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II.27‑46

This webpage reproduces a section of
The Annals

of
Tacitus

published in Vol. III
of the Loeb Classical Library edition of Tacitus, 1931

The text is in the public domain.

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III.1‑19

(Vol. III) Tacitus
Annals

Book II (end)

 p459  47 1 In the same year, twelve important cities of Asia collapsed in an earthquake, the time being night, so that the havoc was the less foreseen and the more devastating. Even the usual resource in these catastrophes, a rush to open ground, was unavailing, as the fugitives were swallowed up in yawning chasms. Accounts are given of huge mountains sinking, of former plains seen heaved aloft, of fires flashing out amid the ruin. As the disaster fell heaviest on the Sardians, it brought them the largest measure of sympathy, the Caesar promising ten million sesterces, and remitting for five years their payments to the national and imperial exchequers. The Magnesians of Sipylus were ranked second in the extent of their losses and their indemnity. In the case of the Temnians, Philadelphenes, Aegeates, Apollonideans, the so‑called Mostenians and Hyrcanian Macedonians, and the cities of Hierocaesarea, Myrina, Cyme, and Tmolus,​1 it was decided to exempt them  p461 from tribute for the same term and to send a senatorial commissioner to view the state of affairs and administer relief. Since Asia was held by a consular governor, an ex-praetor — Marcus Ateius — was selected, so as to avoid the difficulties which might arise from the jealousy of two officials of similar standing.

48 1 The emperor supplemented his imposing benefaction on behalf of the state by an equally popular display of private liberality. The property of Aemilia Musa, a woman of means and intestate, which had been claimed as escheating to the imperial exchequer, he transferred to Aemilius Lepidus, in whose family she apparently belonged; and the inheritance of the wealthy Roman knight Pantuleius, though he was himself mentioned as part heir, he handed over to Marcus Servilius, on discovering that he had figured in an earlier and unsuspected testament. In both cases, he remarked before doing so, that high birth required the help of money. He entered upon no bequest unless he had earned it by his friendship: strangers, and persons who were at variance with others and consequently named the sovereign as their heir, he kept at a distance. But as he relieved the honourable poverty of the innocent, so he procured the removal, or accepted the resignation, of the following senators:— Vibidius Virro, Marius Nepos, Appius Appianus, Cornelius Sulla, and Quintus Vitellius; prodigals, beggared by their vices.

49 1 Nearly at the same time, he consecrated the temples, ruined by age or fire,​2 the restoration of which had been undertaken by Augustus. They included a temple to Liber, Libera, and Ceres,​3 close  p463 to the Circus Maximus, and vowed by Aulus Postumius, the dictator; another, on the same site, to Flora, founded by Lucius and Marcus Publicius in their aedile­ship,​4 and a shrine of Janus, built in the Herb Market​5 by Gaius Duilius, who first carried the Roman cause to success on sea and earned a naval triumph over the Carthaginians. The temple of Hope, vowed by Aulus Atilius​6 in the same war, was dedicated by Germanicus.

50 1 Meanwhile, the law of treason was coming to its strength; and Appuleia Varilla, the niece of Augustus' sister,​a was summoned by an informer to answer a charge under the statute, on the ground that she had insulted the deified Augustus, as well as Tiberius and his mother, by her scandalous conversations, and had sullied her connection with the Caesar by the crime of adultery. The adultery, it was decided, was sufficiently covered by the Julian Law;​7 and as to the charge of treason, the emperor requested that a distinction should be drawn, conviction to follow, should she have said anything tantamount to sacrilege against Augustus: remarks levelled at himself he did not wish to be made the subject of inquiry. To the consul's question: "What was his opinion of the reprehensible statements she was alleged to have made about his mother" he gave no answer; but at the next meeting of the senate he asked, in her name also, that no one should be held legally accountable for words uttered against her in any circumstances whatever. After freeing Appuleius from the operation of the statute, he deprecated the heavier penalty​8 for adultery, and  p465 suggested that in accordance with the old-world precedents she might be handed to her relatives and removed to a point beyond the two-hundredth milestone. Her lover, Manlius, was banned from residence in Italy or Africa.9

51 1 The appointment of a praetor to replace Vipstanus Gallus, cut off by death, gave rise to dispute. Germanicus and Drusus — for they were still at Rome — supported Haterius Agrippa, a kinsman of Germanicus. On the other hand, many insisted that the deciding factor should be the number of a candidate's children — legally the correct position.​10 Tiberius was overjoyed to see the senate divided between his sons and the laws. The law was certainly defeated, but not immediately and by a few votes only, — the mode in which laws were defeated even in days when laws had force!

52 1 In the course of the same year, war broke out in Africa; where the enemy was commanded by Tacfarinas.​11 By nationality a Numidian, who had served as an auxiliary in the Roman camp and then deserted, he began by recruiting gangs of vagrants, accustomed to robbery, for the purposes of plunder and of rapine: then he marshalled them into a body in the military style by companies and troops; finally, he was recognized as the head, not of a chaotic horde, but of the Musulamian people.​12 That power­ful tribe, bordering on the solitudes of Africa, and even then innocent of city life, took up arms and drew the adjacent Moors​13 into the conflict. They, too, had their leader, Mazippa; and the confederate army was so divided that Tacfarinas could retain in camp a picked corps, equipped on the Roman model, and there inure it to discipline and  p467 obedience, while Mazippa, with a light-armed band, disseminated fire, slaughter, and terror. They had forced the Cinithians,​14 by no means a negligible tribe, to join them, when Furius Camillus, proconsul of Africa, combined his legion with the whole of the auxiliaries under the standards, and led them towards the enemy — a modest array in view of the multitude of Numidians and Moors; yet the one thing he was anxious above all to avoid was that they should take fright and evade a trial of arms. The hope of victory, however, lured them into defeat. The legion, then, was posted in the centre; the light cohorts and two squadrons of horse on the wings. Nor did Tacfarinas decline the challenge: the Numidians were routed; and after many years the Furian name won martial honours. For, since the days of Rome's great recoverer​15 and his son, the laurels of high command had passed to other houses; and the Camillus with whom we are here concerned was not regarded as a soldier. Tiberius, therefore, was the readier to laud his exploits before the senate; while the Fathers voted him the insignia of triumph — to the unassuming Camillus an innocuous compliment.16

53 1 The following year found Tiberius consul for a third time; Germanicus, for a second. The latter, however, entered upon that office in the Achaian town of Nicopolis,​17 which he had reached by skirting the Illyrian coast after a visit to his brother Drusus, then resident in Dalmatia: the passage had been stormy both in the Adriatic and,  p469 later, in the Ionian Sea. He spent a few days, therefore, in refitting the fleet; while at the same time, evoking the memory of his ancestors, he viewed the gulf immortalized by the victory of Actium, together with the spoils which Augustus had consecrated, and the camp of Antony.​18 For Augustus, as I have said,​19 was his great-uncle, Antony his grandfather; and before his eyes lay the whole great picture of disaster and of triumph. — He next arrived at Athens; where, in deference to our treaty with an allied and time-honoured city, he made use of one lictor alone.​20 The Greeks received him with most elaborate compliments, and, in order to temper adulation with dignity, paraded the ancient doings and sayings of their countrymen.

