as Dr. Johnson says, "of
which, when the noise is past, the meaning does not long remain." But of
Tacitus, Gordon says, "His words and phrases are admirably adapted to his
matter and conceptions, and make impressions sudden and wonderful upon the
mind of man. Stile is a part of genius, and Tacitus had one peculiar to
himself; a sort of language of his own, one fit to express the amazing
vigour of his spirit, and that redundancy of reflections which for force
and frequency are to be equalled by no writer before nor since."
Dr. Johnson, however, says in another place, "Tacitus, Sir, seems to me
rather to have made notes for an historical work, than to have written a
history:" I must own, that upon the subject of Tacitus, I prefer the
sentiments of Gordon; and Montaigne would agree with me, for he says, "I
do not know any author, who, in a work of history, has taken so broad a
view of human events, or given a more just analysis of particular
characters." The impressions of Tacitus are indeed wonderful: I doubt,
whether volumes could bring us nearer to the mutinous legions, than the
few chapters in which he records their history. I am always delighted by
Gordon's way of telling the battle, in which the iron men of Sacrovir were
overthrown; the account begins on page 139. Then how satisfying is the
narrative of the wars in Germany, of the shipwreck, of the funeral of
Varus and the slaughtered legions; how pleasing the description of
Germanicus' antiquarian travels in Egypt, and in Greece. Though Tacitus is
not a maker of "descriptions," in our modern sense: there is but one
"description" in "The Annals," so far as I remember, it is of Capri; and
it is not the sort, that would be quoted by a reviewer, as a "beautiful
cameo of description." With Tacitus, a field of battle is not an occasion
for "word-painting," as we call it; the battle is always first, the
scenery of less importance. He tells, what it is necessary to know; but he
is too wise to think, that we can realise from words, a place which we
have never seen; and too sound in his taste, to forget the wholesome
boundaries between poetry and prose. This is the way of all the ancient
writers. In a work on "Landscape," I remember that Mr. Hamerton mourns
over the Commentaries of Caesar; because they do not resemble the letters
of a modern war-correspondent; Ascham, on the other hand, a man of real
taste and learning, says of the Commentaries, "All things be most
perfectly done by him; in Caesar only, could never yet fault be found." I
agree with Ascham: I think I prefer the Commentaries as they are, chaste
and quiet; I really prefer them to Mr. Kinglake's "Crimean War," or to Mr.
Forbes' Despatches, or even to the most effusive pages of Mr. Stanley's
book on Africa.
In "The Life of Agricola," I would mention the simplicity of the treatment
and the excellence of the taste. Tacitus does not recite the whole of
Roman history, nor assemble all the worthies out of Plutarch. Agricola is
not compared to the pyramids, to the Flavian circus, nor to any works of
art and literature: these flights of imagination were not known to the
Ancients; but in a learned modern, I have seen Dante compared to Wagner's
operas, to the Parthenon and St. Peter's, and to Justinian's code. The
sanctities of private life are not violated; yet we know everything, that
it is decent to know, about Agricola. Lord Coleridge has given a beautiful
rendering of the closing passages of "The Agricola," in his account of Mr.
Matthew Arnold: these elegant papers are not only models of good English;
but are conspicuous, among recent obituary notices, for their fine taste
and their becoming reticence. From the excesses of modern biographers,
Tacitus was in little danger; thanks to his Roman sense, and to the
qualities of the Roman Language. "Economy," says Mr. Symonds, "is
exhibited in every element of this athletic tongue. Like a naked gladiator
all bone and muscle, it relies upon bare sinewy strength." That author
speaks of "the austere and masculine virtues of Latin, the sincerity and
brevity of Roman speech;" and Tacitus is, beyond any doubt, the strongest,
the austerest, the most pregnant of all the Romans. "Sanity," says Mr.
Matthew Arnold, in conclusion, "that is the great virtue of the ancient
literature; the want of that is the great defect of the modern, in spite
of all its variety and power." "It is impossible to read the great
ancients, without losing something of our caprice and eccentricity. I know
not how it is, but their commerce with the ancients appears to me to
produce, in those who constantly practise it, a steadying and composing
effect upon the judgment, not of literary works only, but of men and
events in general. They are like persons who have had a very weighty and
impressive experience; they are more truly than others under the empire of
facts, and more independent of the language current among those with whom
they live."
It has been told of Cardinal Newman, that he never liked to pass a single
day, without rendering an English sentence into Latin. To converse with
the Roman authors, to handle their precise and sparing language, is, I can
well believe it, a most wholesome discipline; and the most efficient
remedy against those faults of diffuseness, of obscurity, and of excess,
which are only too common among the writers of our day. It may have been
to this practice, that Cardinal Newman owed something of his clearness,
and of his exquisite simplicity: and for his style, he should be idolised
by every one who has a taste for literature. I have said many things in
praise of the ancient authors: it pleases me, as I finish, to offer my
humble tribute to an author who is quite our own; to one, who in all his
writings has bequeathed us perfect models of chaste, of lucid, and of
melodious prose.
NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD:
_September_ 15, 1890.
THE FIRST SIX BOOKS OF THE ANNALS OF TACITUS:
BEING AN HISTORY OF THE EMPEROR TIBERIUS
THE ANNALS OF TACITUS
BOOK I
A.D. 14 AND 15.
Kings were the original Magistrates of Rome: Lucius Brutus founded Liberty
and the Consulship: Dictators were chosen occasionally, and used only in
pressing exigencies. Little more than two years prevailed the supreme
power of the Decemvirate, and the consular jurisdiction of the military
Tribunes not very many. The domination of Cinna was but short, that of
Sylla not long. The authority of Pompey and Crassus was quickly swallowed
up in Caesar; that of Lepidus and Anthony in Augustus. The Commonwealth,
then long distressed and exhausted by the rage of her civil dissensions,
fell easily into his hands, and over her he assumed a sovereign dominion;
yet softened with a venerable name, that of Prince or Chief of the Senate.
But the several revolutions in the ancient free state of Rome, and all her
happy or disastrous events, are already recorded by writers of signal
renown. Nor even in the reign of Augustus were there wanting authors of
distinction and genius to have composed his story; till by the prevailing
spirit of fear, flattery, and abasement they were checked. As to the
succeeding Princes, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero; the dread of
their tyranny, whilst they yet reigned, falsified their history; and after
their fall, the fresh detestation of their cruelties inflamed their
Historians. Hence my own design of recounting briefly certain incidents in
the reign of Augustus, chiefly towards his latter end, and of entering
afterwards more fully into that of Tiberius and the other three; unbiassed
as I am in this undertaking by any resentment, or any affection; all the
influences of these personal passions being far from me.
When, after the fall of Brutus and Cassius, there remained none to fight
for the Commonwealth, and her arms were no longer in her own hands; when
Sextus Pompeius was utterly defeated in Sicily, Lepidus bereft of his
command. Marc Anthony slain; and of all the chiefs of the late Dictator's
party, only Octavius his nephew was left; he put off the invidious name of
Triumvir, and styling himself Consul, pretended that the jurisdiction
attached to the Tribuneship was his highest aim, as in it the protection
of the populace was his only view: but when once he had laid his
foundations wider, secured the soldiery by liberality and donations,
gained the people by store of provisions, and charmed all by the blessings
and sweetness of public peace, he began by politic gradations to exalt
himself, to extend his domination, and with his own power to consolidate
the authority of the Senate, jurisdiction of the Magistrate, and weight
and force of the Laws; usurpations in which he was thwarted by no man: all
the bravest Republicans and his most daring foes were slain in battle, or
gleaned up by the late sanguinary proscriptions; and for the surviving
Nobility, they were covered with wealth, and distinguished with public
honours, according to the measure of their debasement, and promptness to
bondage. Add, that all the creatures of this new Power, who in the loss of
public freedom had gained private fortunes, preferred a servile condition,
safe and possessed, to the revival of ancient liberty with personal peril.