54 1 From Athens he visited Euboea, and crossed over to Lesbos; where Agrippina, in her last confinement, gave birth to Julia.​21 Entering the outskirts of Asia, and the Thracian towns of Perinthus and Byzantium, he then struck through the straits of the Bosphorus and the mouth of the Euxine, eager to make the acquaintance of those ancient and storied regions, though simultaneously he brought relief to provinces outworn by internecine feud or official tyranny. On the return journey, he made an effort to visit the Samothracian Mysteries,​22 but was met by northerly winds, and failed to make the shore. So, after an excursion to Troy and those venerable remains which attest the mutability of fortune and the origin of Rome, he skirted the Asian coast once more, and anchored off Colophon, in order  p471 to consult the oracle of the Clarian Apollo. Here it is not a prophetess, as at Delphi, but a male priest, chosen out of a restricted number of families, and in most cases imported from Miletus, who hears the number and the names of the consultants, but no more, then descends into a cavern, swallows a draught of water from a mysterious spring, and — though ignorant generally of writing and of metre — delivers his response in set verses dealing with the subject each inquirer had in mind. Rumour said that he had predicted to Germanicus his hastening fate, though in the equivocal terms which oracles affect.

55 1 Meanwhile Gnaeus Piso, in haste to embark upon his schemes, first alarmed the community of Athens by a tempestuous entry, then assailed them in a virulent speech, which included an indirect attack on Germanicus for "compromising the dignity of the Roman name by his exaggerated civilities, not to the Athenians (whose repeated disasters had extinguished the breed) but to the present cosmopolitan rabble.​23 For these were the men who had leagued themselves with Mithridates against Sulla,​24 with Antony against the deified Augustus!"​25 He upbraided them even with their ancient history; their ill-starred outbreaks against Macedon and their violence towards their own countrymen. Private resentment, also, embittered him against the town, as the authorities refused to give up at his request a certain Theophilus, whom the verdict of the Areopagus had declared guilty of forgery. After this, quick sailing by a short route through the Cyclades brought him up with Germanicus at Rhodes. The prince was aware of the invectives with which he  p473 had been assailed; yet he behaved with such mildness that, when a rising storm swept Piso toward the rock-bound coast, and the destruction of his foe could have been referred to misadventure, he sent warships to help in extricating him from his predicament. Even so, Piso was not mollified; and, after reluctantly submitting to the loss of a single day, he left Germanicus and completed the journey first. Then, the moment he reached Syria and the legions, by bounties and by bribery, by attentions to the humblest private, by dismissals of the veteran centurions and the stricter commanding officers, whom he replaced by dependants of his own or by men of the worst character, by permitting indolence in the camp, licence in the towns, and in the country a vagrant and riotous soldiery, he carried corruption to such a pitch that in the language of the rabble he was known as the Father of the Legions. Nor could Plancina contain herself within the limits of female decorum: she attended cavalry exercises and infantry manoeuvres; she flung her gibes at Agrippina or Germanicus; some even of the loyal troops being ready to yield her a disloyal obedience; for a whispered rumour was gaining ground that these doings were not unacceptable to the emperor. The state of affairs was known to Germanicus, but his more immediate anxiety was to reach Armenia first.

56 1 That country, from the earliest period, has owned a national character and a geographical situation of equal ambiguity, since with a wide extent of frontier conterminous with our own provinces, it stretches inland right up to Media; so that the Armenians lie interposed between two vast empires, with which, as they detest Rome and envy the  p475 Parthian, they are too frequently at variance. At the moment they lacked a king, owing to the removal of Vonones,​26 but the national sentiment leaned to Zeno, a son of the Pontic sovereign Polemo:​27 for the prince, an imitator from earliest infancy of Armenian institutions and dress, had endeared himself equally to the higher and the lower orders by his affection for the chase, the banquet, and the other favourite pastimes of barbarians. Accordingly, in the town of Artaxata,​28 before the consenting nobles and a great concourse of the people, Germanicus placed on his head the emblem of royalty. All save the Romans did homage and acclaimed King Artaxias an appellation suggested by the name of the city.​29 On the other hand, Cappadocia, reduced to the rank of a province, received Quintus Veranius as governor;​30 and, to encourage hope in the mildness of Roman sway, a certain number of the royal tributes were diminished. Quintus Servaeus was appointed to Commagene, now for the first time transferred to praetorian jurisdiction.

57 1 Complete and happy as was his adjustment of the allies' affairs, it gave Germanicus no satisfaction, in view of the insolence of Piso; who, when ordered to conduct part of the legions into Armenia either in his own person or in that of his son, had ignored both alternatives. In Cyrrus,​31 the winter-quarters of the tenth legion, they met at last, their features schooled to exclude, in Piso's case, all evidence of alarm; in the Caesar's, all suggestion of a threat. He was, in fact, as I have stated, indulgent to a fault. But his friends had the craft to inflame his resentments:  p477 they aggravated truths, accumulated falsehoods, levelled a miscellany of charges at Piso, Plancina, and their sons. Finally, in the presence of a few intimates, the prince opened the conversation in the key always struck by dissembled anger; Piso returned a defiant apology, and they parted in open hatred. From now onward, Piso's appearances at the tribunal of Germanicus were rare; and, on the occasions when he took his seat, it was with the sullen air of undisguised opposition. Again he was heard to remark in a banquet at the Nabataean court,​32 when massive golden crowns were offered to Germanicus and Agrippina, and lighter specimens to Piso and the rest, that this was a dinner given to the son, not of a Parthian king, but of a Roman prince.​33 At the same time, he tossed his crown aside, and added a diatribe on luxury, which Germanicus, in spite of its bitterness, contrived to tolerate.

58 1 Meanwhile deputies arrived from the Parthian king, Artabanus. They had been sent to mention the friendship and the treaty between the nations, and to add that "the king desired a fresh exchange of pledges; and, in compliment to Germanicus, would meet him on the bank of the Euphrates. In the interval, he asked that Vonones should not be kept in Syria​34 to lure the tribal chieftains into discord by agents from over the border." As to the alliance between Rome and Parthia, Germanicus replied in florid terms; of the king's coming and his courtesy to himself he spoke with dignity and modesty: Vonones was removed to Pompeiopolis,​35 a maritime town of Cilicia. The concession was not  p479 simply a compliance with Artabanus' request but also an affront to Piso; to whom the pretender was highly acceptable in consequence of the numerous civilities and presents for which Plancina was indebted to him.