Neither were the Provinces averse to the present Revolution, and
Sovereignty of one; since under that of the people and Senate they had
lived in constant fear and mistrust, sorely rent and harassed as they were
by the raging competition amongst our Grandees, as well as by the grievous
rapine and exactions of our Magistrates; in vain too, under these their
oppressions, had been their appeal to the protection of the laws, which
were utterly enfeebled and borne down by might and violence, by faction
and parties; nay, even by subornation and money.
Moreover, Augustus, in order to fortify his domination with collateral
bulwarks, raised his sister's son Claudius Marcellus, a perfect youth, to
the dignity of Pontiff and that of Aedile; preferred Marcus Agrippa to two
successive Consulships, a man in truth meanly born but an accomplished
soldier, and the companion of his victories; and Marcellus, the husband of
Julia, soon after dying, chose him for his son-in-law. Even the sons of
his wife, Tiberius Nero, and Claudius Drusus, he dignified with high
military titles and commands; though his house was yet supported by
descendants of his own blood. For into the Julian family and name of the
Caesars he had already adopted Lucius and Caius, the sons of Agrippa; and
though they were but children, neither of them seventeen years old,
vehement had been his ambition to see them declared Princes of the Roman
Youth and even designed to the Consulship; while openly, he was protesting
against admitting these early honours. Presently, upon the decease of
Agrippa, were these his children snatched away, either by their own
natural but hasty fate, or by the deadly fraud of their step-mother Livia;
Lucius on his journey to command the armies in Spain; Caius in his return
from Armenia, ill of a wound: and as Drusus, one of her own sons, had been
long since dead, Tiberius remained sole candidate for the succession. Upon
this object, centred all princely honours; he was by Augustus adopted for
his son, assumed Colleague in the Empire, partner in the jurisdiction
tribunitial, and presented under all these dignities to the several
armies: instances of grandeur which were no longer derived from the secret
schemes and plottings of his mother, as in times past, while her husband
had unexceptionable heirs of his own, but thenceforth bestowed at her open
suit. For as Augustus was now very aged, she had over him obtained such
absolute sway, that for her pleasure he banished into the Isle of Planasia
his only surviving grandson, Agrippa Postumus; one, in truth, destitute of
laudable accomplishments, in his temper untractable, and stupidly
conceited of his mighty strength, but branded with no misdemeanour or
transgression. The Emperor had withal set Germanicus, the son of Drusus,
over eight legions quartered upon the Rhine, and obliged Tiberius to adopt
him, though Tiberius had then a son of his own, one of competent years;
but it was the study of Augustus, to secure himself and the succession by
variety of stays and engraftments. War at that time there was none, except
that in Germany, kept on foot rather to abolish the disgrace sustained by
Quinctilius Varus, there slain with his army, than from any ambition to
enlarge the Empire, or for any other valuable advantage. In profound
tranquillity were affairs at Rome. To the Magistrates remained their
wonted names; of the Romans the younger sort had been born since the
battle of Actium, and even most of the old during the civil wars: how few
were then living who had seen the ancient free State!
The frame and economy of Rome being thus totally overturned, amongst the
Romans were no longer found any traces of their primitive spirit, or
attachment to the virtuous institutions of antiquity. But as the equality
of the whole was extinguished by the sovereignty of one, all men regarded
the orders of the Prince as the only rule of conduct and obedience; nor
felt they any anxiety, while Augustus yet retained vigour of life, and
upheld the credit of his administration with public peace, and the
imperial fortune of his house. But when he became broken with the pressure
of age and infirmities; when his end was at hand, and thence a new source
of hopes and views was presented, some few there were who began to reason
idly about the blessings and recovery of Liberty; many dreaded a civil
war, others longed for one; while far the greater part were uttering their
several apprehensions of their future masters; "that naturally stern and
savage was the temper of Agrippa, and by his public contumely enraged into
fury; and neither in age nor experience was he equal to the weight of
Empire. Tiberius indeed had arrived at fulness of years, and was a
distinguished captain, but possessed the inveterate pride entailed upon
the Claudian race; and many indications of a cruel nature escaped him, in
spite of all his arts to disguise it; besides that from his early infancy
he was trained up in a reigning house, and even in his youth inured to an
accumulation of power and honours, consulships and triumphs: nor during
the several years of his abode at Rhodes, where, under the plausible name
of retirement, a real banishment was covered, did he exercise other
occupation than that of meditating future vengeance, studying the arts of
treachery, and practising secret, abominable sensualities: add to these
considerations, that of his mother, a woman inspired with all the tyranny
of her sex; yes, the Romans must be under bondage to a woman, and moreover
enthralled by two youths, who would first combine to oppress the State,
and then falling into dissension, rend it piecemeal."
While the public was engaged in these and the like debates, the illness of
Augustus waxed daily more grievous; and some strongly suspected the
pestilent practices of his wife. For there had been, some months before, a
rumour abroad, that Augustus having singled out a few of his most faithful
servants, and taken Fabius Maximus for his only companion, had, with no
other retinue, sailed secretly over to the Island of Planasia, there to
visit his Grandson Agrippa; that many tears were shed on both sides, many
tokens of mutual tenderness shown, and hopes from thence conceived, that
the unhappy youth would be restored to his own place in his Grandfather's
family. That Maximus had disclosed it to Martia, she to Livia; and thence
the Emperor knew that the secret was betrayed: that Maximus being soon
after dead (dead, as it was doubted, through fear, by his own hands),
Martia was observed, in her lamentations and groans at his funeral, to
accuse herself as the sad cause of her husband's destruction. Whatever
truth was in all this, Tiberius was scarce entered Illyrium, but he was
hastily recalled by his mother's letters: nor is it fully known whether at
his return to Nola, he found Augustus yet breathing, or already
breathless. For Livia had carefully beset the palace, and all the avenues
to it, with detachments of the guards; and good news of his recovery were
from time to time given out. When she had taken all measures necessary in
so great a conjuncture, in one and the same moment was published the
departure of Augustus, and the accession of Tiberius.
The first feat of this new reign was the murder of young Agrippa: the
assassin, a bold and determined Centurion, found him destitute of arms,
and little apprehending such a destiny, yet was scarce able to despatch
him. Of this transaction Tiberius avoided any mention in the Senate: he
would have it pass for done by the commands of Augustus; as if he had
transmitted written orders to the Tribune, who guarded Agrippa, "to slay
him the instant he heard of his grandfather's decease." It is very true
that Augustus had made many and vehement complaints of the young man's
obstinate and unruly demeanour, and even solicited from the Senate a
decree to authorise his banishment: but he never hardened himself against
the sentiments of nature, nor in any instance dipped his hands in his own
blood; neither is it credible that he would barbarously sacrifice the life
of his grandson for the security and establishment of his step-son. More
probable it is, that this hasty murder was purely the work of Tiberius and
Livia; that the young Prince, hated and dreaded by both, fell thus
untimely, to rid the one of his apprehensions and a rival, and to satiate
in the other the rancorous spirit of a step-mother. When the Centurion,
according to the custom of the army, acquainted Tiberius, "that his
commands were executed;" he answered, "he had commanded no such execution,
and the Centurion must appear before the Senate, and for it be answerable
to them." This alarmed Sallustius Crispus, who shared in all his secret
counsels, and had sent the Centurion the warrant: he dreaded that he
should be arraigned for the assassination, and knew it equally perilous
either to confess the truth, and charge the Emperor; or falsely to clear
the Emperor, and accuse himself. Hence he had recourse to Livia, and
warned her, "never to divulge the secrets of the palace, never to expose
to public examination the ministers who advised, nor the soldiers who
executed: Tiberius should beware of relaxing the authority of the Prince,
by referring all things to that of the Senate; since it was the
indispensable prerogative of sovereignty for all men to be accountable
only to one."
Now at Rome, Consuls, Senators, and Roman Knights, were all rushing with
emulation into bondage, and the higher the quality of each the more false
and forward the men; all careful so to frame their faces, as to reconcile
false joy for the accession of Tiberius, with feigned sadness for the loss
of Augustus: hence they intermingled fears with gladness, wailings with
gratulations, and all with servile flattery. Sextus Pompeius and Sextus
Apuleius, at that time Consuls, took first the oath of fidelity to
Tiberius; then administered it to Seius Strabo and Caius Turranius; the
former Captain of the Praetorian Guards, the other Intendant of the Public
Stores. The oath was next given to the Senate, to the people, and to the
soldiery: all by the same Consuls; for Tiberius affected to derive all
public transactions from the legal ministry of the Consuls, as if the
ancient Republic still subsisted, and he were yet unresolved about
embracing the sovereign rule: he even owned in his edict for summoning the
Senate, that he issued it by virtue of the Tribunitial power, granted him
under Augustus. The edict, too, was short and unexceptionably modest. It
imported that, "they were to consider of the funeral honours proper to be
paid his deceased Father: for himself he would not depart from the corpse;
and further than this edict implied, he claimed no share in the public
administration." Yet from the moment Augustus was dead, he usurped all the
prerogatives of imperial state, gave the word to the Praetorian Cohorts;
had soldiers about the palace, guards about his person, went guarded in
the street, guarded to the Senate, and bore all the marks of Majesty: nay,
he writ letters to the several armies in the undisguised style of one
already their Prince: nor did he ever hesitate in expression, or speak
with perplexity, but when he spoke to the Senate. The chief cause of his
obscurity there proceeded from his fear of Germanicus: he dreaded that he,
who was master of so many legions, of numberless auxiliaries, and of all
the allies of Rome; he, who was the darling of the people, might wish
rather to possess the Empire, than to wait for it; he likewise, in this
mysterious way of dealing with the Senate, sought false glory, and would
rather seem by the Commonwealth chosen and called to the Empire, than to
have crept darkly into it by the intrigues of a woman, or by adoption from
a superannuated Prince. It was also afterwards found, that by this
abstruseness and counterfeit irresolution he meant to penetrate into the
designs and inclinations of the great men: for his jealous spirit
construed all their words, all their looks, into crimes; and stored them
up in his heart against a day of vengeance.
When he first met the Senate, he would bear no other business to be
transacted but that about the funeral of Augustus. His last will was
brought in by the Vestal Virgins: in it Tiberius and Livia were appointed
his heirs, Livia adopted into the Julian family, and dignified with the
name of Augusta: into the next and second degree of heirship he adopted
his grandchildren and their children; and in the third degree he named the
great men of Rome, most of them hated by him, but out of vainglory he
named them, and for future renown. His legacies were not beyond the usual
bounds; only he left to the Roman people four hundred thousand great
sesterces, [Footnote: L362,500.] to the populace or common sort, thirty-
five thousand; to every common soldier of the Praetorian Guards, a
thousand small sesterces, [Footnote: L8, 6s. 8d.] and to every soldier of
the Roman legions three hundred. [Footnote: L2, 10s.] The funeral honours
were next considered. The chief proposed were these: Asinius Gallus moved
that "the funeral should pass through the Triumphal Gate:" Lucius
Arruntius, "that the titles of all the laws which he had made, and the
names of all the nations which he had conquered, should be carried before
the corpse:" Valerius Messala added, that "the oath of allegiance to
Tiberius should be renewed every year;" and being asked by Tiberius,
"whether at his instigation he had made that motion?" "I spoke it as my
opinion," says Messala; "nor will I ever be determined by any but my own,
in things which concern the commonweal; let who will be provoked by my
freedom." Only this new turn was wanting to complete the prevailing
flattery of the time. The Senators then concurred in a loud cry, "that
upon their own shoulders they must bear the body to the pile." But
Tiberius declined the offer from an arrogant show of moderation. Moreover,
he cautioned the people by an edict, "not to disturb the funeral functions
with a zeal over-passionate, as they had those of Julius Caesar; nor to
insist that the corpse of Augustus should be burnt rather in the Forum,
than in the field of Mars, which was the place appointed." On the funeral
day the soldiers under arms kept guard; a mighty mockery this to those who
had either seen, or heard their fathers describe, the day when Caesar the
Dictator was slain: servitude was then new, its sorrows yet fresh and
bitter; and liberty unsuccessfully retrieved by a deed which, while it
seemed impious to some, was thought altogether glorious by others, and
hence tore Rome into tumults and the violence of parties: they who knew
that turbulent day, and compared it with the quiet exit of Augustus,
ridiculed the foppery of "calling an aid of soldiers to secure a peaceable
burial to a Prince who had grown old in peace and power, and even provided
against a relapse into liberty, by a long train of successors."
Hence much and various matter of observation concerning Augustus: the
superstitious multitude admired the fortuitous events of his fortune;
"that the last day of his life, and the first of his reign, was the same;
that he died at Nola, in the same village, and in the same house, and in
the same chamber, where his father Octavius died. They observed to his
glory, his many Consulships, equal in number to those of Valerius Corvinus
and of Caius Marius, joined together; that he had exercised the power of
the Tribuneship seven-and-thirty continued years: that he was one-and-
twenty times proclaimed Imperator; with many other numerous honours
repeated to him, or created for him." Men of deeper discernment entered
further into his life, but differed about it. His admirers said, "that his
filial piety to his father Caesar, and the distractions of the Republic,
where the laws no longer governed, had driven him into a civil war; which,
whatever be the first cause, can never be begun or carried, on by just and
gentle means." Indeed, to be revenged on the murderers of his father, he
had made many great sacrifices to the violent genius of Anthony; many to
Lepidus: but when Lepidus was become sunk and superannuated in sloth; when
Anthony was lost headlong in sensuality, there was then no other remedy
for the distracted State, rent piecemeal by its Chiefs, but the
sovereignty of one: Augustus, however, never had assumed to be over his
country King, or Dictator; but settled the government under the legal name
of Prince, or Chief of the Senate: he had extended the Empire, and set for
its bounds the distant ocean and rivers far remote; the several parts and
forces of the State, the legions, the provinces, and the navy, were all
properly balanced and connected; the citizens lived dutifully under the
protection of the law, the Allies in terms of respect, and Rome itself was
adorned with magnificent structures: indeed, in a few instances he had
exerted the arbitrary violence of power; and in but a few, only to secure
the peace of the whole.
In answer to all this, it was urged, that "his filial piety, and the
unhappy situation of the Republic, were pure pretences; but the ardent
lust of reigning, his true and only motive: with this spirit he had
solicited into his service, by bribery, a body of veteran soldiers: and
though a private youth, without post or magistracy, but, in defiance of
law, levied an army: with this spirit he had debauched and bought the
Roman legions under the Consuls, while he was falsely feigning a coalition
with Pompey's republican party: that soon after, when he had procured from
the Senate, or rather usurped the honours and authority of the
Praetorship; and when Hirtius and Pansa, the two Consuls, were slain, he
seized both their armies: that it was doubted whether the Consuls fell by
the enemy, or whether Pansa was not killed by pouring poison into his
wounds; and Hirtius slain by his own soldiers; and whether the young
Caesar was not the black contriver of this bloody treason: that by terror
he had extorted the Consulship in spite of the Senate; and turned against
the Commonwealth the very arms with which the Commonwealth had trusted him
for her defence against Anthony. Add to all this his cruel proscriptions,
and the massacre of so many citizens, his seizing from the public and
distributing to his own creatures so many lands and possessions; a
violation of property not justified even by those who gained by it. But,
allowing him to dedicate to the Manes of the Dictator the lives of Brutus
and Cassius (though more to his honour had it been to have postponed his
own personal hate to public good), did he not betray the young Pompey by
an insidious peace, betray Lepidus by a deceitful show of friendship? Did
he not next ensnare Marc Anthony, first by treaties, those of Tarentum and
Brundusium; then by a marriage, that of his sister Octavia? And did not
Anthony at last pay with his life the penalty of that subdolous alliance?