6236 While Germanicus was passing the summer in various provinces, Drusus earned considerable credit by tempting the Germans to revive their feuds and, as the power of Maroboduus was already shattered, to press on his complete destruction. Among the Gotones​37 was a youth of good family, named Catualda, exiled some time ago by the arms of Maroboduus, and now, as his fortunes waned, emboldened to revenge. With a strong following, he entered Marcomanian territory, seduced the chieftains into complicity, and burst into the palace and adjoining fortress. There they discovered the ancient Suebian spoils, together with a number of sutlers and traders out of the Roman provinces, drawn from their respective homes and implanted on hostile soil first by the commercial privileges,​38 then by the lure of increased profits, and finally by oblivion of their country.

63 1 Forsaken on every side, Maroboduus had no other refuge than the imperial clemency. Crossing the Danube where it flows by the province of Noricum​39 he wrote to Tiberius, not in the tone of a landless man  p481 or a suppliant, but in one reminiscent of his earlier fortune: for "though many nations offered to welcome a king once so glorious, he had preferred the friendship of Rome." The Caesar replied that "he would have a safe and honoured seat in Italy, if he remained; but, should his interests make a change advisable, he might depart as securely as he had come." He asserted, however, in the senate that "not Philip himself had been so grave a menace to Athens — not Pyrrhus nor Antiochus to the Roman people." The speech is still extant, in which he emphasized "the greatness of the man, the violence of the peoples beneath his rule, the nearness of the enemy to Italy, and the measures he had himself taken to destroy him." Maroboduus, in fact, was detained at Ravenna; where the possibility of his restoration was held out to the Suebians, whenever they became unruly: but for eighteen years he never set foot out of Italy and grew into an old man, his fame much tarnished by too great love of life. An identical disaster and a similar haven awaited Catualda. A short while afterwards, broken by the power of the Hermunduri​40 and the general­ship of Vibilius, he received asylum, and was sent to Forum Julium,​41 a colony of Narbonensian Gaul. Since the barbarian retainers of the two princes might, if intermingled with the native population, have disturbed the peace of the provinces, they were assigned a king in the person of Vannius, from the Quadian tribe,​42 and settled on the further bank of the Danube, between the rivers Marus and Cusus.43

64 1 As news had come at the same time that  p483 Germanicus had presented the throne of Armenia to Artaxias, the senate resolved that he and Drusus should receive an ovation upon entering the capital. In addition, arches bearing the effigy of the two Caesars were erected on each side of the temple of Mars the Avenger;​44 while Tiberius showed more pleasure at having kept the peace by diplomacy than if he had concluded a war by a series of stricken fields. Accordingly, he now brought his cunning to bear against Rhescuporis, the king of Thrace.​45 The whole of that country had been subject to Rhoemetalces; after whose death Augustus conferred one half on his brother Rhescuporis, the other on his son Cotys. By this partition the agricultural lands, the town, and the districts adjoining the Greek cities fell to Cotys; the remainder, — a sterile soil, a wild population, with enemies at the very door, — to Rhescuporis. So, too, with the character of the kings: one was gentle and genial;​46 the other, sullen, grasping, and intolerant of partner­ship. At the first, however, they acted with a deceptive show of concord; then Rhescuporis began to overstep his frontiers, to appropriate districts allotted to Cotys, and to meet opposition with force: hesitantly during the lifetime of Augustus, whom he feared as the creator of both kingdoms and, if slighted, their avenger. The moment, however, that he heard of the change of sovereigns, he began to throw predatory bands across the border, to demolish fortresses, and to sow the seeds of war.

65 1 Nothing gave Tiberius so much anxiety as that settlements once made should not be disturbed. He chose a centurion to notify the kings that there must be no appeal to arms; and Cotys at once disbanded  p485 the auxiliaries he had collected. Rhescuporis, with assumed moderation, asked for a personal meeting: their differences, he said, could be adjusted verbally. Small difficulty was made about the time, the place, and, finally, the conditions, when one party through good nature, and the other through duplicity, conceded and accepted everything. To ratify the treaty, as he said, Rhescuporis added a banquet. When the merriment had been prolonged far into the night with the help of good cheer and wine, he laid in irons the unsuspecting Cotys, who, on discovering the treachery, appealed in vain to the sanctities of kingship, the deities of their common house, and the immunities of the hospitable board. Master of the whole of Thrace, he wrote to Tiberius that a plot had been laid for him, but he had forestalled the plotter: at the same time, under the pretext of a campaign against the Bastarnae and Scythians, he sustained himself by fresh levies of infantry and cavalry. A smooth letter came back:— "If his conscience was clear, he might trust to his innocence; but neither the emperor nor the senate would discriminate between the rights and wrongs of the case unless they heard it. He had better, then, surrender Cotys, come to Rome and shift the odium of the charge from his own shoulders."47

66 1 The letter was despatched into Thrace by Latinius Pandusa, the propraetor of Moesia, together with a company of soldiers, who were to take over Cotys. After some fluctuation between fear and anger, Rhescuporis, deciding to stand his trial for the commission, not the inception, of a crime, ordered the execution of Cotys; and promulgated a lie that  p487 his death had been self-inflicted. Still, the Caesar made no change in the methods he had once resolved upon, but, on the death of Pandusa — whom Rhescuporis accused of animus against himself — appointed Pomponius Flaccus to the government of Moesia; chiefly because that veteran campaigner was a close friend of the king, and, as such, the better adapted to deceive him.48

67 1 Flaccus crossed into Thrace, and by unstinted promises induced Rhescuporis to enter the Roman lines, though he felt some hesitation, as he reflected on his guilt. He was then surrounded by a strong body-guard, ostensibly out of respect for his royalty; and by advice, suasion, and a surveillance which grew more obvious at each remove, till at last he realized the inevitable, the tribunes and centurions haled him to Rome. He was accused in the senate by Cotys' wife, and condemned to detention at a distance from his kingdom. Thrace was divided between his son Rhoemetalces, who was known to have opposed his father's designs, and the children of Cotys. As these were not of mature age, they were put under the charge of Trebellenus Rufus,​49 an ex-praetor, who was to manage the kingdom in the interregnum; a parallel from an earlier generation being the despatch of Marcus Lepidus to Egypt as the guardian of Ptolemy's children.​50 Rhescuporis was deported to Alexandria, and perished in a genuine, or imputed, attempt at escape.