After this, no doubt there was peace, but a bloody peace; bloody in the
tragical defeat of Lollius, and that of Varus, in Germany; and at Rome,
the Varrones, the Egnatii, the Julii (those illustrious names) were put to
death." Nor was his domestic life spared upon this occasion. "He had
arbitrarily robbed Nero of his wife big with child by her husband; and
mocked the Gods by consulting the Priests; whether religion permitted him
to marry her before her delivery, or obliged him to stay till after. His
minions, Tedius and Vedius Pollio, had lived in scandalous and excessive
luxury: his wife Livia, who wholly controlled him, had proved a cruel
governess to the Commonwealth; and to the Julian house, a more cruel
step-mother: he had even invaded the incommunicable honours of the Gods,
and setting up for himself temples like theirs, would like them be adored
in the image of a Deity, with all the sacred solemnity of Priests and
sacrifices: nor had he adopted Tiberius for his successor, either out of
affection for him, or from concern for the public welfare; but having
discovered in him a spirit proud and cruel, he sought future glory from
the blackest opposition and comparison." For, Augustus, when, a few years
before, he solicited the Senate to grant to Tiberius another term of the
authority of the Tribuneship, though he mentioned him with honour, yet
taking notice of his odd humour, behaviour, and manners, dropped some
expressions, which, while they seemed to excuse him, exposed and upbraided
him.
As soon as the funeral of Augustus was over, a temple and divine worship
were forthwith decreed him. The Senate then turned their instant
supplications to Tiberius, to fill his vacant place; but received an
abstruse answer, touching the greatness of the Empire and his own distrust
of himself; he said that "nothing but the divine genius of Augustus was
equal to the mighty task: that for himself, who had been called by him
into a participation of his cares, he had learnt by feeling them, what a
daring, what a difficult toil was that of government, and how perpetually
subject to the caprices of fortune: that in a State supported by so many
illustrious patriots they ought not to cast the whole administration upon
one; and more easy to be administered were the several offices of the
Government by the united pains and sufficiency of many." A pompous and
plausible speech, but in it little faith and sincerity. Tiberius, even
upon subjects which needed no disguises, used words dark and cautious;
perhaps from his diffident nature, perhaps from a habit of dissembling: at
this juncture indeed, as he laboured wholly to hide his heart, his
language was the more carefully wrapped up in equivoques and obscurity:
but the Senators, who dreaded nothing so much as to seem to understand
him, burst into tears, plaints, and vows; with extended arms they
supplicated the Gods, invoked the image of Augustus, and embraced the
knees of Tiberius. He then commanded the imperial register to be produced
and recited. It contained a summary of the strength and income of the
Empire, the number of Romans and auxiliaries in pay, the condition of the
navy, of the several kingdoms paying tribute, and of the various provinces
and their revenues, with the state of the public expense, the issues of
the exchequer, and all the demands upon the public. This register was all
writ by the hand of Augustus; and in it he had subjoined his counsel to
posterity, that the present boundaries of the Empire should stand fixed
without further enlargement; but whether this counsel was dictated by fear
for the public, or by envy towards his successors, is uncertain.
Now when the Senate was stooping to the vilest importunity and
prostrations, Tiberius happened to say, that, "as he was unequal to the
weight of the whole government; so if they entrusted him with any
particular part, whatever it were, he would undertake it." Here Asinius
Gallus interposed: "I beg to know, Caesar," says he, "what part of the
government you desire for your share?" He was astonished with the
unexpected question, and, for a short space, mute; but recovering himself,
answered, that "it ill became his modesty to choose or reject any
particular branch of the administration, when he desired rather to be
excused from the whole." Gallus, who in his face conjectured sullen signs
of displeasure, again accosted him, and said, "by this question I did not
mean that you should do an impracticable thing, and share that power which
cannot be separated; but I meant to reason you into a confession that the
Commonwealth is but one body, and can be governed only by one soul." He
added an encomium upon Augustus, and reminded Tiberius himself of his many
victories, of the many civil employments which he had long and nobly
sustained: nor even thus could he mollify the wrath of Tiberius, who had
long hated him, for that Gallus had married Vipsania, daughter of Marcus
Agrippa, and formerly wife to Tiberius, who thence suspected that by this
match he meant to soar above the rank of a subject, and possessed too the
bold and haughty spirit of Asinius Pollio his father.
Lucius Arruntius incurred his displeasure next, by a speech not much
unlike that of Gallus: it is true, that towards him Tiberius bore no old
rancour; but Arruntius had mighty opulence, prompt parts, noble
accomplishments, with equal popularity, and hence was marked by him with a
fell eye of suspicion. For, as Augustus, shortly before his decease, was
mentioning those among the great men, who were capable of the supreme
power, but would not accept it; or unequal to it, yet wished for it; or
such, as had both ambition and sufficiency; he had said, that "Marcus
Lepidus was qualified, but would reject it; Asinius would be aspiring, but
had inferior talents; and that Lucius Arruntius wanted no sufficiency, and
upon a proper occasion would attempt it." That he spoke thus of Lepidus
and Asinius, is agreed; but, instead of Arruntius, some writers have
transmitted the name of Cneius Piso: and every one of these great men,
except Lepidus, were afterwards cut off, under the imputation of various
crimes, all darkly framed by Tiberius. Quintus Haterius and Mamercus
Scaurus did thereafter incense his distrustful spirit; the first by asking
him, "How long, Caesar, wilt thou suffer the Commonwealth to remain
destitute of a head?" Scaurus, because he had said "there was room to hope
that the prayers of the Senate would not prove abortive, since he had not
opposed as Tribune, nor rendered invalid, as he might, the motion of the
Consuls in his behalf." With Haterius he fell into instant rage; towards
Scaurus his resentment was more deep and implacable, and in profound
silence he hid it. Wearied at last with public importunity and clamour,
and with particular expostulations, he began to unbend a little; not that
he would own his undertaking the Empire, but only avoid the uneasiness of
perpetually rejecting endless solicitations. It is known how Haterius,
when he went next day to the palace to implore pardon, and throwing
himself at the feet of Tiberius embraced his knees, narrowly escaped being
slain by the soldiers; because Tiberius, who was walking, tumbled down,
whether by chance, or whether his legs were entangled in the arms of
Haterius: neither was he a jot mollified by the danger which threatened so
great a man, who was at length forced to supplicate Augusta for
protection; nor could even she obtain it, but after the most laboured
entreaties.
Towards Livia, too, exorbitant was the flattering court of the Senate.
Some were for decreeing her the general title of Mother; others the more
particular one of Mother Of Her Country; and almost all moved, that to the
name of Tiberius should be added, The Son Of Julia: Tiberius urged in
answer, that "public honours to women ought to be warily adjudged, and
with a sparing hand; and that with the same measure of moderation he would
receive such as were presented to himself." In truth, full of envy as he
was, and anxious lest his own grandeur should sink as that of his mother
rose, he would not suffer so much as a Lictor to be decreed her, and even
forbade the raising her an altar upon her late adoption, or paying her any
such solemnities. But for Germanicus he asked the Proconsular power; and
to carry him that dignity, honourable deputies were sent, as also to
mollify his sorrow for the death of Augustus. If for Drusus he demanded
not the same honour, it was because Drusus was present and already Consul
designed. He then named twelve candidates for the Praetorship; the same
number settled by Augustus; and though the Senate requested him to
increase it, by an oath he bound himself never to exceed.
The privilege of creating Magistrates was now first translated from the
assemblies of the people to the Senate; for though the Emperor had before
conducted all affairs of moment at his pleasure; yet till that day some
were still transacted by the Tribes, and carried by their bent and
suffrages. Neither did the regret of the people for the seizure of these
their ancient rights rise higher than some impotent grumbling. The Senate
too liked the change; as by it they were released from the charge of
buying votes, and from the shame of begging them: and so moderate was
Tiberius, that of the twelve candidates he only reserved to himself the
recommendation of four, to be accepted without opposition or caballing. At
the same time, the Tribunes of the people asked leave to celebrate at
their own expense certain plays in honour of Augustus, such as were to be
called after his name, and inserted in the calendar. But it was decreed,
that out of the Exchequer the charge should be defrayed, and the Tribunes
should in the circus wear the triumphal robe; but to be carried in
chariots was denied them. The annual celebration of these plays was, for
the future, transferred to one of the Praetors, him in particular to whom
should fall the jurisdiction of deciding suits between citizens and
strangers.
Thus stood affairs at Rome when a sedition seized the legions in Pannonia;
without any fresh grounds, save that from a change of Princes, they meant
to assume a warrant for licentiousness and tumult, and from a civil war
hoped great earnings and acquisitions: they were three legions encamped
together, all commanded by Junius Blesus, who, upon notice of the death of
Augustus and the accession of Tiberius, had granted the soldiers a recess
from their wonted duties for some days, as a time either of public
mourning or festivity. From being idle they waxed wanton, quarrelsome, and
turbulent; greedily listened to mutinous discourses; the most profligate
amongst them had most credit with them, and at last they became passionate
for a life of sloth and riot, utterly averse to all military discipline
and every fatigue of the camp. In the camp was one Percennius; formerly a
busy leader in the embroilments of the theatre, and now a common soldier;
a fellow of a petulant, declaiming tongue, and by inflaming parties in the
playhouse, well qualified to excite and infatuate a crowd. This incendiary
practised upon the ignorant and unwary, such as were solicitous what might
prove their future usage, now Augustus was dead. He engaged them in
nightly confabulations, and by little and little incited them to violence
and disorders; and towards the evening, when the soberest and best
affected were withdrawn, he assembled the worst and most turbulent. When
he had thus ripened them for sedition, and other ready incendiaries were
combined with him, he personated the character of a lawful Commander, and
thus questioned and harangued them:
"Why did they obey, like slaves, a few Centurions and a fewer Tribunes?
When would they be bold enough to demand redress of their heavy
grievances, unless they snatched the present occasion, while the Emperor
was yet new and his authority wavering, to prevail with him by petition,
or by arms to force him? They had already by the misery of many years paid
dear for their patient sloth and stupid silence, since decrepit with age
and maimed with wounds, after a course of service for thirty or forty
years, they were still doomed to carry arms: nor even to those who were
discharged was there any end of the misery of warfare; they were still
kept tied to the colours, and under the creditable title of Veterans
endured the same hardships, and underwent the same labours. But suppose
any of them escaped so many dangers, and survived so many calamities,
where was their reward at last? Why, a long and weary march remained yet
to be taken into countries far remote and strange; where, under the name
of lands given them to cultivate, they had unhospitable bogs to drain, and
the wild wastes of mountains to manure. Severe and ungainful of itself was
the occupation of war: ten Asses [Footnote: About 5d.] a day the poor
price of their persons and lives; out of this, they must buy clothes, and
tents, and arms; out of this, bribe the cruel Centurions for a forbearance
of blows, and occasional exemption from hard duty: but stripes from their
officers, and wounds from their enemies, hard winters and laborious
summers, bloody wars and barren peace, were miseries without end: nor
remained there other cure or relief than to refuse to enlist but upon
conditions certain, and fixed by themselves; particularly, that their pay
be a denarius or sixteen Asses a day, [Footnote: About 8-1/2d.] sixteen
years be the utmost term of serving; when discharged, to be no longer
obliged to follow the colours, but have their reward in ready money, paid
them in the camp where they earned it. Did the Praetorian Guards, they who
had double pay, they who after sixteen years' service were paid off and
sent home, bear severer difficulties, undergo superior dangers? He did not
mean to detract from the merit of their brethren the City guards; their
own lot however it was, to be placed amongst horrid and barbarous nations,
nor could they look from their tents, but they saw the foe."
The whole crowd received this harangue with shouts of applause; but from
various instigations. Some displayed upon their bodies the obvious
impressions of stripes, others their hoary heads, many their vestments
ragged and curtailed, with backs utterly bare; as did all, their various
griefs, in the bitterness of reproach. At length to such excessive fury
they grew, that they proposed to incorporate the three legions into one;
nor by aught but emulation was the project defeated: for to his own legion
every man claimed the prerogative of swallowing and denominating the other
two. They took another method, and placed the three Eagles of the legions,
with the standards of the several cohorts, altogether without rank or
priority; then forthwith digged turf and were rearing a tribunal, one high
enough to be seen at a distance. In this hurry arrived Blesus, who,
falling into sore rebukes, and by force interrupting particulars, called
with vehemence to all: "Dip your hands rather in my blood: to murder your
General will be a crime less shameful and heinous than to revolt from your
Prince; for determined I am, either to preserve the legions in their faith
and obedience, if you kill me not for my intended good office; or my
death, if I fall by your hands, shall hasten your remorse."
For all this, turfs were accumulated, and the work was already breast
high, when, at last, overcome by his spirit and perseverance, they
forbore. Blesus was an able speaker: he told them "that sedition and
mutiny were not the methods of conveying to the Emperor the pretensions of
the soldiers; their demands too were new and singular; such as neither the
soldiers of old had ever made to the ancient Generals, nor they themselves
to the deified Augustus: besides, their claims were ill-timed, when the
Prince, just upon his accession, was already embarrassed with the weight
and variety of other cares. If, however, they meant to try to gain in full
peace those concessions, which, even after a civil war, the conquerors
never claimed; yet why trample upon duty and obedience, why reject the
laws of the army, and rules of discipline? And if they meant to petition,
why meditate violence? They might at least appoint deputies; and in his
presence trust them with their pretensions." Here they all cried out,
"that the son of Blesus, one of their Tribunes, should execute that
deputation; and demand in their name that, after sixteen years' service
they should be discharged: they said they would give him new orders, when
he had succeeded in these." After the departure of the young officer, a
moderate recess ensued; the soldiers however exulted to have carried such
a point: the sending the son of their General, as the public advocate for
their cause, was to them full proof that they had gained by force and
terror that which by modesty and gentle means they would never have
gained.
In the meantime those companies which, before the sedition began, were
sent to Nauportum [Footnote: Over-Laybach, in Carniola.] to mend roads and
bridges, and upon other duties, no sooner heard of the uproar in the camp,
but they cast off all obedience, tore away the ensigns, and plundered the
neighbouring villages; even Nauportum itself, which for greatness
resembled a municipal town, was plundered. The endeavours of the
Centurions to restrain this violence, were first returned with mockery and
contempt, then with invectives and contumelies, at last with outrage and
blows. Their vengeance was chiefly bent against the Camp-Marshal,
Aufidienus Rufus: him they dragged from his chariot, and, loading him with
baggage, drove him before the first ranks; they then insulted him, and
asked in scorn, "whether he would gladly bear such enormous burdens,
whether endure such immense marches?" Rufus had been long a common
soldier, then became a Centurion, and afterwards Camp-Marshal; a severe
restorer of primitive strictness and discipline; an indefatigable observer
of every military duty, which he exacted from others with the more rigour,
as he had himself undergone them all with patience.
By the arrival of this tumultuous band the sedition was again awakened to
its former outrage, and the seditious, roving abroad without control,
ravaged the country on every side. Blesus, for an example of terror to the
rest, commanded those who were most laden with plunder, to be punished
with stripes and cast into prison: for the General was still dutifully
obeyed by the Centurions, and by all the soldiers of any merit; but the
criminals refused to submit, and even struggled with the guard who were
carrying them off; they clasped the knees of the bystanders, implored help
from their fellows, now calling upon every individual, and conjuring them
by their particular names; then appealed to them in a body, and
supplicated the company, the cohort, the legion to which they belonged;
warning and proclaiming that the same ignominy and chastisement hung over
them all. With the same breath they heaped invectives without measure upon
their General, and called upon heaven and all the Gods to be their
witnesses and avengers; nor left they aught unattempted to raise effectual
hatred, compassion, terror, and every species of fury. Hence the whole
body rushed to their relief, burst open the prison, unbound and rescued
the prisoners: thus they owned for their brethren, and incorporated with
themselves, infamous revolters, and traitors convict and condemned.
Hence the violence became more raging, and hence more sedition from more
leaders. There was particularly one Vibulenus, a common soldier, who,
exalted on the shoulders of his comrades, before the tribunal of Blesus,
thus declaimed in the ears of a multitude already outrageous, and eager to
hear what he had to say. "To these innocents," says he, "to these
miserable sufferers, our fellow-soldiers, you have indeed restored breath
and liberty: but who will restore life to my poor brother; who my poor
brother to me? He was sent hither by the German armies, with propositions
for our common good; and for this, was last night butchered by that same
Blesus, who in the murder employed his gladiators, bloody men, whom he
purposely entertains and arms for our common execution. Where, oh where,
Blesus, hast thou thrown his unoffending and mangled corpse? Even open
enemies do not inhumanly deny burial to the slain: when I have satiated my
sorrow with a thousand kisses, and a flood of tears; command me also to be
murdered, that these our brethren may together bury my poor brother and
me, slaughtered both as victims, yet both guiltless of any crime but that
of studying the common interest of the legions."