59 In the consulate of Marcus Silanus and Lucius Norbanus, Germanicus set out for Egypt to view its antiquities, though the reason given was solicitude for the province.​51 He did, in fact, lower  p489 the price of cornº by opening the state granaries, and adopted many practices popular with the multitude, walking without his guards, his feet sandalled and his dress identical with that of the Greeks: an imitation of Publius Scipio, who is recorded to have done the like in Sicily, although the Carthaginian war was still raging.​52 Tiberius passed a leniently worded criticism on his dress and bearing, but rebuked him with extreme sharpness for overstepping the prescription of Augustus by entering Alexandria without the imperial consent. For Augustus, among the other secrets of absolutism, by prohibiting all senators or Roman knights of the higher rank​53 from entering the country without permission, kept Egypt isolated;​54 in order that Italy might not be subjected to starvation by anyone who contrived, with however slight a garrison against armies however formidable, to occupy the province and the key-positions by land and sea.55

60 1 Not yet aware, however, that his itinerary was disapproved, Germanicus sailed up the Nile, starting from the town of Canopus — founded by the Spartans in memory of the helmsman so named, who was buried there in the days when Menelaus, homeward bound for Greece, was blown to a distant sea and the Libyan coast. From Canopus he visited the next of the river-mouths, which is sacred to Hercules​56 (an Egyptian born, according to the local account, and the eldest of the name, the others of  p491 later date and equal virtue being adopted into the title); then, the vast remains of ancient Thebes.​57 On piles of masonry Egyptian letters still remained, embracing the tale of old magnificence, and one of the senior priests, ordered to interpret his native tongue, related that "once the city contained seven hundred thousand men of military age, and with that army King Rhamses,​58 after conquering Libya and Ethiopia, the Medes and the Persians, the Bactrian and the Scyth, and the lands where the Syrians and Armenians and neighbouring Cappadocians dwell, had ruled over all that lies between the Bithynian Sea on the one hand and the Lycian on the other." The tribute-lists of the subject nations were still legible: the weight of silver and gold, the number of weapons and horses, the temple-gifts of ivory and spices, together with the quantities of grain and other necessaries of life to be paid by the separate countries; revenues no less imposing than those which are now exacted by the might of Parthia or by Roman power.

61 1 But other marvels, too, arrested the attention of Germanicus: in especial, the stone colossus of Memnon,​59 which emits a vocal sound when touched by the rays of the sun; the pyramids reared mountain high by the wealth of emulous kings among wind-swept and all but impassable sands; the excavated lake which receives the overflow of Nile;​60 and, elsewhere, narrow gorges and deeps impervious to the plummet of the explorer. Then he proceeded to Elephantine and Syene,​61 once the limits of the  p493 Roman Empire, which now​62 stretches to the Persian Gulf.

68 1 About this time, Vonones — whose sequestration in Cilicia I have mentioned​63 — attempted by bribing his warders to escape into Armenia, then to the Albani,​64a the Heniochi,​64b and his relative, the king of Scythia. Leaving the coast under the pretext of a hunting excursion, he made for the trackless forest country, and, availing himself of the speed of his horse, hurried to the river Pyramus;​65 where, on the news of his escape, the bridges had been demolished by the people of the district: the stream itself was not fordable. He was arrested, therefore, on the river-bank by the cavalry prefect, Vibius Fronto; and a little later, Remmius, a time-expired veteran who had been in command of his former guards, ran him through with his sword, as though in an outburst of anger: a fact which makes it the more credible that conscious guilt and a fear of disclosures dictated the murder.

69 1 On the way from Egypt, Germanicus learned that all orders issued by him to the legions or the cities had been rescinded or reversed. Hence galling references to Piso: nor were the retorts directed by him against the prince less bitter. Then Piso determined to leave Syria. Checked almost immediately by the ill-health of Germanicus, then hearing that he had rallied and that the vows made for his recovery were already being paid, he took his lictors and swept the streets clear of the victims at the altars, the apparatus of sacrifice, and the festive populace of Antioch. After this, he left for Seleucia,​66 awaiting the outcome of the malady which had again attacked Germanicus. The cruel virulence of the  p495 disease was intensified by the patient's belief that Piso had given him poison; and it is a fact that explorations in the floor and walls brought to light the remains of human bodies, spells, curses, leaden tablets engraved with the name Germanicus,​67 charred and blood-smeared ashes,​68 and others of the implements of witchcraft by which it is believed the living soul can be devoted to the powers of the grave. At the same time, emissaries from Piso were accused of keeping a too inquisitive watch upon the ravages of the disease.

70 1 Of all this Germanicus heard with at least as much anger as alarm:— "If his threshold was besieged, if he must surrender his breath under the eye of his enemies, what must the future hold in store for his unhappy wife — for his infant children?​69 Poison was considered too dilatory; Piso was growing urgent — imperative — to be left alone with his province and his legions! But Germanicus had not fallen from himself so far, nor should the price of blood remain with the slayer!" He composed a letter renouncing his friendship: the general account adds that he ordered him to leave the province. Delaying no longer, Piso weighed anchor, and regulated his speed so that the return journey should be the shorter, if Germanicus' death opened the door in Syria.

71 1 For a moment the Caesar revived to hope: then his powers flagged, and, with the end near, he addressed his friends at the bedside to the following effect:— "If I were dying by the course of nature, I should have a justified grievance against Heaven itself for snatching me from parents, children,  p497 and country, by a premature end in the prime of life. Now, cut off as I am by the villainy of Piso and Plancina, I leave my last prayers in the keeping of your breasts: report to my father and brother the agonies that rent me, the treasons that encompassed me, before I finished the most pitiable of lives by the vilest of deaths. If any were ever stirred by the hopes I inspired, by kindred blood, — even by envy of me while I lived, — they must shed a tear to think that the once happy survivor of so many wars has fallen by female treachery. You will have your opportunity to complain before the senate and to invoke the law. The prime duty of friends is not to follow their dead with passive laments, but to remember his wishes and carry out his commands. Strangers themselves will bewail Germanicus: you will avenge him — if you loved me, and not my fortune. Show to the Roman people the granddaughter of their deified Augustus, who was also my wife; number her six children: pity will side with the accusers, and, if the murderers allege some infamous warrant, they will find no credence in men — or no forgiveness!" His friends touched the dying hand and swore to forgo life sooner than revenge.

72 1 Then he turned to his wife, and implored her "by the memory of himself, and for the sake of their common children, to strip herself of pride, to stoop her spirit before the rage of fortune, and never — if she returned to the capital — to irritate those stronger than herself by a competition for power." These words in public: in private there were others, in which he was believed to hint at danger from the side of Tiberius. Soon afterwards  p499 he passed away, to the boundless grief of the province and the adjacent peoples.​70 Foreign nations and princes felt the pang — so great had been his courtesy to allies, his humanity to enemies: in aspect and address alike venerable, while he maintained the magnificence and dignity of exalted fortune, he had escaped envy and avoided arrogance.

73 1 His funeral, devoid of ancestral effigies or procession, was distinguished by eulogies and recollections of his virtues. There were those who, considering his personal appearance, his early age, and the circumstances of his death, — to which they added the proximity of the region where he perished, — compared his decease with that of Alexander the Great: — "Each eminently handsome, of famous lineage, and in years not much exceeding thirty,​71 had fallen among alien races by the treason of their countrymen.​72 But the Roman had borne himself as one gentle to his friends, moderate in his pleasures, content with a single wife and the children of lawful wedlock. Nor was he less a man of the sword; though he lacked the other's temerity, and, when his numerous victories had beaten down the Germanies, was prohibited from making fast their bondage. But had he been the sole arbiter of affairs, of kingly authority and title, he would have overtaken the Greek in military fame with an ease proportioned to his superiority in clemency, self-command, and all other good qualities." The body, before cremation, was exposed in the forum of Antioch, the place destined for the final rites. Whether it bore marks of poisoning was disputable: for the indications were variously read, as pity and preconceived suspicion swayed the spectator to the  p501 side of Germanicus, or his predilections to that of Piso.