He inflamed those his complaints and expostulations with affecting sighs
and lamentations, beat his breast, tore his face, and showed all the
symptoms of anguish. Then those who carried him giving way, he threw
himself headlong at the feet of his companions; and thus prostrate and
supplicating, in them raised such a spirit of commiseration and such a
storm of vengeance, that one party of them instantly seized and bound the
General's gladiators; another, the rest of his family; while many ran and
dispersed themselves to search for the corpse: and had it not been quickly
manifest that there was no corpse to be found, that the slaves of Blesus
had upon the rack cleared themselves, and that Vibulenus never had any
brother; they had gone nigh to have sacrificed the General. As it was,
they expulsed the Camp-Marshal and Tribunes; and as they fled, plundered
their baggage: they likewise put to death Lucilius the Centurion, whom
they had sarcastically named _Cedo Alteram_, because when upon the back of
a soldier he had broken one wand, he was wont to call for another, and
then a third. The other Centurions lurked in concealment, all but Julius
Clemens, who for his prompt capacity was saved, in order to manage the
negotiations of the soldiers: even two of the legions, the eighth and the
fifteenth, were ready to turn their swords upon each other; and had, but
for the ninth: one Sirpicus, a centurion, was the subject of the quarrel;
him the eighth required to be put to death, and the fifteenth protected
him; but the ninth interposed with entreaties to both, and with threats to
those who would not listen to prayers.
Tiberius, however, close and impenetrable, and ever labouring to smother
all melancholy tidings, was yet driven by those from Pannonia, to despatch
his son Drusus thither, accompanied by the principal nobility and guarded
by two Praetorian cohorts; but charged with no precise instructions, only
to adapt his measures to the present exigency: the cohorts were
strengthened with an extraordinary addition of chosen men, with the
greatest part of the Praetorian horse, and main body of the German, then
the Emperor's guards. Aelius Sejanus, lately joined with his father Strabo
in the command of the Praetorian bands, was also sent, not only as
Governor to the young Prince, but as his credit with the Emperor was known
to be mighty, to deal with the revolters by promises and terrors. When
Drusus approached, the legions, for show of respect, marched out to meet
him; not with the usual symptoms and shouts of joy, nor with gay ensigns
and arms glittering, but in a dress and accoutrements hideous and squalid:
in their countenances too, though composed to sadness, were seen greater
marks of sullenness and contumacy.
As soon as he was within the camp, they secured the entrances with guards,
and in several quarters of it placed parties upon duty: the rest crowded
about the tribunal of Drusus, who stood beckoning with his hand for
silence. Here as often as they surveyed their own numbers and met one
another's resentful looks, they uttered their rage in horrible cries:
again, when upon the tribunal they beheld Caesar, awe and trembling seized
them: now, there prevailed an hollow and inarticulate murmur; next, a
furious clamour; then suddenly a dead silence: so that, by a hasty
succession of opposite passions, they were at once dismayed and dreadful.
When at last the uproar was stayed, he read his father's letters, who in
them declared, "that he would take an affectionate care of the brave and
invincible legions by whom he had sustained successfully so many wars;
and, as soon as his grief was a little abated, deal with the Senate about
their demands; in the meantime he had sent them his son, on purpose to
make them forthwith all the concessions, which could instantly be made
them: the rest were to be reserved for the Senate, the proper distributers
of rewards and punishments by a right altogether unalienable."
The assembly answered, that to Julius Clemens they had intrusted what to
speak in their name: he began with their demands, "to be discharged after
sixteen years' service, to have the reward which, for past services upon
that discharge, they claimed; their pay to be increased to a Roman
denarius; the veterans to be no longer detained under their ensigns." When
Drusus urged, that wholly in the judgment of the Senate and his father,
these matters rested he was interrupted by their clamours: "To what
purpose came he; since he could neither augment their pay, nor alleviate
their grievances? and while upon them every officer was allowed to inflict
blows and death, the son of their Emperor wanted power to relieve them by
one beneficent action. The policy this of the late reign, when Tiberius
frustrated every request of the soldiers, by referring all to Augustus;
now Drusus was come with the same artifices to delude them: were they
never to have a higher visit than from the children of their Prince? It
was, indeed, unaccountable, that to the Senate the Emperor should leave no
part in the direction of the army, only the rewarding of the soldiery:
ought not the same Senate to be consulted as often as a battle was to be
fought, or a private man to be punished? or, were their recompenses to be
adjudged by many masters, but their punishments to remain without any
restraint or moderator whatsoever?"
At last they abandoned the tribunal, and with menaces and insults fell
upon all they met belonging to Drusus, either as guards or friends;
meditating thus to provoke a quarrel, and an introduction to blood.
Chiefly enraged they were against Cneius Lentulus, as one for years and
warlike renown superior to any about the person of Drusus, and thence
suspected to have hardened the Prince, and been himself the foremost to
despise these outrages in the soldiery: nor was it long after, that as he
was leaving Drusus, and from the foresight of danger returning to the
winter quarters, they surrounded him and demanded "whither he went? to the
Emperor or Senate? there also to exercise his enmity to the legions, and
oppose their interest?" and instantly assaulted him with stones. He was
already covered with wounds and blood, and awaiting certain assassination,
when the troops attending Drusus flew to his assistance and saved him.
The following night had a formidable aspect, and threatened the speedy
eruption of some tragical vengeance; when a phenomenon intervened and
assuaged all. The Moon, in the midst of a clear sky, seemed to the
soldiers suddenly to sicken; and they, who were ignorant of the natural
cause, took this for an omen foreboding the issue of their present
adventures: to their own labours, they compared the eclipse of the planet;
and prophesied, "that if to the distressed Goddess should be restored her
wonted brightness and vigour, equally successful would be the issue of
these their struggles." Hence they strove to charm and revive her with
sounds, and by ringing upon brazen metal, and an uproar of trumpets and
cornets, made a vehement bellowing. As she appeared brighter or darker,
they exulted or lamented; but when gathering clouds had utterly bereft
them of her sight, and they believed her now buried in everlasting
darkness; then, as minds once thoroughly dismayed are pliant to
superstition, they bewailed "their own eternal sufferings thus portended,
and that against their misdeeds the angry Deities were contending."
Drusus, who thought it behoved him to improve this disposition of theirs,
and to reap the fruits of wisdom from the operations of chance; ordered
certain persons to go round, and apply to them from tent to tent. For this
purpose, he called and employed the Centurion Julius Clemens, and whoever
else were by honest methods acceptable to the multitude. These insinuated
themselves everywhere, with those who kept watch, or were upon patrol, or
guarded the gates; soothing all with hopes, and by terrors rousing them.
"How long," said they, "shall we hold the son of our Emperor thus
besieged? Where will our broils and wild contentions end? Shall we swear
allegiance to Percennius and Vibulenus? Will Vibulenus and Percennius
support us with pay during our service, and reward us with lands when
dismissed? In short, shall two common men dispossess the Neros and the
Drusi, and to themselves assume the Empire of the Roman People? Let us be
wiser; and as we were the last to revolt, be the first to relent. Such
demands, as comprise terms for all, are ever slowly accorded; but
particulars may, when they please, merit instant favour, and instantly
receive it." These reasonings alarmed them, and filled them with mutual
jealousies. Presently the fresh soldiers forsook the veterans, and one
legion separated from another; then by degrees returned the love of duty
and obedience. They relinquished the guard of the gates: and the Eagles
and other ensigns, which in the beginning of the tumult they had thrown
together, were now restored each to its distinct station.