74 1 A consultation followed between the legates and other senators​73 present, to determine the new governor of Syria. When the rest had made a half-hearted effort, the claims of Vibius Marsus​74 and Gnaeus Sentius​75 were canvassed at length; then Marsus gave way to the superior age and greater keenness of his competitor. And he, on the demand of Vitellius, Veranius, and the others (who were drawing up the articles of indictment as though the case had already been entered), despatched to Rome a woman by the name of Martina, infamous in the province for her poisonings and beloved of Plancina.

75 1 Agrippina herself, worn out with grief and physically ill, yet intolerant of every obstacle to revenge, went on board the fleet with her children and the ashes of Germanicus; amid universal pity for this woman of sovereign lineage, her wedded glory wont but yesterday to attract the gaze of awed and gratulatory crowds, now carrying in her bosom the relics of the dead, uncertain of her vengeance, apprehensive for herself, cursed in that fruitfulness which had borne but hostages to fortune.

Piso, in the meantime, was overtaken at the isle of Cos​76 by a message that Germanicus was sped. He received it with transport. Victims were immolated, temples visited; and, while his own joy knew no bounds, it was overshadowed by the insolence of Plancina, who had been in mourning for the  p503 loss of a sister, and now changed for the first time into the garb of joy.

76 1 Centurions​77 came streaming in with their advice:— "The legions were eager to declare for him — he must return to the province illegally wrested from him and now masterless." At a council, then, to decide what action should be taken, his son, Marcus Piso, held that he must hurry to the capital:— "So far, he had been guilty of nothing that was past expiation; nor were feeble suspicions or unsubstantial rumours a matter for alarm. His difference with Germanicus might perhaps earn him a measure of unpopularity, but not punishment; while the forfeiture of his province had satisfied his private enemies. To go back was to embark on a civil war, if Sentius resisted; nor would the centurions and private soldiers stand fast in his cause, since with them the yet recent memory of their commander, and their deep-seated affection for the Caesars, outweighed all else."

77 1 Domitius Celer, one of his most intimate associates, argued upon the other side:— "He had better profit by the occasion: not Sentius, but Piso, had been created governor of Syria: to him had been entrusted the symbols of magistracy, the praetorian jurisdiction, — ay, and the legions. If hostilities threatened, who could more justly take the field than a man who had received the powers of a legate, in addition to private instructions? Besides, rumours ought to be allowed an interval in which to grow stale: innocence too often was unable to face the first blast of unpopularity. But if he kept the army and augmented his powers, chance would give a favourable turn to much that could not at  p505 present be foreseen. Or," he continued, "are we racing to make the harbour at the same moment as the ashes of Germanicus, so that with the first breath of scandal you may be swept to your doom, unheard and undefended, by a sobbing wife and a fatuous crowd? You have the complicity of Augusta, the favour of the Caesar, — but only in private; and none more ostentatiously bewail the fate of Germanicus than they who most rejoice at it."

78 1 There was no great difficulty in converting Piso, with his taste for audacity, to this opinion; and, in a letter forwarded to Tiberius, he accused Germanicus of luxury and arrogance: as for himself, "he had been expelled so as to leave scope for a revolution, but had now gone to resume charge of the army, with the same loyalty as he had shown when he was at its head." At the same time, he placed Domitius on a warship, with orders to avoid the coasting-route and to make straight for Syria, past the islands and through the high seas. As deserters flocked in, he organized them by maniples; armed the camp-followers; then, crossing with his fleet to the mainland, intercepted a body of recruits bound for Syria, and wrote to the Cilician kinglets​78 to support him with auxiliaries — the young Piso assisting actively in the preparations for war, though he had protested against engaging in it.

79 1 As they were skirting, then, the coast of Lycia and Pamphylia, they were met by the squadron convoying Agrippina. On each side the hostility was such that at first they prepared for action: then, owing to their mutual fears, the affair went no further than high words; in the course of which Vibius Marsus summoned Piso to return to  p507 Rome and enter his defence. He gave a sarcastic answer that he would be there when the praetor with cognizance of poisoning cases had notified a date to the accusers and accused.79

Meanwhile, Domitius had landed at the Syrian town of Laodicea.​80 He was making for the winter quarters of the sixth legion, which he thought the best adapted for his revolutionary designs, when he was forestalled by the commanding officer, Pacuvius. Sentius notified Piso of the incident by letter, and warned him to make no attempt upon the camp by his agents or upon the province by his arms. He then collected the men whom he knew to be attached to the memory of Germanicus, — or, at least, opposed to his enemies, — impressed upon them the greatness of the emperor and the fact that this was an armed attack on the state, then took the field at the head of a power­ful force ready for battle.

80 1 Piso, too, though his enterprise was developing awkwardly, adopted the safest course in the circumstances by seizing an extremely strong post in Cilicia, named Celenderis.​81 For by an admixture of the deserters, the recently intercepted recruits, and his own and Plancina's slaves, he had arranged the Cilician auxiliaries, sent by the petty kings, in what was numerically a legion. He called them to witness that "he, the representative of the Caesar, was being excluded from the province which the Caesar had given, not by the legions — it was at their invitation he came! — but by Sentius, who was veiling his private hatred under a tissue of calumnies. They must take their stand in line of battle; the soldiers would never strike, when they had seen  p509 Piso; whom once they called Father; who, if the verdict went by justice, was the superior; and, if by arms, not wholly powerless." He then deployed his maniples in front of the fortress lines on a high and precipitous hill (the rest of the position is secured by the sea): confronting them stood the veterans, drawn up in centuries and with reserves. On the one side was a grim soldiery; on the other, a position not less grim, — but no courage, no hope, not even weapons, apart from rustic spears or makeshifts improvised to meet the sudden demand. When the collision came, doubt only lasted until the Roman cohorts scrambled up to level ground: the Cilicians took to their heels and barricaded themselves in the fortress.

81 1 In the meantime, Piso attempted, without effect, to attack the fleet, which was waiting at some little distance. On his return, he took his station on the walls; and, now beating his breast, now summoning particular soldiers by name and weighting the call with a bribe, endeavoured to create a mutiny. He had, indeed, produced enough impression for one ensign of the sixth​82 legion to come over with his standard, when Sentius ordered the cornets and trumpets to sound, the materials for a mound to be collected, ladders raised; the readiest to go forward to the escalade, others to discharge spears, stones, and firebrands, from the military engines. At last Piso's obstinacy was broken, and he applied for permission to hand over his arms and remain in the fort while the Caesar's award of the Syrian governor­ship was being ascertained. The terms were not accepted, and the only concessions made were a grant of ships and a safe-conduct to the capital.

 p511  82 1 But at Rome, when the failure of Germanicus' health became current knowledge, and every circumstance was reported with the aggravations usual in news that has travelled far, all was grief and indignation. A storm of complaints burst out:— "So for this he had been relegated to the ends of earth; for this Piso had received a province; and this had been the drift of Augusta's colloquies with Plancina! It was the mere truth, as the elder men said of Drusus, that sons with democratic tempers were not pleasing to fathers on a throne;​83 and both had been cut off for no other reason than because they designed to restore the age of freedom and take the Roman people into a partner­ship of equal rights."​84 The announcement of his death inflamed this popular gossip to such a degree that before any edict of the magistrates, before any resolution of the senate, civic life was suspended, the courts deserted, houses closed. It was a town of sighs and silences, with none of the studied advertisements of sorrow; and, while there was no abstention from the ordinary tokens of bereavement, the deeper mourning was carried at the heart. Accidentally, a party of merchants, who had left Syria while Germanicus was yet alive, brought a more cheerful account of his condition. It was instantly believed and instantly disseminated. No man met another without proclaiming his unauthenticated news; and by him it was passed to more, with supplements dictated by joy. Crowds were running in the streets and forcing temple-doors.​85 Credulity throve  p513 — it was night, and affirmation is boldest in the dark. Nor did Tiberius check the fictions, but left them to die out with the passage of time; and the people added bitterness for what seemed a second bereavement.

83 1 Affection and ingenuity vied in discovering and decreeing honours to Germanicus: his name was to be chanted in the Saliar Hymn;​86 curule chairs surmounted by oaken crowns were to be set for him wherever the Augustal priests​87 had right of place; his effigy in ivory was to lead the procession at the Circus Games,​88 and no flamen​89 or augur, unless of the Julian house, was to be created in his room. Arches were added, at Rome, on the Rhine bank, and on the Syrian mountain of Amanus,​90 with an inscription recording his achievements and the fact that he had died for his country. There was to be a sepulchre in Antioch, where he had been cremated; a funeral monument in Epidaphne,​91 the suburb in which he had breathed his last. His statues, and the localities in which his cult was to be practised, it would be difficult to enumerate. When it was proposed to give him a gold medallion, as remarkable for the size as for the material, among the portraits of the classic orators,​92 Tiberius declared that he would dedicate one himself "of the customary type, and in keeping with the rest: for eloquence was not measured by fortune, and its distinction enough if he ranked with the old masters." The equestrian order renamed the so‑called "junior section" in  p515 their part of the theatre after Germanicus, and ruled that on the fifteenth of July​93 the cavalcade should ride behind his portrait. Many of these compliments remain: others were discontinued immediately, or have lapsed with the years.

84 1 While the public mourning was still fresh, Germanicus' sister, Livia, who had married Drusus, was delivered of twin sons. The event, a rare felicity even in modest households, affected the emperor with so much pleasure that he could not refrain from boasting to the Fathers that never before had twins been born to a Roman of the same eminence: for he converted everything, accidents included, into material for self-praise. To the people, however, coming when it did, even this incident was a regret; as though the increase in Drusus' family was a further misfortune for the house of Germanicus.

85 1 In the same year, bounds were set to female profligacy by stringent resolutions of the senate; and it was laid down that no woman should trade in her body, if her father, grandfather, or husband had been a Roman knight. For Vistilia, the daughter of a praetorian family, had advertised her venality on the aediles' list — the normal procedure among our ancestors, who imagined the unchaste to be sufficiently punished by the avowal of their infamy. Her husband, Titidius Labeo,​94 was also required to explain why, in view of his wife's manifest guilt, he had not invoked the penalty of the law. As he pleaded that sixty days, not yet elapsed, were allowed for deliberation, it was thought  p517 enough to pass sentence on Vistilia, who was removed to the island of Seriphos.​95 — Another debate dealt with the proscription of the Egyptian and Jewish rites,​96 and a senatorial edict directed that four thousand descendants of enfranchised slaves, tainted with that superstition and suitable in point of age, were to be shipped to Sardinia and there employed in suppressing brigandage: "if they succumbed to the pestilential climate, it was a cheap loss." The rest had orders to leave Italy, unless they had renounced their impious ceremonial by a given date.

86 1 The emperor then moved for the appointment of a Virgin to replace Occia, who for fifty-seven years had presided over the rites of Vesta with unblemished purity: Fonteius Agrippa and Domitius Pollio he thanked for the public-spirited rivalry which had led them to proffer their own daughters. Pollio's child​97 was preferred, for no reason save that her mother was still living with the same husband, while Agrippa's divorce had impaired the credit of his house. As a solatium to the rejected candidate, the Caesar presented her with a dowry of a million sesterces.98

87 1 As the commons protested against the appalling dearness of corn, he fixed a definite price to be paid by the buyer, and himself guaranteed the seller a subsidy of two sesterces the peck. Yet he would not on that score accept the title "Father of his Country," which had indeed been offered previously;​99 and he administered a severe reprimand to those who had termed his occupations "divine,"  p519 and himself "Lord."​100 The speaker, consequently, had to walk a strait and slippery road under a prince who feared liberty and detested flattery.

88 1 I find from contemporary authors, who were members of the senate, that a letter was read in the curia from the Chattan chief Adgandestrius, promising the death of Arminius, if poison were sent to do the work; to which the reply went back that "it was not by treason nor in the dark but openly and in arms that the Roman people took vengeance on their foes": a high saying intended to place Tiberius on a level with the old commanders who prohibited, and disclosed, the offer to poison King Pyrrhus. Arminius himself, encouraged by the gradual retirement of the Romans and the expulsion of Maroboduus, began to aim at kingship, and found himself in conflict with the independent temper of his countrymen. He was attacked by arms, and, while defending himself with chequered results, fell by the treachery of his relatives. Undoubtedly the liberator of Germany; a man who, not in its infancy as captains and kings before him, but in the high noon of its sovereignty, threw down the challenge to the Roman nation, in battle with ambiguous results, in war without defeat; he completed thirty-seven years of life, twelve of power,​101 and to this day is sung in tribal lays, though he is an unknown being to Greek historians, who admire only the history of Greece, and receives less than his due from us of Rome, who glorify the ancient days and show little concern for our own.


The Loeb Editor's Notes:

1 Of the twelve, Temnos, Aegeae, Myrina and Cyme were in Aeolis; the remainder, further inland in Lydia.

2 The fire in question was probably that of 31 B.C., ascribed (D. Cass. L.10) to an émeute of freedmen occasioned by a property-levy.

3 Dionysus, Persephone, and Demeter. This is stated to have been vowed by Postumius before the battle of Lake Regillus (496 B.C.) and to have been completed three years later.

4 About 240 B.C.

5 Between the Capitoline Hill and the Tiber. Duilius' victory with the first Roman fleet was gained off Mylae in Sicily in 260 B.C. (Polyb. I.20‑23), his triumph being commemorated by the columna rostrata.

6 Aulus Atilius Calatinus, consul 258 B.C. and 254 B.C., dictator 249 B.C.

7 Lex Iulia de adulteriis et stupris (17 B.C.).

8 Forfeiture of half her dowry and a third of her property, together with relegation to an island. — Exemplo maiorum applies, not to the penalty, but to the fact that its execution was entrusted to her relatives.