Drusus, as soon as it was day, summoned an assembly, and though unskilled
in speaking, yet with a haughtiness inherent in his blood, rebuked their
past and commended their present behaviour. "With threats and terrors," he
said, "it was impossible to subdue him; but if he saw them reclaimed to
submission, if from them he heard the language of supplicants, he would
send to his father to accept with a reconciled spirit the petitions of the
legions," Hence, at their entreaty, for their deputy to Tiberius the same
Blesus was again despatched, and with him Lucius Apronius, a Roman Knight
of the cohort of Drusus; and Justus Catonius, a Centurion of the first
order. There followed great debates in the council of Drusus, while some
advised "to suspend all proceeding till the return of the deputies, and by
a course of courtesy the while to soothe the soldiers; others maintained,
that remedies more potent must needs be applied: in a multitude, was to be
found nothing on this side extremes; always imperious where they are not
awed, and to be without danger despised when frightened: to their present
terror from superstition was to be added the dread of their General, by
his dooming to death the authors of the sedition." Rather prompt to
rigorous counsels was the genius of Drusus: Vibulenus and Percennius were
produced, and by his command executed; it is by many recounted, that in
his own tent they were secretly despatched and buried; by others, that
their bodies were ignominiously thrown over the entrenchments, for a
public spectacle of terror.
Search was then made for other remarkable incendiaries. Some were caught
skulking without the camp, and there by the Centurions or Praetorian
soldiers slain; others were by their several companies delivered up, as a
proof of their own sincere faith. The consternation of the soldiers was
heightened by the precipitate accession of winter, with rains incessant
and so violent, that they were unable to stir from their tents, or
maintain common intercourse, nay, scarce to preserve their standards,
assaulted continually by tempestuous winds and raging floods. Dread
besides of the angry Gods still possessed them; nor was it at random, they
thought, that such profane traitors were thus visited with black eclipses
and roaring tempests; neither against these their calamities was there
other relief than the relinquishing of a camp by impiety contaminated and
accursed, and after expiation of their guilt returning to their several
garrisons. The eighth legion departed first; and then the fifteenth: the
ninth, with earnest clamours, pressed for continuing there till the
letters from Tiberius arrived; but when deserted by the other two, their
courage failed, and by following of their own accord, they prevented the
shame of being forced. Drusus seeing order and tranquillity restored,
without staying for the return of the deputies, returned himself to Rome.
Almost at the same time, and from the same causes, the legions in Germany
raised an insurrection, with greater numbers, and thence with more fury.
Passionate too were their hopes that Germanicus would never brook the rule
of another, but yield to the spirit of the legions, who had force
sufficient to bring the whole Empire under his sway. Upon the Rhine were
two armies; that called the higher, commanded by Caius Silius, Lieutenant-
General; the lower, by Aulus Caecina: the command in chief rested in
Germanicus, then busy collecting the tribute in Gaul. The forces however
under Silius, with cautious ambiguity, watched the success of the revolt
which others began: for the soldiers of the lower army had broken out into
open outrages, which took its rise from the fifth legion, and the one-
and-twentieth; who after them drew the first, and twentieth. These were
altogether upon the frontiers of the Ubians, passing the campaign in utter
idleness or light duty: so that upon the news that Augustus was dead, the
whole swarm of new soldiers lately levied in the city, men accustomed to
the effeminacies of Rome, and impatient of every military hardship, began
to possess the ignorant minds of the rest with many turbulent
expectations, "that now was presented the lucky juncture for veterans to
demand entire dismission; the fresh soldiers, larger pay; and all, some
mitigation of their miseries; as also to return due vengeance for the
cruelties of the Centurions." These were not the harangues of a single
incendiary, like Percennius amongst the Pannonian legions; nor uttered, as
there, in the ears of men who, while they saw before their eyes armies
greater than their own, mutinied with awe and trembling: but here was a
sedition of many mouths, filled with many boasts, "that in their hands lay
the power and fate of Rome; by their victories the empire was enlarged,
and from them the Caesars took, as a compliment, the surname of
Germanicus."
Neither did Caecina strive to restrain them. A madness so extensive had
bereft him of all his bravery and firmness. In this precipitate frenzy
they rushed at once, with swords drawn, upon the Centurions, the eternal
objects of their resentment, and always the first victims to their
vengeance. Them they dragged to the earth, and upon each bestowed a
terrible portion of sixty blows; a number proportioned to that of
Centurions in a legion. Then bruised, mangled, and half expiring, as they
were, they cast them all out of the camp, some into the stream of the
Rhine. Septimius, who had for refuge fled to the tribunal of Caecina, and
lay clasping his feet, was demanded with such imperious vehemence, that he
was forced to be surrendered to destruction. Cassius Cherea (afterwards
famous to posterity for killing Caligula), then a young man of undaunted
spirit, and one of the Centurions, boldly opened himself a passage with
his sword through a crowd of armed foes striving to seize him. After this
no further authority remained to the Tribunes, none to the Camp-Marshals.
The seditious soldiers were their own officers; set the watch, appointed
the guard, and gave all orders proper in the present exigency; hence those
who dived deepest into the spirit of the soldiery, gathered a special
indication how powerful and obdurate the present insurrection was like to
prove; for in their conduct were no marks of a rabble, where every man's
will guides him, or the instigation of a few controls the whole. Here, all
at once they raged, and all at once kept silence; with so much concert and
steadiness, that you would have believed them under the sovereign
direction of one.
To Germanicus the while, then receiving, as I have said, the tribute in
Gaul, news were brought of the decease of Augustus; whose grand-daughter
Agrippina he had to wife, and by her many children: he was himself the
grandson of Livia, by her son Drusus, the brother of Tiberius; but ever
under heavy anxiety from the secret hate which his uncle and grandmother
bore him: hate the more virulent as its grounds were altogether
unrighteous; for, dear and adored was the memory of his father Drusus
amongst the Roman People, and from him was firmly expected that had he
succeeded to the Empire, he would have restored public liberty: hence
their zeal for Germanicus, and of him the same hopes conceived; as from
his youth he possessed a popular spirit, and marvellous affability utterly
remote from the comportment and address of Tiberius, ever haughty and
mysterious. The animosities too between the ladies administered fresh
fuel; while towards Agrippina, Livia was actuated by the despite natural
to step-mothers: and over-tempestuous was the indignation of Agrippina;
only that her known chastity and love for her husband, always gave her
mind, however vehement, a virtuous turn.
But Germanicus, the nearer he stood to supreme rule, the more vigour he
exerted to secure it to Tiberius: to him he obliged the Sequanians, a
neighbouring people, as also the several Belgic cities, to swear present
allegiance; and the moment he learnt the uproar of the legions, posted
thither: he found them advanced without the camp to receive him, with eyes
cast down, in feigned token of remorse. After he entered the
entrenchments, instantly his ears were filled with plaints and grievances,
uttered in hideous and mixed clamours: nay, some catching his hand, as if
they meant to kiss it, thrust his fingers into their mouths, to feel their
gums destitute of teeth; others showed their limbs enfeebled, and bodies
stooping under old age. As he saw the assembly mixed at random, he
commanded them "to range themselves into companies, thence more distinctly
to hear his answers; as also to place before them their several ensigns,
that the cohorts at least might be distinguished."
With slowness and reluctance it was, that they obeyed him; then beginning
with an encomium upon the "venerable memory of Augustus," he proceeded to
the "many victories and many triumphs of Tiberius," and with peculiar
praises celebrated the "glorious and immortal deeds, which with these very
legions in Germany he had accomplished;" he next boasted the quiet state
of things, the consent of all Italy, the loyal faith of both the Gauls:
and every quarter of the Roman State exempt from disaffection and
turbulence.
Thus far they listened with silence, at least with moderate murmuring; but
the moment he touched their sedition and questioned, "where now was the
wonted modesty of soldiers? where the glory of ancient discipline? whither
had they chased their Tribunes, whither their Centurions?" to a man, they
stripped themselves to the skin, and there exposed the seams of their
wounds and bruises of their chastisements, in the rage of reproach. Then
in the undistinguished voice of uproar, they urged "the exactions for
occasional exemptions, their scanty pay, and their rigorous labours;"
which they represented in a long detail: "ramparts to be reared,
entrenchments digged, trees felled and drawn, forage cut and carried, fuel
prepared and fetched," with every other article of toil required by the
exigencies of war, or to prevent idleness in the soldiery. Above all, from
the veterans arose a cry most horrible: they enumerated thirty years or
upwards undergone in the service; "and besought that to men utterly spent
he would administer respite, nor suffer them to be beholden to death for
the last relief from their toils; but discharge them from a warfare so
lasting and severe, and grant them the means of a comfortable recess."