9 In strictness, he should have lost half his estate and been relegated to a different island from Appuleia.

10 According to the Lex Papia Poppaea (see III.25‑28).

11 For his later activities, see III.20, 22, 73; IV.23.

12 South of the Saltus Aurasius (Mt. Aurez), where the desert frontier of the Roman province began.

13 Numidian tribes inhabiting eastern Mauretania.

14 Further eastward on the Lesser Syrtis (Gulf of Gabes).

15 The allusion is to the defeat of the Gauls after Allia (390 B.C.) by M. Furius Camillus. — In what follows, Tacitus is charged with confusing the grandson of the dictator with his son, while over­looking two minor triumphs won by the family.

16 The implication is that he was not the type of commander who could inspire jealousy.

17 On the northern side of the entrance to the Sinus Ambracicus (Gulf of Arta); founded by Augusta on the site of his camp before the battle of Actium.

18 At Actium, on the southern side of the gulf.

19 See above, chap. 43.

20 The custom was for a Roman magistrate, on entering the territory of a civitas libera such as Athens, to leave behind him the fasces and lictors. In the present case, Germanicus' single lictor has no official significance whatever.

21 Julia Livilla, married to M. Vinicius in 33 A.D. (VI.15); banished by her brother Caligula four years later (D. Cass. LIX.3, Suet. Cal. 2429); recalled by her uncle Claudius, but afterwards put to death at the instigation of Messalina, on the ground of her alleged adultery with Seneca (D. Cass. LX.4; ib. 8; Suet. Cal. 59; Claud. 29).

22 The reference is to the cult of the Cabiri; the late identification of whom with the Penates may have suggested Germanicus's visit.

23 Augustus had found it necessary to prohibit the practice of selling Athenian citizen­ship (D. Cass. LIV.7).

24 In the first Mithridatic War (87‑86 B.C.).

25 At Actium.

26 See above, chaps. 1‑4.

27 Long dead, Pontus being now governed by his widow.

28 On the Araxes (Arâs), near the foot of Ararat, the ruins still carrying the name Ardaschar; according to Plutarch (Luc. 32),º a μέγα καὶ πάγκαλον χρῆμα πόλεως, designed by Hannibal for Artaxias I; fired and razed by Corbulo in 58 A.D. (XIII.41).

29 Rather by his two predecessors of the name.

30 Only a temporary expedient, as he and Servaeus soon reappear in Germanicus' suite (III.10, 1319).

31 In N. Syria (now Khoros).

32 The Nabataeans at this time formed a dependent kingdom in NW Arabia; later (105 A.D.), the province of Arabia Petraea.

33 The contrast between regis and principis — the "king of kings" and the "first of citizens" is necessarily obliterated in the translation.

34 See above, chap. 4.

35 Formerly Soli, now Mezetlü.

36 Steup (Rh. Mus. XXIV.72) first drew attention to the grave difficulties involved by the traditional order of the chapters. According to that order, the events of chaps. 62‑67 fall, together with Germanicus' Egyptian tour, in the year 19 A.D. Yet the opening words of chap. 62 refer unmistakably to the prince's actions in 18 A.D. Again, the announcements of Marbod's fall and Artaxias' coronation arrive simultaneously at Rome (chap. 64 init.); but a year divides the two happenings. In addition, it is at least surprising that Drusus should have left for Illyricum in 17 A.D. (see chaps. 44, 51, 53), and that nothing should be heard of him until 19 A.D.

37 On the eastern bank of the lower Vistula. After their migration in the latter part of the second century they are found on the Euxine under the more famous title of Goths.

38 Conferred by the treaty which excites the indignation of Arminius in chap. 45.

39 Between Raetia and Pannonia, the northern frontier being the Danube from Passau nearly to Vienna.

40 A friendly branch of the Suebi, north of Raetia, to which they were allowed free access: see Germ. 41. Vibilius appears again in XII.29.

41 On the Via Aurelia, which ran to Arles. Now Fréjus, in the département of Var.º

42 In Moravia and Upper Hungary; neighbours of the Marcomani, with whom they played a leading part in the great barbarian coalition against Rome under Marcus Aurelius. — For the fate of Vannius' kingdom see XII.29‑30.

43 Marus is the March (Morava); Cusus, the Waag or Gran or Gusen.

44 Built in the Forum of Augustus to commemorate his vengeance on the slayers of the dictator Julius. For its military associations, cf.  Suet. Aug. 29; Ov. Fast. V.567 sqq.; and below III.18 and XIII.8. A few columns still remain.

45 The country only became a province under Claudius (46 A.D.). Under Tiberius, with the exception of the southern coast on the Aegean (which belonged to the province of Macedonia) and the Thracian Chersonese (which was private imperial property), it was governed by semi-independent native princes.

46 For his poetical attainments, see Ovid's appeal to him (ex P. II.9): Antipater is still more florid (Anth. Pal. XVI.75,ºΖηνὶ καὶ Ἀπόλλωνι καὶ Ἄρεϊ τέκνον ἀνάκτων Εἴκελον κτλ).

47 To those of Cotys.

48 Scandal also accused him of being a boon-companion of Tiberius — omnium horarum amicus (Suet. Tib. 42).

49 They did not, however, return with Rufus to Thrace, but were detained by Tiberius in Rome and educated in company with Caligula.

50 Philometor and Physcon, sons of Ptolemy Epiphanes (ob. 181 B.C.).

51 Quod vero Alexandriam propter immensam et repentinam famem inconsulto se adisset, questus est (Tiberius) in senatu (Suet. Tib. 52). To the opening of the granaries there is an incidental allusion in Jos. c. Ap. II.5.

52 Liv. XXIX.19 ad fin.

53 Men of the type of Maecenas and Sallustius Crispus, possessed of senatorial census, but remaining within the equestrian order by choice and constituting a sort of noblesse de l'empire.

54 Egypt was never a province in the true sense of the term, but a private imperial domain, administered on behalf of the princeps, as representing its kings, by a praefectus drawn from the equestrian order. See Hist. I.11:— Aegyptum . . . iam inde a divo Augusto equites Romani obtinent loco regum: ita visum expedire provinciam aditu difficilem, annonae fecundam . . . domi retinere.

55 Pharus by sea, Pelusium by land (Hirt. bell. Alex. 26). For the dependence of Italy on foreign grain, see, for instance, III.54 and XII.43.

56 The "Egyptian Hercules" is discussed at length by Herodotus (II.43 sqq.): Brugsch identified him with the Theban Khonsu-neferḥetep, a sun-deity.

Thayer's Note: See also Diodorus, I.24.

57 Uast, (Ta-) Ȧpet; now the ruins of Karnak, Luxor, and Medînet-Habu.

58 Ra‑messu II (1333 B.C.); the semi-mythical Sesostris (Sesosis) of Herodotus and Diodorus: the list of his conquests is, of course, mainly fabulous.