Nay, some there were who of him required the money bequeathed them by
Augustus; and towards Germanicus uttering zealous vows, with omens of
happy fortune, declared their cordial attachment to his cause if he would
himself assume the Empire. Here, as if already stained with their treason,
he leaped headlong from the Tribunal; but with swords drawn they opposed
his departure, and threatened his life, if he refused to return: yet, with
passionate protestations that "he would rather die than be a traitor," he
snatched his sword from his side, and aiming full at his breast, would
have buried it there, had not those who were next him seized his hand and
by force restrained him. A cluster of soldiers in the extremity of the
assembly exhorted him, nay, what is incredible to hear, some particulars
advancing nearer, exhorted him _to strike home_: in truth one Calusidius,
a common soldier, presented him his naked sword, and added, "it is sharper
than your own;" a behaviour which to the rest, outrageous as they were,
seemed savage, and of horrid example: hence the friends of Germanicus had
time to snatch him away to his tent.
It was here consulted what remedy to apply: for it was advised, that
"ministers of sedition were preparing to be despatched to the other army,
to draw them too into a confederacy in the revolt; that the capital of the
Ubians was destined to be sacked; and if their hands were once inured to
plunder, they would break in, and ravage all Gaul." This dread was
augmented by another: the enemy knew of the sedition in the Roman army,
and were ready to invade the Empire, if its barrier the Rhine were left
unguarded. Now, to arm the allies and the auxiliaries of Rome, and lead
them against the departing legions, was to rouse a civil war: severity was
dangerous: the way of largesses infamous; and alike threatening it was to
the State to grant the turbulent soldiers nothing, or yield them
everything. After revolving every reason and objection, the result was, to
feign letters and directions from Tiberius, "that those who had served
twenty years should be finally discharged; such as served sixteen be under
the ensign and privileges of veterans, released from every duty but that
of repulsing the enemy; and the legacy, which they demanded, should be
paid and doubled."
The soldiers, who perceived that, purely to evade present difficulty, the
concessions were forged, insisted to have them forthwith executed; and
instantly the Tribunes despatched the discharge of the veterans: that of
the money was adjourned to their several winter quarters; but the fifth
legion, and the one-and-twentieth, refused to stir, till in that very camp
they were paid; so that out of the money reserved by himself and his
friends for travailing expenses, Germanicus was obliged to raise the sum.
Caecina, Lieutenant-General, led the first legion and twentieth back to
the capital of the Ubians: an infamous march, when the plunder of their
General's coffers was carried amidst the ensigns and Roman Eagles.
Germanicus, the while, proceeding to the army in higher Germany, brought
the second, thirteenth, and sixteenth legions to swear allegiance without
hesitation: to the fourteenth, who manifested some short suspense, he made
unasked a tender of their money, and a present discharge.
But a party of veterans which belonged to the disorderly legions, and then
in garrison among the Chaucians, as they began a sedition there, were
somewhat quelled by the instant execution of two of their body: an
execution this, commanded by Maenius, Camp-Marshal, and rather of good
example, than done by competent authority. The tumult, however, swelling
again with fresh rage, he fled, but was discovered; so that, finding no
safety in lurking, from his own bravery he drew his defence, and declared
"that to himself, who was only their Camp-Marshal, these their outrages
were not done, but done to the authority of Germanicus, their General, to
the majesty of Tiberius their Emperor." At the same time, braving and
dismaying all that would have stopped him, he fiercely snatched the
colours, faced about towards the Rhine, and pronouncing the doom of
traitors and deserters to every man who forsook his ranks, brought them
back to their winter quarters, mutinous, in truth, but not daring to
mutiny.
In the meantime the deputies from the Senate met Germanicus at the altar
of the Ubians [Footnote: Cologne.], whither in his return he was arrived.
Two legions wintered there, the first and twentieth, with the soldiers
lately placed under the standard of veterans; men already under the
distractions of guilt and fear: and now a new terror possessed them, that
these Senators were come armed with injunctions to cancel every concession
which they had by sedition extorted; and, as it is the custom of the crowd
to be ever charging somebody with the crimes suggested by their own false
alarms, the guilt of this imaginary decree they laid upon Minutius
Plancus, a Senator of consular dignity, and at the head of this
deputation. In the dead of night, they began to clamour aloud for the
purple standard placed in the quarters of Germanicus, and, rushing
tumultuously to his gate, burst the doors, dragged the Prince out of his
bed, and, with menaces of present death, compelled him to deliver the
standard. Then, as they roved about the camp, they met the deputies, who,
having learnt the outrage, were hastening to Germanicus: upon them they
poured a deluge of contumelies, and to present slaughter were devoting
them, Plancus chiefly, whom the dignity of his character had restrained
from flight; nor in this mortal danger had he other refuge than the
quarters of the first legion, where, embracing the Eagle and other
ensigns, he sought sanctuary from the religious veneration ever paid them.
But, in spite of religion, had not Calpurnius, the Eagle-bearer, by force
defeated the last violence of the assault, in the Roman camp had been
slain an ambassador of the Roman People, and with his blood had been
stained the inviolable altars of the Gods; a barbarity rare even in the
camp of an enemy. At last, day returning, when the General, and the
soldiers, and their actions could be distinguished, Germanicus entered the
camp, and commanding Plancus to be brought, seated him by himself upon the
tribunal: he then inveighed against the late "pernicious frenzy, which in
it, he said, had fatality, and was rekindled by no despite in the
soldiers, but by that of the angry Gods." He explained the genuine
purposes of that embassy, and lamented with affecting eloquence "the
outrage committed upon Plancus, altogether brutal and unprovoked; the foul
violence done to the sacred person of an Ambassador, and the mighty
disgrace from thence derived upon the legion." Yet as the assembly showed
more stupefaction than calmness, he dismissed the deputies under a guard
of auxiliary horse.
During this affright, Germanicus was by all men censured, "that he retired
not to the higher army, whence he had been sure of ready obedience, and
even of succour against the revolters: already he had taken wrong measures
more than enow, by discharging some, rewarding all, and other tender
counsels; if he despised his own safety, yet why expose his infant son,
why his wife big with child, to the fury of outrageous traitors, wantonly
violating all the most sacred rights amongst men? It became him at least
to restore his wife and son safe to Tiberius and to the State." He was
long unresolved; besides Agrippina was averse to leave him, and urged,
that "she was the grand-daughter of Augustus, and it was below her spirit
to shrink in a time of danger." But embracing her and their little son,
with great tenderness and many tears, he prevailed with her to depart.
Thus there marched miserably along a band of helpless women: the wife of a
great commander fled like a fugitive, and upon her bosom bore her infant
son: about her a troop of other ladies, dragged from their husbands, and
drowned in tears, uttering their heavy lamentations; nor weaker than
theirs was the grief felt by all who remained.
These groans and tears, and this spectacle of woe, the appearances rather
of a city stormed and sacked, than of a Roman camp, that of Germanicus
Caesar, victorious and flourishing, awakened attention and inquiry in the
soldiers: leaving their tents, they cried, "Whence these doleful wailings?
what so lamentable! so many ladies of illustrious quality, travelling thus
forlorn; not a Centurion to attend them; not a soldier to guard them;
their General's wife amongst them, undistinguished by any mark of her
princely dignity; destitute of her ordinary train; frightened from the
Roman legions, and repairing, like an exile, for shelter to Treves, there
to commit herself to the faith of foreigners." Hence shame and
commiseration seized them, and the remembrance of her illustrious family,
with that of her own virtues; the brave Agrippa her father; the mighty
Augustus her grandfather; the amiable Drusus her father-in-law, herself
celebrated for a fruitful bed, and of signal chastity: add the
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