59 The northern colossus of the two at Medînet-Habu, which represent Ȧmen-ḥetep III (ca. 1450 B.C.). Another imperial antiquary, in the person of Hadrian, has left his name on the statue: the "vocal sound" of the familiar story ceased when the colossus was restored by Severus.

60 The Lake Moeris of Herodotus, south of Memphis; now the Birket al‑Ḳarûn in the Fayyum.

61 Assouan; Elephantine (termed Ābu, i.e. "elephant," in the inscriptions) being an island opposite.

62 About 115 A.D., after the conquests of Trajan.

63 Chap. 58.

64a 64b Caucasian tribes.

65 The upper reaches of the Djihân in Cilicia.

66 Seleucia Pieria (Σ. ἡ ἐν Πιερίᾳ), the port of Antioch: see Acts xiii.1‑4.

67 The tablets were employed in the ancient and almost ubiquitous rite of defixion (defixio, κατάδεσις), which consisted essentially in running a nail or needle through the effigy or the name of the person marked down for destruction. For an account of the procedure and the theory underlying it, the reader may be referred to F. B. Jevons in Anthropology and the Classics (p106 sqq.).

68 Half-burnt human remains from the funeral-pyre.

69 Besides the infant Julia (chap. 54), Caligula was with him (III.1, duobus cum liberis; Suet. Cal. 10, comitatus est patrem et Syriaca expeditione).

70 A circumstantial account is given in Suet. Cal. 5.

71 Annum agens aetatis quartum et tricensimum diuturno morbo Antiochiae obiit (Germanicus), Suet. Cal. 1. Alexander was a year younger.

72 The tales of the poisoning of Alexander may be read in Plut. Alex. 77; Arr. Anab. VII.27; Q. Curt. X.10; Just. XII.13; or — perhaps with equal profit — in the Pseudo-Callisthenes, III fin.

73 All legati must have held at least the quaestor­ship, and were therefore senators.

74 Consul suffectus in 17 A.D.; proconsul of Africa for three years (27‑30 A.D.?); governor of Syria under Claudius. He appears again in the Annals at II.79; IV.56; VI.47‑8; XI.10; and, since he had literary tastes (vetustis honoribus et inlustris studiis, VI.47), it has been conjectured that some of the details of Germanicus' last days may rest ultimately on his authority.

75 Cn. Sentius Saturninus, consul suffectus in 4 A.D.fragmentary inscription proves that his appointment was recognized as valid by Tiberius.

76 Off the Carian coast, in the province of Asia.

77 From the Syrian legions: men, presumably, who owed their promotion to Piso (see above, chap. 55).

78 Since the death of Philopator (chap. 42) there were two of these principalities remaining: Olba, north of Pompeiopolis; and Trachea, the western part of Cilicia, then held by Archelaus of Cappadocia.

79 Marsus' citation had no legal force, as it was only when the president of the court had formally received the charge that a day (normally the tenth from the date) was fixed for the appearance of the parties. The true insolence of the answer lies, however, in the tacit assumption that the case had no features so exceptional as to necessitate a change from the usual procedure.

80 The modern Ladikîeh (Latakia), nearly opposite the north-eastern extremity of Cyprus: the other Syrian town of the name lay near Lebanon.

81 Now Kilindria (the Turkish Tchilindere).

82 The legion in which Piso's influence was strongest (see above, chap. 79).

83 Drusus was the step-son of Augustus, Germanicus the adopted son of Tiberius.

84 For the belief that Drusus designed to restore the republic, see I.33 and Suet. Claud. 1. He died in Germany from the consequences of a riding accident (Liv. epit. 142;º νόσῳ τινί, D. Cass. LV.1): the absurd and inevitable story of his poisoning by order of Augustus is mentioned and rejected by Suetonius, l.c.

85 Suetonius is more explicit (Cal. 6):— Passim cum luminibus et victimis in Capitolium concursum est ac paene revolsae templi fores, ne quid gestientis vota reddere moraretur. He quotes the verse with which they woke Tiberius:— Salva Roma, salva patria, salvus est Germanicus.

86 In addition to lays in honour of the gods severally, this primitive and unintelligible hymn (Saliorum carmina vix sacerdotibus suis satis intellecta, Quint. I.6.40) contained carmina in universos sermones composita, in which the name of Augustus had already been inserted.

87 See I.54.

88 In company with the images of the gods.

89 Augustalis.

90 Ὁ μὲν γὰρ Ἀμανὸς . . . περικλείει τὸν Ἰσσικὸν κόλπον ἅπαντα Strab. 535: Nipperdey gives the modern name as Akma Dagh.

91 Actually the suburb was Daphne, the city Ἄντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Δάφνῃ: a rather curious inaccuracy in view of the great celebrity of Daphne (see, for instance, Munro, Aetna, pp40‑43).

92 In the Palatine Library (see above, chap. 37). The clipeus was a disk, usually of bronze, with the portrait engraved on it: Pliny actually derives the word from γλύφω (H. N. XXXV.3).

93 The date of the annual travectio, or review of the equites Romani equo publico; long obsolete, but revived by Augustus (Suet. Aug. 38).

94 Pliny (H. N. XXXV.4) describes him as recently dead at an advanced age; as having held the proconsulate of Gallia Narbonensis; and as being an enthusiastic amateur of painting — sed ea res inrisu et contumeliae erat.

95 A proverbially insignificant and barren island (now Serpho[s] in the Cyclades between Cythnus and Siphnus.

96 The scandals which roused Tiberius to action may be read in Jos. A. J. XVIII.3.4‑5.

97 The eligible age was from six to ten years, the vows being obligatory for thirty.

98 "Though a large, not an unusual dowry," Mayor on Juv. X.335. He quotes, inter alia, Sen. Cons. ad Helv. 12.6, pantomimae deciens sestertio nubunt.

99 I.72.

100 By his own definition (D. Cass. LVII.8), to his slaves he was "dominus"; to his soldiers, "imperator"; to the rest of the world, "princeps." For his occupations he preferred "laborious" rather than "sacred" as an adjective (Suet. Tib. 27). Diocletian introduced the "dominate."

101 Since his power must be reckoned from the defeat of Varus, his death would fall in 21 A.D.


Thayer's Note:

a At least one reader of this passage has been more attentive than yours truly in transcribing it, and indeed than the Loeb editor/translator himself: Julius Koch, to whom thanks, writes me that

in Tac. Ann. 2.50.1 Appuleia Varilla is translated as "the niece of Augustus' sister" when she is in fact her granddaughter. The error stems from the Loeb edition and as the Latin is "neptem" both terms would work; however, since the Loeb translation was published it has become clear that she was the granddaughter of Octavia Major — or at least Ursula Vogel-Widemann (1965, 450) is quite certain that she is the woman mentioned in AE 1966, 422 as the daughter of S. Appuleius; and Ronald Syme (1989, 317) follows her reasoning.

[. . .] "niece of his sister" is a little odd to begin with as any niece of Augustus' sister would of course also be his niece.


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